Anti-S. aureus Enterotoxin B Polyclonal antibody

Aims: Methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA and MRSA, respectively) in the nostrils of dogs and workers at an animal shelter were cultured. Staphylococcal toxin genes were analysed to identify potential health concerns. Methods and Results: Samples were obtained from 441 dogs and 9 workers. The respective isolation rates of S. aureus and MRSA were 49.0% (216/441) and 1.6% (7/441) for shelter dogs and 44.4% (4/9) and 33.3% (3/9) for workers, respectively. Isolation of S. aureus in summer (61.9%) and in adult dogs (59.2%) were significantly higher than those in winter (35.8%) and in juvenile dogs (33.3%) (P < 0.001), respectively. The predominant enterotoxin genotypes and combination profiles of S. aureus were (sea, seb, seg, sei, sem, sen, seo, seu) and (sea, sea-seb, and seg-sei-sem-sen-seo-seu), respectively, and 20% of isolates carried food poisoning-associated enterotoxins. The se profiles in shelter dogs were different from those in general pet dogs and their owners. MRSA isolates were identified as SCCmec IV and VII, and they shared se combination profiles of (sec-seg-sei-sel-sem-sen-seo-seu) and (seb-sek-seq). MRSA in this shelter had similar microbiological characteristics as those reported in CA-MRSA ST59 in humans. Conclusions: Human health-associated bacteria and food poisoning-related toxin genes were identified. Further evaluations of health concerns in animal shelters are necessary. Significance and Impact of the Study: This is the first study to focus on se prevalence and MRSA characteristics in an animal shelter in Taiwan. The MRSA characteristics determined in this study were similar to those of CA-MRSA strains isolated from communities in the past, indicating potential health risks in cities.

School-based professionals often use curriculum-based measurement of reading (CBM-R) to monitor the progress of students with reading difficulties. Much of the extant CBM-R progress monitoring research has focused on its use for making group-level decisions, and less is known about using CBM-R to make decisions at the individual level. To inform the administration and use of CBM-R progress monitoring data, the current study evaluated the utility of 4 progress monitoring schedules that differed in frequency (once or twice weekly) and density (1 or 3 probes). Participants included 79 students (43% female; 51% White, 25% Hispanic or Latino, 11% Black or African American, 1% other, 12% unknown) in Grades 2 (n = 45) and 4 (n = 34) who were monitored across 10 weeks (February to May). Consistent with a focus on individual-level decision making, we used regression and mixed-factorial analysis of variances (ANOVAs) to evaluate the effect of progress monitoring schedule frequency, schedule density, grade level, and their interaction effects on CBM-R intercept, slope, SE of the slope (SEb), and SE of the estimate (SEE). Results revealed that (a) progress monitoring schedule frequency and density influenced the magnitude of SEb, (b) density had a significant but negligible impact on SEE, and (c) grade level had a significant effect on slope and intercept. None of the interaction effects were statistically significant. Findings from this study have implications for practitioners and researchers aiming to monitor students' progress with CBM-R. Impact and Implications Findings of this study suggest that when monitoring the progress of students in Grades 2 and 4 with curriculum-based measures of oral reading rate, the number of times data are collected per week and the number of passages collected per occasion influence the technical characteristics of the resulting data, which may impact interpretations of students' response to instruction. Researchers and practitioners using curriculum-based measures of oral reading rate to monitor students' progress in 2nd and 4th grade should consider collecting data twice weekly and/or administering three passages per session to increase the precision of slope estimates.