Haematological and biochemical investigations of diseased koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus)

Haematological and biochemical investigations were performed on 14 koalas with uncomplicated cystitis, 8 with complicated cystitis, 8 with conjunctivitis, 8 with lymphosarcoma, and 14 with miscellaneous diseases. Changes were limited and inconsistent in individual koalas with uncomplicated cystitis and conjunctivitis. In contrast, individual koalas with complicated cystitis were more likely to have anaemia, leukocytosis due to neutrophilia, hypoproteinaemia due to hypoalbuminaemia, and azotaemia due to elevated urea concentration. Although these changes were non-specific they did allow assessment of prognosis for survival and response to treatment. Koalas with lymphosarcoma were invariably anaemic, leukaemic, azotaemic and hypoalbuminaemic. Elevated enzymes (aspartate transaminase [AST]. lactate dehydrogenase [LD] and gamma glutamyl transferase [GGT]) were more common in koalas with lymphosarcoma. Koalas affected by miscellaneous conditions showed variable changes but once again anaemia, leukocytosis, azotaemia, elevated AST and LD, and hypoalbuminaemia were not uncommon. On the basis of these findings a minimal profile is suggested for the investigation of sick koalas and would include haematocrit, total and differential leukocyte counts, urea, total protein and albumin concentrations and AST, GGT and LD activities.     

Intensive housing: the last straw for pigs?

The concept of coping can be used to relate the environmental conditions provided for livestock to their responses--their productivity and their welfare. Pigs are "ecological generalists" and hence are "designed" to cope with a wide variety of environmental conditions. They, however, show clear limits to their adaptability both in terms of the space they require and the pen materials they can endure without injury. Even where they adapt to a wide range of conditions, there often is a particular environment that gives optimum performance. Examples of temperature requirements and feeding facilities are discussed. The process of coping is shown to impose a biological "cost" in some instances and, although a pig has adapted to a specific environment, questions still remain concerning whether keeping a pig in that environment is justifiable.     

Profile of Steroid Receptors and Increased Aromatase Immunoexpression in Canine Inflammatory Mammary Cancer as a Potential Therapeutic Target

Canine inflammatory mammary cancer (IMC) has been proposed as a model for the study of human inflammatory breast cancer (IBC). The aims of this study were to compare the immunohistochemical expression of aromatase (Arom) and several hormone receptors [estrogen receptor α (ERα), estrogen receptor β (ERβ), progesterone receptor (PR) and androgen receptor (AR)], in 21 IMC cases vs 19 non‐IMC; and to study the possible effect of letrozole on canine IMC and human inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) in vitro using IPC‐366 and SUM‐149 cell lines. Significant elevations of the means of Arom Total Score (TS), ERβ TS and PR TS were found in the IMC group (p = 0.025, p = 0.038 and p = 0.037, respectively). Secondary IMC tumours expressed higher levels of Arom than primary IMC (p = 0.029). Non‐IMC PR‐ tumours contained higher levels of Arom than non‐IMC PR+ tumours (p = 0.007). After the addition of letrozole, the number of IMC and IBC cells dropped drastically. The overexpression of Arom found and the results obtained in vitro further support canine IMC as a model for the study of IBC and future approaches to the treatment of dogs with mammary cancer, and especially IMC, using Arom inhibitors.     

Upscaling as ecological information transfer: a simple framework with application to Arctic ecosystem carbon exchange

Transferring ecological information across scale often involves spatial aggregation, which alters information content and may bias estimates if the scaling process is nonlinear. Here, a potential solution, the preservation of the information content of fine-scale measurements, is highlighted using modeled net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of an Arctic tundra landscape as an example. The variance of aggregated normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), measured from an airborne platform, decreased linearly with log(scale), resulting in a linear relationship between log(scale) and the scale-wise modeled NEE estimate. Preserving three units of information, the mean, variance and skewness of fine-scale NDVI observations, resulted in upscaled NEE estimates that deviated less than 4% from the fine-scale estimate. Preserving only the mean and variance resulted in nearly 23% NEE bias, and preserving only the mean resulted in larger error and a change in sign from CO₂ sink to source. Compressing NDVI maps by 70–75% using wavelet thresholding with the Haar and Coiflet basis functions resulted in 13% NEE bias across the study domain. Applying unique scale-dependent transfer functions between NDVI and leaf area index (LAI) decreased, but did not remove, bias in modeled flux in a smaller expanse using handheld NDVI observations. Quantifying the parameters of statistical distributions to preserve ecological information reduces bias when upscaling and makes possible spatial data assimilation to further reduce errors in estimates of ecological processes across scale.