Substantially enhanced cloning efficiency of SAGE (Serial Analysis of Gene Expression) by adding a heating step to the original protocol

The efficiency of the original SAGE (Serial Analysis of Gene Expression) protocol was limited by a small average size of cloned concatemers. We describe a modification of the technique that overcomes this problem. Ligation of ditags yields concatemers of various sizes. Small concatemers may aggregate and migrate with large ones during gel electrophoresis. A heating step introduced before gel electrophoresis breaks such contaminating aggregates. This modification yields cloned concatemers with an average size of 67 tags as compared to 22 tags by the original protocol. It enhances the length of cloned concatemers substantially and reduces the costs of SAG

Low prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) carriage in women from former Yugoslavia living in Switzerland

It is erroneous to draw too many conclusions about global university rankings. Making a university’s reputation rest on the subjective judgement of senior academics and over-reliance on interpreting and utilising secondary data from bibliometrics and peer assessments have created an enmeshed culture of performativity and over-emphasis on productivity. This trend has exacerbated unhealthy competition and mistrust within the academic community and also discord outside its walls. Surely if universities are to provide service and thrive with the advancement of knowledge as a primary objective, it is important to address the methods, concepts, and representation necessary to move from an emphasis on quality assurance to an emphasis on quality enhancement.This overview offers an analysis of the practice of international ranking. US News and World Report Best Global Universities Rankings, the Times Supplement World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities are analysed. While the presence of Nobel laureates in the hard sciences has been seized upon for a number of years as quantifiable evidence of producing world-class university education, Nobel laureates in peace and literature have been absent from such rankings. Moreover, rankings have been based on employment rather than university affiliation. Previously unused secondary data from institutions where Nobel peace and literature laureates completed their terminal degrees are presented. The purpose has been to determine whether including peace and literature laureates might modify rankings. A caveat: since the presence of awarded Nobel laureates affiliated at various institutions results in the institutions receiving additional ranking credit in the hard sciences of physics, chemistry, medicine, and economic sciences, this additional credit is not recognised in the approach used in this study. Among other things, this study suggests that if educational history were used in assembling the rankings as opposed to one’s university affiliation, conclusions might be very different

Failure of Ceftriaxone in an Intravenous Drug User with Invasive Infection Due to Ralstonia pickettii

Abstract. : We report a case of septic arthritis due to Ralstonia pickettii in an intravenous drug user with unfavorable clinical course under antibiotic therapy with ceftriaxone despite in vitro susceptibility to the drug. The treatment failure may have been due to a discrepancy between in vitro and in vivo susceptibility of R. pickettii, or to resistance development mediated by a recently described inducible ß-lactamas

Outbreak among drug users caused by a clonal strain of group A streptococcus.

We describe an outbreak among drug users of severe soft-tissue infections caused by a clonal strain of group A streptococcus of M-type 25. Cases (n = 19) in drug users were defined as infections (mainly needle abscesses) due to the outbreak strain. Comparison with controls showed that infected drug users bought drugs more often at a specific place. Drug purchase and use habits may have contributed to this outbreak

Petunia × hybrida floral scent production is negatively affected by high‐temperature growth conditions

Increasing temperatures due to changing global climate are interfering with plant–pollinator mutualism, an interaction facilitated mainly by floral colour and scent. Gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy analyses revealed that increasing ambient temperature leads to a decrease in phenylpropanoid‐based floral scent production in two Petunia × hybrida varieties, P720 and Blue Spark, acclimated at 22/16 or 28/22 °C (day/night). This decrease could be attributed to down‐regulation of scent‐related structural gene expression from both phenylpropanoid and shikimate pathways, and up‐regulation of a negative regulator of scent production, emission of benzenoids V (EOBV). To test whether the negative effect of increased temperature on scent production can be reduced in flowers with enhanced metabolic flow in the phenylpropanoid pathway, we analysed floral volatile production by transgenic ‘Blue Spark’ plants overexpressing CaMV 35S‐driven Arabidopsis thaliana production of anthocyanin pigments 1 (PAP1) under elevated versus standard temperature conditions. Flowers of 35S:PAP1 transgenic plants produced the same or even higher levels of volatiles when exposed to a long‐term high‐temperature regime. This phenotype was also evident when analysing relevant gene expression as inferred from sequencing the transcriptome of 35S:PAP1 transgenic flowers under the two temperature regimes. Thus, up‐regulation of transcription might negate the adverse effects of temperature on scent production.We demonstrate that petunia flowers produce less volatile phenylpropanoid compounds, in both scent bouquets and internal pools, in response to elevated temperatures. We reveal that the decrease in floral scent is correlated with reduced transcript levels of scent‐related genes, and that the adverse effect of high temperature can be negated by expressing transcriptional up‐regulators. We believe that the conclusions and implications drawn from the original data presented in our manuscript will be of particular interest to a broad spectrum of your readers, particularly in view of recent changes in global climate and the risk of environmental disruption of plant–pollinator mutualism.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112003/1/pce12486-sup-0001-si.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/112003/2/pce12486.pd

