Paratuberculosis in a dairy Gyr herd in the State of Paraíba, Brazil

This paper describes the clinical, pathological, and microbiologic aspects of paratuberculosis (Johne's disease) in a dairy Gyr herd in the State of Paraíba, northeastern Brazil. An eight years old cow with chronic unresponsive diarrhea was clinically examined and euthanized for pathological evaluation. Fecal samples from all 160 animals over 12 months of age from the herd were collected for isolation of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis. Clinically, the index case cow was severely dehydrated, cachectic, with profuse mucous diarrhea. The main post-mortem findings were emaciation and thickened intestinal wall. Microscopically, the intestinal lamina propria and submucosa were infiltrated by macrophages, epithelioid cells, and Langhans giant cells with numerous alcohol-acid resistant bacilli in the cytoplasm. Two fecal samples displayed growth in slants of Herrold's egg-yolk agar supplemented with mycobactin J, 150 days after incubation. No growth was noticed in slants without mycobactin J. Microscopic examination of the isolated microorganisms stained by Ziehl-Neelsen revealed considerable amounts of alcohol-acid resistant bacilli, morphologically compatible with Mycobacterium spp. Based on the clinical signs, gross and histological lesions, growth time, bacterial morphology in Ziehl-Neelsen staining, and dependence of mycobactin J, the first diagnosis of paratuberculosis in Zebu cattle was made.

Turgida turgida (Nematoda: Physalopteridae) parasitic in white-bellied opossum, Didelphis albiventris (Marsupialia: Didelphidae), state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil

Turgida turgida have been largely reported parasitizing Didelphis species in North and South America based on light microscopy observation. However, the features that differentiate T. turgida from other physalopterid species should be observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A female white-bellied opossum, Didelphis albiventris, arrived dead at the Centro de Reabilitação de Animais Silvestres (CRAS) in the municipality of Campo Grande, state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. During the necropsy, adult nematodes were collected from stomach and intestine. The nematodes were determined to be adult specimens and submitted to SEM for the species determination. This is the first report of T. turgida confirmed by SEM in the Neotropical region and the first report in an urban area in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

Prevalence and risk factors for Leptospira spp. in cattle herds in the south central region of Paraná state

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of anti-Leptospira spp. antibodies and the risk factors for Leptospira spp. infection in breeding cattle herds in the south central region of Paraná state. It was based on the statistic delineation/serological samples and information regarding the selected farms employed in the study of bovine brucellosis for Paraná state in the context of National Program for Control and Eradication of Brucellosis and Tuberculosis. A total of 1.880 females aged >24 months from 274 non vaccinated herds were studied. Serum samples were tested for antibodies against Leptospira spp. using microscopic agglutination test (MAT) with 22 Leptospira serovars. The epidemiological questionnaire was applied on all the selected farms and aimed to obtain epidemiological data. Hundred eighty one of 274 herds were positive for Leptospira spp./presenting prevalence of positive herds of 66.06% (IC95%=60.12-71,65%). Presence of >43 cattle (OR=3.120; IC=1.418-6.867)/animal purchase (OR=2.010; IC=1.154-3.500)/rent of pastures (OR=2.925; IC=1.060-8.068) and presence of maternity paddock (OR=1.981; IC=1,068-3,676) were identified as risk factors for leptospirosis due to any serovar in the multivariate logistic regression. Risk factors for leptospirosis due to serovar Hardjo were presence of >43 cattle (OR=3.622; IC=1.512-8,677)/animal purchase (OR=3.143; IC=1.557-6.342)/rent of pastures (OR=4.070; IC=1.370-12.087) and presence of horses (OR=2.981; IC=1.321-6.726). These results indicate that Leptospira spp. infection is widespread in the south central region of Paraná state and that factors related to the herd characteristic and management are associated with the infection.

