A cost-benefit assessment fo Salmonella-control strategies in pig herds within the United Kingdom

Pork and pork products are considered to be a major source of human salmonellosis in the United Kingdom (UK). Despite a number of control programmes implemented within the UK, such as the Zoonoses National Control Programme (ZNCP), the prevalence of Salmonella in the UK slaughter pig population remains over 20% [1]. In particular, S. Typhimurium (including monophasic variants) continues to be a predominant serotype in humans, which is known to be most commonly found in pigs [2]. Therefore, to identify potential control measures that could reduce the number of human Salmonella cases it is necessary to understand the farm-to-consumption chain for pork and pork products. However, implementing control measures across the whole pig industry and food-chain would be a costly large scale project. It is therefore important to assess whether the benefit of implementing the control measures justifies the cost

Plasma membrane polarization during mating in yeast cells

The yeast mating cell provides a simple paradigm for analyzing mechanisms underlying the generation of surface polarity. Endocytic recycling and slow diffusion on the plasma membrane were shown to facilitate polarized surface distribution of Snc1p (Valdez-Taubas, J., and H.R. Pelham. 2003. Curr. Biol. 13:1636–1640). Here, we found that polarization of Fus1p, a raft-associated type I transmembrane protein involved in cell fusion, does not depend on endocytosis. Instead, Fus1p localization to the tip of the mating projection was determined by its cytosolic domain, which binds to peripheral proteins involved in mating tip polarization. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the lipid bilayer at the mating projection is more condensed than the plasma membrane enclosing the cell body, and that sphingolipids are required for this lipid organization

A review of qualitative risk assessment in animal health : suggestions for best practice

Qualitative risk assessment (QRA) can provide decision support in line with the requirement for an objective, unbiased assessment of disease risk according to the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures of the World Trade Organization. However, in order for a QRA to be objective and consistently applied it is necessary to standardize the approach as much as possible. This review considers how QRAs have historically been used for the benefit of animal health, what problems have been encountered during their progression, and considers best practice for their future use. Four main elements were identified as having been the subject of some proposed standard methodology: (i) the description of risk levels, (ii) combining probabilities, (iii) accounting for trade volume and time period, and (iv) uncertainty. These elements were addressed in dierent ways but were highlighted as being fundamental to improving the robustness in estimating the risk and conveying the results to the riskmanager withminimal ambiguity. In line with this, several tools have been developed which attempt to use mathematical reasoning to incorporate uncertainty and improve the objectivity of the qualitative framework. This represents an important advance in animal health QRA. Overall, animal health QRAs have established their usefulness by providing a tool for rapid risk estimation which can be used to identify important chains of events and critical control points along risk pathways and inform risk management programmes as to whether or not the risk exceeds a decision-making threshold above which action should be taken. Ensuring a robust objectivemethodology is used and that the reasons for dierences in results, such as assumptions and uncertainty are clearly described to the customer with minimal ambiguity is essential to maintain confidence in the QRA process. However, further work needs to be done to determine if one objective uniform methodology should be developed and considered best practice. To this end, a set of best practice guidelines presenting the optimal way to conduct aQRA and regulated by bodies such as the World Organization for Animal Health or the European Food Safety Authority would be beneficial

The risk of infection by African swine fever virus in European swine through boar movement and legal trade of pigs and pig meat

African swine fever (ASF) is currently spreading westwards throughout Europe and eastwards into China, with cases occurring in both wild boar and domestic pigs. A generic risk assessment framework is used to determine the probability of first infection with ASF virus (ASFV) at a fine spatial scale across European Union Member States. The framework aims to assist risk managers across Europe with their ASF surveillance and intervention activities. Performing the risk assessment at a fine spatial scale allows for hot-spot surveillance, which can aid risk managers by directing surveillance or intervention resources at those areas or pathways deemed most at risk, and hence enables prioritization of limited resources. We use 2018 cases of ASF to estimate prevalence of the disease in both wild boar and pig populations and compute the risk of initial infection for 2019 at a 100 km2 cell resolution via three potential pathways: legal trade in live pigs, natural movement of wild boar, and legal trade in pig meat products. We consider the number of pigs, boar and amount of pig meat entering our area of interest, the prevalence of the disease in the origin country, the probability of exposure of susceptible pigs or boar in the area of interest to introduced infected pigs, boar, or meat from an infected pig, and the probability of transmission to susceptible animals. We provide maps across Europe indicating regions at highest risk of initial infection. Results indicate that the risk of ASF in 2019 was predominantly focused on those regions which already had numerous cases in 2018 (Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, Romania, and Latvia). The riskiest pathway for ASFV transmission to pigs was the movement of wild boar for Eastern European countries and legal trade of pigs for Western European countries. New infections are more likely to occur in wild boar rather than pigs, for both the pig meat and wild boar movement pathways. Our results provide an opportunity to focus surveillance activities and thus increase our ability to detect ASF introductions earlier, a necessary requirement if we are to successfully control the spread of this devastating disease for the pig industry

Characterization of the Human Risk of Salmonellosis Related to Consumption of Pork Products in Different E.U. Countries Based on a QMRA

