Hourly calculation method of building energy demand for space heating and cooling based on steady-state heat balance equations

Correct evaluation of solar heat gains through fenestration into the rooms has a great impact on energy demand calculations for buildings. This article presents an hourly energy demand calculation method for heating and cooling, which considers the fact that the solar radiation flow passed through the transparent fenestration into the rooms is not adequate to the thermal energy flow. This method considers that the thermal energy flow in the rooms transformed from solar thermal radiation depends on the short-wave thermal radiation absorption coefficient of internal surfaces of the rooms. The value of short-wave thermal radiation absorption coefficient forms a considerable impact on the flow of thermal energy gains in the room. The presented method differs from others on that score that it considers additionally physical lows, according to which the solar short-wave thermal radiation energy admitted into the room is converted into the thermal energy. This hourly method enables precise calculating the hourly mean of indoor temperature and energy demand for heating and cooling of the buildings during the day

Thermography based inflammation monitoring of udder state in dairy cows: sensitivity and diagnostic priorities comparing with routine California mastitis test

Objectives of this study is to evaluate possibilities for early detection of udder’s diseases of Lithuanian Black and White cows and compare thermography and routine California mastitis test (CMT) results. Cows were examined in the negative and at positive ambient temperature. Infrared thermography (IRT) applied skin surface thermograms of teats in the area of Furstenberg’s rosette analyzed as posing evidence based signs of subclinical mastitis coincide with the CMT. It is shown, that subclinical inflammatory processes of cow’s mammary gland can be simply and successfully identified at an early stage of pathology development applying the thermal imaging method. IRT results measuring the skin surface temperature of teat sphincters of healthy dairy cows and cows with subclinical mastitis were completely similar to the CMT findings. Effectiveness of IRT does not depend from ambient conditions: inflammation can be easily detected both in positive and negative ambient temperatures. We confirm IRT being as alternative, noninvasive, high sensitive, rapid and portable method for subclinical various origins inflammatory processes of cow’s udder, which can be certified for practical subclinical mastitis screening and subsequent detection

Lifelogging Data Validation Model for Internet of Things enabled Personalized Healthcare

The rapid advance of the Internet of Things (IoT) technology offers opportunities to monitor lifelogging data by a variety of IoT assets, like wearable sensors, mobile apps, etc. But due to heterogeneity of connected devices and diverse life patterns in an IoT environment, lifelogging personal data contains much uncertainty and are hardly used for healthcare studies. Effective validation of lifelogging personal data for longitudinal health assessment is demanded. In this paper, it takes lifelogging physical activity as a target to explore the possibility of improving validity of lifelogging data in an IoT based healthcare environment. A rule based adaptive lifelogging physical activity validation model, LPAV-IoT, is proposed for eliminating irregular uncertainties and estimating data reliability in IoT healthcare environments. In LPAV-IoT, a methodology specifying four layers and three modules is presented for analyzing key factors impacting validity of lifelogging physical activity. A series of validation rules are designed with uncertainty threshold parameters and reliability indicators and evaluated through experimental investigations. Following LPAV-IoT, a case study on an IoT enabled personalized healthcare platform MHA [38] connecting three state-of-the-art wearable devices and mobile apps are carried out. The results reflect that the rules provided by LPAV-IoT enable efficiently filtering at least 75% of irregular uncertainty and adaptively indicating the reliability of lifelogging physical activity data on certain condition of an IoT personalized environment

Thermography based inflammation monitoring of udder state in dairy cows: sensitivity and diagnostic priorities comparing with routine California mastitis test

Objectives of this study is to evaluate possibilities for early detection of udder’s diseases of Lithuanian Black and White cows and compare thermography and routine California mastitis test (CMT) results. Cows were examined in the negative and at positive ambient temperature. Infrared thermography (IRT) applied skin surface thermograms of teats in the area of Furstenberg’s rosette analyzed as posing evidence based signs of subclinical mastitis coincide with the CMT. It is shown, that subclinical inflammatory processes of cow’s mammary gland can be simply and successfully identified at an early stage of pathology development applying the thermal imaging method. IRT results measuring the skin surface temperature of teat sphincters of healthy dairy cows and cows with subclinical mastitis were completely similar to the CMT findings. Effectiveness of IRT does not depend from ambient conditions: inflammation can be easily detected both in positive and negative ambient temperatures. We confirm IRT being as alternative, noninvasive, high sensitive, rapid and portable method for subclinical various origins inflammatory processes of cow’s udder, which can be certified for practical subclinical mastitis screening and subsequent detection

