Suchergebnisse

The plasma specimen is the gold standard for viral load monitoring, the key method to assess the effect of antiviral chemotherapy and to monitor progression of the disease toward AIDS. Nevertheless, several works endorse the use of dried blood spots (DBS) on filter paper for the reliable quantification of the levels needed to take therapeutic decisions, detect of treatment failure and monitor the occurrence of drug resistance. The purpose of this study was to validate the use of Cobas AmpliPrep/Cobas TaqMan HIV‐1 test version 2.0, with DBS. To evaluate the performance of the above mentioned kit, three stages were involved: 1‐ Standardization of DBS working conditions, 2‐ Stability studies at three temperature conditions and 3‐ Performance evaluation of the kit using this alternative specimen. Additionally, the viral load was quantified in parallel (plasma and DBS) to 43 genetically characterized samples, with different levels of viral load. The Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated and the prediction of the value of RNA in plasma starting from the obtained value in DBS was made. Linear regression analysis was performed and coefficients of variation in precision assays were calculated. The best conditions pickups to the work with DBS were: 100 µL of blood (2 spots/50 µl), dried time between 16 and 18 hours at room temperature and, elution of the blood, 2 hours, between 2 and 8°C; in TRIS‐EDTA buffer. The samples on DBS proved to be stable during the study periods. A strong correlation was attained between the measurements of viral load in plasma and DBS samples (r=0.96). The detection rate was 90.7 and the coefficient of variation between the values obtained in plasma‐DBS sample pairs averaged 3.42%. The CAP/CTM HIV‐1 test provided a linear response in DBS, from 330 copies/mL to 420 000 copies/mL. Overall, coefficients of variation in precision tests were below 10%. Cobas AmpliPrep/Cobas TaqMan HIV‐1 test version 2.0 had a good performance using DBS. High detection rate was obtained with DBS specimen. Our results clearly support the use of CAP/CTM HIV‐1 test with DBS, as it reliably quantifies the levels needed for therapeutic decision‐making and detection of treatment failure.

Ponencia presentada en el XIX Congreso Internacional de Acústica (ICA2007), Madrid, 2-7 Sep 2007.-- PACS: 43.60.Hj. ; Structural noise is an important distortion source in ultrasonic images of highly dispersive materials. This noise can considerably mask the flaw signals and cannot be eliminated using standard techniques for noise cancelling like band-pass filtering or temporal averaging. Fortunately, this noise has several characteristics that may help an algorithm designer to develop methods that improve the defect visibility. ; In the literature there exist many techniques for flaw visibility enhancement in the presence of structural noise. However, many of the proposed algorithms do not systematic exploit the above mentioned characteristics. In this work we analyze the structural noise from a point of view of an algorithm developer that seeks parameters that may help to eliminate the noise enhancing the defect visibility. Also, we present several algorithms examples that, using this information, dramatically improve the visibility of the flaw echoes. ; The authors would like to thank the financial support of Spanish Ministry of Science and Education with project DHORAVE BIA2006-15188-C03-01. M. Molero is supported by the Programme Alban, the European Union programme of high level Scholarship for Latin America (E05D055458MX) and The Mexican National Council for Science and Technology Conacyt: (186384). M.G. Hernández is supported by a postdoctoral CSIC-I3P contract granted by the European Social Fund. ; Peer reviewed

Iberian pigs are usually slaughtered at an average body weight (BW) of 160 kg. The free-range, acorn-feeding montanera starts at an average weight of 100 kg, lasts for 2.5-3 months, and pigs gain around 60 kg during this period. During this extensive finishing, the weight gain is mostly based on subcutaneous and intramuscular fat accretion, but other changes in carcass and meat composition may occur as well. This study (made in TREASURE project) evaluated the changes in carcass and meat composition occurred in Iberian pigs between the end of premontanera (pre-finishing period) and the end of montanera, as assessed in animals slaughtered at 110 and 160 kg BW, respectively. Castrate male Iberian pigs (n=45) were randomly assigned to 2 treatments (2 slaughter times) and raised on concentrate up to 110 kg BW. At this point, 15 pigs were slaughtered, and the remaining 30 pigs were finished in montanera with acorns and grass and were slaughtered at an average BW of 158 kg. Carcass and several meat traits were evaluated in both cases. In general, carcass fat (subcutaneous and intramuscular) increased significantly during the finishing period, with the exception of loin weight and area and the outer backfat layer, that remained unchanged after the finishing period. Hip height and ham length did not change, but carcass length increased significantly after finishing. In relation to meat colour, only the b index (blue to yellow) was significantly greater in finished pigs. Regarding backfat fatty acid profiles, PUFA and SFA decreased and MUFA increased significantly after the montanera finishing period, but C18:3 remained unchanged. In conclusion, pre-finishing Iberian pigs (at 110 kg BW) had similar muscle accretion, hip height, outer backfat layer thickness and C18:3 proportion than the finished ones. The BW gain during montanera was essentially based on fat deposition, and finishing increased the proportion of MUFA and decreased that of PUFA and SFA. Funded by European Union's H2020 RIA program (grant agreement no. ...

