Diagnosis and Treatment of Foetal Anasarca in Two English bulldog Puppies

This case report provides the first description of foetal anasarca, from prenatal diagnosis to neonatal treatment, in two English Bulldog puppies. Anasarca affected 2 out of 3 puppies of the same litter. The dam was a 3 year-old primipara and was ultrasonographically monitored during pregnancy. The diagnosis of foetal anasarca was performed on d53. The most severely affected puppy was a female, which showed subcutaneous oedema and fluid in the thoracic and abdominal cavities. The other affected puppy was a male, which showed subcutaneous oedema but no fluid in thoracic and abdominal cavities. At birth, the female puppy did not respond to resuscitation, whereas the male puppy was successfully treated with furosemide after resuscitation and completely recovered within 36 hours. The third puppy was a healthy female. Two weeks after birth, the male puppy was healthy, although it was lighter compared to its sister puppy. In conclusion, ultrasound examination during routine pregnancy monitoring permits an early diagnosis of foetal anasarca, at least in the most severe cases. Prenatal diagnosis can be useful for the planned c-section, in order to apply an adequate treatment as soon as possible at delivery

Penile Foreign Bodies in Dogs: A Retrospective Study

Abstract Hematuria, or preputial hemorrhagic discharge, is an extremely common clinical sign; it can be associated with a wide range of diseases, including, even if only rarely, penile foreign bodies. The aim of this retrospective study was to describe the diagnosis and therapy involving migration from the preputial ostium or penile urethra of a foreign body (awn grass) embedded in the connective tissue surrounding the penis, or in deeper inguinal tissues, in dogs with hematuria or preputial hemorrhagic discharge. In the selected cases, signaling, history, clinical signs, results of laboratory exams, endoscopic and ultrasonographic evaluation, and the technique used for foreign body removal were evaluated. Dogs with hemorrhagic discharge consequent to a penile foreign body represented 2% of the entire population considered. At physical examination, the most common features were the presence of swelling of the glans and hyperemia associated with a penile fistula (4/6 dogs), and pain during penile exteriorization (3/6 dogs). Laboratory results showed mild neutrophilic leukocytosis in 2/3 dogs and reticulocytosis in 1/3 dogs. Endoscopy, performed in 2/6 dogs, did not reveal any alterations associated with passage of the foreign body. Ultrasonography was useful in reaching a definitive diagnosis, identifying the position of the grass awn in 6/6 cases and permitting its removal in all dogs using an ultrasound-guided technique. This case report suggested that penile foreign bodies are a rare, but possible, cause of hematuria or hemorrhagic discharge in male dogs, and that ultrasonography is a useful technique in the making of a differential diagnosis and removal of foreign bodies

Plasma Concentration Rise after the Intramuscular Administration of High Dose Medetomidine (0.13 mg/kg) for Semen Collection in Cats

High dose medetomidine 0.13 mg/kg can be used for semen collection in cats with variable results in terms of quantity and quality. Therefore, a variation in terms of distribution and elimination among patients has been hypothesised. The aim of the study was to characterise the pharmacokinetics of medetomidine (0.13 mg/kg) administered intramuscularly (IM) in healthy male cats. Eighteen male cats undergoing castration were included, and medetomidine (0.13 mg/kg) was administered IM. Venous blood samples were collected at 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 75 and 90 minutes after medetomidine administration. Before orchiectomy, at T20, sperm collection was attempted. Plasma medetomidine concentrations were determined by liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry analysis. Semen collection was successful in 15/18 cats. The medetomidine plasma concentration following the IM administration of a bolus was best described using a non-compartment model. Time of maximum concentration was observed at 40 minutes (range 20-90); maximum concentration was 32.8 ng/mL (range 26.8-51.2). The median apparent clearance was 11.9 mL/kg/minute (range 0.7-43.8). In conclusion, medetomidine administered IM at 0.13 mg/kg reached its peak plasma concentration slowly and with variability among patients. In addition, it was characterised by low total body clearance probably due to the cardiovascular alterations associated with medetomidine administration

MoD Tools: regulatory motif discovery in nucleotide sequences from co-regulated or homologous genes

Understanding the complex mechanisms regulating gene expression at the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels is one of the greatest challenges of the post-genomic era. The MoD (MOtif Discovery) Tools web server comprises a set of tools for the discovery of novel conserved sequence and structure motifs in nucleotide sequences, motifs that in turn are good candidates for regulatory activity. The server includes the following programs: Weeder, for the discovery of conserved transcription factor binding sites (TFBSs) in nucleotide sequences from co-regulated genes; WeederH, for the discovery of conserved TFBSs and distal regulatory modules in sequences from homologous genes; RNAProfile, for the discovery of conserved secondary structure motifs in unaligned RNA sequences whose secondary structure is not known. In this way, a given gene can be compared with other co-regulated genes or with its homologs, or its mRNA can be analyzed for conserved motifs regulating its post-transcriptional fate. The web server thus provides researchers with different strategies and methods to investigate the regulation of gene expression, at both the transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels. Available at and

The spectral element method as an effective tool for solving large scale dynamic soil-structure interaction problems

