The Humoral Response of Sows and Young Pigs to Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccination.

Groups of pregnant sows were inoculated with type 01 foot and mouth disease (FMD) oil emulsion vaccine at various times before farrowing and samples of the sow's serum, colostrum and milk, and piglets serum were collected for analysis. Pregnant sows responded well to vaccination regardless of their state of gestation. Single vaccination produced protective levels of antibody in three out of four sows while double vaccination produced protective levels in all six sows tested. Although there was no evidence of a fall in the neutralizing antibody titres over one year post vaccination the IgG antibody population did show signs of a change in its heterogeneity and avidity. No FMD neutralizing antibodies were detectable in the piglets’ serum at birth but they were present 1. 5hr after suckling and peak titres were reached one to three days later. Samples of colostrum/milk collected from different teats three days after farrowing showed significant (P<0. 005) fore to hind variation. A significant correlation was also observed between the sow's serum titres and colostrum titres at farrowing (r=0. 90), and between sows colostrum titres at farrowing and their three day old piglets serum titres (r=0. 99). When sows were vaccinated 12 to 13 days before farrowing (dbf) the predominating neutralizing antibody at parturition was IgM and the observed half-lives of the maternally derived antibodies in the piglets were short (four to eight days). However, when sows were last vaccinated 30 to 32dbf, the maternally derived neutralizing antibodies in the piglets were predominantly IgG and the observed half-lives were seven to 21 days. If corrections were made for increase in blood volume the decay rates of IgM antibodies in piglets were seven to 18 days while the decay rate for IgG was greater than 408 days. The response of young pigs to FMD vaccination and the effect of maternally derived antibodies on this response was also studied. Piglets born to non-immunized sows were able to respond to vaccination when one week old, with no deleterious effect on their growth rate. However, total suppression of the vaccination response was observed in one, two and four week old piglets born to immunized sows and a partial suppression occurred in eight week old piglets. This maternal antibody suppressive effect could be mimicked by the passive transfer of neutralizing IgG antibodies into older piglets

Applications of Platform Technologies in Veterinary Vaccinology and the benefits for One Health

The animal-human interface has played a central role in advances made in vaccinology for the past two centuries. Many traditional veterinary vaccines were developed by growing, attenuating, inactivating and fractioning the pathogen of interest. While such approaches have been very successful, we have reached a point where they have largely been exhausted and alternative approaches are required. Furthermore, although subunit vaccines have enhanced safety profiles and created opportunities for combined discrimination between vaccinated and infected animal (DIVA) approaches, their functionality has largely been limited to diseases that can be controlled by humoral immunity until very recently. We now have a new generation of adjuvants and delivery systems that can elicit CD4 + T cells and/or CD8 + T cell responses in addition to high-titre antibody responses. We review the current vaccine platform technologies, describe their roles in veterinary vaccinology and discuss how knowledge of their mode of action allows informed decisions on their deployment with wider benefits for One Health

Helium-Cooled Black Shroud for Subscale Cryogenic Testing

This shroud provides a deep-space simulating environment for testing scaled-down models of passively cooling systems for spaceflight optics and instruments. It is used inside a liquid-nitrogen- cooled vacuum chamber, and it is cooled by liquid helium to 5 K. It has an inside geometry of approximately 1.6 m diameter by 0.45 m tall. The inside surfaces of its top and sidewalls have a thermal absorptivity greater than 0.96. The bottom wall has a large central opening that is easily customized to allow a specific test item to extend through it. This enables testing of scale models of realistic passive cooling configurations that feature a very large temperature drop between the deepspace-facing cooled side and the Sun/Earth-facing warm side. This shroud has an innovative thermal closeout of the bottom wall, so that a test sample can have a hot (room temperature) side outside of the shroud, and a cold side inside the shroud. The combination of this closeout and the very black walls keeps radiated heat from the sample s warm end from entering the shroud, reflecting off the walls and heating the sample s cold end. The shroud includes 12 vertical rectangular sheet-copper side panels that are oriented in a circular pattern. Using tabs bent off from their edges, these side panels are bolted to each other and to a steel support ring on which they rest. The removable shroud top is a large copper sheet that rests on, and is bolted to, the support ring when the shroud is closed. The support ring stands on four fiberglass tube legs, which isolate it thermally from the vacuum chamber bottom. The insides of the cooper top and side panels are completely covered with 25- mm-thick aluminum honeycomb panels. This honeycomb is painted black before it is epoxied to the copper surfaces. A spiral-shaped copper tube, clamped at many different locations to the outside of the top copper plate, serves as part of the liquid helium cooling loop. Another copper tube, plumbed in a series to the top plate s tube, is clamped to the sidewall tabs where they are bolted to the support ring. Flowing liquid helium through these tubes cools the entire shroud to 5 K. The entire shroud is wrapped loosely in a layer of double-aluminized Kapton. The support ring s inner diameter is the largest possible hole through which the test item can extend into the shroud. Twelve custom-sized trapezoidal copper sheets extend inward from the support ring to within a few millimeters of the test item. Attached to the inner edge of each of these sheets is a custom-shaped strip of Kapton, which is aluminum- coated on the warm-facing (outer) side, and has thin Dacron netting attached to its cold-facing side. This Kapton rests against the test item, but the Dacron keeps it from making significant thermal contact. The result is a non-contact, radiatively reflective thermal closeout with essentially no gap through which radiation can pass. In this way, the part of the test item outside the shroud can be heated to relatively high temperatures without any radiative heat leaking to the inside

