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“Clostridium difficile is a common cause of nosocomial diarrhea. Its role in community-acquired diarrhea is also becoming an important public health concern. Hardly any studies have correlated strain ribotypes, toxinotypes and multidrug resistant (MDR) profiles. To investigate these characteristics, 65 C. difficile isolates obtained from stool samples of patients whose cultures were negative on admission but became positive after 48 h of admission to the ICUs of our hospitals were studied to determine the prevalent ribotypes, toxinotypes and their relationship with the MDR profiles using ELISA/cytotoxicity assays, PCR and Etest methods. The toxin-producing strains were toxinotyped by the PCR-RFLP

technique. Of selleck products the 65 isolates, 42 (64.6%) were toxigenic (T). The isolates were of diverse ribotypes but types 097, 078, 056 and 039 (NT) were predominant. Thirty Fosbretabulin nmr (71.4%) of 42 T and 13 (56.5%) of 23 NT strains were multiresistant to 3 or more antibiotics. Only 3 toxinotypes (0, “”V-like”" and XII) were encountered. Of the 42 T strains, 30 (71.4%) were of toxinotype 0, and 12 belonged to variant toxinotypes: 4 (9.4%) to toxinotype XII and 8 (19%) to “”V-like”" toxinotype in which amplified 131 PCR fragments was amplified as expected for toxinotype V but the A3 PCR fragment could not be amplified. The 43 MDR strains were assigned to 3 arbitrary resistance groups; groups

1, 11 and III. The most prevalent isolates (37; 86.1%) were in group II. Of the predominant T ribotypes (097, 078 and 056), c. 62% clustered in group II. selleck chemicals llc Although the number of strains toxinotyped was small, ribotyping and toxinotyping correlated well with the published literature, except for 078 with a novel “”V-like”" toxinotype. Antibiogram was not as clear-cut.”
“We investigated multilayer and bilayer Ni/Si thin films by nanodifferential scanning calorimetry (nano-DSC) at ultrarapid scan rates, in a temperature-time regime not accessible with conventional apparatus. DSC experiments were completed at slower scan rates. as well, where it was possible to conduct parallel rapid thermal annealing experiments for comparison. Postexperimental

characterization was accomplished by x-ray diffraction, and by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and energy-filtered TEM of thin cross sections prepared by focused ion beam milling. We found that rate of heating has a profound effect on the resulting microstructure, as well as on the DSC signal. After heating to 560 degrees C at 120 degrees C/s, the general microstructure of the multilayer was preserved, in spite of extensive interdiffusion of Ni and Si. By contrast, after heating to 560 degrees C at 16 000 degrees C/s, the multilayer films were completely homogeneous with no evidence of the original multilayer microstructure. For the slower scan rates, we interpret the results as indicating a solid state diffusion-nucleation-growth process.