Comparison of fluorgestone and medroxyprogesterone intravaginal sponges for oestrus synchronization in Saanen does during the transition period

The efficiency of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MAP) and fluorogestone acetate (FGA) sponges for synchronizing oestrus in lactating Saanen goats was investigated during the transition from non-breeding to natural breeding season. Does were treated for 11 days with 60 mg MAP (n=19) or 40 mg FGA (n=24) sponges. All does received intramuscular injections of 750 IU pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin (PMSG) and 125 mg cloprostenol (PGF2a) 48 h prior to sponge removal. Cervical artificial insemination (AI) with fresh diluted semen was performed at a fixed time (36 and 48 h) followed progestagen withdrawal. The two progestagen treatments showed no significant difference in oestrous response (100% both for MAP and FGA groups), time to the onset (15.8+09 and 15.0+06 h for the MAP and FGA groups, respectively), duration (30.5+1.9 and 34.0+1.4 h for MAP and FGA, respectively) and cessation (42.32+1.6 and 43.25+1.3 h for MAP and FGA, respectively) of the induced oestrus period. No significant difference was observed with respect to pregnancy rates determined at the 53rd day after AI (52.6 and 50.0% for MAP and FGA, respectively). These dates indicate that the use of MAP and FGA intravaginal progestagen treatments are equally efficient in synchronizing oestrus in lactating goats during the transition from the non-breeding to the natural breeding season. Key Words: Goat, Oestrus, Synchronization, Medroxyprogesterone acetate, MAP, Fluorogestone acetate, FGA SA Jnl Animal Sci Vol.34(1) 2004: 18-2

Interacting Turing-Hopf Instabilities Drive Symmetry-Breaking Transitions in a Mean-Field Model of the Cortex: A Mechanism for the Slow Oscillation

Electrical recordings of brain activity during the transition from wake to anesthetic coma show temporal and spectral alterations that are correlated with gross changes in the underlying brain state. Entry into anesthetic unconsciousness is signposted by the emergence of large, slow oscillations of electrical activity (≲1  Hz) similar to the slow waves observed in natural sleep. Here we present a two-dimensional mean-field model of the cortex in which slow spatiotemporal oscillations arise spontaneously through a Turing (spatial) symmetry-breaking bifurcation that is modulated by a Hopf (temporal) instability. In our model, populations of neurons are densely interlinked by chemical synapses, and by interneuronal gap junctions represented as an inhibitory diffusive coupling. To demonstrate cortical behavior over a wide range of distinct brain states, we explore model dynamics in the vicinity of a general-anesthetic-induced transition from “wake” to “coma.” In this region, the system is poised at a codimension-2 point where competing Turing and Hopf instabilities coexist. We model anesthesia as a moderate reduction in inhibitory diffusion, paired with an increase in inhibitory postsynaptic response, producing a coma state that is characterized by emergent low-frequency oscillations whose dynamics is chaotic in time and space. The effect of long-range axonal white-matter connectivity is probed with the inclusion of a single idealized point-to-point connection. We find that the additional excitation from the long-range connection can provoke seizurelike bursts of cortical activity when inhibitory diffusion is weak, but has little impact on an active cortex. Our proposed dynamic mechanism for the origin of anesthetic slow waves complements—and contrasts with—conventional explanations that require cyclic modulation of ion-channel conductances. We postulate that a similar bifurcation mechanism might underpin the slow waves of natural sleep and comment on the possible consequences of chaotic dynamics for memory processing and learning

Dynamics of magnetic modulation of ferrofluid droplets for digital microfluidic applications

Active control of droplet generation in a microfluidic platform attracts interest for development of digital microfluidic devices ranging from biosensors to micro-reactors to point-of-care diagnostic devices. The present paper characterizes, through an unsteady three-dimensional Volume of Fluid (VOF) simulation, the active control of ferrofluid droplet generation in a microfluidic T-junction in presence of a non-uniform magnetic field created by an external magnetic dipole. Two distinctly different positions of the dipole were considered – one upstream of the junction and one downstream. While keeping the ferrofluid flow rate fixed, a parametric variation of the continuous phase capillary number, dipole strength, and dipole position was carried out. Differences in the flow behaviour in terms of dripping or jetting and the droplet characteristics in terms of droplet formation time period and droplet size were studied. The existence of a threshold dipole strength, below which the magnetic force was not able to influence the flow behaviour, was identified. It was also observed that, for dipoles placed upstream of the junction, droplet formation was suppressed at some higher dipole strengths, and this value was found to increase with increasing capillary number. Droplet time period was also found to increase with increasing dipole strength, along with droplet size, i.e. an increase in droplet volume

