Pathogenic Microbiological Flora Recovered From Ear, Nose And Throat Specimens In A Regional Hospital In Kosovo

Background: to investigate the recovery of pathogenic bacteria, fungi and parasites isolated from ear, nose and throat specimens in large population group in a secondary health care institution. Methods: retrospective study, results of all microbiologic cultures submitted from the outpatient clinic of a large, secondary health care practice, for the time period January 2001 until December 2005 were identified from a microbiologic specimen database. The results from these cultures were entered into a database, tabulating site from which the culture was taken, from whom the material was sent and the type of organism recovered. Results: from a total of 17 362 specimens, 88% results in the normal bacterial flora. Remaining 12% were pathological bacterial, fungal and parasite flora: 1218 from ear specimens, 376 from nose and 474 from throat specimens. In 40% of cases material was sent by primary health care provider, in 52% of cases material was taken during systematic screening and only in about 8% the material was sent from an ENT specialist. the most frequent pathogens isolated from ear specimens are Staphylococcus saprophiticus and aureus, 24.6 and 17.7%, followed by Pseudomonas auriginosa in 13.2%; from nose specimens the most often isolated pathogenic bacteria is Staphylococcus aureus in 52.4%, Streptococcus spp. in 16% and Branhamella in 13% of nose specimens. From the throat specimens Staphylococcus aureus in 48.7%, Enterococcus in 13.3%, Streptococcus â-haemolyticus gr. A in 11.8% and Streptococcus â-haemolyticus gr. B in 8.4% of cases. Conclusions: Staphylococcus spp, Pseudomonas, Escherichia and Streptococcus spp. are leading pathogens from ear, nose and throat specimens, so further investigation on appropriate antibiotics use and bacterial resistance will be welcome. Keywords: microbiology flora, pathogenic bacteria and fungi, ear and nose and throat specimens Nigerian Journal of Medicine Vol. 17 (3) 2008: pp. 275-27

Future Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) development

Ecotourism is an alternative form of tourism and is usually confused with natural and cultural tourism.CBET is fast becoming a popular biodiversity conservation tool that develops and benefits the local community. Based on the context of conservation theory and practice, Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) is a form of community-based natural resource management. However, a sustainable CBET development through Community Capacity Building (CCB)programs is not something that it easily achievable. Local community’s capacity varies from one culture to another. It takes a high level of community participation, in order for it to come to a level where the community members themselves are motivated to participate and contribute to the development of the program. This fully qualitative research involved 15 respondents from the community of Kg. Selai, Bekok in Johor, Malaysia. The result show there are five factors that sustained the ecotourism development based for Orang Asli Community in Kg. Selai, namely, existing CBET development, past CBET development, local community participation in planning stage of tourism, local participation in implementation stage of tourism and participation in nature conservation

First-order intertwining operators with position dependent mass and η\eta- weak-psuedo-Hermiticity generators

A Hermitian and an anti-Hermitian first-order intertwining operators are introduced and a class of $\eta$-weak-pseudo-Hermitian position-dependent mass (PDM) Hamiltonians are constructed. A corresponding reference-target $\eta$-weak-pseudo-Hermitian PDM -- Hamiltonians' map is suggested. Some $\eta$-weak-pseudo-Hermitian PT -symmetric Scarf II and periodic-type models are used as illustrative examples. Energy-levels crossing and flown-away states phenomena are reported for the resulting Scarf II spectrum. Some of the corresponding $\eta$-weak-pseudo-Hermitian Scarf II- and periodic-type-isospectral models (PT -symmetric and non-PT -symmetric) are given as products of the reference-target map.Comment: 11 pages, no figures, Revised/Expanded, more references added. To appear in the Int.J. Theor. Phy

Spectral Efficiency Improvements in HetNets by Exploiting Device-to-Device Communications

Next generation cellular networks require huge capacity, ubiquitous coverage and maximum energy efficiency. In order to meet these targets, Device-to-device (D2D) communication is being considered for future heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In this paper, we consider a three tier hierarchical HetNet by exploiting D2D communication in traditional HetNet. D2D communication is deployed within the HetNet where closely located mobile users are engaged in direct communication without routing the traffic through cellular access network. The proposed configuration mandates to reduce the interference offered by the resultant HetNet by reducing the transmitter-receiver distance and ensuring that the mobile users are transmitting with adaptive power subject to maintaining their desired link quality. In this context, we analyzed and compared the spectral efficiency improvements in hierarchical HetNet against traditional HetNet. Simulation results show that D2D communication offers much higher spectral efficiency as compared to traditional HetNet

