Isolation, characterization and antibiotic resistance of Proteus mirabilis from Belgian broiler carcasses at retail and human stool

Proteus mirabilis is an important pathogen involved in human urinary tract infections, and also more isolated from stools of patients with diarrheal disease than from healthy patients. The role of food, especially poultry products as source for human infection and multi-resistant strains remains unclear. As a resident in broilers' intestines, P. mirabilis can contaminate broiler carcasses due to slaughter practices, and be a risk for human infection. The present study evaluated the performance of five isolation media, and subsequently examined the presence of P. mirabilis on broiler carcasses at retail. Additionally, isolates were characterized by the Dienes' test, repetitive element PCR fingerprinting and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, and their antibiotic resistance profile determined. Using a combined isolation protocol on blood agar, xylose lysine deoxycholate agar and violet red bile glucose agar, P. mirabilis was isolated from 29 out of 80 broiler carcasses (36.25%) with a mean contamination level of 2.25 +/- 0.50 log(10) CFU/g. A high strain heterogeneity was present in isolates from broilers and human stool. The same strains were not shared, but the antibiotic resistance profiling was similar. A role of poultry products as source for human infection should be taken into account

Linear and nonlinear guided wave imaging of impact damage in CFRP using a probabilistic approach

The amount and variety of composite structures that need to be inspected for the presence of impact damage has grown significantly in the last few decades. In this paper, an application of a probabilistic ultrasonic guided wave imaging technique for impact damage detection in carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRP) is presented. On the one hand, a linear, baseline-dependent, technique utilizing the well-known correlation-based RAPID method and an array of piezoelectric transducers is applied to detect impact-induced damage in plate-like composite structures. Furthermore, a baseline-independent nonlinear extension of the standard RAPID method is proposed, and its performance is demonstrated both numerically and experimentally. Compared to the conventional RAPID, the baseline-free version suffers from a somewhat lower imaging quality. However, this drawback is compensated by the fact that no damage-free (intact) baseline is necessary for successful imaging of damage

Diagnostic approach for detection and identification of emerging enteric pathogens revisited : the (Ali)arcobacter lanthieri case

An immunocompetent patient without a history of recent travel or animal exposure developed persistent abdominal bloating and cramps without diarrhoea or fever. Negative additional investigations excluded gastritis, infectious colitis, inflammatory bowel disease and neoplasia, but routine stool culture detected a Campylobacter-like organism. The isolate was obtained with use of a polycarbonate filter technique, emphasizing the importance of culture to support and validate the occurrence of emerging and new bacterial enteric pathogens. The ensuing extensive laboratory examinations proved challenging in identifying this potential pathogen. Phylogenetic marker analysis based on the 16S ribosomal RNA and rpoB gene sequences revealed that the isolate was most closely related to Arcobacter lanthieri and Arcobacter faecis. Subsequent analysis of a draft whole genome sequence assigned the isolate to A. lanthieri. We report the presence of five virulence genes, cadF, ciaB, mviN, hecA and iroE, indicating a possible pathogenic nature of this organism. This case demonstrated the importance of the use of agnostic methods for the detection of emerging pathogens in cases of enteric disease with a wide array of gastrointestinal symptoms

The phytochemical composition of Melia volkensii and its potential for insect pest management

Due to potential health and environmental risks of synthetic pesticides, coupled with their non-selectivity and pest resistance, there has been increasing demand for safer and biodegradable alternatives for insect pest management. Botanical pesticides have emerged as a promising alternative due to their non-persistence, high selectivity, and low mammalian toxicity. Six Meliaceae plant species, Azadirachta indica, Azadirachta excelsa, Azadirachta siamens, Melia azedarach, Melia toosendan, and Melia volkensii, have been subject to botanical pesticide evaluation. This review focuses on Melia volkensii, which has not been intensively studied. M. volkensii, a dryland tree species native to East Africa, has shown activity towards a broad range of insect orders, including dipterans, lepidopterans and coleopterans. Its extracts have been reported to have growth inhibiting and antifeedant properties against Schistocerca gregaria, Trichoplusia ni, Pseudaletia unipuncta, Epilachna varivestis, Nezara viridula, several Spodoptera species and other insect pests. Mortality in mosquitoes has also been reported. Several limonoids with a wide range of biological activities have been isolated from the plant, including volkensin, salannin, toosendanin, trichilin-class limonoids, volkendousin, kulactone among others. This paper presents a concise review of published information on the phytochemical composition and potential of M. volkensii for application in insect pest management

Visualization of delaminations in composite structures using a baseline-free, sparse array imaging technique based on nonlinear Lamb wave propagation

Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity influence the efficacy of defect imaging procedures based on the identification of changes between an intact state and the current state of a sample/component/structure in the presence of a defect. In this paper, we focus on the Reconstruction Algorithm for Probabilistic Inspection of Damage (RAPID) and propose a nonlinear Lamb wave version of RAPID to visualize a delamination in a composite structure without having to know anything about the intact state, i.e. a baseline free RAPID. Once the optimal frequency selection of Lamb waves in a pitch-catch configuration mode is performed, low and high excitation amplitude signal responses within a sparse array at that frequency are evaluated along each transducer-receiver path by analyzing a set of damage sensitive parameters: the correlation coefficient, the energy of the scaling subtracted signal, and the and the third harmonic ratio. Processing of this information leads to a corresponding probabilistic damage map of the area within the sparse array. The obtained results from a validation experiment demonstrate the capability of this nonlinear variant of RAPID for the identification of a delamination in a composite structur

Non-destructive evaluation of kissing bonds using local defect resonance (LDR) spectroscopy : a simulation study

