Evaluating diagnostic and management agreement between audiology and ENT: a prospective inter-rater agreement study in a paediatric primary contact clinic.

Background: Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) primary contact models of care use audiologists as the first triage point for children referred to ENT for middle ear and hearing concerns; and have shown reduced waiting time, improved ENT surgical conversion rates and increased service capacity. This study aimed to investigate 'safety and quality' of the model by looking at agreement between audiologists' and an ENT's clinical decisions.  METHODS: We performed an inter-rater agreement study on diagnosis and management decisions made by audiologists and an ENT for 50 children seen in an Australian hospital's ENT primary contact service, and examined the nature and patterns of disagreements.

Resin collection and social immunity in honey bees.

Diverse animals have evolved an ability to collect antimicrobial compounds from the environment as a means of reducing infection risk. Honey bees battle an extensive assemblage of pathogens with both individual and "social" defenses. We determined if the collection of resins, complex plant secretions with diverse antimicrobial properties, acts as a colony-level immune defense by honey bees.

In vitro study of the antimicrobial activity of Brazilian propolis against Paenibacillus larvae.

The honey bee disease American foulbrood (AFB) is a serious problem since its causative agent (Paenibacillus larvae) has become increasingly resistant to conventional antibiotics. The objective of this study was to investigate the in vitro activity of propolis collected from various states of Brazil against P. larvae.

Investigation of drug-porous adsorbent interactions in drug mixtures with selected porous adsorbents.

The adsorption of drugs onto porous substrates may prove to be a convenient method by which to enhance the dissolution rate of certain poorly water-soluble drugs in body fluids. The purpose of this research is to provide a better understanding of the type of interactions occurring between drugs and certain pharmaceutically acceptable porous adsorbents that leads to enhanced drug dissolution rates. The interactions between ibuprofen (acidic drug), acetaminophen (acidic drug), dipyridamole (basic drug), and the porous adsorbents used (calcium silicate and silica gel) were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), and Fourier Transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).