Development and Performance Evaluation of an Antibody-Based Technology for Detection of E. coli O157 in Meat Samples and Its Potential Evolution Using Antibody Engineering

Escherichia coli O157 is a persistent pathogen linked to food and waterborne infectious outbreaks with severe health consequences such as hemorrhagic colitis and hemolyticuremic syndrome (HUS). Because it is considered one of the major pathogens that contributes to the global burden of foodborne disease, its early detection within the food chain is an important milestone towards reducing foodborne diseases and economic losses due to contaminated food. Herein, the development and validation of a lateral flow immunoassay (LFIA) point-of-care (POC) device is described. Application of the LFIA test kit was focused on detection of E. coli O157 in raw meat products due to the fact that ground beef has been one of the major food items implicated in E. coli outbreaks and recalls within Canada. Moreover, the LFIA Test Kit was subjected to an independent validation study based upon Health Canada’s guidelines for the validation of alternative microbiological methods as established in the Compendium of Analytical Methods. The protocol comprised a pre-collaborative study, where the LFIA Test Kit was compared against the reference culture method, MFHPB-10, using eight different raw meat products following an unpaired samples experimental layout. The results demonstrated that the newly developed LFIA Test Kit exceeds the performance parameters criteria established by the Microbiological Methods Committee (MMC), thus suggesting that the LFIA Test Kit represents a reliable alternative for meat producers in order to obtain presumptive presence/absence results in less than one day. The design and expression of a single-chain variable fragment (scFv) targeting E. coli O157 is also presented. Recombinant antibody fragments such as scFv have not been extensively exploited within food safety diagnostics, especially for pathogen detection. Thus, in this project the anti-O157 mouse monoclonal antibody (mAb) used as the detection reagent in the LFIA Test Kit was genetically sequenced prior to bioengineering a scFv that could potentially be used to improve the performance of the LFIA Test Kit

Studies on the Software Testing Profession

This paper attempts to understand motivators and de-motivators that influence the decisions of software professionals to take up and sustain software testing careers across four different countries, i.e. Canada, China, Cuba, and India. The research question can be framed as “How many software professionals across different geographies are keen to take up testing careers, and what are the reasons for their choices?” Towards that, we developed a cross-sectional but simple survey-based instrument. In this study we investigated how software testers perceived and valued what they do and their environmental settings. The study pointed out the importance of visualizing software testing activities as a set of human-dependent tasks and emphasized the need for research that examines critically individual assessments of software testers about software testing activities. This investigation can help global industry leaders to understand the impact of work-related factors on the motivation of testing professionals, as well as inform and support management and leadership in this context

Duoethnography as Transformative Praxis: Conversations about Nourishment and Coercion in the COVID-Era Academy

This article introduces the feminist praxis of duoethnography as a way to examine the COVID era. As a group of diverse, junior, midcareer, and senior feminist scholars, we developed a methodology to critically reflect on our positions in our institutions and social worlds. As a method, duoethnography emphasizes the dialogical intimacy that can form through anthropological work. While autoethnography draws on individual daily lives to make sense of sociopolitical dynamics, duoethnography emphasizes the relational character of research across people and practices. Taking the relational aspects of knowledge production seriously, we conceptualized this praxis as a transformative method for facilitating radical empathy, mobilizing our collective voice, and merging together our partial truths. As collective authors, interviewers, and interlocutors of this article, the anonymity of duoethnography allows us to vocalize details of the experience of living through COVID19 that we could not have safely spoken about publicly or on our ow

Analysis of family agroforestry production units in the altiplano Potosino, Mexico

