Key message
We review the main genes underlying commercial traits in cut flower species and critically discuss the possibility to apply genome editing approaches to produce novel variation and ...phenotypes.
Promoting flowering and flower longevity as well as creating novelty in flower structure, colour range and fragrances are major objectives of ornamental plant breeding. The novel genome editing techniques add new possibilities to study gene function and breed new varieties. The implementation of such techniques, however, relies on detailed information about structure and function of genomes and genes. Moreover, improved protocols for efficient delivery of editing reagents are required. Recent results of the application of genome editing techniques to elite ornamental crops are discussed in this review. Enabling technologies and genomic resources are reviewed in relation to the implementation of such approaches. Availability of the main gene sequences, underlying commercial traits and in vitro transformation protocols are provided for the world’s best-selling cut flowers, namely rose, lily, chrysanthemum, lisianthus, tulip, gerbera, freesia, alstroemeria, carnation and hydrangea. Results obtained so far are described and their implications for the improvement of flowering, flower architecture, colour, scent and shelf-life are discussed.
Feasibility of district heating networks for areas with low heat demand of passive and low energy houses implies the development of innovative concepts for the production, storage, distribution and ...supply of thermal energy. Low supply temperatures enables the use of heat from renewable and alternative sources, currently been neglected due to the usually high supply temperatures used in conventional district heating systems. Further on, low network temperatures are supporting the reduction of operational and investment costs.
The paper describes the development of economically and ecologically optimized concepts for low temperature district heating networks using four representative case studies in Austria: Aktivpark Güssing, Seestadt Aspern, Winklweg Siedlung and Hummel Kaserne. The four case studies offered the possibility to investigate different supply and demand connection schemes and consequently deriving optimized scenarios taking into account local framework conditions, such as consumption and production settings and the related control strategies. The scenarios analysis is performed considering both economic and ecological issues.
The results of the study show that the availability and economic conditions of low temperature heat sources is a key factor for facilitating LTDH networks. In rural areas, lower heat losses due to lower network temperatures are beneficiary for the LTDH network performance.
•Low temperature district heating concepts for space heating and domestic hot water.•Connection concepts including booster heater for hygienic DHW preparation.•Simulation based comparison of four case studies in Austria.•Energetic, ecologic and economic evaluation of different concepts and scenarios.
Brucellosis caused by Brucella abortus is an important zoonosis that constitutes a serious hazard to public health. Prevention of human brucellosis depends on the control of the disease in animals. ...Livestock movement data represent a valuable source of information to understand the pattern of contacts between holdings, which may determine the inter-herds and intra-herd spread of the disease. The manuscript addresses the use of computational epidemic models rooted in the knowledge of cattle trade network to assess the probabilities of brucellosis spread and to design control strategies. Three different spread network-based models were proposed: the DFC (Disease Flow Centrality) model based only on temporal cattle network structure and unrelated to the epidemiological disease parameters; a deterministic SIR (Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered) model; a stochastic SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered) model in which epidemiological and demographic within-farm aspects were also modelled. Containment strategies based on farms centrality in the cattle network were tested and discussed. All three models started from the identification of the entire sub-network originated from an infected farm, up to the fifth order of contacts. Their performances were based on data collected in Sicily in the framework of the national eradication plan of brucellosis in 2009. Results show that the proposed methods improves the efficacy and efficiency of the tracing activities in comparison to the procedure currently adopted by the veterinary services in the brucellosis control, in Italy. An overall assessment shows that the SIR model is the most suitable for the practical needs of the veterinary services, being the one with the highest sensitivity and the shortest computation time.
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Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In this study, the cooling effect of nine confined jets arranged in square in-line array is investigated experimentally. The individual jet diameter is 3 mm, the jet-to-jet spacing ratio is two times ...as much as the jet diameter and the jet-to-plate spacing varies from 1 to 4 times as much as the jet diameter. The jet Reynolds number varies up to 880. An infrared camera is used for quantitative temperature measurement on the rear face of the impingement plate and a PIV system is installed to obtain the velocity field on different planes. The results show a twisted symmetry pattern of the flow field and heat transfer on the impingement plate when the confined ratio equals to jet-to-jet spacing ratio. This condition is produced only for the square in line array configuration and is due to the different interactions of central jet with lateral and corner jets.
•Nine confined jets arranged in square in-line array is investigated experimentally.•Twisted symmetry pattern when confined ratio (H/d) equals to jet-to-jet spacing ratio.•For other H/d, symmetry pattern was observed at low Reynolds numbers.•At turbulent Reynolds numbers twisted symmetry changes to dissymmetry pattern.
