The opposite of Dante's hell? The transfer of ideas for social housing at international congresses in the 1850s–1860s

With the advent of industrialization, the question of developing adequate housing for the emergent working classes became more pressing than before. Moreover, the problem of unhygienic houses in industrial cities did not stop at the borders of a particular nation-state; sometimes literally as pandemic diseases spread out 'transnationally'. It is not a coincidence that in the nineteenth century the number of international congresses on hygiene and social topics expanded substantially. However, the historiography about social policy in general and social housing in particular, has often focused on individual cases because of the different pace of industrial and urban development and is thus dominated by national perspectives. In this paper, I elaborate on transnational exchange processes and local adaptations and transformations. I focus on the transfer of the housing model of SOMCO in Mulhouse, (a French house building association) during social international congresses. I examine whether cross-national networking enabled and facilitated the implementation of ideas on the local scale. I will elaborate on the transmission and the local adaptation of the Mulhouse-model in Belgium. Convergences, divergences, and different factors that influenced the local transformations (personal choice, political situation, socioeconomic circumstances) will be taken into accoun

Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of hydrothermal pretreated lignocellulosic biomass: evaluation of process performance under multiple stress conditions

Industrial lignocellulosic bioethanol processes are exposed to different environmental stresses (such as inhibitor compounds, high temperature, and high solid loadings). In this study, a systematic approach was followed where the liquid and solid fractions were mixed to evaluate the influence of varied solid loadings, and different percentages of liquor were used as liquid fraction to determine inhibitor effect. Ethanol production by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of hydrothermally pretreated Eucalyptus globulus wood (EGW) was studied under combined diverse stress operating conditions (3038 °C, 6080 g of liquor from hydrothermal treatment or autohydrolysis (containing inhibitor compounds)/100 g of liquid and liquid to solid ratio between 4 and 6.4 g liquid in SSF/g unwashed pretreated EGW) using an industrial Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain supplemented with low-cost byproducts derived from agro-food industry. Evaluation of these variables revealed that the combination of temperature and higher solid loadings was the most significant variable affecting final ethanol concentration and cellulose to ethanol conversion, whereas solid and autohydrolysis liquor loadings had the most significant impact on ethanol productivity. After optimization, an ethanol concentration of 54 g/L (corresponding to 85 % of conversion and 0.51 g/Lh of productivity at 96 h) was obtained at 37 °C using 60 % of autohydrolysis liquor and 16 % solid loading (liquid to solid ratio of 6.4 g/g). The selection of a suitable strain along with nutritional supplementation enabled to produce noticeable ethanol titers in quite restrictive SSF operating conditions, which can reduce operating cost and boost the economic feasibility of lignocellulose-to-ethanol processes.The authors thank the financial support from the Strategic Project of UID/BIO/04469/2013 CEB Unit and A Romaní postdoctoral grant funded by Xunta of Galicia (Plan I2C, 2014)

Failure of PCR-Based IS6110 analysis to detect vertebral spondylodiscitis caused by Mycobacterium bovis34026

Mycobacterium bovis is responsible for a zoonosis originating in cattle. We report a case of a man with vertebral spondylodiscitis caused by Mycobacterium bovis. Diagnosis was complicated because of the lack of IS6110. These strains are rare, but microbiologists should be aware of their existence</p

Genetic characterization of low pathogenic H5N1 and co-circulating avian influenza viruses in wild mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) in Belgium, 2008.

&lt;p&gt;As part of a long-term wild bird monitoring programme, five different low pathogenic (LP) avian influenza viruses (AIVs) were isolated from wild mallards (subtypes H1N1, H4N6, H5N1, H5N3, and H10N7). A LP H5N1 and two co-circulating (same location, same time period) viruses were selected for full genome sequencing. An H1N1 (A/Anas platyrhynchos/Belgium/09-762/2008) and an H5N1 virus (A/Anas platyrhynchos/Belgium/09-762-P1/2008) were isolated on the same day in November 2008, then an H5N3 virus (A/Anas platyrhynchos/09-884/2008) 5 days later in December 2008. All genes of these co-circulating viruses shared common ancestors with recent (2001 to 2007) European wild waterfowl influenza viruses. The H5N1 virus shares genome segments with both the H1N1 (PB1, NA, M) and the H5N3 (PB2, HA) viruses, and all three viruses share the same NS sequence. A double infection with two different PA segments from H5N1 and from H5N3 could be observed for the H1N1 sample. The observed gene constellations resulted from multiple reassortment events between viruses circulating in wild birds in Eurasia. Several internal gene segments from these 2008 viruses and the N3 sequence from the H5N3 show homology with sequences from 2003 H7 outbreaks in Italy (LP) and the Netherlands (highly pathogenic). These data contribute to the growing sequence evidence of the dynamic nature of the avian influenza natural reservoir in Eurasia, and underline the importance of monitoring AIV in wild birds. Genetic information of potential hazard to commercial poultry continues to circulate in this reservoir, including H5 and H7 subtype viruses and genes related to previous AIV outbreaks.&lt;/p&gt;</p

komentar ob prispevku E. Benedika

Zadrege psihologov ob uprabi psihiatričnih klasifikaci

Potency of a recombinant NDV-H5 vaccine against various HPAI H5N1 virus challenges in SPF chickens.

