BACKGROUND Flexible bronchoscopy with bronchial washing is a useful procedure for diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis (TB), when a patient cannot produce sputum spontaneously or when sputum smears are negative. However, the benefit of gaining serial bronchial washing specimens for diagnosis of TB has not yet been studied. Therefore, we conducted a retrospective study to determine the diagnostic...

Cyclooctatetraene (COT), the first 4nπ-electron system to be studied, adopts an inherently nonplanar tub-shaped geometry of D2d symmetry with alternating single and double bonds, and hence behaves as a nonaromatic polyene rather than an antiaromatic compound. Recently, however, considerable 8π-antiaromatic paratropicity has been shown to be generated in planar COT rings even with the bond alter...

The typical bathtub curve and its “standard”shape have been widely accepted as an engineering tool in reliability management and training. However, some recent researches reveal that the typical theory of ‘bathtub curve’is not so convincing in some situations. Therefore, a critical discussion is developed to research the bath-tub curve along three significant periods of bath-tub; i.e. infant mo...