The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) officially reports low coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) prevalence. This cross-sectional study, conducted between September and November 2021, assessed the COVID-19 seroprevalence in people attending Goma’s two largest markets, Kituku and Virunga. A similar study in a slum of Bukavu overlapped for 1 month using identical methods. COVID-19-unvaccinated participants (n = 796 including 454 vendors and 342 customers, 60% of whom were women) were surveyed. The median age of vendors and customers was 34.2 and 30.1 years, respectively. The crude and adjusted anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroprevalence rates were 70.2% (95% CI 66.9–73.4%) and 98.8% (95% CI 94.1–100%), respectively, with no difference between vendors and customers. COVID-19 symptoms reported by survey participants in the previous 6 months were mild or absent in 58.9% and 41.1% of participants with anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, respectively. No COVID-19-seropositive participants reported hospitalisation in the last 6 months. These findings are consistent with those reported in Bukavu. They confirm that SARS-CoV-2 spread without causing severe symptoms in densely populated settlements and markets and suggest that many COVID-19 cases went unreported. Based on these results, the relevance of an untargeted hypothetical vaccination programme in these communities should be questioned.

Our objective was to measure the efficacy of ivermectin (IVM) and benzimidazoles (BZ, i.e. fenbendazole and albendazole) in 15 cattle farms in western France and southern Italy. A total of 11 groups were treated with IVM and 11 with BZ. Efficacy was assessed by calculating the percentage of faecal egg count reduction (%FECR) using the pre- and post-treatment arithmetic means. Anthelmintic resistance was considered to be present when the %FECR was <95% and the lower limit of the 95% confidence interval <90%. For IVM, the percentages of FECR ranged from 73% to 100%. Lack of efficacy to IVM was detected in two farms out of four in France, but was not detected in any of the seven farms in Italy. For BZ, the percentages of FECR ranged from 95% to 100%. No case of BZ resistance was detected in the five farms in France and the six farms in Italy.

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is the agent of the most common sexually transmitted diseases causing a variety of clinical manifestations ranging from warts to cancer. Oncogenic HPV infection is the major cause of cervical cancer and less frequently of penile cancers. Its presence in semen is widely known, but the effects on fertility are still controversial. We developed a new approach to evaluate virus localisation in the different semen components. We analysed also the specific genotype localisation and viral DNA quantity by qPCR. Results show that HPV DNA can be identified in every fraction of semen: spermatozoa, somatic cells and seminal plasma. Different samples can contain the HPV DNA in different fractions and several HPV genotypes can be found in the same fraction. Additionally, different fractions may contain multiple HPV genotypes in different relative quantity. We analysed the wholeness of HPV DNA in sperm cells by qPCR. In one sample more than half of viral genomes were defective, suggesting a possible recombination event. The new method allows to easily distinguish different sperm infections and to observe the possible effects on semen. The data support the proposed role of HPV in decreased fertility and prompt new possible consequences of the infection in semen.

Standard feeds are imbalanced in term of n-6/n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) ratio, with a low proportion of the latter. The reproductive system appears to be strongly affected by administration of n-3 PUFA, and ingredients rich in α-linolenic acid (ALA; i.e. vegetable sources) or EPA and DHA acids (i.e. fish oil) can be included in animal diets to balance PUFA intake. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation with flaxseed (ALA) or fish oil (EPA and DHA) on PUFA metabolism in rabbit does. A total of 60 New Zealand White female rabbits were assigned to three experimental groups: control group, FLAX group fed 10% extruded flaxseed and FISH group fed 3% fish oil. Blood, milk, liver and ovaries were collected from the does to assess the lipid composition; furthermore, FADS2 gene expression was assessed in liver and ovary tissues. Reproductive performance of does was also recorded. The fertility rate and number of weaned rabbits improved with n-3 dietary supplementation: does at first parity showed the lowest reproductive results, but the administration of n-3 reduced the gap between primiparous and multiparous does. Feed consumption and milk production were not affected by the feeding regime. The fatty acid composition of milk, plasma, liver and ovaries were widely influenced by diet, showing higher concentrations of n-3 long-chain PUFA (LCP) in does fed with n-3 enriched diets. FISH diet resulted in the highest n-3 LCP enrichment, whereas in the FLAX group, this increase was lower. Blood and milk showed low levels of LCP, whereas liver and ovaries were the main sites of n-3 LCP synthesis and accumulation. Accordingly, although the liver is the main metabolic centre for LCP synthesis, ovaries also have a prominent role in LCP generation. FADS2 expression in liver and ovary tissue was downregulated by FISH administration. In conclusion, the enrichment of diets with n-3 PUFA could be an effective strategy for improving the reproductive performance of does.