Face Recognition System based on Wavelet, PCA-LDA and SVM

Face recognition has become one of the important research areas that is used in wide range of applications such as security systems, Information security and personal identification etc. In this paper, we deal with a face recognition system using wavelet transformation to preprocessing of face image and combination of Linear Discriminate Analysis and Principle Components Analysis, algorithm to extract features. Finally, support vector machine algorithm is used for classification. An experiment on Olivetti-Oracle Research Laboratory face is implemented to test performance of the proposed method. The results of this experiment showed the reliability and effectiveness of the proposed method. Keywords: Face recognition, Principal Component Analyses, Linear Discriminate Analysis, Support Vector Machine

Effects of tides on the hydrology and geometry of a freshwater channel

The situation of Sungai Sengkuang becomes worse because it is under tidal influence. Flood was reduced after removing the temporary culvert. Analysis is carried out for the existing system to investigate whether it is still able to accommodate the volume of water comprises the discharge from upstream and high tide from downstream. The computer program such as HEC-HMS 2.2.2 will be used to carry out the Hydrologic Model Calibration. By using HEC-RAS, Hydraulic Model Calibration will be carried out for the channel. The discharge with different ARI will be used as the upstream boundary condition during the flow analysis. Frequency analysis for the tide level which is collected from JUPEM. The tide level with different ARI is used as the downstream boundary condition. From the Energy Grade Line of the channel, which energy is dominant, the energy from downstream or the energy from upstream.Keywords: tidal influence; dominant energy; flow analysis; hydraulic and hydrology model analysi

Experimental study on flame propagation in a straight pipe

Flame propagation in a closed pipe with diameter 0.1 m and 5.1 m long, as well as length to diameter ratio (L/D) of 51, was studied experimentally. Hydrogen/air, acetylene/air and methane/air with stoichiometric concentration were used to observe the trend of flame propagation throughout the pipe. Experimental work was carried out at operating condition: pressure 1 atm and temperature 273 K. Results showed that all fuels are having a consistent trend of flame propagation in one-half of the total pipe length in which the acceleration is due to the piston-like effect. Beyond the point, fuel reactivity and tulip phenomenon were considered to lead the flame being quenched and decrease the overpressures drastically. The maximum overpressure for all fuels are approximately 1.5, 7, 8.5 barg for methane, hydrogen, and acetylene indicating that acetylene explosion is more severe

η\eta-weak-pseudo-Hermiticity generators and radially symmetric Hamiltonians

A class of spherically symmetric non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and their \eta-weak-pseudo-Hermiticity generators are presented. An operators-based procedure is introduced so that the results for the 1D Schrodinger Hamiltonian may very well be reproduced. A generalization beyond the nodeless states is proposed. Our illustrative examples include \eta-weak-pseudo-Hermiticity generators for the non-Hermitian weakly perturbed 1D and radial oscillators, the non-Hermitian perturbed radial Coulomb, and the non-Hermitian radial Morse models.Comment: 14 pages, content revised/regularized to cover 1D and 3D case

(1+1)-Dirac particle with position-dependent mass in complexified Lorentz scalar interactions: effectively PT-symmetric

The effect of the built-in supersymmetric quantum mechanical language on the spectrum of the (1+1)-Dirac equation, with position-dependent mass (PDM) and complexified Lorentz scalar interactions, is re-emphasized. The signature of the "quasi-parity" on the Dirac particles' spectra is also studied. A Dirac particle with PDM and complexified scalar interactions of the form S(z)=S(x-ib) (an inversely linear plus linear, leading to a PT-symmetric oscillator model), and S(x)=S_{r}(x)+iS_{i}(x) (a PT-symmetric Scarf II model) are considered. Moreover, a first-order intertwining differential operator and an $\eta$-weak-pseudo-Hermiticity generator are presented and a complexified PT-symmetric periodic-type model is used as an illustrative example.Comment: 11 pages, no figures, revise