Experiments to measure the effect of a fibre source in the diet on stool bulk are difficult and lack precision. In vitro methods which would identify fibre sources that are effective for clinical and epidemiologic use would be valuable. One important property of fibre which influences the ability of fibre to increase stool weight is its water-holding capacity (WHC). WHC was measured using centr...

BACKGROUND Stool microscopy, the commonly used test for diagnosis of intestinal amebiasis, is unreliable as it does not differentiate Entamoeba histolytica, the causative agent for amebiasis, from non-pathogenic Entamoeba dispar and Entamoeba moshkovskii. METHODS Two hundred and forty-six stool samples collected between January to February 2009, were examined microscopically for E. histolytic...

This article describes a rapid, simple and reproducible method for detecting Vibrio cholerae in diarrhoeal patients. The method involves darkfield examination of a liquid stool specimen or a rectal swab immersed in broth and immobilization of V. cholerae by the addition of specific vibrio antisera. The authors state that in 80% of cases a definitive diagnosis is available within five minutes. T...

BACKGROUND The impact of tuberculosis (TB) is exacerbated in Africa because of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) pandemic. Pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) diagnosis is difficult in HIV-infected patients and negative sputum results are more common which leads to diagnostic delay and increases morbidity and mortality. Extra-pulmonary samples such as stool may be easier to obtain and our approac...

CONTEXT The yield of in-hospital stool cultures performed more than 72 hours after admission is low, and a commonly used policy dictates that laboratories reject these cultures to save costs. However, enteropathogenic bacteria other than Clostridium difficile (EPB) may cause nosocomial illness that would be missed by use of such a "3-day rule." OBJECTIVE To develop guidelines for hospital use...

A family of permutations F of [n] = {1, 2, . . . , n} is (ε, k)-min-wise independent if for every nonempty subset X of at most k elements of [n], and for any x ∈ X, the probability that in a random element π of F , π(x) is the minimum element of π(X), deviates from 1/|X| by at most ε/|X|. This notion can be defined for the uniform case, when the elements of F are picked according to a uniform d...

The two objectives of this year’s work were (1) to finish analyzing the BSF data taken during the main field experiment of the Electromagnetic Properties of Sea Ice (EMPOSI) Accelerated Research Initiative at Barrow, Alaska in 1994, and (2) to investigate the extent to which it is possible to model light propagation in sea beginning with the ice physical properties. In particular, I wished to s...

There are many known applications of the Probabilistic Method in Extremal Finite Set Theory. In this paper we describe several examples, demonstrating some of the techniques used and illustrating some of the typical results obtained. This is partly a survey paper, but it also contains various new results. ∗Research supported in part by a United States Israel BSF Grant and by a Bergmann Memorial...

There is growing evidence that household water treatment interventions improve microbiological water quality and reduce diarrheal disease risk. Few studies have examined, however, the impact of water treatment interventions on household-level hygiene and sanitation. This study examined the association of four water and sanitation conditions (access to latrines, improved sanitation, improved wat...

The authors present findings from a largescale, random-assignment evaluation of Building Strong Families (BSF), a program offering group sessions on relationship skills education to low-income, unmarried parents who were expecting or had recently had a baby. Findings based on a 3-year follow-up survey of over 4,000 couples indicate that BSF did not succeed in its central objectives of improving...