After the introduction of a ban on the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) for livestock, the feeding environment, including the composition of animal intestinal microbiota, has changed rapidly. We hypothesized that the microbial genomes have also been affected by this legal prohibition, and investigated an important member of the swine gut microbiota, Lactobacillus salivarius, with a pan...

Background. Reliable ICU severity scores have been achieved by various healthcare workers but nothing is known regarding the accuracy in real life of severity scores registered by untrained nurses. Methods. In this retrospective multicentre audit, three reviewers independently reassessed 120 SAPS II scores. Correlation and agreement of the sum-scores/variables among reviewers and between nurses...

Regenerative medicine holds great potential to address many shortcomings in current medical therapies. An emerging avenue of regenerative medicine is the use of self-assembling peptides (SAP) in conjunction with stem cells to improve the repair of damaged tissues. The specific peptide sequence, mechanical properties, and nanotopographical cues vary widely between different SAPs, many of which h...

Diagnostic and Symptom Quantification Procedures Masters or Doctoral-level clinicians conducted diagnostic evaluations and clinical ratings. Diagnoses were confirmed by consensus conference. Among a random sample of 10 subjects, the level of inter-rater agreement for diagnosis was high, with kappa = 0.86. Symptoms were quantified with the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Scale for the Ass...

Desertification is the degradation of land in arid and semi-arid areas. Nowadays, lack of water and desertification are extreme problems for plant survival and growth in the arid and semi-arid areas of the world. It becomes increasingly important as to how to let the plant absorb moisture more effectively for keeping growth strong. We synthesized superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) with carbohydrate...

In this paper, we study the approach of dynamic local search for the SAT problem. We focus on the recent and promising Exponentiated Sub-Gradient (ESG) algorithm, and examine the factors determining the time complexity of its search steps. Based on the insights gained from our analysis, we developed Scaling and Probabilistic Smoothing (SAPS), an efficient SAT algorithm that is conceptually clos...

Today use of Credit Card even in developing countries has become a common scenario. People it to shop, pay bills and for online transactions. This study explored the challenges forensic technology responding credit card fraud as an approach used by South African Police Service (SAPS) Sedibeng region. was carried out utilising qualitative thirty nine interviews were among officials deployed SAPS...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of the APACHE II (Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II), SAPS II (Simplified Acute Physiology Score II) and SOFA (Sequential Organ Failure Assessment) scores compared to simpler models based on age and Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) in predicting long-term outcome of patients with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury ...

BACKGROUND Severity scores are useful to guarantee similar disease severity among groups in clinical trials and to enable comparison between different studies. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of the third generation models of severity scoring systems [simplified acute physiology score (SAPS) 3, acute physiology and chronic health evaluation (APACHE) IV and mortality probabil...

BACKGROUND The Western Cape Province had the highest homicide rates in South Africa during the early 2000s. South African Police Service (SAPS) data suggested a significant decline in homicide rates in the Western Cape since 2007. It ranked second highest to the Eastern Cape Province until 2013 and ranked highest again at 52.1/100 000 in 2015. A recent national injury mortality survey offers an...