Fluid resuscitation and the trauma patient.

Traumatic shock can result from one or more of the following: hypovolemia, increased capillary permeability and vasodilatation, impaired myocardial contractility or dysfunction, blood loss, and cardiovascular obstruction. Animals with traumatic injuries are less tolerant of sudden increases in hydrostatic pressure, which can exacerbate fluid leakage into damaged tissues and disrupt blood clots. Pain amplifies the shock response, and analgesic therapy is always recommended in the trauma patient. Therapy must be individualized and monitored closely.     

The role of albumin replacement in the critically ill veterinary patient

Objective: To review the human and veterinary literature on the physiological role and effects of therapeutic albumin supplementation. Data sources: Data from human and veterinary literature was reviewed. Human data synthesis: Hypoalbuminemia often occurs in a variety of critical illnesses, and contributes to the development of life‐threatening complications, including pulmonary edema, delayed wound healing, feeding intolerance, hypercoaguability, and multiple organ dysfunction. Serum albumin concentration has been used as a prognostic indicator in cases of chronic hypoalbuminemia. The use of albumin replacement therapy in humans is sometimes controversial, but may be associated with improved morbidity and decreased mortality. Veterinary data synthesis: Unlike human literature, there is a paucity of controlled clinical studies in the literature regarding albumin supplementation in veterinary patients. Rather, the majority of published studies were performed in experimental animals or via retrospective analyses. One recent study evaluated the use of plasma to improve albumin concentration in dogs with hypoalbuminemia. Other older studies investigated wound healing in dogs with experimentally induced hypoalbuminemia. As in human medicine, serum albumin concentration may be helpful as a prognostic indicator in critically ill dogs. Conclusion: Albumin is one of the most important proteins in the body because of its role in maintenance of colloid oncotic pressure, substrate transport, buffering capacity, as a mediator of coagulation and wound healing, and free‐radical scavenging. Albumin replacement in veterinary medicine is difficult, but until prospective clinical trials determine the efficacy of albumin replacement are conducted, a suggested clinical guideline would be to maintain albumin concentration at or above 2.0 g/dl utilizing fresh frozen plasma.     

Genetic data from avian influenza and avian paramyxoviruses generated by the European network of excellence (EPIZONE) between 2006 and 2011--review and recommendations for surveillance

Since 2006, the members of the molecular epidemiological working group of the European "EPIZONE" network of excellence have been generating sequence data on avian influenza and avian paramyxoviruses from both European and African sources in an attempt to more fully understand the circulation and impact of these viruses. This review presents a timely update on the epidemiological situation of these viruses based on sequence data generated during the lifetime of this project in addition to data produced by other groups during the same period. Based on this information and putting it all into a European context, recommendations for continued surveillance of these important viruses within Europe are presented.     

Analysing land-cover changes in relation to environmental variables in Hesse,Germany

Land-use and land-cover changes affect ecological landscape functions and processes. Hence, landscape ecologists have a central interest in a comprehensive understanding of such changes. Our study focuses on the relationships between environmental conditions and agricultural land-cover changes. We present a method to (i) characterise the major spatial-temporal processes of land-cover changes, (ii) identify the correlations between environmental attributes and land-cover changes and (iii) derive potential environmental drivers of land-cover changes in a German marginal rural landscape. The method was applied to study land-cover dynamics from 1945 to 1998 in the districts of Erda, Steinbrücken and Eibelshausen, situated in the marginal rural landscape of the Lahn-Dill Highlands, Germany. We employed land-cover data gained by the interpretation of multi-temporal aerial photographs. Various environmental variables were introduced into the analyses. We identified physical landscape attributes (elevation, slope, aspect, available water capacity and soil texture) and structural landscape dimensions (patch size, patch shape and distance between patch and nearest settlement). With the aid of GIS, K-means partitioning and canonical correspondence analysis, we investigated land-cover trajectory types, land-cover transitions at individual time intervals and their relationships to these environmental variables. Our results show that, between 1945 and 1998, land-cover changes correlated with the physical attributes of the underlying landscape. On the other hand, the structural landscape dimensions correlated with land cover only in periods of minor land-cover changes (1972–98). Greater diversity of physical landscape attributes is correlated with greater land-cover dynamics. Besides the important influence of socio-economic factors, land-cover changes in the study areas took place within the relatively stable physical constraints of the underlying landscape.This revised version was published online in May 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Influence of graded EDTA applications on mobilization and translocation of trace elements—a soil column experiment

Increasing concerns about potential environmental effects of ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) accumulation in soils require better understanding of its behavior and its effect on trace element mobilization. In this study we investigated the effect of EDTA on soil trace element mobilization in undisturbed soil columns taken from a heavy metal contaminated field. The columns were leached by EDTA solutions of different concentrations under unsaturated, steady‐state conditions. The transport of trace elements (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Ni, Pb, Sn, Zn) and EDTA was monitored by regularly collecting the leachates. After the termination of the leaching experiment the soil columns were divided into 5 layers to determine trace elements and EDTA concentrations in the soil. The results revealed that the soil analysis alone was not suitable to infer mobilization or immobilization patterns in relation to the EDTA concentration, as the mobilized fraction was too small in relation to the total trace metal concentrations in the soil. Analysis of the leachates displayed that after 2–4 pore volumes the EDTA output concentration reached about 80% of the input concentration. The trace element concentrations in the leachates showed that some elements were mobilized by EDTA (Cd, Cu, Fe, Pb, Co, Ni, Zn) while others were immobilized (Mn, Cr, Mo, Sn) in the soil columns after EDTA application.     

