Identification of Streptococcus agalactiae by fluorescent in situ hybridization compared to culturing and the determination of prevalence of Streptococcus agalactiae colonization among pregnant women in Bushehr, Iran

Background: Pregnant women colonized by Streptococcus agalactiae (group B streptococci [GBS]) may transfer this microorganism to their newborns. S. agalactiae is an important cause of pneumonia, sepsis, and meningitis in newborns. Fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) is considered as a method of identification in the field of diagnostic microbiology. In this paper, we have designed a study to compare the DNA FISH after 7 h Lim broth enrichment and culturing for the identification of S. agalactiae and to determine the prevalence of vaginal colonization by S. agalactiae among pregnant women in Bushehr, Iran. Methods: Vaginal swab specimens were obtained from 285 pregnant women at 35 weeks or more than 35 weeks of gestation. The specimens were inoculated into Lim broth. In order to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of GBS DNA FISH after 7 h Lim broth enrichment, the specimens were tested using both FISH and conventional culture methods. In addition, the prevalence of GBS colonization was determined. Results: Based on the results of this study, both the sensitivity and specificity of FISH were 100%. S. agalactiae was detected by both culture and FISH in 27 of the 285 pregnant women. Thus, the prevalence of GBS colonization was 9.5%. Conclusions: Since short-term (7 h) Lim broth enrichment followed by FISH using oligonucleotide probes showed a high sensitivity and specificity, this protocol is therefore a highly accurate and relatively rapid method for the detection of S. agalactiae. Our analysis suggests that the use of DNA FISH to screen for S. agalactiae colonization in pregnant women may be considered in the absence of GBS culture availability

A Letter to Peggy Robertson from Lim Chong Keat

This letter introduces Lim Chong Keat to Peggy Robertson, as he wishes to build up material on the Temiar

Post-it Notes

Three small notes included amongst the paperwork of Peggy Robertson about the correspondence between herself and three individuals; John Wren-Lewis, Stewart Wavell and Lim Chong Keat

S-parabolic manifolds

A Stein manifold is called S-Parabolic in case there exits a special plurisubharmonic exhaustion function that is maximal outside a compact set. If a continuous special plurisubharmonic exits then we will call the manifold S*-Parabolic: In one dimensional case these notions are equivalent. However in several variables the question as to weather these notions coincide seems open. In this note we establish an interrelation between these two notions

MAC Protocol Design for the Support of DBA in OFDMA-PON Networks

Wansu Lim, Ali Gliwan, Pandelis Kourtessis, Konstantinos Kanonakis, Ioannis Tomkos, John Senior, 'MAC Protocol Design for the Support of DBA in OFDMA-PON Networks', Paper presented at the Future Network and Mobile Summit, 15-17 June 2011, Warsaw, Poland.Original MAC frame formats have been developed to provide recommendations for new protocol designs in OFDMA-PONs. The portrayed scalability of the Dynamic Subcarrier Allocation (DScA) protocol is complemented by the granularity of hybrid OFDMA/TDMA topologies. Modelling of the DScA performance in OPNET has recorded the maximum 312.5 Mbits/s transmission rate capacity per ONU achieved at less than 2 ms packet delay and more than 95% network throughput depending on ONU offered load.Peer reviewe

A Letter to Lim Chong Keat from Peggy Robertson

This letter discusses the original recordings of the Ple-Temiar music and photographs and the opportunity to meet

Local intermittency measure analysis of neutron monitor data

Local Intermittency Measure (LIM) is a development of wavelet analysis particularly suited to the diagnosis of isolated, intermittent events in time series. We construct LIM scalograms of Neutron Monitor (NM) data for an example each of a large GLE and a Forbush decrease. Both kinds of event show distinctive LIM signatures. In the case of the Forbush decrease the method also identifies a second, much smaller event that took place in the same time period. LIM may thus be a useful tool for automated or semi-automated detection of such events in NM data

Polarization-Free Generators and the S-Matrix

Polarization-free generators, i.e. ``interacting'' Heisenberg operators which are localized in wedge-shaped regions of Minkowski space and generate single particle states from the vacuum, are a novel tool in the analysis and synthesis of two-dimensional integrable quantum field theories. In the present article, the status of these generators is analyzed in a general setting. It is shown that such operators exist in any theory and in any number of spacetime dimensions. But in more than two dimensions they have rather delicate domain properties in the presence of interaction. If, for example, they are defined and temperate on a translation-invariant, dense domain, then the underlying theory yields only trivial scattering. In two-dimensional theories, these domain properties are consistent with non-trivial interaction, but they exclude particle production. Thus the range of applications of polarization-free generators seems to be limited to the realm of two-dimensional theories.Comment: Dedicated to the memory of Harry Lehmann, 19 pages; revised version (proof of Lemma 3.4 corrected