introduction: the protozoan parasite, cryptosporidium spp., widely spreads in both raw and drinking waters. it is the causative agents of waterborne diarrhea and gastroenteritis in the world. in the present study, a molecular assay was used for the detection and quantification of cryptosporidium oocysts in environmental water samples. materials and methods: thirty surface water samples were col...

When cotton linters were soaked in cold 10-percent sodium hydroxide, washed, a nd neutralized, and transferred successively to methyl alcohol and benzene, and carefully dried a t reduced pressure, a surface area as high as 71.3 square meters per gram was obtained by the Brunauer , Emmett, T e ller technique. Previous areas for untreated cotton were a ll below 1 sq uare meter per gram. Linters c...

Fecal transplants are increasingly utilized for treatment of recurrent infections (i.e., Clostridium difficile) in the human gut and as a general research tool for gain-of-function experiments (i.e., gavage of fecal pellets) in animal models. Changes observed in the recipient's biology are routinely attributed to bacterial cells in the donor feces (~1011 per gram of human wet stool). Here, we e...

Toxoplasma gondii oocysts are highly resistant to many chemical sanitizers. Methods used to determine oocyst infectivity have relied primarily on mouse, chicken, and feline bioassays. Although considered gold standards, they only provide a qualitative assessment of oocyst viability. In this study, two alternative approaches were developed to quantitate viable T. gondii oocysts following treatme...

Cryptosporidium parvum is a waterborne pathogen that poses potential risk to drinking water consumers. The detection of Cryptosporidium oocysts, its transmissive stage, is used in the latest U.S. Environmental Protection Agency method 1622, which utilizes organic fluorophores such as fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) to label the oocysts by conjugation with anti-Cryptosporidium sp. monoclonal a...

Fuel ethanol is an important renewable and sustainable fuel, produced in China by fermentation of mostly corn, wheat and cassava feedstock. Fermentation produces an ethanol-lean broth (10 to 12 vol%). Ethanol is recovered by distillation, followed by a molecular sieve drying beyond the azeotropic point. The distillation and molecular sieve operations consume most of the total energy used, with ...

OBJECTIVES To examine the correlation between airborne 2-methoxy ethanol (ME) exposures and the urinary 2-methoxy acetic acid (MAA) and to recommend a biological exposure index (BEI) for ME. METHODS 8 Hour time weighted average (TWA) personal breathing zone samples and urine samples before and after the shift were collected from Monday to Saturday for 27 workers exposed to ME and on Friday fo...

The ongoing industrialization of Thailand, a developing country in Southeast Asia, has put many occupations at high risk of benzene exposure. However, there are few reports about monitoring the biomarkers of benzene exposure among Thais. In this study, we report on high urine trans, trans-muconic acid (ttMA) levels among the fishermen of a rural community. Using high-performance liquid chromato...