Mastitis risk indicators assessed through a germ specific epidemiological model in southern Belgium

Bovine mastitis is the most prevalent pathology in dairy production; in order to identify herd related risk indicators, our study focused on germ-specific approach to refine known risk indicators between environmental or contagious epidemiologic models. We gathered clinical mastitis during 3 months in 21 walloon dairy farms representing 1630 Holstein cows (mean: 67; SD: 18). Farmers were interrogated by a questionnaire about their main practices and basic mastitis knowledge questions. Quarters and severity were recorded, sampled for bacteriology at day 0 and day 21 during 3 months. Individual cell counts were also recorded. Risk analysis included Odds ratio calculation (OR) and multivariate regression. The average prevalence of mastitis on the study was 3.25% (min 0.3%, max : 11.2%, SD : 2.8%) which is coherent with previous epidemiological studies in Wallonia. 124 quarters were sampled and non-negative bacteriology shown 45% of strictly environmental pathogens, 22% of strictly contagious pathogens and 33% of mix epidemiological model pathogens. Overall risk assessment revealed that cubicles free-stall herds shown mastitis lower incidence (OR = 0.49; IC95 [0.34-0.72]). Surprisingly, post-dipping appeared as an overall positive risk indicator for mastitis prevalence (OR =2.13; IC95 [2,13-3,39]). The germ specific approach revealed that Post-dipping was present in low incidence herds with contagious models (OR=0.29; IC95 [0.12-0.71]) and that the type of pathogen model is an interaction in post-dipping risk analysis (Breslow-Day test p<0.0001), whereas housing had no interaction with the model (p=0.33). In this way of categorizing variables, one is able to identify overall risk indicators or germ-specific model. This can lead to more accurate advices in farm consulting.Mammipac

Implementing pedagogic strategies between vets and farmers to create synergies in udder health management: Project Mammipack®

Udder health is usually considered as a health and economic problem for farmers. We now consider that mastitis is the result of many factors related to the environment, the pathogen and the host. What may have been forgotten in the process is the fact that nowadays, the main interface with mastitis is the farmer, and their knowledge about mastitis is very heterogeneous. This reflexion has led to the creation of a technical and pedagogical pack called “Mammipack” which contains different tools, from all actors of the dairy chain. We included small charts explaining the most important risk factors identified through epidemiology, good dairy practices and its effect on milk flow, milking machine check-up, how-to for mastitis milk sample, a how-to for performance records use for udder health management, a resume on genetic selection of sires and mastitis, charts upon nutrition factors and their main effect on udder physiology during lactation and dry-off, resume on veterinary drugs good management in the farm. Small laminated sheets upon milk sampling for bacteriology and teats evaluation were also joined in order to be use in parlors, sterile sampling tubes were also given in the pack. A mastitis record pad was designed to record the main clinical forms and the treatment chosen. Eventually, the book Udder Health® was added to have a complete modern look on that problem in dairy farms. 25 farmers were selected on a voluntary base by 12 veterinarians, and they answered to questionnaires about their main practices regarding herd structure, mastitis treatment, and southern Belgium main 19 risk factors. They had to answer basic questions concerning udder health on 15 points. They agreed to keep a record of all next mastitis cases in their farms and take milk samples for bacteriology each time at day 0 and day 21 during 3 months. The main objective is to show to a group of dairy farmers that mastitis could take several different forms from one farm to another, in term of incidence, pathogens and clinical forms. One other purpose is to show the difficulty to have bacteriological cure, even when physical cure has happened. After all, one collateral objective was to create the Mammipack®, designed for farmers and vets to increase their ability to collaborate on mastitis management through most dairy chain actors’ expertise.Mammipac

Utilisation par les praticiens des données et des outils issus du projet LAECEA

La santé mammaire et la production laitière sont des enjeux capitaux pour le secteur de l'élevage en région wallonne, et donc pour la fonction du médecin vétérinaire rural. Les enjeux modernes de la production laitière tels que la course à la productivité, la réduction des coûts de production et la maîtrise de la qualité des denrées alimentaire d'origine animale, amènent le vétérinaire du 21ème siècle à être confronté simultanément à ses rôles curatifs, préventifs et de partenaire économique. En outre, la mammite devient la première cause du recours aux antibiotiques en médecine bovine laitière, et l'avenir nous demande d'avantage de réflexion sur l'utilisation de ces thérapeutiques en élevage. Le lancement du projet LAECEA en 2010 a été une opportunité fédératrice, plusieurs praticiens ont été impliqués dans la récolte de données et dans la mise en ouvre, le testage et l'évaluation de nouveaux outils au travers du dossier de santé mammaire (DSM). Les résultats issus du projet LAECEA sont en outre des témoins du quotidien de la santé mammaire dans les élevages participants. L'étude de ces résultats peut orienter le diagnostic présomptif du clinicien en éditant l'épidémiologie loco-régionale de la mammite en Wallonie. Cette approche pourra permettre de cibler plus précisément le diagnostic mammaire, d'en tirer les conclusions en terme de fréquence, de moment d'apparition, d'étiologie. Ainsi, seront abordés les tendances épidémiologiques moyennes, l'impact économique de la variation des indicateurs générés, ainsi que les leviers préventifs associés à ces tendances. Le corollaire évident est une gestion plus précise des substances antimicrobienne, de part un diagnostic plus pré Le moment est venu, lors de ce forum d'été du RTVOL, de partager l'expérience de ces praticiens et de faire état des données rassemblées et de l'utilisation qui peut en être faite. Par la suite, tous les praticiens pourront utiliser ces outils dans leur pratique quotidienne

