The introductions of the bicyclic 4-nitroimidazole and the oxazolidinone classes of antimicrobial agents represented the most significant advancements in the infectious disease area during the past two decades. Pretomanid, a bicyclic 4-nitroimidazole, and linezolid, an oxazolidinone, are also part of a combination regimen approved recently by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of pulmonary, extensively drug resistant (XDR), treatment-intolerant or nonresponsive multidrug-resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB). To identify new antimicrobial agents with reduced propensity for the development of resistance, a series of dual-acting nitroimidazole-oxazolidinone conjugates were designed, synthesized and evaluated for their antimicrobial activity. Compounds in this conjugate series have shown synergistic activity against a panel of anaerobic bacteria, including those responsible for serious bacterial infections.

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) have been used to investigate the hemodynamic performance in cavopulmonary anastomosis and resulted in improved operative design. In this study, CFD simulations were performed in a patient-specific bilateral bidirectional Glenn (BBDG) connection model and the power losses as well as flow features at different levels of predetermined pulmonary flow splits were calculated and compared. The control volume power loss varied between 0.64 and 1.02 mW when the flow ratio of left pulmonary artery/right pulmonary artery changed from 80:20 to 20:80. The flow patterns within the connection area and the static pressures in the four vessels differed from each other as the pulmonary flow split changed. Power loss and flow patterns of this BBDG connection were influenced by the pulmonary flow split.

No abstract

In this paper, a financial investment trust solution based on smart contract is proposed to solve the distrust problem in financial investment caused by information asymmetry. By utilizing the functional attributes of blockchain-based smart contracts, the financial investment trust mechanism is established. By operating this mechanism, the financial investment information is received, stored, and processed, and the information is sent to the nodes in the blockchain. By devising the algorithms of "requesting financial investment service", "successful financial investment", "product contract fraud arbitration" and "investment contract fraud arbitration", the financial investment trust mechanism is achieved. By presenting the algorithms and their invoking processes, smart contracts for the solution are written and debugged. Finally, the smart contracts are tested and validated. The smart contract source code is available in GitHub.

No abstract