7,249 research outputs found
Resistance to carbapenems in non-typhoidal Salmonella enterica serovars from humans, animals and food
Non-typhoidal serovars of Salmonella enterica (NTS) are a leading cause of food-borne disease in animals and humans worldwide. Like other zoonotic bacteria, NTS have the potential to act as reservoirs and vehicles for the transmission of antimicrobial drug resistance in different settings. Of particular concern is the resistance to critical “last resort” antimicrobials, such as carbapenems. In contrast to other Enterobacteriaceae (e.g., Klebsiella pneumoniae, Escherichia coli, and Enterobacter, which are major nosocomial pathogens affecting debilitated and immunocompromised patients), carbapenem resistance is still very rare in NTS. Nevertheless, it has already been detected in isolates recovered from humans, companion animals, livestock, wild animals, and food. Five carbapenemases with major clinical importance—namely KPC (Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase) (class A), IMP (imipenemase), NDM (New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase), VIM (Verona integron-encoded metallo-β-lactamase) (class B), and OXA-48 (oxacillinase, class D)—have been reported in NTS. Carbapenem resistance due to the production of extended spectrum- or AmpC β-lactamases combined with porin loss has also been detected in NTS. Horizontal gene transfer of carbapenemase-encoding genes (which are frequently located on self-transferable plasmids), together with co- and cross-selective adaptations, could have been involved in the development of carbapenem resistance by NTS. Once acquired by a zoonotic bacterium, resistance can be transmitted from humans to animals and from animals to humans through the food chain. Continuous surveillance of resistance to these “last resort” antibiotics is required to establish possible links between reservoirs and to limit the bidirectional transfer of the encoding genes between S. enterica and other commensal or pathogenic bacteria
Utilization of waste heat from power plants by sequential culture of warm and cold weather species
Desalination effluents and the establishment of the non-indigenous skeleton shrimp Paracaprella pusilla Mayer, 1890 in the south-eastern Mediterranean
A decade long monitoring programme has revealed a flourishing population of the non-indigenous skeleton shrimp Paracaprella pusilla in the vicinity of outfalls of desalination plants off the Mediterranean coast of Israel. The first specimens were collected in 2010, thus predating all previously published records of this species in the Mediterranean Sea. A decade-long disturbance regime related to the construction and operation of the plants may have had a critical role in driving the population growth
An Extended Variational Principle for the SK Spin-Glass Model
The recent proof by F. Guerra that the Parisi ansatz provides a lower bound
on the free energy of the SK spin-glass model could have been taken as offering
some support to the validity of the purported solution. In this work we present
a broader variational principle, in which the lower bound, as well as the
actual value, are obtained through an optimization procedure for which
ultrametic/hierarchal structures form only a subset of the variational class.
The validity of Parisi's ansatz for the SK model is still in question. The new
variational principle may be of help in critical review of the issue.Comment: 4 pages, Revtex
Global Cosmological Parameters Determined Using Classical Double Radio Galaxies
A sample of 20 powerful extended radio galaxies with redshifts between zero
and two were used to determine constraints on global cosmological parameters.
Data for six radio sources were obtained from the VLA archive, analyzed, and
combined with the sample of 14 radio galaxies used previously by Guerra & Daly
to determine cosmological parameters. The results are consistent with our
previous results, and indicate that the current value of the mean mass density
of the universe is significantly less than the critical value. A universe with
of unity is ruled out at 99.0% confidence, and the best fitting
values of in matter are and
assuming zero space curvature and zero cosmological
constant, respectively. Note that identical results obtain when the low
redshift bin, which includes Cygnus A, is excluded; these results are
independent of whether the radio source Cygnus A is included. The method does
not rely on a zero-redshift normalization.
The radio properties of each source are also used to determine the density of
the gas in the vicinity of the source, and the beam power of the source. The
six new radio sources have physical characteristics similar to those found for
the original 14 sources. The density of the gas around these radio sources is
typical of gas in present day clusters of galaxies. The beam powers are
typically about .Comment: 39 pages includes 21 figures, accepted to Ap
Equilibrium Times for the Multicanonical Method
This work measures the time to equilibrium for the multicanonical method on
the 2D-Ising system by using a new criterion, proposed here, to find the time
to equilibrium, teq, of any sampling procedure based on a Markov process. Our
new procedure gives the same results that the usual one, based on the
magnetization, for the canonical Metropolis sampling on a 2D-Ising model at
several temperatures. For the multicanonical method we found a power-law
relationship with the system size, L, of teq=0.27(15) L^2.80(13), and with the
number of energy levels to explore, kE, of teq=0.7(13) kE^1.40(11), in perfect
agreement with the result just above. In addition, some kind of critical
slowing down was observed around the critical energy. Our new procedure is
completely general, and can be applied to any sampling method based on a Markov
process.Comment: 7 pages, 5 eps figures, to be published in Int. J. Mod. Phys.
Multiresistant Salmonella enterica serovar 4,[5],12:i:- in Europe: a new pandemic strain?
A marked increase in the prevalence of S. enterica serovar 4,[5],12:i:- with resistance to ampicillin, streptomycin, sulphonamides and tetracyclines (R-type ASSuT) has been noted in food-borne infections and in pigs/pig meat in several European countries in the last ten years. One hundred and sixteen strains of S. enterica serovar 4,[5],12:i:- from humans, pigs and pig meat isolated in England and Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the Netherlands were further subtyped by phage typing, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and multilocus variable number tandem repeat analysis to investigate the genetic relationship among strains. PCR was performed to identify the fljB flagellar gene and the genes encoding resistance to ampicillin, streptomycin, sulphonamides and tetracyclines. Class 1 and 2 integrase genes were also sought. Results indicate that genetically related serovar 4,[5],12:i:- strains of definitive phage types DT193 and DT120 with ampicillin, streptomycin, sulphonamide and tetracycline resistance encoded by blaTEM, strA-strB, sul2 and tet(B) have emerged in several European countries, with pigs the likely reservoir of infection. Control measures are urgently needed to reduce spread of infection to humans via the food chain and thereby prevent the possible pandemic spread of serovar 4,[5],12:i:- of R-type ASSuT as occurred with S. Typhimurium DT104 during the 1990s
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