Bearing Capacity of Piles Under Long-Term Vibration

The Bearing capacity of piles under long-term vibration is herein discussed. A real case of continuous subsidence of vibrating pile foundations is presented with a set of vibratory loading tests in-situ and the characteristics of settlement-time curves are described. Analyses of the observed data are made and the additional plastic deformation induced in the soil strata under the piles is interpreted. Based on the test data, authors recommend a conception of long-term bearing capacity of piles to be used in the design of pile foundation under vibration instead of the conventional one, and a method of determination of bearing capacity of single pile is presented

A new tool for in vitro culture of porcine eggs

Mineral oil is usually used to cover the microdrops of medium in oocytes or embryos culture system here designated as oil method. A large number of oocytes are needed for the production of porcine embryos for in vitro fertilization or somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT). The oil method not only wastes a lot of mineral oil, but needs tedious steps in the transferring of embryos. Here we designed a new method called nest dish, which need not mineral oil, to replace the oil method and improve the development rates of porcine eggs in vitro. The oocyte maturation rate with the mTCM199 (83.2%) was significantly higher than with the NCSU23 (75.5%, P﹤ 0.05), although the parthenogenetic cleavage rates with two media were not significantly different (77.7 and 72.4%, P﹤ 0.05 ). Chosing mTCM199 as base medium, the rate of maturation with concave dish (90.1%) was significantly higher than with the flat dish (82.6%, P﹥ 0.05) in nest method, although no significant differences in the oocyte maturation were found between flat dish (82.6%) in nest method and oil method (80.0%). Parthenogenetic cleavage from nest method (80.1% for concave dish, 78.0% for flat dish) did not show any decrease compared to oil method (76.2%), but the developmental rate to blastocysts in the nest groups(17.9 and 19.5%) were significantly higher than the oil method (12.3%, P﹤ 0.05). These results showed that mTCM199 presented higher maturation rate than that NCSU-23 did, and the nest method with concave dish significantly improved the maturation rate of porcine oocytes in vitro and can replace the conventional oil method.Keywords: Porcine oocytes, in vitro maturation (IVM), microdrop method, nest dish metho

The infectivity and pathogenicity of a foot-and-mouth disease virus persistent infection strain from oesophageal-pharyngeal fluid of a Chinese cattle in 2010

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Foot-and mouth disease (FMD) is an acute, febrile, and contagious vesicular disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals. Some animals may become persistent infected carriers when they contact FMD virus (FMDV), and persistent infected animals are a dangerous factor to cause FMD outbreak.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>300 OP (oesophageal-pharyngeal) fluid samples were collected from cattle without clinic symptom after one month FMD circulated in 2010 in China. A FMDV strain was isolated when a positive OP sample was passed in BHK21 cell line. The strain, named O/CHN/2010/33-OP, was detected to be O/Myanmar/1998 lineage with VP1 DNA sequence comparison. In order to testify its infectivity, two cattle were challenged with OP fluid and three pigs were put into the same pen for direct contact infection. The result showed that one of the cattle and one of the pigs appeared FMD clinic symptoms respectively. Furthermore, two cattle (three pigs were also put into the same pen for direct contact infection) and three pigs were inoculated with O/CHN/2010/33-OP cell passaged strain. The result showed that one of the challenged pigs appeared FMD clinic symptoms. Two cattle and three pigs in the same pen did not appeared FMD clinic symptoms, but the sera antibody and their OP fluid of two cattle were positive. Meanwhile, the spinal cords of three pigs in the same pen with two cattle were positive detected with multiplex- RT-PCR.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The persistent infection strain O/CHN/2010/33-OP has infectivity and pathogenicity to cattle and pigs, and infected cattle may transmit the virus to pigs although its virulence was lower than the circulated strain O/CHN/Mya98/2010.</p

