480 research outputs found
Medikamente im Ökolandbau und Nachhaltigkeit?
The occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the environment was frequently reported and
possible adverse effects on non-target organisms are of increasing concern. The
presence of veterinary drugs in manure may cause largely unknown ecotoxicological
effects. Organic animal health management puts emphasis rather on prevention than
on treatment. This could be an approach to develop a more sustainable production
system. The current health situation in organic farming still requires veterinary drugs.
Investigating the extent of the use and the toxic potential of pharmaceuticals could
demonstrate that organic farming is the less polluting system
Uniform Interpolation and Forgetting for ALC Ontologies with ABoxes
Uniform interpolation and the dual task of forgetting restrict the ontology to a specified subset of concept and role names. This makes them useful tools for ontology analysis, ontology evolution and information hiding. Most previous research focused on uniform interpolation of TBoxes. However, especially for applications in privacy and information hiding, it is essential that uniform interpolation methods can deal with ABoxes as well. We present the first method that can compute uniform interpolants of any ALC ontology with ABoxes. ABoxes bring their own challenges when computing uniform interpolants, possibly requiring disjunctive statements or nominals in the resulting ABox. Our method can compute representations of uniform interpolants in ALCO. An evaluation on realistic ontologies shows that these uniform interpolants can be practically computed, and can often even be presented in pure ALC
Investigation on the influence of nematophagous fungi as feed additive on nematode infection risk of sheep and goats on pasture
Gastrointestinal nematodes in small ruminants cause high economic losses. Thus on most farms anthelmintic treatment is required. In response to increasing problems with anthelmintic resistance, biological control, for example the use of nematophagous fungi, has received significant attention. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of Duddingtonia flagrans orally applied to small ruminants on natural infection with gastrointestinal nematodes in a field study in Northern Germany.
20 goats and 20 sheep were fed daily for 3 months with 5x105 spores of D. flagrans per kg bodyweight. Differences in body weight, faecal egg count and larval development in faeces and on pasture in comparison with same-sized control groups were analysed. After 3 months the control goats showed significantly higher mean faecal egg count than the fungus-fed group. No significant difference was found between the two sheep groups. The maximum in larval reduction in faeces was 81.3 % in the sheep groups and 67.9 % in the goat groups (not significant). At the end of the study the body weight gain in the fungus-treated groups was 1.7 kg higher in goats and 0.7 kg higher in sheep than in the control groups (not significant). Regarding the first-year-grazing goats only, the bodyweights revealed significant differences (p<0.05). No statistically significant differences were observed in pasture larval counts.
In the study presented here, no clear effect of fungus could be observed. A modified feeding regimen, perhaps with permanent release boluses or feed blocks, may improve the efficacy. Furthermore, it seems that climatic conditions during the study period could have influenced the results and displayed how sensitive the fungus application may be on such parameters
Untersuchungen zur Wirksamkeit von Anthelminthika bei erstsömmrigen Rindern in Europa
Resistance to anthelmintics is a threat to several animal industries world wide. Nevertheless,
the use of effective anthelmintics to control nematode infections in cattle
still remains irreplaceable. Anthelmintic resistance in cattle has been reported in New
Zealand, North and South America and England but so far not in Europe. To be able
to determine the extent of anthelmintic resistance in nematodes of farm animals and to
monitor the success of any resistance management requires reliable tests for the
detection of anthelmintic resistance. One of the objectives of PARASOL, a European
Framework 6 funded project, is to produce standard operating procedures for the
running of a faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT). Standardized procedures for
the FECRT have been developed and surveys with injectable ivermectin were then
performed in Germany, Sweden and Belgium in 2006 and 2007. Additional tests using
benzimidazoles were performed in Sweden and Germany in 2007. Furthermore, some
of the refractory strains will be isolated to test whether the phenomena observed in the
field was due to the evolution of anthelmintic resistance
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