Effect of housing system on reproductive behaviour and on some endocrinological and seminal parameters of donkey stallions

Reproductive management of male donkeys employed for artificial breeding has been poorly studied. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of housing system, with the animals grouped together in a paddock or kept in individual boxes, on sexual behaviour, cortisol and testosterone concentration and seminal characteristics of adult male donkeys. The study included four Amiata donkey jacks (stallions) from which ejaculates, saliva and blood were collected during two distinct 3 weeks periods, one in the group and one in the box housing system. Time needed for semen collection was shorter when donkeys were kept in paddocks compared to when they were kept in single boxes (14:57 ± 07:27 and 20:52 ± 09:31 min, p < .05). Native semen characteristics were not influenced by housing system, while cooled preservation in an Equitainer(®) showed that sperm motility parameters were significantly higher during the paddock period compared to the box period. Salivary cortisol was influenced by housing system, both before and 60 min after ejaculation, being statistically higher when donkeys were housed in paddocks. On the contrary, overall and basal testosterone concentrations were significantly higher when animals were kept in boxes. In conclusion, in the present study, good quality semen could be successfully collected from donkeys irrespective of the housing system despite some differences in hormone concentrations

Anti-tumour effects of lanreotide for pancreatic and intestinal neuroendocrine tumours: The CLARINET open-label extension study

In the CLARINET study, lanreotide Autogel (depot in USA) significantly prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic pancreatic/intestinal neuroendocrine tumours (NETs). We report long-term safety and additional efficacy data from the open-label extension (OLE). Patients with metastatic grade 1/2 (Ki-67 %) nonfunctioning NET and documented baseline tumour-progression status received lanreotide Autogel 120 mg (n=101) or placebo (n=103) for 96 weeks or until death/progressive disease (PD) in CLARINET study. Patients with stable disease (SD) at core study end (lanreotide/placebo) or PD (placebo only) continued or switched to lanreotide in the OLE. In total, 88 patients (previously: lanreotide, n=41; placebo, n=47) participated: 38% had pancreatic, 39% midgut and 23% other/unknown primary tumours. Patients continuing lanreotide reported fewer adverse events (AEs) (all and treatment-related) during OLE than core study. Placebo-to-lanreotide switch patients reported similar AE rates in OLE and core studies, except more diarrhoea was considered treatment-related in OLE (overall diarrhoea unchanged). Median lanreotide PFS (core study randomisation to PD in core/OLE; n=101) was 32.8 months (95% CI: 30.9, 68.0). A sensitivity analysis, addressing potential selection

An observational cohort study of the use of five-grass-pollen extract sublingual immunotherapy during the 2015 pollen season in France

Background:Allergic rhinitis affects around one quarter of the Western European population. Prophylactic allergen immunotherapy may be useful to reduce the risk of acute symptomatic attacks (hayfever). A five-grass pollen extract sublingual immunotherapy (5GPE-SLIT) has been developed for the treatment of allergic rhinitis to grass pollen. The objective of this study was to describe real-world treatment patterns with 5GPE-SLIT in France with respect to the prescribing information.Methods:This prospective cohort study was conducted by 90 community and hospital allergists. Adults and children (> 5 years old) starting a first treatment with 5GPE-SLIT prior to the 2015 pollen season were eligible. Data was collected at the inclusion visit and at the end of the pollen season. The primary outcome variable was compatibility of 5GPE-SLIT prescription with the prescribing information. This was determined with respect to four variables: (1) interval between 5GPE-SLIT initiation and onset of the pollen season ≥ 3 months, (2) age of patient ≥ 5 years, (3) intermittent symptoms or mild symptom severity (4) confirmatory diagnostic test. At study end, symptoms reported during the pollen season and any modifications to treatment or adverse events were documented.Results:280 adults and 203 children were enrolled. The prescribing information was respected for 82.5% of adults and 86.7% of children. A skin test was performed for all patients. 5GPE-SLIT was started 3-5 months before the pollen season for 85.3%. Treatment was discontinued before the start of the pollen season in 11.0% of patients overall, generally because of an adverse event (78.8% of discontinuations). The mean duration of treatment was 5.2 months in adults and 5.6 months in children. At the end of follow-up, symptoms during the pollen season were intermittent for 75.0% of adults and 85.7% of children, and severity was mild for 61.8 and 66.0% respectively. During 5GPE-SLIT, the following symptoms reported during the previous year were not reported again in > 50% of patients: nasal congestion, rhinorrhoea, repeated sneezing, conjunctivitis and nasal pruritus.Conclusions:5GPE-SLIT use was generally consistent with prescribing recommendations and was associated with an improvement of AR severity, with resolution of the principal AR symptoms in around half the patients treated.Trial registration EUPAS9358. Registered 13 May 2015. Not prospectively registered. http://www.encepp.eu/encepp/viewResource.htm?id=16229

A personalized Adaptive Cruise Control driving style characterization based on a learning approach

Advanced Assistance Driver Systems (ADAS) adaptation with respect to driver driving style is a research field of major interest, given the additional benefits that could be obtained in terms of comfort and safety perceived by the user. In this work, a personalized Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) oriented driving style features extraction method is proposed, meant to be used to choose an ACC tuning which better fits the driver on road behaviour. The method exploits an Artificial Neural Network driver model, capable of capturing the driver behaviour in a car following scenario, trained and validated over real data. From a closed-loop model analysis in a simulation environment driving style features are then extracted, looking at the system response to variations of the preceding vehicle speed. Finally, the effectiveness of the extracted features for a non-trivial characterization of the driver behaviour is assessed, comparing the results obtained considering three different drivers

VALUTAZIONE DI PROTEINE DI FASE ACUTA NEL PERIPARTO DELLA CAPRA

Haptoglobin (Hp), Serum Amyloid A (SAA), Alpha 1 acid glycoprotein (AGP) and Ceruloplasmin were evaluated in blood serum from 24 goats, starting from 2 days before parturition until 7 days after. Metabolic profile was also assayed. 17 goats were clinically healthy, 4 presented dystocia, 2 retained placenta and 1 bronchopneumonia. In healthy goats Hp increased significantly at 1 and 2 days after parturition; SAA increased in similar way, but without statistical significance. Goats with dystocia showed higher SAA values after delivery. The goat with bronchopneumonia had high level of AGP. All but one goats carried two or three fetuses; NEFA and B-OH butyrate were elevated at parturition and decreased significantly from the day after; no positive correlation were observed with AP

MOTORCYCLE EQUIPPED WITH DEVICE FOR DETECTING VEHICLE COMING FROM BEHIND

A motorcycle (1) comprises a frame mounted on wheels and has a front part (5) and a rear part (6), a handlebar (7) being located at the front part, means being provided to detect at least the speed and roll angle of the motorcycle when in movement, the frame having a longitudinal median plane (W) joining such front part (5) and the rear part (6). A device (10) for detecting a vehicle (V) which is moving towards the rear part (7) of the motorcycle when such motorcycle is in movement is provided, said device (10) comprising a radar detector or a television camera (12) rigidly of one piece with the motorcycle (1), said radar detector (12) being rigidly associated with the rear part (6) of the motorcycle (1) and following its movement, said radar detector (12) being connected to means (15) for evaluating the presence and movement of said vehicle (V) moving towards the rear part of the motorcycle (1) and capable of determining a variable hazard indication which identifies a time to collision between the vehicle and the motorcycle, said evaluation means (15) activating warning means (38) on the basis of such hazard indication which generate a warning for the rider's attention when said hazard indication reaches a predetermined value

A wheel slip control scheme for aeronautical braking applications based on neural network estimation

Due to safety reasons, anti-skid braking control strategies in aircraft can rely only on sensors that are integral to the landing gear, and these currently are limited to wheel rotational speed and braking pressure. Thus, up to now anti-lock-braking systems (ABS) are developed as threshold-based algorithms that regulate the wheel deceleration. However, as it is known from the Automotive field, slip control offers superior closed-loop properties and robustness, paired with a much easier and time-saving tuning phase. This work aims at investigating first of all if slip control does indeed offer the same performance advancement also in the aeronautical braking context and, secondly, whether the wheel slip can be effectively estimated and employed in a closed-loop braking controller without the need of additional sensors on the landing gear. To do this, we propose a wheel slip control scheme where a data-driven approach using a neural network architecture is used to solve the problem of wheel slip estimation. The proposed control scheme is tested within a very realistic simulation setting, capturing all the non-linear effects peculiar of the aeronautical context, and compared with a standard deceleration-based ABS in multiple braking maneuvers carried out within a large operational envelope. The results show that superior performance and robustness can indeed be achieved with the proposed control approach, paving the way for the adoption of wheel slip abs strategies also for aircraft braking

