Increased human pathogenic potential of Escherichia coli from polymicrobial urinary tract infections in comparison to isolates from monomicrobial culture samples

The current diagnostic standard procedure outlined by the Health Protection Agency for urinary tract infections (UTIs) in clinical laboratories does not report bacteria isolated from samples containing three or more different bacterial species. As a result many UTIs go unreported and untreated, particularly in elderly patients, where polymicrobial UTI samples are especially prevalent. This study reports the presence of the major uropathogenic species in mixed culture urine samples from elderly patients, and of resistance to front-line antibiotics, with potentially increased levels of resistance to ciprofloxacin and trimethoprim. Most importantly, the study highlights that Escherichia coli present in polymicrobial UTI samples are statistically more invasive (P<0.001) in in vitro epithelial cell infection assays than those isolated from monomicrobial culture samples. In summary, the results of this study suggest that the current diagnostic standard procedure for polymicrobial UTI samples needs to be reassessed, and that E. coli present in polymicrobial UTI samples may pose an increased risk to human health

Structural precursor to freezing: An integral equation study

Recent simulation studies have drawn attention to the shoulder which forms in the second peak of the radial distribution function of hard-spheres at densities close to freezing and which is associated with local crystalline ordering in the dense fluid. We address this structural precursor to freezing using an inhomogeneous integral equation theory capable of describing local packing constraints to a high level of accuracy. The addition of a short-range attractive interaction leads to a well known broadening of the fluid-solid coexistence region as a function of attraction strength. The appearence of a shoulder in our calculated radial distribution functions is found to be consistent with the broadened coexistence region for a simple model potential, thus demonstrating that the shoulder is not exclusively a high density packing effect

Operational and Organizational Issues Facing Corporate Real Estate Executives and Managers

This article examines three major categories of issues facing corporate real estate executives in the future, as determined by a Delphi process survey conducted by the authors. We present areas of agreement and disagreement among the corporate executives surveyed, and distill the results of the Delphi survey and other major studies on the future of corporate real estate into a research agenda for further inquiry.

How young are early-type cluster galaxies ? Quantifying the young stellar component in a rich cluster at z=0.41

We present a new method of quantifying the mass fraction of young stars in galaxies by analyzing near-ultraviolet (NUV)-optical colors. We focus our attention on early-type cluster galaxies, whose star formation history is at present undetermined. Rest-frame NUV (F300W) and optical (F702W) images of cluster Abell 851 (z=0.41) using HST/WFPC2 allow us to determine a NUV-optical color-magnitude relation, whose slope is incompatible with a monolithic scenario for star formation at high redshift. A degeneracy between a young stellar component and its fractional mass contribution to the galaxy is found, and a photometric analysis comparing the data with the predictions for a simple two-stage star formation history is presented. The analysis shows that some of the early-type galaxies may have fractions higher than 10% of the total mass content in stars formed at z~0.5. An increased scatter is found in the color-magnitude relation at the faint end, resulting in a significant fraction of faint blue early-type systems. This would imply that less massive galaxies undergo more recent episodes of star formation, and this can be explained in terms of a positive correlation between star formation efficiency and luminosity.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Uses emulateapj.sty. 5 pages with 3 embedded EPS figure

Microbial risk factors of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases: potential therapeutic options

Infection and inflammation may have a crucial role in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. This hypothesis is supported by an increasing number of reports on the interaction between chronic infection, inflammation, and atherogenesis. Assessment of serological and inflammatory markers of infection may be useful adjuncts in identifying those patients who are at a higher risk of developing vascular events, and in whom more aggressive treatments might be warranted

The Nearshore Fish Fauna of Bonne Bay, a Fjord within Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland

A standardized survey of the nearshore fish fauna of Bonne Bay, a fjord within Gros Morne National Park in western Newfoundland, was conducted using beach seines, gill-nets and bottom trawls during the month of June over a seven year period (2002- 2008). The survey documents the presence of 31 fish species (in 17 taxonomic families). Sampling sites varied in benthic habitat and associated fish assemblages. Both juvenile and adult life history stages of Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) were present in Bonne Bay, suggesting the presence of a local population or “bay cod stock”. Acadian redfish (Sebastes fasciatus) live in the bay, and may be members of a genetically differentiable population of redfish. Striped wolfish (Anarhichas lupus), a fish species protected under Canada’s Species at Risk Act (SARA), inhabits Bonne Bay. Surrounded by Gros Morne National Park, this bay with a diverse fish fauna is a focus of local stewardship and conservation efforts

Generation of Circular Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background

The standard cosmological model, which includes only Compton scattering photon interactions at energy scales near recombination, results in zero primordial circular polarization of the cosmic microwave background. In this paper we consider a particular renormalizable and gauge-invariant standard model extension coupling photons to an external vector field via a Chern-Simons term, which arises as a radiative correction if gravitational torsion couples to fermions. We compute the transport equations for polarized photons from a Boltzmann-like equation, showing that such a coupling will source circular polarization of the microwave background. For the particular coupling considered here, the circular polarization effect is always negligible compared to the rotation of the linear polarization orientation, also derived using the same formalism. We note the possibility that limits on microwave background circular polarization may probe other photon interactions and related fundamental effects such as violations of Lorentz invariance.Comment: 20 pages. Revised version includes an explicit calculation of gauge invariance. Text reorganized to improve clarity, and references adde