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Biomedical subjects

J D Muller

Publications and source records attributed to J D Muller.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

Specificity of an immunochromatographic test for anthrax.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the specificity of an immunochromatographic test (ICT) for anthrax in cattle. DESIGN: A comparison of an ICT with blood smear and culture in uninfected cattle. PROCEDURE: Two hundred and forty blood samples were collected from dead cattle at two knackeries within Victoria and tested on-site with an ICT for the detection of protective antigen (PA) of Bacillus anthracis. Blood smears were prepared on-site and blood samples transported to the laboratory for aerobic and anaerobic culture. The results of the ICT were compared with blood smear and culture. Animals were regarded as not infected with B anthracis if the organism was not detected in a stained blood smear or on culture. Ten healthy yearling cattle were vaccinated with live spore anthrax vaccine and blood samples collected on days 0 to 7 and day 15 were tested in the ICT for the presence of PA. RESULTS: All blood samples from the 240 knackery cattle were ICT, smear and culture negative. All blood samples from the 10 vaccinated cattle were ICT negative. CONCLUSION: The ICT is a test with high specificity in cattle (98.5 to 100%; 95% CI) and recent vaccination of cattle does not give rise to positive reactions.

Animals↗

SpikeCell: a deterministic spiking neuron.

We present a model of spiking neuron that emulates the output of the usual static neurons with sigmoidal activation functions. It allows for hardware implementations of standard feedforward networks, trained off-line with any classical learning algorithm (i.e. back-propagation and its variants). The model is validated on hand-written digits recognition, and image classification tasks. A digital architecture is proposed and evaluated. The area needed for implementing the spiking neuron on a chip is 10 times smaller than that for the corresponding static neuron. The accuracy of the network's output increases with time, and reaches that of the emulated static neural network after an adequate integration period. Single errors in the spike trains, or interruption of the relaxation process, due for example to irradiation in harsh environments, are harmless.

Action Potentials↗

Surveillance for aquabirnavirus in fish hatcheries in Victoria.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether or not aquabirnavirus is present in Victorian fish hatcheries. PROCEDURE: Milt and ovarian fluids were collected from brood stock at 12 hatcheries and cultured in two sensitive cell lines for the presence of viruses. RESULTS: No cytopathic effect was detected indicating the absence of virus. CONCLUSION: There is no evidence of infection with aquabirnavirus or Epizootic Haematopoietic Necrosis virus in Victorian fish hatcheries.

Animals↗