Determination of aflatoxin M1 levels in 1 white cheese samples by ELISA in Gilan province, Iran

Aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in milk and milk products is considered to pose certain hygienic risks for human health. These metabolites are not destroyed during the pasteurization and heating process. This study was undertaken to determine the presence and levels of aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) in Iranian white cheese consumed in Gilan province (Northern Iran). A total of 90 cheese samples was randomly obtained from retail outlets. ELISA technique was used to determine the presence and the level of AFM1. In 78 of the 90 cheese samples examined (86.66%), the presence of AFM1 was detected in concentrations between 7.2 - 413ng/l. The mean level of AFM1 in positive samples was 151.97 ng/l. AFM1 levels in 21 samples (23.33%) were higher than the maximum tolerance limit (250 ng/l) accepted by the European countries. Aflatoxin high concentration in milk and milk products cause widespread negative impact on public health and demonstrate considerable economic losses for producers. Therefore, it is necessary to establish strategies for reducing aflatoxin levels in animal feed and milk products. © IDOSI Publications, 2012

Isolation Virulence genes ETA, OPrL, gyrB in Pseudomonas aeruginosa clinical samples from hospitals in Kerman by Multiplex-PCR

زمینه و هدف: سودوموناس آئروژینوزا یک پاتوژن فرصت طلب و عامل عفونت های بیمارستانی و مرگ و میر به خصوص در بیماران با ضعف سیستم ایمنی می باشد و مقاومت ذاتی به مواد ضد میکروبی منجر به مشکلاتی در درمان عفونت های آن می شود. هدف از این مطالعه بررسی فراوانی ژن های حدت سودوموناس آئروژینوزا به روش Multiplex-PCR می باشد. روش بررسی: 60 نمونه سودوموناس آئروژینوزا شامل 40 نمونه از کلکسیون آزمایشگاه میکروبیولوژی پاسارگاد و 20 نمونه از بیمارستان های استان کرمان جمع آوری و در محیط های اختصاصی کشت داده و با آزمون های بیوشیمیایی تأیید شد. واکنش PCR بر روی تمامی نمونه ها برای شناسایی ژن های حدت gyrB, oprL, ETAو شناسایی جنس و گونه 16SrDNA صورت گرفت. یافته ها: از میان 60 نمونه سودوموناس آئروژینوزا، 38 نمونه (3/63) دارای ژن gyrB و oprL، 37 نمونه (6/61) دارای ژن ETA و هر 60 نمونه (100) دارای ژن 16SrDNA بودند. نتیجه گیری: با توجه به اهمیت تشخیص سریع این باکتری به جهت بروز مقاومت و مشکلات موجود در روش های بیوشیمیایی، شناسایی همزمان چندین ژن با روش Multiplex-PCR به­عنوان روشی حساس و دقیق در شناسایی این باکتری به شمار می رود

Open-world text-specified object counting

Our objective is open-world object counting in images, where the target object class is specified by a text description. To this end, we propose CounTX, a class-agnostic, single-stage model using a transformer decoder counting head on top of pre-trained joint text-image representations. CounTX is able to count the number of instances of any class given only an image and a text description of the target object class, and can be trained end-to-end. In addition to this model, we make the following contributions: (i) we compare the performance of CounTX to prior work on open-world object counting, and show that our approach exceeds the state of the art on all measures on the FSC-147 benchmark for methods that use text to specify the task; (ii) we present and release FSC-147-D, an enhanced version of FSC-147 with text descriptions, so that object classes can be described with more detailed language than their simple class names. FSC-147-D and the code are available at https://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/research/countx

Study of antibiotic resistance pattern and incidence of pathogenic genes of mgtC, spi4R, agfA, invE/A and ttrC in Salmonella infantis isolated from clinical specimens

