Quality characterization of eggs from Romagnola hens, an Italian local breed

IIn the past years, consumers' concerns about sustainability and animal welfare have increased, strengthening the demand for eggs and meat produced through alternative and extensive farming methods. In addition, producers have also become increasingly interested in the recovery and exploitation of local breeds due to their adaptability to local environmental conditions, to valorize the biodiversity and to provide added value to typical products. Among the Italian local breeds, Romagnola has almost risked extinction and currently is reared in small-scale farms for eggs and meat production. The aim of this study was to characterize the egg quality traits of Romagnola chicken breed (RMG) compared to those obtained by a commercial hybrid (CONV). Ten laying hens of both Romagnola breed and Hy-Line Brown at 40 wk of age were housed in the same outdoor pen and fed the same commercial feed (ME 2,830 kcal/kg, CP 17.2%) for 10 wk. At 5 and 10 wk after housing, all the eggs laid in 4 consecutive days were collected and used for the determination of egg and eggshell characteristics as well as proximate composition and fatty acid profile of egg yolk. As expected, some important productive traits such as egg weight and production resulted higher in CONV chickens. However, eggs from RMG hens presented a higher yolk/egg ratio (31.1 vs. 24.9%; P < 0.01) as well as carotenoids (36.8 vs. 20.2 ppm; P < 0.01) and cholesterol content (12.8 vs. 11.7 mg/g of yolk; P < 0.01) than those laid by the conventional genotype. Moreover, yolks from RMG eggs were characterized by lower polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) n-6 content (22.6 vs. 28.4%; P < 0.01) and PUFA n-6/n-3 ratio (11.3 vs. 13.5; P < 0.01) showing a healthier fatty acids profile than conventional eggs. These results highlighted several valuable egg quality traits of Romagnola chicken breed that might be exploited for the conservation and the development of this underutilized Italian pure breed

Dissemination of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus USA300 sequence type 8 lineage in Latin America.

BACKGROUND: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococus aureus (MRSA) is an important nosocomial and community-associated (CA) pathogen. Recently, a variant of the MRSA USA300 clone emerged and disseminated in South America, causing important clinical problems. METHODS: S. aureus isolates were prospectively collected (2006-2008) from 32 tertiary hospitals in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. MRSA isolates were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and were categorized as health care-associated (HA)-like or CA-like clones on the basis of genotypic characteristics and detection of genes encoding Panton-Valentine leukocidin and staphylococcal cassette chromosome (SCC) mec IV. In addition, multilocus sequence typing of representative isolates of each major CA-MRSA pulsotype was performed, and the presence of USA300-associated toxins and the arcA gene was investigated for all isolates categorized as CA-MRSA. RESULTS: A total of 1570 S. aureus were included; 651 were MRSA (41%)--with the highest rate of MRSA isolation in Peru (62%) and the lowest in Venezuela (26%)--and 71%, 27%, and 2% were classified as HA-like, CA-like, and non-CA/HA-like clones, respectively. Only 9 MRSA isolates were confirmed to have reduced susceptibility to glycopeptides (glycopeptide-intermediate S. aureus phenotype). The most common pulsotype (designated ComA) among the CA-like MRSA strains was found in 96% of isolates, with the majority (81%) having a \u3c or =6-band difference with the USA300-0114 strain. Representative isolates of this clone were sequence type 8; however, unlike the USA300-0114 strain, they harbored a different SCCmec IV subtype and lacked arcA (an indicator of the arginine catabolic mobile element). CONCLUSION: A variant CA-MRSA USA300 clone has become established in South America and, in some countries, is endemic in hospital settings

Two Components of Long-Distance Extraction: Successive Cyclicity in Dinka

This article presents novel data from the Nilotic language Dinka, in which the syntax of successive-cyclic movement is remarkably transparent. We show that Dinka provides strong support for the view that long-distance extraction proceeds through the edge of every verb phrase and every clause on the path of movement (Chomsky 1986, 2000, 2001, 2008). In addition, long-distance dependencies in Dinka offer evidence that extraction from a CP requires agreement between v and the CP that is extracted from (Rackowski and Richards 2005, Den Dikken 2009b, 2012a,b). The claim that both of these components constrain long-distance movement is important, as much contemporary work on extraction incorporates only one of them. To accommodate this conclusion, we propose a modification of Rackowski and Richards 2005, in which both intermediate movement and Agree relations between phase heads are necessary steps in establishing a long-distance dependency

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements