54 research outputs found

    Analysis of foot and claw diseases/disorders in Czech Holstein cows

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    Received: 2018-05-07 | Accepted: 2018-05-14 | Available online: 2018-11-26https://doi.org/10.15414/afz.2018.21.04.194-196Foot and claw diseases/disorders from 24 545 lactations of 10 340 Holstein cows were recorded on 7 farms in the Czech Republic from 1999 to 2018. There were defined a three groups of foot and claw disorders/diseases: diseases of skin (SD), which cover digital, interdigital dermatitis and interdigital phlegmon; then disorders of the claw horn (CH) including ulcers, white line disease, horn fissures, together with double sole and  overall claw diseases (OCD) ingluding all the recorded disorders. The OCD ratio observed during 1th and 305th days of lactation was  52.56% of all evaluated lactations. The observed ratio of SD and CH  were 28.61% and 27.15%, respectively. A foot and claw disorders were defined as 0/1 occurrence per lactation, for the purposes of analyses,. Genetic parameters were estimated using by linear animal models for evaluated traits. Models  included the random additive genetic effect of animal (A), the permanent environmental effect of cow (PE), fixed effects of parity, farm, year and season of calving, and age at calving as discreet variables in classes. The estimated heritability were 13.84%, 12.64% and 9.83%, 8.73% and 9.97%, for OCD, CH, SD, ulcers (U) and for dermatitis digitalis and interdigitalis (DD), respectively. Genetic correlation was 17.66% between SD and CH, whereas traits SD and DD equal high genetic similarity (98.4%). Also correlation between CH and U traits was high (92.62%). The presented results indicate to possibility of selection against foot and claw disorders/diseases for Czech Holstein population. The work was supported by the project QJ1510144 and the institutional support MZE-RO0718 of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic.Keywords: cattle, foot and claw disorders, genetic parameters, health traits, uddeReferencesBuch, L. H., A. C. Sørensen, J. Lassen, P. Berg, J. A. Eriksson, J. H. Jakobsen,  M. K. Sørensen (2011) Hygiene-related and feed-related hoof diseases show different patterns of genetic correlations to clinical mastitis and female fertility. J. Dairy Sci., 94, 1540-1551.Chapinal, N., A. Koeck, A. Sewalem, D. F. Kelton, S. Mason, G. Cramer,F. Miglior (2013) Genetic parameters for hoof lesions and their relationship with feet and leg traits in Canadian Holstein cows. J. Dairy Sci., 96, 2596-2604.Egger-Danner, C., O.K. Hansen, K. Stock, J.E. Pryce, J. Cole, N. Gengler, B. Heringstad (2013) Challenges and benefits of health data recording in the context of food chain quality, management and breeding. ICAR Technical Series.Groeneveld, E., M. Kovač, and N. Mielenz (2008) VCE User’s Guide and Reference Manual, Version 6.0. Krpálková, L., M. Štípková & M. Krejčová, 2016. Vliv zdraví paznehtů a úrovně reprodukce na výkonnost a zisk stáda dojnic. Náš chov, 76 (9), 58-63.Krupová, Z., Krupa, E., Michaličková, M., Wolfová, M., Kasarda, R. (2016) Economic values for health and feed efficiency traits of dual-purpose cattle in marginal areas. Journal of Dairy Science, ,. 99,  s. 644-656.Madsen, P. , J. Jensen. 2010. DMU – a package for analysing multivariate mixed models. Version 6, release 5.0., Aarhus University, Foulum, Denmark.Pérez-Cabal, M. A. ,N. Charfeddine, N. (2015) Models for genetic evaluations of claw health traits in Spanish dairy cattle.   J. Dairy Sci., 98 (11), 8186-8194.Sogstad, A. M., T. Fjeldaas, O. Østerås,  K. P. Forshell. (2005) Prevalence of claw lesions in Norwegian dairy cattle housed in tie stalls and free stalls. Prev. Vet. Med., 70, 191-209.van der Spek, D., J.A. van Arendonk, A.A. Vallée, H. Bovenhuis (2013) Genetic parameters for claw disorders and the effect of preselecting cows for trimming. J Dairy Sci., 96 (9), 6070-6078.van der Waaij, E. H., M. Holzhauer, E. Ellen, C. Kamphuis, G.de Jong. (2005) Genetic parameters for claw disorders in Dutch dairy cattle and correlations with conformation traits. J. Dairy Sci., 88, 3672-3678

    Changes in species composition and diversity of a montane beetle community over the last millennium in the High Tatras, Slovakia : Implications for forest conservation and management

