Sarcocystis Species Lethal for Domestic Pigeons

A large number of Sarcocystis spp. infect birds as intermediate hosts, but pigeons are rarely affected. We identified a novel Sarcocystis sp. that causes lethal neurologic disease in domestic pigeons in Germany. Experimental infections indicated transmission by northern goshawks, and sequence analyses indicated transnational distribution. Worldwide spread is possible

Avian influenza virus risk assessment in falconry

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>There is a continuing threat of human infections with avian influenza viruses (AIV). In this regard falconers might be a potential risk group because they have close contact to their hunting birds (raptors such as falcons and hawks) as well as their avian prey such as gulls and ducks. Both (hunting birds and prey birds) seem to be highly susceptible to some AIV strains, especially H5N1. We therefore conducted a field study to investigate AIV infections in falconers, their falconry birds as well as prey birds.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>During 2 hunting seasons (2006/2007 and 2007/2008) falconers took tracheal and cloacal swabs from 1080 prey birds that were captured by their falconry birds (n = 54) in Germany. AIV-RNA of subtypes H6, H9, or H13 was detected in swabs of 4.1% of gulls (n = 74) and 3.8% of ducks (n = 53) using RT-PCR. The remaining 953 sampled prey birds and all falconry birds were negative. Blood samples of the falconry birds tested negative for AIV specific antibodies. Serum samples from all 43 falconers reacted positive in influenza A virus-specific ELISA, but remained negative using microneutralisation test against subtypes H5 and H7 and haemagglutination inhibition test against subtypes H6, H9 and H13.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although we were able to detect AIV-RNA in samples from prey birds, the corresponding falconry birds and falconers did not become infected. Currently falconers do not seem to carry a high risk for getting infected with AIV through handling their falconry birds and their prey.</p

Coulomb dissociation of O-16 into He-4 and C-12

We measured the Coulomb dissociation of O-16 into He-4 and C-12 within the FAIR Phase-0 program at GSI Helmholtzzentrum fur Schwerionenforschung Darmstadt, Germany. From this we will extract the photon dissociation cross section O-16(alpha,gamma)C-12, which is the time reversed reaction to C-12(alpha,gamma)O-16. With this indirect method, we aim to improve on the accuracy of the experimental data at lower energies than measured so far. The expected low cross section for the Coulomb dissociation reaction and close magnetic rigidity of beam and fragments demand a high precision measurement. Hence, new detector systems were built and radical changes to the (RB)-B-3 setup were necessary to cope with the high-intensity O-16 beam. All tracking detectors were designed to let the unreacted O-16 ions pass, while detecting the C-12 and He-4

Organisational implementation climate in implementing internet-based cognitive behaviour therapy for depression

Internet-based Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (iCBT) for depression have been implemented in routine care across Europe in varying ways, at various scales and with varying success. This study aimed to advance our understanding of organisational implementation climate from the perspectives of implementers and mental health service deliverers. Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to study the concept of organisational implementation climate in mental health care settings. Based on concept mapping, a qualitative workshop with implementers was used to conceptualise organisational implementation climate for optimizing iCBT use in routine practice. Service deliverers involved in the provision of iCBT were invited to participate in an explorative cross-sectional survey assessing levels of satisfaction and usability of iCBT, and organisational implementation climate in implementing iCBT. The two methods were applied independently to study viewpoints of implementers as well as service deliverers. Corresponding to the explorative nature of the study, inductive reasoning was applied to identify patterns and develop a reasonable explanation of the observations made. Correlative associations between satisfaction, usability and implementation climate were explored. Sixteen implementers representing fourteen service delivery organisations across Europe participated in the workshop. The top-three characteristics of a supportive organisational implementation climate included: (1) clear roles and skills of implementers, (2) feasible implementation targets, and (3) a dedicated implementation team. The top-three tools for creating a supportive implementation climate included: (1) feedback on job performance, (2) progress monitoring in achieving implementation targets, and (3) guidelines for assessing the impact of iCBT. The survey (n=111) indicated that service providers generally regarded their organisational implementation climate as supportive in implementing iCBT services. Organisational implementation climate was weakly associated with perceived usability and moderately with satisfaction with iCBT services. Organisational implementation climate is a relevant factor to implementers and service deliverers in implementing iCBT in routine care. It is not only an inherent characteristic of the context in which implementation takes place, it can also be shaped to improve implementation of iCBT services. Future research should further theorise organisational implementation climate and empirically validate the measurement instruments such as used in this study. [Abstract copyright: © 2022. The Author(s).

