Accurate and rapid diagnosis of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) disease in immunocompromised patients has remained as a challenge. Quantitative competitive PCR (QC-PCR) methods for detection of HCMV in these individuals have improved the positive and negative predictive values of PCR for diagnosis of HCMV disease. In this study we used QC-PCR assay, using a co-amplified DNA standard, to quantitate...

Mycosphaerella fijiensis, causal agent of black Sigatoka disease of banana, is a Dothideomycete fungus closely related to fungi that produce polyketides important for plant pathogenicity. We utilized the M. fijiensis genome sequence to predict PKS genes and their gene clusters and make bioinformatics predictions about the types of compounds produced by these clusters. Eight PKS gene clusters we...

A tentative age scale (EDC1) for the last 45 kyr is established for the new 788-m EPICA Dome C ice core using a simple ice flow model. The age of volcanic eruptions, the end of the Younger Dryas event, and the estimated depth and age of elevated Be, about 41 kyr ago were used to calibrate the model parameters. The uncertainty of EDC1 is estimated to ± 10 yr for 0 to 700 yr BP, up to ± 200 yr ba...

Abstract. South Africa is a key region to reconstruct and understand past changes in atmospheric circulation, i.e. temperate westerlies tropical easterlies. However, due the scarcity of natural archives, Africa's environmental evolution during late Quaternary remains highly debated. Many available sediment archives are peri-coastal lakes wetlands; however, paleoenvironmental signals these often...

An outbreak of infections affecting 311 patients who had undergone different invasive procedures occurred in 2004 and 2005 in the city of Belém, in the northern region of Brazil. Sixty-seven isolates were studied; 58 were from patients who had undergone laparoscopic surgeries, 1 was from a patient with a postinjection abscess, and 8 were from patients who had undergone mesotherapy. All isolates...

Context. The third Gaia data release ( DR3) contains, beyond the astrometry and photometry, dispersed light for hundreds of millions sources from prism spectra (BP RP) spectrograph (RVS). This opens a new window on chemo-dynamical properties stars in our Galaxy, essential knowledge understanding structure, formation, evolution Milky Way. Aims. To provide insight into physical Way stars, we used...

We have evaluated fluorescent amplified fragment length polymorphism (FAFLP) fingerprinting as a complementary technique for genotyping Mycobacterium tuberculosis, which may aid in the elucidation of the transmission dynamics of tuberculosis. Earlier FAFLP studies (1, 2, 3, 5) broadly employed EcoRI and MseI restriction enzymes, which are known to have a low cleavage frequency for GC genomes of...

The fabrication process of buckypapers (BPs) made from stable suspensions of as-received or functionalized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) with high purity (97.5 wt%, Baytubes), their characterization and their utilization towards novel biofuel cell electrode applications are reported. The BPs can vary in thickness between 1 μm and 200 μm, are mechanically robust, flexible, stable in sol...