Moraxella catarrhalis is a human-specific commensal of the respiratory tract and an opportunistic pathogen. It is one of the leading cause of otitis media in children and of acute exacerbations in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, resulting in significant morbidity and economic burden. Vaccines and new immunotherapeutic strategies to treat this emerging pathogen are needed. Comp

This paper summarizes the experimental and numerical investigations on an innovative hybrid joint for timber structures. A total of 12 hybrid dowel and bonding steel plate joints divided in four subgroups were investigated. Different parameters such as the presence of self-tapping screws and the surface treatment of the bonding steel plate, were studied. For two subgroups, a vulcanized rubber laye

Hemopexin and α1-microglobulin act as scavengers to eliminate free heme-groups responsible for hemoglobin-induced oxidative stress. The present study evaluated maternal and fetal plasma concentrations of these scavengers in the different phenotypes of placenta-mediated disorders. Singleton pregnancies with normotensive fetal growth restriction [FGR] (n = 47), preeclampsia without FGR (n = 45) and

On 3 June 2020, the Commission issued the second phase of the consultation on possible EU action on fair minimum wages. The proposed action reflects the commitment made by the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen to “propose a legal instrument to ensure that every worker in our Union has a fair minimum wage” within the first 100 days of her mandate. In this entry,I will consider is wh

Surrogate measures of safety (SMoS) are meant to function as tools to investigate traffic safety. The term surrogate indicates that these measures do not rely on crash data; instead, they focus on identifying safety critical events (or near-crashes) in traffic, which can be used as an alternative to crash records. The overall aim of this thesis is to explore which SMoS are suitable when analysing

Safety in density (SID) potentially explains the safety in numbers (SIN) phenomenon by positing that ‘the SIN effect can be reproduced simply through encouraging behaviour that leads to the formation of higher-density cyclist groups’. The study further explores this hypothesis using event-based exposure, queues and groups of road users. Using three different definitions of encounters between road u

The function of proteins is influenced not only by the atomic structure but also by the detailed structure of the solvent surrounding it. Computational studies of protein structure also critically depend on the water structure around the protein. Herein we compare the water structure obtained from molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of galectin-3 in complex with two ligands to crystallographic wat

Background: Isocapnic hyperventilation (IHV) is a method that shortens time to extubation after inhalation anaesthesia using hyperventilation (HV) without lowering airway CO 2 . In a clinical trial on patients undergoing long-duration sevoflurane anaesthesia for major ear–nose–throat (ENT) surgery, we evaluated the utility of a technique for CO 2 delivery (DCO 2 ) to the inspiratory limb of a clo

Background Post-operative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) after non-cardiac surgery is a well known problem in some categories of patients. This study aims to evaluate the influence of auditory evoked potential (AEP)-guided anaesthesia on the requirement for anaesthetic drugs and their influence on POCD. Methods Four hundred and fifty patients aged between 18 and 92 years scheduled for ophthalmic sur

Emergence agitation following anesthesia in children is not uncommon. It is, although generally self-limiting, associated with both patient and parents distress. We conducted a national survey around the management of behavioral and neurocognitive disturbances after surgery/anesthesia including a case scenario about a child at risk for emergence reaction. Premedication with clonidine or midazolam

In the current stage of the COVID-19 pandemic, as countries open up after an extended period of lockdown, it is important to assure the population that their health is not being sacrificed. In this article, we develop a geomapping approach to identify high-risk areas by considering four nonclinical risk correlates for COVID-19. These are population density, percentage of the population that is exp

The synthesis and crystal structure of rhodamine 590 acid phthalate (RhAP) have been reported. This novel solid-state rhodamine derivative not only has a longer fluorescence lifetime compared to rhodamine solid-state matrixes where emission is quenched but also possesses strong nonlinear optical characteristics. The static and dynamic first- and second-order hyperpolarizabilities were calculated u

Although some characteristics of incorporating verbs and non-incorporating verbs have been proposed in previous studies, little systematic cross-linguistic research has been done on restrictions on the types of verbs that incorporate nouns. Knowledge about possible verb-based restrictions on noun incorporation may, however, provide important insights for theoretical approaches to noun incorporatio