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This paper describes the initial design of the Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH). CoSIH will attempt to include a representation of most varieties of spoken Hebrew as it is used in Israel today. CoSIH is designed to consist of two complementary corpora: a main corpus and a supplementary corpus. The main corpus, which will comprise about 90% of the entire collection, will be sampled statistically. For analytical purposes it will use a conceptual tool in the form of a multidimensional matrix combining demographic and contextual tiers. The combined demographic and contextual design will be capable of showing the distribution of speech types in various subgroups of the population. The supplementary corpus will include about 10% of the collected data, and will add to the statistically-sampled corpus some targeted demographically sampled texts and a contextually designed collection. This design is culturally dependent to suit the special structure of the Israeli Hebrew speech community and thus includes both native and non-native speakers of Hebrew. Nonetheless, the principles governing this design are such that they would service study of many other speech communities, to the extent that the design itself may be employed for other corpora with only slight modifications.

This paper describes the initial design of the Corpus of Spoken Israeli Hebrew (CoSIH). CoSIH will attempt to include a representation of most varieties of spoken Hebrew as it is used in Israel today. CoSIH is designed to consist of two complementary corpora: a main corpus and a supplementary corpus. The main corpus, which will comprise about 90% of the entire collection, will be sampled statistically. For analytical purposes it will use a conceptual tool in the form of a multidimensional matrix combining demographic and contextual tiers. The combined demographic and contextual design will be capable of showing the distribution of speech types in various subgroups of the population. The supplementary corpus will include about 10% of the collected data, and will add to the statistically-sampled corpus some targeted demographically sampled texts and a contextually designed collection. This design is culturally dependent to suit the special structure of the Israeli Hebrew speech community and thus includes both native and non-native speakers of Hebrew. Nonetheless, the principles governing this design are such that they would service study of many other speech communities, to the extent that the design itself may be employed for other corpora with only slight modifications.

Quantitative cultures were carried out on samples from gastric juice obtained from 12 ambulatory patients with esophagitis before and one month after omeprazole therapy. An increase in the number of patients in whom gastric juice was culture-positive, as well as an increment in the bacterial counts were noted. The spectrum of microorganisms isolated from gastric juice was identical to the normal flora of the oral cavity, mainly α-hemolytic streptococci, corynebacteria, andCandida species. Thus, the counts of organisms within gastric contents are simply a reflection of swallowed oral, microflora that were able to survive due to the less acidic environment.

The predisposing factors linked to drug involvement may be different for various types of youth, although the outcome is the same. In this sense a bimodal curve of drug involvement would indicate two types of highly involved youth: on the one hand, those from high social status families where low parental control implies a tendency to seek involvement with their peers and solve their personal adjustment problems within the peer group. On the other hand, those from the lower social strata for whom low parental control also implies association with outside peer groups as an alternative to shaky and diffuse families and lack of involvement in school life. This study on the cannabis involvement of 776 boys and girls (aged 14-18), drawn from eight schools, is an attempt to identify and describe these polar types of drug-involved youth in more detail.

Urine samples from 19 nursing home patients with long-term urinary catheters were cultured every 3 months for 18 months. Providencia stuartii, present in 74% of the elderly and in 59% of urine specimens, was the most frequently isolated bacteria. The persistence of P. stuartii was significantly higher among females than among males. In order to study the epidemiology of bacteriuria in this nursing home, bacteria were characterized by biochemical tests, antibiotic susceptibility pattern, and restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. The antibiotic susceptibility pattern indicated that each patient had two to three different strains of P. stuartii during the 18 months of follow-up. In contrast, the RFLP analysis revealed that a specific strain had persisted in the urinary tract of the patient during the entire follow-up period. According to the biochemical profile, 74% of the patients had the same bacteria in urine cultures, pointing to a common source of transmission. RFLP analysis, however, demonstrated different patterns of RFLP, suggesting concomitant multiple sources of infection.

