Infectious bronchitis virus infections of chickens in Belgium : an epidemiological survey

Between April 2012 and July 2015, cloacal and/or tracheal swab samples were collected from four hundred and twenty-four Belgian chicken broiler, breeder and layer flocks. All flocks were kept for production purposes and presented clinical signs suggestive of an infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) infection. The samples were analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to detect the presence of ribonucleic acid (RNA) of IBV. When positive, approximately four hundred base pairs (bp) encoding for the hypervariable region of the IBV S1 protein were sequenced. Sequencing results, cycle threshold (Ct) values and vaccination history were used as criteria to try and distinguish vaccine strains from field strains. Of all samples examined, 22.4% was negative. In 16.4% of the samples that did contain RNA from IBV, the genotype could not be determined. In most cases, this was due to the recovery of RNA quantities below the lower limit of detection of the sequencing PCR. The remaining positive submissions predominantly revealed RNA from IBV strains that belonged to the 4/91-793B (46.8%), D388-QX (25.2%), D274-D207 (5.8%) and Massachusetts (4.0%) genotypes. Estimations indicated that approximately 58%, 11%, 37% and 46% of these detections, respectively, were vaccine strains. Infections with types CK/CH/Guandong/Xindadi/0903, Ukr/27/2011, NGA/295/2006 and Q1 were observed sporadically. The results indicate that IBV infections are highly prevalent in Belgian chickens and that at least eight different IBV types were circulating during the monitored period. This underlines the necessity of providing flocks with a strong and broad protective immunity against IBV

Fujaba hits the Wall(-e)

With the ever increasing pervasiveness of software in every day's life, it is quite easy to explain children the importance of software development. Especially when using gadgets such as LEGO robots, one can fascinate young pupils. It is much harder though to and fair link to the actual educational and research programs from a particular university without blowing the audience away with details of a particular Java framework. This paper illustrates how one can use Fujaba to involve children from 8 to 18 years old in realistic requirements elicitation workshops. The children implicitly get in touch with the object-oriented paradigm by playing in the real world the communication between objects in a robot's computer. Fujaba's visual object browser provides a convincing means to illustrate that the game adequately represents the robot's internals

Off-lining to tape is not archiving: Why we need real archiving to support media archaeology and ensure our visual effects legacy thrives

© 2019 ISAST This paper examines digital asset archiving and preservation practice in the visual effects (VFX) industry. The authors briefly summarize media archaeology theory and provide an overview of how VFX studios presently archive project assets and records, based on case study and interview research conducted with expert VFX practitioners from leading international studios. In addition, the authors propose that current practice could be improved by adopting archival science methods, including digital preservation practices. Doing so will support media archaeology studies of digital cultures over time and ensure that the legacy of VFX creative and technical production thrives for future generations

Response of Mouse Lung Air-Blood Barrier to X-Irradiation: Ultrastructural and Stereological Analysis

Male mice of the Balb/c strain were exposed, at an age of three months, to a single dose of 10 or 20 Gy on the right hemithorax. At 3, 4, 6, 9 and 12 months after exposure, lungs were processed for electron microscopy following a standardized procedure in order to allow stereological analysis. By this method, the arithmetical mean thickness and, the air-blood barrier mean thickness in the lung parenchyma was shown to increase quickly with time by oedemization and fibrinization of the septal space. The ratio endothelium/epithelium surfaces (Sr/SF) gradually decreased by reduction of both surfaces but this was more marked for Si. The endothelium and epithelium were both highly damaged. Quantitative results indicate that damage to the epithelial cells and mainly to type II, appear at the same time as damage to the endothelium. From the time lapse quantitation it is not possible to determine which one plays the predominant role in the radiation pneumonitis. The strong reaction of the basement membrane and mainly of the interstitial cells could play a decisive role in the evolution of the illness

Tracebook : a dynamic checklist support system

It has recently been demonstrated that checklist scan enable significant improvements to patient safety. However, their clinical acceptance is significantly lower than expected. This is due to the lack of good support systems. Specifically, support systems are too static: this holds for paper-based support as well as for electronic systems that digitize paper-based support naively. Both approaches are independent from clinical process and clinical context. In this paper, we propose a process-oriented and context-aware dynamic checklist support system: Tracebook. This system supports the execution of complex clinical processes and rules involving data from Electronic Medical Record systems. Workflow activities and forms are specific to individual patients based on clinical rules and they are dispatched to the right user automatically based on a process model. Besides describing the Tracebook functionality in general, this paper demonstrates the support system specifically on an example application that we are preparing for a controlled clinical evaluation. At last we discuss the difference between Tracebook and other support systems which also rely on a checklist format

Identification of TUB as a novel candidate gene influencing body weight in humans

Previously, we identified a locus on 11p influencing obesity in families with type 2 diabetes. Based on mouse studies, we selected TUB as a functional candidate gene and performed association studies to determine whether this controls obesity. We analyzed the genotypes of 13 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) around TUB in 492 unrelated type 2 diabetic patients with known BMI values. One SNP (rs1528133) was found to have a significant effect on BMI (1.54 kg/m(2), P = 0.006). This association was confirmed in a population enriched for type 2 diabetes, using 750 individuals who were not selected for type 2 diabetes. Two SNPs in linkage disequilibrium with rs1528133 and mapping to the 3' end of TUB, rs2272382, and rs2272383 also affected BMI by 1.3 kg/m2 (P = 0.016 and P = 0.010, respectively). Combined analysis confirmed this association (P = 0.005 and P = 0.002, respectively). Moreover, comparing 349 obese subjects (BMI >30 kg/m(2)) from the combined cohort with 289 normal subjects (BMI <25 kg/m(2)) revealed that the protective alleles have a lower frequency in obese subjects (odds ratio 1.32 [95% CI 1.04-1.67], P = 0.022). Altogether, data from the tubby mouse as well as these data suggest that TUB could be an important factor in controlling the central regulation of body weight in humans