A Coboundary Morphism For The Grothendieck Spectral Sequence

Given an abelian category $\mathcal{A}$ with enough injectives we show that a short exact sequence of chain complexes of objects in $\mathcal{A}$ gives rise to a short exact sequence of Cartan-Eilenberg resolutions. Using this we construct coboundary morphisms between Grothendieck spectral sequences associated to objects in a short exact sequence. We show that the coboundary preserves the filtrations associated with the spectral sequences and give an application of these result to filtrations in sheaf cohomology.Comment: 18 page

Prevalence of malaria infection in children attending emergency paediatrics unit of Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching hospital, Sokoto - Nigeria

Background: Malaria infection in children has been of concern in this part of the world - the sub-Saharan Africa. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of this deadly infection in children attending Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) Sokoto.Materials and Methods: One hundred and twenty four (124) capillary blood samples were collected from patients attending the Emergency Pediatrics Unit side laboratory. The 'gold standard' method was applied using Giemsa stain to carry out the investigation. Both thick and thin blood films were investigated for malaria parasite concentration and specie identification respectively.Results: Out of the 124 samples collected, 82 (66.13%) tested positive and 42 (33.87%) were negative for malaria infection. A total of 49 (39.52%) males and 33 (26.61%) females were positive for the infection. Of all the positive samples children within the age range of 0 – 5 years had the highest prevalence of 72 (58.06%) while the other age group of 6 – 10 years had a relatively lower prevalence of 10 (8.07%). However, using Chi-square test of independence, statistical analyses suggest that there is no statistically significant association between the distribution of malaria infection and age or gender.Conclusion P. falciparum accounted for about (84.15%) of the cases of malaria infection in the study area.Keywords: Malaria, children, prevalence, UDUTH, Chi-Square

Three dimensional point cloud compression and decompression using polynomials of degree one

© 2019 by the authors. The availability of cheap depth range sensors has increased the use of an enormous amount of 3D information in hand-held and head-mounted devices. This has directed a large research community to optimize point cloud storage requirements by preserving the original structure of data with an acceptable attenuation rate. Point cloud compression algorithms were developed to occupy less storage space by focusing on features such as color, texture, and geometric information. In this work, we propose a novel lossy point cloud compression and decompression algorithm that optimizes storage space requirements by preserving geometric information of the scene. Segmentation is performed by using a region growing segmentation algorithm. The points under the boundary of the surfaces are discarded that can be recovered through the polynomial equations of degree one in the decompression phase. We have compared the proposed technique with existing techniques using publicly available datasets for indoor architectural scenes. The results show that the proposed novel technique outperformed all the techniques for compression rate and RMSE within an acceptable time scale

A Systematic Literature Review of the Humanistic Burden of COPD

Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, causing substantial economic and social burden. Objective: This review assessed the patient-reported humanistic burden associated with moderate to very severe COPD, specifically the impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), symptoms, limitations in daily life, and emotional implications, through the use of HRQoL instruments. Methods: A systematic review was conducted to retrieve relevant clinical data from published literature using a representative sample of countries where healthcare systems provide wide availability of COPD medications and/or universal coverage includes respiratory medicines (Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, and the USA). The primary inclusion criteria were patients with moderate to very severe COPD. HRQoL was quantified with non-disease-specific and disease-specific questionnaires. Results: In total, 82 studies from 95 publications presented HRQoL data from patients with moderate to very severe COPD. Patient-reported HRQoL declined with worsening airflow limitation, advancing GOLD group, and increasing exacerbation frequency. Both increasing frequency of hospitalization for COPD exacerbations and recurrent hospitalization adversely impacted HRQoL. Comorbidity incidence was higher in patients with increased airflow limitation. It was associated with a further decline in HRQoL and increased depression and anxiety, particularly as disease-associated pain worsened. Physical activity improved HRQoL over time. Conclusion: This review highlighted the impact of exacerbations and associated hospitalizations on the humanistic burden of COPD. These findings underline the importance of managing COPD actively, including prompt and appropriate use of pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies that can improve symptoms and reduce the risk of exacerbations, thereby lessening the humanistic burden. Future reviews could consider a broader range of countries and publications to further assess the humanistic impact of COPD in low- and middle-income economies

A comparative study of three different methods of shoot meristem excision for induction of embryogenic calli in coconut

