SETTING Four regional laboratories belonging to the Mycobacteria Reference Laboratory of São Paulo State, Brazil. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the nitrate reductase assay (NRA) for rifampicin (RMP) susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis directly from clinical sputum samples of patients with pulmonary tuberculosis (TB). DESIGN Performance of the NRA for detection of M.tuberculosis sus...

In this work, three slanted silver nanorod arrays (NRAs) with different thicknesses are fabricated using the glancing angle deposition method. Each silver NRA in the Kretschmann configuration is arranged to form a prism/NRA/air system. Attenuated total reflection occurs over the visible wavelengths and wide incident angles of both s- and p-polarization states. The extinctance is inversely propo...

Intertidal macroalgae Fucus and Laminaria experience seasonally fluctuating inorganic N supply. This study examined the effects of long-term N deprivation, recovery following N resupply, and effects of elevated ammonium and nitrate exposure on N acquisition in intertidal algae using manipulations of N supply in tank culture. Over 15 weeks of N deprivation, internal N and nitrate reductase activ...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate nitrate reductase assay (NRA) efficacy for streptomycin, isoniazid, rifampicin and ethambutol susceptibility testing of Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains. METHODS Results were generated by three laboratories: the Instituto Adolfo Lutz (IAL) Mycobacteria Reference Laboratory and two IAL Regional Laboratories in Santo André and Sorocaba, São Paulo State, Brazil. One hund...

A rapid colorimetric, microplate based nitrate reductase assay (NRA) method for minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) determination of clinical isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was compared with the microplate Alamar Blue assay (MABA), presently in vogue. Reproducible results were obtained in 7 days by NRA. The NRA method was found to be inexpensive, suitable for MIC determination agains...

BACKGROUND Spinal muscular atrophy type 1 (SMA1) is a progressive disease and is usually fatal in the first year of life. METHODS A retrospective chart review was performed of SMA1 patients and their outcomes according to the following choices: letting nature take its course (NT); tracheostomy and invasive mechanical ventilation (TV); continuous noninvasive respiratory muscle aid (NRA), inclu...

Our laboratory has proposed that the nucleus retroambiguus (NRA) generates the specific motor performance displayed by female cats during mating and that it uses direct pathways to the motoneurons of the lower limb muscles involved in this activity. In the hamster a similar NRA-projection system could generate the typical female mating posture, which is characterized by lordosis of the back as ...

The aim of this study was to evaluate a nitrate reductase assay (NRA) performed on smear-positive sputa for the direct detection of rifampin resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. A total of 213 smear-positive sputa with a positivity score of 1+ or more (>1 acid-fast bacillus per field by fluorescence microscopy) were used in the study. The samples were decontaminated using the modified Petr...

Efficient processing of top-k queries has become a classical research area recently since it has lots of application fields. Fagin et al. proposed the “middleware cost” for a top-k query algorithm. In some databases there is no way to perform a random access, Fagin et al. proposed NRA (No Random Access) algorithm for this case. In this paper, we provided some key observations of NRA. Based on t...

Many Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus [GAS]) virulence factor- and transcriptional regulator-encoding genes cluster together in discrete genomic regions. Nra is a central regulator of the FCT region. Previous studies exclusively described Nra as a transcriptional repressor of adhesin and toxin genes. Here transcriptome and proteome analysis of a serotype M49 GAS strain and an isoge...