The spectral element method (SEM) is a powerful numerical technique naturally suited for wave propagation and dynamic soil-structure interaction (DSSI) analyses. A class of SEM has been widely used in the seismological field (local or global seismology) thanks to its capability of providing high accuracy and allowing the implementation of optimized parallel algorithms. We illustrate inthis contribution how the SEM can be effectively used also for the numerical analysis of DSSI problems, with reference to the 3D seismic response of a railway viaduct in Italy. This numerical analysis includes the combined effect of: a) strong lateral variations of soil properties; b) topographic amplification; c) DSSI; d) spatial variation of earthquake ground motion in the structural response. Some hints on the work in progress to effectively handle nonlinear problems with SEM are also given

FLARES: an aging aware algorithm to autonomously adapt the error correction capability in NAND Flash memories

With the advent of solid-state storage systems, NAND flash memories are becoming a key storage technology. However, they suffer from serious reliability and endurance issues during the operating lifetime that can be handled by the use of appropriate error correction codes (ECC) in order to reconstruct the information when needed.. Adaptable ECCs may provide the flexibility to avoid worst-case reliability design thus leading to improved performance. However, a way to control such adaptable ECCs strength is required. This paper proposes FLARES, an algorithm able to adapt the ECC correction capability of each page of a flash based on a flash RBER prediction model and on a measurement of the number of errors detected in a given time window. FLARES has been fully implemented within the YAFFS 2 filesystem under the Linux operating system. This allowed us to perform an extensive set of simulations on a set of standard benchmarks that highlighted the benefit of FLARES on the overall storage subsystem performance

Optimal cutting planes from the group relaxations

We study quantitative criteria for evaluating the strength of valid inequalities for Gomory and Johnson's finite and infinite group models and we describe the valid inequalities that are optimal for these criteria. We justify and focus on the criterion of maximizing the volume of the nonnegative orthant cut off by a valid inequality. For the finite group model of prime order, we show that the unique maximizer is an automorphism of the Gomory Mixed-Integer (GMI) cut for a possibly different finite group problem of the same order. We extend the notion of volume of a simplex to the infinite dimensional case. This is used to show that in the infinite group model, the GMI cut maximizes the volume of the nonnegative orthant cut off by an inequality

Sex-sorted canine sperm cryopreservation: Limits and procedural considerations

The aim of this study was to define a protocol to store dog sperm before and after sorting to obtain an insemination dose sufficient to allow the conception by artificial insemination. Experiment 1 and 2 were performed to evaluate the more appropriate extender for preserving at room temperature dog sperm before and after sorting. Four extenders were tested: (1) Tris-fructose-citrate (TFC), (2) Tris-glucose-citrate (TGC), (3) modified Tyrode\u2019s albumin lactate pyruvate medium (mTALP), and (4) third fraction of the ejaculate (after centrifugation at 5000 g for 10 minutes; III FRAC). Experiment 3 and 4 were performed to evaluate the ability of dog semen to withstand sex sorting and freezing/thawing. Modified Tyrode\u2019s albumin lactate pyruvate medium was the best extender for canine sperm storage at room temperature (20 C\u201325 C) before (total motility: TFC, 8.3 1.7; TGC, 50.0 11.5; mTALP, 70.0 0.1; III FRAC, 25.0 1 0.4; P < 0.05) and after sorting (total motility: TFC, 7.3 1.5; TGC, 10.3 1.5; mTALP, 33.3 6.7; III FRAC, 8.7 5.8; P < 0.05), even if at 24- hour sorted sperm quality was impaired in all extenders tested herein. Sperm quality decreased after sorting (total motility: control, 92.5 0.9; sorted, 52.9 6.0; P < 0.05) and, especially, after freezing/thawing (total motility: frozen control, 25.7 4.1; frozen sorted, 2.4 1.2; P < 0.05). In conclusion, mTALP is an appropriate medium for canine sperm storage before and soon after sorting (hours), but a long storage period of sexed sperm at room temperature is not adequate. Cryopreservation greatly impaired sperm quality, and further studies are needed to optimize the freezing protocol for sexed dog sperm

Performance and Reliability Analysis of Cross-Layer Optimizations of NAND Flash Controllers

NAND flash memories are becoming the predominant technology in the implementation of mass storage systems for both embedded and high-performance applications. However, when considering data and code storage in non-volatile memories (NVMs), such as NAND flash memories, reliability and performance be- come a serious concern for systems' designer. Designing NAND flash based systems based on worst-case scenarios leads to waste of resources in terms of performance, power consumption, and storage capacity. This is clearly in contrast with the request for run-time reconfigurability, adaptivity, and resource optimiza- tion in nowadays computing systems. There is a clear trend toward supporting differentiated access modes in flash memory controllers, each one setting a differentiated trade-off point in the performance-reliability optimization space. This is supported by the possibility of tuning the NAND flash memory performance, reli- ability and power consumption acting on several tuning knobs such as the flash programming algorithm and the flash error correcting code. However, to successfully exploit these degrees of freedom, it is mandatory to clearly understand the effect the combined tuning of these parameters have on the full NVM sub-system. This paper performs a comprehensive quantitative analysis of the benefits provided by the run-time reconfigurability of an MLC NAND flash controller through the combined effect of an adaptable memory programming circuitry coupled with run-time adaptation of the ECC correction capability. The full non- volatile memory (NVM) sub-system is taken into account, starting from the characterization of the low level circuitry to the effect of the adaptation on a wide set of realistic benchmarks in order to provide the readers a clear figure of the benefit this combined adaptation would provide at the system leve