Bezold's abscess is a very rare extracranial complication of acute mastoiditis. Lateral sinus thrombosis is another intracranial complication of acute mastoiditis that can occur, but there are only few reports of concomitant ispilateral Bezold's abscess and lateral sinus thrombosis with favorable outcome. We diagnosed and treated successfully a 14-year-old girl suffering from Streptococcus pneumoniae acute mastoiditis complicated with Bezold's abscess and lateral sinus thrombosis. Surgical treatment included myringotomy, cortical mastoidectomy, and Bezold's abscess incision and drainage. During the course of treatment, we concluded that lateral sinus thrombosis was not caused from mastoiditis by direct spread but from pressure on internal jugular vein caused from Bezold's abscess.

O,O’ -diethyl- (S,S) -ethylenediamine- N,N’ -di-2-(3-cyclohexyl)propanoate (DE-EDCP) is novel substance with cytotoxic activity in human leukemic cells. The aim of this study has been to predict in vivo bioavailability of the DE-EDCP and its potential metabolite (S,S) -ethylenediamine- N,N’ -di-2-(3-cyclohexyl)propanoic acid (EDCP) by in vitro characterization which includes determination of lipophilicity and passive membrane permeability. There has also been evaluated inter-laboratory reproducibility of the bio-analytical method which was previously developed and validated for non-clinical study of the DE-EDCP and EDCP. Distribution coefficient n-octanol/water was 1.68 and 0.03, and apparent permeability coefficient was 4 × 10–4 cm/s and 20 × 10–4 cm/s, for the DE-EDCP and EDCP, respectively. Observed results have shown that the DE-EDCP is more lipophilic with better membrane retention, but the EDCP has better pass through the membrane. Also, there has been demonstrated a reproducibility and robustness of the proposed bio-analytical method.

Antimicrobial peptides often show broad-spectrum activity due to a mechanism based on bacterial membrane disruption, which also reduces development of permanent resistance, a desirable characteristic in view of the escalating multidrug resistance problem. Host cell toxicity however requires design of artificial variants of natural AMPs to increase selectivity and reduce side effects. Kiadins were designed using rules obtained from natural peptides active against E. coli and a validated computational algorithm based on a training set of such peptides, followed by rational conformational alterations. In vitro activity, tested against ESKAPE strains (ATCC and clinical isolates), revealed a varied activity spectrum and cytotoxicity that only in part correlated with conformational flexibility. Peptides with a higher proportion of Gly were generally less potent and caused less bacterial membrane alteration, as observed by flow cytometry and AFM, which correlate to structural characteristics as observed by circular dichroism spectroscopy and predicted by molecular dynamics calculations.

Abstract Background Change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure could be due to both shifts in the entire distribution of blood pressure (representing the combined effects of public health interventions and secular trends) and changes in its high-blood-pressure tail (representing successful clinical interventions to control blood pressure in the hypertensive population). Our aim was to quantify the contributions of these two phenomena to the worldwide trends in the prevalence of raised blood pressure. Methods We pooled 1018 population-based studies with blood pressure measurements on 88.6 million participants from 1985 to 2016. We first calculated mean systolic blood pressure (SBP), mean diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and prevalence of raised blood pressure by sex and 10-year age group from 20–29 years to 70–79 years in each study, taking into account complex survey design and survey sample weights, where relevant. We used a linear mixed effect model to quantify the association between (probit-transformed) prevalence of raised blood pressure and age-group- and sex-specific mean blood pressure. We calculated the contributions of change in mean SBP and DBP, and of change in the prevalence-mean association, to the change in prevalence of raised blood pressure. Results In 2005–16, at the same level of population mean SBP and DBP, men and women in South Asia and in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa would have the highest prevalence of raised blood pressure, and men and women in the high-income Asia Pacific and high-income Western regions would have the lowest. In most region-sex-age groups where the prevalence of raised blood pressure declined, one half or more of the decline was due to the decline in mean blood pressure. Where prevalence of raised blood pressure has increased, the change was entirely driven by increasing mean blood pressure, offset partly by the change in the prevalence-mean association. Conclusions Change in mean blood pressure is the main driver of the worldwide change in the prevalence of raised blood pressure, but change in the high-blood-pressure tail of the distribution has also contributed to the change in prevalence, especially in older age groups.

The main motivation for this paper is to apply LQ and LQG methodologies for quadcopter control system. The developed control system is for both the rectangular position (xy) and altitude (z) as well as the orientation (attitude - angles around the axes) based on 6-Degree of Freedom (6DOF) mathematical model. 6DOF refers to the model with 3 linear and 3 angular motions. The altitude and attitude controllers are designed and the results presented in both the continuous and the discrete time cases. For the controller design, a nonlinear mathematical model was obtained first for 6DOF. The next step was to linearize the nonlinear model in hovering mode, and the final step was the reduction of the resulted linear model to be used as starting model for the controller design. The reduced linear model was tested for controllablity and observability. The control goal was to track a spatial trajectory with the quadcopter center of gravity under environment disturbances and sensor measurement errors. For this purpose, designed LQ controller was augmented by Kalman Filter state observer. The resultant controllers provide precise and robust performance for an input reference signal and for a regulation problem. After the transient response (of order of few seconds) the tracking error is acceptable which provides safe handling even under disturbances and measurement noises. The transient response can be further reduced by controllers fine tuning.

The aim of this study was to investigate characteristics of calves rearing technologies at family farms in northern Croatia (Varazdin and Medjumurje County). Calves up to eight weeks of age at family farms in Varazdin County were kept mostly tied (57.7%). After eight weeks of age, calves in both analysed Counties are dominantly kept tied. First colostrums ration was given to calves within first three hours after calving, i.e. on 99.2% of analysed farms in Varazdin County and 90% of analysed farms in Medjimurje County. On the majority of farms colostrums is given to the calves in amount of 1-1.5 litres (51.9% Varazdin, i.e. 65% Medjimurje County). Freezing of colostrum is done at 10.5% of analysed farms in Varazdin and 15% of analysed farms in Medjimurje County. In Varazdin County farmers feed calves with milk or milk replacer significantly longer (P<0.001) than farmers in Medjimurje County. Consequently, calves in Medjimurje County consumes significantly lower quantities of milk or milk replacer (P<0.001). Calves in the Medjimurje County are significantly earlier fed with solid feed: hay (P<0.05), pre-starter or starter (P<0.001), and water (P<0.001) than on farms at the Varazdin County. Total mixed ratio (TMR) was used neither in Varazdin nor in Medjmurje County in calves’ nutrition, and colostrums quality was checked only at 3% of farms in Varazdin County (4 farms), and only at one farm in Medjimurje County.