Understanding responses to an organizational takeover: introducing the social identity model of organizational change

This paper presents a Social Identity Model of Organizational Change (SIMOC) and tests this in the context of employees’ responses to a corporate takeover. This model suggests that employees will identify with the newly emerging organization and adjust to organizational change more successfully the more they are able to maintain their pre-existing social identity (an identity maintenance pathway) or to change understanding of their social identity in ways that are perceived as constituting identity gain (an identity gain pathway). We examine this model in the context of an acquisition in the pharmaceutical industry where 225 employees were surveyed before the implementation of the organizational change and then again 18 months later. In line with SIMOC, pre-change identification predicted post-change identification and a variety of beneficial adjustment outcomes for employees (including job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, lower depression, satisfaction with life, and post-traumatic growth) to the extent that either (a) they experienced a sense of identity continuity or (b) their supervisors engaged in identity leadership that helped to build a sense that they were gaining a new positive identity. Results showed a negative impact of pre-change organizational identification on post-change identification and various adjustment outcomes if both pathways were inaccessible, thereby contributing to employees’ experience of social identity loss. Discussion focuses on the ways in which organizations and their leaders can better manage organizational change and associated identity transition

Epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: results of a nation-wide survey in Switzerland.

To assess the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in Switzerland. One-year national survey of all MRSA cases detected in a large sample of Swiss healthcare institutions (HCI). Analysis of epidemiological and molecular typing data (PFGE) of MRSA strains. During 1997, 385 cases of MRSA were recorded in the 5 university hospitals, in 33 acute care community hospitals, and 14 rehabilitation or long-term care institutions. Half of the cases were found at the University of Geneva Hospitals where MRSA was already known to be endemic (41.1 cases/10,000 admissions). The remaining cases (200) were distributed throughout Switzerland. The highest rates (>100 cases/10,000 admissions) were reported from non-acute care institutions. Rates ranged from 3.3 to 41.1 cases/10,000 admissions for university hospitals (mean 15.5); 0.67 to 90.4 for community hospitals (mean 4.8), and 28.2 to 315 for non-acute care institutions reporting MRSA (mean 85.7). Forty percent of MRSA patients were infected, while 60% were only colonised. The leading infection sites were skin and soft tissue (21%), surgical site (15%), and the urinary tract (26%). Whereas in Eastern Swiss HCI most MRSA cases occurred in acute care hospitals (n = 47, 98%), rehabilitation and long-term care institutions accounted for an important number of the identified cases (n = 107, 38%) in Western Switzerland. Low rates of MRSA were still observed in Swiss HCI, despite one outlying acute care centre with endemic MRSA and some nonacute care institutions with epidemic MRSA. Rehabilitation and long-term care institutions contributed to a substantial proportion of cases in Western Switzerland and may constitute a significant reservoir. Overall, a national approach to surveillance and control of MRSA is mandatory in order to preserve a still favourable situation, and to decrease the risk of epidemic MRSA dissemination

Automated Counting of Bacterial Colony Forming Units on Agar Plates

Manual counting of bacterial colony forming units (CFUs) on agar plates is laborious and error-prone. We therefore implemented a colony counting system with a novel segmentation algorithm to discriminate bacterial colonies from blood and other agar plates