AIM The aim of this study is to evaluate long-term efficacy of intravitreal injections of aflibercept as primary treatment for subfoveal/juxtafoveal myopic choroidal neovascularisation (CNV).METHODS ...Thirty-eight treatment-naive eyes of thirty-eight patients with subfoveal/juxtafoveal myopic CNV received initial intravitreal aflibercept injections and were followed for at least 18 months. Aflibercept was applied again for persistent or recurrent CNV, as required. Statistical analysis was carried out using SPSS.RESULTS Mean patient age was 45.8 years, and mean eye refractive error was -7.79 D. For the total patient group (n=38 eyes), mean logMAR best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) significantly improved from 0.69 at baseline to 0.15 at 18 months (P<0.01). Over half of the treated eyes obtained resolution with one aflibercept injection. Patients were also grouped according to age, as <50 years (n=20 eyes) and ≥50 years (n=18 eyes). Mean BCVA improvement was significantly greater in eyes of the younger myopic CNV group, compared with those of ≥50 years (0.21 vs 0.35; P<0.05). The mean number of aflibercept injections was 1.8 for the <50 years myopic CNV group, and 3.6 for the ≥50 years myopic CNV group (P<0.001). Correlation between spherical equivalent refraction and final visual acuity reached statistical significance only for the <50 years myopic CNV group (P<0.001; Levene's correlation).CONCLUSIONS Intravitreal aflibercept provides long-term visual acuity improvement in myopic CNV. The <50 years old myopic CNV group had significantly fewer injections, with greater visual acuity improvement. Intravitreal aflibercept in myopic CNV does not require the three-injection loading phase used for aflibercept treatment of neovascular age-related macular degeneration.
Summary
The interaction between living beings, including men, animals and pathogens, sharing the same environment, should be considered as a unique dynamic system, in which the health of each ...component is inextricably interconnected and dependent with the others. Nowadays, a new integrated One Health approach is reflecting this interdependence with a holistic view to the ecological system. The One Health approach can be defined as a collaborative and a multidisciplinary effort at local, national and global level to guarantee an optimal healthy status for humans, animals and environment. Strictly related to the One Health concept is to be considered the control of infectious diseases, which have influenced the course of human history. Four different components might be identified as key elements within the ‘One World – One Health’ (OWOH) approach: the geographical component, the ecological one, the human activities and the food‐agricultural ones.
•An approach for the representation, the retrieval and the reuse of design knowledge for product families design is proposed.•All methods in literature rely on (at least) a partial representation ...based on natural language.•The relation between the natural language and the ambiguity of the retrieval (and the consequent reuse) is highlighted.•An anti-logicist approach to unambiguously represent the design knowledge.•The impacts on the ambiguity of the retrieval and the reuse for the product family design are tested on an industrial case.
The product family design is a design approach to meet the demand of customisable products. This paper deals with the knowledge representation, retrieval and reuse supporting the design stage of product families. Usually, the methods in the literature do not focus on the retrieve and the reusability of the knowledge. In other words, they do not ensure if a non-expert user can effectively retrieve and reuse the represented knowledge. To cope with this point, here, the aim is to apply an anti-logicist approach for the unambiguous design-knowledge representation to support the unambiguous retrieval and the automatic reuse of the knowledge during a product family design stage. The retrieval is unambiguous because the link between the knowledge models and the requirements is based on a syntax comparison, e.g. intervals of numbers, units of measure. An algorithm for the automatic reuse has been developed: provided an unambiguous definition of the new requirements related to the product family, the algorithm’s outputs are the functional and physical definitions of all the products included in the product families, i.e. performances and CAD files. The case study is a family of components of the HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning) systems sector. Finally the advantages and issues of a potential industrial implementation are discussed.
Free trade of animals and their products is based on the international or bilateral recognition of the health status of the animal populations being traded. This recognition is based on documentation ...of their health status by the exporting country, based on the results of continuing surveillance. According to the Terrestrial Animal Health Code of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), this may be based on various methods of surveillance, such as: documenting non-specific surveillance (clinical surveillance, passive notification of suspect cases, etc.); documenting activities that increase the sensitivity of non-specific surveillance (training activities, rewards/sanctions for notification/failure to notify, etc.); documenting all specific surveillance and its results (random surveys, targeted and risk-based surveillance, convenience-testing activities, etc.). Usually, the infection is the subject of the declaration of freedom. While clinical and passive surveillance can provide a high level of confidence that foot and mouth disease (FMD) infection is absent, this is not the case in vaccinated populations. In these populations, specific surveillance becomes much more important than non-specific clinical surveillance. Specific surveillance is severely restricted by the performance of the test(s) employed. The imperfect specificity of any serological test is further complicated when techniques to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals (DIVA) are used, because imperfect purification of the antigen used for vaccination may foster the production of undesired antibodies in the vaccinated animals. The authors discuss various approaches to overcome this problem; their merits and flaws in documenting the absence of infection or virus circulation for animal diseases in general, and for FMD in particular. Particular attention is paid to finding methods that can be applied in a variety of epidemiological conditions and organisational structures, since these vary greatly among OIE Members.