Objective: To understand how small producers perceive their agroforestry production unit (UPAF) from a social, economic, environmental, and technical context. Design/methodology/approach: A non-experimental qualitative analysis of the UPAF was performed. The information was collected through semi-structured interviews, participatory direct observation, and a field diary. The information was analyzed through codification, categorization, and the development of comparative and descriptive tables between the two municipalities and among the peasant families. Results: The UPAF provide socioeconomic, environmental, and technical-productive benefits to the producers who adopted and adapted the agroforestry system. Two factors influenced the adoption of the technology: age and technical monitoring. Limitations on study/implications: The main limitation of the present study was the small number of agroforestry production units and the specificity of the project, which restricts the generalization of results. Findings/conclusions: Agroforestry production units are consistent with the peasant economy, because they meet several of its characteristics: family productive unit, partial mercantile nature, undivided family work, way of playing with risk and belonging to a group. Therefore, these types of agroecological alternatives are viable for farmers.Objective: To understand how small producers perceive their family agroforestry production unit (UPAF) from a social, economic, environmental, and technical standpoint. Design/methodology/approach: A non-experimental qualitative analysis of several UPAFs was conducted. The information was gathered through semi-structured interviews, direct participatory observation, and a field diary. The said information was subsequently analyzed through codification, categorization, and the development of comparative and descriptive tables for the two municipalities and the farmer families in each one of them. Results: The UPAFs provide socioeconomic, environmental, and technical-productive benefits to the producers who have adopted and adapted this agroforestry system. Two factors have influenced the adoption of this technology: age and technical monitoring. Study limitations /implications: The main limitation of our study was the small number of agroforestry production units analyzed, as well as the specificity of the project, which restricts the generalization of results. Findings/conclusions: Agroforestry production units are consistent with a farmer economy because they match several of its characteristics: they are family production units with a partially mercantile nature, which require undivided family work, foster group belonging, and allow risk-taking. Therefore, these types of agroecological alternatives are viable for farmers

Anthropologists Respond to The Lancet EAT Commission

The Lancet Commissions are widely known as aspirational pieces, providing the mechanisms for consortia and networks of researchers to organize, collate, interrogate and publish around a range of subjects. Although the Commissions are predominantly led by biomedical scientists and cognate public health professionals, many address social science questions and involve social science expertise. Medical anthropologist David Napier was lead author of the Lancet Commission on Culture and Health (2014), for example, and all commissions on global health (https://www.thelancet.com/global-health/commissions) address questions of social structure, everyday life, the social determinants of health, and global inequalities.The Nutrire CoLab: Diana Burnett; Megan A. Carney; Lauren Carruth; Sarah Chard; Maggie Dickinson: Diana Burnett, Megan A. Carney, Lauren Carruth, Sarah Chard, Maggie Dickinson, Alyshia Gálvez, Hanna Garth, Jessica Hardin, Adele Hite, Heather Howard, Lenore Manderson, Emily Mendenhall, Abril Saldaña-Tejeda, Dana Simmons, Natali Valdez, Emily Vasquez, Megan Warin, Emily Yates-Doer

Influence of social determinants, diabetes knowledge, health behaviors, and glycemic control in type 2 diabetes: an analysis from real-world evidence

