Shared mechanisms of enhanced plasmid maintenance and antibiotic tolerance mediated by the VapBC toxin:antitoxin system.

Unlabelled: Toxin:antitoxin (TA) systems are widespread in bacteria and were first identified as plasmid addiction systems that kill bacteria lacking a TA-encoding plasmid following cell division. TA systems have also been implicated in bacterial persistence and antibiotic tolerance, which can be precursors of antibiotic resistance. Here, we identified a clinical isolate of (CS14) with a remarkably stable pINV virulence plasmid; pINV is usually frequently lost from , but plasmid loss was not detected from CS14.

Fecal calprotectin as a biomarker of intestinal inflammation in ICU patients with diarrhea - testing the pipette method against the collection pin and weighing methods.

Fecal calprotectin is an established biomarker in inflammatory bowel disease, but its role in assessment of intestinal inflammation in ICU patients is yet to be explored. ICU patients tend to acquire diarrhea, which complicates the extraction of fecal calprotectin using a collection pin for stool sampling. Pipetting is an alternative sampling method.

Analytical perspectives on performance-based management: an outline of theoretical assumptions in the existing literature.

Performance-based management (PBM) has become a dominant form of governance in health care and there is a need for careful assessment of its function and effects. This article contains a cross-disciplinary literature synthesis of current studies of PBM. Literature was retrieved by database searches and categorized according to analytical differences and similarities concerning (1) purpose and (2) governance mechanism of PBM.