Methods for Quantification of Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Environmental Media: Current Techniques and Recent Advances

Limiting the environmental transmission of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs), which infect 1.5 billion people worldwide, will require sensitive, reliable, and cost-effective methods to detect and quantify STHs in the environment. We review the state-of-the-art of STH quantification in soil, biosolids, water, produce, and vegetation with regard to four major methodological issues: environmental sampling; recovery of STHs from environmental matrices; quantification of recovered STHs; and viability assessment of STH ova. We conclude that methods for sampling and recovering STHs require substantial advances to provide reliable measurements for STH control. Recent innovations in the use of automated image identification and developments in molecular genetic assays offer considerable promise for improving quantification and viability assessment. The state-of-the-art and key developments in environmental methods for sampling, recovery and concentration, quantification, and viability assessment of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are reviewed. Optimal protocols for sampling and recovery of STHs from environmental samples have not been developed and systematic investigation is needed. Recent advances in genetic assays and automated image analysis for quantification and viability assessment offer improved sensitivity, reliability, and sample throughput

Methods for Quantification of Soil-Transmitted Helminths in Environmental Media: Current Techniques and Recent Advances

Limiting the environmental transmission of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs), which infect 1.5 billion people worldwide, will require sensitive, reliable, and cost-effective methods to detect and quantify STHs in the environment. We review the state-of-the-art of STH quantification in soil, biosolids, water, produce, and vegetation with regard to four major methodological issues: environmental sampling; recovery of STHs from environmental matrices; quantification of recovered STHs; and viability assessment of STH ova. We conclude that methods for sampling and recovering STHs require substantial advances to provide reliable measurements for STH control. Recent innovations in the use of automated image identification and developments in molecular genetic assays offer considerable promise for improving quantification and viability assessment. The state-of-the-art and key developments in environmental methods for sampling, recovery and concentration, quantification, and viability assessment of soil-transmitted helminths (STHs) are reviewed. Optimal protocols for sampling and recovery of STHs from environmental samples have not been developed and systematic investigation is needed. Recent advances in genetic assays and automated image analysis for quantification and viability assessment offer improved sensitivity, reliability, and sample throughput

Access to banks and external capital acquisition: perceived innovation obstacles

We examine whether low access to banks is perceived as problematic when obtaining financial capital for innovation activities. Data on innovation obstacles from the Swedish Community Innovation Survey are combined with geo-coded data at the firm level, which allows us to proxy access to external capital by the Euclidian distance from each firm to its nearest bank and the supply within a radius of five kilometres. The results indicate that both a longer distance to the nearest bank and fewer banks in the vicinity are related to experiencing greater difficulties in obtaining external financial capital for innovations.</p