Sound Pressure Levels in 2 Veterinary Intensive Care Units

Background

Intensive care units (ICUs) in human hospitals are consistently noisy environments with sound levels sufficient to substantially decrease sleep quality. Sound levels in veterinary ICUs have not been studied previously, but environmental sound has been shown to alter activity in healthy dogs.

Hypothesis

Veterinary ICUs, like those in human medicine, will exceed international guidelines for hospital noise.

Animals

NA.

Methods

Prospective, observational study performed consecutively and simultaneously over 4 weeks in 2 veterinary ICUs. Conventional A‐weighted sound pressure levels (equivalent continuous level [a reflection of average sound], the sound level that is exceeded 90% of the recording period time [reflective of background noise], and maximum sound levels) were continuously recorded and the number of spikes in sound >80 dBA were manually counted.

Results

Noise levels were comparable to ICUs in human hospitals. The equivalent continuous sound level was higher in ICU1 than in ICU2 at every time point compared, with greatest differences observed on week day (ICU1, 60.1 ± 3.7 dBA; ICU2, 55.9 ± 2.5 dBA, P < .001) and weekend nights (ICU1, 59.9 ± 2.4 dBA; ICU2, 53.4 ± 1.7 dBA, P < .0001) reflecting a 50% difference in loudness. Similar patterns were observed for the maximum and background noise levels. The number of sound spikes was up to 4 times higher in ICU1 (162.3 ± 84.9 spikes) than in ICU2 (40.4 ± 12.2 spikes, P = .001).

Conclusions and Clinical Importance

These findings show that sound in veterinary ICUs is loud enough to potentially disrupt sleep in critically ill veterinary patients.     

Predicting spring barley yield from variety-specific yield potential, disease resistance and straw length, and from environment-specific disease loads and weed pressure

For low-input crop production, well-characterised varieties increase the possibilities of managing diseases and weeds. This analysis aims at developing a framework for analyzing grain yield using external varietal information about disease resistance, weed competitiveness and yield potential and quantifying the impact of susceptibility grouping and straw length scores (as a measure for weed competitiveness) for predicting spring barley grain yield under variable biotic stress levels. The study comprised 52 spring barley varieties and 17 environments, i.e., combinations of location, growing system and year. Individual varieties and their interactions with environments were analysed by factorial regression of grain yield on external variety information combined with observed environmental disease loads and weed pressure. The external information was based on the official Danish VCU testing. The most parsimonious models explained about 50% of the yield variation among varieties including genotype-environment interactions. Disease resistance characteristics of varieties, weighted with disease loads of powdery mildew, leaf rust and net blotch, respectively, had a highly significant influence on grain yield. The extend to which increased susceptibility resulted in increased yield losses in environments with high disease loads of the respective diseases was predicted. The effect of externally determined straw length scores, weighted with weed pressure, was weaker although significant for weeds with creeping growth habit. Higher grain yield was thus predicted for taller plants under weed pressure. The results are discussed in relation to the model framework, impact of the considered traits and use of information from conventional variety testing in organic cropping systems.     

Suppression of C-hordein synthesis in barley by antisense constructs results in a more balanced amino acid composition

Barley has for feeding purposes a shortage of essential amino acids, especially lysine, threonine, and methionine, and an excess of proline and glutamine. In the present study, we have introduced into barley an antisense construct against C-hordeins, the storage protein with the lowest nutritional quality. SDS-PAGE and reverse phase HPLC revealed a relative reduction in the amounts of C-hordeins and relative increases in the content of the other storage proteins. The five different lines analyzed had lower amounts of proline, glutamic acid/glutamine, and phenylalanine (up to 12%, 6%, and 9% reductions), while the lysine, threonine, and methionine content was increased with up to 16%, 13% and 11%. It is concluded that antisense mediated suppression of C-hordein synthesis may be a promising approach for improving the nutritional value of barley as a feed crop while at the same time reducing the environmental nitrogen load.     

