Clostridium perfringens is a Gram-positive, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium that can produce as many as 17 different toxins and are responsible to cause a wide array of gastrointestinal (GI) and histotoxic diseases in humans and animals. As individual strains produce a subset of these toxins, C. perfringens strains can be classified...
Sporulation is an important strategy for certain bacterial species within the phylum Firmicutes to survive longer periods of time in adverse conditions. All spore-forming bacteria have two phases in their life; the vegetative form, where they can maintain all metabolic activities and replicate to increase numbers, and the spore form,...
Clostridium perfringens type A is a common source of food poisoning (FP) and non-food-borne (NFB) gastrointestinal diseases in humans. In the intestinal tract, the vegetative cells sporulate and produce a major pathogenic factor, C. perfringens enterotoxin (CPE). Most type A FP isolates carry a chromosomal cpe gene, whereas NFB type...
Electricity is at the center of attention as today many essential systems (water, gas, communications, and the internet for example) and infrastructures depend on its continuity for their smooth functioning. On the other hand, electricity power networks have developed and became large, and highly complex technical systems, geographically extended, requiring...
Recent blackout events consistently show that a variety of mechanisms are involved in cascading outages. These cascading mechanisms are irregularly modeled and validated within the existing literature and industry practices. Understanding the relative significance of these different mechanisms is important for choosing which one(s) needs to be modeled for specific...
Clostridium perfringens is a spore-forming anaerobic organism that is commonly present in fresh meat and poultry. The organism's spores can survive a range of food processing methods. C. perfringens type F isolates are the causative agents of C. perfringens type F food poisoning (FP) and non-food borne (NFB) human gastrointestinal...
Just off the coast of the Pacific Northwest lies the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ); odds of a very large CSZ earthquake occurring in the next 50 years is estimated to be about 37%. A CSZ seismic event has the potential to cause wide scale damage not just to the power...
Background: Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br.] is a widely cultivated drought-and high-temperature tolerant C4 cereal grown under dryland, rainfed and irrigated conditions in drought-prone regions of the tropics and sub-tropics of Africa, South Asia and the Americas. It is considered an orphan crop with relatively few genomic and...
Clostridium perfringens type A strains are one of the main causative agents of gastrointestinal (GI) diseases in human and can cause both food poisoning (FP) and non-food-borne (NFB) diseases. Several factors contribute to the pathogenesis of C. perfringens type A strains including the wide presence of C. perfringens spores with...
C. perfringens type A isolates are the causative agents of C. perfringens type A food poisoning (FP) and non-food-borne (NFB) human gastrointestinal diseases. In this study, we evaluated the antimicrobial effect of essential oil constituents (cinnamaldehyde, eugenol, allyl isothiocyanate (AITC), and carvacrol) against C. perfringens FP and NFB isolates grown...