Comparison of Doppler ultrasonic and oscillometric devices (with or without 2 proprietary optimizations) for non-invasive blood pressure measurement in conscious 3 cats

Objectives This study compared Doppler and oscillometric (PetMAP+) devices (with or without proprietary optimisations) for the non-invasive measurement of blood pressure in conscious cats. Methods Twenty-three cats were enrolled; however, five were excluded as fewer than five measurements were obtained for each assessment. All measurements were obtained according to American College of Veterinary Internal Medicine consensus guidelines. Oscillometric device modes A and B were operated according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. Doppler and oscillometric devices were used alternately as the first device. Results Systolic arterial blood pressure (SAP) measurements were obtained by Doppler (SAPd) and oscillometry; the mean of each set of five values was used for statistical analysis. There was a significant difference between SAPd and SAP measurements in oscillometric modes A (P <0.001) and B (P <0.001). While both modes measured SAP higher than SAPd, B had a smaller bias (+15.72 mmHg) and narrower limits of agreement (LOA). There was also a significant difference between SAPd and mean arterial pressure (MAP) on oscillometric modes A (P = 0.002) and B (P <0.001). Both modes’ MAP readings were lower than SAPd and oscillometric A MAP was closer to SAPd (–14.94 mmHg), with a smaller bias and narrower LOA. Conclusions and relevance The findings support that Doppler and oscillometric devices cannot be used interchangeably, with or without proprietary optimisations. Methodology should always be taken into account and reference intervals (RIs) need to be defined for the different methodologies. Until methodology-specific RIs are published, definitive diagnosis of hypertension and sub-staging of patients with kidney disease according to the International Renal Interest Society guidelines remains challenging

How and why pet cats are fed the way they are:a self-reported owner survey

OBJECTIVES: This study used an owner-directed online questionnaire to collect data regarding their food and water provision for their pet cats. The survey was conducted in 2019.METHODS: The anonymous online 30-question survey was available via vetprofessionals.com.RESULTS: A total of 1172 cat owners fully completed the questionnaire. The respondents each owned a median of two cats (range 1-6). They reported being most strongly motivated to feed a particular ration because of palatability, observed and/or expected health benefits, or that the diet was/is perceived as 'natural'. The majority of owners (n = 946, 80.7%) fed their cats exclusively a commercially purchased complete wet food, dry kibble diet or mixture of both. Compared with a previous (unpublished) survey conducted by the same authors in 2013,1 there were substantial increases in the number of owners feeding therapeutic diets (26.6% vs 0.7%) and the inclusion of raw meat in cats' rations (15.6% vs 3.7%). The proportion of respondents providing at least one feeding station per cat was 83.1%, with significant use of enrichment feeding methods (29.1%).CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Veterinarians need to be aware of changing trends in cat feeding to provide owners with appropriate support. Veterinary advice was frequently sought by owners and can be used as an opportunity to improve cat health and welfare, particularly in multi-cat households, but was not often influential to client decision making.</p

Multicentric validation of proteomic biomarkers in urine specific for diabetic nephropathy

Background: Urine proteome analysis is rapidly emerging as a tool for diagnosis and prognosis in disease states. For diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy (DN), urinary proteome analysis was successfully applied in a pilot study. The validity of the previously established proteomic biomarkers with respect to the diagnostic and prognostic potential was assessed on a separate set of patients recruited at three different European centers. In this case-control study of 148 Caucasian patients with diabetes mellitus type 2 and duration &gt;= 5 years, cases of DN were defined as albuminuria &gt;300 mg/d and diabetic retinopathy (n = 66). Controls were matched for gender and diabetes duration (n = 82). Methodology/Principal Findings: Proteome analysis was performed blinded using high-resolution capillary electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry (CE-MS). Data were evaluated employing the previously developed model for DN. Upon unblinding, the model for DN showed 93.8% sensitivity and 91.4% specificity, with an AUC of 0.948 (95% CI 0.898-0.978). Of 65 previously identified peptides, 60 were significantly different between cases and controls of this study. In &lt;10% of cases and controls classification by proteome analysis not entirely resulted in the expected clinical outcome. Analysis of patient's subsequent clinical course revealed later progression to DN in some of the false positive classified DN control patients. Conclusions: These data provide the first independent confirmation that profiling of the urinary proteome by CE-MS can adequately identify subjects with DN, supporting the generalizability of this approach. The data further establish urinary collagen fragments as biomarkers for diabetes-induced renal damage that may serve as earlier and more specific biomarkers than the currently used urinary albumin

A Systematic Review on the Use of Emerging Technologies in Teaching English as an Applied Language at the University Level

At present, emerging technologies, such as machine learning, deep learning, or various forms of artificial intelligence are penetrating different fields of education, including foreign language education (FLE). Moreover, the current young generation was born into the technological environment, and they perceive technologies as being an indispensable part of their everyday life. However, they mainly use technologies in their informal learning, but there is not much research into emerging technologies in FLE, namely in teaching and learning English as an applied language. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review is to identify, bring together, compare and analyze all of the technologies that are currently efficiently employed in foreign language teaching and learning, and based on the findings of the detected experimental studies, we provide specific pedagogical implications on how to use these technologies in the acquisition of English as an applied language at the university level. The methodology followed the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. The results of the detected experimental studies revealed that there was a serious lack of the latest technologies, such as chatbots or virtual reality (VR) devices, that are being empirically employed in a foreign language (FL) education. Moreover, mobile apps are merely focused on the development of FL vocabulary. The findings also indicate that although the FL teachers might theoretically know about these latest technological devices, such as neural machine translation, they do not know how to practically implement them in their teaching process. Therefore, this research suggests that teachers must be trained and pedagogically guided on how to purposefully implement them in their FL classes to support traditional instruction in order to identify what skills or language structures could be developed through their use. In addition, it is also claimed that more experimental studies are needed to clearly the evidence and its usefulness in teaching a foreign language as an applied language

The Population Diversity of Candidate Genes for Resistance/Susceptibility to Coronavirus Infection in Domestic Cats: An Inter-Breed Comparison

Feline coronavirus (FCoV) is a complex pathogen causing feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). Host genetics represents a factor contributing to the pathogenesis of the disease. Differential susceptibility of various breeds to FIP was reported with controversial results. The objective of this study was to compare the genetic diversity of different breeds on a panel of candidate genes potentially affecting FCoV infection. One hundred thirteen cats of six breeds were genotyped on a panel of sixteen candidate genes. SNP allelic/haplotype frequencies were calculated; pairwise FST and molecular variance analyses were performed. Principal coordinate (PCoA) and STRUCTURE analyses were used to infer population structure. Interbreed differences in allele frequencies were observed. PCoA analysis performed for all genes of the panel indicated no population substructure. In contrast to the full marker set, PCoA of SNP markers associated with FCoV shedding (NCR1 and SLX4IP) showed three clusters containing only alleles associated with susceptibility to FCoV shedding, homozygotes and heterozygotes for the susceptibility alleles, and all three genotypes, respectively. Each cluster contained cats of multiple breeds. Three clusters of haplotypes were identified by PCoA, two clusters by STRUCTURE. Haplotypes of a single gene (SNX5) differed significantly between the PCoA clusters

Candidate Gene Markers Associated with Fecal Shedding of the Feline Enteric Coronavirus (FECV)

The Feline coronavirus (FCoV) can cause a fatal disease, the Feline Infectious Peritonitis. Persistent shedders represent the most important source of infection. The role of the host in FCoV fecal shedding is unknown. The objective of this study was to develop gene markers and to test their associations with FCoV shedding patterns. Fecal samples were taken from 57 cats of 12 breeds on the day 0 and after 2, 4 and 12 months. Variation from persistent and/or high-intensity shedding to no shedding was observed. Thirteen immunity-related genes were selected as functional and positional/functional candidates. Positional candidates were selected in a candidate region detected by a GWAS analysis. Tens to hundreds of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) per gene were identified using next generation sequencing. Associations with different phenotypes were assessed by chi-square and Fisher&rsquo;s exact tests. SNPs of one functional and one positional candidate (NCR1 and SLX4IP, respectively) and haplotypes of four genes (SNX5, NCR2, SLX4IP, NCR1) were associated with FCoV shedding at pcorected &lt; 0.01. Highly significant associations were observed for extreme phenotypes (persistent/high-intensity shedders and non-shedders) suggesting that there are two major phenotypes associated with different genotypes, highly susceptible cats permanently shedding high amounts of viral particles and resistant non-shedders