Evaluation of the epidemiological importance of classical swine fever infected, E2 sub-unit marker vaccinated animals with RT-nPCR positive blood samples

&lt;p&gt;It has been demonstrated that pigs that have been double vaccinated with an E2 sub-unit marker vaccine and that are infected with classical swine fever virus (CSFV) through a natural contact infection may react positive in a CSFV detecting RT-nPCR test, whereas no virus could be isolated by using the conventional virus isolation (VI) technique. To evaluate whether these vaccinated and infected pigs may spread the virus, three experiments were set up. In the first, susceptible pigs were inoculated with serum originating from vaccinated RT-nPCR positive pigs. In the second, vaccinated RT-nPCR positive pigs were brought into contact with sentinel animals. In the third, vertical transmission was evaluated in RT-nPCR positive vaccinated pregnant gilts. In the first two experiments, no proof of virus transmission was found, whereas in the third vertical transmission was observed. The conclusion is that in vaccinated pigs that are positive in RT-nPCR but negative in VI, the level of circulating virus is probably not high enough for horizontal transmission, whereas vertical transmission of the virus is possible.&lt;/p&gt;</p

Deconstructing the Subject Condition in terms of cumulative constraint violation

Chomsky (1973) attributes the island status of nominal subjects to the Subject Condition, a constraint specific to subjects. English and Spanish are interesting languages for the comparative study of extraction from subjects, because subjects in English are predominantly preverbal, whereas in Spanish they can be either preverbal or postverbal. In this paper we argue that the islandhood of subject DPs in both English and Spanish is not categorical. The degradation associated with extraction from subjects must be attributed to the interplay of a range of more general constraints which are not specific to subjects. We argue that the interaction of these constraints has a cumulative effect whereby the more constraints that are violated, the higher the degree of degradation that results. We also argue that some speakers have a greater tolerance for constraint violations than others, which would account for widespread inter-speaker judgment variability

Cow responses and evolution of the rumen bacterial and methanogen community following a complete rumen content transfer

Understanding the rumen microbial ecosystem requires the identification of factors that influence the community structure, such as nutrition, physiological condition of the host and host-microbiome interactions. The objective of the current study was to describe the rumen microbial communities before, during and after a complete rumen content transfer. The rumen contents of one donor cow were removed completely and used as inoculum for the emptied rumen of the donor itself and three acceptor cows under identical physiological and nutritional conditions. Temporal changes in microbiome composition and rumen function were analysed for each of four cows over a period of 6 weeks. Shortly after transfer, the cows showed different responses to perturbation of their rumen content. Feed intake depression in the first 2 weeks after transfer resulted in short-term changes in milk production, methane emission, fatty acid composition and rumen bacterial community composition. These effects were more pronounced in two cows, whose microbiome composition showed reduced diversity. The fermentation metrics and microbiome diversity of the other two cows were not affected. Their rumen bacterial community initially resembled the composition of the donor but evolved to a new community profile that resembled neither the donor nor their original composition. Descriptive data presented in the current paper show that the rumen bacterial community composition can quickly recover from a reduction in microbiome diversity after a severe perturbation. In contrast to the bacteria, methanogenic communities were more stable over time and unaffected by stress or host effects

Extending additivity from symmetric to asymmetric channels

We prove a lemma which allows one to extend results about the additivity of the minimal output entropy from highly symmetric channels to a much larger class. A similar result holds for the maximal output $p$-norm. Examples are given showing its use in a variety of situations. In particular, we prove the additivity and the multiplicativity for the shifted depolarising channel.Comment: 8 pages. This is the latest version of the first half of the original paper. The other half will appear in another pape

Geometric representations for minimalist grammars

We reformulate minimalist grammars as partial functions on term algebras for strings and trees. Using filler/role bindings and tensor product representations, we construct homomorphisms for these data structures into geometric vector spaces. We prove that the structure-building functions as well as simple processors for minimalist languages can be realized by piecewise linear operators in representation space. We also propose harmony, i.e. the distance of an intermediate processing step from the final well-formed state in representation space, as a measure of processing complexity. Finally, we illustrate our findings by means of two particular arithmetic and fractal representations.Comment: 43 pages, 4 figure

The influence of stereotypes about old age on the perception of elderly employees’ labor activity

