Globally, the number of adults hospitalized with dengue has increased markedly in recent years. It has been suggested that hepatic dysfunction is more significant in this group than among children. We describe the spectrum and evolution of disease manifestations among 644 adults with dengue who were prospectively recruited on admission to a major infectious disease hospital in southern Vietnam and compare them with a group of patients with similar illnesses not caused by dengue. Transaminase levels increased in virtually all dengue patients and correlated with other markers of disease severity. However, peak enzyme values usually occurred later than other complications. Clinically severe liver involvement was infrequent and idiosyncratic, but usually resulted in severe bleeding. Chronic co-infection with hepatitis B was associated with modestly but significantly increased levels of alanine aminotransferase, but did not otherwise impact the clinical picture.

Seventy-nine comatose cerebral malaria patients given standard supportive treatment were randomized to receive specific antimalarial chemotherapy of intravenous quinine, intravenous artesunate, or artemisinin suppositories. Artesunate and artemisinin reduced peripheral asexual parasitaemia significantly more rapidly than quinine (90% clearance time 16 h, 18.9 h and 34.5 h respectively), but did not significantly reduce the duration of coma or mortality. The rapid lowering of peripheral parasitaemia may not ameliorate complications already present. These results demonstrate that artemisinin suppositories are as effective as artesunate and quinine given intravenously, and have economic and practical advantages for the treatment of severe malaria in areas remote from major medical centres. However, large numbers of patients will need to be studied if differences in mortality between the 3 treatment groups are to be demonstrated.

The potential of raw pine cone (PC) biochar and its modified form (Zn-loaded biochar) was evaluated for the removal of trivalent arsenic [As(III)] from the aqueous solution. The influence of treatment of PC biochar with Zn(NO 3 ) 2 on the physico-chemical properties of biochar was examined using elemental analyzer, surface area analyzer, thermo-gravimetric analyzer, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Experimental results revealed that the removal of As(III) was almost consistent (66.08 ± 3.94 and 87.62 ± 3.88 % on raw and Zn-loaded biochar, respectively) over an acidic pH range of 2-4 as a consequence of high affinity between the positively charged biochar surface and the predominant arsenic species (H 3 AsO 3 and H 2 AsO 4 -), followed by a decrease with increase in pH in the range of 4-12. Langmuir isotherm model was well fitted to the experimental equilibrium data (R 2 = 0.93) rendering the maximum adsorption capacity of 5.7 and 7.0 lg g -1 on raw and Znloaded PC biochar, respectively. The adsorption of As(III) was well represented by pseudo-second order with reaction rate constant (k 2 ) of 0.040 and 0.282 mg g -1 min on raw and zinc-loaded PC biochar, respectively, and was mainly controlled by boundary layer diffusion followed by some extent of intra-particle diffusion. The adsorption process was spontaneous with Gibb's free energy (DG°, -4.42 ± 0.72 and -11.86 ± 1.78 kJ mol -1 ) and exothermic in nature with enthalpy (DH°, 13.25 and 31.10 kJ mol -1) and entropy (DS°, 0.058 and 0.141 kJ mol -1 K -1 ) for raw and zinc-loaded adsorbent, respectively.

This paper describes the route, from simulations toward experiments, for optimizing the magnetoelectric (ME) geometries for vortex magnetic field sensors. The research is performed on the base of the Metglas/Piezoelectric (PZT) laminates in both open and closed magnetic circuit (OMC and CMC) geometries with different widths (W), lengths (L), and diameters (D). Among these geometries, the CMC laminates demonstrate advantages not only in their magnetic flux distribution, but also in their sensitivity and in their independence of the position of the vortex center. In addition, the ME voltage signal is found to be enhanced by increasing the magnetostrictive volume fraction. Optimal issues are incorporated to realize a CMC-based ME double sandwich current sensor in the ring shape with D × W = 6 mm × 1.5 mm and four layers of Metglas. At the resonant frequency of 174.4 kHz, this sensor exhibits the record sensitivity of 5.426 V/A as compared to variety of devices such as the CMC ME sensor family, fluxgate, magnetoresistive, and Hall-effect-based devices. It opens a potential to commercialize a new generation of ME-based current and (or) vortex magnetic sensors.

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