We present a novel, integrated microfluidic system based on acoustophoretic cell-handling that detects bacteria in whole blood in less than 2 hours, substantially faster than current standard methods for detection of sepsis-causing bacteria. Bacteria are acoustically separated from 1 ml blood, enriched by acoustic trapping and finally detected using a dry-reagent PCR-chip.

Livestock manure is a valuable source of nutrients for crop production, but can also pose a public health hazard and have negative environmental impacts. This study investigated manure management practices among urban and peri-urban livestock keepers in Cambodia, to identify risk behaviours and socio-economic aspects associated with the handling of manure. A survey including 204 households was con

In the Western hemisphere, the opposition of surveillance versus privacy appears to be common sense: any technology use with the potential risk of infringing upon personal integrity and privacy is in return expected to lead to substantial improvements in security in order to constitute a legitimate course of action. In China, the main problem of inhibiting the free flow of information is rarely se

OBJECTIVES: Patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who also have acute coronary syndromes are a high-risk population with a high mortality rate. Little is known about these patients following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). METHODS: Patients presenting with acute coronary syndromes between 2006 and 2014 with an angiogram showing 3-vessel disease or left main coronary ar

It has recently been found that anti-Stokes photoluminescence can be observed in degenerately n-doped indium phosphide nanowires, when exciting directly into the electron gas. This anti-Stokes mechanism has not been observed before and allows the study of carrier relaxation and recombination using standard photoluminescence techniques. It is important to know if this anti-Stokes photoluminescence

Background The long-term risk of stroke after surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation is not well known. We performed an observational cohort study with long follow-up after the “cut-and-sew” Cox-maze III procedure (CM-III), including left atrial appendage excision. The aim was to analyze the incidence of stroke/transient ischemic attack (TIA) and the association to preoperative CHA2DS2-VASc (ag

We propose a model to consider data dependencies and assess spatial and temporal variability in land use specific floral coverage across landscapes. Data dependence arising from repeated measurements across the flowering season is taken into account using hierarchical Archimedean copulas, where the correlation is assumed to be stronger within seasonal periods than between periods. For each seasona

An adaptive uplink detection scheme for a Massive MIMO (MaMi) base station serving up to 16 users is presented. Considering user distribution in a cell, selective matched filtering (MF) is proposed for non-interference limited users and a Cholesky decomposition (CD) based zero-forcing (ZF) detector is implemented for the remaining users. Channel conditions such as coherence bandwidth are exploited

There are few better examples of analysis - the critical thinking skill of understanding how an argument is built - than Robert Dahl's Democracy and its Critics. In this work, the American political theorist closely analyzes the democratic political system and then evaluates whether the arguments that are in favor of it are, in fact, rigorous. Dahl sets out to describe democracy's merits and probl

Purpose: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) causes childhood blindness globally in prematurely born infants. Although increased levels of oxygen supply lead to increased survival and reduced frequency of cerebral palsy, increased incidence of ROP is reported. Methods: With the help of a Swedish register for ROP, SWEDROP, national and regional incidences of ROP and frequencies of treatment were evalu

Objective: There is a paucity of data on heart transplantation (HTx) in patients with arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), and specific recommendations on indications for listing ARVC patients for HTx are lacking. In order to delineate features pertinent to HTx assessment, we explored the pre-HTx characteristics and clinical history in a cohort of ARVC patients who received hear

The Southern California Borderland is a region that experiences strong natural variations in bottom water oxygen and pH. We use marine sediments from Santa Monica Basin to reconstruct environmental conditions in the basin's bottom water from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) to present. We then compare the records to the adjacent Santa Barbara Basin and Santa Lucia Slope. High-resolution records of b

Obesity and cigarette smoking are correlated through complex relationships. Common genetic causes may contribute to these correlations. In this study, we selected 241 loci potentially associated with body mass index (BMI) based on the Genetic Investigation of ANthropometric Traits (GIANT) consortium data and calculated a BMI genetic risk score (BMI-GRS) for 17,037 individuals of European descent f

The chapter looks at language variation and change, and the relation of these processes to language reconstruction and classification. The chapter gives an overview of theories, models, methods, and data, describing how diversity and variation is modelled and measured for reconstruction and classification within traditional, comparative and statistical, evolutionary, or phylogenetic methods. First

Do Chinese cities compete for investments with lax environmental law enforcement? The here presented study suggests that this is true for some municipalities but not all of them. Based on data for 126 key environmental protection cities and regional economic hubs between 2010 and 2012 we show that economic decentralization and political centralization both shape spatial patterns of compliance with