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    Montane biomes are niche environments high in biodiversity with a variety of habitats. Often isolated, these non-continuous remnant ecosystems inhabit narrow ecological zones putting them under threat from changing climatic conditions and anthropogenic pressure. Twelve sediment cores were retrieved from a peat bog in Tatra National Park, Slovakia, and correlated to each other by wiggle-matching geochemical signals derived from micro-XRF scanning, to make a reconstruction of past conditions. A fossil beetle (Coleoptera) record, covering the last 1000 years at 50- to 100-year resolution, gives a new insight into changing flora and fauna in this region. Our findings reveal a diverse beetle community with varied ecological groups inhabiting a range of forest, meadow and synanthropic habitats. Changes in the beetle community were related to changes in the landscape, driven by anthropogenic activities. The first clear evidence for human activity in the area occurs c. 1250 CE and coincides with the arrival of beetle species living on the dung of domesticated animals (e.g. Aphodius spp.). From 1500 CE, human (re)settlement, and activities such as pasturing and charcoal burning, appear to have had a pronounced effect on the beetle community. Local beetle diversity declined steadily towards the present day, likely due to an infilling of the forest hollow leading to a decrease in moisture level. We conclude that beetle communities are directly affected by anthropogenic intensity and land-use change. When aiming to preserve or restore natural forest conditions, recording their past changes in diversity can help guide conservation and restoration. In doing so, it is important to look back beyond the time of significant human impact, and for this, information contained in paleoecological records is irreplaceable.Peer reviewe

    A New Acoustic Portal into the Odontocete Ear and Vibrational Analysis of the Tympanoperiotic Complex

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    Global concern over the possible deleterious effects of noise on marine organisms was catalyzed when toothed whales stranded and died in the presence of high intensity sound. The lack of knowledge about mechanisms of hearing in toothed whales prompted our group to study the anatomy and build a finite element model to simulate sound reception in odontocetes. The primary auditory pathway in toothed whales is an evolutionary novelty, compensating for the impedance mismatch experienced by whale ancestors as they moved from hearing in air to hearing in water. The mechanism by which high-frequency vibrations pass from the low density fats of the lower jaw into the dense bones of the auditory apparatus is a key to understanding odontocete hearing. Here we identify a new acoustic portal into the ear complex, the tympanoperiotic complex (TPC) and a plausible mechanism by which sound is transduced into the bony components. We reveal the intact anatomic geometry using CT scanning, and test functional preconceptions using finite element modeling and vibrational analysis. We show that the mandibular fat bodies bifurcate posteriorly, attaching to the TPC in two distinct locations. The smaller branch is an inconspicuous, previously undescribed channel, a cone-shaped fat body that fits into a thin-walled bony funnel just anterior to the sigmoid process of the TPC. The TPC also contains regions of thin translucent bone that define zones of differential flexibility, enabling the TPC to bend in response to sound pressure, thus providing a mechanism for vibrations to pass through the ossicular chain. The techniques used to discover the new acoustic portal in toothed whales, provide a means to decipher auditory filtering, beam formation, impedance matching, and transduction. These tools can also be used to address concerns about the potential deleterious effects of high-intensity sound in a broad spectrum of marine organisms, from whales to fish

    Two-loop QED radiative corrections to the decay pi0 -> e+ e- : The virtual corrections and soft-photon bremsstrahlung

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    This paper is devoted to the two-loop QED radiative corrections to the decay pi0 -> e+ e-. We compute the virtual corrections without using any approximation and we take into account all the relevant graphs with the inclusion of those omitted in the previous approximative calculations. The bremsstrahlung is then treated within the soft photon approximation. We concentrate on the technical aspects of the calculation and discuss in detail the UV renormalization and the treatment of IR divergences within the dimensional regularization. As a result we obtain the O(alpha^3 p^2) contribution in closed analytic form. We compare the exact two-loop results with existing approximative calculations of QED corrections and find significant disagreement in the kinematical region relevant for the KTeV experiment.Comment: 48 pages plus 4 appendices (72 pages total), 26 figures; v3: new chapter 9 with phenomenological discussion added, references added, minor typos corrected; coincides with the journal versio

    Impact of primary kidney disease on the effects of empagliflozin in patients with chronic kidney disease: secondary analyses of the EMPA-KIDNEY trial

