The epidemiology of patellar luxation in dogs attending primary-care veterinary practices in England

BACKGROUND: Canine patellar luxation is one of the most common orthopaedic disorders of dogs and is a potential welfare concern because it can lead to lameness, osteoarthritis and pain. However, there are limited epidemiological data on the disorder relating to the general population of dogs in England. This study aimed to investigate the VetCompass Programme database of dogs attending primary-care veterinary practices in England to report on the prevalence, risk factors and clinical management of diagnosed patellar luxation cases. RESULTS: The study included all dogs with at least one electronic patient record in the VetCompass database from September 1(st), 2009 to August 31(st), 2014. Candidate patellar luxation cases were identified using free-text word searching of the clinical notes and VeNom diagnosis term fields. Univariable and multivariable binary logistic regression modelling was used for risk factor analysis. The overall dataset comprised 210,824 dogs attending 119 clinics in England. The prevalence of patellar luxation diagnosis in dogs was 1.30 % (95 % confidence interval (CI) 1.21-1.39). Of the 751 incident cases, 293 (39.0 %) received medical management, 99 (13.2 %) received surgical intervention and 28 (3.7 %) were referred for further management. Multivariable modelling documented 11 breeds with increased odds of patellar luxation compared with crossbred dogs, including the Pomeranian (odds ratio [OR]: 6.5, 95 % CI 4.0-10.7, P < 0.001), Chihuahua (OR: 5.9, 95 % CI 4.4-7.9, P < 0.001), Yorkshire Terrier (OR: 5.5, 95 % CI 4.3-7.1, P < 0.001) and French Bulldog (OR: 5.4, 95 % CI 3.1-9.3, P < 0.001). Dogs with bodyweight below their mean for breed and sex had a 1.4 times odds of diagnosis (95 % CI 1.2-1.6, P < 0.001). Dogs aged ≥ 12.0 years showed 0.4 times the odds (95 % CI 0.3-0.5, P < 0.001) compared with dogs aged < 3.0 years. Females had 1.3 times the odds (95 % CI 1.1-1.5, P < 0.001), neutered dogs had 2.4 times the odds (95 % CI 1.8-3.2, P < 0.001) and insured dogs had 1.9 times the odds (95 % CI 1.6-2.3, P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Patellar luxation warrants inclusion as a welfare priority in dogs and control strategies that include this disorder should be considered as worthwhile breeding goals, especially in predisposed breeds

Laboratory biomarkers associated with COVID-19 severity and management

The heterogeneous disease course of COVID-19 is unpredictable, ranging from mild self-limiting symptoms to cytokine storms, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), multi-organ failure and death. Identification of high-risk cases will enable appropriate intervention and escalation. This study investigates the routine laboratory tests and cytokines implicated in COVID-19 for their potential application as biomarkers of disease severity, respiratory failure and need of higher-level care. From analysis of 203 samples, CRP, IL-6, IL-10 and LDH were most strongly correlated with the WHO ordinal scale of illness severity, the fraction of inspired oxygen delivery, radiological evidence of ARDS and level of respiratory support (p ≤ 0.001). IL-6 levels of ≥3.27 pg/ml provide a sensitivity of 0.87 and specificity of 0.64 for a requirement of ventilation, and a CRP of ≥37 mg/l of 0.91 and 0.66. Reliable stratification of high-risk cases has significant implications on patient triage, resource management and potentially the initiation of novel therapies in severe patients

Performance enhancement of a GIS-based facility location problem using desktop grid infrastructure

