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This study looks into the relationships between the banks' ownership structures, the characteristics of their boards, and their performance. A bank's performance varies depending on a series of different factors. In recent years, the evaluation of performance in the context of corporate governance practices has gained importance. This study considers the issue from the perspective of developed nations, looking at the examples of the United States and the United Kingdom. The findings demonstrate that adopting certain corporate governance practices improves a bank's performance levels over previous periods. Having a duality in the board structure and increasing its proportion of nonexecutive board members improve a bank's performance. In contrast, a statistically significant negative relationship was found between bank performance and board size, board members appointed for their specific skills, and the number of board meetings. It was also discovered that there is no linear relationship between the proportion of strictly independent board members on a board of directors and performance. A nonlinear relationship was found between bank ownership concentration and their performance. The discovery of a nonlinear relationship between performance and increasing concentration in a bank's ownership structure and the proportion of strictly independent board members on its board is a sign that there is an optimal level for these variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate identification of mastitis-causing bacteria supports effective management and can be used to implement selective use of antimicrobials for treatment. The objectives of this study were to compare the results from a culture-based mastitis pathogen detection test kit ('VetoRapid', Vétoquinol) with standard laboratory culture and to evaluate the potential suitability of the test kit to inform a selective treatment programme. Overall 231 quarter milk samples from five UK dairy farms were collected. The sensitivity and specificity of the test kit for the identification of Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, coagulasenegative staphylococci, Streptococcus uberis and Enterococcus spp. ranged from 17 per cent to 84 per cent and 92 per cent to 98 per cent, respectively. In total, 23 of 68 clinical samples were assigned as meeting the requirement for antimicrobial treatment (Gram-positive organism cultured) according to standard culture results, with the test kit results having sensitivity and specificity of 91 per cent and 78 per cent, respectively. Several occurrences of misidentification are reported, including S. aureus being misidentified as coagulase-negative staphylococci and vice versa. The test kit provides rapid preliminary identification of five common causes of bovine mastitis under UK field conditions and is likely to be suitable for informing selective treatment of clinical mastitis caused by Gram-positive organisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]