A review of bovine Johne's disease control activities in 6 endemically infected countries

Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) is endemic in the bovine populations of many countries and can cause a significant reduction in animal welfare and production efficiency making control desirable. Effective control has proved very difficult to achieve despite multiple regionally coordinated programmes being in existence since the 1920s. The international community increasingly recognises the value in learning from the collective experiences of existing programmes to improve the effectiveness of control. The aim of this review is to outline key aspects of bovine Johne's disease control activities across 6 endemically infected countries to facilitate comparison of current international practice. The background, control activities and monitoring components of programmes in Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States of America were individually reviewed. Factual accuracy of each review was checked by individuals involved in the respective programmes before the reviews were condensed and combined into a single document presented here, with the complete reviews of each programme available as supplementary material. There was considerable heterogeneity in key aspects of control activity design including goals, responses to declining participation, herd classification, recommended control measures and associated test requirements. The data presented will be of interest to organisations that are involved in developing new or existing regionally coordinated BJD control activities

Ion-exchanged waveguide add/drop filter

An add/drop filter is fabricated using ion-exchanged waveguides and photowritten Bragg gratings. The device exhibits 20 dB extinction ratios and 3 dB bandwidths of 0.4 nm (100 GHz)

Gratings photowritten in ion-exchanged glass channel waveguides

Gratings are photowritten in ion-exchanged glass channel waveguides. The transmission of these waveguides shows a rejection dip of almost 20dB. The polarisation dependence of these waveguide gratings is measured and discussed

Grating formation in BGG31 glass by UV exposure

A three-dimensional index variation grating in bulk BGG31 glass written using neither hydrogen loading nor germanium doping is demonstrated. This material is useful for fabricating ion-exchanged waveguides, and its photosensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) radiation at 248nm has not been previously explored. Intensity measurements of the Bragg diffracted spots indicated a maximum index variation (Delta n) of similar to 4 x 10(-5)

Fusion activity of lipid-anchored envelope glycoproteins of herpes simplex virus type 1

AbstractExpression of the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) glycoproteins gB, gD, gH, and gL is necessary and sufficient to cause cell fusion. To identify the requirements for a membrane-spanning domain in HSV-1 glycoprotein-induced cell fusion, we created gB, gD, and gH mutants with transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains replaced by a glycosylphosphatidylinositol (gpi)-addition sequence. The corresponding gBgpi, gDgpi, and gHgpi proteins were expressed with wild-type efficiency at the cell surface and were linked to the plasma membrane via a gpi anchor. The gDgpi mutant promoted cell fusion near wild-type gD levels when co-expressed with gB, gH, and gL in a cell-mixing fusion assay, indicating that the gD transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains were not required for fusion activity. A plasma membrane link was required for fusion because a gD mutant lacking a transmembrane and cytoplasmic domain was nonfunctional for fusion. The gDgpi mutant was also able to cooperate with wild-type gB, gH, and gL to form syncytia, albeit at a size smaller than those formed in the wild-type situation. The gBgpi and gHgpi mutants were unable to promote fusion when expressed with the other wild-type viral glycoproteins, highlighting the requirement of the specific transmembrane and cytoplasmic domains for gB and gH function

Polarisation-independent Bragg gratings in ion-exchanged glass channel waveguides

The polarisation dependence of Bragg gratings photowritten in ion-exchanged glass waveguides is characterised for waveguides with different mask-opening widths and burial depths. It is found that polarisation-independent gratings can be written in waveguides with a wide variation in fabrication parameters