Economic evaluation of the eradication program for bovine viral diarrhea in the Swiss dairy sector

The aim of this study was to conduct an economic evaluation of the BVD eradication program in the Swiss dairy sector. The situation before the start of the program (herd-level prevalence: 20%) served as a baseline scenario. Production models for three dairy farm types were used to estimate gross margins as well as net production losses and expenditures caused by BVD. The total economic benefit was estimated as the difference in disease costs between the baseline scenario and the implemented eradication program and was compared to the total eradication costs in a benefit-cost analysis. Data on the impact of BVD virus (BVDV) infection on animal health, fertility and production parameters were obtained empirically in a retrospective epidemiological case-control study in Swiss dairy herds and complemented by literature. Economic and additional production parameters were based on benchmarking data and published agricultural statistics. The eradication costs comprised the cumulative expenses for sampling and diagnostics. The economic model consisted of a stochastic simulation in @Risk for Excel with 20,000 iterations and was conducted for a time period of 14 years (2008–2021)

Transportation: A Crucial Issue for Adult Day Care in Vermont

Transportation arrangements are an integral but fragile element in the effectiveness of adult day care services in Vermont and nationwide. Almost by definition, adult day center participants generally cannot drive due to cognitive and/or physical limitations. Since adult day care services are congregate in nature and serve community-residing elders, this long-term care option is feasible only when there are arrangements to transport elders to and from service centers. Transportation is therefore a major issue for adult day care services. The aim of this report is to call attention to transportation issues in adult day care services in Vermont. The report provides an overview of adult day care transportation arrangements for the state and focuses on the dimensions of transportation arrangements that are critical to the success or failure of adult day care services. The report is based on information from a number of sources. Interviews were conducted during November and December of 2001 with administrators of all of the adult day care service programs in the state. Administrators were asked to report on their involvement with transportation arrangements, their sources of transportation services, transportation financing, and issues in offering transportation services effectively. Additional information for this report was obtained through interviews with directors of several regional public transportation agencies and administrators in the Vermont Department of Aging and Disability. Also reported here is a statistical profile of individual transportation arrangements reported by nine centers for 389 participants. These centers provided information for each of their participants on the mode of transportation used, the distance traveled, the travel time, and the sources of transportation financing

Risk attribution of Campylobacter infection by age group using exposure modelling

Knowledge on the relative importance of alternative sources of human campylobacteriosis is important in order to implement effective disease prevention measures. The objective of this study was to assess the relative importance of three key exposure pathways (travelling abroad, poultry meat, pet contact) for different patient age groups in Switzerland. With a stochastic exposure model data on Campylobacter incidence for the years 2002-2007 were linked with data for the three exposure pathways and the results of a case-control study. Mean values for the population attributable fractions (PAF) over all age groups and years were 27% (95% CI 17-39) for poultry consumption, 27% (95% CI 22-32) for travelling abroad, 8% (95% CI 6-9) for pet contact and 39% (95% CI 25-50) for other risk factors. This model provided robust results when using data available for Switzerland, but the uncertainties remained high. The output of the model could be improved if more accurate input data are available to estimate the infection rate per exposure. In particular, the relatively high proportion of cases attributed to ‘other risk factors' requires further attentio

Probabilistic Distillation of Quantum Coherence

© 2018 American Physical Society. The ability to distill quantum coherence is pivotal for optimizing the performance of quantum technologies; however, such a task cannot always be accomplished with certainty. Here we develop a general framework of probabilistic distillation of quantum coherence in a one-shot setting, establishing fundamental limitations for different classes of free operations. We first provide a geometric interpretation for the maximal success probability, showing that under maximally incoherent operations (MIO) and dephasing-covariant incoherent operations (DIO) the problem can be simplified into efficiently computable semidefinite programs. Exploiting these results, we find that DIO and its subset of strictly incoherent operations have equal power in the probabilistic distillation of coherence from pure input states, while MIO are strictly stronger. We then prove a fundamental no-go result: Distilling coherence from any full-rank state is impossible even probabilistically. We further find that in some conditions the maximal success probability can vanish suddenly beyond a certain threshold in the distillation fidelity. Finally, we consider probabilistic coherence distillation assisted by a catalyst and demonstrate, with specific examples, its superiority to the unassisted and deterministic cases

