the effect of shoot pruning (2, 3 and 4 branches per plant) and fruit position selection (on main branch vs on main and lateral branches) on yield and qualitative characteristics of two greenhouse grown pepper (capsicum annuum l.) cultivars (torkal and paramo) was studied through a factorial experiment arranged in a completely randomized block design, of three replications. results indicated th...

A survey on the presence of Cryptosporidium oocyst and Giardia cyst in livestock drinking water as well as the urban tap water throughout Taiwan was carried out. Water examination for the presence of the protozoa was conducted by filtering through a PTFE membrane followed by immunomagnetic separation (IMS) and immunostaining the sediment with commercially available monoclonal antibody against C...

A commercial enzyme immunoassay (EIA) (ProSpect Rapid Assay), a direct immunofluorescence antibody (IFA) test for stool testing (MERIFLUOR Cryptosporidium/Giardia), and an indirect IFA test for environmental testing (Hydrofluor-Combo Cryptosporidium/Giardia) were evaluated for detection of low public health risk Cryptosporidium oocyst isolates, and for C. parvum oocyst isolates from human and b...

An immunosuppressed rat model was used to investigate the anti-Cryptosporidium parvum activity of sinefungin. In infected animals, oral sinefungin therapy resulted in a dose-related suppression of oocyst shedding, which correlated with oocyst disappearance from ileal sections. When administered prior to or on the day of oocyst challenge, sinefungin successfully prevented infection. These data s...

Two standard methods are available to infect mosquitoes with malaria parasites: direct feeding through the skin of the gametocyte carrier, and membrane feeding. Anopheles arabiensis collected at larval stages and reared in an insectary were fed in parallel by feeding on Plasmodium falciparum gametocyte carriers and by membrane feeding on venous blood of the same gametocyte carriers. Infection o...

Cryptosporidium parvum is an important pathogen that causes diarrhea in virtually all human populations. Improved diagnostic methods are needed to understand the risk factors, modes of transmission, and impact of cryptosporidiosis. In the present study, we fluorescently labeled and counted C. parvum oocysts by flow cytometry (FC) and developed a simple and efficient method of processing human s...

Background: Mosquito stage malaria vaccines are designed to induce an immune response in the human host that will block the parasite's growth in the mosquito and consequently block transmission of the parasite. A mosquito membrane-feeding assay (MFA) is used to test transmission-blocking activity (TBA), but in this technique cannot accommodate many samples. A clear understanding of the relation...

A monoclonal antibody enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was developed to detect Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts in bovine feces. Fecal oocysts were concentrated by centrifugation through Formalin-ethyl acetate solution and captured with monoclonal antibody 18.280.2 reactive with C. parvum oocysts. Captured oocysts were detected with goat anti-oocyst serum, following the addition of a per...

BACKGROUND Protein needs for athletes are likely higher than those for the general population. However, athletes may perceive their protein needs to be excessively high. The purpose of this research was to compare collegiate athletes' perceived protein needs and measured protein intake to the recommended protein intake (RDI) for healthy adults (i.e. 0.8 g/kg/d) and to the maximum beneficial lev...

Transmission of the malaria parasite Plasmodium is influenced by many different host, vector and parasite factors. Here we conducted a field study at Mbita, an area of endemic malaria in Western Kenya, to test whether parasite transmission to mosquitoes is influenced by the severity of malaria infection in its human host at the time when gametocytes, the transmission forms, are present in the p...