Policies that promote conversion of antibiotics from intravenous to oral route administration are considered “low hanging fruit” for hospital antimicrobial stewardship programs. We developed a simple metric based on digestive days of therapy divided by total days of therapy for targeted agents and a method for hospital comparisons. External comparisons may help identify opportunities for improving prospective implementation.

Antibiotic overuse is high in patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) despite a low documented prevalence of bacterial infections in many studies. In this study evaluating 65 COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit, empiric broad-spectrum antibiotics were often overutilized with an inertia to de-escalate despite negative culture results.

ABSTRACT IMPACT: This work will standardize necessary image pre-processing for diagnostic and prognostic clinical workflows dependent on quantitative analysis of conventional magnetic resonance imaging. OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poses challenges for quantitative analysis due to a lack of uniform inter-scanner voxel intensity values. Head and neck cancer (HNC) applications in particular have not been well investigated. This project aims to systematically evaluate voxel intensity standardization (VIS) methods for HNC MRI. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: We utilize two separate cohorts of HNC patients, where T2-weighted (T2-w) MRI sequences were acquired before beginning radiotherapy for five patients in each cohort. The first cohort corresponds to patients with images taken at various institutions with a variety of non-uniform acquisition scanners and parameters. The second cohort corresponds to patients from a prospective clinical trial with uniformity in both scanner and acquisition parameters. Regions of interest from a variety of healthy tissues assumed to have minimal interpatient variation were manually contoured for each image and used to compare differences between a variety of VIS methods for each cohort. Towards this end, we implement a new metric for cohort intensity distributional overlap to compare region of interest similarity in a given cohort. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Using a simple and interpretable metric, we have systematically investigated the effects of various commonly implementable VIS methods on T2-w sequences for two independent cohorts of HNC patients based on region of interest intensity similarity. We demonstrate VIS has a substantial effect on T2-w images where non-uniform acquisition parameters and scanners are utilized. Oppositely, it has a modest to minimal impact on T2-w images generated from the same scanner with the same acquisition parameters. Moreover, with a few notable exceptions, there does not seem to be a clear advantage or disadvantage to using one VIS method over another for T2-w images with non-uniform acquisition parameters. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: Our results inform which VIS methods should be favored in HNC MRI and may indicate VIS is not a critical factor to consider in circumstances where similar acquisition parameters can be utilized. Moreover, our results can help guide downstream quantitative imaging tasks that may one day be implemented in clinical workflows.

We analyzed antibiotic use data from 29 southeastern US hospitals over a 5-year period to determine changes in antibiotic use after the fluoroquinolone US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory update in 2016. Fluoroquinolone use declined both before and after the FDA announcement, and the use of select, alternative antibiotics increased after the announcement.

Fluoroquinolones are among the 4 most commonly prescribed antibiotic classes.1,2 Postmarketing reports of serious adverse events linked to fluoroquinolones include tendonitis, neuropathy, hypoglycemia, psychiatric side effects, and possible aortic vessel rupture, leading to safety label changes in July 2008 and August 2013.3 In July 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) strengthened the “black box” warning following an initial safety announcement in May 2016, recommending avoidance of fluoroquinolones for uncomplicated infections such as acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis, uncomplicated urinary tract infections, and acute bacterial sinusitis.4 Concerns over safety and the association with Clostridiodes difficile infection have led inpatient antimicrobial stewardship programs (ASPs) to develop initiatives to promote avoidance of quinolones. The objective of this study was to quantify the effect of the 2016 FDA “black box” update on inpatient antibiotic use among a cohort of southeastern US hospitals.

We compared sepsis “time zero” and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) SEP-1 pass rates among 3 abstractors in 3 hospitals. Abstractors agreed on time zero in 29 of 80 (36%) cases. Perceived pass rates ranged from 9 of 80 cases (11%) to 19 of 80 cases (23%). Variability in time zero and perceived pass rates limits the utility of SEP-1 for measuring quality.

Patient days and days present were compared to directly measured person time to quantify how choice of different denominator metrics may affect antimicrobial use rates. Overall, days present were approximately one-third higher than patient days. This difference varied among hospitals and units and was influenced by short length of stay.

Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2018;39:612–615

High-temperature X-ray diffraction with concurrent gas chromatography (GC) was used to study cobalt disulfide cathode pellets disassembled from thermal batteries. When CoS2 cathode materials were analyzed in an air environment, oxidation of the K(Br, Cl) salt phase in the cathode led to the formation of K2SO4 that subsequently reacted with the pyrite-type CoS2 phase leading to cathode decomposition between ~260 and 450 °C. Independent thermal analysis experiments, i.e. simultaneous thermogravimetric analysis/differential scanning calorimetry/mass spectrometry (MS), augmented the diffraction results and support the overall picture of CoS2 decomposition. Both gas analysis measurements (i.e. GC and MS) from the independent experiments confirmed the formation of SO2 off-gas species during breakdown of the CoS2. In contrast, characterization of the same cathode material under inert conditions showed the presence of CoS2 throughout the entire temperature range of analysis.

Epitaxial graphene (EG) grown on the carbon-face of SiC has been shown to exhibit higher carrier mobilities in comparison to other growth techniques amenable to wafer-scale graphene fabrication. The transfer of large area (>mm2) graphene films to substrates amenable for specific applications is desirable. We demonstrate the dry transfer of EG from the C-face of 4H-SiC onto SiO2, GaN and Al2O3 substrates via two approaches using either 1) thermal release tape or 2) a spin-on, chemically-etchable dielectric. Van der Pauw devices fabricated from C-face EG transferred to SiO2 gave similar mobility values and up to three fold reductions in carrier density in comparison to devices fabricated on as-grown material.

The dc and rf performance of AlGaN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistors (HEMTs) grown by Molecular Beam Epitaxy on Si-on-poly (SopSiC) substrates is reported. The HEMT structure incorporated a 7 period GaN/AlN superlattice between the AlGaN barrier and GaN channel for improved carrier confinement. The knee voltage of devices with 2 μm gate-drain spacing was 2.12 V and increased to 3 V at 8 μm spacing. The maximum frequency of oscillation, fMAX, was ∼40 GHz for devices with 0.5 μm gate length and 2 μm gate-drain spacing. Parameter extraction from the measured rf characteristics showed a maximum intrinsic transconductance of 143 mS.mm−1.