Straining to void at preoperative urodynamic study as a risk factor for prolapse recurrence after surgery.

Objectives: Straining to void is the need to make a muscular effort in order to initiate, maintain or improve the urinary stream, through an increase in abdominal pressure. This pattern of bladder emptying is frequently observed in women with pelvic organ prolapse causing urinary obstruction, to overcome the increased resistance to urine flow. However, frequent increases in abdominal pressure are a risk factor for developing pelvic organ prolapse, and might play a role in its recurrence after surgery.

Early detection of bacteria using SPR imaging and event counting: experiments with and .

Foodborne pathogens are of significant concern in the agrifood industry and the development of associated rapid detection and identification methods are of major importance. This paper describes the novel use of resolution-optimized prism-based surface plasmon resonance imaging (RO-SPRI) and data processing for the detection of the foodborne pathogens and . With an imaging spatial resolution on the order of individual bacteria (2.

Label-Free Immuno-Sensors for the Fast Detection of Listeria in Food.

Foodborne diseases are a major concern for both food industry and health organizations due to the economic costs and potential threats for human lives. For these reasons, specific regulations impose the research of pathogenic bacteria in food products. Nevertheless, current methods, references and alternatives, take up to several days and require many handling steps.

Immunological detection of Cronobacter and Salmonella in powdered infant formula by plasmonic label-free assay.

Unlabelled: Cronobacter is an emerging food pathogen, especially in infants and neonates, often associated with the ingestion of contaminated Powdered Infant Formula (PIF). Therefore, regulations require the control of the absence of Cronobacter and of Salmonella, another important food pathogen, in these food products. So far, reference and alternative methods take up to several days, and no validated method exists for the simultaneous detection of these two pathogens.

Fast detection of both O157 and non-O157 shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli by real-time optical immunoassay.

Unlabelled: Among bacterial pathogens involved in food-illnesses, seven serogroups (O26, O45, O103, O111, O121, O145 and O157) of Shiga-toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC), are frequently identified. During such outbreak, and due to the perishable property of most foodstuff, the time laps for the identification of contaminated products and pathogens is thus critical to better circumvent their spread. Traditional detection methods using PCR or culture plating are time consuming and may present some limitations.

Study of the addictive potential of modafinil in naive and cocaine-experienced rats.

Rationale: Modafinil is a drug that promotes wakefulness and, as such, is used to treat hypersomnia and narcolepsy. Preclinical and clinical studies suggest that modafinil could possess weak reinforcing effects in drug-experienced subjects. However, its abuse potential in drug-naive healthy individuals is still totally uninvestigated, despite the fact that availability of modafinil has recently increased.

Influence of cue-conditioning on acquisition, maintenance and relapse of cocaine intravenous self-administration.

Conditioning theories propose that, through a Pavlovian associative process, discrete stimuli acquire the ability to elicit neural states involved in the maintenance and relapse of a drug-taking behaviour. Experimental evidence indicates that drug-related cues play a role in relapse, however, their influence on the development and maintenance of drug self-administration has been poorly investigated. In this report, we analysed the effects of a drug-associated cue light on acquisition, maintenance and reinstatement of intravenous cocaine self-administration.

A stochastic model for interconnected neurons.

A model is proposed to describe the collective behavior of a biologically plausible neural network, composed of interconnected spiking neurons which separately receive external stationary stimulations. The spiking dynamics of each neuron is represented by an hourglass metaphor. This network model was first studied in a special case where the connections are only inhibitory (Cottrell, 1988, 1992).