Urinary nitric oxide in healthy and septic newborn foals: preliminary results

Purpose of the work. In human medicine the nitric oxide (NO) has been extensively investigated since it is involved in several pathophysiological processes. The NO homeostasis is crucial for optimal health maintenance and disease prevention and shows positive or negative effects in relation to its concentration (Aranke et al, 2011). Increased NO urinary levels could be detected during several pathological conditions above all infections and systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), and in human babies the evaluation of this parameter in urines has been deeply investigated (Uzuner et al 1997; Ergenekon et al, 2000). Urine sampling, in fact, is widely used in human medicine for newborns and represents a valid alternative to blood samples since it is non-invasive, cheap and repeatable. In addition, collection of spot urine samples, standardized for urinary creatinine excretion (NO to creatinine ratio, NO/Cr), can be used rather then 24-hours collection (Tsukahara et al, 2007). To the authors\u2019 knowledge, no studies have been performed on foals urinary NO. The aims of this study were to evaluate urinary NO and NO/Cr levels in healthy and septic newborn foals to investigate the possible use of this parameter as diagnostic/prognostic marker. Materials and used methods. The study was conduced during the 2013 breeding season. Twentythree newborn foals were enrolled: 10 healthy and 13 septic. All healthy foals should be born at term, by spontaneous delivery, with an APGAR score =8 within 10 minutes of birth and should be mature and viable. Septic foals were hospitalized within 3 days of age; at admission, after the clinical exam, blood samples were collected for hematological, biochemical analysis and blood culture. Foals were classified as septic if they fulfilled any or all of the following criteria: positive blood culture and a sepsis score =11. Urinary samples were collected from each of the healthy foals by spontaneous micturition at day 1, 2, 3 and 4 of age. Samples were centrifuged at 2000 rpm for 5 minutes and the supernatant frozen until analysis. Septic foals urinary samples were collected by spontaneous micturition or catheterization at hospitalization (T0) and 24 hours later (T1). Samples were processed as above. NO was determined by Griess Enzymatic colorimetric method, while creatinine by Jaff\ue8 kinetic modified method. One-way ANOVA test was performed to evaluate NO and NO/Cr profiles within healthy and septic groups and between the two groups. The comparison between sick surviving and non-surviving foals has been performed by t-test at T0 and T1. Outcomes. All healthy foals fulfilled the criteria of inclusion and no diseases were detected in any of these foals. Septic foals were admitted at a mean age of 34.2\ub123.6 hours. Sepsis was the only disease in 7/13 foals, while in 6/13 it represented the main disease. Among sick foals, 6/13 died. NO did not show significant differences within either healthy or sick group in relation to the age. These results are in agreement with data reported in human neonates in which no differences where found during the first week of life in healthy and septic babies (Uzuner et al, 1997). When healthy and sick foals were compared, NO showed significantly (p<0.01) higher values in septic foals at 2 days of age (4.20\ub12.58 mg/dL vs 2.21\ub11.33 mg/dL). This result is partially in disagreement with data reported by Dizick et al (2002) who found lower levels in infants affected by septic shock; Uzuner et al (1997) instead, found higher levels in infants affected by SIRS during the first 24 hours from symptoms appearance. Neither in healthy nor in sick foals statistical differences for NO/Cr were found in relation to age. This seems to be in disagreement with data reported for human newborns in which higher levels are detected in neonates compared to older children (Eli et al, 2005). When healthy and sick foals were compared, sick foals showed significantly higher NO/Cr values at day 1 (0.36\ub10.31 mg/dL vs 0.06\ub10.05 mg/dL) and 2 (0.26\ub10.18 mg/dL vs 0.13\ub10.12 mg/dL) of age. This result is in agreement with data reported for infants (Uzuner et al, 1997; Ergenekon et al, 2000). No differences for NO/Cr values in sick foals were found between surviving and non-surviving animals at admission and 24 hours later. Conclusions. Even if this is a preliminary study, NO/Cr seems to be a possible diagnostic marker of sepsis in newborn foals during the first 48 hours of age