&lt;p&gt;For the past decade, several recombinant Newcastle disease viruses (rNDV) have been used as a vector to express native or modified avian influenza (AI) hemagglutinins (HA) in order to give preventive protection against highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses. Obtained protections were dependent on the age of the chickens, on the constructs and, in particular, on the homology between the HA that was inserted and the challenge strains. The objective of this study was to investigate the vaccine efficacy of a recombinant NDV La Sota-vectored vaccine expressing an Asian clade 1 H5 ectodomain (rNDV-H5) vaccine expressing a modified H5 ectodomain from an HPAI clade 1 H5N1 isolate as vaccine for 1-day-old specific-pathogen-free chickens. The inoculation route (oculonasal vs. drinking water), the dose-effect, and the protective range of this rNDV-H5 vaccine were studied. Both routes of vaccination induced an H5 serologic response and afforded a high degree of clinical protection against an Asian clade 1 HPAI H5N1 (AsH5N1) challenge without a significant difference between inoculation routes. A clear dose-effect could be demonstrated. Furthermore, when evaluating the protective range against antigenically divergent descendants of the Asian dade 1 HPAI H5N1 lineage, namely two Egyptian clade 2.2.1 H5N1 strains, the vaccine efficacy was less satisfactory. The rNDV-H5 vaccine provided good clinical protection and reduced viral shedding against Egyptian 2007 challenge but was unable to provide a similar protection against the more antigenically divergent Egyptian 2008 strain.&lt;/p&gt;</p

2.2. Risk factors for system performance of an automatic 3D vision locomotion monitor for cows

The aim of this study was to identify the factors that affect the system performance of a threedimensional based vision system for automatic monitoring of dairy cow locomotion implemented on a commercial dairy farm. Data were gathered from a Belgian commercial dairy farm with a 40-stand rotary milking parlour. This resulted in forced cow traffic twice a day when all Holstein cows passed through an alley on their return to the pen. The video recording system with a 3D depth camera, positioned in top-down perspective, was installed in this alley. The entire monitoring process, including video recording, filtering and analysis and cow identification, was automated. System performance was defined as the number of analysed videos per session. To investigate how many video recordings could be used for monitoring dairy cow locomotion, videos were captured during 566 consecutive milking sessions. For each session, 224±10 cows were identified on average by the RFID-antenna, and 197±17 videos were recorded (88.0±6.2%) by the camera. After linking the cow identification to the recorded videos, 178±14 cow videos (79.5±5.7%) were available for analysis. After all video processing, an average of 110±24 recorded cow videos (49.3±11.0%) per session was used for analysis. The number of analysed videos per cow per week was individually variable. Cow traffic in the alley where the recordings were made had a big influence on the performance of the system. Heavy cow traffic reduced the number of recordings and the number of identified cows in each video, and more videos were filtered out due to incorrect cow segmentation in the videos

Risk factors for system performance of an automatic 3D vision locomotion monitor for cows

The aim of this study was to identify the factors that affect the system performance of a threedimensional based vision system for automatic monitoring of dairy cow locomotion implemented on a commercial dairy farm. Data were gathered from a Belgian commercial dairy farm with a 40-stand rotary milking parlour. This resulted in forced cow traffic twice a day when all Holstein cows passed through an alley on their return to the pen. The video recording system with a 3D depth camera, positioned in top-down perspective, was installed in this alley. The entire monitoring process, including video recording, filtering and analysis and cow identification, was automated. System performance was defined as the number of analysed videos per session. To investigate how many video recordings could be used for monitoring dairy cow locomotion, videos were captured during 566 consecutive milking sessions. For each session, 224±10 cows were identified on average by the RFID-antenna, and 197±17 videos were recorded (88.0±6.2%) by the camera. After linking the cow identification to the recorded videos, 178±14 cow videos (79.5±5.7%) were available for analysis. After all video processing, an average of 110±24 recorded cow videos (49.3±11.0%) per session was used for analysis. The number of analysed videos per cow per week was individually variable. Cow traffic in the alley where the recordings were made had a big influence on the performance of the system. Heavy cow traffic reduced the number of recordings and the number of identified cows in each video, and more videos were filtered out due to incorrect cow segmentation in the videos