Animal health : present and future

The importance of the health of farm livestock is considered in relation to the need to economically produce enough human food of an acceptable quality. The control and eradication of important diseases is discussed. Success in this work has allowed the development of high performance breeds by genetic selection. It has also encouraged the development of large scale units and intensive husbandry techniques. These new production methods require high standards of management from all concerned, and represent considerable financial investment. Biochemists, geneticists, physiologists, veterinary surgeons, all have a part to play in the modern livestock industry. The work of the State Veterinary Service is seen as catalytic. The possible development of a disease surveillance unit is discussed, also the type of information required by both veterinary surgeons and farmers.

2009 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl M. Rich

While Africa has traditionally been constrained in world markets by low productivity, animal diseases and high standards for animal health and food safety, the growing demand for meat and the emergence of alternative policy mechanisms for facilitating exports could increase Africa's importance as a global supplier of livestock products. This paper outlines Africa's current role in global meat markets and highlights constraints and opportunities. A key constraint that militates against large-scale exports from Africa is its lack of competitiveness vis-à-vis competitors such as Brazil and India. Africa will need to invest in market development, productivity measures, feed resources and infrastructure to reduce production costs and facilitate effective marketing efforts.


Chemosensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andréia Santos ◽  
Andreia Vaz ◽  
Paula Rodrigues ◽  
Ana Veloso ◽  
Armando Venâncio ◽  
...  

Mycotoxins are a group of secondary metabolites produced by different species of filamentous fungi and pose serious threats to food safety due to their serious human and animal health impacts such as carcinogenic, teratogenic and hepatotoxic effects. Conventional methods for the detection of mycotoxins include gas chromatography and high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry or other detectors (fluorescence or UV detection), thin layer chromatography and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. These techniques are generally straightforward and yield reliable results; however, they are time-consuming, require extensive preparation steps, use large-scale instruments, and consume large amounts of hazardous chemical reagents. Rapid detection of mycotoxins is becoming an increasingly important challenge for the food industry in order to effectively enforce regulations and ensure the safety of food and feed. In this sense, several studies have been done with the aim of developing strategies to detect mycotoxins using sensing devices that have high sensitivity and specificity, fast analysis, low cost and portability. The latter include the use of microarray chips, multiplex lateral flow, Surface Plasmon Resonance, Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering and biosensors using nanoparticles. In this perspective, thin film sensors have recently emerged as a good candidate technique to meet such requirements. This review summarizes the application and challenges of thin film sensor devices for detection of mycotoxins in food matrices.


Author(s):  
C.K. Wu ◽  
P. Chang ◽  
N. Godinho

Recently, the use of refractory metal silicides as low resistivity, high temperature and high oxidation resistance gate materials in large scale integrated circuits (LSI) has become an important approach in advanced MOS process development (1). This research is a systematic study on the structure and properties of molybdenum silicide thin film and its applicability to high performance LSI fabrication.


Author(s):  
Jialu Chen ◽  
Yingxiao Han ◽  
An Li

In recent years, with the development of society and the progress of science and technology, online learning has penetrated into people's daily life, and people's demand for high-quality curriculum products is more and more strong. From a macro perspective, the continuous growth of national financial investment in education, the continuous upgrading of China's consumption structure, the development of 5G technology and the popularization of AI intelligence make online teaching less limited. The online education industry is showing an explosive growth trend. More and more online education institutions are listed for financing, and the market value is soaring. However, in 2019, except for GSX, the latest online learning platforms such as New Oriental, Speak English Fluently and Sunlands, have been in a state of loss. Most of these agencies seize the market by increasing advertising investment, but at the same time, they also bring huge marketing costs, which affect the financial performance of the company. With the enhancement of Matthew effect, large-scale educational institutions occupy a large market through free classes and low-price classes, while small and medium-sized institutions with weak capital strength are often unable to afford high sales costs, facing the risk of capital chain rupture. Taking new Oriental online as an example, this paper analyzes the problems existing in the marketing strategies of online education institutions. It also puts forward suggestions on four aspects, which are target market, differentiated value, marketing mix and marketing mode, so as to make sure that online education institutions can control marketing expenses and achieve profits by improving course quality, expanding marketing channels and implementing precise positioning.


