Introduction Increase in multi-drug resistant (MDR) Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) strains is a worrisome trend seen during recent years. Rapid detection of MDR strains is very important to restrict their spread in the population. Gold standard methods for drug susceptibility testing (DST) of MTB are either costly or very slow. Nitrate reductase assay (NRA) is one of the methods for rapid det...

BACKGROUND Drug susceptibility testing for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) is especially required in difficult cases of tuberculosis (TB) chemotherapy and in cases of multidrug resistance (MDR-TB; combined resistance to isonizid and rifampicin with or without resistance to any other drug). The methods for in vitro cultivation and drug susceptibility testing (DST) of M. tuberculosis...

We present SMT-RAT, a C++ toolbox offering theory solver modules for the development of SMT solvers for nonlinear real arithmetic (NRA). NRA is an important but hard-to-solve theory and only fragments of it can be handled by some of the currently available SMT solvers. Our toolbox contains modules implementing the virtual substitution method, the cylindrical algebraic decomposition method, a Gr...

In the present study, the effectiveness of a rapid and colorimetric nitrate reductase analysis (NRA) method and resazurin microplate assay (REMA) for rapid determination of methicillin resistance among Staphylococcus aureus was investigated. A total of 275 clinical isolates of S. aureus were included in the present study. Among these isolates, 151 had the mecA gene and were resistant to methici...

To the Editor: Despite high rates of unintentional firearm injuries,1-3 and recognition by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that firearm education is important,4 it is often said that firearm injuries occur primarily among inexperienced users and that firearm safety comes with experience and training. To investigate this contention, we conducted a study in which we hypothesized that firearm...

This paper is an attempt to synthesize nanostructured tantalum films on medical grade AISI 316L stainless steel (SS) using pulsed DC plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD). The impact of duty cycle (17-33%) and total pressure (3-10 torr) were studied using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD), nuclear reaction analysis (NRA)...

Straipsnyje glaustai apžvelgiami dabartiniai politiniai ir administraciniai santykiai Europos parlamentinės demokratijos sąlygomis. Daugiausia dėmesio skiriama įtakai, kurią šiems santykiams padarė nepriklausomos reguliavimo agentūros (NRA), empiriniams duomenims, patvirtinantiems trijų skirtingų scenarijų galimybę: (1) politikai atsižada galios kontroliuoti NRA interesų grupių naudai; (2) išli...

Surgeons general of the United States have often championed important causes that improve the nation’s health. Leroy Burney and Luther Terry took on the issue of smoking and health. C. Everett Koop championed the treatment of HIV-AIDS as a medical condition. With the nomination of Dr. Vivek Murthy, who aims to take on the epidemic of obesity, President Barack Obama is striving to continue this ...

Many plans to restore long-term solvency to the Social Security system include a proposal to raise the age of eligibility for full retired worker benefits, known as the normal retirement age (NRA). Until 2000, eligible workers could retire with full retired worker benefits at age 65 and with reduced benefits as young as 62. Beginning with workers turning 62 in 2000, however, the NRA is rising b...