Sera from (259) sheep and (88) goats from Erbil city were examined for antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii by using latex, MAT, and ELISA. By using latex test, 75 (25.4%) sheep and 25 (28.4%) goats were seropositive. By testing the latex seropositive sheep serum by both MAT and ELISA the distribution of both positive and negative results were as such respectively: 63 (84%), 12 (16%), 11 (14.7%), 64...

We read the article by Dutta et al on “Leptospirosis An Overview” with interest.1 The problem in utilizing microscopic agglutination test (MAT) has been highlighted and we shall discuss briefly the current status of MAT. MAT is considered the gold standard test for diagnosis of leptospirosis. It has unsurpassed specificity, but its sensitivity is low compared to ELISA/SAT (Slide agglutination t...

Multidimensional adaptive testing (MAT) is a highly efficient method for the simultaneous measurement of several latent traits. Currently, no psychometrically sound approach is available for the use of MAT in testlet-based tests. Testlets are sets of items sharing a common stimulus such as a graph or a text. They are frequently used in large operational testing programs like TOEFL, PISA, PIRLS,...

Our objective in this study was to characterize prokaryotic sulphide production within the oxygenic, predominantly eukaryotic algal mat in an acidic stream, Nymph Creek, in Yellowstone National Park (YNP). We used microsensors to examine fluctuations in H2S and O2 concentrations over time through the vertical aspect of the approximately 3 mm mat in a 46-48 degrees C region of the creek. We also...

MOTIVATION Individual probes on an Affymetrix tiling array usually behave differently. Modeling and removing these probe effects are critical for detecting signals from the array data. Current data processing techniques either require control samples or use probe sequences to model probe-specific variability, such as with MAT. Although the MAT approach can be applied without control samples, re...

Twenty-five isolates of Fusarium fujikuroi acquired from rice seeds and rice plants evidencing symptoms of Bakanae disease were evaluated to determine their mating types and characterize the formation of their sexual state. The mating types of the isolates were evaluated via multiplex PCR with the diagnostic primers of the mating-type (MAT) region: GFmat1a, GFmat1b, GFmat2c, and GFmat2d. Among ...

A multiplex PCR test for determining mating type of the pathogens Tapesia yallundae and Tapesia acuformis is described. The test involves three primers: a "common" primer annealing to DNA sequence conserved in the flanking region of both mating-type idiomorphs and two specific primers annealing to sequence in either the MAT-1 or the MAT-2 idiomorphs. Locating the specific primers in different p...

The Cuatro Ciénegas Basin (CCB) is an oasis in the desert of Mexico characterized by low phosphorus availability and by its great diversity of microbial mats. We compared the metagenomes of two aquatic microbial mats from the CCB with different nutrient limitations. We observed that the red mat was P-limited and dominated by Pseudomonas, while the green mat was N-limited and had higher species ...

Retinoblastoma (Rb)/E2F complexes repress expression of many genes important for G(1)-to-S transition, but also appear to regulate gene expression at other stages of the cell cycle. In C. elegans, lin-35/Rb and other synthetic Multivulva (SynMuv) group B genes function redundantly with other sets of genes to regulate G(1)/S progression, vulval and pharyngeal differentiation, and other unknown p...

BACKGROUND Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease with a worldwide distribution. There is a paucity of available data about prevalence of this disease in Pondicherry. Our aim was to investigate the seropositivity rate of leptospirosis in suspected cases and also to identify the predominant serogroups present by performing Microscopic Agglutination Test (MAT). The other aim of this study was to com...