Evaluation of minor pathogen intramammary infection, susceptibility parameters, and somatic cell counts on the development of new intramammary infections with major mastitis pathogens

Major mastitis pathogens such as Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus uberis, Streptococcus dysgalactiae, and coliforms are usually considered more virulent and damaging to the udder than minor mastitis pathogens such as Corynebacterium spp. and coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS). The current literature comprises several studies (n=38) detailing analyses with conflicting results as to whether intramammary infections (IMI) with the minor pathogens decrease, increase, or have no effect on the risk of a quarter acquiring a new IMI (NIMI) with a major pathogen. The Canadian Bovine Mastitis Research Network has a large mastitis database derived from a 2-yr data collection on a national cohort of dairy farms, and data from this initiative were used to further investigate the effect of IMI with minor pathogens on the acquisition of new major pathogen infections (defined as a culture-positive quarter sample in a quarter that had been free of that major pathogen in previous samples in the sampling period). Longitudinal milk samplings of clinically normal udders taken over several 6-wk periods as well as samples from cows pre-dry-off and postcalving were used to this end (n=80,397 quarter milk samples). The effects of CNS and Corynebacterium spp. on the major mastitis pathogens Staph. aureus, Strep. uberis, Strep. dysgalactiae, and coliform bacteria (Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp.) were investigated using risk ratio analyses and multilevel logistic regression models. Quarter-, cow- and herd-level susceptibility parameters were also evaluated and were able to account for the increased susceptibility that exists within herds, cows and quarters, removing it from estimates for the effects of the minor pathogens. Increased quarter-level susceptibility was associated with increased risk of major pathogen NIMI for all pathogens except the coliforms. Increased somatic cell count was consistently associated with elevated risk of new major pathogen infections, but this was assumed to be a result of low sensitivity of bacteriology to diagnose major pathogen NIMI expediently and accurately. The presence of CNS in the sample 2 samplings before the occurrence of a NIMI increased the odds of experiencing a Staph. aureus NIMI 2.0 times, making the presence of CNS a risk factor for acquiring a Staph. aureus NIMI. Even with this extensive data set, power was insufficient to make a definitive statement about the effect of minor pathogen IMI on the acquisition of major pathogen NIMI. Definitively answering questions of this nature are likely to require an extremely large data set dedicated particularly to minor pathogen presence and NIMI with major pathogens.Source type: Electronic(1

A storage and access architecture for efficient query processing in spatial database systems

Due to the high complexity of objects and queries and also due to extremely large data volumes, geographic database systems impose stringent requirements on their storage and access architecture with respect to efficient query processing. Performance improving concepts such as spatial storage and access structures, approximations, object decompositions and multi-phase query processing have been suggested and analyzed as single building blocks. In this paper, we describe a storage and access architecture which is composed from the above building blocks in a modular fashion. Additionally, we incorporate into our architecture a new ingredient, the scene organization, for efficiently supporting set-oriented access of large-area region queries. An experimental performance comparison demonstrates that the concept of scene organization leads to considerable performance improvements for large-area region queries by a factor of up to 150

Is Frost Heaving Killing Your Legumes?

Frost heaving is a serious hazard to the maintenance of legume stands on many of our Iowa soils - especially on level claypan soils. But there are some things you can do to reduce your frost heaving losses

Alternative Interpretation of Sharply Rising E0 Strengths in Transitional Regions

It is shown that strong 0+2 -> 0+1 E0 transitions provide a clear signature of phase transitional behavior in finite nuclei. Calculations using the IBA show that these transition strengths exhibit a dramatic and robust increase in spherical-deformed shape transition regions, that this rise matches well the existing data, that the predictions of these E0 transitions remain large in deformed nuclei, and that these properties are intrinsic to the way that collectivity and deformation develop through the phase transitional region in the model, arising from the specific d-boson coherence in the wave functions, and that they do not necessarily require the explicit mixing of normal and intruder configurations from different IBA spaces.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

The CFEPS Kuiper Belt Survey: Strategy and Pre-survey Results

We present the data acquisition strategy and characterization procedures for the Canada-France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS), a sub-component of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey. The survey began in early 2003 and as of summer 2005 has covered 430 square degrees of sky within a few degrees of the ecliptic. Moving objects beyond the orbit of Uranus are detected to a magnitude limit of $m_R$=23 -- 24 (depending on the image quality). To track as large a sample as possible and avoid introducing followup bias, we have developed a multi-epoch observing strategy that is spread over several years. We present the evolution of the uncertainties in ephemeris position and orbital elements as the objects progress through the epochs. We then present a small 10-object sample that was tracked in this manner as part of a preliminary survey starting a year before the main CFEPS project. We describe the CFEPS survey simulator, to be released in 2006, which allows theoretical models of the Kuiper Belt to be compared with the survey discoveries since CFEPS has a well-documented pointing history with characterized detection efficiencies as a function of magnitude and rate of motion on the sky. Using the pre-survey objects we illustrate the usage of the simulator in modeling the classical Kuiper Belt.Comment: to be submitted to Icaru