Animal health surveillance enables the detection and control of animal diseases including zoonoses. Under the EU-FP7 project RISKSUR, a survey was conducted in 11 EU Member States and Switzerland to describe active surveillance components in 2011 managed by the public or private sector and identify gaps and opportunities. Information was collected about hazard, target population, geographical focus, legal obligation, management, surveillance design, risk-based sampling, and multi-hazard surveillance. Two countries were excluded due to incompleteness of data. Most of the 664 components targeted cattle (26·7%), pigs (17·5%) or poultry (16·0%). The most common surveillance objectives were demonstrating freedom from disease (43·8%) and case detection (26·8%). Over half of components applied risk-based sampling (57·1%), but mainly focused on a single population stratum (targeted risk-based) rather than differentiating between risk levels of different strata (stratified risk-based). About a third of components were multi-hazard (37·3%). Both risk-based sampling and multi-hazard surveillance were used more frequently in privately funded components. The study identified several gaps (e.g. lack of systematic documentation, inconsistent application of terminology) and opportunities (e.g. stratified risk-based sampling). The greater flexibility provided by the new EU Animal Health Law means that systematic evaluation of surveillance alternatives will be required to optimize cost-effectiveness.

The impact of fibre level and fibre source on digestibility, gastrointestinal tract (GIT) development, total tract mean retention time (MRT) and growth performance was studied in indigenous Mong Cai (MC) and exotic Landrace × Yorkshire (LY) pigs. The diets were based on maize, rice bran, soyabean meal, fish meal and soyabean oil, and cassava residue (CR) or brewer's grain (BG) as fibrous ingredient sources in the high-fibre diets (HF) and were fed ad libitum. A low-fibre diet (LF), containing around 200 g NDF/kg dry matter (DM), was formulated without CR and BG as feed ingredients. The HF diets (HF-CR and HF-BG) were formulated to contain around 270 g NDF/kg DM. The experiment was arranged as a 2 × 3 factorial completely randomized design with six replications, and lasted 27 days. Increased dietary fibre level resulted in a reduction (P < 0.05) in average daily gain, digestibility of organic matter (OM), CP and gross energy (GE) at the ileum and in the total tract, and in MRT, and an increase (P < 0.05) in the feed conversion ratio and in the weight of the GIT (except for small intestine and caecum). The coefficients of total tract digestibility of fibre fractions were higher in HF diets than in the LF diet, with highest values for diet HF-CR, which had a high proportion of soluble non-starch polysaccharides. MC pigs had longer MRT of digesta than LY pigs (P < 0.05), resulting in higher digestibility at the ileum and in the total tract. Across diets and breeds, the total tract apparent digestibility of OM, CP and GE was positively related (R2 = 0.80 to 0.84) to the MRT of solids, whereas the MRT was negatively related to the DM intake (R2 = 0.60).

The Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory is developing a low-emittance thermionic gun for a proposed X-ray free-electron laser oscillator (XFEL-O) that will use a laser pulse-heated cathode. The cathode must operate at or slightly above 1500 °C for several nanoseconds and then cool down several hundred °C in approximately the same amount of time, with a 1-MHz heating–cooling cycle. A transient thermal analysis was performed to optimize the laser pulse shape needed to provide the desired temperature response of the cathode for several possible cathode materials. In addition, thermal stresses developed in the cathode during heating–cooling cycles were analysed. Both transient thermal analysis and thermal stress computations were performed using the ANSYS12 code. The computed temperature distribution and thermal stresses were utilized in the optimization of the cathode design. The results of the analysis are presented.