Hematologic, serum biochemistry and urinary values for captive Crab-eating Fox (Cerdocyon thous) in São Paulo state, Brazil

The importance of studies with hematological, serum biochemistry and urinary values of Crab-eating Fox (Cerdocyon thous) is based on the need for health care and maintenance of those populations. This paper has the objective to investigate hematological, serum biochemistry and urinary physiological parameters of the Crab-eating fox, comparing gender and age differences. Blood samples were collected in 2003 from 52 animals of different Zoos in São Paulo state, Brazil; 7mL of blood was used to obtain a complete blood cell count (CBC) and the profile of the serum biochemistry. Moreover, 5mL of urine were collected for analysis. There was no difference in values for male and female animals, as for the CBC and serum biochemistry. Some hematological and serum biochemical parameters were influenced by age, showing significant differences. Urinalysis results were just demonstrated in a descriptive form. The studied values were, RBC 4.35±0.73 x 10(6) /µL, WBC 7.72±3.66 x 10³ /µL (predominance of segmented neutrophils), platelets 227.06±111.58 x 10³ /µL, urea 43.06±14.28mg/dL and creatinine 1.03±0.24mg/dL. Hematological, serum biochemistry and urinary values obtained in this study can be used as physiological values of the captive Crab-eating Fox. It is possible to conclude that wild species need their own reference values, differentiating animals in captivity from free-ranging animals.

Improving Product Information Management in Global Project Based Manufacturing

The transition of project based manufacturing business, even more into global networks, sets up challenges for companies to manage their business in this new operating environment. One way to tackle these challenges is the successful management of product information through an extended product’s lifecycle. Thus, one objective of this research is to find ways how product information management in global project based manufacturing can be improved. Another objective is to find a solution how the target company can improve its product information management in the offer-to-procurement business process. Due to the nature of the topic, the study follows constructive research methodology with qualitative methods. By combining literature related to this topic a framework is created to improve product information management in global project based manufacturing. The improvement process in this framework is based on a systematic approach from the current state towards target state. A general aim for improvements should be the integrated product and project lifecycle information management through Lean approach. This introduced framework is applied to the target company through two case projects. Data for building view of current state and analysis is collected mostly by theme interviews and also utilizing other material from the target company. Used tools help to analyzing was the BPMN and the Trace matrix for business chains. Results of the improvement process are collected in a solution proposal which contain the strategic target state as well as long and short term objectives. The strategic target state is defined as controlled customization. Also during the improvement process are created the Information requirements chart in the offer-to-procurement business process, and the Project related initial information questionnaire to customer.

Outbreaks of vesicular disease caused by Vaccinia virus in dairy cattle from Goiás State, Brazil (2010-2012)

Cases of vesicular and exanthematic disease by Vaccinia virus (VACV) have been reported in dairy herds of several Brazilian regions, occasionally also affecting humans. The present article describes eight outbreaks of vesicular disease caused by VACV in dairy herds of six counties of Goiás state, Midwestern Brazil (2010-2012), involving a total of 122 cows, 12 calves and 11 people. Dairy cows (3 to 9 years old) were affected in all cases and calves (2 to 9 months old) were affected in five outbreaks, presenting oral lesions. The morbidity ranged between 8 and 100% in cows, and 1.5 to 31% in calves. In the cows, the clinical signs started with vesicles (2-7mm), painful and coalescent papules (3-8 mm), which resulted in ulcers (5-25mm) and scabs in teats, and, occasionally, in the muzzle. The clinical course lasted from 16 to 26 days. The histopathology of bovine skin samples revealed superficial perivascular inflammatory infiltrate of lymphocytes, plasma cells, neutrophils, macrophages and multifocal areas of acanthosis, spongiosis, hipergranulosis and parakeratotic or orthokeratotic hyperkeratosis with adjacent focally extensive ulcers. Eosinophilic inclusion bodies were noted in the cytoplasm of the keratinocytes. PCR to vgf gene of Orthopoxvirus was positive in samples collected from all outbreaks, and in some cases, genomic VACV sequences were identified by nucleotide sequencing of the PCR amplicons. Infectious virus was isolated in cell culture from scabs from one outbreak. Antibodies to Orthopoxvirus were detected in at least 3 or 4 animals in most outbreaks, by ELISA (outbreaks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7) or virus-neutralization (outbreak 6). Neutralizing titers ranging from 8 to 64 in outbreak 6. In all outbreaks, VACV infection was suspected based on the clinical and pathological findings and it was confirmed by laboratory tests. Upon the etiological confirmation, other agents associated with vesicular disease were discarded. In all outbreaks, at least one milker who handled the affected cows developed malaise, headache, fever, painful vesico-pustular lesions mainly in the hands, but also in the neck and nose. These results confirm the circulation of VACV in the region and call attention for a correct diagnosis and the adoption of prophylactic and control measures.

