Epidemiological and diagnostic findings during a 16-year-long trichinellosis surveillance in Timis County,Romania

The main source of trichinellosis in Romania is insufficiently cooked pork infected with Trichinella spiralis. Timis, the largest Romanian county, is located in the western part of the country where pork and traditional food prepared from pork are extensively consumed. The objective of the present study was to conduct a retrospective investigation of the incidence of human trichinellosis in Timis County over a period of 16 years (1990–2005). The medical records of 521 patients were used as the source of data. Patients were hospitalized at “Victor Babes” Hospital of Infectious Diseases from Timisoara during the period 1990–2005. The highest number of cases was recorded in 1994 (16.90%) and most of the patients were in the age group of 20–29 (23.22%). Males and females were almost equally affected by trichinellosis. The clinical pattern was mainly characterised by myalgia (72.55%) and edema (54.12%). Laboratory investigations included mainly elevated eosinophil and leucocyte values. In 52.02% of the patients, the hospitalization period ranged between 8 and 14 days. Most of the patients were from urban areas, but often the source of infection was found in rural areas. Hospitalization of the affected patients required considerable health care resources. The decreasing incidence of trichinellosis in Romania over the last decade has been due to sanitary education programmes for both swine breeders and consumers.     

Tryptophan hydroxylase-2 controls brain serotonin synthesis

Dysregulation of brain serotonin contributes to many psychiatric disorders. Tryptophan hydroxylase-2 (Tph2), rather than Tph1, is preferentially expressed in the brain. We report a functional (C1473G) single-nucleotide polymorphism in mouse Tph2 that results in the substitution of Pro447 with Arg447 and leads to decreased serotonin levels in PC12 cells. Moreover, in BALB/cJ and DBA/2 mice that are homozygous for the 1473G allele, brain serotonin tissue content and synthesis are reduced in comparison to C57Bl/6 and 129X1/SvJ mice that are homozygous for the 1473C allele. Our data provide direct evidence for a fundamental role of Tph2 in brain serotonin synthesis.     

Nutrients in a calcareous soil affected by Cadmium

A calcareous soil (Haploxeroll calcic) was amended in two different forms according with the standard nutritional requirements of tomato plant. The treatments applied were: i) an organic fertilization applying sewage sludge (SS), ii) an inorganic fertilization (IN) using mineral fertilizers (NPK), and iii) a treatment called W where no fertilizer was applied. For each treatment, cadmium (Cd) pollution was added to the soil establishing different concentrations (0, 3, 30 and 100 mg kg^‐1 d.w.). The availability of macronutrients and micronutrients were analyzed in the soil. Phosphorus (P), iron (Fe), and copper (Cu) were the nutrients more affected by Cd. In general, sewage sludge favored the availability of nutrients in the same degree of the inorganic fertilization.     

Anthelmintic resistance impact on tropical beef cattle productivity: effect on weight gain of weaned calves

The performance of grazing cattle in tropical areas is deeply influenced by parasitism, and the increasing reports of resistance are a threat to effective nematode control. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of avermectins on the performance of weaned calves naturally infected by ivermectin-resistant gastrointestinal nematodes. The effect of four commercial endectocides (ivermectin 2.25 % + abamectin 1.25 %, ivermectin 3.15 %, doramectin 3.15 %, and doramectin 1 %) on parasitism and performance of a hundred weaned Nellore calves were evaluated during 112 days. The most effective anthelmintic showed efficacy of 84 % and resulted in an increase (P?<?0.05) of live weight gain of 11.85 kg, compared to untreated group, 9.05 and 9.41 kg compared to those treated with more ineffective avermectins which showed efficacy of 0 and 48.2 %, respectively. A significant (P?<?0.05) and weak negative correlation (r?=??0.22) between the eggs per gram (EPG) and body weight was observed, indicating that even the low mean EPG (175?±?150) observed at day 0 in the control group, with predominance of Haemonchus sp., was responsible for production losses. These results indicate that control of nematode parasites in beef cattle in the weaning phase may not result in increased productivity when carried out without technical criteria.     

Eucalypt growth in monoculture and silvopastoral systems with varied tree initial densities and spatial arrangements

Brazil has large stretches of degraded land, mainly occupied by pasture. Recently, the Brazilian government created a program providing financial support to recover these lands throughout the country by establishing agroforestry systems, among others. To select the most appropriate initial spatial arrangements and tree planting density for such systems, the plant growth and leaf area index (LAI) of a Eucalyptus camaldulensis clone were evaluated in five spatial arrangements: 3.6 × 2.5 m, and 3.3 × 3.3 m (monoculture), and (2 × 2) + 10 m, (3 × 3) + 9 m, and 9 × 3 m (silvopastoral systems), with 1,111, 918, 833, 556 and 370 plants per hectare, respectively. The arrangement did not affect plant height growth (p > 0.05) up to 50 months. The average diameter was affected by plant proximity in the planting line, being smaller (p < 0.05) in the arrangements (2 × 2) + 10 m, and 3.6 × 2.5 m, and by the number of lines in the rows, as the plants in the single line arrangement (9 × 3 m) attained the highest diameter. Individual volumes of high initial density stand were lower than in the silvopastoral systems. The arrangements (2 × 2) + 10 m, 3.6 × 2.5 m, and 3.3 × 3.3 m did not differ (p > 0.05) in volume per hectare, which was higher (p < 0.05) than for the other arrangements studied. LAI decreased with age and it was higher (p < 0.01) in the monoculture as compared to the silvopastoral systems. The silvopastoral system can be established in the (2 × 2) + 10 m arrangement for high biomass production besides having the additional benefit of financial returns from the pasture, as compared with the monoculture. The 9 × 3 m arrangement is preferable for large diameter log production.     

Dead wood in clearcuts of semi-natural forests in Estonia: site-type variation, degradation, and the influences of tree retention and slash harvest

Semi-natural forests, which naturally regenerate after timber harvesting, provide distinct opportunities for dead wood (DW) management for biodiversity. We described DW pool and sources of its variation during the first decade after final felling in Estonia, hemiboreal Europe. Depending on forest type, the mean post-harvest volumes of above-ground DW ranged from 70 to 119 m³ ha^?1. Final felling generally did not reduce downed coarse woody debris (CWD) because many sawn logs were left on-site, and soil scarification was rarely used. However, subsequent decay of downed CWD appears to be accelerated due to the increased ground contact of logs, so that even the relatively small inputs from live retention trees observed (5 m³ ha^?1 per decade) can be ecologically significant. While final felling greatly reduced snag abundance, the mortality of retained live trees generally balanced their later losses. The volumes of downed fine woody debris in conventional cutover sites were roughly double that of pre-harvest forests. Slash harvest caused an approximately twofold reduction in downed DW and resulted in CWD volumes that were below mature-forest levels. The results indicate that the habitat quality of cutovers critically depends both on the retention and on the post-harvest management of biological legacies. In Estonia, the necessary improvements include more careful retention of snags in final felling, selecting larger retention trees, focusing slash harvest on the fine debris of common tree species, and providing snags of late-successional tree species.     

Wakame and Nori in Restructured Meats Included in Cholesterol-enriched Diets Affect the Antioxidant Enzyme Gene Expressions and Activities in Wistar Rats

The effects of diets including restructured meats (RM) containing Wakame or Nori on total liver glutathione status, and several antioxidant enzyme gene expressions and activities were tested. Six groups of ten male growing Wistar rats each were fed a mix of 85% AIN-93 M diet and 15% freeze-dried RM for 35 days. The control group (C) consumed control RM, the Wakame (W) and the Nori (N) groups, RM with 5% Wakame and 5% Nori, respectively. Animals on added cholesterol diets (CC, CW, and CN) consumed their corresponding basal diets added with cholesterol (2%) and cholic acid (0.4%). Alga and dietary cholesterol significantly interact (P < 0.002) influencing all enzyme expressions but not activities. The cholesterol supplement decreased most enzyme expression and activity. W-RM vs. C-RM increased (P < 0.05) expression of GPx, GR, Mn-SOD, and Cu,Zn-SOD and decreased that of catalase. N-RM vs. C-RM increased (P < 0.05) expression of catalase and Mn-SOD. GR activity increased in W-RM rats while SOD activity increased, but that of Se-GPx decreased in N animals. W-RM increased total and reduced glutathione and decreased the redox index. CN diet induced significantly lower plasma cholesterol levels (P < 0.001) than the CW diet. In conclusion, Nori-RM is a hypocholesterolemic food while Wakame-RM is an antioxidant food. This should be taken into account when including this kind of RM as potential functional foods in human.     

Wood defect classification based on image analysis and support vector machines

This paper addresses the issue of automatic wood defect classification. A tree-structure support vector machine (SVM) is proposed to classify four types of wood knots by using images captured from lumber boards. Simple and effective features are proposed and extracted by partitioning the knot images into three distinct areas, followed by utilizing a novel order statistic filter to yield an average pseudo color feature in each area. Excellent results have been obtained for the proposed SVM classifier that is trained by 800 wood knot images. Performance evaluation has shown that the proposed SVM classifier resulted in an average classification rate of 96.5% and false alarm rate of 2.25% over 400 test knot images. Future work will include more extensive tests on large data set and the extension of knot types.