Quaternary amine compounds (QAC) are potent antimicrobials used to prevent the spread of pathogenic bacteria. While they are known for their membrane-damaging properties, QAC action has been suggested to extend beyond the surface to intracellular targets. Here we characterize the range of action of the QAC biocide benzalkonium chloride (BZK) against the bacterial pathogen Acinetobacter baumanni...

Clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus carry various antiseptic and disinfectant resistance determinants (qac genes) on a variety of plasmids. The biochemistry and specificity of these resistance genes in S. aureus is the subject of this report. The qac genes were separated into two families on the basis of resistance profiles and DNA homology. Isotopic and fluorimetric assays demonstrated ...

Surfactants have long been known to have microbicidal action and have been extensively used as antiseptics and disinfectants for a variety of general hygiene and clinical purposes. Among surfactants, quaternary ammonium compounds (QAC) are known to be the most useful antiseptics and disinfectants. However, our previous toxicological studies showed that QAC are also the most toxic surfactants fo...

Environmental staphylococcal contamination was investigated by culture of 400 automated teller machines (ATMs). Isolates were characterized for antibiotic and antiseptic susceptibility, carriage of antiseptic resistance genes (QAC genes), and spa types. MRSA, which was similar to local clinical isolates, was present on two (0·5%) of the 62 (15·5%) ATMs that yielded Staphylococcus aureus. QAC ge...

BACKGROUND Access blood flow (Qac) is considered a useful indicator in the surveillance of haemodialysis access function. However, changes in Qac may be due to changes in blood pressure and/or to changes in access resistance (AR). METHODS Weekly readings of Qac, cardiac output, and arterial blood pressure measured early and late during haemodialysis were obtained in 11 patients for a period o...

We study the new mobile query auto-completion (QAC) problem to exploit mobile devices’ exclusive signals, such as those related to mobile applications (apps). We propose AppAware, a novel QAC model using installed app and recently opened app signals to suggest queries for matching input prefixes on mobile devices. To overcome the challenge of noisy and voluminous signals, AppAware optimizes com...

�ery Autocompletion (QAC) systems are interactive tools that assist a searcher in entering a query, given a partial query pre�x. Existing QAC research – with a number of notable exceptions – relies upon large existing query logs from which to extract historical queries. �ese queries are then ordered by some ranking algorithm as candidate completions, given the query pre�x. Given the numerous se...

In this paper we describe a question answering task, called Question Answering Challenge (QAC), and its first evaluation (QAC1). This was carried out as a task of NTCIR Workshop 3 in October 2002. In QAC, we aimed to encourage the development of practical QA systems in a general domain and focus on research of user interaction and information extraction. Developments of evaluation method of que...

A semi-analytical study of the acoustic radiation losses associated with various transverse vibration modes of a micromechanical (MEMS) annular resonator is presented. The quality factor, Q, of such resonators is of interest in many applications and depends on structural geometry, fluid-structure interaction, and the device encapsulation. Resonators with at least one surface exposed to air can ...

Este trabalho apresenta a elaboração de um questionário para avaliação continuada em curso Farmácia. Foram realizadas revisão da literatura e discussões envolvendo o Apoio Pedagógico Comissão Graduação do curso, dando origem à primeira versão com 20 itens, analisados por especialistas submetidos pré-teste graduandos; após etapa adequação, foi aplicado Questionário Avaliação Continuada (QAC) 21 ...