Genetic parameters for different types of medullated fibre in Alpacas.

The quality of alpaca textile fibre has great potential, especially if objectionable fibres (coarse and medullated fibres) that cause itching are reduced, considering that objectionable fibres can be identified by diameter and medullation types. The objective of this study was to estimate genetic parameters for medullar types and their respective diameters to evaluate the possibility of incorporating them as selection criteria in alpaca breeding programmes. The research used 3149 alpaca fibre samples collected from 2020 to 2022, from a population of 1626 Huacaya type alpacas.

Genetic parameters for fleece uniformity in alpacas.

Fiber diameter is the main selection objective and criterion in alpaca breeding programs, but it can vary across anatomic regions of the animal. As fiber diameter is usually registered from a unique sample from the mid side of the body, fiber diameter variability within fleece is never addressed and phenotypic and genetic differences may exist for fleece uniformity in alpaca populations. The objective of this work was to estimate the genetic parameters of fleece uniformity in an alpaca population.

Colorimetry analysis of coat color and its relationship with fiber traits in alpacas.

Addressing the improvement of the textile characteristics is currently required in natural color production of alpaca fiber. This study analyses the possibility of implementing a genetic improvement program aiming to reduce the fiber diameter and the percentage of medullation in natural colors under the incomplete definition of the natural colors of alpaca fiber. The study considers color determination analysis in three separate steps.

Foreign body aspiration in children: Treatment timing and related complications.

Background/purpose: The aims of this study were to describe our experience in the management of FB aspiration in children, focusing on the eventual association between delay in treatment and the development of complications, and to determine if the incidence of this emergency had decreased in the last 10 years.

Methods: Retrospective study of children with a diagnosis of FB aspiration managed between 1999 and 2019 at a tertiary care referral hospital. The following data were collected: demographics, clinical presentation, radiological findings, endoscopic technique, type of FB, time elapsed between the aspiration episode and treatment, and complications.

Calving date and its variability as a potential trait in the breeding objective to account for reproductive seasonality in alpacas.

The low fertility and offspring survival indicators in alpacas can be partially due to their particularity seasonal reproduction that reduces the opportunities of the females to become pregnant within a season, with the survival of the offspring concerned by the availability of food and exposure to diseases that depends on the calving date. Optimizing the date of delivery and reducing its variability are shown as eligible criteria that could be used as selection criteria within the genetic improvement programmes in alpacas, the calving date being a much more appropriate trait to measure and optimize fertility unlike of age at first calving and the calving interval, this due to the reproductive seasonality in camelids. For this study, 6,533 birth date records were taken between 2001 and 2018 of Peruvian alpacas, to estimate the genetic parameters.

Genetic parameters for medullated fiber and its relationship with other productive traits in alpacas.

The alpaca fiber diameter (FD) varies from 18 to 36 μm, being the finer fiber categories highly appreciated. However, the alpaca fiber presents some limitations in the textile industry due to the high incidence of fiber medullation and diameter variability, both reduces the comfort feeling of the garments. Decreasing or even removing medullation could be a possible selection objective in alpaca breeding programs for increasing economic value of the alpaca fiber.

Genetic parameters estimation for preweaning traits and their relationship with reproductive, productive and morphological traits in alpaca.

The aim of this study was to estimate the genetic parameters for preweaning traits and their relationship with reproductive, productive and morphological traits in alpacas. The data were collected from 2001 to 2015 in the Pacomarca experimental farm. The data set contained data from 4330 females and 3788 males corresponding to 6396 and 1722 animals for Huacaya and Suri variants, respectively.

Initial experience with a new biodegradable airway stent in children: Is this the stent we were waiting for?

Objective: To report our experience with a new type of biodegradable airway stent in the setting of severe tracheobronchial obstruction in children.

Design And Methodology: We conducted a retrospective and prospective (since June 2014) study of pediatric patients with severe airway obstruction treated with biodegradable stents in our institution between 2012 and 2015. The following data were collected: demographics, indication for stenting, bronchoscopic findings, insertion technique complications, clinical outcome, stent related complications, re-stenting, and time of follow-up.

Estimation of genetic parameters for reproductive traits in alpacas.

One of the main deficiencies affecting animal breeding programs in Peruvian alpacas is the low reproductive performance leading to low number of animals available to select from, decreasing strongly the selection intensity. Some reproductive traits could be improved by artificial selection, but very few information about genetic parameters exists for these traits in this specie. The aim of this study was to estimate genetic parameters for six reproductive traits in alpacas both in Suri (SU) and Huacaya (HU) ecotypes, as well as their genetic relationship with fiber and morphological traits.

Weighting fibre and morphological traits in a genetic index for an alpaca breeding programme.

Nowadays, the fibre diameter (FD) is considered the main selection objective in alpaca populations all over the world. International Committee for Animal Recording recommendations define the FD and its CV as the first two traits to be considered in breeding programmes for this specie. In addition to these main criteria, other selection criteria of economic value used are comfort factor (CF) or standard deviation (s.

[Cardiovascular and respiratory changes during laparoscopy in neonates and infants].

The pneumoperitoneum induced during laparoscopy has cardiovascular and respiratory effects that have to be taken into account to perform laparoscopic procedures in neonates and small infants. The aim of this paper is to describe the hemodynamic and ventilatory changes that occur in a group of these patients undergoing standard laparoscopic procedure. We performed a retrospective review of patients undergoing laparoscopic pyloromyotomy in our institution.

