814 research outputs found
Lameness in cattle: recent research to inform clinical practice
Lameness in cattle has significant consequences for welfare, health and productivity. More research is now being done on lameness and this article, the first in a two-part series, provides an update on research-based advances in the field published from around the world over the past five years. These developments have improved our understanding of lameness in cattle and can inform clinical practice and the control of lameness on-farm. The second article, to be published in a subsequent issue of In Practice, will cover the understanding and management of claw health and claw horn lesions
Una clasificación de proyectos de restauración del paisaje forestal en América Latina y el Caribe
Morbilliviruses in aquatic mammals: report on round table discussion.
A workshop was organised to ascertain the current situation with regard to morbillivirus infections in aquatic animals. The great interest generated by the discovery of these new virus infections in 1988 has to some extent abated but much high quality research has continued in this field as the workshop showed. There is some serological evidence that the viruses have continued to circulate in most areas since the initial epizootics. As to their origin, it appears that the most likely source of the European seal morbillivirus (PDV-1) is the North Atlantic and Artic seal populations. As to the origin of the Mediterranean dolphin morbillivirus and the morbilliviruses isolated from porpoises, there is serological evidence that the viruses are widespread in many cetacean species in the Atlantic and 93% of long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas) which mass stranded between 1982 and 1993 were morbillivirus seropositive. The epizootic in freshwater seals in Lake Baikal was unrelated to events in the European marine mammal populations. The virus which infected these animals (PDV-2) is indistinguishable from canine distemper field strains. Serological and molecular biological studies provided evidence for the presence of the virus in the seals, at least as late as the Summer of 1992 when the animals were last sampled
The mechanical and material properties of elderly human articular cartilage subject to impact and slow loading
Copyright © 2013 IPEM. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Peer reviewedPostprin
Characterisation of morbilliviruses isolated from Lake Baikal seals (Phoca sibirica).
Sequence analysis of the haemagglutinin protein (H) gene of the morbillivirus (PDV-2) isolated from a Siberian seal (Phoca sibirica) during the 1987/1988 epizootic in Lake Baikal revealed that it was most closely related to two recent isolates of canine distemper virus (CDV) from Germany and different from CDV vaccines currently in use in that region. The virus continued to circulate in seals in Lake Baikal after the 1987/1988 epizootic since sera collected from culled seals in the spring of 1992 were positive in morbillivirus ELISA tests, reacting most strongly with the CDV antigen
Quantum phase transitions in superconducting arrays under external magnetic fields
We study the zero-temperature phase transitions of two-dimensional
superconducting arrays with both the self- and the junction capacitances in the
presence of external magnetic fields. We consider two kinds of excitations from
the Mott insulating phase: charge-dipole excitations and single-charge
excitations, and apply the second-order perturbation theory to find their
energies. The resulting phase boundaries are found to depend strongly on the
magnetic frustration, which measures the commensurate-incommensurate effects.
Comparison of the obtained values with those in recent experiment suggests the
possibility that the superconductor-insulator transition observed in experiment
may not be of the Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless type. The system is also
transformed to a classical three-dimensional XY model with the magnetic field
in the time-direction; this allows the analogy to bulk superconductors,
revealing the nature of the phase transitions.Comment: 9 pages including 7 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Far-from-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics
The theory of real-time quantum many-body dynamics as put forward in Ref.