In response to the European Food Safety Authority's wish to assess the reduction of human cases of salmonellosis by implementing control measures at different points in the farm-to-consumption chain for pork products, a quantitative microbiological risk assessment (QMRA) was developed. The model simulated the occurrence of Salmonella from the farm to consumption of pork cuts, minced meat, and fermented ready-to-eat sausage, respectively, and a dose-response model was used to estimate the probability of illness at consumption. The QMRA has a generic structure with a defined set of variables, whose values are changed according to the E.U. member state (MS) of interest. In this article we demonstrate the use of the QMRA in four MSs, representing different types of countries. The predicted probability of illness from the QMRA was between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 10 million per serving across all three product types. Fermented ready-to-eat sausage imposed the highest probability of illness per serving in all countries, whereas the risks per serving of minced meat and pork chops were similar within each MS. For each of the products, the risk varied by a factor of 100 between the four MSs. The influence of lack of information for different variables was assessed by rerunning the model with alternative, more extreme, values. Out of the large number of uncertain variables, only a few of them have a strong influence on the probability of illness, in particular those describing the preparation at home and consumption

Association of smoking status with hospitalisation for COVID-19 compared with other respiratory viruses a year previous: a case-control study at a single UK National Health Service trust

Background: It is unclear whether smoking increases the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation. We first examined the association of smoking status with hospitalisation for COVID-19 compared with hospitalisation for other respiratory viral infections a year previous. Second, we examined the concordance between smoking status recorded on the electronic health record (EHR) and the contemporaneous medical notes. Methods: This case-control study enrolled adult patients (446 cases and 211 controls) at a single National Health Service trust in London, UK. The outcome variable was type of hospitalisation (COVID-19 vs. another respiratory virus a year previous). The exposure variable was smoking status (never/former/current smoker). Logistic regression analyses adjusted for age, sex, socioeconomic position and comorbidities were performed. The study protocol and analyses were pre-registered in April 2020 on the Open Science Framework. Results: Current smokers had lower odds of being hospitalised with COVID-19 compared with other respiratory viruses a year previous (ORadj=0.55, 95% CI=0.31-0.96, p=.04). There was no significant association among former smokers (ORadj=1.08, 95% CI=0.72-1.65, p=.70). Smoking status recorded on the EHR (compared with the contemporaneous medical notes) was incorrectly recorded for 168 (79.6%) controls (χ2(3)=256.5, p=<0.001) and 60 cases (13.5%) (χ2(3)=34.2, p=<0.001). Conclusions: In a single UK hospital trust, current smokers had reduced odds of being hospitalised with COVID-19 compared with other respiratory viruses a year previous, although it is unclear whether this association is causal. Targeted post-discharge recording of smoking status may account for the greater EHR-medical notes concordance observed in cases compared with controls

Understanding Wales: Nationalism and Culture

In the spring of 2013 ten students from the University of North Carolina Wilmington participated in a study abroad program in Wales attending Swansea University for the semester. As a group, we began examining Welsh culture and identity. Living abroad provided many opportunities to collect data and make observations about Welsh life. Our initial observations pointed to a tension that seemed to exist between Welsh and English cultures. We found this tension noteworthy and decided to examine it more closely through an exploratory research project examining Welsh political and economic history, Welsh culture and Welsh nationalism through participant observation, field trips and face-to-face interviews

Assessing the effect of on-farm and abattoir interventions in reducing human salmonellosis from pig meat consumption in the EU

Pigs are commonly infected with Salmonella spp. at the slaughterhouse, and the consumption of pig meat is hypothesised to be an important contributor to human salmonellosis. The European Union (EU) will shortly set targets for the reduction of Salmonella in pigs at slaughter for each Member State (MS), and each MS is expected to put in place a National Control Plan (NCP) in order to achieve their targets. If MSs are to realise their targets then practical interventions that consistently work must be identified

Maximum-likelihood estimation of lithospheric flexural rigidity, initial-loading fraction, and load correlation, under isotropy

Topography and gravity are geophysical fields whose joint statistical structure derives from interface-loading processes modulated by the underlying mechanics of isostatic and flexural compensation in the shallow lithosphere. Under this dual statistical-mechanistic viewpoint an estimation problem can be formulated where the knowns are topography and gravity and the principal unknown the elastic flexural rigidity of the lithosphere. In the guise of an equivalent "effective elastic thickness", this important, geographically varying, structural parameter has been the subject of many interpretative studies, but precisely how well it is known or how best it can be found from the data, abundant nonetheless, has remained contentious and unresolved throughout the last few decades of dedicated study. The popular methods whereby admittance or coherence, both spectral measures of the relation between gravity and topography, are inverted for the flexural rigidity, have revealed themselves to have insufficient power to independently constrain both it and the additional unknown initial-loading fraction and load-correlation fac- tors, respectively. Solving this extremely ill-posed inversion problem leads to non-uniqueness and is further complicated by practical considerations such as the choice of regularizing data tapers to render the analysis sufficiently selective both in the spatial and spectral domains. Here, we rewrite the problem in a form amenable to maximum-likelihood estimation theory, which we show yields unbiased, minimum-variance estimates of flexural rigidity, initial-loading frac- tion and load correlation, each of those separably resolved with little a posteriori correlation between their estimates. We are also able to separately characterize the isotropic spectral shape of the initial loading processes.Comment: 41 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication by Geophysical Journal Internationa