We analyzed the role played by theory of mind (ToM) in children's ability to recognize and repair different kinds of communicative failures. In particular, we analyzed three different kinds of communicative failures: failure of the expression act, communicative meaning, and communicative effect. We administered videotaped stories, in which people act out a communicative failure and first- and second-order ToM tasks, to 120 children ranging in age from 3.5 to 8.5 years. The children showed a trend of increasing difficulty in managing the communicative failures investigated. Moreover, children's ToM ability is partially correlated with recognition and repair of a communicative task; however, it is not able to explain the trend of difficulty we detected. We suggest that the factor better explaining such trend is the increasing complexity of the mental representations underlying the three different kinds of failures.

This paper describes experimentally, numerically and theoretically how the three-dimensional instabilities of a cylinder wake are modified by the presence of a linear density stratification. The first part is focused on the case of a cylinder with a small tilt angle between the cylinder’s axis and the vertical. The classical mode A well-known for a homogeneous fluid is still present. It is more unstable for moderate stratifications but it is stabilized by a strong stratification. The second part treats the case of a moderate tilt angle. For moderate stratifications, a new unstable mode appears, mode S, characterized by undulated layers of strong density gradients and axial flow. These structures correspond to Kelvin–Helmholtz billows created by the strong shear present in the critical layer of each tilted von Kármán vortex. The last two parts deal with the case of a strongly tilted cylinder. For a weak stratification, an instability (mode RT) appears far from the cylinder, due to the overturning of the isopycnals by the von Kármán vortices. For a strong stratification, a short wavelength unstable mode (mode L) appears, even in the absence of von Kármán vortices. It is probably due to the strong shear created by the lee waves upstream of a secondary recirculation bubble. A map of the four different unstable modes is established in terms of the three parameters of the study: the Reynolds number, the Froude number (characterizing the stratification) and the tilt angle.

Previous studies on children's pragmatic abilities have tended to focus on just one pragmatic phenomenon and one expressive means at a time, mainly concentrating on comprehension, and overlooking the production side. We assessed both comprehension and production in relation to several pragmatic phenomena (simple and complex standard communication acts, irony, and deceit) and several expressive means (linguistic, extralinguistic, paralinguistic). Our study involved 390 Italian-speaking children divided into three age groups: 5;0–5;6, 6;6–7;0, and 8;0–8;6. Children's performance on all tasks improved with their age. Within each age group, children responded more accurately to tasks involving standard communication than to those involving deceit and irony, across all expressive means and for both comprehension and production. Within each pragmatic phenomenon, children responded more accurately to simple acts than to complex ones, regardless of age group and expressive means, i.e., linguistic or extralinguistic. Overall results fit well with the Cognitive Pragmatics theory (Bara, 2010).

To monitor inflammation in a meaningful way, the markers used must be valid: they must reflect the inflammatory process under study and they must be predictive of future health status. In 2009, the Nutrition and Immunity Task Force of the International Life Sciences Institute, European Branch, organized an expert group to attempt to identify robust and predictive markers, or patterns or clusters of markers, which can be used to assess inflammation in human nutrition studies in the general population. Inflammation is a normal process and there are a number of cells and mediators involved. These markers are involved in, or are produced as a result of, the inflammatory process irrespective of its trigger and its location and are common to all inflammatory situations. Currently, there is no consensus as to which markers of inflammation best represent low-grade inflammation or differentiate between acute and chronic inflammation or between the various phases of inflammatory responses. There are a number of modifying factors that affect the concentration of an inflammatory marker at a given time, including age, diet and body fatness, among others. Measuring the concentration of inflammatory markers in the bloodstream under basal conditions is probably less informative compared with data related to the concentration change in response to a challenge. A number of inflammatory challenges have been described. However, many of these challenges are poorly standardised. Patterns and clusters may be important as robust biomarkers of inflammation. Therefore, it is likely that a combination of multiple inflammatory markers and integrated readouts based upon kinetic analysis following defined challenges will be the most informative biomarker of inflammation.