Cross-Sectional Study on the Prevalence and Factors Influencing Occurrence of Tick-Borne Encephalitis in Horses in Lithuania

Various animal species have been evaluated in depth for their potential as Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) sentinel species, although evidence for equine capacity is incomplete. Therefore, a comprehensive cross-sectional stratified serosurvey and PCR analysis of selected horses (n = 301) were performed in TBEV endemic localities in Lithuania. Attached and moving ticks (n = 241) have been collected from aforementioned hosts to evaluate natural infectivity of TBEV vectors (Ixodes spp.) in the recreational environments surrounding equestrian centers. All samples were screened for TBEV IgG and positive samples were confirmed by virus neutralization test (VNT). 113 (37.5%) horses from all counties of Lithuania tested positive for TBEV IgG, revealing age and sex indifferent results of equine seroprevalence that were significantly dependent on pedigree: horses of mixed breed were more susceptible to infection possibly due to their management practices. TBEV prevalence in equine species corresponded to TBEV-confirmed human cases in the precedent year. As much as 3.9% of horses were viraemic with TBEV-RNA with subsequent confirmation of TBEV European subtype. 4/38 of tested tick pools were positive for TBEV-RNA (Minimal infectious rate 1.2%). Several unknown microfoci were revealed during the study indicating areas of extreme risk close to popular human entertainment sites. The study provides important evidence in favor of horses’ usage as sentinel species, as equines could provide more detailed epidemiological mapping of TBEV, as well as more efficient collection of ticks for surveillance studies

Thermography based inflammation monitoring of udder state in dairy cows: sensitivity and diagnostic priorities comparing with routine California mastitis test

Objectives of this study is to evaluate possibilities for early detection of udder’s diseases of Lithuanian Black and White cows and compare thermography and routine California mastitis test (CMT) results. Cows were examined in the negative and at positive ambient temperature. Infrared thermography (IRT) applied skin surface thermograms of teats in the area of Furstenberg’s rosette analyzed as posing evidence based signs of subclinical mastitis coincide with the CMT. It is shown, that subclinical inflammatory processes of cow’s mammary gland can be simply and successfully identified at an early stage of pathology development applying the thermal imaging method. IRT results measuring the skin surface temperature of teat sphincters of healthy dairy cows and cows with subclinical mastitis were completely similar to the CMT findings. Effectiveness of IRT does not depend from ambient conditions: inflammation can be easily detected both in positive and negative ambient temperatures. We confirm IRT being as alternative, noninvasive, high sensitive, rapid and portable method for subclinical various origins inflammatory processes of cow’s udder, which can be certified for practical subclinical mastitis screening and subsequent detection

Thermography based inflammation monitoring of udder state in dairy cows: sensitivity and diagnostic priorities comparing with routine California mastitis test

Objectives of this study is to evaluate possibilities for early detection of udder’s diseases of Lithuanian Black and White cows and compare thermography and routine California mastitis test (CMT) results. Cows were examined in the negative and at positive ambient temperature. Infrared thermography (IRT) applied skin surface thermograms of teats in the area of Furstenberg’s rosette analyzed as posing evidence based signs of subclinical mastitis coincide with the CMT. It is shown, that subclinical inflammatory processes of cow’s mammary gland can be simply and successfully identified at an early stage of pathology development applying the thermal imaging method. IRT results measuring the skin surface temperature of teat sphincters of healthy dairy cows and cows with subclinical mastitis were completely similar to the CMT findings. Effectiveness of IRT does not depend from ambient conditions: inflammation can be easily detected both in positive and negative ambient temperatures. We confirm IRT being as alternative, noninvasive, high sensitive, rapid and portable method for subclinical various origins inflammatory processes of cow’s udder, which can be certified for practical subclinical mastitis screening and subsequent detection

