In healthy humans, many microbial consortia constitute rich ecosystems with dozens to hundreds of species, finely tuned to functions relevant to human health. Medical interventions, lifestyle changes, and the normal rhythms of life sometimes upset the balance in microbial ecosystems, facilitating pathogen invasions or causing other clinically relevant problems. Some diseases, such as bacterial ...

Composts are known for their suppressive properties toward many different seed- and root-infecting pathogens and diseases. Although disease and pathogen suppression induced by composts is believed to be mediated by microbial activities, the nature of the microbial species and processes responsible for suppressiveness remain unknown. We demonstrated previously that seed-colonizing microbial cons...

The recent application of molecular microbial ecology tools to sponge-microbe associations has revealed a glimpse into the biodiversity of these microbial communities, that is considered just 'the tip of the iceberg'. This chapter provides an overview over these new findings with regard to identity, diversity and distribution patterns of sponge-associated microbial consortia. The sponges Aplysi...

Sake (Japanese rice wine) production is a complex, multistage process in which fermentation is performed by a succession of mixed fungi and bacteria. This study employed high-throughput rRNA marker gene sequencing, quantitative PCR, and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism to characterize the bacterial and fungal communities of spontaneous sake production from koji to product as we...

The brief from Resource was to undertake structured interviews with library authorities and consortia in England with a view to identifying:. what works well;. what are the various management models that have been adopted;. what is problematic with respect to the management of commercial products;. what issues and concerns staff have; and. what are their views on future development and how such...

internationalization is a matter of committed decision-making that starts with export marketing, in which an organization tries to diagnose and use opportunities in target markets based on realistic evaluation of internal strengths and weaknesses with analysis of macro and microenvironments in order to gain presence in other countries. a developed model for export and international marketing of...

Export and the readiness to export constitute the first step of international marketing, which are affected by both internal and external factors of firms. One of the most important internal  factors is the presence of skilled personnel. The purpose of this study was to define the relationship between staff qualification and encouragment with the readiness level of Iranian pharmacuetical firms ...

In mobile telecommunications, numerous formal and quasi-formal standard setting organizations (SSOs) exist that are dedicated to technology standardization. Yet, hundreds of more or less informal industry consortia have been established also deal with technical standards. Some these aim develop standards themselves – thus compete existing, while others complement existing relate them in other w...