Update on the role of genetics in the onset of age-related macular degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), akin to other common age-related diseases, has a complex pathogenesis and arises from the interplay of genes, environmental factors, and personal characteristics. The past decade has seen very significant strides towards identification of those precise genetic variants associated with disease. That genes encoding proteins of the (alternative) complement pathway (CFH, C2, CFB, C3, CFI) are major players in etiology came as a surprise to many but has already lead to the development of therapies entering human clinical trials. Other genes replicated in many populations ARMS2, APOE, variants near TIMP3, and genes involved in lipid metabolism have also been implicated in disease pathogenesis. The genes discovered to date can be estimated to account for approximately 50% of the genetic variance of AMD and have been discovered by candidate gene approaches, pathway analysis, and latterly genome-wide association studies. Next generation sequencing modalities and meta-analysis techniques are being employed with the aim of identifying the remaining rarer but, perhaps, individually more significant sequence variations, linked to disease status. Complementary studies have also begun to utilize this genetic information to develop clinically useful algorithms to predict AMD risk and evaluate pharmacogenetics. In this article, contemporary commentary is provided on rapidly progressing efforts to elucidate the genetic pathogenesis of AMD as the field stands at the end of the first decade of the 21st century

Annual Survey of Virginia Law: Antitrust and Trade Regulation Law

Consistent with the recent national trend, antitrust claims in Virginia met with little success in Virginia\u27s courts over the past two years. Not only have the number of antitrust complaints dwindled, but those that are filed are routinely dismissed on the pleadings or by means of summary judgment after discovery. Recent antitrust conspiracy actions have failed for a variety of fundamental reasons, including a lack of standing to bring the action and a lack of a multiplicity of actors capable of engaging in a conspiracy. On the whole, monopolization claims fared no better, and have been dismissed largely because of the absence of any evidence of adverse impact on competition. This article addresses federal and state legislative development and enforcement activities, and antitrust decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and state and federal courts of Virginia for the past two years

Burn your way to success: studies in the Mesopotamian ritual and incantation series Šurpu

The ritual and incantation series Šurpu ‘Burning’ is one of the most important sources for understanding religious and magical practice in the ancient Near East. The purpose of the ritual was to rid a sufferer of a divine curse which had been inflicted due to personal misconduct. The series is composed chiefly of the text of the incantations recited during the ceremony. These are supplemented by brief ritual instructions as well as a ritual tablet which details the ceremony in full. This thesis offers a comprehensive and radical reconstruction of the entire text, demonstrating the existence of a large, and previously unsuspected, lacuna in the published version. In addition, a single tablet, tablet IX, from the ten which comprise the series is fully edited, with partitur transliteration, eclectic and normalised text, translation, and a detailed line by line commentary

