Modeling of recovery efficiency of sampling devices used in planetary protection bioburden estimation.

IMPORTANCE: Planetary protection at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) requires bioburden on certain spacecraft to be estimated via sampling in order to comply with biological cleanliness requirements. To achieve this, the recovery efficiency of devices used to sample the spacecraft pre-launch must be understood and their uncertainty quantified in order to produce the most reasonable estimates of bioburden. This study brings together experiments performed by NASA and the European Space Agency with approved swab and wipe sampling devices, inoculating steel coupons with laboratory strains of Bacillus spp. spores commonly recovered from spacecraft assembly clean rooms (B. atrophaeus, B. megaterium, B. safensis and B. thuringiensis), with a mathematical model of the assay process to assess recovery efficiency. The statistical treatment developed in this study allows comparison of bioburden estimates made from different devices processed by different methods. This study also gives stakeholders and practitioners a statistically rigorous approach to predict bioburden that can be folded into future modeling efforts.

A pilot in vitro evaluation of the "air test" for perineural catheter tip localization by a novice regional anesthesiologist.

The "air test" is used clinically to infer perineural catheter location and has been recently evaluated for use by experts. However, its utility for practitioners with less experience is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that the air test, when performed by a novice regional anesthesiologist, will improve assessment of perineural catheter tip position in a validated porcine-bovine model and determined the test's positive and negative predictive values, sensitivity, and specificity for a novice. In contrast to the results of the expert study, the air test did not improve the novice's assessment of perineural catheter tip location over chance.