Rodents are important intermediate and paratenic hosts for carnivore parasites, including the important zoonotic agents Toxoplasma, Echinococcus and Toxocara. Monitoring of such parasites in rodents can be used to detect increasing risks for human and veterinary public health. Rodents were trapped at four sites in Berlin, two near the city center, two at the periphery. PCRs were conducted to de...

Statistics Belgium set up an outbound call centre for the collection of output prices by way of computer-assisted telephone interviewing; the software used is the CATI-module of Blaise. Telephone interviewing was chosen because it allows very rapid data collection, which is crucial for output prices information. Another limiting factor for data availability, however, is the time and effort spen...

In a previous study, we detected unexpectedly high levels of acquired antibiotic resistance in commensal Escherichia coli isolates from a remote Guaraní Indian (Bolivia) community with very low levels of antibiotic exposure and limited exchanges with the exterior. Here we analyzed the structure of the resistant E. coli population from that community and the resistance mechanisms. The E. coli po...

W THEN notoedric mange is present in a large rabbit colony it becomes a serious menace unless adequate measures are taken to control it. The disease seems invariably to appear first on the nose, later spreading over the frontal region, lips, eyelids, and base of the ears. Simultaneously with the spread of lesions on the head, the lateral aspect of the hind limbs, the dorsal aspect of the fore l...

We present an overvi ew of our l aboratori es' research on Mul timodal Human-Computer Interf aces. By expl oi ti ng al l avai l abl e channel s of human communi cati on we aim to i ncrease exi bi l i ty, robustness, and natural ness of human-computer i nteracti on. The i nformati on sources we process i ncl ude Speech-, Character, and Gesture Recogni ti on, Faceand Eye Tracki ng, Li preadi ng, ...

Toxocara canis has extraordinary abilities to survive for many years in the tissues of diverse vertebrate species, as well as to develop to maturity in the intestinal tract of its definitive canid host. Human disease is caused by larval stages invading musculature, brain and the eye, and immune mechanisms appear to be ineffective at eliminating the infection. Survival of T. canis larvae can be ...