Prioritization of companion animal transmissible diseases was performed by the Companion Animals multisectoriaL interprofessionaL Interdisciplinary Strategic Think tank On zoonoses (CALLISTO) ...project. The project considered diseases occurring in domesticated species commonly kept as pets, such as dogs and cats, but also included diseases occurring in captive wild animals and production animal species. The prioritization process led to the selection of 15 diseases of prime public health relevance, agricultural economic importance, or both. An analysis was made of the current knowledge on the risk of occurrence and transmission of these diseases among companion animals, and from companion animals to man (zoonoses) or to livestock. The literature was scanned for risk assessments for these diseases. Studies were classified as import risk assessments (IRAs) or risk factor analyses (RFAs) in endemic areas. For those pathogens that are absent from Europe, only IRAs were considered; for pathogens present throughout Europe, only RFAs were considered.
IRAs were identified for seven of the eight diseases totally or partially absent from Europe. IRAs for classical rabies and alveolar echinococcosis found an increased risk for introduction of the pathogen into officially disease-free areas as a consequence of abandoning national rules and adopting the harmonized EU rules for pet travel. IRAs for leishmaniosis focused on risk associated with the presence of persistently infected dogs in new geographical areas, taking into consideration the risk of disease establishment should a competent vector arise. IRAs for Crimean–Congo haemorrhagic fever and West Nile fever indicated that the likelihood of introduction via companion animals was low. IRAs for bluetongue paid no attention to the risk of introduction via companion animals, which was also the case for IRAs for foot-and-mouth disease, the only disease considered to be absent from Europe.
RFAs dealing with the risk factors for companion animals to become infected were identified for eight of the 14 diseases found in Europe or parts of it. RFAs for leptospirosis were most numerous (four studies). The host related risk factor ‘age’ was identified as significant for dogs in at least two RFAs for cystic echinococcosis and giardiasis. Among husbandry and healthcare related factors, ‘eating (uncooked) offal’, ‘being free roaming’ and ‘poor deworming practice’ were associated with risk for dogs in at least two RFAs for cystic echinococcosis, while ‘having received recent veterinary treatment’ was identified as a risk factor in at least two studies on infection with extended spectrum beta lactamase-producing bacteria, one in horses and the other in dogs and cats. Finally, although the environmental factors ‘season’ and ‘hydrological density’ were identified as significant risk factors for dogs in at least two RFAs for leptospirosis, the inconsistent case definitions used in those studies made comparison of study results problematic.
RFAs considering the risk of people becoming infected from companion animals were identified for eight of the 14 diseases found in Europe or parts of it. RFAs for human campylobacteriosis were the most numerous (n = 6). Most studies made an assessment as to whether keeping a pet per se, or keeping a pet with supposed or known risk factors, was a risk factor for people relative to other risks. This allowed some studies to report the population attributable risk or population attributable fraction of the incidence of human disease due to companion animals (for campylobacteriosis, salmonellosis and toxoplasmosis), which is a measure that is easy to perceive for laymen and policy makers. No RFAs were found that dealt with the risk to food animals from companion animals for any of the 15 pathogens investigated.
Few risk method-based studies were identified that provided information on risk factors for companion animals and on their role as a source of these 15 selected diseases, indicating a clear knowledge gap. There were not enough assessments for any of the 15 diseases to allow meta-analyses, whether these assessments dealt with companion animal disease risk or companion animal-associated human disease risk. Important method and technology gaps were the lack of harmonization in the case definitions used for a given disease and the lack of good diagnostics allowing pathogen identification to taxonomic levels that are meaningful for risk analysis. Molecular epidemiology studies on zoonotic pathogens, which included companion animals among the potential human risk factors, were not found, although such studies would provide good preliminary insights without requiring any tracing of people or any interviews. In addition to performing further risk studies that take into account these issues, there is a need for responsible pet ownership and continued education of professionals in companion animal zoonoses. Additional risk assessment studies should allow more targeted actions to reduce the risk of zoonotic diseases transferred via companion animals and provide information that will promote risk-awareness in healthy human–animal relationships.
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