Comparison of wet-mount, Wright-Giemsa and Gram-stained urine sediment for predicting bacteriuria in dogs and cats

This study assessed the standard urinalysis technique and sediment stain techniques as predictors of bacterial culture results for canine and feline urine. Canine (n = 111) and feline (n = 79) urine samples were evaluated using unstained wet-mount and air-dried Gram and Wright-Giemsa stained sediment; results were compared to aerobic bacterial culture. Eleven canine and 7 feline urine samples were culture positive. Unstained wet-mount and stained sediment had sensitivities of 89% and 83% and specificities of 91% and 99%, respectively. The specificity of using either stain was higher (P < 0.01) than wet-mount examination for detecting bacteriuria. There were significant differences among 3 technologists in detecting true positives (P < 0.01). Association of sediment and culture results used 112 canine and 81 feline samples. There was a negative association (P < 0.01) between lipid detection and wet-mount identification of bacteria.;Source type: Electronic(1

PPDIST, global 0.1° daily and 3-hourly precipitation probability distribution climatologies for 1979–2018

We introduce the Precipitation Probability DISTribution (PPDIST) dataset, a collection of global high-resolution (0.1°) observation-based climatologies (1979–2018) of the occurrence and peak intensity of precipitation (P) at daily and 3-hourly time-scales. The climatologies were produced using neural networks trained with daily P observations from 93,138 gauges and hourly P observations (resampled to 3-hourly) from 11,881 gauges worldwide. Mean validation coefficient of determination (R2) values ranged from 0.76 to 0.80 for the daily P occurrence indices, and from 0.44 to 0.84 for the daily peak P intensity indices. The neural networks performed significantly better than current state-of-the-art reanalysis (ERA5) and satellite (IMERG) products for all P indices. Using a 0.1 mm 3 h−1 threshold, P was estimated to occur 12.2%, 7.4%, and 14.3% of the time, on average, over the global, land, and ocean domains, respectively. The highest P intensities were found over parts of Central America, India, and Southeast Asia, along the western equatorial coast of Africa, and in the intertropical convergence zone. The PPDIST dataset is available via www.gloh2o.org/ppdist.Water Resource