Developing Service-based Solutions for Water Treatment in Finnish Mining Industry

The aim of this master’s thesis is to analyze the mining industry customers' current and future needs for the water treatment services and discover new business development opportunities in the context of mine water treatment. In addition, the study focuses on specifying service offerings needed and evaluate suitable revenue generation models for them. The main research question of the study is: What kind of service needs related to water treatment can be identified in the Finnish mining industry? The literature examined in the study focused on industrial service classification and new service development process as well as the revenue generation of services. A qualitative research approach employing a case study method was chosen for the study. The present study uses customer and expert interviews as primary data source, complemented by archival data. The primary data was gathered by organizing total of 13 interviews, and the interviews were analyzed by using qualitative content analysis. The abductive-logic was chosen as the way of conducting scientific reasoning in this study. As a result, new service proposals were developed for Finnish mine industry suppliers. The main areas of development were on asset efficiency services and process support services. The service needs were strongly associated with suppliers’ know-how of water treatment process optimization, cost-effectiveness as well as on alternative technologies. The study provides an insight for managers that wish to pursue a water treatment services as a part of their business offering.

Testing pigs of non-technified rearing farms for serum antibodies against Taenia solium in a region of the state of São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract: Taenia solium is a zoonotic tapeworm of great importance in developing countries, due to the occurrence of human taeniasis and cysticercosis. Pigs have an important role in the biological cycle of the parasite as intermediate hosts. The scientific literature has been describing risk factors associated with the occurrence of this disease that must be avoided in countries with poor sanitation, in order to reduce the exposure of swine to the parasite eggs. This research focused on testing pigs of non-technified rearing farms for serum antibodies against Taenia solium in the region of Jaboticabal municipality, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The found prevalence was 6.82% (CI 95% 4.18 - 9.45) at animal level and 28.87% (CI 95% 16.74 - 40.40) at herd level. These figures are probably associated with low technification adoption during animal rearing in the studied area, which increased the exposure of the animals to risk factors associated with the occurrence of Taenia solium complex. The results found based on serological evidences of swine cysticercosis in the studied region serves as a warning to public sanitary authorities to improve public health and control T. solium.

Pulse response based control for positive definite systems

Pulse Response Based Control (PRBC) is a recently developed minimum time control method for flexible structures. The flexible behavior of the structure is represented through a set of discrete time sequences, which are the responses of the structure due to rectangular force pulses. The rectangular force pulses are given by the actuators that control the structure. The set of pulse responses, desired outputs, and force bounds form a numerical optimization problem. The solution of the optimization problem is a minimum time piecewise constant control sequence for driving the system to a desired final state. The method was developed for driving positive semi-definite systems. In case the system is positive definite, some final states of the system may not be reachable. Necessary conditions for reachability of the final states are derived for systems with a finite number of degrees of freedom. Numerical results are presented that confirm the derived analytical conditions. Numerical simulations of maneuvers of distributed parameter systems have shown a relationship between the error in the estimated minimum control time and sampling interval

On state and parameter estimation in chaotic systems

State-of-the-art predictions of atmospheric states rely on large-scale numerical models of chaotic systems. This dissertation studies numerical methods for state and parameter estimation in such systems. The motivation comes from weather and climate models and a methodological perspective is adopted. The dissertation comprises three sections: state estimation, parameter estimation and chemical data assimilation with real atmospheric satellite data. In the state estimation part of this dissertation, a new filtering technique based on a combination of ensemble and variational Kalman filtering approaches, is presented, experimented and discussed. This new filter is developed for large-scale Kalman filtering applications. In the parameter estimation part, three different techniques for parameter estimation in chaotic systems are considered. The methods are studied using the parameterized Lorenz 95 system, which is a benchmark model for data assimilation. In addition, a dilemma related to the uniqueness of weather and climate model closure parameters is discussed. In the data-oriented part of this dissertation, data from the Global Ozone Monitoring by Occultation of Stars (GOMOS) satellite instrument are considered and an alternative algorithm to retrieve atmospheric parameters from the measurements is presented. The validation study presents first global comparisons between two unique satellite-borne datasets of vertical profiles of nitrogen trioxide (NO3), retrieved using GOMOS and Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment III (SAGE III) satellite instruments. The GOMOS NO3 observations are also considered in a chemical state estimation study in order to retrieve stratospheric temperature profiles. The main result of this dissertation is the consideration of likelihood calculations via Kalman filtering outputs. The concept has previously been used together with stochastic differential equations and in time series analysis. In this work, the concept is applied to chaotic dynamical systems and used together with Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods for statistical analysis. In particular, this methodology is advocated for use in numerical weather prediction (NWP) and climate model applications. In addition, the concept is shown to be useful in estimating the filter-specific parameters related, e.g., to model error covariance matrix parameters.