Ponencia presentada en el XIX Congreso Internacional de Acústica (ICA2007), Madrid, 2-7 Sep 2007.-- PACS: 43.60.Hj ; In ultrasonic non-destructive evaluation of highly scattering materials, detection of flaw echoes is difficult due to the masking effects of the structural noise. This paper presents a method for the reduction of the structural noise on highly scattering aterials. The method consists of a multi-resolution analysis using wavelets and a time-frequency thresholding applied to the approximation coefficients. This threshold is estimated by considering the mean and the standard deviation of the time-frequency energy representation. This method exploits spectral properties of the structural noise and the incoming flaw signal, resulting in a processed signal that maintains the defect pulse shape. In order to validate this strategy, synthetic and experimental signals have been evaluated. The performance of this method is compared with known selection rules as Minimax and Universal threshold. ; The authors would like to thank the financial support of Spanish Ministry of Science and Education with project DHORAVE BIA2006-15188-C03-01. M Molero is supported by the Programme Alban, the European Union programme of high level Scholarship for Latin America (E05D055458MX) and The Mexican National Council for Science and Technology Conacyt: (186384). M.G. Hernández is supported by a postdoctoral CSIC-I3P contract granted by the European Social Fund.

Unlike in modern breeds, the knowledge on performance and management of local pig breeds is very limited. These are key aspects to be developed for their successful exploitation that requires strategies adapted to their specific productive and metabolic characteristics, quite different from those of modern pig breeds, to ensure their preservation and future expansion, particularly for those more endangered. These are some of the challenges addressed by the project TREASURE. For this purpose, a series of experiments involving 11 European local breeds -differing in the level of development- have been carried out covering various and complementary aspects like nutritional requirements in different productive phases (Cinta Senese, Iberian), feeding practices involving locally available resources (Krskopolje, Schwäbisch- Hällisches, Turopolje, Mangalitsa, Bísaro, Iberian, Gascon), and innovative management and housing practices to enhance product quality or improve animal welfare (Cinta Senese, Alentejano, Bisaro, Iberian, Mangalitsa, Moravka, Krskopolje, Schwäbisch-Hällisches, Black Slavonian). All these activities have been designed to obtain essential information to develop future productive strategies for each of the involved breeds, taking into account to obtain local high-quality products, and seeking for optimum pig performance and high animal welfare conditions in the production systems under consideration. The information provided constitutes a unique and valuable set of data for the management of these breeds and the further development of local pork chains. In some cases it is the first available data for the breeds concerned. A general overview of the developed activities will be presented highlighting some of the achievements obtained. Funded by European Union's H2020 RIA program (Grant agreement no. 634476).

The objective of the present study is to evaluate the potential use of FT-NIRS for predicting intramuscular fat (IMF) and fatty acid groups (MUFA; PUFA; PUFA n-3, PUFA n-6; SFA) on pig grounded muscles. The research considered 160 fresh samples of Longissimus collected from 12 European local pig breeds (TREASURE* project). For every sample, lipids were extracted from IMF and fatty acid profile was determinate by gas chromatography. Two aliquots of each sample were scanned using FT-NIRS Antaris II model. Mathematical pre-treatments (multiplicative scatter correction, 1st and 2nd derivate) were applied and outliers' spectra were identified and removed when necessary. Partial least square regression was used on the average spectrum and the models validated using an external data set. Results are evaluated in terms of coefficient of regression and root mean square errors in calibration (R2- RMSE) and validation (Rp2-RMSEP). As expected, the best results were obtained for IMF with R2 higher than 0.99 and RMSE lower than 0.2. Unsaturated fatty acids, probably due to the absorption of the cis double bond in a specific region of near infrared spectra, obtain acceptable R2 (0.89 for MUFA and 0.75 for PUFA n-3 and PUFA n-6). SFA achieved a R2 of 0.81 that is lower than values reported in other studies probably because of the large variability of genotypes used. The validation models achieved both lower coefficients of determination and higher RMSEP than the calibration models; however, R2 differences between calibration and validation were smaller than 5%, except for SFA. Hence, the FT-NIRS seems promising to estimate the principal parameters of fatty acid groups on muscle samples from different European autochthonous pig breeds. Inclusion of other samples can improve the accuracy and the robustness of the models, especially considering the high variability of the samples. *Funded by European Union's H2020 program (grant agreement No 634476).