In this work, thin films of Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)-based materials were tested as potential candidates for mid-IR transparent contacts on Te-doped GaSb and Si-doped InAs semiconductor wafers. Since these contacts are devoted to be inserted in Sb-based devices which are generally MBE-grown at ∼450°C, low-temperature fabrication processes were particularly tested with a maximum temperature of annealing of 400°C. 50 nm-thick ITO films were deposited on glass, Te-doped GaSb and Si-doped InAs wafers and resistivity of 8.10−4 Ω.cm combined with ∼80% of transmittance at 2 μm and ohmic contacts with a specific resistance of 3.10−4 Ω.cm2 were obtained. Then, in order to improve these properties in the mid-IR, other ITO-based materials were tested: In doped ZnO (IZO) and Zn doped ITO (ITZO). The first results obtained on these materials show that the insertion of 10% of Zn in classical ITO structure results in a degradation of the electrical properties of the layer without a real impact on its optical transmittance near 2 μm. Concerning IZO, a large improvement of the transmittance in the whole visible-mid-IR wavelength range was observed for annealed samples at a temperature as low as 350°C. However, the electrical resistivity appears very sensible to the temperature of annealing.

The objective was to describe the physicochemical changes during the early phase of subclinical mastitis and to associate them with pathological findings. A Mannheimia haemolytica strain was deposited into one teat duct of 25 ewes and the clinical, bacteriological, cytological, physicochemical (pH, milk composition), gross-pathological and histological findings were subsequently recorded. The organism was consistently isolated from samples of teat duct material (140/150) but not from mammary secretion (50/150). California Mastitis Test (CMT) scores increased (>1) and remained high (143/150 samples) after challenge; polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN) predominated in milk films, but the proportion of lymphocytes and macrophages progressively increased. Increased pH values (>7·0) were recorded in the mammary secretion from the challenged side. Furthermore, content of fat, total proteins and lactose therein decreased markedly. Histological changes (leucocytic infiltration, destruction of epithelial cells) were observed in the mammary parenchyma of the ewes. The present results confirm that the reduction of milk constituents is the effect of cellular damage and can occur soon after infection.

ArcelorMittal Monlevade is an integrated plant with sinter plant,blast furnace, BOF, ladle furnace, continuous caster, and rolling mill,with a capacity of 1.2 million tpy. During the last years, Monlevadehas been raising the ladle free open index through refractory qualityimprovement and standardization of operational parameters. The mainactions were changing of the geometry of ladle well block and nozzle,use of two-layer sand, and control of sand residence time before BOFtapping. Based on these facts, the ladle free open index has increasedfrom 98.5 to 99.8% from 2002 to 2006.

We used a Mannheimia haemolytica isolate to study differences in susceptibility to experimental mastitis between two breeds of dairy sheep. The isolate was deposited into the teat duct of Karagouniko (K, n=8) or Frisarta (F, n=8) ewes. The animals were monitored by means of clinical, bacteriological, cytological and pathological methods. K ewes did not develop any systemic or mammary clinical signs, whilst F ewes became ill and developed acute clinical mastitis 12 h later (P<0·001). Bacteria were isolated from 34/48 samples from K ewes and from 46/46 samples from F ewes. Positive California mastitis test (CMT) results were 17/24 samples from K ewes and 23/23 samples from F ewes; leucocytes were seen in Giemsa-stained films. Total pathology score summed over all group K ewes was 41 (maximum possible: 128); Man. haemolytica was isolated from 12/24 tissue samples. Total pathology score summed over all group F ewes was 93; Man. haemolytica was isolated from 24/24 tissue samples. Hyperplastic lymphoid nodules consisting of lymphocytes and plasma cells with germinal activity were characteristically present at the border between teat duct–teat cistern of group K ewes; no such structures were observed in teats of group F ewes. The results identified differences in susceptibility/resistance to a mastitis pathogen among animals of the two breeds. Defence mechanisms of the teat appeared to be inadequate against the invading organisms; as lymphoid nodules have been considered important defensive mechanisms of the ovine teat, their observed lack in Frisarta ewes might have predisposed them to development of mastitis.