A protocol was standardized to maximize yields of embryogenic calli from shoot meristem culture of coconut. Three different shoot meristem excision methods were tested viz., excision of shoot meristem aseptically from in vitro germinated embryo after 10-12 days, excision of shoot meristem from in vitro germinated embryo subjected to GA3 treatment for five days and excision of shoot meristem from fresh embryo. The primary calli induction after 30 days of culture incubation for the three treatments were 21%, 27%  and 79% respectively.  Further, the primary calli formed from the shoot meristem excised from fresh embryo gave rise to 56% of embryogenic calli. The calli obtained from the shoot meristem which were excised from in vitro germinated embryo formed less percentage of embryogenic calli because of the presence of cotyledonary tissues which inhibited the multiplication of meristematic tissues. In the case of shoot meristem extracted from GA3-treated embryos, the percentage of non-embryogenic calli was more compared to the shoot meristem excised from fresh embryo. It was observed that the addition of GA3 in the initial stages of culture inhibited the formation of embryogenic calli and favored direct shoot development. Currently, the shoot meristem excised from fresh embryo is being employed for scaling up the planting material production from released varieties of coconut

Occurrence of pathogenic bacteria associated with Clarias gariepinus in selected fish farms of Kumbotso local governement area of Kano state, Nigeria

With the diminishing rate of natural fish resources globally, a reasonable percentage of fish and fish products supply now comes from aquaculture. However, quality production is highly required for sustainable demand and supply. It is in view of the aforementioned that this study was designed to examine the quality status of Clarias gariepinus in relation to pathogenic bacteria in two fish farms in Kumbotso Local Government Area of Kano State, Nigeria. 66 Clarias gariepinus with bodyweight 17g - 215g were randomly sampled from July to December 2012 followed by the isolation and identification of different pathogenic bacteria from skin and gill. A total of 132 samples comprising skin (1cm2) and gill (1g) were subjected to microbiological assays in the laboratory following standard procedures. Nutrient Agar, MacConkey Agar, Eoisin Methylene blue, Salmonella Shigella Agar and Blood Agar were used for isolation and maintenance of cultures during the study. Lactose broth, Brilliant Green lactose bile broth (BGLB) was used for the estimation of Escherichia coli Most Probable Number per 1cm2 of skin and 1 gram of gill (MPN/ml and MPN/g). The highest mean of Aerobic Plate Count (APC) was 1.26 x 104 cfu/ml while the highest mean of Escherichia coli MPN/1cm2 was 8.75. Bacterial pathogens isolated and percentage occurrences in parenthesis were Escherichia coli (54.27 %); Stapholococcus aureus (22.48 %); Pseudomonas aeruginosa (10.85 %); Salmonella paratyphi (9.30 %) and Enterobacter aerogenes (3.10 %). There was no significant difference (χ2 = 3.42, P > 0.05) in bacteria isolates from the two fish farms. The result from this study indicated that the fishes were less contaminated with pathogenic bacteria, thus consumers are safe to eat fishes harvested from these farms since all the values are within the recommended limit of < 5 x 105 cfu/g for APC and, 11 for Escherichia coli MPN/ml by International Commission for Microbiological Specification for Food (ICMSF, 2007).Keywords: Fish farm, Clarias gariepinus, Microbiological assays, Pathogenic bacteria

Field Trial of an Automated Batch Chlorinator System at Two Shared Shallow Tubewells among Camps for Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals (FDMN) in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

Chlorination of shallow tubewell water is challenging due to various iron concentrations. A mixed-method, small-scale before-and-after field trial assessed the accuracy and consistency of an automated chlorinator, Zimba, in Rohingya camp housing, Cox's Bazar. From August-September 2018, two shallow tubewells (iron concentration = 6.5 mg/L and 1.5 mg/L) were selected and 20 households were randomly enrolled to participate in household surveys and water testing. The field-team tested pre-and post-treated tubewell and household stored water for iron, free and total chlorine, and E. coli. A sub-set of households (n = 10) also received safe storage containers (5 L jerry cans). Overall mean iron concentrations were 5.8 mg/L in Zimba water, 1.9 mg/L in household storage containers, and 2.8 mg/L in the project-provided safe storage containers. At baseline, 0% samples at source and 60% samples stored in household vessels were contaminated with E. coli (mean log10 = 0.62 MPN/100 mL). After treatment, all water samples collected from source and project-provided safe storage containers were free from E. coli, but 41% of post-treated water stored in the household was contaminated with E. coli. E. coli concentrations were significantly lower in the project-provided safe storage containers (log10 mean difference = 0.92 MPN, 95% CI = 0.59-1.14) compared with baseline and post-treated water stored in household vessels (difference = 0.57 MPN, 95% CI = 0.32-0.83). Zimba is a potential water treatment technology for groundwater extracted through tubewells with different iron concentrations in humanitarian settings