Preparation and comparative release characteristics of three anthocyanin encapsulation systems

Bilberries (Vaccinium myrtillus L.) and their major polyphenolic constituents, anthocyanins, have preventive activities inter alia against colon cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases. However, anthocyanins are sensitive to environmental conditions; thus their bioavailability in the gastrointestinal tract is an important determinant of their in vivo activity. In the study reported here, the potential benefits of encapsulating an anthocyanin rich bilberry extract (BE) on anthocyanin stability were investigated. Nonencapsulated BE and three different BE loaded microcapsule systems were incubated in simulated gastric fluid (SGF) and fed state simulated intestinal fluid (FeSSIF). After exposure to these media, released anthocyanins were identified and quantified by HPLC with UV/Vis detection. Although a rapid release of anthocyanins was observed within the first 20 min, encapsulation of anthocyanins doubled the amount of available anthocyanins after 150 min of incubation. These results illustrate the ability of encapsulation to inhibit early degradation of anthocyanins in the intestinal system.     

Ligninolytic fungi in bioremediation: extracellular enzyme production and degradation rate

Ligninolytic fungi can be used for remediation of pollutants in water and soil. Extracellular peroxidases and laccases have been shown to oxidize recalcitrant compounds in vitro but the likely significance of individual enzyme levels in vivo remains unclear. This study documents the amounts and activities of Mn-dependent peroxidase (MnP), lignin peroxidase and laccase (LAC) in various species of ligninolytic fungi grown in liquid medium and soil and their effect on degradation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (anthracene and pyrene), a polychlorinated biphenyl mixture (Delor 106) and a number of synthetic dyes. Stationary cultures of a highly degradative strain Irpex lacteus exhibited 380-fold and 2-fold increase in production of MnP and LAC, respectively, compared to submerged cultures. Addition of Tween 80 to the submerged culture increased MnP levels 260-fold. High levels of MnP correlated with efficient decolorization of Reactive Orange 16 azo dye but not of Remazol Brilliant Blue R anthraquinone dye. Degradation of anthracene and pyrene in spiked soil by straw-grown explorative mycelium of Phanerochaete chrysosporium, Trametes versicolor and Pleurotus ostreatus showed the importance of MnP and LAC levels secreted into the soil. The importance of high fungal enzyme levels for efficient degradation of recalcitrant compounds was better demonstrated in liquid media compared to the same strains growing in soil.     

Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi and Glomalin‐Related Soil Protein as Potential Indicators of Soil Quality in a Recuperation Gradient of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil

This study aimed at surveying arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) species and glomalin‐related soil protein (GRSP) to understand their role as presumable biological indicators of soil quality in an undisturbed forest site (NT) and three sites with different management histories, soil textures, and different ages of recovery after reforestation for 20 (R20), 10 (R10) and 5 years (R05). Our objective was to determine how physical, chemical and microbiological soil attributes influence AMF species distribution, total‐GRSP (T‐GRSP) and easily extractable‐GRSP (EE‐GRSP). Glomus and Acaulospora were related to impacted sites, Gigaspora rosea to sites R10 and R20 that have different management histories and soil textures and Glomus geosporum to sites NT and R10, suggesting some influence of texture on its distribution. Scutellospora pellucida and other species were found only in one season. Correlations between EE‐GRSP and T‐GRSP on the one hand and total carbon and nitrogen, dehydrogenase and urease activity, microbial biomass carbon and microbial biomass nitrogen, on the other, reached values of 40–70% and were especially strong in summer. Soil bulk density had a negative and macroporosity a positive effect only on EE‐GRSP, suggesting the necessity to choose either EE‐GRSP or T‐GRSP as biological indicator depending on the soil characteristics and management. This study demonstrates the effect of recovery age, seasonality and other soil attributes on AMF and GRSP distribution and shows that these biological attributes may be used as indicators of soil quality in the Atlantic forest in Brazil. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Influenza virus infections in migrating waterfowl: results of a two year study in Germany

In order to determine the actual prevalence of avian influenza viruses (AIV) in wild birds in Germany, extensive surveillance studies were carried out between March 2003 and January 2005. More than 3.000 samples of 79 different species of wild birds (migratory and resident birds) were taken and 1.151 established pools investigated. Samples came from 80 different regions of Germany. Forty AIV isolates representing 14 combinations of eight different hemagglutinin and eight neuraminidase subtypes, among them H5 and H7, were identified. All H5 and H7 isolates were found to be of low pathogenicity. The overall incidence of the investigated pools based on virus isolation was 3,5 % for AIV, with considerable variability noted among species, season and location. All AIV were isolated from birds sampled in autumn. Most of the AIV isolates came from the resting or wintering areas of mallards breeding far north. This study adds to the understanding of the ecology of influenza viruses in wild birds and empahsizes the constant need for surveillance in times of an ongoing and expanding epidemic of highly pathogenic AI.