In some temporal reasoning systems, inequations can give rise to disjunctions of inequa-tions when variable elimination is performed. Motivated by this observation, we extend previous research on temporal constraints by considering disjunctions of inequations (under the assumption that time is dense.) We present results on consistency checking, canonical forms and variable elimination for this ...

Gamma irradiation is widely used for sterilization; however, its effect on elimination of amplifiable DNA, an issue of relevance to molecular diagnostic approaches, has not been well studied. The effect of gamma irradiation on the viability of Staphylococcus epidermidis and Escherichia coli (using quantitative cultures) and on their DNA (using quantitative 16S rRNA gene PCR) was evaluated. Viab...

the risk of disease spread through water, fruits and vegetables contaminated through unclean waters varies from region to another. springs and underground water resources are essentially free of germs or they have tolerable levels of germs; unless they are infected by surface water or human excreta. scientific reports have shown that outbreaks of food-borne illnesses especially foods such as fr...

The influence of sodium hydroxide addition during the thermo-chemical pretreatment of a microbial biomass has been evaluated in terms of particulate chemical oxygen demand (COD) solubilization and anaerobic biodegradability. Both COD solubilization and total solid elimination rates increased with the dose of NaOH added: COD solubilization reached 63%, and total solid elimination was 33% when 5 ...

BACKGROUND Mucosal macrophages are involved in the maintenance of epithelial barrier integrity and the elimination of invading pathogens. Although an intestinal barrier defect and microbial translocation are hallmarks of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, recent data on gut mucosal macrophages in HIV infection are sparse. METHODS Treatment-naive and treated HIV-infected patients an...

Periodontal breakdown primarily develops when the microbial load within a periodontal pocket overrules the local and systemic host defence mechanisms. Such an imbalance occurs in different situations, including an aspecific increase in the total amount of bacteria, an outgrowth/overgrowth of pathogenic species above a certain threshold level and/or a reduction in the efficiency of the immune re...