SummaryOBJECTIVE To determine the incidence and type of RTI-causing bacteria and viruses during a period of epidemic infections. METHOD A total of 395 sputum specimens and 761 throat swabs were collected during the 1991 and 1992 pilgrimage seasons (Haj to Makkah Al-Mukarama, Saudi Arabia) from patients referred to one hospital and three dispensaries with symptoms of respiratory tract infections. All 761 throat swabs of both Haj seasons were also screened for the presence of viral pathogens with monoclonal antibodies specific for 7 viruses known to cause respiratory infections. RESULTS Bacterial pathogens were detected in 118 (29.9%) specimens. During the 1991 Haj season Haemophilus influenzae was the most frequent bacterial pathogen detected (10%), followed by Klebsiella pneumoniae (5.2%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (4.8%), Staphylococcus aureus (3.8%) and Streptococcus pyogenes (2.4%). In the 1992 Haj season Klebsiella pneumoniae was predominant (15.1%), followed by Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae (12.3%). Screening of all sputum specimens for acid-fast bacteria showed that the overall incidence rate of tuberculosis was 1%. Cultures from the 761 throat swabs were largely negative for bacteria except for Streptococcus pyogenes isolated from 7 patients.

No abstract

Rotavirus infection was detected in 524 (42.2%) of the 1,242 stool specimens collected from infants and young children with acute gastroenteritis admitted to a major pediatric hospital in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between March 1988 and December 1992. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and monoclonal antibodies specific for subgroup I and II were used to examine 80 rotavirus positive specimens. Subgroup I was detected in 21 (26.3%) and subgroup II in 49 (61.3%) specimens. Six specimens reacted with both subgroup I and II monoclonal antibodies and four specimens were untypeable. Serotyping of 355 rotavirus positive specimens using monoclonal antibodies specific for the human rotavirus serotypes 1 to 4 revealed a distribution profile of serotype 1, 53.5%; serotype 2, 6.8%; serotype 3, 5.9%; and serotype 4, 22.8%, along with mixed and untypeable specimens (11%). When the correlation between subgroup and serotype specificities was examined in 62 specimens, all subgroup I specimens were found to be serotype 2 or untypeable and all subgroup II specimens belonged predominantly to serotypes 1 (54.7%) and 4 (9.4%). Serotype 1, followed by, to a lesser extent, serotype 4, exhibited a temporal predominance in the 5-year investigation. A significant clustering of the various serotypes during the cooler months was evident almost throughout the study, particularly in 1989 and 1990.

Voice recognition is an important and active research area of the recent years. This research aims to build a system for voice recognition using dynamic time wrapping algorithm, by comparing the voice signal of the speaker with pre-stored voice signals in the database, and extracting the main features of the speaker voice signal using Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, which is one of the most important factors in achieving high recognition accuracy. General TermsDynamic time wrapping "DTW" algorithm, Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients "MFCC" algorithm, vocal signal.

The subgroup, serotype and electropherotype diversity of human rotavirus strains was investigated in Al-Taif, Saudi Arabia. Out of 349 faecal samples collected from diarrhoeic children, 150 (43 percent) tested rotavirus positive by a group-A specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The majority (87 percent) of the infected children were below 2 years of age. Subgrouping and serotyping of rotaviruses with specific monoclonal antibodies showed that of the 150 rotavirus positive specimens, 17 percent belonged to subgroup I, 59 per cent belonged to subgroup II, and 24 percent were neither subgroup I nor subgroup II. The specimens were typed, as serotype 1 (43 percent), serotype 2 (5 percent), serotype 3 (11 percent), serotype 4 (10 percent) or mixed serotypes (3 percent). The remaining 41 (27 percent) specimens were untypeable. None of the serotypes showed association with a particular age group. An electrophoretic analysis of viral RNA revealed 11 distinct patterns (six long and five short). The majority, 78 percent were long patterns and 22 percent were short patterns. Analysis of the specimens for which subgroups, serotypes and electropherotypes were available indicated that a given RNA pattern does not correspond to a particular subgroup or serotype.