Background: The importance of the health of red meat, poultry and eggs in human nutrition is very high. One of the factors that jeopardize the health of poultry food products is the bacterial family of Enterobacteriaceae, especially Salmonella. The aim of this study was to detect pathogenic genes in Salmonella infectious bacteria isolated from stool specimens using the multiple PCR assay. Materials and Methods: Selective and specific media for isolation of Salmonella were used. Primary isolation was carried out using Peptone water, Rapaport, selenite cysteine, MacConky agar and xylose-lysine deoxycholate agar. To confirm the diagnosis, biochemical tests including TSI, urea, endodontic, and citrate were used. The Salmonella Polyvalent Kit was used to determine Salmonella groups and mgtC, spi4R, agfA, invE/A and ttrC genes were studied in 60 samples by the multiple PCR method. Results: The results showed that all samples had 2 genes mgtC and ttrC, and none of the samples showed resistance to cefepime. Of the 60 samples of Salmonella, none were resistant to cefepime and ceftriaxone; 38.8 of the samples were resistant to amoxicillin, 53 to erythromycin and 38.3 to sulfamethoxazole. Conclusion: It can be concluded that cefepime is the best selective drug for the treatment of Salmonella infections. Identification and validation of genes in the region's bacteria can play a role in the broad epidemiological examination, antibiotic resistance, vaccine production, level of virulence, prevention and treatment. Also, evaluation of these genes in the samples for their virulence index is very important

Gene molecular study of biofilm of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from fresh milk using multiplex polymerase chain reaction

Background: Staphylococcus aureus is one of the main causes of food poisoning in the world. This pathogen has the ability to create biofilms that can lead to food contamination. The presence of biofilm genes in bacteria is very important. The aim of this study was to identify sticky genes (eno, cna, ebp, bbp) that play an important role in virulence and pathogenicity of the bacteria and even prevent the penetration of antibiotics in pathogenicity time. Materials and Methods: A total of 100 samples of fresh milk were collected from live animals and 60 isolates were selected to identify sticky genes (eno, cna, ebp, bbp) in the production of biofilm of S. aureus using the multiplex polymerase chain reaction method. In addition, the frequency rates of S. aureus strains resistant and susceptible to antibiotics such as methicillin, vancomycin, and clindamycin were determined among the samples. Results: From a total of 60 isolates of fresh milk, 43.4 of the colonies had laminin-binding protein gene or eno gene. Also, 90 of the isolates were sensitive to vancomycin, 50 sensitive to clindamycin and 43.4 sensitive to methicillin. Distribution rates of other sticky genes including ebp, cna, bbp were 11.6, 20 and 25, respectively. Molecular study results showed that the highest and lowest percentages of genes were related to the eno and bbp genes, respectively. Conclusion: The present study shows that the maximum sensitivity of the samples (90) was related to vancomycin and the least amount of sensitivity (43.3) was related to methicillin

A comparison between heuristic and machine learning techniques in fall detection using Kinect v2

In this paper, two algorithms were tested on 11 healthy adults: one based on heuristic and another one on video tagging machine learning methods for automatic fall detection; both utilizing Microsoft Kinect v2. For our heuristic approach, we used skeletal data to detect falls based on a set of instructions and signal filtering methods. For the machine learning approach, we implemented a dataset utilizing the Adaptive Boosting Trigger (AdaBoostTrigger) algorithm via video tagging to enable fall detection. For each approach, each subject on average has performed six true positive and six false positive fall incidents in two different conditions: one with objects partially blocking the sensor's view and one with partial obstructed field of view. The accuracy of each approach has been compared against one another in different conditions. The result showed an average of 95.42 % accuracy in the heuristic approach and 88.33 % in machine learning technique. We conclude that heuristic approach performs more accurately for fall detection when there is a limited number of training dataset available. Nevertheless, as the gesture detection's complexity increases, the need for a machine learning technique is inevitable

Effects of NaCl stress on blood glucose and cortisol in common crap (Cyprinus carpio)

In this study, the fluctuation of two parameters of blood glucose and cortisol hormone were investigated in different salinities in Cyprinus carpio. Seven tanks with 100 lit. volume were used and different salinities of 0, 3, 6, 12, 15 and 18 ppm were choosen as treatments. Then, 16 specimen of common carps (each 50-90 g weight) were added to the tanks. In periBds of 12 up to 96 hours, the blood sample was taken from each fish for further measurment of parameters. The results showed that all fishes died at 18 ppm salinity within less than 12 hours. The blood glucose indicated high sensitivity to the higher salinity. In this research, blood glucose had a reange of 13.5 to 321.0 mg/dc.lit and also, cortisol showed a fluctuation from 10 up to 70 µg/dc. lit and its concentration had a direct relationship with increasing the salinity