The effect of NaOCl and heat treatment on static and dynamic mechanical properties and chemical changes of dentine.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the effect of heat on flexural strength (FS), maximum strain (MS), storage modulus (SM), tan delta (TD) and chemical changes through micro-Raman spectroscopy of dentine exposed to 2.5% NaOCl or saline. METHOD: ology: Dentine bars were randomly allocated to 8 test groups. Half (groups 2,4,6,8) were treated with NaOCl for 20 min; the rest (groups 1,3,5,7) remained in saline. FS/MS were measured in groups 1-4 (n = 15) (3/4 were also heated to 200 °C & re-hydrated in saline). Micro-Raman spectroscopy was performed on bars from groups 1-4. SM/TD were measured in 5-8: in 5/6 (n = 10), repeated after heating (200 °C), then following re-hydration; in 7/8 (n = 3) after heating to 25-185 °C. RESULTS: Increase in MS on heat and FS/MS on heat + NaOCl was not significant (P > 0.05). SM increased (P = 0.06) after heat treatment but reduced to initial state after rehydration (P = 0.03). TD did not change (P = 0.4) after heat (200 °C) treatment but rehydration increased it compared with pre-treatment state (P = 0.001). For dentine bars pre-treated with NaOCl, SM did not change (P = 0.6) after heat (200 °C) treatment or rehydration but TD significantly increased (P = 0.02) upon re-hydration compared with pre- (P=0.007), or post- (P = 0.03) heat-treatment states. SM and TD varied between 25-185 °C with no consistent trend amongst the NaOCl pre-treated bars. Micro-Raman only detected chemical changes following NaOCl treatment in the mineral phase. CONCLUSIONS: Exposure of dentine bars to heat and NaOCl produced only moderate changes to quasi-static but marked changes to viscoelastic properties, which may be explained by chemical alterations.

Foot-and-mouth disease virus transmission dynamics and persistence in a herd of vaccinated dairy cattle in India.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is an important transboundary disease with substantial economic impacts. Although between-herd transmission of the disease has been well studied, studies focusing on within-herd transmission using farm-level outbreak data are rare. The aim of this study was to estimate parameters associated with within-herd transmission, host physiological factors and FMD virus (FMDV) persistence using data collected from an outbreak that occurred at a large, organized dairy farm in India. Of 1,836 regularly vaccinated, adult dairy cattle, 222 had clinical signs of FMD over a 39-day period. Assuming homogenous mixing, a frequency-dependent compartmental model of disease transmission was built. The transmission coefficient and basic reproductive number were estimated to be between 16.2-18.4 and 67-88, respectively. Non-pregnant animals were more likely to manifest clinical signs of FMD as compared to pregnant cattle. Based on oropharyngeal fluid (probang) sampling and FMDV-specific RT-PCR, four of 36 longitudinally sampled animals (14%) were persistently infected carriers 10.5 months post-outbreak. There was no statistical difference between subclinical and clinically infected animals in the duration of the carrier state. However, prevalence of NSP-ELISA antibodies differed significantly between subclinical and clinically infected animals 12 months after the outbreak with 83% seroprevalence amongst clinically infected cattle compared to 69% of subclinical animals. This study further elucidates within-herd FMD transmission dynamics during the acute-phase and characterizes duration of FMDV persistence and seroprevalence of FMD under natural conditions in an endemic setting.