This study is aimed at identifying antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and virulence-encoded genes in Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) isolates from a rural hospital in Southern Malawi. S. aureus isolates were further characterized by typing of staphylococcal protein A (spa). We conducted a cross-sectional study of 36 Staphylococcus isolates from clinical samples collected at Malamulo Hospital in Makwasa, Malawi. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing was performed using the disc diffusion method. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect AMR genes (mecA, ermA, ermB, ermC, tetK, tetL, tetM, and tetO) and virulence genes (PVL: lukS-PV, lukF-PV; splA, splB, splC, splD, splE, and splF). PCR also confirmed S. aureus isolates through the detection of nuc, spa, or coa genes. Spa typing of S. aureus isolates was performed by Sanger sequencing. The 36 isolates were identified as 14 S. aureus and 22 CoNS species. The highest resistance among all isolates was against sulfamethoxazole/trimethoprim (n = 18, χ2 = 2.338, df = 2, p = 0.311), penicillin (n = 15, χ2 = 2.258, df = 1, p = 0.175), and tetracycline (n = 14, χ2 = 1.190, df = 1, p = 0.314). One CoNS and three S. aureus isolates demonstrated phenotypic multidrug methicillin resistance. The tetK gene was significantly more prevalent among S. aureus compared with CoNS isolates (χ2 = 10.227, df = 1, p < 0.01). No significant difference was found between S. aureus and CoNS in the detection of mecA (χ2 = 1.063, df = 1, p = 0.547), tetL (χ2 = 1.348, df = 1, p = 0.511), tetM (χ2 = 0.110, df = 1, p = 1.000), or PVL genes (lukS-PV and lukF-PV) (χ2 = 4.129, df = 1, p = 0.064). Spa typing identified seven spa types, with the most common type identified as t941 (n = 3). This study reveals the presence of both multidrug-resistant CoNS and S. aureus strains with diverse spa types in rural Southern Malawi and highlights a role for molecular testing in surveillance and diagnostic testing.
Pelvic floor muscle (PFM) exercises are essential for managing stress urinary incontinence (SUI), and various approaches, including differing lower limb positions and the use of assistive devices, have been proposed to enhance their effectiveness. This study aimed to evaluate how different lower limb positions and co-contraction of peri-hip muscles affect the efficiency of voluntary PFM contractions. Nineteen healthy female participants performed four types of PFM exercises: supine (Exercise A, Ex-A), supine kneeling (Exercise B,Ex-B), supine kneeling with hip abduction (Exercise C,Ex-C), and supine kneeling with hip adduction (Exercise D,Ex-D). Bladder base elevation, as an indicator of PFM contraction efficiency, was assessed using ultrasound. The results showed that the supine kneeling position (Ex-B) produced significantly greater bladder base elevation compared to the standard supine position (Ex-A) (p < 0.01). However, adding hip abduction or adduction (Ex-C and Ex-D) led to significantly lower elevations than Ex-B (p < 0.01), suggesting that co-contraction of the peri-hip muscles may reduce the efficiency of voluntary PFM contractions. This study indicates that the supine kneeling position is the most effective posture for PFM exercises, emphasizing the importance of avoiding unnecessary peri-hip muscle engagement to maximize contraction efficiency. These findings may help improve exercise protocols for preventing and managing SUI. However, a limitation of the study is the exclusive inclusion of young, healthy women; further research is needed in SUI patients or at-risk populations to confirm these results and develop more targeted exercise strategies.
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In July 2020 the New Zealand Human Rights Commission launched their Voice of Racism digital experience as part of their Give Nothing to Racism Campaign. On the website you can "experience" the racism felt by real New Zealanders as performed by internationally acclaimed New Zealand director Taika Waititi. The immersive campaign provides some insights into the lived experience of racism and the anti-racism action that follows in Aotearoa, New Zealand. This paper, using ethnographic and critical race methods, uses a critical and systematic review of the Voice of Racism digital experience to consider: What is the New Zealand experience of racism? How are experiences of racism curated for the general population through the NZ HRC Voice of Racism online education campaign? This article suggests the campaign employs a classic diversity logic by calling attention to racism, recentering whiteness, and completely ignoring the systemic and institutional foundations that create and sustain white settler societies like New Zealand.
Since the renaissance, specimens have been central tools of knowledge production in zoological endeavours. The biographies of CN86 and CN87 of the Zoological Museum of the University of Copenhagen--specimens formerly known as hip-bones of giants--have travelled through 300 years of human history, a journey that reveals how the accumulation of objects and changes in scientific methodology can give rise to radical reinterpretation. Although the material form of these specimens has hardly changed, the ideas associated with them have undergone extraordinary transition.
We construct a deformation quantization with separation of variables of the Grassmannian $G_{2,4}(\mathbb{C})$. A star product on $G_{2,4}(\mathbb{C})$ can be explicitly determined as the solution of the recurrence relations for $G_{2,4}(\mathbb{C})$ given by Hara and one of the authors (A. Sako). To provide the solution to the recurrence relations, it is necessary to solve a system of linear equations in each order. However, to give a concrete expression of the general term is not simple because the variables increase with the order of the differentiation of the star product. For this reason, there has been no formula to express the general term of the recurrence relations. In this paper, we overcome this problem by transforming the recurrence relations into simpler ones. We solve the recurrence relations using creation and annihilation operators on a Fock space. From this solution, we obtain an explicit formula of a star product with separation of variables on $G_{2,4}(\mathbb{C})$.
We give a complex two-dimensional noncommutative locally symmetric Kähler manifold via a deformation quantization with separation of variables. We present an explicit formula of its star product by solving the system of recurrence relations given by Hara-Sako. In the two-dimensional case, this system of recurrence relations gives two types of equations corresponding to the two coordinates. From the two types of recurrence relations, symmetrized and antisymmetrized recurrence relations are obtained. The symmetrized one gives the solution of the recurrence relation. From the antisymmetrized one, the identities satisfied by the solution are obtained. The star products for $\mathbb{C}^{2}$ and $\mathbb{C}P^{2}$ are constructed by the method obtained in this study, and we verify that these star products satisfy the identities.
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