Assessment of the risk of African swine fever introduction into Finland using NORA : a rapid tool for semiquantitative assessment of the risk

The NORA rapid risk assessment tool was developed for situations where there is a change in the disease status of easily transmissible animal diseases in neighbouring countries or in countries with significant interactions with Finland. The goal was to develop a tool that is quick to use and will provide consistent results to support risk management decisions. The model contains 63 questions that define the potential for entry and exposure by nine different pathways. The magnitude of the consequences is defined by 23 statements. The weight of different pathways is defined according to the properties of the assessed disease. The model was built as an Excel spreadsheet and is intended for use by animal health control administrators. As an outcome, the model gives the possible pathways of disease entry into the country, an overall approximation for the probability of entry and the subsequent exposure, an overall estimate for the consequences and a combined overall risk estimate (probability multiplied by magnitude of consequences). Model validity was assessed by expert panels. Outside Africa, African swine fever is currently established in Russia and Sardinia. In addition, there have been cases in both wild boar and domestic pigs in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Estonia. Finland has frequent contacts with Russia and Estonia, especially through passengers. The risk of African swine fever (ASF) introduction into Finland was tested with NORA for the situation in December 2015, when ASF was endemic in many parts of Russia, Africa and Sardinia and was present in Baltic countries and in Poland. African swine fever was assessed to have a high probability of entry into Finland, with high consequences and therefore a high overall risk

Synthetic Mimic of Antimicrobial Peptide with Nonmembrane-Disrupting Antibacterial Properties

Proteolysis in dairy lactic acid bacteria has been studied in great detail by genetic, biochemical and ultrastructural methods. From these studies the picture emerges that the proteolytic systems of lactococci and lactobacilli are remarkably similar in their components and mode of action. The proteolytic system consists of an extracellularly located serine-proteinase, transport systems specific for di-tripeptides and oligopeptides (> 3 residues), and a multitude of intracellular peptidases. This review describes the properties and regulation of individual components as well as studies that have led to identification of their cellular localization. Targeted mutational techniques developed in recent years have made it possible to investigate the role of individual and combinations of enzymes in vivo. Based on these results as well as in vitro studies of the enzymes and transporters, a model for the proteolytic pathway is proposed. The main features are: (i) proteinases have a broad specificity and are capable of releasing a large number of different oligopeptides, of which a large fraction falls in the range of 4 to 8 amino acid residues; (ii) oligopeptide transport is the main route for nitrogen entry into the cell; (iii) all peptidases are located intracellularly and concerted action of peptidases is required for complete degradation of accumulated peptides.

Questionable effect of lavage for treatment of painful jaw movements at disc displacement without reduction : a 3-year randomised controlled follow-up

The present randomised controlled study compared the 3-year outcome of local anaesthetics with anaesthetics and lavage in patients suffering from painful temporomandibular joint (TMJ) locking. The study included 45 patients referred for treatment of temporomandibular disorders (TMD) to the Department of Orofacial Pain and Jaw Function, Faculty of Odontology, Malmo University, Malmo, Sweden. All patients received a history questionnaire and clinical examination according to the Research Diagnostic Criteria for TMD, panoramic radiographs and magnetic resonance imaging at baseline. Twenty-five patients were randomised to anaesthetics alone and 20 patients to anaesthetics and lavage. Three years after treatment, we sent the 37 patients who were available for follow-up a questionnaire that evaluated pain intensity, physical and emotional functioning, and global improvement. Thirty-four patients responded. The primary outcome was defined as >= 30% pain relief. In an intention-to-treat analysis, 28 of 45 patients (62%) reported >= 30% pain relief at the follow-up. At 3 years, improvement in pain relief, physical functioning, emotional functioning and global improvement differed non-significantly between local anaesthetics and anaesthetics and lavage. Compared with baseline, significant improvements (P < 0.05) in pain intensity, physical functioning, emotional functioning and global changes had occurred in both groups after 3 years. Because outcome measurements in the local anaesthetics and lavage and the local anaesthetics groups differed non-significantly 3 years after treatment of painful TMJ disc displacement without reduction, use of lavage (50 mL saline) has an equivalent effect as local anaesthetics

Influence of temperature fluctuation on thermophilic anaerobic digestion of municipal organic solid waste

A laboratory-scale experiment was carried out to assess the influence of temperature fluctuation on thermophilic anaerobic digestion of municipal organic solid waste (MOSW). Heating failure was simulated by decreasing temperature suddenly from 55 °C to 20 °C suddenly; 2 h time is needed for temperature decrease and recovery. Under the conditions of 8.0 g/(L·d) and 15 d respectively for MOSW load and retention time, following results were noted: (1) biogas production almost stopped and VFA (volatile fatty acid) accumulated rapidly, accompanied by pH decrease; (2) with low temperature (20 °C) duration of 1, 5, 12 and 24 h, it took 3, 11, 56 and 72 h for the thermophilic anaerobic digestion system to reproduce methane after temperature fluctuation; (3) the longer the low temperature interval lasted, the more the methanogenic bacteria would decay; hydrolysis, acidification and methanogenesis were all influenced by temperature fluctuation; (4) the thermophilic microorganisms were highly resilient to temperature fluctuation