Word Segmentation Cues in German Child-Directed Speech: A Corpus Analysis

To acquire language, infants must learn to segment words from running speech. A significant body of experimental research shows that infants use multiple cues to do so; however, little research has comprehensively examined the distribution of such cues in naturalistic speech. We conducted a comprehensive corpus analysis of German child-directed speech (CDS) using data from the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES) database, investigating the availability of word stress, transitional probabilities (TPs), and lexical and sublexical frequencies as potential cues for word segmentation. Seven hours of data (~15,000 words) were coded, representing around an average day of speech to infants. The analysis revealed that for 97% of words, primary stress was carried by the initial syllable, implicating stress as a reliable cue to word onset in German CDS. Word identity was also marked by TPs between syllables, which were higher within than between words, and higher for backwards than forwards transitions. Words followed a Zipfian-like frequency distribution, and over two-thirds of words (78%) were monosyllabic. Of the 50 most frequent words, 82% were function words, which accounted for 47% of word tokens in the entire corpus. Finally, 15% of all utterances comprised single words. These results give rich novel insights into the availability of segmentation cues in German CDS, and support the possibility that infants draw on multiple converging cues to segment their input. The data, which we make openly available to the research community, will help guide future experimental investigations on this topic.

[Economic importance of antibiotic sale for private food animal practices in Switzerland - example veal production]

INTRODUCTION

The use of antibiotics in Swiss veal production is considered an established method for controlling bacterial infectious diseases. Although the veterinary profession aims to ensure animal welfare, the veterinary business income needs to be ensured at the same time. Against the background of increasing problems with resistant pathogens in human and veterinary medicine, the use of antibiotics should be significantly reduced and used more selectively. The associated economic consequences for food animal practitioners are unknown. The aim of this study was to determine the economic importance of antibiotic sale volume for private food animal practitioners in veal production. An anonymized questionnaire was sent to 120 mixed veterinary practices in Switzerland, which offered services to veal and beef cattle farmers. Questions involved the pharmaceutical sale volume, details on veterinary invoices from three farms with average, below and above average animal health throughout 2017. Twenty-nine complete questionnaires (response rate: 24.2%) and veterinary invoices of 84 farms were returned. The study is not representative, but it allows a rough assessment of the economic framework in Swiss livestock practice. The majority of the total turnover with livestock farms was generated by the sale of antibiotics (54%). Antibiotic sales per animal were higher as expected in farms with a below-average animal health than in farms with an average or above-average animal health. Consulting services turnover contributed only 0.5% to the total sale volume in veal farming. The results document, that antibiotic reduction measurements in veal and beef production will have economic consequences for veterinary livestock practices. In the medium term, the profitable existence of livestock veterinary practice requires a change to cost based consulting services.

Quantitative and qualitative antimicrobial usage patterns in farrow-to-finish pig herds in Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden

Data on sales of antimicrobials using a standardised methodology have shown that there are vast differences between countries in amounts of antimicrobials sold for food-producing animals, but these data do not provide insight on how sales are distributed by species and age groups. The aim of this study was to compare herd level antimicrobial usage for pigs by age category, antimicrobial class and administration route for farrow-to-finish herds in four EU countries. A cross-sectional study was conducted among 227 farrow-to-finish pig herds with at least 100 sows and 500 finishing pigs in Belgium (n=47), France (n=60), Germany (n=60) and Sweden (n=60). Detailed information about the antimicrobial consumption for breeding and growing pigs was collected. Antimicrobial usage was quantified as active substance expressed as mg and then converted to treatment incidence (TI) based on Defined Daily Doses Animal per 1000 pig-days at risk. TIs varied between and within countries, herds and age groups. The Swedish herds had the lowest and the German herds the highest overall use. Most treatments were applied to weaned piglets except in the Swedish herds where treatments of suckling piglets were most frequent. Antimicrobials were most often applied through feed or water except in the Swedish herds where parenteral treatments were most frequent. Aminopenicillins was the antimicrobial class most commonly used. Use of third and fourth generation cephalosporins constituted 11% of use for the Belgian herds, which was higher compared to the other countries. There was a significant (p<0.01) association between the within-herd antimicrobial use across different age categories. This study has shown that there were large differences in antimicrobial use for pigs between countries, herds and age groups in farrow-to-finish herds of similar size when actual consumption data were compared. Collecting detailed usage data can be used to efficiently target high users in order to reduce antimicrobial consumption.

