Passive immunization against Histomonas meleagridis does not protect turkeys from an experimental infection

Histomonosis or blackhead is a disease of gallinaceous birds, caused by the protozoan Histomonas meleagridis. As recent regulatory action has removed almost all drugs against this disease from the European market, the development of new prophylactics has become crucial. Identification of the protective immune mechanism would facilitate the choice and development of a vaccination strategy to prevent histomonosis. In this study, turkeys were either actively or passively immunized and were then challenged to assess the role of antibody-mediated immunity in the protection form this disease. Active immunization was performed either by experimental infection and treatment or by intramuscular injection with lysed H. meleagridis. Passive immunization was attempted by intraperitoneal administration of pooled, concentrated, neutralizing antisera from immunized donor animals to naive turkeys. A significantly higher IgG response was observed after infection and treatment than after intramuscular injection, which in turn was higher than the responses of placebo and control birds. While active immunization of turkeys by intramuscular injection of dead H. meleagridis antigens appeared not to be protective against histomonosis, immunization by infection and treatment did induce protection. However, no significant level of protection could be observed in the passively immunized birds. These results suggest that serum antibodies to H. meleagridis may not be a key component in the protection against this parasite. It is, however, possible that the concentration of antibodies at the mucosal site is insufficient. Therefore, further investigation on mucosal immune responses is necessary

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

Comparative study of the vibrational optical activity techniques in structure elucidation : the case of galantamine

The absolute configuration of the alkaloid galantamine was studied using a range of solution-state techniques; nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), vibrational circular dichroism (VCD), and Raman optical activity (ROA). While the combined use of NMR and VCD does provide a fast, high-resolution methodology for determining the absolute configuration of galantamine, both techniques were needed in concert to achieve this goal. ROA, on the other hand, proved to be sensitive enough to assign the full absolute configuration without relying on other techniques. In both cases, statistical validation was applied to aid the determination of absolute configuration. In the case of galantamine, ROA combined with statistical validation is shown to be a powerful stand-alone tool for absolute configuration determination

Assessing the stylistic properties of neurally generated text in authorship attribution

Recent applications of neural language models have led to an increased interest in the automatic generation of natural language. However impressive, the evaluation of neurally generated text has so far remained rather informal and anecdotal. Here, we present an attempt at the systematic assessment of one aspect of the quality of neurally generated text. We focus on a specific aspect of neural language generation: its ability to reproduce authorial writing styles. Using established models for authorship attribution, we empirically assess the stylistic qualities of neurally generated text. In comparison to conventional language models, neural models generate fuzzier text that is relatively harder to attribute correctly. Nevertheless, our results also suggest that neurally generated text offers more valuable perspectives for the augmentation of training data

Medieval Authorship and Canonicity in the Digital Age – an Introduction

Jeroen Deploige and Jeroen De Gussem introduce Cluster 2 of Interfaces 8, on the topic of Medieval Authorship and Canonicity in the Digital Age

Elevated faecal ovotransferrin concentrations are indicative for intestinal barrier failure in broiler chickens

Intestinal health is critically important for the welfare and performance of poultry. Enteric diseases that cause gut barrier failure result in high economic losses. Up till now there is no reliable faecal marker to measure gut barrier failure under field conditions. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to identify a faecal protein marker for diminished intestinal barrier function due to enteric diseases in broilers. To assess this, experimental necrotic enteritis and coccidiosis in broilers were used as models for gut barrier failure. Ovotransferrin was identified as a marker for gut barrier failure using a proteomics approach on samples from chickens with necrotic enteritis. These results were confirmed via ELISA on samples derived from both necrotic enteritis and coccidiosis trials, where faecal ovotransferrin levels were significantly correlated with the severity of gut barrier failure caused by either coccidiosis or necrotic enteritis. This indicates that faecal ovotransferrin quantification may represent a valuable tool to measure gut barrier failure caused by enteric pathogens

Language and thought in Hildegard of Bingen’s visionary trilogy : close and distant readings of a thinker’s development

By combining the methods of distant reading (computational stylistics) and close reading, the authors discuss the development of language and thought in Hildegard of Bingen's visionary works (Sciuias, Liber uite meritorum and Liber diuinorum operum). The visionary trilogy, although written over the course of three decades, raises the impression of a monolithic and seemingly unchanging voice. Moving beyond this impression, the interdisciplinary analysis presented here reveals that the trilogy exhibits interesting differences at the word level which cannot simply be explained through external historical circumstances (e.g. manuscript transmission or different secretaries). Instead, the results raise pertinent questions regarding the trilogy's internal development in didactic method, style, and philosophy