Frisking Two Men in Sadiyah Sergeant Kenson says to search these men since they’ve watched us by the road all morning. I go down to the dirt on one knee, begin at the ankle where the thin cloth ...of this man’s beige dishdasha grazes the skin. My palms and fingers climb like up a rope, push at the outline of leg. Marcin watches to the side with his rifle; mine’s slung over his back. This man, who could be sixty, doesn’t take his hazel eyes from my face. As I slowly reach th...
Suspicious Duffel Bag, LSA Anaconda That bag’s not mine, someone says. We watch it as if it might move. The bag’s a green island in the motor-pool gravel. The bag’s left over from some tired ...battalion that boarded a plane to Kuwait. The bag’s full of some private’s unused cold-weather camo. The bag’s like the one, dropped in the dining hall by a local worker, that blew in Mosul. Men step from their tents to see the bag. Oh, come on, Kenson says. It’s just some guy’s shit. But no one w...
Iraq Good Martin, Hugh
LISA (Caen, France),
06/2020
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Iraq Good The small boy smiles, kicks roundhouses across the potholed road, says, Van Damme good? & I say, Yes, Van Damme good. The boy punches the warm air while we, on the street for ...hours, outside the Sadiyah police compound walled with Hescos higher than our gunners’ heads, pace circles around the trucks. Two other boys, maybe nine or ten, chop each other, gently, with knife-hands, & one turns, says, No good Saddam, Saddam very no, & he points...
Test Fire Martin, Hugh
LISA (Caen, France),
06/2020
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Test Fire —south of Jalawla After we drive through the barren hills where the earth unrolls itself for miles, where the soil’s as stale as boxed cookies sent from the Youngstown USO, the ...gunners fire machineguns at the ridge wall’s face—small dust-explosions lift to the sky like faded desert larks while the rest of us shoot from our knees, our chests, as copper casings rain like loose change across the dirt, then as we convoy back to Cobra from nowhere the bedo...
We modeled the ecological niche of a globally successful Bacillus anthracis sublineage in the United States, Italy and Kazakhstan to better understand the geographic distribution of anthrax and ...potential associations between regional populations and ecology. Country-specific ecological-niche models were developed and reciprocally transferred to the other countries to determine if pathogen presence could be accurately predicted on novel landscapes. Native models accurately predicted endemic areas within each country, but transferred models failed to predict known occurrences in the outside countries. While the effects of variable selection and limitations of the genetic data should be considered, results suggest differing ecological associations for the B. anthracis populations within each country and may reflect niche specialization within the sublineage. Our findings provide guidance for developing accurate ecological niche models for this pathogen; models should be developed regionally, on the native landscape, and with consideration to population genetics. Further genomic analysis will improve our understanding of the genetic-ecological dynamics of B. anthracis across these countries and may lead to more refined predictive models for surveillance and proactive vaccination programs. Further studies should evaluate the impact of variable selection of native and transferred models.
What is the non‐inflammed appendix? Martin, Hugh C. O.; La Hei, Erik H.
ANZ journal of surgery,
March 2018, 2018-03-00, 20180301, Letnik:
88, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Anthrax, caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, is a zoonotic disease that persists throughout much of the world in livestock, wildlife, and secondarily infects humans. This is true across much ...of Central Asia, and particularly the Steppe region, including Kazakhstan. This study employed the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Prediction (GARP) to model the current and future geographic distribution of Bacillus anthracis in Kazakhstan based on the A2 and B2 IPCC SRES climate change scenarios using a 5-variable data set at 55 km(2) and 8 km(2) and a 6-variable BioClim data set at 8 km(2). Future models suggest large areas predicted under current conditions may be reduced by 2050 with the A2 model predicting approximately 14-16% loss across the three spatial resolutions. There was greater variability in the B2 models across scenarios predicting approximately 15% loss at 55 km(2), approximately 34% loss at 8 km(2), and approximately 30% loss with the BioClim variables. Only very small areas of habitat expansion into new areas were predicted by either A2 or B2 in any models. Greater areas of habitat loss are predicted in the southern regions of Kazakhstan by A2 and B2 models, while moderate habitat loss is also predicted in the northern regions by either B2 model at 8 km(2). Anthrax disease control relies mainly on livestock vaccination and proper carcass disposal, both of which require adequate surveillance. In many situations, including that of Kazakhstan, vaccine resources are limited, and understanding the geographic distribution of the organism, in tandem with current data on livestock population dynamics, can aid in properly allocating doses. While speculative, contemplating future changes in livestock distributions and B. anthracis spore promoting environments can be useful for establishing future surveillance priorities. This study may also have broader applications to global public health surveillance relating to other diseases in addition to B. anthracis.
Abstract Background Domestic plastic wrap has been recommended as an appropriate acute burn wound dressing in the Emergency Management of Severe Burns course. There remain limited studies reporting ...the risk of infection associated with this dressing. Aim To determine the potential infection risk of domestic plastic wrap used to treat acute burns wounds by assessment for the presence of clinically significant micro-organisms. Methods Ten plastic wrap samples were collected from a roll that had been opened for several months on the burns ward at our institution. Plastic wrap was imprinted directly onto horse-blood agar plates. The plates were incubated for 72 h in aerobic conditions with 5% CO2. Results We found no significant growth on any agar plate after incubation. A sufficient amount of plastic wrap was sampled to be confident that areas up to 12 cm × 12 cm from the centre of the plastic sheet were aerobically sterile. Conclusions Our data suggest that the potential for plastic wrap to act as a fomite when used as an acute burn wound dressing is extremely low.
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