Gastrointestinal transit survival of an Enterococcus faecium probiotic strain administered with or without vancomycin

The primary aim of this study was to evaluate if an ingested probiotic, containing viable Enterococcus faecium could survive gastrointestinal transit and if so, correlate the amount of the recovered probiotic strain with the host's own enterococci. The second aim was to investigate if simultaneous vancomycin intake influenced the survival and persistence of the probiotic strain and the stability of endogenous enterococci strains. Twenty healthy volunteers were given the probiotic product once daily for 10 days. Half of the subjects were simultaneously given vancomycin. Isolates of E. faecium strains were genotypically or phenotypically analysed with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and the PhenePlate system, respectively. In eight of the ten volunteers given only the probiotic, the ingested E. faecium could be detected on day 10, while in none on day 31. From subjects given both probiotic and vancomycin no ingested E. faecium could be detected on day 10 or day 31. The estimated amount of ingested E. faecium recovered from faeces on day 10 ranged from 1.2 x 10(3) to 4.2 x 10(6) colony forming units per gram faeces, which in several cases were a substantial part of the total amount of E. faecium. The E. faecium isolated before probiotic plus vancomycin administration showed no close relationship to the ones isolated 3 weeks after ceased intake in any subjects. In conclusion, the ingested E. faecium strain can survive gastrointestinal transit. After intake, the E. faecium probiotic strain might become a large part of the total E. faecium population. The occurrence of the probiotic strain in the human gut seems to be transient after intake stop. Re-colonization of E. faecium after simultaneous probiotic plus vancomycin intake occurs mainly with strains without close genetic relationship to the strains harboured before treatment or to the ingested E. faecium strain.     

Polymeric pH nanosensor with extended measurement range bearing octaarginine as cell penetrating peptide

A synthetic peptide octaarginine which mimics human immunodeficiency virus‐1, Tat protein is used as cell penetrating moiety for new pH nanosensors which demonstrate enhanced cellular uptake and expanded measurement range from pH 3.9 to pH 7.3 by simultaneously incorporating two complemental pH‐sensitive fluorophores in a same nanoparticle. The authors believe that this triple fluorescent pH sensor provides a new tool to pH measurements that can have application in cellular uptake mechanism study and new nanomedicine design.Inspec keywords: polymers, chemical sensors, nanosensors, biomembrane transport, microorganisms, proteins, biomimetics, biosensors, molecular configurations, biochemistry, molecular biophysics, nanoparticles, nanomedicine, nanocomposites, dyes, optical sensors, spectrochemical analysis, nanofabrication, biomedical measurementOther keywords: polymeric pH nanosensor, extended measurement range, octaarginine, cell penetrating peptide, synthetic peptide, human immunodeficiency virus‐1 Tat protein mimicking, cell penetrating moiety, complemental pH‐sensitive fluorophore incorporation, nanoparticle, triple fluorescent pH sensor, pH measurement, cellular uptake mechanism study, nanomedicine design     

Evaluation of ecological interface design for nuclear process control: situation awareness effects

OBJECTIVE: We determine whether an ecological interface display for nuclear power plant operations supports improved situation awareness over traditional and user-centered displays in a realistic environment. BACKGROUND: Ecological interface design (EID) has not yet been fully evaluated with real operators facing realistic scenarios. METHOD: Ecological displays were evaluated alongside traditional and user-centered "advanced" displays in a full-scope nuclear power plant simulation. Licensed plant operators used the displays in realistic scenarios that either had procedural support or did not have procedural support. All three displays were evaluated for their ability to support operator situation awareness. RESULTS: A significant three-way interaction effect was observed on two independent measures of situation awareness. For both measures, ecological displays improved situation awareness in scenarios that did not have procedural support, primarily in the detection phases of those scenarios. No other pronounced effects appeared across both measures. CONCLUSIONS: The observed improvement was sufficiently large to suggest that EID could improve situation awareness in situations where procedures are unavailable. However, the EID displays did not lead to improved situation awareness in the other conditions of the evaluation, and participants using these displays occasionally underperformed on single measures of situation awareness. This suggests that the approach requires further development, particularly in integrating EID with procedural support. APPLICATION: This research has important findings for the ongoing development of the EID approach, the design of industrial operator displays, and design to support situation awareness.     

Loads on Braced Excavations in Soft Clay

A parametric finite element study has been carried out to demonstrate the importance of clay strength and depth of clay layer on the earth pressures, strut loads, and bending moments for a strutted sheet pile wall in soft, essentially normally consolidated clay. The clay is modeled as nonlinear and anisotropic. The modeled excavation is 10?m deep. For a shear strength profile giving a close to failure condition the maximum bending moment is found to be 6 times larger than for a clay profile with 40% higher strength, and the maximum strut loads are up to twice as large. The maximum strut loads are significantly higher than those given by existing empirical design rules. Comparative analyses with an isotropic linear elastic–plastic soil model show relatively small differences in moments and strut loads. Comparisons against analyses with a beam-on-spring type finite element model show significant differences to the continuum FEM analyses. The main reason is that beam-on-spring models cannot capture the significant effect of arching on earth pressures, strut loads and bending moments.     

Interactive Visual and Postvisual Processes and Their Roles in Form-Specific Memory.