Abstract: A 36-year-old man, five years after bone marrow transplantation for aplastic anemia, was admitted with myonecrosis of the forearm after he had immersed his hand in sewage water several days prior to his admission. Blood cultures and specimens taken from the necrotic tissue of the arm all grewAeromonas hydrophila. Following extension of the infection, the patient underwent amputation of the arm but ultimately died of cerebral mucormycosis. The epidemiology ofAeromonas infections is discussed and the literature ofAeromonas myonecrosis is reviewed.

ABSTRACTRestriction fragment length polymorphism analysis with IS6110and DR-r probes was used to study 69Mycobacterium tuberculosisisolates obtained from Israeli patients and new immigrants from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. DNA fingerprinting identified unique patterns for almost all isolates, indicating that most patients were infected with a unique strain imported from their country of origin and that their latent infection was reactivated in Israel.

ABSTRACTIn a retrospective 10-year analysis of 3,536 patient-unique isolates, Acinetobacter baumanniiimipenem susceptibility declined from 98.1 (1990) to 64.1% (2000), and ciprofloxacin susceptibility decreased from 50.5 to 13.1%. Imipenem median zone diameters decreased from 27.7 (1997) to 18.8 mm (2000). No outbreaks were detected. Two clusters were identified for 41 strains genotyped by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis, but imipenem resistance was not clonal.

A new methodology for developing average models of resonant converters is presented and verified against cycle by cycle simulation, showing excellent agreement. The proposed modelling approach applies the concept of Rac(t), which represents the instantaneous effective load of the resonant network. The model can be used as it is to run steady-state (DC), large signal (transient) and small signal (AC) simulations.

Background. Endogenous endophthalmitis due to Aspergillus is rare affecting the severely immunosuppressed population, in particular recipients of heart and lung transplants. Ocular involvement of aspergillosis has always been observed late in the course of the disease.Subject. A young woman noted blurred vision in one eye three weeks after lung transplantation. At this stage, no systemic manifestations of fungal infection were detected and the ocular findings were attributed to viral infection.Results. Twenty-four hours after the original ocular complaint, an aggressive endophthalmitis developed in the left eye. The possibility of fungal endophthalmitis was raised. Within 48 hours of her first ocular complaint the patient died. Cultures from a vitreous tap and from autopsy ocular specimens were positive for Aspergillus fumigatus.Conclusions. Aspergillus endophthalmitis may occur in patients undergoing lung transplantation despite antifungal therapy. Increased awareness of this unusual entity may be life and vision saving in these patients.

ABSTRACTAn outbreak of pseudobacteremia due to Streptococcus pyogenes(group A streptococci [GAS]) and methicillin-susceptible Staphylococcus aureus(MSSA) was traced to the venting procedure for aerobic bottles prior to their loading into the incubator of the BacT/Alert analyzer (Organon Teknika). Bacteria shed by a laboratory worker suffering from impetigo and cellulitis contaminated the aerobic bottles of 10 patients. All blood culture isolates, in addition to the isolates from the laboratory worker, were of the same GAS M and T types. All MSSA isolates from blood cultures and the index case's hands had the same lytic phage profile. Procedural breakdowns were identified in the laboratory. Bottles were vented outside the biological safety cabinet, gloves were not worn, and unprotected needles were used for the venting procedure. The source of the aspirated bacteria that contaminated the bottles was identified and the index case was treated promptly.

An average model of SEPIC converters with coupled inductors was developed and verified against cycle-by-cycle simulations. The model can be used as is by any modern circuit simulator to run steady state (DC), large signal (transient) and small signal (AC) analyses. The inductors coupling coefficient, incorporated as a parameter in the model, can be varied from zero to almost unity. Zero coupling coefficient represents the case of a SEPIC converter with uncoupled inductors.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an uncommon cause of infection in the female genital tract. An unusual case of postmenopausal pneumococcal tubo-ovarian abscess is presented. The pathogenesis of this infection probably entailed the ascent of bacteria from the vagina to the internal genitalia; there was no evidence of infection of the bloodstream or gastrointestinal tract.