Draft genome sequences of two <em>Micromonospora </em>strains isolated from the root nodules of <em>Alnus glutinosa</em>

\ua9 2024 American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.In this paper, the draft genomes of Micromonospora RTGN7 and RTP1Z1, derived from Alnus glutinosa root nodules, are reported. The assembly of RTGN7 is 6.6 Mbp, composed of 59 contigs, with an N50 of 321,872. RTP1Z1’s assembly is 6.3 Mbp, composed of 151 contigs, with an N50 of 76,442 bp

Beyond NPV

Net Present Value is a deceptively simple prescription that has dominated academic advice. Discount all expected cash flows at a risk adjusted discount rate and if the result is positive, invest, otherwise do not invest. It is still possible to read the following in textbooks: “NPV considers all of the costs and benefits of each investment opportunity” and “we have seen that NPV is a totally logical way of assessing investment opportunities” and even that it is the academically preferred method. Nowadays, few academics and, we suspect, no practitioners support this view. In this article we present a schema that summarizes the more recent theoretical developments. Their effect is to change the whole approach to investment analysis from just trying to predict expected cash flows to a far more business like analysis of the investment problem. Such is the extent of the change when going beyond NPV that it is something of a puzzle that many accounts still maintain that NPV is a complete answer

The impact of gastrointestinal parasitism on the behaviour and welfare of weaned housed lambs

Gastrointestinal (GI) parasitism is a health and production concern in sheep, yet its impact on animal welfare remains unclear. The impact of subclinical infections is especially ambiguous as GI parasitism often remains undiagnosed until clinical signs such as diarrhoea are evident. This study applied quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the effects of subclinical Teladorsagia circumcincta infection on the behaviour and welfare of 96 Suffolk-cross lambs (24 pens of 4 lambs) weaned at 10 weeks old. The hypothesis that parasitism causes negative affective states was tested. Lambs were divided into three groups at the pen level: ad-lib fed control (AC), restricted-fed control (RC), and ad-lib fed parasitised (AP). Parasitised lambs (AP) were dosed three times weekly with 7000 third stage T. circumcincta larvae (L 3) from 16 weeks of age. Lambs in the RC group were pair fed to match AP feed intake to separate the effects of infection-induced anorexia from the potential direct impacts of infection. From 7 days pre-infection to 23 days post-infection, scan and behaviour samples were taken from video recordings to quantitatively monitor behaviour, and animal-based measures such as faecal soiling score (FSS) were recorded as welfare indicators. Lying, standing, eating, play and social behaviour were monitored. Qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) was conducted weekly using the AWIN (2015) protocol to gain insight into the lambs’ affective states over the onset of infection. Parasitised lambs were more likely to stand inactive than AC lambs as the infection progressed (P=0.006). They were also less likely to display eating behaviour in the third daily scan sample than RC lambs (P&lt;0.001). Principal Component Analysis of the QBA data revealed that the first dimension (PC1) described arousal levels, the second (PC2) described the valence of the animals’ affective states, and the third (PC3) described fearfulness and aggression levels. Parasitised lambs (est=10.64,SE=0.33) scored higher than RC lambs (est=9.42, SE=0.33) on PC3, the fearfulness dimension (P=0.030). There were no differences between fearfulness scores of AC and AP lambs or RC lambs and treatment group had no significant impact on the distribution of scores on PC1 or PC2. These findings demonstrate that subclinical GI parasitism negatively impacts lamb welfare not only in the health domain but in the behaviour and mental domains as well. This has implications for welfare assessments and early disease detection in lambs. Future research could explore remote monitoring of the indicators of parasitism identified in this study.</p

The impact of gastrointestinal parasitism on the behaviour and welfare of weaned housed lambs

Gastrointestinal (GI) parasitism is a health and production concern in sheep, yet its impact on animal welfare remains unclear. The impact of subclinical infections is especially ambiguous as GI parasitism often remains undiagnosed until clinical signs such as diarrhoea are evident. This study applied quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the effects of subclinical Teladorsagia circumcincta infection on the behaviour and welfare of 96 Suffolk-cross lambs (24 pens of 4 lambs) weaned at 10 weeks old. The hypothesis that parasitism causes negative affective states was tested. Lambs were divided into three groups at the pen level: ad-lib fed control (AC), restricted-fed control (RC), and ad-lib fed parasitised (AP). Parasitised lambs (AP) were dosed three times weekly with 7000 third stage T. circumcincta larvae (L 3) from 16 weeks of age. Lambs in the RC group were pair fed to match AP feed intake to separate the effects of infection-induced anorexia from the potential direct impacts of infection. From 7 days pre-infection to 23 days post-infection, scan and behaviour samples were taken from video recordings to quantitatively monitor behaviour, and animal-based measures such as faecal soiling score (FSS) were recorded as welfare indicators. Lying, standing, eating, play and social behaviour were monitored. Qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA) was conducted weekly using the AWIN (2015) protocol to gain insight into the lambs’ affective states over the onset of infection. Parasitised lambs were more likely to stand inactive than AC lambs as the infection progressed (P=0.006). They were also less likely to display eating behaviour in the third daily scan sample than RC lambs (P&lt;0.001). Principal Component Analysis of the QBA data revealed that the first dimension (PC1) described arousal levels, the second (PC2) described the valence of the animals’ affective states, and the third (PC3) described fearfulness and aggression levels. Parasitised lambs (est=10.64,SE=0.33) scored higher than RC lambs (est=9.42, SE=0.33) on PC3, the fearfulness dimension (P=0.030). There were no differences between fearfulness scores of AC and AP lambs or RC lambs and treatment group had no significant impact on the distribution of scores on PC1 or PC2. These findings demonstrate that subclinical GI parasitism negatively impacts lamb welfare not only in the health domain but in the behaviour and mental domains as well. This has implications for welfare assessments and early disease detection in lambs. Future research could explore remote monitoring of the indicators of parasitism identified in this study.</p

Incorporating scale dependence in disease burden estimates:the case of human African trypanosomiasis in Uganda

The WHO has established the disability-adjusted life year (DALY) as a metric for measuring the burden of human disease and injury globally. However, most DALY estimates have been calculated as national totals. We mapped spatial variation in the burden of human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) in Uganda for the years 2000-2009. This represents the first geographically delimited estimation of HAT disease burden at the sub-country scale.Disability-adjusted life-year (DALY) totals for HAT were estimated based on modelled age and mortality distributions, mapped using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, and summarised by parish and district. While the national total burden of HAT is low relative to other conditions, high-impact districts in Uganda had DALY rates comparable to the national burden rates for major infectious diseases. The calculated average national DALY rate for 2000-2009 was 486.3 DALYs/100 000 persons/year, whereas three districts afflicted by rhodesiense HAT in southeastern Uganda had burden rates above 5000 DALYs/100 000 persons/year, comparable to national GBD 2004 average burden rates for malaria and HIV/AIDS.These results provide updated and improved estimates of HAT burden across Uganda, taking into account sensitivity to under-reporting. Our results highlight the critical importance of spatial scale in disease burden analyses. National aggregations of disease burden have resulted in an implied bias against highly focal diseases for which geographically targeted interventions may be feasible and cost-effective. This has significant implications for the use of DALY estimates to prioritize disease interventions and inform cost-benefit analyses

Структура іншомовної професійно зорієнтованої мовленнєвої компетентності

Розгляд та аналіз структури професійно зорієнтованої іншомовної мовленнєвої компетентності у порівнянні зі структурою загальної мовленнєвої компетентності, враховуючи особливості їх компонентів

Pneumococcal carriage in vaccine-eligible children and unvaccinated infants in Lao PDR two years following the introduction of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine.

Pneumococcal carriage is a prerequisite for disease, and underpins herd protection provided by pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs). There are few data on the impact of PCVs in lower income settings, particularly in Asia. In 2013, the Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) introduced 13-valent PCV (PCV13) as a 3 + 0 schedule (doses at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age) with limited catch-up vaccination. We conducted two cross-sectional carriage surveys (pre- and two years post-PCV) to assess the impact of PCV13 on nasopharyngeal pneumococcal carriage in 5-8 week old infants (n = 1000) and 12-23 month old children (n = 1010). Pneumococci were detected by quantitative real-time PCR, and molecular serotyping was performed using DNA microarray. Post PCV13, there was a 23% relative reduction in PCV13-type carriage in children aged 12-23 months (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] 0.77 [0.61-0.96]), and no significant change in non-PCV13 serotype carriage (aPR 1.11 [0.89-1.38]). In infants too young to be vaccinated, there was no significant change in carriage of PCV13 serotypes (aPR 0.74 [0.43-1.27]) or non-PCV13 serotypes (aPR 1.29 [0.85-1.96]), although trends were suggestive of indirect effects. Over 70% of pneumococcal-positive samples contained at least one antimicrobial resistance gene, which were more common in PCV13 serotypes (p < 0.001). In 12-23 month old children, pneumococcal density of both PCV13 serotypes and non-PCV13 serotypes was higher in PCV13-vaccinated compared with undervaccinated children (p = 0.004 and p < 0.001, respectively). This study provides evidence of PCV13 impact on carriage in a population without prior PCV7 utilisation, and provides important data from a lower-middle income setting in Asia. The reductions in PCV13 serotype carriage in vaccine-eligible children are likely to result in reductions in pneumococcal transmission and disease in Lao PDR

Functional imaging of the developing brain with wearable high-density diffuse optical tomography: a new benchmark for infant neuroimaging outside the scanner environment

Studies of cortical function in the awake infant are extremely challenging to undertake with traditional neuroimaging approaches. Partly in response to this challenge, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has become increasingly common in developmental neuroscience, but has significant limitations including resolution, spatial specificity and ergonomics. In adults, high-density arrays of near-infrared sources and detectors have recently been shown to yield dramatic improvements in spatial resolution and specificity when compared to typical fNIRS approaches. However, most existing fNIRS devices only permit the acquisition of ∼20-100 sparsely distributed fNIRS channels, and increasing the number of optodes presents significant mechanical challenges, particularly for infant applications. A new generation of wearable, modular, high-density diffuse optical tomography (HD-DOT) technologies has recently emerged that overcomes many of the limitations of traditional, fibre-based and low-density fNIRS measurements. Driven by the development of this new technology, we have undertaken the first study of the infant brain using wearable HD-DOT. Using a well-established social stimulus paradigm, and combining this new imaging technology with advances in cap design and spatial registration, we show that it is now possible to obtain high-quality, functional images of the infant brain with minimal constraints on either the environment or on the infant participants. Our results are consistent with prior low-density fNIRS measures based on similar paradigms, but demonstrate superior spatial localization, improved depth specificity, higher SNR and a dramatic improvement in the consistency of the responses across participants. Our data retention rates also demonstrate that this new generation of wearable technology is well tolerated by the infant population