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Investigations into the prevalence of avian influenza viruses (AIV) in synantropic pigeons, in falconry birds, their avian prey as well as in falconers

Das erste Ziel der vorliegenden Studie beinhaltete epidemiologische Untersuchungen zum Vorkommen von AIV bei Stadt- und Wildtauben in Deutschland. Hierzu wurden 152 Stadttauben (Columba livia form. urbana) aus Berlin, 103 aus Hamburg, 113 aus München und 40 Tauben aus Hannover gefangen und beprobt. In keinem der untersuchten 408 Kloaken- und 322 Trachealtupfer der Stadttauben konnte mittels Realtime Reverse Transkriptase PCR (RT-qPCR) und Virusisolierung im SPF-Hühnerei (VI) AIV nachgewiesen werden. Als Nebenbefund konnte allerdings mittels VI bei drei Stadttauben aus Berlin ein taubenspezifisches aviäres Paramyxovirus vom Serotyp 1 (APMV-1) isoliert und im Hämagglutinationshemmtest (HAH) sowie mittels APMV-1-spezifischer RT-qPCR identifiziert werden. Bei der gleichzeitigen Untersuchung von 364 Seren der Stadttauben mittels kompetitiven, speziesübergreifenden Influenza A-ELISA und Agargelpräzipitationstest (AGP) wurden weder Antikörper gegen AIV, noch mittels HAH spezifische Antikörper gegen die AIV-Subtypen H5 und H7 gefunden. Gleichzeitig wurden von 170 erlegten Wildtauben (Ringeltauben (Columba palumbus)) aus Nordrhein-Westfalen analoge Proben (170 Kloaken- und Trachealtupfer, 123 Seren) untersucht. Im Unterschied zu den Stadttauben konnte mittels ELISA, nicht jedoch mittels AGP, in den Seren von zwei Wildtauben Antikörper gegen AIV festgestellt, das Vorliegen der Subtypen H5 und H7 jedoch ausgeschlossen werden. Eine nachfolgende Auswertung der nationalen Wildvogeldatenbank in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Institut für Epidemiologie des Friedrich Loeffler-Instituts (Wusterhausen/Dosse) wies ebenfalls keine AIVNachweise während dieses Zeitraumes (2006 bis 2008) bei Tauben auf. Somit kann auch nach dem Auftreten von HPAIV H5N1 in Deutschland Tauben bislang keine wesentlich Rolle in der Verbreitung aviärer Influenzaviren zugesprochen werden. Ein Risiko für den Menschen, ausgehend von Stadt- und Wildtauben, konnte aus dieser Studie ebenso wenig abgeleitet werden. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit ging der Frage nach, ob von der Ausübung der Falknerei ein generelles Risiko für die Verbreitung von AIV ausgeht und ob Falkner einem höheren Risiko ausgesetzt seien, mit diesen in Kontakt zu kommen. Hierzu wurden in einem bundesweiten Feldversuch über zwei Jagdsaisons (2006/2007 und 2007/2008) 1080 gebeizte (mit einem Greifvogel erjagte) Beutetiere mittels RT-qPCR und Virusisolierung im SPF-Hühnerei untersucht. Aus insgesamt 1080 Kloakentupfern und 1012 Trachealtupfern konnte mittels RTqPCR, nicht aber mittels Virusisolierung im SPF-Hühnerei, in fünf Kloakentupfern und drei Trachealtupfern Influenza A Virus-spezifische RNA nachgewiesen werden welche von drei Möwen (Laridae sp.) und zwei Stockenten (Anas platyrhynchos) stammten. Die positiven Proben entsprachen 4,1 % der 74 Möwenproben sowie 3,8 % der 53 Entenproben. Die nachfolgende Subtypisierung mittels RT-qPCR, RT-PCR und Microarray erbrachte einmal H13N6 und zweimal N6 bei den Möwen (der H-Typ konnte für zwei Möwen nicht ermittelt werden) und H3N2 sowie eine Doppelinfektion mit H3N2 und H9N2 bei den Enten. Beim Vergleich der eigenen Daten bezüglich der AIV-Nachweise der Beutetiere mit solchen aus der nationalen Wildvogeldatenbank und der Literatur über das Vorkommen von AIV bei Wildvögeln, konnte festgestellt werden, dass Beizvögel trotz ihres selektiven Jagdstils nicht vermehrt mit AIV in Kontakt kommen, als aufgrund der allgemeinen Verbreitung von niedrigpathogenen aviären Influenzaviren (NPAIV) im Wildvogelreservoir zu erwarten gewesen wäre. In 37 Kloakentupfern, 40 Choanentupfern und 51 Seren der 54 Beizvögel konnten keine Hinweise auf derzeitige oder zurückliegende Infektionen mit AIV aufgezeigt werden. Um das Risiko der Falkner zu bewerten wurde mittels eines Fragebogens deren Jagdtätigkeiten ausgewertet und eine gleichzeitige serologische Untersuchung durchgeführt. Obgleich alle Falkner Antikörper gegen Influenza A Viren aufwiesen, konnten solche gegen H5, H7, H9 und H13 nicht festgestellt werden. Somit wies diese Studie kein höheres Risiko für Falkner nach, sich durch die Ausübung der Beizjagd mit AIV zu infizieren, als für die restliche Bevölkerung ohne Wildvogelkontakt. Ebenso wenig ging aus dieser Studie hervor, dass Beizvögel eine Rolle