Background Although important achievements have been done in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) treatment and glycemic control, new strategies may take advantage of non-pharmacological approaches and of other potential determinants of health (e.g., socioeconomic status, education, diabetes knowledge, physical activity, and self-care behavior). However, the relationships between these factors are not totally clear and have not been studied in the context of large urban settings. This study aimed to explore the relationship between these determinants of glycemic control (GC) in a low-income urban population from Mexico City, focused in exploring potential the mediation of self-care behaviors in the association between diabetes knowledge and GC. Methods A multicenter cross-sectional study was conducted in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) from 28 primary care outpatient centers located in Mexico City. Using multivariable-adjusted models, we determined the associations between diabetes knowledge, self-care behaviors, and GC. The mediation analyses to determine the pathways on glycemic control were done using linear regression models, where the significance of indirect effects was calculated with bootstrapping. Results The population (N = 513) had a mean age of 53.8 years (standard deviation: 11.3 yrs.), and 65.9% were women. Both socioeconomic status and level of education were directly associated with diabetes knowledge. Using multivariable-adjusted linear models, we found that diabetes knowledge was associated with GC (β: -0.102, 95% Confidence Interval [95% CI] -0.189, − 0.014). Diabetes knowledge was also independently associated with self-care behavior (for physical activity: β: 0.181, 95% CI 0.088, 0.273), and self-care behavior was associated with GC (for physical activity: β: -0.112, 95% CI -0.194, − 0.029). The association between diabetes knowledge and GC was not observed after adjustment for self-care behaviors, especially physical activity (β: -0.084, 95% CI -0.182, 0.014, p-value: 0.062). Finally, the mediation models showed that the effect of diabetes knowledge on GC was 17% independently mediated by physical activity (p-value: 0.049). Conclusions Socioeconomic and educational gradients influence diabetes knowledge among primary care patients with type 2 diabetes. Self-care activities, particularly physical activity, mediated the effect of diabetes knowledge on GC. Our results indicate that diabetes knowledge should be reinforced in low-income T2D patients, with an emphasis on the benefits physical activity has on improving GC

Ecofeminismo, mujeres y desarrollo sustentable: el caso de la Sierra de Santa Rosa en Guanajuato

en este artículo se explora la participación de las mujeres en el Programa de Desarrollo Sustentable Sierra de Santa Rosa, en Guanajuato, de 2001 a 2011. Se expone la aportación del ecofeminismo para la noción de desarrollo sustentable, y para entender el vínculo entre la naturaleza y las mujeres. Se argumenta que la historia de la región, en específico el auge de la industria minera durante la Colonia, es un buen punto de partida para entender los problemas ambientales de la sierra y para visualizar el vínculo entre las estructuras que funcionan en detrimento del medio ambiente y de las mujeres. Así como también que dicho programa tuvo un efecto positivo en la participación social de las mujeres. Sin embargo, existen todavía retos importantes que se manifiestan en estructuras ideológicas, que impiden la participación de las mujeres como líderes y no sólo como trabajadoras, en las condiciones de pobreza que obstaculizan un verdadero compromiso con la sustentabilidad

El clima institucional en el desempeño docente.

Trabajo académicoLa preocupación constante de los directores y docentes de las instituciones educativas a nivel nacional es encontrar un clima organizacional favorable para la convivencia armoniosa entre directivos, docentes y administrativos. El buen desempeño docente requiere que haya buenas relaciones interpersonales, trabajo en equipo y una buena comunicación. En las instituciones educativas del ámbito, se observa muchas veces un descontento de los docentes respecto a la actitud de los directores, hecho que lleva a preguntar si esto influye en el desempeño docente. Por tanto el presente estudio tiene como objetivo: Explicar si existe relación entre el clima institucional y el desempeño docente. En tal sentido, se planteó la pregunta ¿Qué relación existe entre el clima institucional y el desempeño docente en las instituciones educativas

“Hecho en México”: a media analysis of the first MRT baby

ABSTRACT2016 witnessed the birth of the first baby conceived using mitochondrial replacement technology (MRT), a procedure conducted by an international team in a Mexican clinic. The story soon made it to the international press, where authorship was assigned to the USA team and Mexico was described as lacking regulation, thus a suitable location. The Mexican media offered a different version. The baby was stamped as “made in Mexico” and the Mexican physician involved was described as a remarkable citizen and bold scientist. The story served as a counter-narrative to the one circulating in the press and academic circles. It dismantled the notion of Mexico as a country with “no rules” and instead offered a story of a country producing cutting-edge technology and of a government ready to back up scientific progress. In this paper, we analyze the performative acts that transformed this breakthrough into a national success and we ask about the role the Mexican team had in this accomplishment. This analysis contributes to the conversation held within the field of postcolonial science and technology studies, regarding knowledge production, authorship, and the role of science stories in the process of nation building

¡A toda madre! Una mirada multidisciplinaria a las maternidades en México

Item does not contain fulltext447 p