Characterization of Reactions to Intravenous Immunoglobulin in Neonatal Calves

Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) products improve passive immunity in neonates. Unfortunately, adverse reactions can occur. This study was designed to determine if physiological changes occurring after IVIG administration were the result of rapid infusion of large molecular weight molecules, or from a more complex mechanism resulting in histamine release. The IVIG was concentrated from bovine abattoir blood and contained approximately 35 g IgG/L. A dextran (75,000 MW) solution was prepared as a high molecular weight control that was similar in osmolarity to the IVIG. Holstein bull calves (n=15) under 1 wk of age were assigned to one of three treatment groups: control calves received 500 ml of 0.9% NaCl; dextran calves received 500 ml of dextran; IgG calves received 500 ml of IVIG. Treatments were rapidly administered (less than 5 min) intravenously via jugular catheter. Heart rate, respiration rate, and blood pressure were measured prior to treatment, and at 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90 min after start of infusion. Blood samples were obtained at the same sampling times, centrifuged, and the plasma immediately placed on ice for determination of histamine concentration using an enzyme immunoassay. Mean respiration rates were higher in calves treated with IVIG compared to calves in the other two groups at all time periods measured. Mean heart rates were lower in calves treated with IVIG compared to calves in the other groups through 45 min. Calves treated with dextran had higher mean heart rates than calves on the control treatment from 10 min through 30 min. Mean blood pressure tended to be higher in calves treated with IVIG compared to calves on the control treatment at 1 min, however, there were no differences between groups at any other time period. Mean histamine concentrations were higher in calves treated with IVIG compared to calves on the control treatment at 1 min, but were not different at any other time period. These data indicate that adverse reactions to IVIG in calves are not mediated by high molecular weight molecules or by histamine release

LAND AND AGRARIAN REFORM IN THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC

This report presents LTC's findings and recommendations on the land tenure transition. The information contained in this report has been used to prepare a second document, Land and Agrarian Reform in the Kyrgyz Republic: Consolidation Plan, that proposes a set of actions to ensure that the reforms are completed and produce a viable, market-oriented, agricultural sector. Chapter 1 offers baseline geographic information on the KR, an account of the macroeconomic environment in which reforms are taking place, a brief project history, and a description of the research methods. Chapter 2 chronicles the legal and regulatory changes that have driven land and agrarian reform in the KR since 1991 and evaluates this legislation for its legal consistency, underlying economic assumptions, and broad policy implications. Chapter 3 employs national land statistics to describe changes in the agrarian structure that have resulted from the legal and regulatory evolution during 1991-1995, including the number and size of farms, land use, and related indicators of land tenure change and agrarian reform. Chapter 4 reviews the structure, function, and efficacy of administrative bodies that set and enforce land and land reform policy, recommends administrative adjustments, and identifies land administration tasks the state can eliminate-and others it will need to bolster-as the KR completes its transition from command structures to market principles in agriculture. Finally, Chapter 5 uses data obtained in structured surveys and case studies conducted by LTC on a 10 percent sample of former state and collective farms to describe at the farm level the successes and shortcomings of reform measures to date; the chapter also makes recommendations for new or altered land reform policies and procedures.Agrarian structure--Kyrgyzstan, Land administration--Kyrgyzstan, Land reform--Kyrgyzstan, Land tenure--Government policy--Kyrgyzstan, Land tenure--Kyrgyzstan, Land titles--Registration and transfer--Kyrgyzstan, International Development, Land Economics/Use,

A report of sugar beet research in southeast Missouri, 1968

Cover title

Driving with Style: Inverse Reinforcement Learning in General-Purpose Planning for Automated Driving

Behavior and motion planning play an important role in automated driving. Traditionally, behavior planners instruct local motion planners with predefined behaviors. Due to the high scene complexity in urban environments, unpredictable situations may occur in which behavior planners fail to match predefined behavior templates. Recently, general-purpose planners have been introduced, combining behavior and local motion planning. These general-purpose planners allow behavior-aware motion planning given a single reward function. However, two challenges arise: First, this function has to map a complex feature space into rewards. Second, the reward function has to be manually tuned by an expert. Manually tuning this reward function becomes a tedious task. In this paper, we propose an approach that relies on human driving demonstrations to automatically tune reward functions. This study offers important insights into the driving style optimization of general-purpose planners with maximum entropy inverse reinforcement learning. We evaluate our approach based on the expected value difference between learned and demonstrated policies. Furthermore, we compare the similarity of human driven trajectories with optimal policies of our planner under learned and expert-tuned reward functions. Our experiments show that we are able to learn reward functions exceeding the level of manual expert tuning without prior domain knowledge.Comment: Appeared at IROS 2019. Accepted version. Added/updated footnote, minor correction in preliminarie

Alteration of Neutrophil Function in BCG-Treated and Non-Treated Swine after Exposure to Salmonella typhimurium

Salmonella typhimurium infection in swine causes an enterocolitis followed by a persistent carrier state, but little is known about the mechanisms that allow this organism to colonize and persist in host tissues. Neutrophils provide a first line of defense against invading pathogens such as Salmonella typhimurium. The purpose of this study was to evaluate porcine neutrophil function after in vivo exposure to Salmonella and to determine if the immunomodulator, bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG), exerts any effect on neutrophil function or on the colonization and persistence of S. typhimurium in the pig. Compared to negative controls, neutrophils from pigs exposed to S. typhimurium exhibited significantly decreased iodination, cytochrome-C reduction, antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, random migration, and chemotaxis (P≤0.05). Neutrophil bactericidal activity against S. typhimurium was significantly enhanced. Most of the significant differences were noted in the first two days after exposure to Salmonella. Often the functional alterations were biphasic, peaking again 7–10 days after exposure. BCG alone significantly depressed random migration and cytochrome-C reduction in unstimulated neutrophils. The clinical course, colonization pattern, and persistence of Salmonella were similar between pigs receiving BCG and untreated pigs. These data suggest that S. typhimurium infection causes a depression in oxidative metabolism and motility, yet an increase in overall bactericidal activity against S. typhimurium in circulating porcine neutrophils. It also appears that BCG treatment, as reported here, does not enhance resistance of pigs to S. typhimurium colonization or reduce the number of persistent organisms in the porcine ileum

Optimal Use of Vaccines for Control of Influenza A Virus in Swine

Influenza A virus in swine (IAV-S) is one of the most important infectious disease agents of swine in North America. In addition to the economic burden of IAV-S to the swine industry, the zoonotic potential of IAV-S sometimes leads to serious public health concerns. Adjuvanted, inactivated vaccines have been licensed in the United States for over 20 years, and there is also widespread usage of autogenous/custom IAV-S vaccines. Vaccination induces neutralizing antibodies and protection against infection with very similar strains. However, IAV-S strains are so diverse and prone to mutation that these vaccines often have disappointing efficacy in the field. This scientific review was developed to help veterinarians and others to identify the best available IAV-S vaccine for a particular infected herd. We describe key principles of IAV-S structure and replication, protective immunity, currently available vaccines, and vaccine technologies that show promise for the future. We discuss strategies to optimize the use of available IAV-S vaccines, based on information gathered from modern diagnostics and surveillance programs. Improvements in IAV-S immunization strategies, in both the short term and long term, will benefit swine health and productivity and potentially reduce risks to public health