Gaussian quantum resource theories

© 2018 American Physical Society. We develop a general framework to assess capabilities and limitations of the Gaussian toolbox in continuous-variable quantum information theory. Our framework allows us to characterize the structure and properties of quantum resource theories specialized to Gaussian states and Gaussian operations, establishing rigorous methods for their description and yielding a unified approach to their quantification. We show in particular that, under a few intuitive and physically motivated assumptions on the set of free states, no Gaussian quantum resource can be distilled with free Gaussian operations, even when an unlimited supply of the resource state is available. This places fundamental constraints on state manipulations in all such Gaussian resource theories. We discuss in particular the applications to quantum entanglement, where we extend previously known results by showing that Gaussian entanglement cannot be distilled even with Gaussian operations preserving the positivity of the partial transpose, as well as to other Gaussian resources such as steering and optical nonclassicality. A comprehensive semidefinite programming representation of all these resources is explicitly provided

Zoonotic pathogens and antimicrobial resistance in ‘animal-friendly’ pig production systems in Switzerland

In a cross-sectional study, the impact of ‘animal-friendly’ housing systems on the prevalence of Salmonella species, Campylobacter species, and Yersinia enterocolitica in finishing pigs and pork was investigated. Furthermore, antimicrobial resistance patterns of isolated campylobacter strains were analysed. In faecal samples of two out of 88 fattening pig farms salmonellae were isolated. All 865 samples of pork were found to be negative. Campylobacter was isolated on 98.9 % of the farms but only from 0.2 % of the pork samples. Yersiniae were found in samples of 63.3 % of the farms and in 15.4 % of pork samples. For all three bacteria, there was no statistically significant difference in the prevalence between conventional and ‘animal-friendly’ housing systems. In ‘animal-friendly’ farms, antimicrobial resistance of campylobacter isolates to fluoroquinolones and streptomycin was significantly less frequent than in conventional farms. Furthermore, fewer isolates had resistance to three or more antimicrobials in ‘animal-friendly’ farms

The relative myocardial blood volume differentiates between hypertensive heart disease and athlete's heart in humans

Aims The adaptation of the myocardial microcirculation in humans to pathologic and physiologic stress has not been examined in vivo so far. We sought to test whether the relative blood volume (rBV) measured by myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) can differentiate between left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy (LVH) in hypertensive heart disease and athlete's heart. Methods and results Four groups were investigated: hypertensive patients with LVH (n=15), semi-professional triathletes with LVH (n=15), professional football players (n=15), and sedentary control individuals without cardiovascular disease (n=15). MCE was performed at rest and during adenosine-induced hyperaemia. The rBV (mL mL−1), its exchange frequency (β, min−1), and myocardial blood flow (mL min−1 g−1) were derived from steady state and refill sequences of ultrasound contrast agent. Hypertensive patients had lower rBV (0.093±0.013 mL mL−1) than triathletes (0.141±0.012 mL mL−1, P<0.001), football players (0.129±0.014 mL mL−1, P<0.001), and sedentary individuals (0.126±0.018 mL mL−1, P<0.001). Conversely, the exchange frequency (β) was significantly higher in hypertensive patients (11.3±3.8 min−1) than in triathletes (7.4±1.8 min−1), football players (7.7±2.3 min−1), and sedentary individuals (9.0±2.5 min−1). An rBV below 0.114 mL mL−1 distinguished hypertensive patients and triathletes with a sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 100%. Conclusion Pathologic and physiologic LVH were differentiated non-invasively and accurately by rBV, a measure of vascularisation assessed by MC