Multiple Biomarkers to Assess the Pathophysiological State in Critically Ill Patients with Sepsis

Sepsis is associated with various metabolic derangements as a consequence of inflammatory response, ischemia and oxidative stress. Four parameters of relevance are procalcitonin (PCT), ischemia modified albumin (IMA) pH and lactate. The study was carried out to highlight the concomitant occurrence of sepsis, ischemia and lactic acidosis, all of which could have deleterious effects on organ function. 26 critically ill patients with a provisional diagnosis of sepsis were the test subjects. The control group had 25 apparently healthy volunteers. PCT, lactate and IMA were assayed. PCT was estimated on an automated analyser using electro-chemiluminescence. Lactate and pH were estimated on a blood gas analyzer. Serum IMA was estimated spectrophotometrically by Albumin Cobalt Binding Test. Statistical tools like students ‘t’ test and Venn diagram were employed to depict the outcome of the study. All critically ill patients had significantly higher IMA levels (0.96746 ± 0.73407) as compared to the control group (0.00728 ± 0.00895) with a p value of <0.0001. The Venn diagram was used to depict the finding that all 26 test subjects had elevated levels of IMA, of which PCT was elevated in 22 and lactate in 20. Both PCT and lactate were abnormal in 17 patients. The most significant observation was that all critically ill patients, irrespective of the presence of sepsis or lactic acidosis had elevated levels of IMA which is clearly indicative of the ubiquitous presence of oxidative stress. The Venn diagram is an elegant representation of the concurrent multiple pathophysiological processes which occur in critically ill patients.     

Scientific and political orientation of American scientists

The paper presents some findings of a study which surveyed the political attitudes and involvement of American scientists.We found an unambiguous rank ordering based on political orientation among the various subgroups of scientists. The greater the scientists' identification with basic science and the university, the greater the liberalism. However, the claim that scientific elites are more liberal than the rank-and-file and that physicists are the most liberal among natural scientists was not substantiated.The fear that a scientific-technological elite might become a dominant political elite was not reflected in the thinking of a large majority of our 1205 respondents. A majority expressed reservations about the skill and knowledge of the citizenry to understand and resolve the increasingly complex problems of our society, recognize that a separation of science and politics is not attainable or even desireable, but remain somewhat uneasy with the new situation in which their work has become so enmeshed with policy concerns.The traditional norm system of science continues to receive substantial support and takes precedence over either the concern about the social consequences of certain types of “dangerous” knowledge, or the costs that heavy investments in basic science involve. We find that scientists are largely prepared to sacrifice the norm of communality at the altar of nationalism. The clash between an internal ideology of science that values disinterested search for knowledge and an external ideology of society which focuses on utility presents a continuing dilemma.     

Transportation infrastructure settlement and heave distress: challenges and solutions

Transportation agencies spend millions of dollars annually to repair civil transportation infrastructure including pavements, earth structures and approach slabs distressed by soft compressible soils and expansive soils. Several research studies performed at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) focused on stabilizing these problematic soils so that they will provide better and more stable support to the transportation infrastructure. This paper focuses on a summary of two major distresses and mechanisms, and remedial measures for addressing these distress problems. A combined lime-cement stabilization method is fully evaluated in providing better support of pavement infrastructure, and these results are described here. Another major transportation infrastructure problem involving bridge approach slabs requires different treatment methods, and these results are briefly described. As a part of the recently completed research study assessments, both shallow and deep soil treatment methods for stabilizing soils are fully evaluated for their effectiveness in arresting the distress posed to the pavements and bridge approach slabs. These results along with a few future research needs are presented in this paper.     

The effect of school inspections on school improvement

This study uses a school-level longitudinal control-group design to examine how teachers and principals of inspected versus uninspected schools perceive school improvement at their schools. During the phasing in of school inspections in the states of Berlin and Brandenburg (Germany), both inspected and uninspected schools were surveyed with respect to school improvement activities over a 1-year period. The main finding is that principals’ and teachers’ perceptions of school quality were highly stable, irrespective of the introduction of school inspections. The results show school inspections had a comparatively low impact on the aspects of school quality measured here.     

Interrelationship Between Procalcitonin and Organ Failure in Sepsis

Sepsis suffers from lack of specific clinical symptoms which contribute to one of the major causes of mortality. In the present study, our aim was to evaluate the role of a recent biomarker Procalcitonin (PCT) in predicting organ dysfunction. 71 patients admitted with sepsis were included in the study. PCT levels were measured at 0, 24, 72 h and 7th day and sequential organ failure assessment score (SOFA) scores were calculated. PCT levels significantly decreased (p < 0.001) in 89.3 % of surviving patients, whereas, in 60 % non surviving patients the PCT level increased significantly (p < 0.001). A significant positive correlation between PCT and SOFA score was observed in survivors at each hour. These observations indicate that PCT concentration is significantly associated with severity of multi organ dysfunction and also helps in determining the prognosis of septic patients.     

High-gain fractional disturbance observer control of uncertain dynamical systems

Disturbance observer-based control allows to compensate unknown inputs, however, in most cases, requiring their integer-order differentiability. In this paper, a novel disturbance observer-based state feedback controller is proposed to compensate a more general class of fractional-, but not necessarily integer-order, differentiable unknown inputs. The proposed fractional PI-like structure yields precise conditions for feedback gain tuning. Remarkably, the resulting controller rejects non-differentiable disturbances with a smooth controller, guaranteeing robustness, an outstanding features for tracking tasks, under a prescribed practical stability regimen. A comparison to a fractional sliding mode observer is conducted via simulations to highlight the reliability of the proposed scheme.     

Between traditional classification and coordinate indexing

An ordering system for a global information network is necessary in order to enable the user to retrieve the particular information he is looking for. Classification has been one of the methods of ordering. The principle of traditional classification has been based on the idea of partitioning the universe of knowledge in mutually exclusive classes, i.e. subjects. A particular topic is defined by narrower classification within a class following the principle of ‘genusspecies’ relationship. Ranganathan's system of faceted classification has only replaced the classification of terms into subjects and sub-subjects by classification of terms into five ambiguous categories. Taube's system of coordinate indexing gives full freedom to the user to combine any number of terms of his choice. To be effective for social sciences such a system has to overcome some difficult problems of semantics. The system MANIS described here maintains the traditional classification and yet allows the user to combine terms of his choice, where the choice is restricted to the terms belonging to the system of traditional classification.     

A computer-based strategy for personalizing verbal problems in teaching mathematics

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a computer-based strategy for personalizing verbal problems used in mathematics instruction. Personalization was achieved through a computer program that incorporated names of familiar people and events, such as the student’s friends and birth date, into print copies of lesson examples. In two control treatments, concrete (nonadaptive) contexts and abstract contexts were employed. Subjects were 54 fifth- and sixthgraders studying a lesson on division of fractions. Results showed the personalized-context treatment to be advantageous relative to one or both control treatments for (a) solving conventional word problems, (b) solving transfer problems, (c) recognizing rule procedures, and (d) developing favorable attitudes toward materials. Theoretical interpretations of these effects are discussed, along with considerations about the practicality and effectiveness of the present application using print materials compared to an earlier one using CAl.