Physical Linkage of the Vibrio Cholerae Mannose-Sensitive Hemagglutinin Secretory and Structural Subunit Gene Loci: Identification of the Mshg Coding Sequence.

Vibrio cholerae O1 expresses a variety of cell surface factors which mediate bacterial adherence and colonization at the intestinal epithelium. The mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin (MSHA), a type IV pilus, is a potential attachment factor of the V. cholerae El Tor biotype. We describe a TnphoA mutant that is defective in its ability to hemagglutinate mouse erythrocytes. The TnphoA insertion maps to a recently identified genetic locus that encodes products that are predicted to be essential for assembly and export of the MSHA pilus. Insertional disruption at this locus in a mshA-phoA reporter strain provides evidence for a role of this locus in the latter stages of pilus assembly and/or export. These constructs have provided physical markers by which we have established close physical linkage of this secretion locus to a set of genes that includes the mshA structural gene. Sequence analysis of the intervening region between these two loci has revealed the presence of an open reading frame with homology to pilus biogenesis genes of several gram-negative bacteria. This genetic organization suggests an entire operon encoding the MSHA pilus and the components necessary for its assembly and secretion to the bacterial cell surface. The nomenclature of the MSHA structural and secretory locus has been redefined accordingly

Deconstructing active region AR10961 using STEREO, HINODE, TRACE and SOHO

Active region 10961 was observed over a five day period (2007 July 2-6) by instrumentation on-board STEREO, Hinode, TRACE and SOHO. As it progressed from Sun centre to the solar limb a comprehensive analysis of the EUV, X-ray and magnetic field data reveals clearly observable changes in the global nature of the region. Temperature analyses undertaken using STEREO EUVI double filter ratios and XRT single and combined filter ratios demonstrate an overall cooling of the region from between 1.6 - 3.0 MK to 1.0 - 2.0 MK over the five days. Similarly, Hinode EIS density measurements show a corresponding increase in density of 27%. Moss, cool (1 MK) outer loop areas and hotter core loop regions were examined and compared with potential magnetic field extrapolations from SOHO MDI magnetogram data. In particular it was found that the potential field model was able to predict the structure of the hotter X-ray loops and that the larger cool loops seen in 171 Angstrom images appeared to follow the separatrix surfaces. The reasons behind the high density moss regions only observed on one side of the active region are examined further

Estimating risk of c. difficile transmission from pcr positive but cytotoxin negative cases

Abstract Background: The use of molecular methods to diagnose Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) has improved diagnostic yield compared to conventional methods. However, PCR testing can detect colonization and has introduced several practical challenges pertaining to need for treatment and isolation of cases

Integron-mediated Multidrug Resistance in a Global Collection of Nontyphoidal Salmonella enterica Isolates

Horizontal gene transfer and clonal expansion contribute substantially to the dissemination of resistant strain

A randomized controlled trial of home visits by neighborhood mentor mothers to improve children's nutrition in South Africa

Malnourished children and babies with birth weights under 2500 g are at high risk for negative outcomes over their lifespans. Philani, a paraprofessional home visiting program, was developed to improve nutritional outcomes for young children in South Africa. One “mentor mother” was recruited from each of 37 neighborhoods in Cape Town, South Africa. Mentor mothers were trained to conduct home visits to weigh children under six years old and to support mothers to problem-solve life challenges, especially around nutrition. Households with underweight children were assigned randomly on a 2:1 ratio to the Philani program (n = 500) or to a standard care condition (n = 179); selection effects occurred and children in the intervention households weighed less at recruitment. Children were evaluated over a one-year period (n = 679 at recruitment and n = 638 with at least one follow-up; 94%). Longitudinal random effects models indicated that, over 12 months, the children in the intervention condition gained significantly more weight than children in the control condition. Mentor mothers who are positive peer deviants may be a viable strategy that is efficacious and can build community, and the use of mentor mothers for other problems in South Africa is discussed

Rare Decays of the η′\eta^{'}

We have searched for the rare decays of the eta prime meson to e+ e- eta, e+ e- pizero, e+ e- gamma, and e mu in hadronic events at the CLEO II detector. The search is conducted on 4.80 fb^-1 of e+ e- collisions at the Cornell Electron Storage Ring. We find no signal in any of these modes, and set 90% confidence level upper limits on their branching fractions of 2.4 X 10^-3, 1.4 X 10^-3, 0.9 X 10^-3, and 4.7 X 10^-4, respectively. We also investigate the Dalitz plot of the common decay of the eta prime to pi+ pi- eta. We fit the matrix element with the Particle Data Group parameterization and find Re(alpha) = -0.021 +- 0.025, where alpha is a linear function of the kinetic energy of the eta.Comment: 12 pages postscript, also available through http://w4.lns.cornell.edu/public/CLN

Quality of chronic disease care in general practice: the development and validation of a provider interview tool

BACKGROUND: This article describes the development and psychometric evaluation of an interview instrument to assess provider-reported quality of general practice care for patients with diabetes, cardiovascular disease and asthma – the Australian General Practice Clinical Care Interview (GPCCI). METHODS: We administered the GPCCI to 28 general practitioners (family physicians) in 10 general practices. We conducted an item analysis and assessed the internal consistency of the instrument. We next assessed the quality of care recorded in the medical records of 462 of the general practitioners' patients with Type 2 diabetes, ischaemic heart disease/hypertension and/or moderate to severe asthma. This was then compared with results of the GPCCI for each general practice. RESULTS: Good internal consistency was found for the overall GPCCI (Cronbach's alpha = 0.75). As far as the separate sub-scales were concerned, diabetes had good internal consistency (0.76) but the internal consistency of the heart disease and asthma subscales was not strong (0.49 and 0.16 respectively). There was high inter-rater reliability of the adjusted scores of data extracted from patients' medical notes for each of the three conditions. Correlations of the overall GPCCI and patients' medical notes audit, combined across the three conditions and aggregated to practice level, showed that a strong relationship (r = 0.84, p = 0.003) existed between the two indices of clinical care. CONCLUSION: This study suggests that the GPCCI has good internal consistency and concurrent validity with patients' medical records in Australian general practice and warrants further evaluation of its properties, validity and utility