Methods for Detecting and Quantifying Viable Bacterial Endo-Spores

Methods and systems for detecting viable bacterial endospores in a sample and related methods to quantify viable bacterial endospores in a sample

Instances and connectors : issues for a second generation process language

This work is supported by UK EPSRC grants GR/L34433 and GR/L32699Over the past decade a variety of process languages have been defined, used and evaluated. It is now possible to consider second generation languages based on this experience. Rather than develop a second generation wish list this position paper explores two issues: instances and connectors. Instances relate to the relationship between a process model as a description and the, possibly multiple, enacting instances which are created from it. Connectors refers to the issue of concurrency control and achieving a higher level of abstraction in how parts of a model interact. We believe that these issues are key to developing systems which can effectively support business processes, and that they have not received sufficient attention within the process modelling community. Through exploring these issues we also illustrate our approach to designing a second generation process language.Postprin

Noncomparabilities & Non Standard Logics

Many normative theories set forth in the welfare economics, distributive justice and cognate literatures posit noncomparabilities or incommensurabilities between magnitudes of various kinds. In some cases these gaps are predicated on metaphysical claims, in others upon epistemic claims, and in still others upon political-moral claims. I show that in all such cases they are best given formal expression in nonstandard logics that reject bivalence, excluded middle, or both. I do so by reference to an illustrative case study: a contradiction known to beset John Rawls\u27s selection and characterization of primary goods as the proper distribuendum in any distributively just society. The contradiction is avoided only by reformulating Rawls\u27s claims in a nonstandard form, which form happens also to cohere quite attractively with Rawls\u27s intuitive argumentation on behalf of his claims

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Enterobacteriaceae complicate the recovery of Listeria monocytogenes from food product enrichments using buffered Listeria enrichment broth

Buffered Listeria enrichment broth (BLEB) is the preferred enrichment formulation of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the recovery of Listeria monocytogenes. BLEB, which relies on sodium nalidixate, cycloheximide and acriflavine-HCl for selectivity, permits the growth of all foodborne species of Listeria and several non-Listeria species including some members of the family Enterobacteriaceae. Five species of Enterobacteriaceae and four strains of non-pathogenic Listeria species were evaluated to determine which ones most suppressed to L. monocytogenes 48 hour populations in BLEB; these were subsequently used in spiked-food enrichment competition studies. L. monocytogenes recovery was complicated by the simultaneous presence of both Listeria innocua and Enterobacteriaceae competitors. The overall mean L. monocytogenes enrichment populations (n=15 per matrix) were 4.2 ± 0.6, 3.1 ± 0.4, and 2.4 ± 0.7 log CFU/mL for guacamole, asadero cheese, and refrigerated crabmeat, respectively.  The overall mean L. innocua enrichment populations (n=15 per matrix) were 8.0 ± 0.7, 6.4 ± 0.7, and 6.5 ± 0.3 log CFU/mL for the same three matrices, respectively. L. monocytogenes was not recovered from any spiked-food enrichment when using either Oxford or chromogenic agars. L. innocua was recovered from all enrichments. Matrix-free competition assays using non-pathogenic Listeria species and Citrobacter braakii, simultaneously, indicate the potential for Enterobacteriaceae competitors to contribute considerably to both L. monocytogenes population suppression and to large Listeria inter-species population differentials. In some instances, Enterobacteriaceae competitors suppressed L. monocytogenes populations more than the non-pathogenic Listeria species. The ability to recover L. monocytogenes from food matrices with complex microflora, including multiple species of Listeria, is an important issue for regulatory agencies since detection without recovery is considered a false positive test result.https://doi.org/10.21423/jrs-v04n01p010 (DOI assigned 7/23/2019