An enzyme immunoassay, with phenol–water-extracted lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from Brucella abortus as antigen, was used to detect the class-specific antibody response in sera from 173 patients with B. abortus, B. melitensis or B. suis infection. Sera from 30 patients with salmonellosis, yersiniosis or tularaemia and from 25 healthy individuals served as controls. The B. abortus LPS antigen permitted a safe diagnosis of acute and chronic brucellosis with high IgM and rising IgG titres in sera collected in the acute stage of the disease, and with elevated IgG titres only in the chronic stage. The B. abortus LPS antigen also permitted a specific diagnosis with the exception of the high titres estimated in sera from patients with Yersinia enterocolitica 09 infection. The problem with that well-known reciprocal cross-reactivity was overcome by using two additional antigens: Y. enterocolitica 09 native and periodate oxidized and borohydride reduced LPS preparations. In sera from patients with brucellosis high titres were estimated against all three antigens, whereas in sera from patients with yersiniosis caused by serotype 09 high titres were measurable only with the B. abortus and the Y. enterocolitica native LPS antigens. These data suggest that the B. abortus and Y. enterocolitica 09 LPS share one antigenic determinant resistant to periodate oxidation and borohydride reduction, and that in addition the Y. enterocolitica 09 LPS has a determinant which is sensitive to periodate oxidation and borohydride reduction.

The aim of this study was to elucidate the regulatory responses and the long-term effect of praziquantel treatment in chronically Schistosoma bovis-infected West African Dwarf goats. Forty-two goats were used and the design comprised a primary infection followed by treatment at week 13, challenge infection at week 36 and termination at week 52. Dependent variables included clinico-pathological data, worm numbers, faecal and tissue egg counts, and gross pathology of the liver. The results showed that primary infections remained suppressed for up to 52 weeks and, although challenge infections imposed on 36-week-old primary infections established fully, the impairment of their egg production capacity provided protection against clinico-pathological consequences measured by body weight and haemoglobin levels. The study also confirmed a high efficacy (97·7%) of praziquantel for treatment of S. bovis infection in goats and showed that anthelminthic removal of primary infections does not interfere with the ability of the goat to elicit a marked resistance to a subsequent challenge infection. Although treated goats had more fibrous scarring of livers than untreated goats, no negative effects of liver lesions were reflected in weight gains of treated goats. This study provides strong evidence for the beneficial effects of anthelminthic treatment of young domestic stock as an element of treatment and preventive programmes.

Growing pigs fitted with post-valve T-caecum cannulas were used in a change-over design experiment (5 ✕ 5) to determine the ileal and total tract apparent digestibility and hindgut disappearance of dietary components and energy in a cassava root and soya-bean meal-based diet with an inclusion rate at 0·15 of the dry matter (DM) of either cassava leaf meal, ensiled cassava leaves, groundnut foliage, or leucaena leaves.

The ileal and total tract apparent digestibilities of organic matter (OM), crude protein, nitrogen-free extractives and energy of the diets were significantly reduced with inclusion of the foliages (P < 0·05). The digestibility of neutral-detergent fibre (NDF) and crude fibre was improved when groundnut foliage was included in the diet (P < 0·05).

The dietary content of NDF was a better predictor of the total tract digestibility of OM (R2 = 0·87) and energy (R2 = 0·90) than the content of crude fibre (R2 = 0·68 for OM digestibility and R2 = 0·72 for energy digestibility).

The disappearance of OM and energy in the hindgut of the foliage diets was 0·36 (s.d. 0·02) and 0·31 (s.d. 0·02), respectively, which was significantly lower (P < 0·05) than on the control diet (0·48 and 0·46, respectively).

Ileal as well as total tract digestibilities of OM in groundnut foliage were higher than for the other leaf products (ileal, 0·55 and 0·42; and total tract, 0·64 and 0·55, respectively). For foliage products of cassava and leucaena an average digestible energy value of 11·4 MJ/kg DM was calculated, whereas for groundnut foliage the corresponding value was 10·9 MJ/kg DM.

It was concluded that, inclusion of foliages in pig diets will reduce the dietary energy content, due to a high fibre content. However, under tropical conditions foliage at low levels of inclusion may be useful in low fibre diets for growing pigs to improve the dietary protein supply.