This paper presents the integration of desktop grid infrastructure with GIS technologies, by proposing a parallel resolution method in a generic distributed environment. A case study focused on a discrete facility location problem, in the biomass area, exemplifies the high amount of computing resources (CPU, memory, HDD) required to solve the spatial problem. A comprehensive analysis is undertaken in order to analyse the behaviour of the grid-enabled GIS system. This analysis, consisting of a set of the experiments on the case study, concludes that the desktop grid infrastructure is able to use a commercial GIS system to solve the spatial problem achieving high speedup and computational resource utilization. Particularly, the results of the experiments showed an increase in speedup of fourteen times using sixteen computers and a computational efficiency greater than 87 % compared with the sequential procedure.This work has been developed under the support of the program Formacion de Personal Investigador, grants number BFPI/2009/103 and BES-2007-17019, from the Conselleria d'Educacio of the Generalitat Valenciana and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology.García García, A.; Perpiñá Castillo, C.; Alfonso Laguna, CD.; Hernández García, V. (2013). Performance enhancement of a GIS-based facility location problem using desktop grid infrastructure. Earth Science Informatics. 6(4):199-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-013-0119-1S19920764Anderson D (2004) Boinc: a system for public-resource computing and storage. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Grid Computing. IEEE Computer Society, Washington DC, pp 4–10Available scripts webpage: http://personales.upv.es/angarg12/Campos I et al (2012) Modelling of a watershed: a distributed parallel application in a grid framework. Comput Informat 27(2):285–296Church RL (2002) Geographical information systems and location science. Comput Oper Res 29:541–562Clarke KC (1986) Advances in geographic information systems, computers. Environ Urban Syst 10:175–184Dowers S, Gittings BM, Mineter MJ (2000) Towards a framework for high-performance geocomputation: handling vector-topology within a distributed service environment. Comput Environ Urban Syst 24:471–486Geograma SL (2009). Teleatlas. http://www.geograma.com . Accessed September 2009GRASS Development Team (2012) GRASS GIS. http://grass.osgeo.org/Hoekstra AG, Sloot PMA (2005) Introducing grid speedup: a scalability metric for parallel applications on the grid, EGC 2005, LNCS 3470, pp. 245–254Hu Y et al. (2004) Feasibility study of geo-spatial analysis using grid computing. Computational Science-ICCS. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 956–963Huang Z et al (2009) Geobarn: a practical grid geospatial database system. Adv Electr Comput Eng 9:7–11Huang F et al (2011) Explorations of the implementation of a parallel IDW interpolation algorithm in a Linux cluster-based parallel GIS. Comput Geosci 37:426–434Laure E et al (2006) Programming the grid with gLite. CMST 12(1):33–45Li WJ et al (2005) The Design and Implementation of GIS Grid Services. In: Zhuge H, Fox G (eds) Grid and Cooperative Computing. Vol. 3795 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science 10. Springer, Berlin, pp 220–225National Geographic Institute (2010) BCN25: numerical cartographic database. http://www.ign.es/ign/main/index.do . Accessed April 2010Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc (2012) Open GIS Specification Model, http://www.opengeospatial.org/Openshaw S, Turton I (1996) A parallel Kohonen algorithm for the classification of large spatial datasets. Comput Geosci 22:1019–1026Perpiñá C, Alfonso D, Pérez-Navarro A (2007) BIODER project: biomass distributed energy resources assessment and logistic strategies for sitting biomass plants in the Valencia province (Spain), 17th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition Proceedings, Hamburg, Germany, pp. 387–393Perpiñá C et al (2008) Methodology based on Geographic Information Systems for biomass logistics and transport optimization. Renew Energ 34:555–565Shen Z et al (2007) Distributed computing model for processing remotely sensed images based on grid computing. Inf Sci 177:504–518Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, fisheries and food (2009). http://www.magrama.gob.es/es/ . Accessed March 2009Spanish Ministry of Environment (2008). http://www.magrama.gob.es/es/ . Accessed May 2008University of California. List of BOINC projects. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.phpXiao N, Fu W (2003) SDPG: Spatial data processing grid. J Comput Sci Technol 18:523–53

Business opportunities analysis using GIS: the retail distribution sector

[EN] The retail distribution sector is facing a difficult time as the current landscape is characterized by ever-increasing competition. In these conditions, the search for an appropriate location strategy has the potential to become a differentiating and competitive factor. Although, in theory, an increasing level of importance is placed on geography because of its key role in understanding the success of a business, this is not the case in practice. For this reason, the process outlined in this paper has been specifically developed to detect new business locations. The methodology consists of a range of analyzes with Geographical Information Systems (GISs) from a marketing point of view. This new approach is called geomarketing. First, geodemand and geocompetition are located on two separate digital maps using spatial and non-spatial databases. Second, a third map is obtained by matching this information with the demand not dealt with properly by the current commercial offer. Third, the Kernel density allows users to visualize results, thus facilitating decision-making by managers, regardless of their professional background. The advantage of this methodology is the capacity of GIS to handle large amounts of information, both spatial and non-spatial. A practical application is performed in Murcia (Spain) with 100 supermarkets and data at a city block level, which is the highest possible level of detail. This detection process can be used in any commercial distribution company, so it can be generalized and considered a global solution for retailers.Roig Tierno, H.; Baviera-Puig, A.; Buitrago Vera, JM. (2013). Business opportunities analysis using GIS: the retail distribution sector. Global Business Perspectives. 1(3):226-238. doi:10.1007/s40196-013-0015-6S22623813Alarcón, S. (2011). The trade credit in the Spanish agrofood industry. Mediterranean Journal of Economics, Agriculture and Environment (New Medit), 10(2), 51–57.Alcaide, J. 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Association between Changes in Muscle Quality with Exercise Training and Changes in Cardiorespiratory Fitness Measures in Individuals with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Results from the HART-D Study