Assessment of NER solutions against the first and second CALBC Silver Standard Corpus.

Background: Competitions in text mining have been used to measure the performance of automatic text processing solutions against a manually annotated gold standard corpus (GSC). The preparation of the GSC is time-consuming and costly and the final corpus consists at the most of a few thousand documents annotated with a limited set of semantic groups. To overcome these shortcomings, the CALBC project partners (PPs) have produced a large-scale annotated biomedical corpus with four different semantic groups through the harmonisation of annotations from automatic text mining solutions, the first version of the Silver Standard Corpus (SSC-I).

[Laparoscopy as diagnostic-therapeutic method in abdominal traumatism in the pediatric age].

The management of blunt abdominal traumatism with a moderate amount of free peritoneal fluid and without solid organ injury as well as the one of minimal penetrating trauma is controversial. We present three cases of blunt abdominal trauma and two of penetrating trauma that underwent diagnostic laparoscopy in our department. We found a small bowel perforation in one of the cases of blunt trauma that was repaired by externalization of the jejuna loop by one of the ports.

Genetic parameters for growth of fiber diameter in alpacas.

The alpaca is the most important fiber producer of the South American camelid species, and is an important source of income for the Andean communities. Nowadays, fiber diameter is considered the main selection objective in alpaca populations throughout the world. However, fiber diameter increases with the age of the animals, and it would be preferable to select those animals that maintain a thin fiber throughout their life span.

[Minimally invasive surgery in pediatric patients with ventriculo-peritoneal shunts].

The use of laparoscopy in patients with ventriculo-peritoneal shunts has been controversial. There is concern about the risk malfunction or infection of the shunt as well as about the possibility of adhesions that could make the surgical procedures too difficult to be undertaken by minimally invasive surgery. We present our results in pediatric patients with ventriculoperitoneal shunts that have undergone laparoscopic procedures in our department.

Analysis of the existence of major genes affecting alpaca fiber traits.

The aim of this study was to determine the presence of major genes for fiber diameter (FD), SD of FD (SDFD), CV of FD, and comfort factor (CF) in Huacaya (HU) and Suri (SU) Peruvian alpaca breeds. Bayesian segregation analyses with relaxed transmission probabilities were performed using 1,906 and 6,592 available records for SU and HU breeds. Evidence for the presence of major genes was statistically supported when the 95% posterior density did not include zero.

Preconcentration speciation method for mercury compounds in water samples using solid phase extraction followed by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography.

A simple and rapid method for in situ preconcentration of inorganic and organic mercury compounds in water samples, based on solid phase extraction using dithizone immobilised on a reversed-phase C18 cartridge, has been developed. The adsorbed complexes were stable on the cartridge for at least 2 weeks. The speciation analysis of methylmercury (MeHg), phenylmercury (PhHg) and inorganic mercury (Hg (II)) were done by reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography.

Isotope dilution-thermal ionisation mass spectrometric analysis for tin in a fly ash material.

Isotope dilution-thermal ionisation mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS) analysis has been applied to the determination of tin in a fly ash sample supplied by the EC Joint Research Centre (Ispra, Italy). The proposed procedure includes the silica gel/phosphoric acid technique for tin thermal ionisation activation and a strict heating protocol for isotope ratio measurements. Instrumental mass discrimination factor has been previously determined measuring a natural tin standard solution.

Mercury and trace element fractionation in Almaden soils by application of different sequential extraction procedures.

A comparative evaluation of the mercury distribution in a soil sample from Almaden (Spain) has been performed by applying three different sequential extraction procedures, namely, modified BCR (three steps in sequence), Di Giulio-Ryan (four steps in sequence), and a specific SEP developed at CIEMAT (six steps in sequence). There were important differences in the mercury extraction results obtained by the three procedures according to the reagents applied and the sequence of their application. These findings highlight the difficulty of setting a universal SEP to obtain information on metal fractions of different mobility for any soil sample, as well as the requirement for knowledge about the mineralogical and chemical characteristics of the samples.

High prevalence of non-HFE gene-associated haemochromatosis in patients from southern Italy.

Hereditary haemochromatosis is an autosomal recessive disorder of iron regulation that results in abnormal intestinal iron absorption with progressive iron overloading of parenchymal cells. Two specific, single point mutations of the HFE gene (C282Y and H63D) have been described in haemochromatosis patients. Epidemiological studies have revealed a strict association between hereditary haemochromatosis and C282Y homozygosis or C282Y/H63D compound heterozygosis, suggesting that these mutations may provide a useful tool for diagnosis.

Measurement of spleen volume by ultrasound scanning in patients with thrombocytosis: a prospective study.

Spleen size was assessed in 73 patients with thrombocytosis and in 15 healthy subjects, comparing palpation with ultrasonography (US) measurement of longitudinal diameter and volume. Intraobserver and interobserver variability for volume on US, checked in 12 patients, was very low. Correlation between spleen volume measured by US and that measured by computed tomography was excellent.

EDTA-dependent pseudothrombocytopenia in a case of liver cirrhosis.

Pseudothrombocytopenia (PTCP) is the consequence of an EDTA-activated platelet agglutination, resulting in a spuriously low platelet count. We report the case of a 54-year-old man with EDTA-dependent PTCP associated with liver cirrhosis. He couldn't undergo endoscopic examination and dental care for two years because of a previous diagnosis of severe thrombocytopenia secondary to liver cirrhosis.