The utrophin-actin interface

The spectrin superfamily is a diverse group of proteins variously involved in cross- linking, bundling and binding to the F-actin cytoskeleton. These proteins are modular in nature and interaction with actin occurs, at least in part, via CH domain containing ABDs. The actin binding domains of the spectrin superfamily proteins are all very similar in overall structure however the functions of the individual proteins differ greatly. Utrophin is a member of the spectrin superfamily and has been used extensively to investigate and model the association of actin-binding domains with F- actin; however, much controversy exists as to whether binding occurs when the domain is in an open or a closed conformation. The data herein specifically investigates the importance of the utrophin ABD inter- CH domain linker to the conformation of the domain and how this domain associates with F-actin. We provide evidence that this particular region of the ABD is particularly sensitive to mutation and that the conformation of the domain when in solution cannot be altered by affecting the electrostatic environment surrounding the protein. It has been assumed previously that the utrophin ABD adopts a closed and compact configuration in solution similar to the fimbrin crystal structure conformation; however we present evidence that suggests this is not the case. It has been proposed that the utrophin ABD may open from this closed conformation to bind F-actin in a more open manner, we present data that demonstrates that opening of the domain is not essential to F-actin binding and that there is very little conformation change associated with the domain upon interaction with F-actin. It appears that the utrophin ABD can bind F actin in two conformations. This supports current models of utrophin ABD binding where interaction with F-actin occurs in either an open or closed conformation. The data presented here provides an interesting insight into the utrophin ABD/F-actin interaction and raises many questions regarding the evaluation of current binding models. Future research stemming from this work will serve to further the understanding of how utrophin and related actin-binding proteins interact with F-actin

Enabling a consumer headset in product development

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of System Design & Management, 2000.Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-161).Manufacturing-intensive companies like Ford Motor Company have come to the realization that they need to have a strong consumer focus to survive in today's competitive world. Ford has just recently announced steps to further align its program team centers more strongly with their consumers, yet the lower levels of the teams will still remain aligned around a standard part decomposition that finds its roots back to Henry Ford's vertical integration methodology. In today's information age, with the growing expectations of the consumer, as well as product complexity, it has become essential for product teams to share and communicate efficiently. It is no longer adequate for the program manager to be the sole focal point, where the voice of the consumer meets the voice of part engineering. As complex as it sounds, the consumer voice must be decomposed for delivery throughout the program team as the driving force by which the parts are engineered. Herein outlines an approach which has been called 'enabling a consumer headset in product development,' that illustrates the possibility of handle this complexity using today's tools. Bottom line: Industry is ready to take this one on. Needs analysis has established a focal point at the program team decompositional structure, product development process, and the driving management metrics and engineering specifications. Suggested are concepts that lead to a more natural and efficient way of delivering that consumer headset and these concepts are applied on three implementation projects: 1) a MIT course exercise; 2) a new Docu-Center architecture program at Xerox; and 3) a forward model 200X Mustang program. Findings are summarize into a final recommendation for future Ford program applications. The conclusion of this thesis recommends three items: 1) Introduces the Role of Architects, 2) Aligns the Organization Around the Consumer, 3) Transitions Engineering Focus to Interface Specifications.by James L. Goran, Michael L. Shashlo [and] Francis J. Wickenheiser.S.M

Detection of Phosphorus and Nitrogen Deficiencies in Corn Using Spectral Radiance Measurements

Applications of remote sensing in crop production are becoming increasingly popular due in part to an increased concern with pollution of surface and ground waters due to over-fertilization of agricultural lands and the need to compensate for spatial variability in a field. Past research in this area has focused primarily on N stress in crops. Other stresses and the interactions have not been fully evaluated. A field experiment was conducted to determine wavelengths and/or combinations of wavelengths that are indicative of P and N deficiency and also the interaction between these in corn (Zea mays L.). The field experiment was a randomized complete block design with four replications using a factorial arrangement of treatments in an irrigated continuous corn system. The treatment included four N rates (0, 67, 134, and 269 kg N ha-1) and four P rates (0, 22, 45, and 67 kg P ha-1). Spectral radiance measurements were taken at various growth stages in increments from 350 to 1000 nm and correlated with plant N and P concentration, plant biomass, grain N and P concentration, and grain yield. Reflectance in the near-infrared (NIR) and blue regions was found to predict early season P stress between growth stages V6 and V8. Late season detection of P stress was not achieved. Plant N concentration was best predicted using reflectance in the red and green regions of the spectrum, while grain yield was estimated using reflectance in the NIR region, with the particular wavelengths of importance changing with growth stage