[arXiv:0710.4627] is evaluated in detail. The formulation is based on a
generating functional of correlation functions where the Keldysh contour is
closed at a given time. Extending the Keldysh contour from this time to a later
time leads to a dynamic flow of the generating functional. This flow describes
the dynamics of the system and has an explicit causal structure. In the present
work it is evaluated within a vertex expansion of the effective action leading
to time evolution equations for Green functions. These equations are applicable
for strongly interacting systems as well as for studying the late-time
behaviour of nonequilibrium time evolution. For the specific case of a bosonic
N-component phi^4 theory with contact interactions an s-channel truncation is
identified to yield equations identical to those derived from the 2PI effective
action in next-to-leading order of a 1/N expansion. The presented approach
allows to directly obtain non-perturbative dynamic equations beyond the widely
used 2PI approximations.Comment: 20 pp., 6 figs; submitted version with added references and typos
corrected
UV-curable gels as topical nail medicines: in vivo residence, anti-fungal efficacy and influence of gel components on their properties
UV-curable gels, used as nail cosmetics for their in vivo durability, were reported to be promising as topical nail medicines. Our first aim was thus to investigate whether such durability applies to drug-loaded formulations. This was found to be true. However, ethanol inclusion in the pharmaceutical formulation (to enable drug loading) reduced the in vivo residence. The second aim was therefore to determine any other effects of ethanol, and if ethanol could be avoided by the choice of monomers. Thus, three methacrylate monomers, ethyl methacrylate, isobornyl methacrylate and 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) were selected, and their influence on the formulation properties were determined. Ethanol and the methacrylate monomer influenced some (but not all) of the formulation properties. The most significant was that HEMA could dissolve drug and enable the preparation of ethanol-free, drug-loaded formulations, which would benefit in vivo residence. The absence of ethanol reduced drug loading, release and ungual flux, but had no negative impact on the in vitro anti-fungal efficacy. Thus, judicious selection of gel components enabled the exclusion of ethanol. The long in vivo residence, little residual monomers, sufficient ungual permeation and in vitro anti-fungal activity of the gels indicates their potential as anti-onychomycotic topical medicines
The Self Model and the Conception of Biological Identity in Immunology
The self/non-self model, first proposed by F.M. Burnet, has dominated immunology for sixty years now. According to this model, any foreign element will trigger an immune reaction in an organism, whereas endogenous elements will not, in normal circumstances, induce an immune reaction. In this paper we show that the self/non-self model is no longer an appropriate explanation of experimental data in immunology, and that this inadequacy may be rooted in an excessively strong metaphysical conception of biological identity. We suggest that another hypothesis, one based on the notion of continuity, gives a better account of immune phenomena. Finally, we underscore the mapping between this metaphysical deflation from self to continuity in immunology and the philosophical debate between substantialism and empiricism about identity
The contribution of previous lameness events and body condition score to the occurrence of lameness in dairy herds: a study of 2 herds
It has been demonstrated that low body condition and previous occurrence of lameness increase the risk of future lameness in dairy cows. To date the population attributable fraction (PAF), which provides an estimate of the contribution that a risk factor makes toward the total number of disease events in a population, has not been explored for lameness using longitudinal data with repeated measures. Estimation of PAF helps to identify control measures that could lead to the largest improvements on-farm. The aim of this study was to use longitudinal data to evaluate the proportion of lameness that could be avoided in 2 separate herds (2 populations) through (1) reduced recurrence of previous lameness events, (2) and moving body condition score (BCS) into more optimal ranges. Data were obtained from 2 UK dairy herds: herd A, a 200-cow herd with 8 yr of data from a total of 724 cows where lameness events were based on weekly locomotion scores (LS; 1 to 5 scale), and herd B, a 600-cow herd with data recorded over 44 mo from a total of 1,040 cows where treatment of clinical cases was used to identify lameness events. The PAF for categories of BCS were estimated using a closed equation appropriate for multiple exposure categories. Simulation models were used to explore theoretical scenarios to reflect changes in BCS and recurrence of previous lameness events in each herd. For herd A, 21.5% of the total risk periods (cow-weeks) contained a lameness event (LS 3, 4, or 5), 96% of which were repeat events and 19% were recorded with BCS 16 wk before a risk period. The median PAF estimated for changes in BCS were in the region of 4 to 11%, depending on severity of lameness. Repeated bouts of lameness made a very large contribution to the total number of lameness events. This could either be because certain cows are initially susceptible and remain susceptible, due to the increased risk associated with previous lameness events, or due to interactions with environmental factors. This area requires further research
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