In this article the problem of increasing retirement age in terms of age discrimination and creating conditions encouraging elderly people to continue to work is discussed. This paper presents a study of stereotypes that affect students of management specialties in Russian institutions of higher education between the ages of 20 to 25 years old. The stereotype is investigated in the context of emotionally colored image of reality simplifying the process of perceiving it. The correlation between the students’ existing stereotypes about elderly people and their perception of older employees has been conducted. As a result, 5 stereotypes that exist in young people have been defined. An analysis of the words chosen by students to describe the elderly shows little diversity in young people’s perception of them. Lexical analysis shows that in the Russian language there are practically no concepts which allow creating a positive image of the elderly. The influence of the stereotypes on the perception of elderly people in terms of employment shows that older specialists are perceived as people with experience and knowledge but these experience and knowledge are irrelevant to the present

Replication-Deficient Particles: New Insights into the Next Generation of Bluetongue Virus Vaccines.

Bluetongue virus (BTV) is endemic in many parts of the world, often causing severe hemorrhagic disease in livestock. To date, at least 27 different serotypes have been recognized. Vaccination against all serotypes is necessary to protect susceptible animals and to prevent onward spread of the virus by insect vectors. In our previous studies, we generated replication-deficient (disabled infectious single-cycle [DISC]) virus strains for a number of serotypes and reported preliminary data on their protective efficacy in animals. In this report, to advance the DISC vaccines to the marketplace, we investigated different parameters of these DISC vaccines. First, we demonstrated the genetic stabilities of these vaccine strains and also the complementing cell line. Subsequently, the optimal storage conditions of vaccines, including additives, temperature, and desiccation, were determined and their protective efficacies in animals confirmed. Furthermore, to test if mixtures of different vaccine strains could be tolerated, we tested cocktails of DISC vaccines in combinations of three or six different serotypes in sheep and cattle, the two natural hosts of BTV. Groups of sheep vaccinated with a cocktail of six different vaccines were completely protected from challenge with individual virulent serotypes, both in early challenge and after 5 months of challenge without any clinical disease. There was no interference in protection between the different vaccines. Protection was also achieved in cattle with a mixture of three vaccine strains, albeit at a lesser level than in sheep. Our data support and validate the suitability of these virus strains as the next-generation vaccines for BTV. IMPORTANCE: Bluetongue (BT) is a debilitating and in many cases lethal disease that affects ruminants of economic importance. Classical vaccines that afford protection against bluetongue virus, the etiological agent, are not free from secondary and undesirable effects. A surge in new approaches to produce highly attenuated, safer vaccines was evident after the development of the BTV reverse-genetics system that allows the introduction of targeted mutations in the virus genome. We targeted an essential gene to develop disabled virus strains as vaccine candidates. The results presented in this report further substantiate our previous evidence and support the suitability of these virus strains as the next-generation BTV vaccines

The <i>Pratylenchus penetrans</i> transcriptome as a source for the development of alternative control strategies:mining for putative genes involved in parasitism and evaluation of <i>in planta</i> RNAi

The root lesion nematode Pratylenchus penetrans is considered one of the most economically important species within the genus. Host range studies have shown that nearly 400 plant species can be parasitized by this species. To obtain insight into the transcriptome of this migratory plant-parasitic nematode, we used Illumina mRNA sequencing analysis of a mixed population, as well as nematode reads detected in infected soybean roots 3 and 7 days after nematode infection. Over 140 million paired end reads were obtained for this species, and de novo assembly resulted in a total of 23,715 transcripts. Homology searches showed significant hit matches to 58% of the total number of transcripts using different protein and EST databases. In general, the transcriptome of P. penetrans follows common features reported for other root lesion nematode species. We also explored the efficacy of RNAi, delivered from the host, as a strategy to control P. penetrans, by targeted knock-down of selected nematode genes. Different comparisons were performed to identify putative nematode genes with a role in parasitism, resulting in the identification of transcripts with similarities to other nematode parasitism genes. Focusing on the predicted nematode secreted proteins found in this transcriptome, we observed specific members to be up-regulated at the early time points of infection. In the present study, we observed an enrichment of predicted secreted proteins along the early time points of parasitism by this species, with a significant number being pioneer candidate genes. A representative set of genes examined using RT-PCR confirms their expression during the host infection. The expression patterns of the different candidate genes raise the possibility that they might be involved in critical steps of P. penetrans parasitism. This analysis sheds light on the transcriptional changes that accompany plant infection by P. penetrans, and will aid in identifying potential gene targets for selection and use to design effective control strategies against root lesion nematodes