Effects of depth of encoding on form-specific memory were examined. After viewing words (e.g., "bear") presented centrally during initial encoding, participants completed word stems (e.g., "BEA") presented laterally and pattern masked during subsequent test. When the encoding task was perceptual, letter-case specific memory was not observed, unlike in previous experiments without pattern masking. However, when the encoding task required both perceptual and conceptual processing, letter-case specific memory was observed in direct right-hemisphere, but not in direct left-hemisphere, test presentations, like in previous studies without pattern masking. Results were not influenced by whether stems were completed to form the first words that came to mind or words explicitly retrieved from encoding. Depth of encoding may influence form-specific memory through interactive processing of visual and postvisual information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Release rates of chromium and nickel from 304 and 316 stainless steel during urban atmospheric exposure—a combined field and laboratory study

Release rates of chromium and nickel from pickled and skin passed 304 and 316 stainless steel have been determined during a one-year field exposure in an urban environment (Stockholm, Sweden) and through complementary exposures in artificial rain. Measured annual release rates from 304 stainless steel are 0.25-0.3 mg Cr/m² and 0.3-0.4 mg Ni/m², and slightly higher from 316 stainless steel, 0.35-0.4 mg Cr/m² and 0.7-0.8 mg Ni/m². The release rates decrease as the rain pH increases and exhibit no direct influence by rain intensity. Variations in release rates are thought to be a result of a non-uniformly attack.     

Pyrrolizidine alkaloid content in crude and processed borage oil from different processing stages

The pyrrolizidine alkaloid content of crude borage oil and borage oil from different processing stages was determined by GC-MS. The results showed that no pyrrolizidine alkaloids were present above a detection limit of 20 ppb. The reduction factors for pyrrolizidine alkaloids at various stages in the oil refining process were determined by means of spiking experiments using the commercially available pyrrolizidine alkaloid crotaline. It was shown that the pyrrolizidine content in crude borage oil was reduced overall by a factor of about 30,000 in the refining process.     

The PhenePlate system for studies of the diversity of enterococcal populations from the food chain and the environment

The growing interest in ecological investigations, such as studies of the "flow" of bacteria through the food chain, has resulted in a great need for simple typing techniques for bacteria that can be used when a large number of isolates need to be analysed. The present study describes a simple method for biochemical fingerprinting of enterococci, the PhenePlate RF (PhP-RF) system. The system is based on a 96-well microplate containing eight sets of 11 dehydrated reagents, selected to have a high discriminatory power among enterococcal isolates. The PhP plates are inoculated easily by picking single colonies directly from the primary agar culture and suspending them in the first well of each row in the microplate. The kinetics of each reaction is evaluated by measuring the absorbance value of each well three times during 64 h, whereupon a biochemical fingerprint is calculated as the mean value for each reagent over the three readings. The PhP-RF method was shown to be highly reproducible, even when results were compared between different laboratories. The discriminatory power, measured as Simpson's diversity index (Di), was as high as 0.96 for all enterococci. The PhP-RF method could also be used as a preliminary species identification method, by comparing the biochemical fingerprints of unknown strains to those of a set of reference strains of known species. Most strains of Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium and Enterococcus hirae were correctly identified using this method. We conclude that the PhenePlate RF system is useful for rapid typing of enterococcal populations, and it is especially useful as a first screening method for ecological studies, when many isolates per sample need to be analysed.     

Surface-bounded growth modeling applied to human mandibles

From a set of longitudinal three-dimensional scans of the same anatomical structure, we have accurately modeled the temporal shape and size changes using a linear shape model. On a total of 31 computed tomography scans of the mandible from six patients, 14,851 semilandmarks are found automatically using shape features and a new algorithm called geometry-constrained diffusion. The semilandmarks are mapped into Procrustes space. Principal component analysis extracts a one-dimensional subspace, which is used to construct a linear growth model. The worst case mean modeling error in a cross validation study is 3.7 mm.     

The influence of rotor design and inverter type on the magnet volume of synchronous machines investigated by numerical field calculation and vector-optimization methods

Contents Numerical field calculation and mathematical vector-optimization methods are applied in order to find the most appropriate design of the rotor of synchronous machines with rare earth magnet excitation. The paper presents an optimization procedure consisting of the formulation of the users preference, the treatment of the nonlinear constraints and different optimization algorithms. To demonstrate the efficiency of the methods different magnet configurations in the rotor of the machine are compared, while considering different supply modes like inverter supply (voltage or current source) or mains supply.

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Untersuchung des Einflusses von Rotorauslegung und Umrichtertyp auf das Magnetvolumen von Synchronmaschinen mit Hilfe numerischer Feldberechnung und Vector-Optimierung

Übersicht Um die günstigste Auslegung von Synchronmaschinen mit Seltenerdmagneterregung zu finden, werden Verfahren der numerischen Feldberechnung und der mathematischen Optimierung angewendet. Es wird eine Optimierungsprozedur vorgestellt, die aus der Formulierung der Wünsche des Anwenders, der Behandlung der nichtlinearen Restriktionen und dem Vergleich verschiedener Optimierungsalgorithmen besteht. Die Wirksamkeit des Verfahrens wird an Synchronmotoren mit verschiedenen Magnetkonfigurationen erprobt, bei unterschiedlichen Versorgungsarten, wie Frequenzumrichterspeisung (mit Spannungs- oder Stromeinprägung) und Netzspeisung.