Veterinary aid clinic assessments of working ponies in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia: A retrospective study

Working ponies in the West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) province of Indonesia are relied upon as the principal mode of transport. They have important cultural, logistical and One Health significance for the local community. Given the tropical climate, these ponies face well recognised health and welfare challenges . Parameters relating to the general health and welfare of the ponies were assessed following data analysis of clinical records from three veterinary clinics held in 2018 and 2019. Records relating to 454 clinical examinations of ponies (n=365 stallions) aged between 1 to 25 years (mean 7.59 ± 4.70) were analysed. The mean body condition score (1 to 5 scoring system) across all clinics was 2.89 (±0.49; range 1.5, 4.5), with no significant difference between clinics (P= 0.297). The majority of ponies (84.57%; 95% CI 80.50, 87.92; 307/363) assessed presented with tachypnoea, 37.24% presented with tachycardia (95% CI 32.78, 41.92; 159/427), 14.80% (95% CI 11.10, 19.46; 41/277) recorded rectal temperatures considered hyperthermic (>38.5°C), and 38.0% did not show obvious evidence of sweating (95% CI 32.21, 44.16; 95/250). Ponies examined at the April/May 2019 clinic were more likely to be considered hyperthermic (P=0.009) and/or presented with tachycardia (P<0.001), whereas ponies examined in the November 2019 clinic were more likely to present with tachypnoea (P=0.001). In general, the objective measures of body condition and health indices of these ponies were considered adequate. Some abnormalities relating to prolonged recovery following exercise whilst working were considered likely related to thermoregulatory stress. Parasite burdens were found to be low, no haemoprotozoan parasites were detected and median faecal egg count was zero. Measures to encourage cooling and greater frequent rest periods continued surveillance and monitoring the health of these ponies will result in both enhanced welfare and advances in One Health initiatives

Effect of the presence of solid particles, on the vanadyl sulfate (VOSO4) oxidation current

This study considers the effect of mechanical stirring of V(IV) solutions and of the presence of solid suspensions on the VO(aq)2+ oxidation current measured on a graphite electrode, with the objective of a better understanding of the electrochemical reactions taking place in a vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB). Our research question was to determine whether the presence of different kind of solid particles (inert glass spheres, VOSO4 powder and nanometric ketjen black (KB)) could be beneficial to the electrochemical performances of the VRFB. The experimental method consisted in measuring the anodic limiting current of a VOSO4-H2SO4-H2O solution on a rotating graphite cylinder, by linear sweep voltammetry. In the absence of solid particles, we show that the mass transfer coefficient dependence against the angular velocity of both the electrode and an additional stirrer obey to a power law (k = f(ωγ)) with an exponent γ found to be lower than the theoretical value. The beneficial effect on the mass transfer of VO2+ at the interface observed with low fraction of inert glass particles dramatically disappears as the spheres fraction increases. This is attributed to the decrease of the available free volume for the diffusion. When the solid consists of VOSO4 particles, the anodic current decreases as the mass fraction of the solid increases, which demonstrates the absence of any significant beneficial effect of the dissolution of the VOSO4 grains in the diffusion layer. Conversely, an important increase (~ 40%) of the oxidation current is observed when KB particles were introduced at low fractions (0.15%) in the bulk, thanks to the electronic percolation created by the KB. However, this beneficial effect disappears for higher mass fraction of both vanadium or KB solid particles, because of the destruction of the aggregates enabling the electron to be driven into the bulk

Assessment of worm control practices recommended by equine veterinarians in Australia