Author(s):  
В.В. ГОРДЕЕВ ◽  
В.Е. ХАЗАНОВ

При выборе типа доильной установки и ее размера необходимо учитывать максимальное планируемое поголовье дойных коров и размер технологической группы, кратность и время одного доения, продолжительность рабочей смены дояров. Анализ технико-экономических показателей наиболее распространенных на сегодняшний день типов доильных установок одинакового технического уровня свидетельствует, что наилучшие удельные показатели имеет установка типа «Карусель» (1), а установка типа «Елочка» (2) требует более высоких затрат труда и средств. Установка «Параллель» (3) занимает промежуточное положение. Из анализа пропускной способности и количества необходимых операторов: установка 2 рекомендована для ферм с поголовьем дойного стада до 600 голов, 3 — не более 1200 дойных коров, 1 — более 1200 дойных коров. «Карусель» — наиболее рациональный, высокопроизводительный, легко автоматизируемый и, следовательно, перспективный способ доения в залах, особенно для крупных молочных ферм. The choice of the proper type and size of milking installations needs to take into account the maximum planned number of dairy cows, the size of a technological group, the number of milkings per day, and the duration of one milking and the operator's working shift. The analysis of technical and economic indicators of currently most common types of milking machines of the same technical level revealed that the Carousel installation had the best specific indicators while the Herringbone installation featured higher labour inputs and cash costs. The Parallel installation was found somewhere in between. In terms of the throughput and the required number of operators Herringbone is recommended for farms with up to 600 dairy cows, Parallel — below 1200 dairy cows, Carousel — above 1200 dairy cows. Carousel was found the most practical, high-performance, easily automated and, therefore, promising milking system for milking parlours, especially on the large-scale dairy farms.


Author(s):  
Mark Endrei ◽  
Chao Jin ◽  
Minh Ngoc Dinh ◽  
David Abramson ◽  
Heidi Poxon ◽  
...  

Rising power costs and constraints are driving a growing focus on the energy efficiency of high performance computing systems. The unique characteristics of a particular system and workload and their effect on performance and energy efficiency are typically difficult for application users to assess and to control. Settings for optimum performance and energy efficiency can also diverge, so we need to identify trade-off options that guide a suitable balance between energy use and performance. We present statistical and machine learning models that only require a small number of runs to make accurate Pareto-optimal trade-off predictions using parameters that users can control. We study model training and validation using several parallel kernels and more complex workloads, including Algebraic Multigrid (AMG), Large-scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Simulator, and Livermore Unstructured Lagrangian Explicit Shock Hydrodynamics. We demonstrate that we can train the models using as few as 12 runs, with prediction error of less than 10%. Our AMG results identify trade-off options that provide up to 45% improvement in energy efficiency for around 10% performance loss. We reduce the sample measurement time required for AMG by 90%, from 13 h to 74 min.


Radiation ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-94
Author(s):  
Peter K. Rogan ◽  
Eliseos J. Mucaki ◽  
Ben C. Shirley ◽  
Yanxin Li ◽  
Ruth C. Wilkins ◽  
...  

The dicentric chromosome (DC) assay accurately quantifies exposure to radiation; however, manual and semi-automated assignment of DCs has limited its use for a potential large-scale radiation incident. The Automated Dicentric Chromosome Identifier and Dose Estimator (ADCI) software automates unattended DC detection and determines radiation exposures, fulfilling IAEA criteria for triage biodosimetry. This study evaluates the throughput of high-performance ADCI (ADCI-HT) to stratify exposures of populations in 15 simulated population scale radiation exposures. ADCI-HT streamlines dose estimation using a supercomputer by optimal hierarchical scheduling of DC detection for varying numbers of samples and metaphase cell images in parallel on multiple processors. We evaluated processing times and accuracy of estimated exposures across census-defined populations. Image processing of 1744 samples on 16,384 CPUs required 1 h 11 min 23 s and radiation dose estimation based on DC frequencies required 32 sec. Processing of 40,000 samples at 10 exposures from five laboratories required 25 h and met IAEA criteria (dose estimates were within 0.5 Gy; median = 0.07). Geostatistically interpolated radiation exposure contours of simulated nuclear incidents were defined by samples exposed to clinically relevant exposure levels (1 and 2 Gy). Analysis of all exposed individuals with ADCI-HT required 0.6–7.4 days, depending on the population density of the simulation.


