Accounting

Background The Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing, Twelfth Informational Supplement, M100-S12, published by the National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) in January 2002 introduced distinct minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) interpretative breakpoints for ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, and cefepime for nonmeningeal isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae. Previously, a single set of interpretative breakpoints was used for both meningeal and nonmeningeal isolates. Methods To estimate the rate of adoption of the M100-S12 interpretive breakpoints by clinical laboratories, antimicrobial susceptibility test results for ceftriaxone and cefotaxime from nonmeningeal S. pneumoniae isolates were studied using data collected from January 2002 to June 2003 by The Surveillance Network® Database – USA (TSN®), an electronic surveillance database. Results Of the 262 laboratories that provided data that could be evaluated, 67.6% had adopted the M100-S12 breakpoints one and one-half years after they were published. Conclusions The NCCLS M100-S12 recommendation to interpret MICs to expanded-spectrum cephalosporins using two distinct sets of breakpoints for meningeal and nonmeningeal isolates of S. pneumoniae was steadily implemented by clinical microbiology laboratories in the United States following their initial publication in January 2002. The use of these new breakpoints more accurately reflects the clinical activities of expanded-spectrum cephalosporins than did the single set of interpretative breakpoints previously used for both meningeal and nonmeningeal isolates.

Global connectivity is now a common expectation. But as corporations reach out and become available globally 24 hours a day, they're exposed to much greater information technology (IT) security risks. And they also must focus on optimizing the value of their IT resources. So, constant oversight, or IT governance, is critical. But it has to deal with a continually changing landscape. And although companies have made much progress in recent years, many businesses still have a long way to go. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) heterodimeric transcription factor which is composed of a regulated α subunit and a constitutively expressed β subunit is a critical regulatory factor that orchestrate the cellular responses to hypoxia. It plays an important role in the pathology of many human diseases. The oxygen-sensing and transactivating functions of HIF-1 are contained within the α subunit, which is up-regulated in most human cancers. To study the function of HIF-1α more intensively, we designed a system to express and purify functional recombinant human HIF-1α (rhHIF-1α) protein from E. coli. The expressed His-tagged rhHIF-1α which forms inclusion bodies at 28°C was washed, dissolved and refolded firstly. Then the refolding His-tagged rhHIF-1α fusion protein was purified by diethylaminoethyl ion-exchange chromatography. After cleaved by thrombin, rhHIF-1α was thoroughly separated from tags by using Ni–NTA affinity chromatography, which was confirmed by SDS–PAGE and western blotting analysis. Thereafter, rhHIF-1α was further purified by using molecular sieve and its function was identified by electrophoretic mobility shift assay and the result indicated that the purified rhHIF-1α has DNA binding activity. The present expression and purification procedure enabled us to obtain biologically active rhHIF-1α from E. coli for in vitro function studies.

Ultrasonic nebulization extraction (UNE) combined with headspace single-drop microextraction (HS-SDME) and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) have been used for rapid analysis of volatile components of the pericarp of Zanthoxylum bungeanum Maxim. Effective extraction was achieved by suspending 2 μL n-heptadecane from the tip of a microsyringe, extracting for 15 min, and enriching for 25 min. The method combines the advantages of UNE and HS-SDME. Thirty-four compounds were identified in the pericarp of Zanthoxylum bungeanum Maxim. Compared with stirring extraction (SE)-HS-SDME and UNE, UNE-HS-SDME was resulted in higher extraction yield, enrichment efficiency, and sensitivity. The results indicate that UNE-HS-SDME is a feasible alternative method for analysis of essential oils from spices.

Synthetic aluminum (Al) oxides (with or without different organic acids and inorganic anions) were used to study the effect of organic acid on phosphate secondary adsorption. The results showed that the maximum of phosphate adsorption (Xm) for the six Al oxides were 0.189–0.838 mmol/g in the absence of other organic acid. The Al(OH)x sample, which was synthesized without additional ligands, had the greatest Xm among these Al oxides, whereas, the Al(OH)x-CA sample, which was synthesized in the presence of citrate, had the least Xm. For most samples, the higher the addition concentrations of organic acids were, the greater the magnitude of phosphate secondary adsorption reduction was. However, while the addition concentrations of oxalate or citrate were more than 2 mmol/L, the grade of phosphate adsorption reduction was decreased. If oxalate or tartrate solution with pH 2 was introduced to Al(OH)x before phosphate addition, the amount of secondary phosphate adsorption was the least among pH 2–9, but if the solution with pH 3 was introduced, that was the greatest. The amount of secondary phosphate adsorption did not change or went down slowly from pH 4 to pH 9. Based on the results above, the possible effect mechanism of organic acid to phosphate adsorption was discussed. The dissolution, complex and charge effect could be one of the most important mechanisms at different conditions. These results had also supplied the evidence that sites on Al oxide surface had affinity to both organic acid and phosphate.

IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 40, NO. 1, JANUARY 2005 ... A 4-GHz 300-mW 64-bit Integer Execution ALU ... With Dual Supply Voltages in 90-nm CMOS ... Sanu K. Mathew, Member, IEEE, Mark A. Anders, Member, IEEE, Brad Bloechel, Member, IEEE, ...

Fast 32b and 64b ALU operations with single-cycle latency and throughput are essential ingredients of high-performance super-scalar microprocessor execution cores. In a typical ALU operation, the lower order 32b of the ALU output are required early for address ...