Minimally Invasive Surgical Treatment of Migraine

Migraine headache (MH) is a very common disorder affecting 10–12% of the world’s adult population. The first line therapy for migraine is usually a combination of conservative treatments but some patients seem to be refractory. For this group of patients, the minimally invasive surgical treatment of migraine might offer a solution. Migraine is usually caused by extracranial sensitive nerve compression due vascular, fascial or muscular structures nearby. The aim of migraine surgery is to relieve such compression at specific trigger points located in the occipital, temporal and frontal regions. From June 2011 until July 2019, we performed MH decompression surgeries in over 269 patients with either frontal, occipital, or temporal migraine trigger sites. In the occipital and temporal areas, nerve decompression was achieved by occipital and superficial temporal artery ligation, respectively. In patients suffering from frontal headache we performed both endoscopic nerve decompression and transpalpebral decompression. Among patient suffering from occipital migraine, 95% of them showed improvement of their condition, with 86% reporting complete relief. As concern temporal migraine, positive outcome was achieved in 83% of the patients (50% complete elimination and 33% partial improvement). In patient suffering from frontal migraine, positive results were observed in 94% of the patients (32% complete elimination, 62% partial improvement). Migraine is a common and debilitating condition that can be treated successfully with minimally invasive surgical procedure especially for those patients non-responding to medical therapies

Getting insights on bovine mastitis treatment efficacy based on tissular indicators with an integrated udder health management file: Project LAECEA.

Mastitis is the most “antibiotic consuming” pathology in dairy medicine. Though antibiotics and antibiograms are known to vets since the early fifties, our practices did not evolved a lot from empiric antibiotic therapy. Indeed, the need for a treatment, the cost and the delay for an antibiogram are most of the time incoherent with a routine practice. Nevertheless, there is a surge for rational use of antibiotics. Our study was based on 1100 mastitis events from 30 Belgian farms collected between January 2011 and June 2012. We chose to compare tissular cure (TC) based on the threshold of 200.000 somatic cells/ml in milk at milk control at least 60 days after the clinical mastitis event. Regarding the mastitis event, severity (according 3 grades: alteration of milk as grade 1, alteration of quarter as grade 2 and alteration of general state as grade 3), quarter, treatments were recorded. We also assessed a chronicity status based on previous somatic cell count (SCC) of the cow. It was considered a new case a cow which at least 15 days before had an SCC <200.000 cells/ml, other were marked as chronic cases. In our distribution, we see a seasonal rise of incidence between January and May. This period would represent twice as many mastitis as the summer period. Overall TC reaches 46% of all mastitis events, which is quite poor. Rear quarters had significantly lower TC (p<0,05%). Grade 3 mastitis had lower TC, 42,6% (p<0.05%) versus 48,9 % for grade 2 and 44,2% for grade 1. Almost 49% of all mastitis was considered as chronic cases, which TC was 33% on average, whereas new cases reached 55,3% TC. Study of treatment was frustrating given the high number of different combinations of treatments. It was underlined that 4th generation cephalosporins (C4G) were the most used in our cohort, followed by aminopenicillin/methicillin association (PENA/PENM) and 1st generation cephalosporins/aminoglycosids (C1G/AG) association. Of these intramammary treatments, 20% of the cases were submitted to a second intramammary drug, mostly C1G or C1G/AG. One third of the cases were treated parenterally with antimicrobials, mostly macrolids, fluoroquinolones and penethacillin. Finally, 10% of mastitis was treated with anti-inflammatory drugs, mostly tolfenamic acid and flunixin-meglumin. Comparing mastitis without use of a secondary intramammary drug, only PENA and C1G/AG reached more than 60% TC. Considering new cases, then C1G/AG, PENA/PENM and Prednisolone containing specialties were above 60% TC. Use of a parenteral injections increased TC only on new cases (+12%), but not on chronic cases. Refining by severity, TC improved with a parenteral on new cases, mainly in grade 1 (+20%). Regarding associated factors, TC was negatively affected by chronicity, parity and lactation stage. Indeed, TC was lower on cases from more than 4 month in milk, third lactation (OR = 2.8 for no cure) compared with previous, and chronic cases (OR=2,6). Seemingly, chronicity was positively associated with parity and season. The 3rd parity cases had higher chances to be chronic ones (OR = 1,7), as well as cases from April to September (OR = 1,6). This evaluation of cure is rather simple and has a good variability which allows several questions about the real match between antimicrobial treatment for mastitis and the udder inflammation. Based on our epidemiological data, we can modify routine management of mastitis, as some cases might not worth the antimicrobial treatment.LAECE

