Background: Catheter-associated symptomatic urinary tract infections (CA-SUTIs) are a common adverse healthcare event in nursing homes and have been the focus of multiple prevention strategies.1 In 2012, the CDC launched the NHSN Long-Term Care Facility (LTCF) Component, which nursing homes, the CDC, and prevention collaborators can use to monitor nursing home CA-SUTI incidence and prevention progress.2 The objective of this analysis was to compare CA-SUTI rates and reporting patterns of nursing homes between 2013–2015 and 2016–2018. Methods: We analyzed CA-SUTI data from nursing homes reporting to the NHSN during 2013–2018. Consistent reporters submitted ≥6 months of complete data in any calendar year during the period. To potentially confirm patterns in CA-SUTI rates, we defined “consecutive” reporters, as nursing homes that submitted data for ≥6 months each year during 2013–2018. CA-SUTI incidence rates were calculated as the number of CA-SUTI events divided by the number of catheter days multiplied by 1,000. Likelihood ratio tests using negative binomial regression were used to compare CA-SUTI rates from 2016–2018 and 2013–2015 among both consistent and consecutive reporters. Results: During 2013–2018, the number of nursing homes submitting at least 1 month of CA-SUTI data to NHSN increased from 60 to 120 (Fig. 1). Among these nursing homes, 194 (88%) were consistent reporters. The pooled CA-SUTI rate of 1.77 per 1,000 catheter days in 2016–2018 was significantly lower than the pooled CA-SUTI rate of 2.45 per 1,000 catheter days in 2013–2015 among consistent reporters by ~24% (Table 1). Also, 50 consecutive reporters submitted CA-SUTI data during 2013–2018. Among these consecutive reporters, the pooled CA-SUTI rate of 2.11 per 1,000 catheter days in 2016–2018 was significantly lower than the rate of 2.53 per 1,000 catheter days in 2013–2015 by ~21% (Table 1). Conclusions: This analysis suggests that nursing homes using NHSN for CA-SUTI surveillance have made progress in prevention efforts. During 2013–2018, evidence showed that CA-SUTI incidence rates declined among consistent reporters between the 2 reporting periods. This decrease was verified among consecutive reporters. Additional study is needed to determine which factors account for varying reporting patterns and differential CA-SUTI incidence.

Funding: None

Disclosures: None

Recent developments in U.S-Cuba relations have resulted in a proliferating global interest in Cuba, including its legal regime. This comprehensive Guide aims to fill a noticeable void in the availability of information in English on this enigmatic jurisdiction's legal order, and on how to conduct research related to it. Covered topics include “The Constitution,” “Legislation and Codes,” “The Judiciary,” “Cuba in the International Arena,” and “The Legal Profession.” A detailed section on “Cuban Legal Materials in U.S. and Canadian Libraries” is also featured. Although the Guide emphasizes sources in English and English-language translation, materials in Spanish are likewise included as English-language equivalents are often unavailable. The Guide's 12 authors are members of the Latin American Law Interest Group of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Special Interest Section (FCIL-SIS).

A novel approach to fabricate CuIn(S,Se)2 (CIS) thin films through ultrasonically spraying a hydrazine-based precursor solution onto a heated substrate is reported. The effects of the composition of the precursor solutions and the deposition temperature on the CIS film properties were investigated by comparing thin films fabricated using aqueous metal salt solution, anhydrous hydrazine solution, and hydrazine hydrate solution at various deposition temperatures. Crystallite size and texture coefficient in the preferred (112) orientation in the sprayed films increased when the aqueous solution was replaced by hydrazine-based solutions. Additionally, the hydrazine-based precursor solutions resulted in films with better surface smoothness and compositional uniformity than those fabricated using water-based solutions and the hydrazine hydrate solution resulting in the smoothest, most uniform films. The sprayed films were used to fabricate preliminary solar cells that demonstrated a modest photovoltaic response. With optimization, the synthesis of high-quality CIS films by spray pyrolysis from a hydrazine hydrate solution could demonstrate the potential for a low-cost, high-throughput manufacturing process.

Finite element analysis is used to simulate cone indentation creep in materials across a wide range of hardness, strain rate sensitivity, and work-hardening exponent. Modeling reveals that the commonly held assumption of the hardness strain rate sensitivity (mH) equaling the flow stress strain rate sensitivity (mσ) is violated except in low hardness/modulus materials. Another commonly held assumption is that for self-similar indenters the indent area increases in proportion to the (depth)2 during creep. This assumption is also violated. Both violations are readily explained by noting that the proportionality “constants” relating (i) hardness to flow stress and (ii) area to (depth)2 are, in reality, functions of hardness/modulus ratio, which changes during creep. Experiments on silicon, fused silica, bulk metallic glass, and poly methyl methacrylate verify the breakdown of the area-(depth)2 relation, consistent with the theory. A method is provided for estimating area from depth during creep.

