Gentle handling seems to elicit positive states in sheep. The study investigated whether spatial distance alters sheep responses to brushing and whether spatial distance is influenced by reactivity. ...Twenty Romane ewes were assessed in three sessions: in Sessions 1 and 3, one grid separated the test animal from pen mates, with no distance between them, and in Session 2 two grids separated the test animal from pen mates by a distance of about 1.7 m. Ewes had been genetically selected for low (R-) or high (R+) behavioural reactivity to social isolation. Body postures, head orientation, ear postures, closed and half-closed eyes, tail wagging and feeding behaviour, in addition to heart rate (HR) and HR variability, as the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), standard deviation of all normal-to-normal (NN) intervals (SDNN), RMSSD/SDNN ratio and ratio between low-frequency (LF) and high-frequency (HF) powers (LF/HF) were assessed. Data were analysed using generalized linear models and linear mixed models. Session, genetic line and phase (pre-, brushing and post-brushing) were considered fixed effects. Increased distance in Session 2 might not have influenced ewes' responses. Fewer changes in ear postures were noted in Session 3 than 1 (P<0.01), suggesting that ewes were more relaxed in Session 3. The RMSSD/SDNN ratio was higher mainly during brushing in Sessions 1 and 3 (P<0.05), indicating that ewes were more relaxed during brushing, and at no distance between pen mates. However, spatial distance influenced R- and R+ ewes' responses; R+ ewes performed more asymmetric ear postures in Session 2 than 1 and 3 (P<0.01), and in Session 3 than 1 (P<0.01), indicating that spatial distance had a negative effect on R+ ewes. Low reactive ewes spent less time on horizontal ear postures in Session 2 than 1 and 3 (P<0.01), and R+ ewes spent more time on horizontal postures in Session 1 than 3 (P<0.01). Curiously, R- ewes spent more time eating and ruminating in Session 3 than 1 (P<0.01), and in Session 2 than 1 and 3 (P<0.01), whereas R+ ewes ate and ruminated more in Session 1 than 3 (P<0.05). Higher HR was found among R- ewes in Session 2 than 1 and 3, and in Session 3 than 1 (P<0.01). High reactive ewes showed higher HR in Session 1 than 3 (P<0.01). The findings suggest that the social context might influence sheep responses to gentle handling, and the effects depend on their reactivity traits.
1. The following trial compared broiler chicken welfare in closed-sided (CS) versus open-sided (OS) industrial house types during the winter season in the South of Brazil.
2. Ten flocks in each house ...type were evaluated as follows: a) bird health: contact dermatitis on the breast and abdominal areas (CDE), bird soiling (BSO), footpad dermatitis (FPD), hock burn (HBU), lameness (LAM), fractures (FRA), bruising (BRU), scratches (SCR), dead on arrival (DOA), and diseases (DIS); b) house environmental measurements: relative humidity (RHU), temperature (TEM), air velocity (AVE), illuminance (ILL), ammonia concentration (NH
3
), and carbon dioxide concentration (CO
2
), and c) bird behaviour and affective states: bird behaviour (BBE), touch test (TTE), and qualitative behaviour assessment (QBA).
3. Statistical analyses were based on regression models for CDE, BSO, FPD, HBU, LAM and generalised linear models for DOA, FRA, BRU, SCR, and DIS. The Mann-Whitney test was used for RHU, TEM, AVE, ILL, NH
3
, CO
2
, and the t-test for TTE and LMO, with a specific regression model for BBE data and Principal Component Analysis for QBA.
4. According to odds ratio for worse scores for CS relative to OS, birds were less likely to have severe scores for CDE (P = 0.040 and P = 0.007), BSO (P = 0.031, P = 0.016, and P = 0.038), and HBU (P = 0.017), and had higher median values for AVE (2.3, 0.0-7.8 m s
−1
vs. 0.0, 0.0-4.3 m s
−1
), lower NH
3
concentration (9.0, 0.0-64.0 ppm vs. 12.0, 0.0-60.0 ppm) and TTE scores (98, 96-100 vs. 67, 25-100). Worse results were observed in CS houses for higher stocking density (13.8 ± 0.2 birds/m
2
vs. 12.0 ± 0.2 birds/m
2
), RHU (74.5, 50.7-99.9% vs 72.3, 47.4-99.9%), and TEM (23.9, 14.6-29.2°C vs. 21.7, 12.9-30.1°C), lower ILL (16.0, 1.0-60.0 lx vs. 161.0, 8.0-2380.0 lx), less drinking (P = 0.007), more inactive behaviour (P < 0.001) and lower positive emotions, according to QBA (P = 0.028).
5. In the studied region and season, CS houses seemed to offer fewer welfare problems in terms of the health indicators; however, OS houses showed fewer behavioural restrictions and higher positive emotional states.
Vocalization may communicate the emotional state in vocal animals. We aimed to describe and compare vocalization and other behavioral signs of cow-calf pairs in emotionally negative and positive ...situations, and the potential influence of genetic group, parity category and calf sex on these signs.
Forty-two beef cows (16 primiparous and 26 multiparous), and their 24 h-old calves (24 males and 18 females), with no previous separation from their mothers, were studied in Southern Brazil. The dams were daughters of Taurine crossbred mothers, 16 with Limousin (LIMO), 15 Charolais (CHAR), six Brahman (BRAH) and five Blond d'Aquitaine (BLON) bulls. We recorded 3 minute-videos to analyse animal responses to three sequential treatments: AR – arrival of cow and calf together in corral one (C1); SE – separation of the pair, calf removal from C1, isolated in corral 2 (C2), not seeing but hearing the cow; RU – reunion of calf and mother in C1. For cows and calves, the vocalization count per minute, fundamental frequency (f0), duration of the vocal call and latency to vocal response in AR, SE and RU were measured, as well as selected behaviour signals. A significant interaction effect between treatment and genetic group was observed for duration, pitch and vocalization count per minute. In SE, LIMO and CHAR cows expressed longer vocal responses than during AR, 24.6% and 18.2%, respectively, and RU (LIMO 15.7% and CHAR 33.6%). In SE, LIMO (114.2Hz) and BRAH (124.6Hz) cows showed higher f(0). CHAR and BRAH cows vocalized 2.8 and 5.1 times more frequently during SE than RU. Cows showed higher frequency of tail movements and smelling the corral in SE than in AR and RU. Cows presented higher frequency of head movement in SE as compared with RU. Calves showed greater head and body movement during SE than during AR and RU. In SE, male calves showed higher frequency of ear movements than female calves. Body movements of the cow were also more frequent during SE than in RU. Overall, cows showed higher pitch, longer vocal calls and other behavioral changes in SE, such as tail flapping, sniffing the corral, and head and body movements; calves showed higher frequency of head and body movement in SE. The results suggest that the studied indicators may be useful to identify emotionally negative situations, with genetic group and calf sex as factors which deserve further studies.
Abstract
Introduction
Despite advances in diagnostic and therapeutic strategies, infective endocarditis (IE) remains associated with devastating outcomes with substantial mortality rate. In patients ...who develop cardiac complications, an early aggressive therapeutic strategy regarding surgical intervention may be warrant. The epidemiologic profile of IE has been changed, which highlights the need for studies with risk stratification of patients hospitalized with IE.
Purpose
The study aim is to investigate variables strongly associated with in-hospital death and define groups of patients at different risk profile based on values of explanatory variables.
Methods
A prospective cohort including 349 consecutive patients with IE admitted to a quaternary hospital. The diagnosis was based on the modified Duke criteria and modified European Society of Cardiology criteria from 2015. Data regarding predisposing conditions, laboratory, imaging results, treatment, and outcomes were described. The primary endpoint was in-hospital mortality due to any complication related to IE. Cardiac complications were defined as development or worsening heart failure, prosthesis rupture or perivalvular extension of infection. In-hospital death was analyzed through conditional inference trees and the composed nodes were discriminated in groups with different risks of death and by logistic regression model.
Results
The median age was 55 years, 59% of patients had native valve, 23.5% prosthetic valve and 35.5% intracardiac device-related IE. Rheumatic heart disease corresponded to 25%, 18% presented diabetes and 13.5% had chronic kidney disease as predisposing conditions. The main causative microorganism was Staphylococcus aureus (19%) and average C-reactive protein (CRP) at diagnosis was 72mg/L.
During treatment, 123 (35%) had cardiac complications, 73 (21%) neurological complications, and 45 (13%) suffered embolic events. A total of 105 (47%) patients underwent cardiac surgery. The overall in-hospital mortality was 35.5%. On multivariable analysis, the independent predictors of death were increasing age, high CRP, neurologic and cardiac complications (Figure 1), with C statistic of the model 0.76 (CI 95% 0.70-0.82).
According to the decision-tree analysis (Figure 2), patients with cardiac complications, CRP >71mg/L and age >43 years-old had 83.8% mortality rate, whereas those without cardiac or neurologic complications and CRP ≤51 had 7.1% in-hospital death. Among all predictors, cardiac complications showed the strongest association with the primary endpoint.
Conclusions
Cardiac and neurologic complications, elevated age and high CRP were independently associated with death. The machine-learning algorithm demonstrated that cardiac complications were the most important risk factor for in-hospital death. Early identification of patients who are at high risk of death can offer opportunity for more aggressive monitoring and approach to improve IE outcome.Logistic regression modelDecision-tree analysis
The sperm membrane protein referred to as SP22 has been identified in different species and, at least in rats, is highly correlated with fertility. The goals of this study were to identify and to ...quantify the SP22 protein on spermatozoa from adult rams (Dorper and Santa Inês breeds), and to correlate its levels to morphological and kinematics parameters. SP22 on ram sperm was effectively quantified by both enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and fluorescein isothiocyanate immunostaining analysis and the two methods were significantly correlated (R² = 0.70). Clustering analysis of motility parameters obtained by computer-assisted semen analysis system was used to establish that three distinct kinematic subpopulations with different vigour and progressiveness coexistent within ejaculate. While there were significant differences in the distribution of the three subpopulations in the rams, there was no significant correlation between the proportion of each subpopulation in the rams and the SP22 levels. Quantification of SP22 immunostaining intensity was not correlated with any of the sperm parameters. However, SP22 levels obtained by ELISA were negatively correlated with morphological abnormalities and positively correlated with membrane integrity (three variable R² = 0.47). Future breeding studies are now needed to validate that this protein is a biomarker of fertility in this species.
Determining the germination speed is essential in experiments in the field of seed technology, as it allows the performance evaluation of a seed lot and the creation of predictive models. To this ...end, the literature addresses several methods and indexes. The objective of this study was to compare the main methods of emergence speed analysis in seeds, namely the non-linear regression models and the Emergence Speed Index (ESI), with the time-to-event models. The research was conducted with peach palm seeds (Bactris gasipaes) that were measured for viability and vigour through daily evaluations for 4 months. Vigour was evaluated by the quantification of the seed emergence speed, which was performed in three ways: ESI, non-linear regression and non-linear regression considering germination as a time-to-event event. From the results obtained, we conclude that the ESI is not a good indicator to evaluate the emergence speed; the non-linear regression model underestimates the errors and, thus, increases the probability of misclassifying treatments; the time-to-event model is more reliable in classifying treatments according to the emergence speed.
When the gradation of animal welfare is scored through ordinal scales and equidistant tags are used, empirical data between tags tend to be non-equidistant. Ordinal rate scales (ORS) and visual ...analogue scales (VAS) were tested for the assessment of contact dermatitis on breast and abdominal areas (CD), footpad dermatitis (FP), hock burns (HB) and bird soiling (BS) in broiler chickens. Calculations regarding the inter-rater reliability, the correlation between VAS and ORS and amongst the welfare indicators measured with both scales, and the equidistance of ORS categories in relation to values measured using VAS, were made. A total of 1,303 broiler chickens from 10 flocks was assessed on-farm by three raters using both scales. Inter-rater reliabilities of CD and HB were higher when using VAS compared with ORS, but FP was lower. Correlations between scales varied between 0.90-0.97 and 0.77-0.95 (P<0.001), considering mean and individual values. Low-to-moderate correlations were observed between the four indicators using the scales. Tags on VAS that best represented ORS were non-equidistant. Results suggest both scales were reliable assessing the selected broiler chicken welfare indicators.
Predictive equations for muscle mass in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia Macedo, Darla Silverio; Leite, Christiane De Mesquita Barros Almeida; Frehner, Caroline ...
Nutrición hospitalaria : organo oficial de la Sociedad Española de Nutrición Parenteral y Enteral,
2019-Apr-10, Letnik:
36, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Odprti dostop
Objective: to compare anthropometric equations with one that uses BIA to predict muscle mass in patients with SCA. Methods: 76 patients with ages from 22 to 72 years had their muscle mass estimated ...by the equation that employs BIA and by five anthropometric equations. The results were analyzed using Pearson's and intraclass correlation coefficient, the paired t test and the Bland-Altman plot. Results: the mean weight and height ± SD were 64.2 ± 14 kg and 1.61 m ± 8 cm, respectively. The equation proposed by Lee et al. (2000), which uses body weight and height measurements, produced the best results in predicting muscle mass, since a significant bias value was not detected, and both a stronger linear correlation (r = 0.94) and higher intraclass correlation (ICC = 0.93). Conclusion: this anthropometric equation can be used to reliably estimate and monitor decreases in muscle mass in people with SCA.
The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of a 24-h cooling period prior to freezing on domestic cat epididymal sperm viability. Fifteen tomcats were submitted to routine orchiectomy and ...sperm samples were retrieved from both epididymides in a Tris-glucose-20% egg yolk extender. For each tomcat, the diluted sperm was split into two equal volumes and cooled to 5°C at a rate of 0.5°C/min; one sample for 60 min (control) and the other for 24 h (cooled). After the cooling period, samples from both groups were frozen using an identical freezing protocol. Sperm samples were evaluated in three different periods: immediately after harvesting, after cooling at 5°C for 24 h (cooled group) and after freezing-thawing of control and cooled groups. Evaluations consisted of sperm motility and progressive status, sperm morphology and plasma membrane integrity (PMI) using two fluorescent probes. After cooling for 24 h, a decrease (p < 0.05) in sperm motility, progressive status and PMI was observed when compared to sperm samples immediately after collection. Comparing the results obtained after thawing, no difference (p < 0.05) was found regarding sperm motility, progressive status, PMI and sperm morphology between control and cooled groups. The results from the present study show that cooling cat epididymal spermatozoa at 5°C for 24 h prior to freezing does not lead to major damage of spermatozoa impairing the freeze-thaw process.
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