Creating an open-books implementation framework for a maintenance-related value-based life-cycle model

This study is a qualitative action research by its nature with elements of personal design in the form of a tangible model implementation framework construction. Utilized empirical data has been gathered via two questionnaires in relation to the arranged four workshop events with twelve individual participants. Five of them represented maintenance customers, three maintenance service providers and four equipment providers respectively. Further, there are two main research objectives in proportion to the two complementary focusing areas of this thesis. Firstly, the value-based life-cycle model, which first version has already been developed prior to this thesis, requires updating in order to increase its real-life applicability as an inter-firm decision-making tool in industrial maintenance. This first research objective is fulfilled by improving appearance, intelligibility and usability of the above-mentioned model. In addition, certain new features are also added. The workshop participants from the collaborating companies were reasonably pleased with made changes, although further attention will be required in future on the model’s intelligibility in particular as main results, charts and values were all reckoned as slightly hard to understand. Moreover, upgraded model’s appearance and added new features satisfied them the most. Secondly and more importantly, the premises of the model’s possible inter-firm implementation process need to be considered. This second research objective is delivered in two consecutive steps. At first, a bipartite open-books supported implementation framework is created and its different characteristics discussed in theory. Afterwards, the prerequisites and the pitfalls of increasing inter-organizational information transparency are studied in empirical context. One of the main findings was that the organizations are not yet prepared for network-wide information disclosure as dyadic collaboration was favored instead. However, they would be willing to share information bilaterally at least. Another major result was that the present state of companies’ cost accounting systems will definitely need implementation-wise enhancing in future since accurate and sufficiently detailed maintenance data is not available. Further, it will also be crucial to create supporting and mutually agreed network infrastructure. There are hardly any collaborative models, methods or tools currently in usage. Lastly, the essential questions about mutual trust and predominant purchasing strategies are cooperation-wise important. If inter-organizational activities are expanded, a more relational approach should be favored in this regard. Mutual trust was also recognized as a significant cooperation factor, but it is hard to measure in reality.

Toward a-state-of-the-art IR copyright management system: a needs assessment

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

A platform for assessing the current state of data repositories in Korea, Japan and China

Presentation at Open Repositories 2014, Helsinki, Finland, June 9-13, 2014

Planktic Cyanobacteria from São Paulo State, Brazil: Chroococcales

The biodiversity studies of planktic cyanobacteria started in 1997 with intensive collecting in different water bodies of São Paulo State. Due to the problems brougth by eutrophication and cyanobacterial blooms, the samplings were concentrated in reservoirs of Alto Tietê region that supply drinking water to millions of people. The samples were collected with 20 µm plankton net or Van Dorn's bottle. Part of each one was preserved in formaldehyde or lugol solution and part was isolated. The culture strains were kept in BG11 and/or AMS1 media. Based on natural and culture material, 26 species were identified belonging to the families Chroococcaceae (2 taxa), Merismopediaceae (12), Microcystaceae (7) and Synechococcaceae (5). Among these species, six are potentialy toxic: Aphanocapsa incerta (Lemmerm.) Cronberg & Komárek, Microcystis aeruginosa (Kütz.) Kütz., M. botrys Teiling, M. panniformis Komárek et al., M. wesenbergii (Komárek) Komárek, and Radiocystis fernandoi Komárek & Komár.-Legn. Bacularia and Coelosphaeriopsis are genera reported for the first time in Brazil.

Genus Bourrellyodesmus (Desmidiaceae, Zygnemaphyceae) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil

Floristic survey of genus Bourrellyodesmus (Desmidiaceae, Zygnemaphyceae) was based on 149 sample units, 76 of which were already deposited at the Herbário Científico do Estado "Maria Eneyda P. Kauffmann Fidalgo" (SP) of the Instituto de Botânica, Secretaria do Meio Ambiente do Estado de São Paulo, and 73 of which were collected during 2000-2001. Two species of Bourrellyodesmus were identified: B. jolyanus (C. Bicudo & Azevedo) C. Bicudo & Compère e B. guarrerae sp. nov.