545 research outputs found
Ovine lentivirus-associated leucomyelitis in naturally infected North American sheep.
No full textLeucomyelitis was the predominant feature in four North American adult sheep (cases 1–4) with ovine
lentivirus (OvLV) infection. All four animals were OvLV-seropositive and a syncytogenic virus consistent
with OvLV was isolated from the brain of case 3 and the lungs of case 4. Clinically, the sheep had dyspnoea
and neurologic signs of varying severity. Changes in the central nervous system included asymmetrical
meningoleucomyelitis with white matter degeneration in all four sheep and scattered foci of
leucoencephalitis in periventricular, subependymal and other white matter areas of the brain of the
three animals (cases 1, 2 and 4) for which the brain was examined. In the lungs of two sheep (cases 3 and
4), there was lymphoid interstitial pneumonia with marked lymphoid hyperplasia. The viral capsid
antigen (p25) was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC) in sections of lung, brain and spinal cord of
the four sheep and OvLV RNA was detected by in-situ hybridization (ISH) in lung and spinal cord
samples. The results confirm the usefulness of the IHC and ISH for differential diagnosis of visna
LO-MATCH: A semantic platform for matching migrants' competences with labour market's needs
No full textCitizens' mobility and employability are receiving ever more attention by the European legislation. Various instruments have been defined to overcome lexical and semantic differences in the descriptions of qualifications, résumés and job profiles. However, the above differences still represent a significant constraint when abilities of non-European people have to be validated either for education and training or occupation purposes. In this work, a web platform that exploits semantic technologies to address such heterogeneity issues is presented. The platform allows migrants to annotate their knowledge, skills and competences in a shared format based on the European tools. The resulting knowledge base is then used to enable the automatic matchmaking of job seekers' abilities with companies' needs. The platform can additionally be used to support students and workers in the identification of their competence gap with respect to a given education or occupation opportunity, so that to personalize their further trainin
Exploiting semantics for constructing and comparing occupational and educational-driven qualifications: the TIPTOE project
No full textIn recent years, mobility of students and workers started to be considered as a way for answering skill shortages in the European labor world. However, in order to implement effective mobility practices, suitable instruments supporting transparency and readability of the outcomes of learning processes as well as of the needs of companies and employers in general have to be developed. In fact, though some instruments have been introduced (like, for instance, the European Qualification Framework, EQF, the European Credit system for Vocational Education and Training, ECVET, etc.), they are often seen as theoretical tools rather than a practical help for involved stakeholders. In this work, the results of the TIPTOE project, a transnational initiative funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme are illustrated. In particular, the semantic-based methodology for the construction of a European-wide profile mixing education and labor worlds perspectives in the trade sector is discussed. Furthermore, a number of tools allowing end-users to compare owned qualifications to the reference one and supporting stakeholders in the reading of national educational and occupational profiles in the EQF dimension are presente
A Relation-Based Page Rank Algorithm for Semantic Web Search Engines
No full textWith the tremendous growth of information available to end users through the Web, search engines come to play ever a more critical role. Nevertheless, because of their general-purpose approach, it is always less uncommon that obtained result sets provide a burden of useless pages. The next-generation Web architecture, represented by the Semantic Web, provides the layered architecture possibly allowing overcoming this limitation. Several search engines have been proposed, which allow increasing information retrieval accuracy by exploiting a key content of Semantic Web resources, that is, relations. However, in order to rank results, most of the existing solutions need to work on the whole annotated knowledge base. In this paper, we propose a relation-based page rank algorithm to be used in conjunction with Semantic Web search engines that simply relies on information that could be extracted from user queries and on annotated resources. Relevance is measured as the probability that a retrieved resource actually contains those relations whose existence was assumed by the user at the time of query definitio
INTRODUCING THE USER TO THE SERVICE CREATION WORLD: CONCEPTS FOR USER CENTRIC SERVICE CREATION, PERSONALIZATION AND NOTIFICATION
No full textVertical Maedi/Visna Virus infection via colostrum: viral antigen distribution in newborns lambs from experimentally infected ewes
No full textColostral transmission of maedi visna virus: sites of viral entry in lambs born from experimentally infected ewes
No full textMaedi visna virus (MVV) vertical transmission in sheep via infected colostrums is a very important route of infection in
lambs. To verify colostral transmission and to study early viral entry in lambs, colostrum samples, and small intestine and
mesenteric lymph nodes of lambs born from experimentally infected ewes were examined by histopathology, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and in situ hybridisation (ISH) studies. In particular, newborn lambs were naturally fed maternal colostrum
and humanely killed at 10, 24, 48, 72, 96 h and 7 and 10 days after birth; two caesarian-derived lambs served as uninfected controls. No lesions suggestive of MVVinfection were found, but marked immunoreactions for MVV capsid antigen (CA, p28)
were detected in lambs fed maternal colostrum and in macrophages cultured from colostrum. IHC results in lambs suggest a initial viral absorption by intestinal epithelial cells at the tip of the villi, passage to mononuclear cells in the lamina propria and involvement of ileum Peyers’ patches and mesenteric lymph nodes, with different staining patterns depending on infection
times. ISH on intestinal sections of the 72 h lamb revealed the presence of proviral DNA in epithelial cells at the tip of the villi,
suggesting a role for these cells in early MVV replication. The results contribute to knowledge about the pathogenesis of ovine lentivirus infection suggesting that the small intestine and mesenteric nodes are the sites of entry and propagation of MVV in lambs fed colostrums from infected ewes
Double-Binding Botulinum Molecule with Reduced Muscle Paralysis: Evaluation in In Vitro and In Vivo Models of Migraine
No full text© 2020, The Author(s). With a prevalence of 15%, migraine is the most common neurological disorder and among the most disabling diseases, taking into account years lived with disability. Current oral medications for migraine show variable effects and are frequently associated with intolerable side effects, leading to the dissatisfaction of both patients and doctors. Injectable therapeutics, which include calcitonin gene–related peptide–targeting monoclonal antibodies and botulinum neurotoxin A (BoNT/A), provide a new paradigm for treatment of chronic migraine but are effective only in approximately 50% of subjects. Here, we investigated a novel engineered botulinum molecule with markedly reduced muscle paralyzing properties which could be beneficial for the treatment of migraine. This stapled botulinum molecule with duplicated binding domain—binary toxin-AA (BiTox/AA)—cleaves synaptosomal-associated protein 25 with a similar efficacy to BoNT/A in neurons; however, the paralyzing effect of BiTox/AA was 100 times less when compared to native BoNT/A following muscle injection. The performance of BiTox/AA was evaluated in cellular and animal models of migraine. BiTox/AA inhibited electrical nerve fiber activity in rat meningeal preparations while, in the trigeminovascular model, BiTox/AA raised electrical and mechanical stimulation thresholds in Aδ- and C-fiber nociceptors. In the rat glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) model, BiTox/AA proved effective in inhibiting GTN-induced hyperalgesia in the orofacial formalin test. We conclude that the engineered botulinum molecule provides a useful prototype for designing advanced future therapeutics for an improved efficacy in the treatment of migraine
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