Efficacy of oestrous synchronization and post-treatment fertility was studied in a herd of 149 dairy goats (Swiss breed no. = 104, indigenous Greek breed no. = 45) kept under an extensive farming system. All does were synchronized during the transitional period (during July prior to the breeding season) using fluorogestone acetate (FGA) impregnated intra-vaginal sponges, equine chorionic gonadotropin (eCG) and different prostaglandin F2a (PGF2α) analogues. Four doses of prostaglandin F2a (group 1: 4·5 mg luprostiol; group 2: 2·25 mg luprostiol; group 3: 0·2 mg cloprostenol; group 4: 0·1 mg cloprostenol) were administered i. m. 48 h prior to the end of progestagen treatment and 400 IU eCG was administered at sponge removal. All does were inseminated with fresh semen (300 ✕ 106 spermatozoa per insemination) 42 to 44 h after sponge removal. There were no significant differences (P > 0·05) in the number of goats showing ovarian activity (blood progesterone concentration ³ 1 ng/ml) prior to oestrous synchronization between PGF2α treatment groups. No significant differences (P > 0·05) were observed for the kidding rates between the treatment groups. Our results indicate that goats with ovarian activity prior to sponge application who received high doses of PGF2α showed lower conception rates than those detected in anoestrus (P 0·05). No differences (P 0·05) were observed in conception rates between groups that received lower doses of PGF2α. July is considered to be a transitional period suitable for oestrous synchronization for both Swiss and indigenous dairy goats. Natural mating during the two subsequent cycles after artificial insemination improved kidding rate, but without any significant difference either between treated groups or between Swiss and indigenous breeds.

Rapidly solidified Au80Fe20 ribbons were prepared either by melt spinning or by solidstate quenching of a homogenised master alloy. The as-quenched sample displays a paramagnetic behavior indicating a perfect solid solution of Fe in the Au matrix. Subsequent anneals have been performed to induce the precipitation of Fe particles. X-ray diffraction technique have been exploited to determine the alloy microstructure. The structural stability have been studied by measuring electrical properties in isothermal and tempering condition. The variation of magnetisation and electrical resistance have been measured after submitting the samples to plastic deformation. A logarithmic relaxation of the electrical resistance is observed in all studied samples after deformation. Magnetic hysteresis loops have been measured in as-quenched and annealed samples at different temperatures. X-ray diffraction and magnetic measurements indicate that thermal treatments have been successful in inducing the precipitation of both bcc and fcc Fe clusters.

The metabolic pathways of dietary fatty acids were studied in rabbits by analysing the fatty acid profile of different tissues (liver, perirenal fat, longissimus lumborum muscle). Four groups of 24 hybrid males each were assigned to four semi-purified diets, varying in the source oflipids which differed in n-3/n-6 ratios: 180 g/kg sunflower (S), 80 g/kg flaxseed + 90 g/kg sunflower (SF), 160 g/kg flaxseed (F) and 60 g/kg fish oil (FI). The liver showed a very important rôle in fatty acid syntheses and was the tissue richest in long-chain (≥20 C) polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCP) of n-3 and n-6 series. The S diet gave the highest mono-unsaturated fatty acids and n-6 LCP (respectively, 201·9 and 384·9 g/kg, P < 0·01) also showing a clear antagonism v. n-3 LCP; the FI diet determined the highest enrichment of n-3 LCP (179·5 g/kg, P < 0·01). a-linolenic acid was efficiently converted into n-3 LCP mainly when п-ЗІп-6 ratio was high (Σn-3/С20: 4n-6: 2·74 and 3.61, P < 0·01 in flaxseed and fish-oil diet, respectively). The same trend occurred in the muscle but in a less consistent way. The adipose tissue more closely reflected the composition of the dietary fatty acids, showing variations mainly concerning polyunsaturated fatty acids (S diet), and LCP n-3 (FI diet: 44·9 g/kg, P < 0·01). Results showed the possibility of modifying the fatty acid profile of rabbit meat by dietary means and that the n-3/n-6 ratio of the food is crucial in regulating the relative presence of LCP n-3 or n-6 in meat products.