The primary goal of this study was to determine the conditions required for the effective inactivation of Bacillus anthracis spores on materials by using methyl bromide (MeBr) gas. Another objective was to obtain comparative decontamination efficacy data with three avirulent microorganisms to assess their potential for use as surrogates for B. anthracis Ames. Decontamination tests were conducte...

We consider a closed loop supply chain where new products are produced to order and returned products are refurbished for reselling. The solution to a price-setting problem enforces the “heavy traffic” condition, under which we address the production rate control problem for two types of cost functions. We solve a drift-control problem for an approximate system driven by a correlated two-dimens...

Bacillus anthracis spores are the infectious form of the organism for humans and animals. However, the approved human vaccine in the United States is derived from a vegetative culture filtrate of a toxigenic, nonencapsulated B. anthracis strain that primarily contains protective antigen (PA). Immunization of mice with purified spore proteins and formalin-inactivated spores (FIS) from a nonencap...

Using a significant quantity of fossil fuels has adverse impacts on our lives and will affect future generations. Additionally, there are limited and decreasing numbers of nonrenewable resources around the world. In contrast, renewable resources are not depleted and provide energy with negligible pollution. Wind energy is one of the more common renewable energy resources. This project aims to e...

Long-living Ames dwarf (df/df) mice are homozygous for a mutation of the Prop1(df) gene. As a result, mice are deficient in growth hormone (GH), prolactin (PRL) and thyrotropin (TSH). In spite of the hormonal deficiencies, df/df mice live significantly longer and healthier lives compared to their wild type siblings. We studied the effects of calorie restriction (CR) on the expression of insulin...

Lafoensia pacari (Lythraceae), popularly known in Brazil as "pacari", is a small tree native to the Cerrado that is used in folk medicine to treat cancer and as an anti-inflammatory and cicatrizing agent. We evaluated the genotoxic, cytotoxic, antigenotoxic, and anticytotoxic activities of an ethanol extract of L. pacari stem bark (EESB) using the Ames test and the mouse bone marrow micronucleu...

Bacillus cereus G9241 was isolated from a welder with a pulmonary anthrax-like illness. The organism contains two megaplasmids, pBCXO1 and pBC218. These plasmids are analogous to the Bacillus anthracis Ames plasmids pXO1 and pXO2 that encode anthrax toxins and capsule, respectively. Here we evaluated the virulence of B. cereus G9241 as well as the contributions of pBCXO1 and pBC218 to virulence...

The behavior of Bacillus anthracis Sterne spores in sterile raw ground beef was measured at storage temperatures of 2 to 70 degrees C, encompassing both bacterial growth and death. B. anthracis Sterne was weakly inactivated (-0.003 to -0.014 log10 CFU/h) at storage temperatures of 2 to 16 degrees C and at temperatures greater than and equal to 45 degrees C. Growth was observed from 17 to 44 deg...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE Enzymatic modifications of aminoglycosides result in high-level resistance in numerous bacterial species. However, the data on this aspect are elementary in our country. The present study was therefore designed to determine resistance rates and patterns, and to find out the prevalent aminoglycoside modifying enzymes (AMEs) in clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa fr...