Molecular characterization and seroprevalence of hepatitis E virus in inflammatory bowel disease patients and solid organ transplant recipients

16 p.-3 fig.-5 tab.Seroprevalence rates and molecular characterization of hepatitis E virus (HEV) prevalent in the Lithuanian human population has not yet been evaluated. Immunosuppressed individuals have been recognized as a risk group for chronic hepatitis due to HEV genotype 3 (HEV-3) infections. The objectives of the present study were to determine prevalence rates of anti-HEV antibodies among inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients and solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients, to isolate and characterize HEV strain present in the Lithuanian human population, and to investigate its capacity to infect non-human primate (MARC-145 and Vero), swine (PK-15) and murine (Neuro-2a) cells in vitro. In the present study, the significant difference of anti-HEV IgG prevalence between healthy (3.0% (95% CI 0–6.3)) and immunosuppressed individuals (12.0% [95% CI 8.1–15.9]) was described. Moreover, our findings showed that anti-HEV IgG seropositivity can be significantly predicted by increasing age (OR = 1.032, p < 0.01), diagnosis of IBD (OR = 4.541, p < 0.01) and reception of SOT (OR = 4.042, <0.05). Locally isolated HEV strain clustered within genotype 3i subtype of genotype 3 and was capable of infecting MARC-145 cells. This study demonstrates higher HEV seroprevalence in the risk group compared to healthy control individuals without confidence interval overlap. The high level of genetic homology between human and animal strains in Lithuania and the capacity of locally isolated strains to infect cells of non-human origin suggests its potential for zoonotic transmission.This research was partly funded by the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Science Foundation (LSMUSF), grant number 119-05 and COST Action CA15116 ASF-STOP, supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology).Peer reviewe

Restriction endonuclease BpuJI specific for the 5′-CCCGT sequence is related to the archaeal Holliday junction resolvase family

Type IIS restriction endonucleases (REases) recognize asymmetric DNA sequences and cleave both DNA strands at fixed positions downstream of the recognition site. REase BpuJI recognizes the asymmetric sequence 5′-CCCGT, however it cuts at multiple sites in the vicinity of the target sequence. We show that BpuJI is a dimer, which has two DNA binding surfaces and displays optimal catalytic activity when bound to two recognition sites. BpuJI is cleaved by chymotrypsin into an N-terminal domain (NTD), which lacks catalytic activity but binds specifically to the recognition sequence as a monomer, and a C-terminal domain (CTD), which forms a dimer with non-specific nuclease activity. Fold recognition approach reveals that the CTD of BpuJI is structurally related to archaeal Holliday junction resolvases (AHJR). We demonstrate that the isolated catalytic CTD of BpuJI possesses end-directed nuclease activity and preferentially cuts 3 nt from the 3′-terminus of blunt-ended DNA. The nuclease activity of the CTD is repressed in the apo-enzyme and becomes activated upon specific DNA binding by the NTDs. This leads to a complicated pattern of specific DNA cleavage in the vicinity of the target site. Bioinformatics analysis identifies the AHJR-like domain in the putative Type III enzymes and functionally uncharacterized proteins

Phylogenetic Analysis of the Rabies Virus N-coding Region in Lithuanian Rabies Isolates

Rabies infection among wild and domestic animals constitutes a well-known problem in Lithuania, but only one dog rabies virus isolate sequence (1992) from Lithuania was used in the European rabies virus phylogenetic analysis. The objective of this work was to determine nucleoprotein (N) gene sequences and genetically characterize the rabies virus isolates in order to learn which virus group (biotype) is circulating in reservoir species in Lithuania. Classical rabies virus isolate nucleoprotein (N) gene sequences from different parts of Lithuania were found to be closely related to each other and demonstrated nucleotide identity from 97.7 to 100% and could be placed in one lineage with 100% bootstrap support. All 12 sequences of raccoon dogs, red foxes, dogs and marten rabies viruses exhibited 97.7 - 99.0% identity to previously published sequences from Eastern parts of Poland, Estonia, Finland, and the North-Eastern part of Russia. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that all Lithuanian strains belong to the North East Europe (NEE) group of rabies virus