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is associated with a reduction in muscle quality. However, there is inadequate empirical evidence to determine whether changes in muscle quality following exercise are associated with improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in individuals with T2DM. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between change in muscle quality following a 9-month intervention of aerobic training (AT), resistance training (RT) or a combination of both (ATRT) and cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) in individuals with T2DM. Material and Methods A total of 196 participants were randomly assigned to a control, AT, RT, or combined ATRT for a 9-months intervention. The exposure variable was change in muscle quality [(Post: leg muscle strength/leg muscle mass)-[(Pre: leg muscle strength/leg muscle mass)]. Dependent variables were change in CRF measures including absolute and relative VO2peak, and treadmill time to exhaustion (TTE) and estimated metabolic equivalent task (METs). Results Continuous change in muscle quality was independently associated with change in absolute (β = 0.015; p = 0.019) and relative (β = 0.200; p = 0.005) VO2peak, and TTE (β = 0.170; p = 0.043), but not with estimated METs (p > 0.05). A significant trend was observed across tertiles of change in muscle quality for changes in absolute (β = 0.050; p = 0.005) and relative (β = 0.624; p = 0.002) VO2peak following 9 months of exercise training. No such association was observed for change in TTE and estimated METs (p > 0.05). Discussion: The results from this ancillary study suggest that change in muscle quality following exercise training is associated with a greater improvement in CRF in individuals with T2DM. Given the effect RT has on increasing muscle quality, especially as part of a recommended training program (ATRT), individuals with T2DM should incorporate RT into their AT regimens to optimize CRF improvement

Routes for breaching and protecting genetic privacy

We are entering the era of ubiquitous genetic information for research, clinical care, and personal curiosity. Sharing these datasets is vital for rapid progress in understanding the genetic basis of human diseases. However, one growing concern is the ability to protect the genetic privacy of the data originators. Here, we technically map threats to genetic privacy and discuss potential mitigation strategies for privacy-preserving dissemination of genetic data.Comment: Draft for comment

Methylation status of oestrogen receptor-α gene promoter sequences in human ovarian epithelial cell lines

We have determined the methylation status of the CpG island of the oestrogen receptor α gene in seven human ovarian cell lines. Cell lines expressing oestrogen receptor α showed no evidence of hypermethylation. In three of four cell lines that produced no detectable oestrogen receptor α protein, hypermethylation was observed at the NotI site of the CpG island. These results indicate that aberrant hypermethylation may be responsible for a significant proportion of epithelial ovarian tumours in which oestrogen receptor α expression is lost

Multi-objective optimization of genome-scale metabolic models: the case of ethanol production

Ethanol is among the largest fermentation product used worldwide, accounting for more than 90% of all biofuel produced in the last decade. However current production methods of ethanol are unable to meet the requirements of increasing global demand, because of low yields on glucose sources. In this work, we present an in silico multi-objective optimization and analyses of eight genome-scale metabolic networks for the overproduction of ethanol within the engineered cell. We introduce MOME (multi-objective metabolic engineering) algorithm, that models both gene knockouts and enzymes up and down regulation using the Redirector framework. In a multi-step approach, MOME tackles the multi-objective optimization of biomass and ethanol production in the engineered strain; and performs genetic design and clustering analyses on the optimization results. We find in silico E. coli Pareto optimal strains with a knockout cost of 14 characterized by an ethanol production up to 19.74mmolgDW−1h−1 (+832.88% with respect to wild-type) and biomass production of 0.02h−1 (−98.06% ). The analyses on E. coli highlighted a single knockout strategy producing 16.49mmolgDW−1h−1 (+679.29% ) ethanol, with biomass equals to 0.23h−1 (−77.45% ). We also discuss results obtained by applying MOME to metabolic models of: (i) S. aureus; (ii) S. enterica; (iii) Y. pestis; (iv) S. cerevisiae; (v) C. reinhardtii; (vi) Y. lipolytica. We finally present a set of simulations in which constrains over essential genes and minimum allowable biomass were included. A bound over the maximum allowable biomass was also added, along with other settings representing rich media compositions. In the same conditions the maximum improvement in ethanol production is +195.24%

Avoiding Costly Conservation Mistakes: The Importance of Defining Actions and Costs in Spatial Priority Setting

Background: The typical mandate in conservation planning is to identify areas that represent biodiversity targets within the smallest possible area of land or sea, despite the fact that area may be a poor surrogate for the cost of many conservation actions. It is also common for priorities for conservation investment to be identified without regard to the particular conservation action that will be implemented. This demonstrates inadequate problem specification and may lead to inefficiency: the cost of alternative conservation actions can differ throughout a landscape, and may result in dissimilar conservation priorities

CMB Telescopes and Optical Systems

The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) is now firmly established as a fundamental and essential probe of the geometry, constituents, and birth of the Universe. The CMB is a potent observable because it can be measured with precision and accuracy. Just as importantly, theoretical models of the Universe can predict the characteristics of the CMB to high accuracy, and those predictions can be directly compared to observations. There are multiple aspects associated with making a precise measurement. In this review, we focus on optical components for the instrumentation used to measure the CMB polarization and temperature anisotropy. We begin with an overview of general considerations for CMB observations and discuss common concepts used in the community. We next consider a variety of alternatives available for a designer of a CMB telescope. Our discussion is guided by the ground and balloon-based instruments that have been implemented over the years. In the same vein, we compare the arc-minute resolution Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) and the South Pole Telescope (SPT). CMB interferometers are presented briefly. We conclude with a comparison of the four CMB satellites, Relikt, COBE, WMAP, and Planck, to demonstrate a remarkable evolution in design, sensitivity, resolution, and complexity over the past thirty years.Comment: To appear in: Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems (PSSS), Volume 1: Telescopes and Instrumentatio