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    Background: The EMPA KIDNEY trial showed that empagliflozin reduced the risk of the primary composite outcome of kidney disease progression or cardiovascular death in patients with chronic kidney disease mainly through slowing progression. We aimed to assess how effects of empagliflozin might differ by primary kidney disease across its broad population. Methods: EMPA-KIDNEY, a randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial, was conducted at 241 centres in eight countries (Canada, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the UK, and the USA). Patients were eligible if their estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was 20 to less than 45 mL/min per 1·73 m2, or 45 to less than 90 mL/min per 1·73 m2 with a urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR) of 200 mg/g or higher at screening. They were randomly assigned (1:1) to 10 mg oral empagliflozin once daily or matching placebo. Effects on kidney disease progression (defined as a sustained ≥40% eGFR decline from randomisation, end-stage kidney disease, a sustained eGFR below 10 mL/min per 1·73 m2, or death from kidney failure) were assessed using prespecified Cox models, and eGFR slope analyses used shared parameter models. Subgroup comparisons were performed by including relevant interaction terms in models. EMPA-KIDNEY is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03594110. Findings: Between May 15, 2019, and April 16, 2021, 6609 participants were randomly assigned and followed up for a median of 2·0 years (IQR 1·5–2·4). Prespecified subgroupings by primary kidney disease included 2057 (31·1%) participants with diabetic kidney disease, 1669 (25·3%) with glomerular disease, 1445 (21·9%) with hypertensive or renovascular disease, and 1438 (21·8%) with other or unknown causes. Kidney disease progression occurred in 384 (11·6%) of 3304 patients in the empagliflozin group and 504 (15·2%) of 3305 patients in the placebo group (hazard ratio 0·71 [95% CI 0·62–0·81]), with no evidence that the relative effect size varied significantly by primary kidney disease (pheterogeneity=0·62). The between-group difference in chronic eGFR slopes (ie, from 2 months to final follow-up) was 1·37 mL/min per 1·73 m2 per year (95% CI 1·16–1·59), representing a 50% (42–58) reduction in the rate of chronic eGFR decline. This relative effect of empagliflozin on chronic eGFR slope was similar in analyses by different primary kidney diseases, including in explorations by type of glomerular disease and diabetes (p values for heterogeneity all >0·1). Interpretation: In a broad range of patients with chronic kidney disease at risk of progression, including a wide range of non-diabetic causes of chronic kidney disease, empagliflozin reduced risk of kidney disease progression. Relative effect sizes were broadly similar irrespective of the cause of primary kidney disease, suggesting that SGLT2 inhibitors should be part of a standard of care to minimise risk of kidney failure in chronic kidney disease. Funding: Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, and UK Medical Research Council

    Vztah mezi mlecnou uzitkovosti a vyskytem vybranych zdravotnich poruch dojnic ve sledovanych chovech v Dolnim Sasku.

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    Associations between milk yield and lactation incidence of the most frequently occuring clinical diseases and health disorders of dairy cows were studied using logistic regression. data on 2197 lactations of 1074 Holstein-Friesian cows from 10 commercial herds in the federal state of Lower Saxony, which were engaged in the herd health program during the 1990s, were used for this purpose Individual milk yield in dairy cows was characterized by data on their current 305 day lactation, as well. Eight complexes of health disorders were tested, i. e. retained placenta, pathological discharges from genital organs, ovarian cysts, clinical mastitis, foot diseases, parturient paresis, clinical ketosis and abomasal displacement. Associations studied were evaluated using models for each of the disorders complex separately. In addition, other influences such as of individual herds, parity, season and other disorders complexes were also taken into consideration. In association of statistical significance between the milk yield during the current lactation and the lactation incidence of the tested disorders complexes we evaluated their possible affection by differences in primiparous individuals on the one hand and delay conception or discarding the dairy cow from reproduction on the other. In this study it is proved marked association between the previous lactation milk yield and the lactation incidence of retained placenta, mastitis and parturient paresis. The results also indicate possible association between the previous lactation milk yield and the occurence of ketosis and abomasal displacement. We also found association between the current lactation milk yield and lactation incidence of ovarian cysts and foot diseases. There were found no associations between the milk yield and the lactation incidence of pathological discharges from genital organs. The influence of parity on the lactation incidence was proved in most disorders complexes evaluated using various models. The models created make it also possible to present the influence of the milk yield and parity on the lactation incidence of individual disorders complexes. The limiting conditions of individual types of models are discussed, as well.Summary in EnglishAvailable from STL, Prague, CZ / NTK - National Technical LibrarySIGLECZCzech Republi

    Prevalence of Failure of Passive Transfer of Immunity in Dairy Calves in the Czech Republic

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    Prevalence of failure of passive transfer (FPT) of immunity remains relatively high worldwide. The aim of this study was to estimate the FPT prevalence in Czech dairy calves and to evaluate the selected factors – breed, herd size, sex of calves, single versus twin births and the influence of the season of birth. A total of 1,175 serum samples were taken from calves of Czech Fleckvieh and Holstein breed from 33 herds between October 2015 and October 2017. Serum IgG concentration was determined by reference method for IgG determination – radial immunodiffusion. Statistical evaluation was performed by Kruskal‑Wallis test. The concentration of IgG ranged from 1.5 to 46.6 g/L with average value 13.7 g/L and was significantly influenced by breed, size of the herd and season. Using the criterion IgG < 10 g/L, it was found that 34.6 % of calves had FPT. The prevalence of FPT by breed was 42.9 % vs. 24.2 % (Czech Fleckvieh vs. Holstein), by size of the herd 45.0, 44.4, 25.5 and 22.0 % (< 200, 200–399, 400–599 and ≥ 600 cows per herd, respectively) and by season 25.3, 34.6, 29.9 and 52.5 % (spring, summer, autumn and winter, respectively). The sex of calves was not found to be a statistically significant factor. The study in newborn calves showed that FPT is still an important problem in Czech dairy herds, especially in the Czech Fleckvieh breed. In smaller herds and especially in the winter, the prevalence of FPT was very high
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