Development of a genomic evaluation for milk production for a local bovine breed

DairySN

FLARES: an aging aware algorithm to autonomously adapt the error correction capability in NAND Flash memories

With the advent of solid-state storage systems, NAND flash memories are becoming a key storage technology. However, they suffer from serious reliability and endurance issues during the operating lifetime that can be handled by the use of appropriate error correction codes (ECC) in order to reconstruct the information when needed.. Adaptable ECCs may provide the flexibility to avoid worst-case reliability design thus leading to improved performance. However, a way to control such adaptable ECCs strength is required. This paper proposes FLARES, an algorithm able to adapt the ECC correction capability of each page of a flash based on a flash RBER prediction model and on a measurement of the number of errors detected in a given time window. FLARES has been fully implemented within the YAFFS 2 filesystem under the Linux operating system. This allowed us to perform an extensive set of simulations on a set of standard benchmarks that highlighted the benefit of FLARES on the overall storage subsystem performance

Estimating daily yield and content of major fatty acids from single milking

Reducing the frequency of milk recording and the number of recorded samples per test-day could be a solution in order to reduce costs of official milk recording. However, fewer samples lead to a decrease in the accuracy of predicted daily yields. Unfortunately, the current published equations use the milking interval that is often not available and/or reliable in practice. The first objective of this study was to propose models using easily available traits. Therefore the milking interval was replaced by a combination of data easily recorded by milk recording. The second objective of this study was to enlarge the previous investigations to milk fatty acids (FA) in order to propose a practical method for estimating accurate daily milk, fat and major FA yields from single milking. The fit goodness of proposed models was evaluated based on the correlation values between the estimated and observed daily yields in addition to the calculation of the mean square error. Obtained results are promising. Correlation values were comprised between 96.4% and 97.6% when daily yield were estimated from morning milking, and from 96.9% to 98.3% when daily yield were estimated from evening milking. The combination of records related to lactation stage, month of test, milk yield, and fat could replace the milking interval effect. Because of their simplicity, proposed models would be easy to implement

Genetic variability of lactoferrin content estimated by mid-infrared spectrometry in bovine milk

The effects of lactoferrin (LF) on the immune system have already been shown by many studies. Unfortunately, the current methods used to measure LF levels in milk do not permit the study of the genetic variability of lactoferrin or the performance of routine genetic evaluations. The first aim of this research was to derive a calibration equation permitting the prediction of LF in milk by mid-infrared spectrometry (MIR). The calibration with partial least squares on 69 samples showed a ratio of standard error of cross-validation to standard deviation equal to 1.98. Based on this value, the calibration equation was used to establish an LF indicator trait (predicted LF; pLF) on a large number of milk samples (n = 7,690). A subsequent study of its variability was conducted, which confirmed that stage of lactation and lactation number influence the overall pLF level. Small differences in mean pLF among 7 dairy breeds were also observed. The pLF content of Jersey milk was significantly higher than that in Holstein milk. Therefore, the choice of breed could change the expected LF level. Heritability estimated for pLF was 19.7%. The genetic and phenotypic correlations between somatic cell score and pLF were 0.04 and 0.26, respectively. As somatic cell score increases in presence of mastitis, this observation seems to indicate that pLF, or a function of observed pLF, compared with expected LF might have potential as an indicator of mastitis. The negative genetic correlation (−0.36) between milk yield and pLF could indicate an undesirable effect of selection for high milk production on the overall LF level

A cross-layer approach for new reliability-performance trade-offs in MLC NAND flash memories

In spite of the mature cell structure, the memory controller architecture of Multi-level cell (MLC) NAND Flash memories is evolving fast in an attempt to improve the uncorrected/miscorrected bit error rate (UBER) and to provide a more flexible usage model where the performance-reliability trade-off point can be adjusted at runtime. However, optimization techniques in the memory controller architecture cannot avoid a strict trade-off between UBER and read throughput. In this paper, we show that co-optimizing ECC architecture configuration in the memory controller with program algorithm selection at the technology layer, a more flexible memory sub-system arises, which is capable of unprecedented trade-offs points between performance and reliability