Development and validation of a prokaryotically expressed foot-and-mouth disease virus non-structural protein 2C'3AB-based immunochromatographic strip to differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is an extremely contagious viral disease of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and many cloven-hoofed wild animals. FMDV serotypes O and Asia 1 have circulated separately in China during the last fifty years, and eliminating infected animals and vaccination are the main policies to prevent and control FMD. Antibodies to NSPs exist in infected animals, and were utilized to differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals. The reliability of detection of 3AB or 3ABC antibodies is higher than that of other NSPs. The test of 3AB is still credible because 3C protein's immunogenicity is the weakest. The 2C protein, immediately N-terminal of 3AB, was used to differentiate between infected and vaccinated animals. The use of the immunochromatographic strip is facile for clinical laboratories lacking specialized equipment and for rapid field diagnosis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this study, an immunochromatographic strip with non-structural protein (NSP) 2C'3AB was developed and validated to differentiate foot-and-mouth disease infected from vaccinated animals. A part of N-terminal of 2C protein gene and whole 3AB gene were connected and prokaryotically expressed as the antigens labeled with colloidal gold was used as the detector, the 2C'3AB protein and rabbits anti-2C'3AB antibodies were blotted on the nitrocellulose(NC) membrane for the test and control lines, respectively. 387 serum samples were collected to evaluate the characteristics of the strip in comparison with existing commercial 3ABC antibody ELISA kit. The coincidence rate of pigs negative serum, pigs vaccinated serum, pigs infected serum was 100%, 97.2%, 95.0%, respectively. The coincidence rate of cattle negative serum, cattle vaccinated serum, cattle infected serum was 100%, 96.7%, 98.0%, respectively. The <b>c</b>oincidence rate of sheep negative serum, sheep infected <b>s</b>erum was 97.6%, 96.3%, respectively. The strip was shown to be of high specificity and sensitivity, good repeatability and stability.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data suggest that the immunochromatographic strip is a useful tool for rapid on-site diagnosing animals infected foot-and-mouth disease virus.</p

Potential super-hard Osmium di-nitride with fluorite structure: First-principles calculations

We have performed systematic first-principles calculations on di-carbide, -nitride, -oxide and -boride of platinum and osmium with the fluorite structure. It is found that only PtN$_{2}$, OsN$_{2}$ and OsO$_{2}$ are mechanically stable. In particular OsN$_{2}$ has the highest bulk modulus of 360.7 GPa. Both the band structure and density of states show that the new phase of OsN$_{2}$ is metallic. The high bulk modulus is owing to the strong covalent bonding between Os 5\textit{d} and N 2\textit{p} states and the dense packed fluorite structure.Comment: Phys. Rev. B 74,125118 (2006

Alternative way to test the efficacy of swine FMD vaccines: measurement of pigs median infected dose (PID50) and regulation of live virus challenge dose

Foot-and -mouth disease to pigs is serious recently around the world. "Vaccination prevention" is still an important policy. OIE specifies 10,000 TCID50(0.2 ml) of virulent virus for challenge test in pigs to test the potency of FMD vaccine by intradermal route inoculating the virus in the heel bulbs of one foot or by intramuscular route administering into one site of the neck behind the ear. Convenience and speediness are available in the process of potency test of commercial FMD vaccine. We selected the route of "administering into one site of the muscular part of the neck behind the ear" because of convenience and speediness. However, it was difficult to infect control pigs even up to 100,000TCID50, so we changed the challenged virus from cell-passaged strain to suckling mice-passaged one, measured its PID50 (pigs median infected dose) and defined the virus challenge dose as 1000PID50. Meanwhile, we arranged the number of control pigs from two to three for easy evaluation

Multiple Origins of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Virus Serotype Asia 1 Outbreaks, 2003–2007

Viruses in 6 genetic groups have caused recent outbreaks in Asia

Controllable Synthesis of Single-Crystalline CdO and Cd(OH)2Nanowires by a Simple Hydrothermal Approach

Single-crystalline Cd(OH)2 or CdO nanowires can be selectively synthesized at 150 °C by a simple hydrothermal method using aqueous Cd(NO3)2 as precursor. The method is biosafe, and compared to the conventional oil-water surfactant approach, more environmental-benign. As revealed by the XRD results, CdO or Cd(OH)2 nanowires can be generated in high purity by varying the time of synthesis. The results of FESEM and HRTEM analysis show that the CdO nanowires are formed in bundles. Over the CdO-nanowire bundles, photoluminescence at ~517 nm attributable to near band-edge emission of CdO was recorded. Based on the experimental results, a possible growth mechanism of the products is proposed

Emergent properties of neural repair: elemental biology to therapeutic concepts

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137471/1/ana24653_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/137471/2/ana24653.pd