In this paper, we describe our adaptation of the JAVELIN system to Japanese question answering for the NTCIR-6 QAC track. To establish a baseline Japaneseto-Japanese non-factoid question answering system, we performed the minimum extensions to our factoid question answering system. The answer boundary recognition task was simplified by introducing a “One Sentence Assumption” so that answer extr...

In this paper, we discuss a system for newspaper article retrieval and answer extraction. Due to the rapidly increasing amount of accessible information, systems that allow search in natural language are expected to play a much more important role in the very near future. Our system, called RAIK-Prassie, is designed for TASK 2 of QAC. The design of the RAIK-Prassie system focuses mainly on prac...

Listeria monocytogenes is a food-borne human pathogen that causes listeriosis, a relatively rare infection with a high fatality rate. The regulation of virulence gene expression is influenced by several environmental factors, and the aim of the present study was to determine how disinfectants used routinely in the food industry affect the expression of different virulence genes in L. monocytoge...

The aim of this study was to examine the presence of genes responsible for resistance to quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) and the association of qac genes with class 1 integrons in Proteus mirabilis isolated from cooked meat products. A total of 52 P. mirabilis isolates (29.2%) were detected from 178 samples, and their minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of benzalkonium chloride (BC) r...

Staphylococcus epidermidis is a versatile agent, being both a commensal and a nosocomial pathogen usually with an opportunistic role in association with implanted foreign body materials. Pre-operative antiseptic preparation is an important strategy for reducing the risk of complications such as surgical site infection (SSI). Currently, the most widely used antiseptics are alcohols, quaternary a...

BACKGROUND Recirculation (R) and access blood flow (Qac) measurements are considered useful indicators of adequate delivery of haemodialysis. It was the purpose of this study to compare measurements of R and Qac obtained by two different techniques which are based on the same principle of indicator dilution, but which differ because of the characteristics of the injection and detection of the d...