bioMérieux.

A new infectious agent belonging to the Coronaviruses group has emerged recently in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Its ability to spread out across the country and worldwide is surprising [1]. By the name SARS-COVID-19, World Health Organization (WHO) declared the disease as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, and a new public health emergency [2]. To date (May 4, 2020), WHO has reported more than 3,435,894ABSTRACT OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical, laboratory, and radiological characteristics of the pediatric patients infected with the new emerging 2019 coronavirus virus (SARS-CoV-2) in Hamadan and Sanandaj, west of Iran. METHODS: A descriptive study was conducted in Hamadan and Kurdistan province between March 1 to April 15, 2020.Medical records of the children diagnosed as probable or confirmed cases of COVID-19 disease were extracted and analyzed in this study. We followed the WHO Guideline for the case definition of the patients. RESULTS:Thirty patients admitted to the wards specified for COVID-19 diseases. Nineteen (63%) patients categorized as confirmed by Real-Time Reverse-Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) and 11 (37%) patients as probable according to Computed Tomography (CT) findings of the chest. Sixteen (53.3%) cases were female, the youngest patient was one day old, and the oldest patient was 15 years old. 11 (36.7%) cases had a definite history of close contact. The most common symptoms were fever, cough, and dyspnea, and the most common sign was tachypnea. None of our patients presented with a runny nose. Lymphopenia and marked elevation of the C-reactive Protein observed in four (13.3%) and 12 (40%) cases, respectively. There were 10 (33.3%) cases with normal chest X-rays. Ground-Glass Opacities (GGOs) were the most common CT findings (19, 73.1%). All but one of the patients discharged without sequala. An 11-yrs-old girl expired with a fulminant pneumonia. CONCLUSION: COVID-19 is not uncommon in children and could have different presentations. Concomitant use of RT-PCR and chest CT scans in symptomatic cases recommended as a modality of choice to diagnose the disease. Routine laboratory tests, like many other viral infections, may not show significant or specific changes. The superimposed bacterial infection seems not the determinant of clinical outcomes as most patients had a negative evaluation by specific laboratory tests for bacterial infections; got improved dramatically with a short or no antibiotic therapy.

BackgroundAntifungal susceptibility testing is a subject of interest in the field of medical mycology. The aim of the present study were the distributions and antifungal susceptibility patterns of various Candida species isolated from colonized and infected immunocompromised patients admitted to ten university hospitals in Iran.MethodsIn totally, 846 Candida species were isolated from more than 4000 clinical samples and identified by the API 20 C AUX system. Antifungal susceptibility testing was performed by broth microdilution method according to CLSI.ResultsThe most frequent Candida species isolated from all patients was Candida albicans (510/846). The epidemiological cutoff value and percentage of wild-type species for amphotericin B and fluconazole in Candida albicans, Candida tropicalis, Candida glabrata and Candida krusei were 0.5 μg/ml (95%) and 4 μg/ml (96%); 1 μg/ml (95%) and 8 μg/ml (95%); 0.5 μg/ml (99%) and 19 μg/ml (98%); and 4 μg/ml (95%) and 64 μg/ml (95%), respectively. The MIC90 and epidemiological cutoff values to posaconazole in Candida krusei were 0.5 μg/ml. There were significant differences between infecting and colonizing isolates of Candida tropicalis in MIC 90 values of amphotericin B, and isolates of Candida glabrata in values of amphotericin B, caspofungin, and voriconazole (P < 0.05).ConclusionsOur findings suggest that the susceptibility patterns of Candida species (colonizing and infecting isolates) in immunocompromised patients are not the same and acquired resistance was seen in some species.

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In this study, an adaptive non-linear controller is designed for DC-DC buck/boost converter which is robust and stable against converter load changes, input voltage variations and parameter uncertainties. The proposed controller is developed based on input-output linearisation using an adaptive backstepping approach. The controller can be applied in both continuous and discontinuous conduction modes (CCM and DCM). Owing to non-minimum phase nature of buck/boost converter, the output voltage of this converter is indirectly controlled by tracking the inductor reference current. The inductor reference current is generated by a conventional PI controller. Using a MATLAB/Simulink toolbox and a stand-alone TMS320F2810 digital signal processor from Texas Instruments, some simulations and practical results are presented to verify the capability and effectiveness of the proposed control approach.