Influenza is diagnosed by culturing influenza virus in respiratory secretions. Although childhood infection with respiratory syncytial virus is detected by culturing nasopharyngeal aspirates, in adults with influenza throat swabs are generally taken. This report compares culture of nasopharyngeal aspirates with culture of throat swabs and rapid culture methods with standard methods in detecting...

lthough of crucial importance, human trials of HIV vaccines should not go forward without appropriate attention to ethical considerations. This chapter provides an overview of the ethical considerations that arise in the design and conduct of clinical trials of preventive HIV vaccines.1 The primary focus of this chapter is on Phase III (efficacy) trials; however, many ethical issues relevant to...

There are three distinct regimes in which radio observations of the redshifted 21 cm line of HI can contribute directly to cosmology in unique ways. The regimes are naturally divided by redshift, from high to low, into: inflationary physics, the Dark Ages and reionization, and galaxy evolution and Dark Energy. Each measurement presents its own set of technical, theoretical, and observational ch...

objective: this study evaluated in vitro maturation (ivm) of oocytes in the germinal vesicle (gv) stage in stimulated intracytoplasmic sperm injection (icsi) cycles. materials and methods: a total of 26 women, aged 18 -37 years, who were candidates for icsi at the fatemeh zahra infertility and health reproductive research center in 2007 were recruited for this study. we used the standard long p...

Although cattle are reservoirs, no validated method exists to monitor Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O157 (STEC O157) on farms. In 29 Midwestern United States feedlot pens we compared culturing faeces from the individual cattle to: (1) culturing rope devices that cattle rub or chew; and (2) culturing a composite of faecal pats. Eighty-six per cent (68-96%) of pens were classified correc...