INCIDENCE OF STAPHYLOCOCCUS AUREUS AND COAGULASE POSITIVE STAPH. AUREUS IN RAW MILK IN KOSOVO

The presence study was conducted to determine the presence of Staphylococcus aureus and coagulase positive S. aureus in raw milk collected from different localities in Kosovo. We have examined 55 samples of raw milk cow taken from cattle farms. The Staphylococcus aureus was isolated in Baird Parker agar where typical and atypical colonies were selected and submitted to coagulase and complementary tests. Out of 55 samples of raw milk studied, 17 showed contamination by Staphylococcus aureus corresponding to 31% of the samples being contaminated. Out of 17 samples showed contamination by S. aureus, 5 of them were coagulase positive S. aureus or 29 % (or 9 % of total samples analyzed). Results clearly suggested a possibility of potential public health threat of Staphylococcus aureus resulting from contamination of milk with pathogenic bacteria is mainly due to unhygienic processing, handling and unhygienic environment

Poultry red mite (Dermanyssus gallinae) infestation:A broad impact parasitological disease that still remains a significant challenge for the egg-laying industry in Europe

Abstract The poultry red mite, Dermanyssus gallinae, has been described for decades as a threat to the egg production industry, posing serious animal health and welfare concerns, adversely affecting productivity, and impacting public health. Research activities dedicated to controlling this parasite have increased significantly. Their veterinary and human medical impact, more particularly their role as a disease vector, is better understood. Nevertheless, red mite infestation remains a serious concern, particularly in Europe, where the prevalence of red mites is expected to increase, as a result of recent hen husbandry legislation changes, increased acaricide resistance, climate warming, and the lack of a sustainable approach to control infestations. The main objective of the current work was to review the factors contributing to this growing threat and to discuss their recent development in Europe. We conclude that effective and sustainable treatment approach to control poultry red mite infestation is urgently required, included integrated pest management

Testing Higher Doses of Sildenafil to Repair Brain Injury Secondary to Birth Asphyxia: An Open-Label Dose-Finding Phase 1b Clinical Trial (SANE-02)

ObjectiveTo evaluate the safety and tolerability of higher doses of sildenafil in neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) and brain injury.Study designA phase 1b open-label dose-finding clinical trial in neonates with moderate-severe HIE and confirmed brain injury on a day-2 magnetic resonance imaging during therapeutic hypothermia (TH). Enteral sildenafil was administered every 12 hours (q12 h) for 7 days. All participants received an initial dose 2.0 mg/kg, and a second dose of 2.5 mg/kg. Starting from the third dose, group 1 received 2.5 mg/kg q12 h and group 2 received 3.0 mg/kg q12 h. Primary outcome was incidence of dose-limiting toxicities. Secondary outcomes explored day-30 neuroimaging and 18-month neurodevelopment.ResultsAmong the 30 neonates born between October 2019 and December 2021, 20 displayed day-2 brain injury and 13 received sildenafil (8 in group 1; 5 in group 2). In group 1, 25% (2/8) experienced transient hypotension after the first dose, linked to antiseizure medications. No significant hypotension occurred in group 2 when sildenafil was administered separately. At the 3.0 mg/kg/dose, steady-state sildenafil concentrations persisted beyond TH. Death or significant 18-month neurodevelopmental impairment occurred in 50% (4/8) of group 1 and 60% (3/5) of group 2. Among the survivors, partial recovery of brain injury was seen in 80% (4/5) of group 1 and 75% (3/4) of group 2; cerebral palsy developed in 0% (0/5) and 50% (2/4), respectively.ConclusionsEnteral sildenafil up to 3.0 mg/kg q12 h was safe and well tolerated in a small single-center cohort of neonates with HIE treated with TH. Phase 2 trials are needed to assess multicenter feasibility and efficacy.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov NCT04169191

