The impact of chronic inflammatory enteropathy on dogs’ quality of life and dog-owner relationship

This research was aimed at evaluating the impact of canine chronic enteropathies on dogs’ quality of life (QoL), their behavior, and owner–dog relationship. Forty-four dogs suffering from primary chronic enteropathies were assessed on the first visit with a veterinary gastroenterologist and on the first follow-up visit using a 1–10 visual scale to evaluate five features of QoL, the Canine Chronic Enteropathy Clinical Activity Index, the Lexington Attachment to Pet Scale, and the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire. They were compared to a control group of 49 healthy dogs and to a group of 50 dogs suffering from cancer. QoL and severity of enteropathy were negatively associated; enteropathic dogs on the first visit had a lower QoL than healthy dogs for all features and a lower general QoL than cancer patients; enteropathic dogs on the follow-up visit improved significantly for general QoL, health QoL, and interaction QoL. Higher levels of attachment between the owner and the dog were obtained for dogs affected by chronic enteropathies. Finally, dogs showed higher scores for separation-related behaviors and contact/attention behaviors on the first visit than on the subsequent follow-up. As in human medicine, chronic enteropathies have a strong negative impact on dogs

Pinch-induced behavioural inhibition (clipthesia) as a restraint method for cats during veterinary examinations: preliminary results on cat susceptibility and welfare.

Cats are often subjected to minimally painful or forced procedures during routine clinical practice, which can be poorly tolerated, leading veterinary surgeons to need to offer physical restraint, usually aided by an assistant. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness and ultimate welfare implications of using clipthesia as a method of restraint during veterinary examination. This was carried out in a real clinical setting and compared to manual scruffing. Twenty-seven cats were restrained, during a veterinary examination, using two stationery clips placed on the skin along the cervical dorsal midline, whilst a group of 13 cats were restrained through gentle manual scruffing. Susceptibility to clipthesia (ie a positive clip score) was observed in 81.5% of cats, while a complete response was found in 40.7% of subjects. The presence or absence of a disease/condition did not affect the susceptibility. Heart rate and the number of cats showing mydriasis (pupillary dilation) was statistically higher during manual scruffing, whilst plasma cortisol did not differ between the two groups. The more responsive the cats were to clipthesia, the more they displayed kneading and purring. These preliminary findings suggest that clipthesia is not more stressful than manual scruffing in restraining cats during a veterinary examination. However, not all cats were found to be susceptible to this method of restraint. Further research is needed to clarify whether clipthesia should be implementated as a matter of course in veterinary practice from the point of view of welfare and safety

Poly(Alkylene 2,5-thiophenedicarboxylate) polyesters: A new class of bio-based high-performance polymers for sustainable packaging

In the present study, 100% bio-based polyesters of 2,5-thiophenedicarboxylic acid were synthesized via two-stage melt polycondensation using glycols containing 3 to 6 methylene groups. The so-prepared samples were characterised from the molecular point of view and processed into free-standing thin films. Afterward, both the purified powders and the films were subjected to structural and thermal characterisation. In the case of thin films, mechanical response and barrier properties to O2 and CO2 were also evaluated. From the results obtained, it emerged that the length of glycolic sub-units is an effective tool to modulate the chain mobility and, in turn, the kind and amount of ordered phases developed in the samples. In addition to the usual amorphous and 3D crystalline phases, in all the samples investigated it was possible to evidence a further phase characterised by a lower degree of order (mesophase) than the crystalline one, whose amount is strictly related to the glycol sub-unit length. The relative fraction of all these phases is responsible for the different mechanical and barrier performances. Last, but not least, a comparison between thiophene-based homopolymers and their furan-based homologues was carried out

Effects of resonant-laser excitation on the emission properties in a single quantum dot

While many solid-state emitters can be optically excited non-resonantly, resonant excitation is necessary for many quantum information protocols as it often maximizes the non-classicality of the emitted light. Here, we study the resonance fluorescence in a solid-state system—a quantum dot—with the addition of weak, non-resonant light. In the inelastic scattering regime, changes in the resonance fluorescence intensity and linewidth are linked to both the non-resonant and resonant laser powers. Details of the intensity change indicate that charge-carrier loss from the quantum dot is resonant laser. As we enter the Mollow triplet regime, this resonant laser loss term rate is approximately 1/50ns−1. This work further clarifies resonance fluorescence in solid-state systems and will aid in the further improvement of solid-state non-classical light sources

A robust, modular approach to produce graphene-MO X multilayer foams as electrodes for Li-ion batteries

