BACKGROUND Avian influenza viruses (AIVs) are endemic in wild birds and their introduction and conversion to highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in domestic poultry is a cause of serious economic losses as well as a risk for potential transmission to humans. The ability to rapidly recognise AIVs in biological specimens is critical for limiting further spread of the disease in poultry. The a...

BACKGROUND Many patients with advanced chronic kidney disease are referred late to renal units. This is associated with negative aspects. The purpose of the present study was to characterize late versus early referrals for renal replacement therapy including their renal disease, health care contacts and medical treatment before renal replacement therapy (RRT) and the consequences for RRT modali...

BACKGROUND Coronaviruses (CoVs) are large ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses causing primarily respiratory disease in humans. A novel human coronavirus, subsequently named middle east respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), was first reported in Saudi Arabia in September of 2012. With increasing numbers of infections and deaths from MERS-CoV, development of a rapid and reliable kit was crucial...

Renouncement of renal replacement therapy (RRT) is a medical dilemma. This review covers the concept, the magnitude, the prognosis, and discusses strategies and management approaches about this subject in patients with CKD and AKI. Evidence suggests that refusal is more frequent and carries a more guarded prognosis than withdrawal of RRT. When RRT is not expected to be beneficial in terms of su...

This paper presents an approach for learning robot navigation behaviors from demonstration using Optimal Rapidly-exploring Random Trees (RRT∗) as main planner. A new learning algorithm combining both Inverse Reinforcement Learning (IRL) and RRT∗ is developed in order to learn the RRT∗’s cost function from demonstrations. This cost function can be used later in a regular RRT∗ for robot planning ...

potential risks such as hypotension, catheter-related complications, hemorrhage and blood–extracorporeal circuit interactions. Several studies, however, have shown that early RRT in acute kidney injury (AKI) is associated with a better outcome in intensive care unit (ICU) patients [1-3]. A recent retrospective study published in Critical Care has questioned the use of RRT in critically ill pati...

Rapid and accurate diagnosis is essential for effective control of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). In countries where FMD is endemic, identification of the serotypes of the causative virus strains is important for vaccine selection and tracing the source of outbreaks. In this study, real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assays using primer/probe sets designed from th...

BACKGROUND Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a major cause of renal failure. Sera of some FSGS patients increase glomerular albumin permeability (Palb) during in vitro testing and cause proteinuria in experimental animals. OBJECTIVES To determine whether permeability activity of FSGS serum (Palb activity) is associated with rate of progression to renal replacement therapy (RRT). ...

Many sampling based algorithms have been introduced recently. Among them Rapidly Exploring Random Tree (RRT) is one of the quickest and the most efficient obstacle free path finding algorithm. Although it ensures probabilistic completeness, it cannot guarantee finding the most optimal path. Rapidly Exploring Random Tree Star (RRT*), a recently proposed extension of RRT, claims to achieve conver...

Recent outbreaks of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and porcine deltacoronavirus (PDCoV) in multiple countries have caused significant economic losses and remain a serious challenge to the swine industry. Rapid diagnosis is critical for the implementation of efficient control strategies before and during PEDV and PDCoV outbreaks. Insulated isothermal PCR (iiPCR) on the portable POCKIT™ d...