This study aimed to assess Australian veterinarians’ knowledge, perceptions and treatment strategies for worm control in horses with an online questionnaire. The questionnaire comprised 64 questions covering various aspects of: (i) veterinary practice; (ii) the veterinarian’s knowledge of gastrointestinal nematodes (GINs) and the importance of parasites in different age groups of horses; (iii) the diagnosis and control of worms; (iv) anthelmintics and anthelmintic resistance (AR); (v) grazing management; and (vi) the means of communication and the discussion between veterinarians and their clients regarding worm control. Following a pilot survey, a link for the questionnaire survey was sent to all (n = 1,148) registered members of Equine Veterinarians Australia in April 2020. The response rate for the questionnaire was 10% (118 of 1,148). The findings of this study illustrate veterinarians’ good understanding of aspects of equine parasites, including control. However, respondents mainly recommended frequent, interval-based prophylactic deworming in young horses, and only 40% (96 of 239) diagnosed GIN infections based on faecal egg count (FEC) results in all age groups of horses. Furthermore, only 27% (88 of 330) of the respondents made deworming decisions based on FECs. Most of the respondents recommended macrocyclic lactones (MLs) for all age groups of horses (71%, 481 of 677), and the most frequently used method to calculate the dose of anthelmintics was by estimating the weight of animals visually (53%, 63 of 118). Although the majority of respondents (97%, 115 of 118) perceived AR to be a critical issue in managing worms in horses, 58% (67 of 118) of them were unaware of the status of AR on their clients’ properties. Forty-two percent (50 of 118) of the respondents perceived the presence of AR in worms, including pinworms (16%), strongylins (15%), species of Draschia and Habronema (6%), Strongyloides westeri (2%) and tapeworms (1%). Twenty-seven percent (32 of 118) of the respondents rarely discussed equine worm control practices with their clients. This study provides insights into the perception and worm control practices recommended by Australian veterinarians to manage equine parasites. The findings highlight the importance of continued education and awareness of AR, and the use of non-chemical methods as well as consideration of the legislation of prescription-only use of anthelmintics based on FECs to achieve sustainable control of GINs in Australian horses

Search for Branons at LEP

We search, in the context of extra-dimension scenarios, for the possible existence of brane fluctuations, called branons. Events with a single photon or a single Z-boson and missing energy and momentum collected with the L3 detector in e^+ e^- collisions at centre-of-mass energies sqrt{s}=189-209$ GeV are analysed. No excess over the Standard Model expectations is found and a lower limit at 95% confidence level of 103 GeV is derived for the mass of branons, for a scenario with small brane tensions. Alternatively, under the assumption of a light branon, brane tensions below 180 GeV are excluded

Globetrotting strangles: the unbridled national and international transmission of Streptococcus equi between horses.

The equine disease strangles, which is characterized by the formation of abscesses in the lymph nodes of the head and neck, is one of the most frequently diagnosed infectious diseases of horses around the world. The causal agent, Streptococcus equi subspecies equi, establishes a persistent infection in approximately 10 % of animals that recover from the acute disease. Such 'carrier' animals appear healthy and are rarely identified during routine veterinary examinations pre-purchase or transit, but can transmit S. equi to naïve animals initiating new episodes of disease. Here, we report the analysis and visualization of phylogenomic and epidemiological data for 670 isolates of S. equi recovered from 19 different countries using a new core-genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST) web bioresource. Genetic relationships among all 670 S. equi isolates were determined at high resolution, revealing national and international transmission events that drive this endemic disease in horse populations throughout the world. Our data argue for the recognition of the international importance of strangles by the Office International des Épizooties to highlight the health, welfare and economic cost of this disease. The Pathogenwatch cgMLST web bioresource described herein is available for tailored genomic analysis of populations of S. equi and its close relative S. equi subspecies zooepidemicus that are recovered from horses and other animals, including humans, throughout the world. This article contains data hosted by Microreact

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

Immunological and virological investigations arising from the 2007 Australian equine influenza outbreak

© 2016 Dr. Charles Mark El-HageDuring Australia’s equine influenza (EI) outbreak, horses were vaccinated in Victoria prophylactically using a recombinant canarypox- vectored vaccine. Humoral and cell–mediated immune responses were monitored following an accelerated primary course reduced to 14 days. To demonstrate proof of freedom from EI, nasal swabs were taken from diseased and normal horses. Quantitative PCR was performed on samples from 559 horses, all negative for EI. Shedding of equine herpesviruses -1,-2 and -4 was correlated with the horse’s clinical status