Major breakthroughs in batteries would require the development of new composite electrode materials, with a precisely controlled nanoscale architecture. However, composites used for energy storage are typically a disordered bulk mixture of different materials, or simple coatings of one material onto another. We demonstrate here a new technique to create complex hierarchical electrodes made of multilayers of vertically aligned nanowalls of hematite (Fe 2 O 3 ) alternated with horizontal spacers of reduced graphene oxide (RGO), all deposited on a 3D, conductive graphene foam. The RGO nanosheets act as porous spacers, current collectors and protection against delamination of the hematite. The multilayer composite, formed by up to 7 different layers, can be used with no further processing as an anode in Li-ion batteries, with a specific capacity of up to 1175 μA h cm -2 and a capacity retention of 84% after 1000 cycles. Our coating strategy gives improved cyclability and rate capacity compared to conventional bulk materials. Our production method is ideally suited to assemble an arbitrary number of organic-inorganic materials in an arbitrary number of layers

The perception of cat stress by Italian owners

The welfare assessment of owned pet cats has been neglected in research. The aim of this study was to assess owners' perception and recognition of impaired welfare in their own cats. One hundred ninety-four cat owners were interviewed face-to-face by a veterinary behaviorist, completing a 42-item questionnaire. Most owners (71.1%/N = 138) correctly included both physical and psychological features within their definition of stress, but 9.8% (19) thought that stress had no consequences for the cat. When asked to rate the overall stress level of their own cats in a nonnumerical scale based on frequency, 56.7% (N = 110) chose low, 38.1% (N = 74) chose medium, and 5.2% (N = 10) chose high. Owners whose cats played little or not at all were more likely to rate the level of stress of their cats as high (90.0%) than to rate it as low or medium (33.2%/64; χ2 = 13.290; P < 0.001). Similarly, owners whose cats showed overgrooming were more likely to rate the level of stress of their cats as high (30.0%/58 vs. 7.6%/15; χ2 = 4.948; P = 0.015). The display of aggression or house soiling was not associated with the owner's rating of stress level. The number of signs recognized by respondents as potential indicators of stress in cats and the rating of the level of stress in their own cats were weakly correlated (ρ = 0.217; P = 0.002). This may be due to possible biases in the interviews as well as to an overall good welfare in the cat sample associated to a moderately good understanding of feline signs of stress in owners. A principal components analysis applied to the listed signs of stress identified 4 components which were termed: body posture, social avoidance, house soiling, and self-directed behavior. However, some of the signs that behaviorists regard as crucial in their anamnesis, such as scratching the furniture, freezing, mydriasis, and recurrent cystitis, were the least recognized signs of stress by cat owners. Only very prominent, common, or potentially disturbing behaviors such as excessive vocalization, posture with the ears back, and urinating out of the litter tray were regarded as potential signs of stress by more than two-thirds of owners. These findings suggest that owners tend to overlook certain signs and that owners' perception of stress partially depends on their false preconceptions about cat normal ethology (e.g., playfulness, social relationships, aggression, etc.). This ill-informed perception is likely to prevent owners from correctly indentifying, and intervening in, situations of poor welfare

Improvement of conventional anti-cancer drugs as new tools against multidrug resistant tumors

