Veterinary Preventive Medicine

For centuries the clinical and curative conception of medicine has dominated medical thought and procedure, practically to the exclusion of all other phases of this great art and science. It has been so uppermost in the minds of most medical authorities until quite recently that they were and many are today almost entirely oblivious to other potent measures and practices that so materially contribute to the well-being of the animal organism. Thus our domain of service has been rather strictly confined to diagnosing, prescribing and administering to animals in which a pathological state actually exists. At the same time the major problems of prevention, control, suppression, and possible eradication of disease have been blissfully ignored. This condition still exists in spite of the fact that more than three-quarters of a century of scientific research with its wealth of dependable data and derived fundamental principles has established a sound basis for the field of Veterinary Preventive Medicine. Today this should be as accurate a field of scientific endeavor as that of any other branch of veterinary medicine. Yet regrettably, the fact remains that applied scientific hygiene and preventive medicine have not kept abreast with the needs and trends of our profession

Disclosure of information concerning remedies against directors’ liability

Why do some corporations decide to voluntarily disclose information regarding a granted exclusion or limitation of internal liability and indemnification for external liability and a concluded directors’ and officers’ liability insurance in contrast to others? In order to explain why some corporations disclose more information on this topic than others, first, the literature on liability of directors, remedies against these liabilities and motives for voluntary disclosure is researched. After that, empirical research is performed to determine if listed corporations in The Netherlands significantly differ in disclosing information regarding a granted indemnification clause and a concluded directors’ and officers’ liability insurance

Hexamethylcyclopentadiene: time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy and ab initio multiple spawning simulations

Progress in our understanding of ultrafast light-induced processes in molecules is best achieved through a close combination of experimental and theoretical approaches. Direct comparison is obtained if theory is able to directly reproduce experimental observables. Here, we present a joint approach comparing time-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy (TRPES) with ab initio multiple spawning (AIMS) simulations on the MS-MR-CASPT2 level of theory. We disentangle the relationship between two phenomena that dominate the immediate molecular response upon light absorption: a spectrally dependent delay of the photoelectron signal and an induction time prior to excited state depopulation in dynamics simulations. As a benchmark molecule, we have chosen hexamethylcyclopentadiene, which shows an unprecedentedly large spectral delay of (310 \ub1 20) fs in TRPES experiments. For the dynamics simulations, methyl groups were replaced by "hydrogen atoms" having mass 15 and TRPES spectra were calculated. These showed an induction time of (108 \ub1 10) fs which could directly be assigned to progress along a torsional mode leading to the intersection seam with the molecular ground state. In a stepladder-type approach, the close connection between the two phenomena could be elucidated, allowing for a comparison with other polyenes and supporting the general validity of this finding for their excited state dynamics. Thus, the combination of TRPES and AIMS proves to be a powerful tool for a thorough understanding of ultrafast excited state dynamics in polyenes.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Localizing ECoG electrodes on the cortical anatomy without post-implantation imaging

AbstractIntroductionElectrocorticographic (ECoG) grids are placed subdurally on the cortex in people undergoing cortical resection to delineate eloquent cortex. ECoG signals have high spatial and temporal resolution and thus can be valuable for neuroscientific research. The value of these data is highest when they can be related to the cortical anatomy. Existing methods that establish this relationship rely either on post-implantation imaging using computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or X-Rays, or on intra-operative photographs. For research purposes, it is desirable to localize ECoG electrodes on the brain anatomy even when post-operative imaging is not available or when intra-operative photographs do not readily identify anatomical landmarks.MethodsWe developed a method to co-register ECoG electrodes to the underlying cortical anatomy using only a pre-operative MRI, a clinical neuronavigation device (such as BrainLab VectorVision), and fiducial markers. To validate our technique, we compared our results to data collected from six subjects who also had post-grid implantation imaging available. We compared the electrode coordinates obtained by our fiducial-based method to those obtained using existing methods, which are based on co-registering pre- and post-grid implantation images.ResultsOur fiducial-based method agreed with the MRI–CT method to within an average of 8.24mm (mean, median=7.10mm) across 6 subjects in 3 dimensions. It showed an average discrepancy of 2.7mm when compared to the results of the intra-operative photograph method in a 2D coordinate system. As this method does not require post-operative imaging such as CTs, our technique should prove useful for research in intra-operative single-stage surgery scenarios.To demonstrate the use of our method, we applied our method during real-time mapping of eloquent cortex during a single-stage surgery. The results demonstrated that our method can be applied intra-operatively in the absence of post-operative imaging to acquire ECoG signals that can be valuable for neuroscientific investigations

A Prolyl Endopeptidase from Flammulina velutipes Degrades Celiac Disease-Inducing Peptides in Grain Flour Samples

Celiac disease (CD) is an inflammatory disorder of the small intestine. Gluten peptides are supposed to be responsible for the reaction, the best-researched of which is the so-called ‘33-mer’. Analogous peptides in secalins (rye) and hordeins (barley) have been described. This study presents the degradation of gliadins, glutenins, hordeins and secalins purified from the respective flours using a prolyl endopeptidase from the Basidiomycete Flammulina velutipes (FvpP). The flour fractions were incubated with the enzyme, and the cleavage sites were determined using high-resolution nLC-qTOF-MS/MS. For the wheat samples, eight cleavage sites in the 33-mer peptide were shown, and all of the six described epitopes were successfully cleaved. For the commercially available prolyl-specific endopeptidase from Aspergillus niger (An-Pep), which was used as a control, only two cleavage sites that cleaved three of the six epitopes were identified. For the secalins, four prolyl-specific cleavage sites in the CD-active peptide QPFPQPQQPIPQ were found for the FvpP but none for the An-Pep. The CD-active peptide QPFPQPEQPFPW in C-hordein was cleaved at three prolyl-specific positions by the FvpP. The study proves the usability of FvpP to degrade CD-inducing peptides in real-grain flour samples and indicates its higher effectiveness compared with An-Pep. A clinical study would be required to assess the therapeutic or preventive potential of FvpP for CD