With the growing demand from industry to optimize and further develop existing Non-Destructive Testing & Evaluation (NDT&E) techniques or new methods to detect and characterize incipient damage with high sensitivity and increased quality, ample efforts have been devoted to better understand the typical behavior of kissing bonds, such as delaminations and cracks. Recently, it has been shown experimentally that the nonlinear ultrasonic response of kissing bonds could be enhanced by using Local Defect Resonance (LDR) spectroscopy. LDR spectroscopy is an efficient NDT technique that takes advantage of the characteristic fre- quencies of the defect (defect resonances) in order to provide maximum acoustic wave-defect interaction. In fact, for nonlinear methodologies, the ultrasonic excitation of the sample should occur at either multiples or integer ratios of the characteristic defect resonance frequencies, in order to obtain the highest signal-to-noise response in the nonlinear LDR spectroscopy. In this paper, the potential of using LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds is illustrated using a 3D simulation code for elastic wave propagation in materials containing closed but dynamically active cracks or delaminations. Using the model, we are able to define an appropriate method, based on the Scaling Subtraction Method (SSM), to determine the local defect resonance frequencies of a delamination in a composite plate and to illustrate an increase in defect nonlinearity due to LDR. The simulation results will help us to obtain a better understanding of the concept of LDR and to assist in the further design and testing of LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds

Nondestructive ultrasonic inspection of friction stir welds

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a relatively new solid-state welding procedure developed at The Welding Institute (TWI-UK) and the technique is widely employed for welding aluminum alloys in various applications. In order to examine the quality of the welds and to detect a variety of welding flaws such as wormholes and root-flaws, it is required to develop a methodical inspection technique that can be used for the identification and localization of such defects. The most prevalent and risky defect in this type of welding is the barely visible root flaw with a length varying from 100-700 μm. Due to the extreme characteristics of the flaw, off-the-shelf ultrasonic weld inspection methods are not always able to readily detect this type of minute defect feature. Here, we propose a novel approach to characterize root flaws using an oblique incident ultrasonic C-scan backscattering analysis. The implementation consists of an immersion ultrasonic testing method in pulse echo (i.e. backscatter) mode with a 3.5 MHz transducer, and makes use of an empirical procedure to engender of a shear wave dominated excitation at the root surface, and to properly gate the received signal for root flaw examination. By scanning the surface above the welded component, a C-scan image displaying the backscatter response from the root surface of the nugget zone can be obtained which allows a simple interpretation of the root flaw status of the weld

Non-destructive evaluation of kissing bonds using local defect resonance (LDR) spectroscopy : a simulation study

With the growing demand from industry to optimize and further develop existing Non-Destructive Testing & Evaluation (NDT&E) techniques or new methods to detect and characterize incipient damage with high sensitivity and increased quality, ample efforts have been devoted to better understand the typical behavior of kissing bonds, such as delaminations and cracks. Recently, it has been shown experimentally that the nonlinear ultrasonic response of kissing bonds could be enhanced by using Local Defect Resonance (LDR) spectroscopy. LDR spectroscopy is an efficient NDT technique that takes advantage of the characteristic fre- quencies of the defect (defect resonances) in order to provide maximum acoustic wave-defect interaction. In fact, for nonlinear methodologies, the ultrasonic excitation of the sample should occur at either multiples or integer ratios of the characteristic defect resonance frequencies, in order to obtain the highest signal-to-noise response in the nonlinear LDR spectroscopy. In this paper, the potential of using LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds is illustrated using a 3D simulation code for elastic wave propagation in materials containing closed but dynamically active cracks or delaminations. Using the model, we are able to define an appropriate method, based on the Scaling Subtraction Method (SSM), to determine the local defect resonance frequencies of a delamination in a composite plate and to illustrate an increase in defect nonlinearity due to LDR. The simulation results will help us to obtain a better understanding of the concept of LDR and to assist in the further design and testing of LDR spectroscopy for the detection, localization and characterization of kissing bonds

Nondestructive ultrasonic inspection of friction stir welds

Friction Stir Welding (FSW) is a relatively new solid-state welding procedure developed at The Welding Institute (TWI-UK) and the technique is widely employed for welding aluminum alloys in various applications. In order to examine the quality of the welds and to detect a variety of welding flaws such as wormholes and root-flaws, it is required to develop a methodical inspection technique that can be used for the identification and localization of such defects. The most prevalent and risky defect in this type of welding is the barely visible root flaw with a length varying from 100-700 μm. Due to the extreme characteristics of the flaw, off-the-shelf ultrasonic weld inspection methods are not always able to readily detect this type of minute defect feature. Here, we propose a novel approach to characterize root flaws using an oblique incident ultrasonic C-scan backscattering analysis. The implementation consists of an immersion ultrasonic testing method in pulse echo (i.e. backscatter) mode with a 3.5 MHz transducer, and makes use of an empirical procedure to engender of a shear wave dominated excitation at the root surface, and to properly gate the received signal for root flaw examination. By scanning the surface above the welded component, a C-scan image displaying the backscatter response from the root surface of the nugget zone can be obtained which allows a simple interpretation of the root flaw status of the weld

The OCareCloudS project: toward organizing care through trusted cloud services

The increasing elderly population and the shift from acute to chronic illness makes it difficult to care for people in hospitals and rest homes. Moreover, elderly people, if given a choice, want to stay at home as long as possible. In this article, the methodologies to develop a cloud-based semantic system, offering valuable information and knowledge-based services, are presented. The information and services are related to the different personal living hemispheres of the patient, namely the daily care-related needs, the social needs and the daily life assistance. Ontologies are used to facilitate the integration, analysis, aggregation and efficient use of all the available data in the cloud. By using an interdisciplinary research approach, where user researchers, (ontology) engineers, researchers and domain stakeholders are at the forefront, a platform can be developed of great added value for the patients that want to grow old in their own home and for their caregivers