Ketone bodies – causes and effects of their increased presence in cows' body fluids: A review

Ketosis is the most common metabolic disease in high-performance dairy cows during the first 6-8 weeks of lactation. Its main symptoms include an excessive amount of so-called ketone bodies in a cow's body fluids. Ketone bodies consist of β-hydroxybutyric acid (βHBA), acetoacetic acid, and acetone. βHBA is the main component with its share of the total volume of ketone bodies in the blood of about 70%. Clinical symptoms of ketosis in cows include loss of appetite, preference for forage to concentrated feed, and acetone odor in their mouth and urine. Those symptoms are accompanied by a production drop, an increase of concurrent illness (mastitis, metritis, and displaced abomasum), and poor reproductive performance. One of the ketosis characteristic effects is an increase in the level of fat in milk (>5%), while protein levels decrease (<2.9%). In the case of subclinical ketosis (SCK), the fat–protein ratio in milk is increased to above 1.4:1. The current consensus for SCK is to consider a cutoff point of βHBA to be at least 1.2 mmol/L in blood plasma. Ketosis prevention is based on keeping perinatal cows in good condition, that is, with around 3.5 points in the five-point body condition scoring, carefully balancing food doses during the first 2 months of lactation with the correct energy–protein ratio. Glucose precursor products should be administered orally, in particular to at-risk herds. Ketosis occurs in 7-14% on average of the total number of cows in a herd. In general, data on the prevalence of SCK vary considerably, depending on their source. Moreover, the problem is mostly observed in poorly-fed animals with high milk production potential. The objectives of this review are to reveal the current situation of ketosis prevalence, the possibility of diagnosis, consequences in dairy cows and to provide some recommendations for ketosis treatment and prevention.

In-Motion-App for remote General Movement Assessment: a multi-site observational study

ObjectivesTo determine whether videos taken by parents of their infants’ spontaneous movements were in accordance with required standards in the In-Motion-App, and whether the videos could be remotely scored by a trained General Movement Assessment (GMA) observer. Additionally, to assess the feasibility of using home-based video recordings for automated tracking of spontaneous movements, and to examine parents’ perceptions and experiences of taking videos in their homes.DesignThe study was a multi-centre prospective observational study.SettingParents/families of high-risk infants in tertiary care follow-up programmes in Norway, Denmark and Belgium.MethodsParents/families were asked to video record their baby in accordance with the In-Motion standards which were based on published GMA criteria and criteria covering lighting and stability of smartphone. Videos were evaluated as GMA ‘scorable’ or ‘non-scorable’ based on predefined criteria. The accuracy of a 7-point body tracker software was compared with manually annotated body key points. Parents were surveyed about the In-Motion-App information and clarity.ParticipantsThe sample comprised 86 parents/families of high-risk infants.ResultsThe 86 parent/families returned 130 videos, and 121 (96%) of them were in accordance with the requirements for GMA assessment. The 7-point body tracker software detected more than 80% of body key point positions correctly. Most families found the instructions for filming their baby easy to follow, and more than 90% reported that they did not become more worried about their child’s development through using the instructions.ConclusionsThis study reveals that a short instructional video enabled parents to video record their infant’s spontaneous movements in compliance with the standards required for remote GMA. Further, an accurate automated body point software detecting infant body landmarks in smartphone videos will facilitate clinical and research use soon. Home-based video recordings could be performed without worrying parents about their child’s development.Trials registration numberNCT03409978.

Analytical Modeling of Residual Stress in Laser Powder Bed Fusion Considering Part’s Boundary Condition

Rapid and accurate prediction of residual stress in metal additive manufacturing processes is of great importance to guarantee the quality of the fabricated part to be used in a mission-critical application in the aerospace, automotive, and medical industries. Experimentations and numerical modeling of residual stress however are valuable but expensive and time-consuming. Thus, a fully coupled thermomechanical analytical model is proposed to predict residual stress of the additively manufactured parts rapidly and accurately. A moving point heat source approach is used to predict the temperature field by considering the effects of scan strategies, heat loss at part’s boundaries, and energy needed for solid-state phase transformation. Due to the high-temperature gradient in this process, the part experiences a high amount of thermal stress which may exceed the yield strength of the material. The thermal stress is obtained using Green’s function of stresses due to the point body load. The Johnson–Cook flow stress model is used to predict the yield surface of the part under repeated heating and cooling. As a result of the cyclic heating and cooling and the fact that the material is yielded, the residual stress build-up is precited using incremental plasticity and kinematic hardening behavior of the metal according to the property of volume invariance in plastic deformation in coupling with the equilibrium and compatibility conditions. Experimental measurement of residual stress was conducted using X-ray diffraction on the fabricated IN718 built via laser powder bed fusion to validate the proposed model.

