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A viable, cost-effective solution at scale has been developed and implemented for collecting electronic data during household visits in a resource-constrained setting.

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Lactobacillus plantarum was the major species among the lactic acid bacterial strains isolated from traditional fermented milk of the Maasai in Kenya. Selected strains were characterized for their functional properties using in vitro standard procedures. All strains expressed acid tolerance at pH 2.0 after 2-h exposure of values that ranged from 1% to 100%, while bile tolerance of acid-stressed cells at 0.3% oxgal varied from 30% to 80%. In vitro adhesion to the mucus-secreting cell line HT 29 MTX and binding capacity to extracellular protein matrices was demonstrated for several strains. The four strains tested in a simulated stomach duodenum passage survived with recovery rates ranging from 17% to 100%. Strains were intrinsically resistant to several antibiotics tested. From these in vitro studies, a number of Lb. plantarum strains isolated from the Maasai traditional fermented milk showed probiotic potential. The strains are good candidates for multifunctional starter culture development.

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We have shown that STM-tip-induced chain polymerization of 10,12-tricosadiynoic acid (TCDA) in a self-organized monolayer at the liquid-solid interface of TCDA on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite is possible. The oligomers thus produced started at the point where a voltage pulse was applied between the STM tip and the sample during a short period when the feedback condition was momentarily suspended (as it is for scanning tunneling spectroscopy). Polymerization probabilities depended upon the length of the applied voltage pulse and were generally higher for longer pulse widths in the 10-ms to 100-micros time scales, approaching unit probability for the former and decreasing quickly to a few tens of percent for the latter. The polymerization could be confined to certain nanometer-sized areas by using "molecule corrals,"and polymerization appeared to be governed by topochemical constraints. Polymerization across domain boundaries, or over molecule corral edges, was never observed in over approximately 150 observations. Due to the constant supply of nonpolymerized molecules from the covering solution, a dynamic exchange between molecules on the surface and in the solution was possible. This exchange occurred on a time scale that was comparable to the image acquisition time (approximately 10(1) s), and appeared to depend weakly upon the length of the desorbing oligomer. The desorption process was probably also influenced by interactions with the STM tip.