Antioxidants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 843
Author(s):  
Tamara Ortiz ◽  
Federico Argüelles-Arias ◽  
Belén Begines ◽  
Josefa-María García-Montes ◽  
Alejandra Pereira ◽  
...  

The best conservation method for native Chilean berries has been investigated in combination with an implemented large-scale extract of maqui berry, rich in total polyphenols and anthocyanin to be tested in intestinal epithelial and immune cells. The methanolic extract was obtained from lyophilized and analyzed maqui berries using Folin–Ciocalteu to quantify the total polyphenol content, as well as 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP), and oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC) to measure the antioxidant capacity. Determination of maqui’s anthocyanins profile was performed by ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography (UHPLC-MS/MS). Viability, cytotoxicity, and percent oxidation in epithelial colon cells (HT-29) and macrophages cells (RAW 264.7) were evaluated. In conclusion, preservation studies confirmed that the maqui properties and composition in fresh or frozen conditions are preserved and a more efficient and convenient extraction methodology was achieved. In vitro studies of epithelial cells have shown that this extract has a powerful antioxidant strength exhibiting a dose-dependent behavior. When lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-macrophages were activated, noncytotoxic effects were observed, and a relationship between oxidative stress and inflammation response was demonstrated. The maqui extract along with 5-aminosalicylic acid (5-ASA) have a synergistic effect. All of the compiled data pointed out to the use of this extract as a potential nutraceutical agent with physiological benefits for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).


Author(s):  
Jianglin Feng ◽  
Nathan C Sheffield

Abstract Summary Databases of large-scale genome projects now contain thousands of genomic interval datasets. These data are a critical resource for understanding the function of DNA. However, our ability to examine and integrate interval data of this scale is limited. Here, we introduce the integrated genome database (IGD), a method and tool for searching genome interval datasets more than three orders of magnitude faster than existing approaches, while using only one hundredth of the memory. IGD uses a novel linear binning method that allows us to scale analysis to billions of genomic regions. Availability https://github.com/databio/IGD


BDJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Catalina Opazo-García ◽  
Jeel Moya-Salazar ◽  
Karina Chicoma-Flores ◽  
Hans Contreras-Pulache

Abstract Introduction Dental care is provided for high-performance athletes at national and international sports events. Elite athletes may seek care for sports-related injuries and pre-existing oral diseases. Previous studies indicate an association between oral health problems and negative performance impacts in elite athletes. Objectives To determine the prevalence of the most common oral pathologies in high-performance athletes during the emergency dental care performed at the Lima 2019 Pan American Games (JPL-19). Methodology All reports of athletes (≥18 years old, of both sexes, from 41 countries) who received emergency dental care at Pan American Villas during the JPL-19 were included. Injuries and types of oral diseases were classified according to the Injury and Disease Surveillance System proposed by the International Olympic Committee. Results Of the 6680 participating athletes, 76 (1.14%) presented as dental emergencies, 90.8% (69/76) of the athletes seen presented pre-existing oral pathological conditions, the most frequent were periodontal diseases (34%, 26/76) and dental caries (29%, 22/76). Among the sports with the most cases, there were 22 (29%) in athletics, 6 (8%) in soccer, and 6 (8%) in taekwondo. The most frequent dental emergencies came from Peru, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Grenada, and Venezuela. Conclusions Pre-existing oral diseases were more frequent than sports-related accidents. The most prevalent diseases were periodontal disease and dental caries disease. It is necessary to implement new care strategies for athletes, based on prevention, before and during sports competitions.


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