A solution to the BI action describing an expanded D3-brane is considered. The configuration is not supersymmetric but is supported against collapse by the Poynting vector. In the uniform magnetic field limit, the brane magnetic charge grows without limit while the energy and the radius of the brane remain finite. In this limit the brane consists of a large number of small D-strings forming a h...

A population survey of 1000 7 year old children found a significant excess of wheeze among children whose homes were reported to be mouldy (odds ratio 3.70, 95% confidence limits 2.22, 6.15). The airborne mould flora was quantified by repeated volumetric sampling during the winter in three rooms of the homes of 88 children. All of these had previously completed spirometric tests before and afte...

Simple gel-based one-step reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) assays, used to investigate patients during the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Singapore, were found to be as sensitive as commercial and in-house real-time RT-PCR assays. The detection limit was approximately 1 genome equivalent (GE) per 5 microl PCR mixture. One PFU of SARS coronavirus was estimated to be ...

The PCR technique has potential for use in detection of low concentrations of airborne microorganisms. In this study, the sensitivity of PCR and its susceptibility to environmental interference were assessed with Escherichia coli DH1 as the target organism. Air samples, containing environmental bioaerosols, were collected with AGI-30 samplers and seeded with E. coli DH1 cells. Parallel studies ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the microbial adherence and colonization of a polyspecies biofilm on 7 differently processed titanium surfaces. MATERIAL AND METHODS Six-species biofilms were formed anaerobically on 5-mm-diameter sterilized, saliva-preconditioned titanium discs. Material surfaces used were either machined, stained, acid-etched or sandblasted/acid-etched (SLA). Samples of the latter t...

The present study was carried out to know the lowest detection limit of Listeria monocytogenes by PCR. The quantification of organisms was done by CFU counting from ten fold serial dilution and PCR amplification of inlA gene fragment was performed from each dilution. The PCR could detect as low as 20 organisms indicating the lowest PCR detection limit. Thus, lowest number of L. monocytogenes de...

Vibrio cholerae is the etiological agent of epidemic cholera. Symptoms include stomach ache, bloody diarrhea, and vomiting, which lead to severe dehydration and even death. Environmental monitoring as well as rapid and accurate identification of this pathogen are important for public health protection. In this study, a real-time PCR method for the detection of toxigenic V. cholerae was develope...

This is the first report of 5-styryl-oxathiazol-2-ones as inhibitors of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) proteasome. As part of the study, the structure-activity relationship of oxathiazolones as Mtb proteasome inhibitors has been investigated. Furthermore, the prepared compounds displayed a good selectivity profile for Mtb compared to the human proteasome. The 5-styryl-oxathiazol-2-one inh...

Infections due to enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (Escherichia coli) have a low incidence but can have severe and sometimes fatal health consequences, and thus represent some of the most serious diseases due to the contamination of water and food. New, fast and simple devices that monitor these pathogens are necessary to improve the safety of our food supply chain. In this work we report on mesoporo...

We introduce new concepts of functional analysis: Hausdorff spectrum and Hausdorff limit or H-limit of Hausdorff spectrum of locally convex spaces. Particular cases of regular H-limit are projective and inductive limits of separated locally convex spaces. The class of H-spaces contains Fréchet spaces and is stable under forming countable inductive and projective limits, closed subspaces and quo...