Assessment of body weight for age determination in kittens

Objectives The objective of this study was to assess the utility of using body weight for age determination in kittens. Methods Medical records were reviewed for serial body weight measurements collected from neonatal kittens (up to 8 weeks of age) from a breeding colony of specific pathogen-free domestic shorthair cats and for single-point body weight measurements of privately owned pediatric kittens (6–20 weeks of age) presenting for elective sterilization. Body weights were compared with known dates of birth and age assessed by dental eruption in combination with developmental characteristics. Results The coefficient of determination (R2) between age and body weight in longitudinally sampled neonatal kittens was 0.88, while that for pediatric kittens sampled at a single time point was 0.54. Among neonatal kittens, predicted age based on the 1 lb (0.45 kg) of body weight gain per month of age guideline corresponded to within 1 week of actual age for 243 (98.8%), 234 (95.1%), 203 (82.5%) and 191 (77.6%) kittens at 2, 4, 6 and 8 weeks of age, respectively. Among pediatric kittens, predicted age based on this guideline corresponded to within 1 week of actual age for 24 (77.4%), 411 (67.5%), 170 (57.0%), 96 (46.6%), 23 (28.8%), 15 (27.8%), one (25%) and five (17.9%) kittens at 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20 weeks, respectively. Conclusions and relevance Body weight was an effective means of predicting age in kittens through 10 weeks of age. Factors other than body weight should be considered when estimating kitten age beyond that time point.

REGRESSION MODELS OF INDIVIDUAL LINEAR SIZES OF MOLARS DEPENDING ON THE FEATURES OF CEPHALOMETRIC INDICES IN PRACTICALLY HEALTHY MEN OF THE WESTERN AND EASTERN REGIONS OF UKRAINE

Restoration of missing teeth should be done as close as possible to the natural anatomical features of the person's tooth-jaw apparatus. That is why the problem of aesthetics in dentistry has ceased to be only orthopedic and has shifted towards a constitutional and ethnic odontology. The purpose of the study is to construct and carry out analyzes obtained by regression analysis, models of computed-tomographic size of molars, depending on the features of cephalometric indices of practically healthy men of the Western and Eastern regions of Ukraine. A computed-tomographic study of molars with the following odontometry and cephalometry of 36 practically healthy men of the Western region of Ukraine – residents of Volyn, Rivne, Lviv, Chernivtsi, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Transcarpathian and Ivano-Frankivsk regions and 35 men of the Eastern region of Ukraine - residents of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk regions was performed with the help of the Dental Cone-ray Tomography Veraviewepocs-3D (Morita, Japan). Regression models of linear sizes of molars, depending on cephalometric indices, were conducted using the statistical software package Statistica 6.1. As a result of the conducted research, reliable models of computed-tomographic size of the upper and lower jaws molars were constructed in practically healthy men of the Western [7 models of mesio-distal dimensions (R2 = 0.532-0.646), most of which include sagittal arc (12.5%), outer-eye width, nose depth, distance between nasion and inter-cutter point, body length of the lower jaw on the left, largest head circumference and maximum head length (by 7.5%); 6 models of vestibular-tongue dimensions (R2 = 0.527-0.646), which most often include nasal depth (20.0%), body length of the lower jaw to the left (16.0%), physiological face length and morphological face length (by 12.0%); 1 model of crown height (R2 = 0.579)] as well as Eastern [3 models of crown height (R2 = 0.538-0.682), which most often include nose depth (15.0%), face type, physiological face length, morphological face length, smallest width head and sagittal arc (by 10.0%); 2 models of mesio-distal sizes (R2 = 0.572 and 0.556), which most often include inter eye fossa width (15.4%)] regions of Ukraine. Thus, in practically healthy men from the Western and Eastern administrative-territorial regions of Ukraine, based on the specifics of cephalometric indicators and face type, reliable regression models (with determination coefficient R2 greater than 0.5) of computed-tomographic size of molars of the upper and lower jaws (out of 40 possible 14 for the western and 5 for the eastern regions of Ukraine).