Clinical and bacteriological examinations of dogs with tonsillitis

The aim of this study was to investigate the presence of tonsillitis in dogs and isolation of bacteria involved as well as their antimicrobial susceptibility. For this purpose from June 2015 to August 2017, 12 clinical cases of dogs with tonsillitis have been examined, and a total of 24 samples were collected. Diagnosis was based on anamnesis, clinical signs, haematology and biochemical tests and bacteriological analyses. The isolation and identification of bacteria was carried out according to conventional microbiological methods and biochemical tests, while the antimicrobial susceptibility of bacterial isolates was tested using the disk diffusion method. Escherichia coli was the most commonly isolated bacteria with isolation rate 35.0%, followed by Streptococcus pyogenes (27.50%), Staphylococcus aureus (20%), Staphylococcus intermedius (10%) and Pasteurella spp. (7.5%). A high resistance to ampicillin, streptomicin and penicillin G was shown by E. coli, S. intermedius, S. pyogenes isolates. None of S. pyogenes, S. aureus, S. intermedius and Pasteurella spp., isolates was resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid.</jats:p

Isolation and Identification of Brucella melitensis Biovar 3 from Vaccinated Small Ruminants: A Public Health Threat in Kosovo

In 2011, a human brucellosis case with severe clinical symptoms was reported at the University Clinic for Infectious Diseases in Prishtina, Kosovo. A trace-back investigation was conducted to find the source of human infection. A total of 49 blood samples and 15 corresponding milk samples from sheep and goats raised on the patient's farm were taken for serological and molecular analysis. Serology using RBT and CFT revealed 11 positive animals. Twelve milk samples were PCR positive. A Brucella strain isolated from a goat's milk sample was classified as Brucella melitensis biovar 3, indicating the first ever isolation and report in Kosovo. The use of the Bruce-ladder PCR provided differentiation between the field strain and the vaccine strain. Hence, the accidental transmission of the vaccine strain Rev 1 that was previously used for the vaccination of the farm animals could be excluded. The findings of this study show that brucellosis is still a public health threat in Kosovo despite control measures

A Genetic Algorithm for Travel Itinerary Recommendation with Mandatory Points-of-Interest

Part 3: Recommendation SystemInternational audienceTraveling as a very popular leisure activity enjoyed by many people all over the world. Typically, people would visit the POIs that are popular or special in a city and also have desired starting POIs (e.g., POIs that are close to their hotels) and destination POIs (e.g., POIs that are near train stations or airports). However, travelers often have limited travel time and are also unfamiliar with the wide range of Points-of-Interest (POIs) in a city, so that the itinerary planning is time-consuming and challenging. In this paper, we view this kind of itinerary planning as MandatoryTour problem, which is tourists have to construct an itinerary comprising a series of POIs of a city and including as many popular or special POIs as possible within their travel time budget. We term the most popular and special POIs as mandatory POIs in our paper. For solving the presented MandatoryTour problem, we propose a genetic algorithm GAM. We compare our approach against several baselines GA, MaxM, and GreedyM by using real-world datasets from the Yahoo Flickr Creative Commons 100 Million Dataset (YFCC100M), which include POI visits of seven touristic cities. The experimental results show that GAM achieves better recommendation performance in terms of the mandatory POIs, POIs visited, time budget (travel time and visit duration), and profit (POI popularity)

Planning the trip itinerary for tourist groups

Sightseeing trips are often done in groups, where tourists enjoy their trip in company with their relatives or friends. Therefore, in this paper, in order to model the case of trips for tourist groups, we introduce a new problem, as an extension of the existing problem in the literature that is used for planning the trip of a single tourist. The new problem extends the existing problem with two additional concepts. The first is the consideration of multiple tourists, where their individual preferences about points of interests are taken into account, and the second is the introduction of the concept of mutual social relationship between the different tourists. For the actual single tourist trip problem, we use an algorithm that obtains comparable results with the state of the art algorithms, whereas for the group trip problem, since no solution has been published before, we design a new algorithm based on tabu search metaheuristic that uses two new unique operators for exploring the search space. As a result, this paper proposes an anytime algorithm that in average takes about 20 s to obtain better personalized itineraries for tourist groups than when scheduling the whole group together