Effect of adding lay-tutors to the educational part of a back school programme for patients with subacute, non-specific low back pain: A randomized controlled clinical trial with a two-year follow-up.

Objective: To evaluate the effect of adding a lay-tutor to the educational sessions of a back school programme for patients with subacute low back pain.

Methods: Patients with subacute low back pain were randomized to a 10-week programme comprising 10 h education and 20 h physical exercise led by a former patient as lay-tutor, or a programme led by a physiotherapist. In the intervention group, former patients served as lay-tutors in the educational sessions, teaching in conjunction with physiotherapists.

A Third Way for Entomophthoralean Fungi to Survive the Winter: Slow Disease Transmission between Individuals of the Hibernating Host.

In temperate regions, insect pathogenic fungi face the challenge of surviving through the winter. Winter is a time when hosts are immobile, low in number or are present in a stage which is not susceptible to infection. Fungi from Entomophthoromycota have so far been known to survive the winter in two ways: either as (1) thick-walled resting spores released into environment from dead hosts, or as (2) structures inside the dead host (e.

Detection and quantification of Entomophaga maimaiga resting spores in forest soil using real-time PCR.

Environmental sampling to monitor entomopathogen titre in forest soil, a known reservoir of insect pathogens such as fungi and viruses, is important in the evaluation of conditions that could trigger epizootics and in the development of strategies for insect pest management. Molecular or PCR-based analysis of environmental samples provides a sensitive method for strain- or species-based detection, and real-time PCR, in particular, allows quantification of the organism of interest. In this study we developed a DNA extraction method and a real-time PCR assay for detection and quantification of Entomophaga maimaiga (Zygomycetes: Entomophthorales), a fungal pathogen of the gypsy moth, in the organic layer of forest soil.

Value of host range, morphological, and genetic characteristics within the Entomophthora muscae species complex.

Entomopthora muscae sensu lato is a complex of morphologically similar fungal species pathogenic to evolutionarily advanced flies (Cyclorrhapha). To reach an operational species definition and recognition of species within this complex, the values of host range, morphological and genetic characteristics are reconsidered. Within the E.

Accuracy of tympanometric middle ear pressure determination in secretory otitis media: dose-dependent overestimation related to the viscosity and amount of middle ear fluid.

Hypothesis: Tympanometric measurements of middle ear pressure in children with secretory otitis media are overestimated in a dose-response manner because of increased hysteresis explained by the viscosity and amount of middle ear fluid.

Background: Tympanometric middle ear pressure is important in evaluating children with secretory otitis media. These measurements are influenced by hysteresis appearing as a peak pressure difference in bidirectional tympanometry.

Density-dependence and within-host competition in a semelparous parasite of leaf-cutting ants.

Background: Parasite heterogeneity and within-host competition are thought to be important factors influencing the dynamics of host-parasite relationships. Yet, while there have been many theoretical investigations of how these factors may act, empirical data is more limited. We investigated the effects of parasite density and heterogeneity on parasite virulence and fitness using four strains of the entomopathogenic fungus, Metarhizium anisopliae var.

PCR-RFLP is used to investigate relations among species in the entomopathogenic genera Eryniopsis and Entomophaga.

The shape and nucleation of primary conidia are important characters in the classification of the Entomophthoraceae (Zygomycetes). The five species in the genus Eryniopsis vary in the shapes of primary conidia, although within most genera in the order Entomophthorales species have the same shapes of primary conidia. Using PCR-RFLP, we investigated two species in Eryniopsis, Ery.

Application of nested-PCR technique to resting spores from the Entomophthora muscae species complex: implications for analyses of host-pathogen population interactions.

We developed new Entomophthora-specific primers for nested-PCR of the ITS II region to be used on in vivo material and combined it with RFLP. Resting spores from Scathophaga stercoraria (3 specimens), Delia radicum (9 specimens), Botanophila fugax (1 specimen), and two syrphid host species, Platycheirus peltatus and Melanostoma mellinum (one specimen of each) were characterized genetically after analysis of RFLP-profiles of the PCR-products. The genetic characterization of the resting spore isolates was compared with twenty isolates of known primary conidial morphology (in vitro and in vivo) from the E.