Using fractions of the protein spectrum of the cat retina as immunogens, we have generated antibodies with substantial specificity for the Müller cells of the retina of cat, rabbit, guinea pig, and rat. The antibodies appear to bind to the filamentous components of the Müller cells and allow demonstration of the pattern of Müller cell endfeet at the inner surface of the retina, best seen in wholemount preparations. In sections and at the edge of wholemount preparations the somas and processes of the cells can be observed. Müller cells are more evenly distributed over the retina than ganglion cells, indicating that their proliferation continues during the differential growth of retina which continues into postnatal life. The morphology and distribution of the endfeet varies with the structures present at the inner surface of the retina. Where the axon bundles are thick, the endfeet are relatively small and are confined to narrow rows between bundles. Müller cell endfeet are also separated widely by large blood vessels. In both situations, it seems likely that Müller cells and astrocytes both contribute, perhaps competitively, to form the glia limitans of the inner surface of the retina. Where the somas of neurones are densely packed in the ganglion cell layer, the endfeet are small and numerous, forming rings around the somas. Where axon bundles, vessels, and somas are sparse, the endfeet appear largest and form a regular array.

We have studied the glial investment of ganglion cells of the cat's retina, orienting the sections taken for electron microscopy so that the investment could be traced from the soma along the axon. The soma of each ganglion cell is covered by a close-fitting, continuous sheath formed by Müller cells. The axon hillock and the first part of the initial segment are invested by an extension of the somal sheath, and are thus enclosed in the same glial compartment as the soma. The initial segment extends a few microns past the Müller cell sheath; this last length of the initial segment is contacted by numerous processes of astrocytes, which converge on it in a pattern found also on nodes of the same axons, in the optic nerve. Beyond the initial segment, the intraretinal lengths of the axons are invested by both Müller cells and astrocytes, but the investment is strikingly incomplete. Large areas of axonal membrane have no glial cover, and lie close to other axonal membranes. The sequential arrangement of these distinct forms of glial wrapping of the soma, initial segment, and axon is described here for the first time. It is suggested that this pattern of glial investment controls the flow of current between dendrite and initial segment of the ganglion cell, defines the site of initiation of action spikes, and controls the formation of synapses on the soma and initial segment.

We have examined the soma size, number, and distribution of cholinergic amacrine cells in the retinas of albino and pigmented rats and of Siamese and common cats, using an antibody against choline acetyl transferase (ChAT). In the pigmented strains of rat and cat, ChAT-immunoreactive (ChAT-IR) somata were located in both the inner part of the inner nuclear layer (INL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL), and their processes spread in distinct strata of the inner plexiform layer (IPL). The diameters of the somata in the INL and GCL did not differ significantly at any retinal location. Furthermore, soma diameter did not vary with eccentricity, except at the area centralis of the common cat, where ChAT-IR somata in both layers were relatively smaller. In both species, ChAT-IR somata in the GCL outnumbered those in the INL at all retinal locations. Both populations of cells tended to concentrate at the area of peak ganglion cell density and along the visual streak. Additionally, areas of relatively high density extended superiorly from the area of peak density. The same features of morphology and distribution were identifiable in the hypopigmented strains of rat and cat, but the numbers of ChAT-IR cells were consistently higher.

Mikhail Bakhtin described a novelistic world bound to the reader's point of view and perception of reality. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity justified Bakhtin's elevation of the reader to a central position in his theory of the novel. This essay examines Bakhtin's engagement with Einsteinian relativity in the context of two of his most influential contributions to critical discourse—polyphony and the chronotope. Originating in the 1920s, Bakhtin's notion of polyphony was initially an expression of his Kantian mind-set. When Bakhtin reworked his formulation of polyphony in 1963 (having already broached the topic of literary spaciotemporality with the chronotope), Einstein had replaced Kant as Bakhtin's guiding intellectual paradigm. In advocating a relativistic model to explicate the literary world, Bakhtin aligned centuries of novelistic tradition with a distinctly modern worldview. His use of the epistemological possibilities inaugurated by twentieth-century physics allowed him to interpret centuries-old texts with an insightfulness available only to a post-Einsteinian reader.

We performed nanoindentation creep experiments on the bulk metallic glass Zr54Cu38Al8 in an effort to measure the scale of the individual deformation events responsible for plastic deformation. From a nanoindentation creep experiment, we can determine V*, the activation volume, which we interpret as the volume of a shear transformation zone (STZ) multiplied by the shear strain undergone by the STZ during thermal activation. For the as-cast alloy hardness, H, is 5.33 ± 0.06 GPa, and V* is 87 ± 5 Å3. The alloy was then annealed near Tg for 24 hr and retested. No crystallization occurred during annealing as verified by XRD and TEM. Following annealing H increased to 7.36 ± 0.08 GPa and V* increased to 160 ± 10 Å3. We interpret the change in V* as arising from an increase in the number of atoms involved in the STZ.