Chitosan (CS)-polylacticacid (PLA)-polyethylene glycol (PEG)-gelatin (G) nanoparticles, a novel drug vehicle for the controlled release of an antitubercluosis drug, rifampicin (RIF) was developed and its chemical and biochemical activities were studied by various standard methods. The designed carriers CS, PEG and G nanoparticles were prepared by emulsion solvent evaporation technique, and then...

To identify the most active curative treatment of Buruli ulcer, two regimens incorporating the use of rifampin (RIF) were compared with the use of RIF alone in a mouse footpad model of Mycobacterium ulcerans infection. Treatments began after footpad swelling from infection and continued for 12 weeks with five doses weekly of one of the following regimens: (i) 10 mg of RIF/kg alone; (ii) 10 mg o...

Combinatorial optimization problems on graphs arise in many practical applications. One of the most studied practical combinatorial optimization problem is the Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). When coupled with modern in-car navigation and fleet management software, real world applications of VRP optimization result in significant cost savings. In this paper novel multiple improvements pivoting r...

Nocardia species are gram-positive environmental saprophytes, but some cause the infectious disease nocardiosis. The complete genomic sequence of Nocardia farcinica IFM 10152 has been determined, and analyses indicated the presence of two different RNA polymerase beta subunit genes, rpoB and rpoB2, in the genome (J. Ishikawa, A. Yamashita, Y. Mikami, Y. Hoshino, H. Kurita, K. Hotta, T. Shiba, a...

Objective: To analyze characterization of the rpoB gene mutations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolated from China and to explore the association of specific mutations conferring rifampicin (RIF) resistance with Beijing genotype strains. Methods: Genotypic analysis of 3479 M. tuberculosis isolates including 402 RIF-resistant and 3077 RIF-susceptible isolated from the national drug-resistant tu...

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of the combination of rifampicin (RIF) and verapamil (VP) against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv reference strain and six multidrug-resistant (MDR) M. tuberculosis clinical isolates by determining Time-Kill Curves and the ability to efflux drug by fluorometry. The RIF+VP combination showed synergism in one MDR clinical isolate. For t...

Amoeboma is a rare manifestation of intestinal amoebiasis. More than 90% of patients with intestinal amoebiasis have a history of diarrhoea. This report describes the case of a 60-year-old patient who presented with a right iliac fossa (RIF) mass with normal bowel habits and was eventually diagnosed with an amoeboma. In developing countries, a traditional differential diagnosis for an RIF mass ...

OBJECTIVES The efficacy of rifampicin-loaded polymeric microspheres (RPLGA) delivered to guinea pigs infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (H37Rv) was compared with a daily dose of nebulized rifampicin suspension. METHODS Aerosol-infected animals were subjected to multiple dose or single dose treatment with RPLGA, PLGA microspheres or micronized rifampicin suspension aerosols. For comparis...

A characterization of 61 rifampin (RIF)-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates revealed two isolates (Rif-15 and Rif16) of the Spain-5 clone with identical recombinant rpoB genes (5) that were collected at the Hospital Donostia (HD) from two human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients. Given that the Spain-5 clone has been extensively studied in HD (10, 11), we have analyzed in this wor...

An algorithm for the solution of banded linear systems is presented and discussed which combines stability with scalability. This is achieved by implementing divide and conquer for Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting. Earlier divide and conquer algorithms for Gaussian elimination have problems with instabil-ities and can even break down as they implement a more restricted form of pivotin...