als epidemiologischer Link zwischen AIV-infizierten Wildvögeln und dem Menschen spielen. Die Falknerei trägt, wenn überhaupt, nur in einem sehr geringen Maße zur Verbreitung von AIV in Deutschland bei.The first aim of the study was to conduct an epidemiological research on the prevalence of AIV in urban and wild pigeons. For this, cloacal and tracheal swabbing as well as blood collections was carried out on 152 urban pigeons (Columba livia form. urbana) from Berlin, 103 from Hamburg, 113 from Munich and 40 pigeons from Hannover. None of the investigated 408 cloacal- and 322 tracheal swabs of the urban pigeons showed Influenza A viruspositive results either by virus isolation trail in SPF chicken eggs or by realtime reverse transverase polymerase chain reaction PCR (RT-qPCR). As a secondary finding it was possible to isolate avian Paramyxovirus serotype 1 (APMV-1) in three urban pigeons from Berlin. The concurrent investigation of 364 sera from the urban pigeons using a competitive multispecies Influenza A-specific ELISA as well as agar gel immunodiffusion test (AGID) revealed no group-specific Influenza A antibodies. Likewise, hemagglutination inhibition test (HI) revealed no antibodies specific for the AIV hemagglutinin subtypes H5 and H7. Samples from 170 shot wild pigeons (wood pigeons (Columba palumbus)) from North Rhine- Westphalia (170 cloacal and tracheal swabs, 123 sera) were investigated. In contrast to the urban pigeons, it was possible to detect group-specific Influenza A virus antibodies in two sera of the wild pigeons using the competitive multi-species Influenza A-specific ELISA, while AGID failed to confirm this result. Antibodies against AIV subtypes H5 and could not be detected using HI. A subsequent analysis of the “National Wild Bird Data Base” in collaboration with the Institute of Epidemiology of the Friedrich Loeffler- Institute (Wusterhausen/Dosse) consistently showed no AIV detections in pigeons during the years 2006 to 2008. Therefore, even after the occurrence of highly pathogenic avian influenza subtype H5N1 (HPAIV H5N1) in Germany, this study could not demonstrate that pigeons play an essential role in the propagation of AIV infections. Likewise, this study could not prove a high risk for humans to become infected with AIV through the contact with urban and wild pigeons in Germany. The second part of the study aimed at the question, if falconry plays a role in the epidemiology of Avian Influenza and if falconers would be at a higher risk to come into contact with AIV compared to the rest of the human population. Samples from 1080 prey birds (1080 cloacal and 1012 tracheal swabs) that were hunted with falconry birds were investigated over two hunting seasons (2006/2007 und 2007/2008) using RT-qPCR and VI. It was possible to detect AIV-specific RNA in three gulls (Laridae sp.) and two mallards (Anas platyrhynchos). The AIV-positive samples corresponded to 4,1 % of all investigated 74 gull samples and 3,8 % of all 53 duck samples. Molecular subtyping using RT-qPCR, RT-PCR and microarray revealed one H13N6 and two N6 in the gulls (hemagglutinin subtyping failed in two gulls). In addition, H3N2 as well as a double infection with H3N2 and H9N2 were detected in the two ducks. By comparing the results of this study with data from the „National wild Bird Database“ and literature on AIV-prevalence in wild birds, it can be noticed that falconry birds, despite their selective hunting style, do not catch AIV-infected avian prey birds at a high rate. In 37 cloacal swabs, 40 choanal swabs and 51 sera from the 54 falconry birds no evidence of current or former infection with AIV could be shown. To evaluate the risk of falconers to come into contact with AIV, the falconers were first asked to complete a questionnaire on their hunting habits and then donated blood for serological investigation. Although all falconers showed positive results using the competitive multi-species Influenza A-ELISA, antibodies against AIV subtypes H5, H7, H9 and H13 could not be detected using microneutralization assay and HI. All in all this study could not prove a higher risk for falconers to come into contact with AIV compared with the rest of the human population in Germany without contact to wild birds. All the same this study did not show any evidence that falconry birds may serve as a vector for the transmission of avian influenza viruses between wild birds and men. Falconry plays, if at all, only a minor role in the epidemiology of AIV in Germany