by Gabriela Ferreira Siano, Camila Stefanie Fonseca de Oliveira, Felipe Gaia de Sousa, Suzane Lilian Beier, Adriane Pimenta da Costa-Val Animal welfare encompasses the overall well-being of an animal, spanning both its physical and mental health, assessable through potential measurements. It stands in contrast to mistreatment, which involves actions, direct or indirect, that endanger an animal’s well-being. This study sought to appraise the factors influencing the Brazilian population’s understanding of dog welfare and mistreatment. The survey questions were adapted from the Animal Welfare Exa ..read more

by HongYe Tan, Xin Jing Using the panel data of 31 provinces in China between 2000 and 2018, this study theoretically and empirically analyses the impact of environmental regulations on the adjustment of the agriculture industrial structure from the perspectives of rationalisation and optimisation. Overall, variability in the impact of environmental regulation on the adjustment of the agricultural industrial structure is identified: a negative influence on the rationalisation of agricultural industrial structure and a positive influence on the optimisation of agricultural industrial structure ..read more

by Yu-Hui Wang, Dina Espinoza Rivera, William Klobasa, Marcé D. Lorenzen The corn planthopper, Peregrinus maidis, is an economically important pest of corn and sorghum. Here we report the initial steps towards developing a CRISPR-based control method, precision guided sterile insect technique (pgSIT), for this hemipteran pest. Specifically, we evaluated the potential of transformer-2 (tra-2) as a target for sterilizing insects. First, we identified tra-2 transcripts within our P. maidis transcriptome database and performed RNA interference (RNAi) to confirm functional conservation. RNAi-mediat ..read more

by Isaura Y. A. Wayop, Emely de Vet, Joanne N. Leerlooijer, Jaap A. Wagenaar, David C. Speksnijder Streptococcus suis (S. suis) infections in weaned pigs are common and responsible for a high consumption of antimicrobials, and their presence is assumed to be multi-factorial. A specific evidence-based veterinary guideline to support the control of S. suis in weaned pigs was developed for veterinary practitioners in the Netherlands in 2014. Adherence to the S. suis clinical practice guideline helps veterinary practitioners to prevent and control the disease in a systematical approach and thereby ..read more

by Nathalie N. Roschke, Karl H. Hillebrandt, Dietrich Polenz, Oliver Klein, Joseph M. G. V. Gassner, Johann Pratschke, Felix Krenzien, Igor M. Sauer, Nathanael Raschzok, Simon Moosburner Background Considering the expected increase in the elderly population and the growing emphasis on aging-related biomedical research, the demand for aged laboratory animals has surged, challenging established husbandry practices. Our objective was to establish a cost-effective method for environmental enrichment, utilizing the liver as a representative organ to assess potential metabolic changes in response to ..read more

by Areeqa Shamshad, Muhammad Rashid, Amjad Hameed, Hafiz Muhammad Imran Arshad Brown spot caused by Bipolaris oryzae is a major damaging fungal disease of rice which can decrease the yield and value of produce due to grain discoloration. The objectives of the current study were to investigate and understand the biochemical indices of brown spot disease resistance in rice. A total of 108 genotypes (mutant and hybrid) along with Super Basmati and parent RICF-160 were evaluated against brown spot disease. The genotypes exhibiting resistant and susceptible responses to brown spot disease according ..read more

by Md. Ripaj Uddin, Mayeen Uddin Khandaker, Shamim Ahmed, Md Jainal Abedin, Syed Md. Minhaz Hossain, Muhammad Abdullah Al Mansur, Shakila Akter, Md. Ahedul Akbor, AHM Shofiul Islam Molla Jamal, Mohammed M. Rahman, Mohsin Kazi, Md. Abu Bakar Siddique, Abubakr M. Idris Saltwater intrusion in the coastal areas of Bangladesh is a prevalent phenomenon. However, it is not conducive to activities such as irrigation, navigation, fish spawning and shelter, and industrial usage. The present study analyzed 45 water samples collected from 15 locations in coastal areas during three seasons: monsoon, pre-mo ..read more

by Omayma Abidi, Zaineb Abdelkafi-Koubaa, Ilhem Bettaieb-Dridi, Lamjed Toumi, Lamjed Marzouki, Ouajdi Souilem Inflammation and oxidative stress are two interconnected processes that play a role in cancer development and progression. In the present research, we aimed to evaluate the anticancer effect of Pistacia lentiscus L. (PL) essential oil (EO) in vitro against MCF-7 breast cancer cells and in vivo in DMBA-mammary cancer induction on female C57BL/6 mice model as well as to investigate its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant potential as implicated mechanism. Our results revealed a new chemoty ..read more

by Peter Hobbelen, Thomas Hagenaars, Michal Peri Markovich, Michel Bellaiche, Armando Giovannini, Fabrizio De Massis, Aline de Koeijer Human salmonellosis cases are often caused by Salmonella serovars Enteritidis and Typhimurium and associated with the consumption of eggs and egg products. Many countries therefore implemented general surveillance programmes on pullet and layer farms. The identification of risk factors for Salmonella infection may be used to improve the performance of these surveillance programmes. The aims of this study were therefore to determine 1) whether local farm density ..read more

by Jessica L. Couture, Darcy Bradley, Benjamin S. Halpern, Steven D. Gaines The global population consumes more seafood from aquaculture today than from capture fisheries and although the aquaculture industry continues to grow, both seafood sectors will continue to be important to the global food supply into the future. As farming continues to expand into ocean systems, understanding how wild populations and fisheries will interact with farms will be increasingly important to informing sustainable ocean planning and management. Using a spatially explicit population and fishing model we simulat ..read more