Effects of Prednisone on Blood Lactate Concentrations in Healthy Dogs

Background: Glucocorticoids affect carbohydrate and lactate metabolism.
Hypothesis: Administration of prednisone to healthy dogs will result in clinically relevant hyperlactatemia.
Animals: Twelve healthy adult Beagle dogs.
Methods: Prospective, controlled experimental study. Twelve healthy adult Beagles were divided into 2 groups (3 of each sex per group). One group served as control. The other group received 2 treatments: low, 1 mg/kg prednisone PO q24h for 2 weeks; high, 4 mg/kg prednisone PO q24h for 2 weeks. A washout period of 6 weeks separated the treatments. Blood samples were drawn for whole blood lactate measurement on day (D) 0, D4, and D14 and measured in duplicate.
Results: Compared with the control group, low and high groups had significantly higher blood lactate concentrations at D4 and D14. There was no difference at D0. There was no effect of time within the control group. In the low and high groups, blood lactate concentration was increased at D4 and D14 versus D0. Blood lactate concentration was greater in the high group than the low group at D14 only.
Conclusions and Clinical Importance: Dogs treated with prednisone experience statistically significant increases in blood lactate concentrations, which can result in type B hyperlactatemia. In such cases, improving tissue perfusion, treatment for the commonest form of hyperlactatemia (type A) would be unnecessary.     

Associations ofAscaris suum and Oesophagostomum spp. infections of sows with management factors in 83 Danish sow herds

Associations of the occurrence of Ascaris suum and Oesophagostomum spp. in sows with herd management factors were examined using logistic-binomial regression. The information used was from 11 to 78 sows sampled from each of 83 breeding herds (2961 sows in total) and examined for eggs per gram of faeces (EPG). A sow excreting at least 20 EPG was defined as ‘infected’. Management factors of the study herds were recorded using a questionnaire. A total of 263 sows from 50 herds (8.9% of sows) and 375 sows from 20 herds (12.7% of sows) were infected with A. suum and Oesophagostomum spp., respectively. For A. suum, sows from herds with more than 85 sows had significantly higher odds of being infected compared with those from 30 to 85 sows (P < 0.05). When bedding was provided for sows, the odds of A. suum infection was 5.4 compared with sows from herds in which bedding was not provided (P < 0.05). For Oesophagostomum spp., sows from herds with different specific pathogen free status had about one tenth the odds of being infected compared with those from conventional herds (P < 0.05). Sows that had been treated with anthelmintics had very low odds of being infected with Oesophagostomum spp. compared with those that were not treated (P < 0.05). The effects of these management factors in both final models did not differ when the definition of an ‘infected’ sow was changed. The present results suggest the importance of disposal of bedding material from pens in reducing the prevalence of A. suum in larger sow herds. Anthelmintic treatment is important in reducing the prevalence of Oesophagostomum spp. infection of sows.     

Maxillectomy and targeted radionuclide therapy with 153Sm-EDTMP in a recurrent canine osteosarcoma

An eight-year-old dog with a local relapse of an osteosarcoma was treated with partial maxillectomy and systemic radionuclide therapy that involved two injections, 43 and 45 megabec-querels per kg bodyweight of the bone-seeking agent samarium-153-ethylenediaminetetramethy-lene phosphonic acid (¹⁵³Sm-EDTMP), 15 weeks apart. A transient drop in white blood cell count and platelet count was observed following each ¹⁵³Sm-EDTMP treatment. Follow-up 21 months after surgery revealed no evidence of local recurrence or metastases. The dog was in excellent condition, suffering only minor sequelae from the surgical procedure. Compared with historical controls treated with surgery alone, the combination of surgery and systemic radionuclide therapy seems a promising strategy for the treatment of canine osteosarcoma.     

UCE: A uracil excision (USER™)-based toolbox for transformation of cereals

Background  

Cloning of gene casettes and other DNA sequences into the conventional vectors for biolistic or Agrobacterium-mediated transformation is hampered by a limited amount of unique restriction sites and by the difficulties often encountered when ligating small single strand DNA overhangs. These problems are obviated by "The Uracil Specific Excision Reagent (USER™)" technology (New England Biolabs) which thus offers a new and very time-efficient method for engineering of big and complex plasmids.