Pathological, Bacteriological and Prevalence Studies Of Ovine Footrot

Ovine footrot, is a disease associated with infection by the bacterium Dichelobacter nodosus. It is a disease that limits the productivity or sheep-farming enterprises throughout the world. Both wool production and body weight are adversely affected during the clinical phase of the infection. Ovine footrot has become an important contagious disease in Malaysia. The first confirmed case of footrot was reported in a government sheep farm in mid-198Os. The disease is now present ill other farms throughout the country, and local vaccine is being used to reduce the disease. Previous studies have identified D. nodosus in three sheep farms ill Malaysia and only serogroup B was identified. The possible presence of other D. nodosus serogroups and scrotypes is unknown. This study attempts to isolate and identify the unknown serogroups and serotypes so as develop a better vaccine candidate using local isolates of D. nodosus. Eight sheep farms were investigated in this study. Four sheep farms were found to be infected with D. nodosus. Two hundred and ninety-three D. nodosus isolates were obtained from 741 foot samples. Five serogroups were identified in Malaysia. This is the first study where serogroups A, C, F and I with their serotypes AI, A2, CI, FI and F2 were identified in the infected sheep farms. Serogroup B was the predominant serogroup isolated (78.2%) while the isolation percentages for serogroups F, A, I and C were 7.9%, 7.5%, 3.8% and 2.7% respectively. The information on the pathogenesis of the disease is still lacking despite previous studies on ovine footrot. Interdigital cutaneous changes associate with footrot in sheep is not well documented. The disease was induced experimentally in sheep by topical application of bacterial isolates on the interdigital skin of the hoof, and light and electron microscopy studies of the lesions were conducted. Virulent footrot was observed by a gross progressive separation of the horny tissues from the soft tissues. On day 21 post inoculation (p.i.), a complete separation of the hoof from the underrunning structures and lameness were evident. The benign footrot was observed with mild interdigital dermatitis and all infected feet completely recovered on day 21 p.i.. Histopathological changes in virulent footrot were observed in the interdigital skin layers and hoof matrix. These ranged from acute dermatitis to hyperkeratosis, parakeratosis and acanthosis of the epidermis. Oedema and leukocytic infiltration with neutrophils, macrophages and scanty lymphocytes were also evident in the dennis. Furthermore, vasculitis and perivascular cuffing, lymphangitis and inflammation of the sweat glands were observed in the dermis. The histopathological changes of benign footrot were less severe than virulent form in the epidermis and there were no pathological changes in the dermis. In scanning electron microscopy, a severe zone of lysis appearing as a surface depression around bacteria in the horny layer of the interdigital skin of the hoof was detected in virulent footrot, while this lesion was less severe in the benign form. Transmission electron microscopy revealed degeneration in the epiderm is and dermis. Degeneration in the basal cell layer of the epidermis and the basement membrane in virulent form of footrot, which have not been reported previously was observed in this study. Dichelobacter nodosus was observed in the lesions of the epidermis and dermis of virulent footrot. Its' isolation from characteristic foot lesions indicated that it was associated with footrot. Immunohistochemistry observations validate the relationship between the lesions seen in footrot and virulent D. nodosus. Immunogold staining technique facilitates to detection and localisation of D. nodosus for electron microscopy. Specific reactions were labelled in components and the matrix of epidermis and dermis of the interdigital skin. Dichelobacter nodosus antigen labelled with 5 nm gold particles was observed in the intracellular and intercellular spaces of the epidermis. This is the first report where immunogold labelling technique have been used in the study of footrot lesions in sheep for electron microscopical observations. The total monthly rainfall and mean daily temperature have a relation to the prevalence rate of the disease. These conditions provide suitable environment propagation of D. nodosus. The overall prevalence of footrot in the eight farms investigated was 3.3%. The highest prevalence was recorded in April (0.8%), while the lowest in August (0.3%) in IHK farm by survey study. Observations described in this study were made to define the prevalence are related to seasonal conditions, but the effect of rainfall overrides all other factors for footrot to occur. Adults were more susceptible than weaners. No cases were detected in preweaners. The prevalence by sex which was 4.4% in the male and 7.7% in the female was significant (p=O.009). No significant difference in prevalence rates between breeds was detected

On The Time Lag of A First-Order Process’s Sinusoidal Response

The time lag (TL) of a linear first-order process’s sinusoidal response has been analyzed in the article....Key words: Process dynamics; Frequency response; Time lag; Time constantDetailed information of the article can be found in the full text

On The Time Lag of A First-Order Process’s Sinusoidal Response

The time lag (TL) of a linear first-order process’s sinusoidal response has been analyzed for a process time constant....................