Association of Equine Herpesvirus 5 with Mild Respiratory Disease in a Survey of EHV1, -2, -4 and -5 in 407 Australian Horses

Equine herpesviruses (EHVs) are common respiratory pathogens in horses; whilst the alphaherpesviruses are better understood, the clinical importance of the gammaherpesviruses remains undetermined. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of, and any association between, equine respiratory herpesviruses EHV1, -2, -4 and -5 infection in horses with and without clinical signs of respiratory disease. Nasal swabs were collected from 407 horses in Victoria and included clinically normal horses that had been screened for regulatory purposes. Samples were collected from horses during Australia’s equine influenza outbreak in 2007; however, horses in Victoria required testing for proof of freedom from EIV. All horses tested in Victoria were negative for EIV, hence archived swabs were available to screen for other pathogens such as EHVs. Quantitative PCR techniques were used to detect EHVs. Of the 407 horses sampled, 249 (61%) were clinically normal, 120 (29%) presented with clinical signs consistent with mild respiratory disease and 38 (9%) horses had an unknown clinical history. Of the three horses detected shedding EHV1, and the five shedding EHV4, only one was noted to have clinical signs referable to respiratory disease. The proportion of EHV5-infected horses in the diseased group (85/120, 70.8%) was significantly greater than those not showing signs of disease (137/249, 55%). The odds of EHV5-positive horses demonstrating clinical signs of respiratory disease were twice that of EHV5-negative horses (OR 1.98, 95% CI 1.25 to 3.16). No quantitative difference between mean loads of EHV shedding between diseased and non-diseased horses was detected. The clinical significance of respiratory gammaherpesvirus infections in horses remains to be determined; however, this survey adds to the mounting body of evidence associating EHV5 with equine respiratory disease

Assessment of Humoral and Long-Term Cell-Mediated Immune Responses to Recombinant Canarypox-Vectored Equine Influenza Virus Vaccination in Horses Using Conventional and Accelerated Regimens Respectively

During Australia’s first and only outbreak of equine influenza (EI), which was restricted to two northeastern states, horses were strategically vaccinated with a recombinant canarypox-vectored vaccine (rCP-EIV; ProteqFlu™, Merial P/L). The vaccine encoded for haemagglutinin (HA) belonging to two equine influenza viruses (EIVs), including an American and Eurasian lineage subtype that predated the EIV responsible for the outbreak (A/equine/Sydney/07). Racehorses in Victoria (a southern state that remained free of EI) were vaccinated prophylactically. Although the vaccine encoded for (HA) belonged to two EIVs of distinct strains of the field virus, clinical protection was reported in vaccinated horses. Our aim is to assess the extent of humoral immunity in one group of vaccinated horses and interferon-gamma ((EIV)-IFN-γ)) production in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of a second population of vaccinated horses. Twelve racehorses at work were monitored for haemagglutination inhibition antibodies to three antigenically distinct equine influenza viruses (EIVs) The EIV antigens included two H3N8 subtypes: A/equine/Sydney/07) A/equine/Newmarket/95 (a European lineage strain) and an H7N7 subtype (A/equine/Prague1956). Cell-mediated immune responses of: seven racehorses following an accelerated vaccination schedule, two horses vaccinated using a conventional regimen, and six unvaccinated horses were evaluated by determining (EIV)-IFN-γ levels. Antibody responses following vaccination with ProteqFlu™ were cross-reactive in nature, with responses to both H3N8 EIV strains. Although (EIV)IFN-γ was clearly detected following the in vitro re-stimulation of PBMC, there was no significant difference between the different groups of horses. Results of this study support reports of clinical protection of Australian horses following vaccination with Proteq-Flu™ with objective evidence of humoral cross-reactivity to the outbreak viral strain A/equine/Sydney/07