Efficacy of live B1 or Ulster 2C Newcastle disease vaccines simultaneously vaccinated with inactivated oil adjuvant vaccine for protection of Newcastle disease virus in broiler chickens

Two hundred, one-day-old broiler chicks were divided into groups 1, 2 and 3 containing 60, 70 and 70 chicks, respectively. The groups were divided into subgroups of 10 chicks that were vaccinated according to the following scheme: group 1 unvaccinated control, group 2 vaccinated subcutaneously at 1 day old with inactivated oil adjuvant vaccine (IOAV) in combination with live B1 vaccine. Group 3 was vaccinated in the same mode as group 2 with IOAV and live Ulster 2C vaccine. All birds were challenged when they were 28 days old. Mortality rate, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were monitored before and after challenge. All the chickens in group 1 died, indicating that there was no disease resistance of this unvaccinated control group of chickens. Conversely, the monitored disease resistance of chickens in groups 2 and 3 was 68.57% ± 18.64 and 88.57% ± 9.00, respectively (P < 0.05). The morbidity of chickens in groups 2 and 3 was 37.89% ± 14.36 and 14.76% ± 12.40, respectively (P < 0.05). The body weight gain, feed intake and FCR of group 3 were significantly better than those of group 2 (P < 0.05) during 1–42 days old. The simultaneous vaccination with B1 or Ulster 2C and IOAV of 1-day-old chicks gave some protection of 28-day-old broilers without a booster vaccination

Discourse or dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the question of concrete utterances

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final publication is available at Springer via the link below.This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the “concrete whole utterance” and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions—the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example—that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal “abstract” discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism

Impact of socio-economic deprivation on death rates after surgery for upper gastrointestinal tract cancer

We hypothesised that socio-economic deprivation in England may be a prognostic factor for death after oesophagectomy or gastrectomy for cancer of the upper gastrointestinal tract. We analysed statistical data from hospital records linked to death records for patients who underwent operations for oesophageal and gastric cancer in England from April 1998 to March 2002. The patients were stratified into quintiles according to the index of multiple deprivation (IMD) (2000) for their place (ward) of residence. Age and sex standardised death rates at 30 and 90 days for each deprivation quintile were calculated. Following oesophagectomy, death rates showed a significant association with IMD. They increased with increasing levels of deprivation: the odds ratio for death, comparing highest with lowest quintile for deprivation, was 1.37 (95% confidence interval 1.03–1.85) at 30 days and 1.30 (1.04–1.64) at 90 days. Following gastrectomy, the death rates showed smaller and nonsignificant associations with IMD with odds ratios of 1.16 (0.84–1.62) and 1.10 (0.86–1.41), respectively. There is a significant association between social deprivation and death after oesophagectomy, but less of an association, if any, after gastrectomy in current UK practice

Utilisation of an operative difficulty grading scale for laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background A reliable system for grading operative difficulty of laparoscopic cholecystectomy would standardise description of findings and reporting of outcomes. The aim of this study was to validate a difficulty grading system (Nassar scale), testing its applicability and consistency in two large prospective datasets. Methods Patient and disease-related variables and 30-day outcomes were identified in two prospective cholecystectomy databases: the multi-centre prospective cohort of 8820 patients from the recent CholeS Study and the single-surgeon series containing 4089 patients. Operative data and patient outcomes were correlated with Nassar operative difficultly scale, using Kendall’s tau for dichotomous variables, or Jonckheere–Terpstra tests for continuous variables. A ROC curve analysis was performed, to quantify the predictive accuracy of the scale for each outcome, with continuous outcomes dichotomised, prior to analysis. Results A higher operative difficulty grade was consistently associated with worse outcomes for the patients in both the reference and CholeS cohorts. The median length of stay increased from 0 to 4 days, and the 30-day complication rate from 7.6 to 24.4% as the difficulty grade increased from 1 to 4/5 (both p < 0.001). In the CholeS cohort, a higher difficulty grade was found to be most strongly associated with conversion to open and 30-day mortality (AUROC = 0.903, 0.822, respectively). On multivariable analysis, the Nassar operative difficultly scale was found to be a significant independent predictor of operative duration, conversion to open surgery, 30-day complications and 30-day reintervention (all p < 0.001). Conclusion We have shown that an operative difficulty scale can standardise the description of operative findings by multiple grades of surgeons to facilitate audit, training assessment and research. It provides a tool for reporting operative findings, disease severity and technical difficulty and can be utilised in future research to reliably compare outcomes according to case mix and intra-operative difficulty

Observation of associated near-side and away-side long-range correlations in √sNN=5.02 TeV proton-lead collisions with the ATLAS detector

Two-particle correlations in relative azimuthal angle (Δϕ) and pseudorapidity (Δη) are measured in √sNN=5.02  TeV p+Pb collisions using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements are performed using approximately 1  μb-1 of data as a function of transverse momentum (pT) and the transverse energy (ΣETPb) summed over 3.1<η<4.9 in the direction of the Pb beam. The correlation function, constructed from charged particles, exhibits a long-range (2<|Δη|<5) “near-side” (Δϕ∼0) correlation that grows rapidly with increasing ΣETPb. A long-range “away-side” (Δϕ∼π) correlation, obtained by subtracting the expected contributions from recoiling dijets and other sources estimated using events with small ΣETPb, is found to match the near-side correlation in magnitude, shape (in Δη and Δϕ) and ΣETPb dependence. The resultant Δϕ correlation is approximately symmetric about π/2, and is consistent with a dominant cos⁡2Δϕ modulation for all ΣETPb ranges and particle pT

Sodium bicarbonate supplementation improves severe-intensity intermittent exercise under moderate acute hypoxic conditions

Acute moderate hypoxic exposure can substantially impair exercise performance, which occurs with a concurrent exacerbated rise in hydrogen cation (H+) production. The purpose of this study was therefore, to alleviate this acidic stress through sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) supplementation and determine the corresponding effects on severe intensity intermittent exercise performance. Eleven recreationally active individuals participated in this randomised, double-blind, crossover study performed under acute normobaric hypoxic conditions (FiO2% = 14.5%). Pre-experimental trials involved the determination of time to attain peak bicarbonate anion concentrations ([HCO3-]) following NaHCO3 ingestion. The intermittent exercise tests involved repeated 60 s work in their severe intensity domain and 30 s recovery at 20 W to exhaustion. Participants ingested either 0.3 g·kg bm-1 of NaHCO3 or a matched placebo of 0.21 g·kg bm-1 of sodium chloride prior to exercise. Exercise tolerance (+110.9 ± 100.6 s; 95% CI: 43.3 to 178 s; g = 1.0) and work performed in the severe intensity domain (+5.8 ± 6.6 kJ; 95% CI: 1.3 to 9.9 kJ; g = 0.8) were enhanced with NaHCO3 supplementation. Furthermore, a larger post-exercise blood lactate concentration was reported in the experimental group (+4 ± 2.4 mmol·l-1; 95% CI: 2.2 to 5.9; g = 1.8), while blood [HCO3-] and pH remained elevated in the NaHCO3 condition throughout experimentation. In conclusion, this study reported a positive effect of NaHCO3 under acute moderate hypoxic conditions during intermittent exercise and therefore, may offer an ergogenic strategy to mitigate hypoxic induced declines in exercise performance