A literature review on collaborative caching techniques in MANETs: issues and methods used in serving queries

Collaborative cache management in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) environment is considered as an efficient technique to increase data accessibility and availability, by sharing and coordination among mobile nodes. Due to nodes’ mobility, limited battery power and insufficient bandwidth, researchers addressed these challenges by developing many different collaborative caching schemes. The objective of this paper is to review various collaborative caching techniques in MANETs. Collaborative caching techniques are classified by methods used in serving queries, such as: hop-by-hop discovering, broadcasting messages, flooding, and query service differentiation. This review reveals that techniques utilizing hop-by-hop methods have better performance compared to others, especially techniques using additional strategies

Principal component analysis as tool for data reduction with an application

The recent trends in collecting huge datasets have posed a great challenge that is brought by the high dimensionality and aggravated by the presence of irrelevant dimensions. Machine learning models for regression is recognized as a convenient way of improving the estimation for empirical models. Popular machine learning models is support vector regression (SVR). However, the usage of principal component analysis (PCA) as a variable reduction method along with SVR is suggested. The principal component analysis helps in building a predictive model that is simple as it contains the smallest number of variables and efficient. In this paper, we investigate the competence of SVR with PCA to explore its performance for a more accurate estimation. Simulation study and Renal Failure (RF) data of SVR optimized by four different kernel functions; linear, polynomial, radial basis, and sigmoid functions using R software, version (R x64 3.2.5) to compare the behavior of ε SVR and v-SVR models for different sample sizes ranges from small, moderate to large such as; 50, 100, and 150. The performance criteria are root mean squared error (RMSE) and coefficient of determination R2 showed the superiority of ε-SVR over v- SVR. Furthermore, the implementation of SVR after employing PCA improves the results. Also, the simulation results showed that the best performing kernel function is the linear kernel. For real data the results showed that the best kernels are linear and radial basis function. It is also clear that, with ε-SVR and v-SVR, the RMSE values for almost kernel functions decreased with increasing sample size. Therefore, the performance of ε-SVR improved after applying PCA. In addition sample size n=50 gave good results for linear and radial kerne

Quantum computers for optimization the performance

Computers decrease human work and concentrate on enhancing the performance to advance the technology. Various methods have been developed to enhance the performance of computers. Performance of computer is based on computer architecture, while computer architecture differs in various devices, such as microcomputers, minicomputers, mainframes, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones. While each device has its own architecture, the majority of these systems are built on Boolean algebra. In this study, a few basic concepts used in quantum computing are discussed. It is known that quantum computers do not possess any transistor and chip while being roughly 100 times faster than a common classic silicon computer. Scientists believe that quantum computers are the next generation of the classic computers

SCSA: Evaluating skyline queries in incomplete data

Skyline queries have been extensively incorporated in various contemporary database applications. The list includes but is not limited to multi-criteria decision-making systems, decision support systems, and recommendation systems. Due to its great benefits and wide application range, many skyline algorithms have already been proposed in numerous data settings. Nonetheless, most researchers presume the completion of data meaning that all data item values are available. Since this assumption cannot be sustained in a large number of real-world database applications, the existing algorithms are rather inadequate to be directly applied on a database with incomplete data. In such cases, processing skyline queries on incomplete data incur exhaustive pairwise comparisons between data items, which may lead to loss of the transitivity property of the skyline technique. Losing the transitivity property may in turn give rise to the problem of cyclic dominance. In order to address these issues, we propose a new skyline algorithm called Sorting-based Cluster Skyline Algorithm (SCSA) that combines the sorting and partitioning techniques and simplifies the skyline computation on an incomplete dataset. These two techniques help boost the skyline process and avoid many unnecessary pairwise comparisons between data items to prune the dominated data items. The comprehensive experiments carried out on both synthetic and real-life datasets demonstrate the effectiveness and versatility of our approach as compared to the currently used approaches

Overview for Internet of Things: Basics, Components and Applications

There are significant developments in the field of remote sensing, communications, and control in the world today. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the result of cooperation between them. It is a system of interconnected computing devices, mechanical and digital machines, and things that are capable of sensing and are able to communicate with each other and with machines linked to a network intelligently to take advantage of the data collected through the sensors imbedded into devices. The resulting data can be collected and analyzed in order to reveal insights and propose measures that will produce cost savings, increase efficiency or improve products and services. As IoT is expected to grow and spread rapidly in the coming years, this will improve the quality of consumers' lives and productivity of enterprises. The future is the IoT, which will change the real world objects to smart virtual entities. It is one of the platforms of smart modern cities and intelligent power management systems. This research aims to provide a comprehensive review of the IoT, its main components, and architecture, along with its applications, features and challenges

Improved handover decision algorithm using multiple criteria

The transfer of massive data between varied network positions links of network relies on data rate, as well as the traffic capacity of the network. Conventionally, a device that is mobile can be used to attain vertical handover functional by weighing in only an aspect, which refers to Received Signal Strength (RSS). The application of this particular criterion could lead to interruption in services, ineffective vertical handover, and a network load that is not balanced. Hence, this paper proposes an improvised vertical handover decision algorithm by integrating multi-criteria within a wireless network that is heterogeneous. The proposed algorithm comprised of three vertical handover decision algorithms, namely: mobile weight, network weight, and equal weight. Additionally, three technology interfaces were embedded in this study including Worldwide interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), and Long-Term Evolution (LTE). As a result, the simulation outcomes demonstrated that the handover decision algorithm for network weight generated exceptional outputs, in comparison to mobile and equal weights, as well as the conventional network decision algorithm from the aspects of handover failure and handover number probabilities