Nosocomial yeast infections have significantly increased during the past two decades in industrialized countries, including Taiwan. This has been associated with the emergence of resistance to fluconazole and other antifungal drugs. The medical records of 88 patients, colonized or infected with Candida species, from nine of the 22 hospitals that provided clinical isolates to the Taiwan Surveillance of Antimicrobial Resistance of Yeasts (TSARY) program in 1999 were reviewed. A total of 35 patients contributed fluconazole resistant strains [minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) ^ 64 mg/l], while the remaining 53 patients contributed susceptible ones (MICs % 8 mg/l). Fluconazole resistance was more frequent among isolates of Candida tropicalis (46.5%) than either C. albicans (36.8%) or C. glabrata (30.8%). There was no significant difference in demographic characteristics or underlying diseases among patients contributing strains different in drug susceptibility.
The surface phonon polariton (SPhP) characteristics of hexagonal sapphire crystals with non-polar and semi-polar crystallographic planes are investigated. A formulation that considers the effects of crystal orientation is employed to calculate the SPhP dispersion curves of the samples. The SPhP dispersion curves indicate that the SPhP responses of sapphire crystals in non-polar and semi-polar orientations are directionally sensitive. Resonance frequencies and spectral strengths of the SPhP modes can be modulated simply by tuning the angular positions of the samples. The validity of the theoretical results is confirmed by the polarized infrared attenuated total reflection measurements.
In this work, p-polarized far infrared attenuated total reflection (ATR) with Otto configuration technique is employed to study the surface phonon polariton (SPP) characteristics of wurtzite ZnO thin film grown on Si(111) substrate. One prominent dip corresponding to the leaky SPP mode of the ZnO is detected at 532 cm
À1. The obtained result is in good agreement with the calculated ATR spectrum simulated based on the transfer matrix formulation. The origin of the observed dip is verified with the surface polariton dispersion curves based on a three anisotropic layer model (air-ZnO-Si). The results also reveal that the real SPP and the interface phonon polariton modes for this studied structure are barely observable experimentally.
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