Modelling the species jump: towards assessing the risk of human infection from novel avian influenzas

The scientific understanding of the driving factors behind zoonotic and pandemic influenzas is hampered by complex interactions between viruses, animal hosts and humans. This complexity makes identifying influenza viruses of high zoonotic or pandemic risk, before they emerge from animal populations, extremely difficult and uncertain. As a first step towards assessing zoonotic risk of influenza, we demonstrate a risk assessment framework to assess the relative likelihood of influenza A viruses, circulating in animal populations, making the species jump into humans. The intention is that such a risk assessment framework could assist decision-makers to compare multiple influenza viruses for zoonotic potential and hence to develop appropriate strain-specific control measures. It also provides a first step towards showing proof of principle for an eventual pandemic risk model. We show that the spatial and temporal epidemiology is as important in assessing the risk of an influenza A species jump as understanding the innate molecular capability of the virus. We also demonstrate data deficiencies that need to be addressed in order to consistently combine both epidemiological and molecular virology data into a risk assessment framework.

Patterns of animal diseases and their control

Despite enormous progress in scientific knowledge and improvements in sanitary standards in livestock production, the world has recently been confronted with several animal disease epidemics which have caused significant economic losses. General awareness regarding unusual clinical signs and prompt reporting of disease is an important requirement in disease detection and control and needs to be promoted among farmers and veterinarians. Unexpected clinical syndromes are of increasing importance for public health. Syndromic surveillance has been shown to be a key element in detecting emerging diseases. Once detected and diagnosed, surveillance programmes constitute the first step towards determining the disease pattern with regard to time and space. This pattern of disease occurrence becomes the basis for selecting approaches for further disease investigation and for disease control.

Incidence of Neospora caninum and other intestinal protozoan parasites in populations of Swiss dogs

The protozoan parasite Neospora caninum is one of the most important abortifacient organisms in cattle worldwide. The dog is known to act as definitive host although its potential role as infection source for bovines still remains unelucidated. The aim of the present study was to compile initial epidemiological data on the prevalence and incidence of N. caninum in Swiss dogs acting as definitive hosts. Thus, 249 Swiss dogs were investigated coproscopically in monthly intervals over a period of 1 year. A total of 3289 fecal samples was tested by the flotation technique. Among these, 202 were shown to contain Sarcocystis sp. (6.1%), 149 Cystoisospora sp. (=Isospora sp.; 4.5%) and 25 Hammondia/Neospora-like oocysts (HNlO) (0.7%). All but one sample containing HNlO were from different dogs; one dog shed HNlO at two subsequent time points. Calculation of the yearly incidence for HNlO resulted in the surprisingly high value of 9.2%. Farm dogs exhibited a higher incidence for HNlO than urban family dogs. Thirteen out of the 25 HNlO-samples showed sporulation after 5 days incubation at room temperature. HNlO were further differentiated by species-specific PCR. However, all HNlO-samples were negative for N. caninum, Hammondia heydorni and Toxoplasma gondii. One reason may be the low oocyst density found in most fecal samples, which did not permit us to carry out PCR under optimal conditions. Three out of the 25 HNlO-cases contained enough oocysts to allow further enrichment and purification by the flotation technique. Subsequently, twenty to fifty sporulated HNlO-oocysts were orally administered to Meriones unguiculatus. All gerbils were seronegative for N. caninum at 5 weeks p.i. A N. caninum-seroprevalence of 7.8% was determined by ELISA upon 1132 serum samples collected from dogs randomly selected by veterinarians among their clinical patients.