Strangles: The Molecular Identification and Epidemiology of Streptococcus equi subsp. equi

A conventional PCR diagnostic test was established to confirm the microbiological isolation of Streptococcus equi subsp. equi (S. equi), the causative agent of strangles. This test was based on the amplification of the seeI gene, which is species-specific for S. equi. Further, a multiplex PCR was developed using species-specific primers; to identify the presence of S. equi and two other streptococci know complicate the diagnosis of strangles in horses, Streptococcus equi subsp. zooepidemicus (S. zooepidemicus) and Streptococcus dysgalactiae subsp. equisimilis (S. equisimilis). A total of 18 clinical isolates of S. equi plus the Pinnacle IN vaccine isolate, two isolates of S. zooepidemicus and four isolates of S. equisimilis were obtained via culture and used in the development of the multiplex diagnostic tool. Two multiplex tests were trialed; a conventional multiplex PCR and a real-time multiplex PCR. Both the conventional and real-time multiplex PCR’s were able to distinguish between the streptococci and accurately identified all isolates. However, further testing on 26 field specimens revealed that the real-time multiplex PCR had lower specificity, sensitivity and diagnostic accuracy as compared to the conventional multiplex PCR. This was theorised to be the result of the PEG/KOH solution used in the DNA extraction, possibly interfering with the intercalating dye in the real-time reaction. Based on these preliminary results, the conventional multiplex PCR diagnostic test developed here is recommended for further trials to determine its robustness. The 19 S. equi isolates obtained, including the vaccine, were further subjected to epidemiological studies. These included sequencing of the variable N-terminal region of the antiphagocytic M-protein SeM to determine SeM allele subtypes and a Sau-PCR amplification method, which previously has not been trialled on S. equi isolates. Sau-PCR involves digestion of genomic DNA and subsequent amplification. Two novel strains of S. equi were found within NZ based on the variable region of the seM gene, SeM alleles 99 and 100. SeM allele 100 had a higher pervalance over allele 99 as it was isolated in 6 out of 9 outbreaks and was found to occur on both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. SeM allele 99 was only found to occur on the North Island. Further to this study, the Pinnacle IN vaccine strain, SeM 2 was isolated from lymph node abcesses of two horses. It was unclear as to whether this ‘vaccine breakdown’ was just a severe adverse reaction to the vaccine or if the vaccine reverted to a more virulent type. The Sau-PCR was able to differentiate between the field isolates of S. equi and the vaccine strain but was unable to further differentiate between the field isolates and was therefore determined not as valuable for S. equi epidemiological studies

A Novel Method for Assessing Medication-Related Adverse Outcomes in a Community Hospital

The use of medications for hospitalized patients is universal, and unfortunately medication-related adverse outcomes are common. The accurate assessment of medication-related harm in hospitalized patients is foundational to the development of an effective hospital medication safety program. Every hospital has its own unique fingerprint of harm, accurate determination of the nature of medication-related harm specific to each hospital is necessary to facilitate prevention of that harm with specific and effective interventions. This project has provided a community hospital with its first systematic methodology for assessing medication-related harm. The methodology is adapted from that used in a recent national-level study. Several commonly accepted methods of assessment of medication-related adverse events are in use, but no single method is capable of giving a complete picture of harm at the hospital level. Using a method nearly identical to one employed in large national studies the author examined rates and types of medication-related adverse outcomes in a California community hospital. The hospital had about one-third the national rate of adverse events. An incidental finding was a 4-year pattern of increasing incidence of adverse outcomes followed by 2 years of declining incidence of adverse outcomes. The information gained from the novel assessment method provided a clearer picture of patient harm, a basis for a more effective medication safety plan, and promoted interprofessional collaboration

Communicating towards justice in ‘The Subaltern Voice’ (TSV)

We write with a voice of the marginalised in mind, as both marginalised women scholars writing from a critical perspective on human organisation and as privileged human beings with concern for those more dangerously excluded from The Master’s House. The voice we raise does not plead for assimilation into circumstances as they are. It calls for radical change. Our ideas originate in research with Māori women accountants employed in organisations expressing commitment to Māori involvement. From that research we learned that aspiring to bicultural ways of being in a context prematurely deemed post-colonial is fraught with risks of co-option and unintentional collusion. Accordingly we are committed to further exposing neo-colonialism and to experiment with The Subaltern Voice (TSV) as a heuristic for this work. Asking what might be said in TSV that is different from what can be said in more commonly heard voices calling for inclusion has brought us to new thoughts about our own engagement with ‘The Empire’. Not only as it continues to colonise Māori locally and indigenous peoples globally, but from the myriad of places we take our positions to speak, sometimes ‘from the margins’ and other times from within the relative comforts of The Master’s House

Creative Strategies for Effective and Engaging Student Employee Training: Helping Student Employees Engage, Grow, and Be Known

Is your library known as “the” place for students to work on your campus? Do your student employees get excited about “famous” annual training events in your department? Do your former student employees return years later to say hello because the library felt like their second home during college? Student employees are full of potential to become actively engaged participants in library operations and delivery of quality service. However, many librarians and library staff members struggle to motivate their student employees and help them see their employment as a highly valuable, formative work experience. The authors share some creative (and tested) ideas to improve and assess the student employee training experience. Ideas shared include annual training events held at the George Fox University Library like the Amazing Race, Turkey Bowl Team Competition, and more

Generic Difference of Expected Vote Share and Probability of Victory Maximization in Simple Plurality Elections with Probabilistic Voters

In this paper I examine single member, simple plurality elections with n > 2 probabilistic voters and show that the maximization of expected vote share and maximization of probability of victory are “generically different” in a specific sense. More specifically, I first describe finite shyness (Anderson and Zame (2000)), a notion of genericity for infinite dimensional spaces. Using this notion, I show that, for any policy x in the interior of the policy space and any candidate j, the set of n-dimensional profiles of twice continuously differentiable probabilistic voting functions for which x simultaneously satisfies the first and second order conditions for maximization of j’s probability of victory and j’s expected vote share at x is finitely shy with respect to the set of n-dimensional profiles of twice continuously differentiable probabilistic voting functions for which x satisfies the first and second order conditions for maximization of j’s expected vote share.Equivalence, Genericity, Candidate objectives, Probabilistic voting

Loss Aversion, Presidential Responsibility, and Midterm Congressional Elections

I explore a behavioral model of political participation, first introduced by Quattrone and Tversky [1988], based on the primitives of prospect theory, as defined by Kahneman and Tversky [1979]. The model offers an alternative explanation for why the President’s party tends to lose seats in midterm congressional elections. The model is examined empirically and compared against competing explanations for the “midterm phenomenon”.Loss aversion, midterm elections, congressional elections, negative voting, midterm effect