Multidrug resistance (MDR) is the dominant cause of the failure of cancer chemotherapy. The design of antitumor drugs that are able to evade MDR is rapidly evolving, showing that this area of biomedical research attracts great interest in the scientific community. The current review explores promising recent approaches that have been developed with the aim of circumventing or overcoming MDR. Encouraging results have been obtained in the investigation of the MDR-modulating properties of various classes of natural compounds and their analogues. Inhibition of P-gp or downregulation of its expression have proven to be the main mechanisms by which MDR can be surmounted. The use of hybrid molecules that are able to simultaneously interact with two or more cancer cell targets is currently being explored as a means to circumvent drug resistance. This strategy is based on the design of hybrid compounds that are obtained either by merging the structural features of separate drugs, or by conjugating two drugs or pharmacophores via cleavable/non-cleavable linkers. The approach is highly promising due to the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic advantages that can be achieved over the independent administration of the two individual components. However, it should be stressed that the task of obtaining successful multivalent drugs is a very challenging one. The conjugation of anticancer agents with nitric oxide (NO) donors has recently been developed, creating a particular class of hybrid that can combat tumor drug resistance. Appropriate NO donors have been shown to reverse drug resistance via nitration of ABC transporters and by interfering with a number of metabolic enzymes and signaling pathways. In fact, hybrid compounds that are produced by covalently attaching NO-donors and antitumor drugs have been shown to elicit a synergistic cytotoxic effect in a variety of drug resistant cancer cell lines. Another strategy to circumvent MDR is based on nanocarrier-mediated transport and the controlled release of chemotherapeutic drugs and P-gp inhibitors. Their pharmacokinetics are governed by the nanoparticle or polymer carrier and make use of the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect, which can increase selective delivery to cancer cells. These systems are usually internalized by cancer cells via endocytosis and accumulate in endosomes and lysosomes, thus preventing rapid efflux. Other modalities to combat MDR are described in this review, including the pharmaco-modulation of acridine, which is a well-known scaffold in the development of bioactive compounds, the use of natural compounds as means to reverse MDR, and the conjugation of anticancer drugs with carriers that target specific tumor-cell components. Finally, the outstanding potential of in silico structure-based methods as a means to evaluate the ability of antitumor drugs to interact with drug transporters is also highlighted in this review. Structure-based design methods, which utilize 3D structural data of proteins and their complexes with ligands, are the most effective of the in silico methods available, as they provide a prediction regarding the interaction between transport proteins and their substrates and inhibitors. The recently resolved X-ray structure of human P-gp can help predict the interaction sites of designed compounds, providing insight into their binding mode and directing possible rational modifications to prevent them from becoming P-gp drug substrates. In summary, although major efforts were invested in the search for new tools to combat drug resistant tumors, they all require further implementation and methodological development. Further investigation and progress in the abovementioned strategies will provide significant advances in the rational combat against cancer MDR

Characterisation of the Galactic thin disc with Corot targets

We use kinematical and chemical properties of 754 Corot stars to characterise the stellar populations of the Milky Way disc in three beams close the Galactic plane. From the atmospheric parameters derived in Gazzano et al. (2010) with the Matisse algorithm, we derived stellar distances using isochrones. Combining these data with proper motions, we provide the complete kinematical description of stars in three Corot fields. Finally, we used kinematical criteria to identify the Galactic populations in our sample and study their characteristics, particularly their chemistry. Comparing our kinematics with the Besancon Galactic model, we show that, within 3-sigma, simulated and observed kinematical distributions are in good agreement. We study the characteristics of the thin disc, finding a correlation that is significant at a value of 2-sigma between the V-velocity component and the metallicity for two different radial distance bins (8-9kpc and 9-10kpc; but not for the most inner bin 7-8kpc, probably because of the uncertainties in the abundances) which could be interpreted as radial migration evidence. We also measured a radial metallicity gradient value of -0.097+/-0.015dex/kpc with giant stars, and -0.053+/-0.015dex/kpc with dwarfs. Finally, we identified metal-rich stars with peculiar high [alpha/Fe] values in the directions pointing to the inner part of the Galaxy. Applying the same methodology to the planet-hosting stars detected by Corot shows that they mainly belong to the thin disc population with normal chemical and kinematical properties.Comment: Astronomy & Astrophysics, in pres

Multi-object spectroscopy of stars in the CoRoT fields I: Early-type stars in the CoRoT-fields IRa01, LRa01, LRa02

Observations of giant stars indicate that the frequency of giant planets is much higher for intermediate-mass stars than for solar-like stars. Up to now all known planets of giant stars orbit at relatively far distances from their host stars. It is not known whether intermediate-mass stars also had many close-in planets when they were on the main sequence, which were then engulfed when the star became a giant star. To understand the formation and evolution of planets it is therefore important to find out whether main-sequence stars of intermediate-mass have close-in planets or not. A survey for transiting planets of intermediate-mass stars would be ideal to solve this question, because the detection of transiting planets is not affected by the rapid rotation of these stars. As a first step for an efficient survey we need to identify intermediate-mass stars in the CoRoT-fields, which can then be used as an input list. To compile the input list we derived the spectral types of essentially all O, B and A stars down to 14.5 mag in the CoRoT fields IRa01, LRa01, LRa02 taken with the multi-object spectrograph AAOmega. We determined the spectral types by comparing the spectra with template spectra from a library. In total we identify 1856 A and B stars that have been observed with CoRoT. Given the number of planets that have been detected in these fields amongst late-type stars, we estimate that there are one to four transiting planets of intermediate-mass stars waiting to be discovered. Our survey not only allows us to carry out a dedicated planet search programme but is also essential for any types of studies of the light curves of early-type stars in the CoRoT database. We also show that it would be possible to extend the survey to all fields that CoRoT has observed using photometrically determined spectral types.Comment: 57 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic