Estimating the indirect effect of hospitals via complementary health care firms.

A hospital's indirect economic impact on the surrounding community includes the stimulus to producers of complementary health care goods and services. These include physicians' offices, pharmacies, nursing homes, and medical laboratories. A multiple regression model, which can be estimated using county-level data from Bureau of the Census publications, demonstrates that a hospital does have significant effects on the number and activity of firms in complementary health care industries.

Prepartum body condition and weight influences on reproductive performance of first-calf beef cows.

Data were collected on 476 spring-calving, primiparous cows at six locations in Louisiana over a 2-yr period. Objectives of the study were to evaluate changes in prepartum body condition score (BCS) and BW of heifers when fed varying energy levels and to determine the influences of prepartum BCS and BW changes and BCS at calving on postpartum traits. Heifers were allocated to one of three energy levels from approximately 90 d prepartum to parturition. The diets were formulated to provide low, recommended, and high energy levels based on TDN requirements. After calving, cows were placed on annual ryegrass pasture and managed similarly at each location. Weight and BCS at calving were greater (P < .05) for females with higher BCS at 90 d prepartum (IBCS) and for those assigned to higher energy levels. Calving and calf growth traits were not affected (P > .05) by IBCS, energy level, prepartum changes in BCS and BW, or BCS at calving. Prepartum changes in BCS and BW regulated by varying energy levels had no effect (P > .05) on postpartum reproduction; however, BCS at calving influenced (P < .03) pregnancy rate and days to pregnancy. Cows with BCS 6 and 7 at calving had higher (P < .05) pregnancy rates (87.0 and 90.7%) than those with BCS 4 and 5 (64.9 and 71.4%). Interval to pregnancy for cows with BCS 4 at calving was 10 to 18 d longer (P < .05) than for those with BCS > or = 5.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Minimum inhibitory concentrations and disk diffusion zone diameter for selected antibiotics against streptococci isolated from bovine intramammary infections.

The antimicrobial susceptibility to 11 antibiotics was determined of 358 streptococcal isolates representing six species was determined. All isolates were from milk samples obtained from clinical or subclinical cases of bovine mastitis. Agar disk diffusion zone diameters and minimum inhibitory concentrations were obtained for all isolates. Of the antibiotics tested that are available for mastitis therapy, cephalothin, penicillin, ampicillin, novobiocin, and erythromycin demonstrated acceptable activity against nonenterococcal streptococci, but only penicillin and ampicillin demonstrated moderate activity against Enterococcus faecalis. Enterococcus faecalis demonstrated substantial resistance to cephalothin, erythromycin, gentamicin, streptomycin, and tetracycline, while the nonenterococcal streptococci demonstrated substantial resistance to gentamicin, streptomycin, and tetracycline. Streptococcus uberis demonstrated greater antibiotic resistance than did Streptococcus dysgalactiae, while Aerococcus viridans demonstrated the greatest overall resistance of the nonenterococcal species.