Factors influencing Barbervax® immunity and effects on wellbeing and production in Merino ewes and lambs

Barbervax® is a vaccine released in 2014 for use in sheep of all ages to protect them against Haemonchus contortus infection. The overall aims of this thesis were to learn more about the course of action of the vaccine in a commercial environment, simplifying its use on-farm and conducting preliminary observations on performance and production in vaccinated ewes and lambs. The work completed in this thesis is novel, with no previous publication found dealing with the specific hypotheses under test. Chapter 1 consists of a review of the relevant literature including that on the cost of gastrointestinal nematodes to industry, the pathophysiological effects of H. contortus infection in sheep and methods of control. Also reviewed are the development of the immune response to haemonchus infection and the history of development of vaccines against gastrointestinal nematodes, ultimately leading to the production of Barbervax®. Chapter 2 contains the results of an experiment in two phases, each testing a different hypothesis. The first hypothesis was that the duration of vaccinal protection in Merino hogget ewes following a full vaccination course in years 1 and 2 of life would be longer than the claimed 6 weeks. The second hypothesis was that natural exposure to H. contortus infection would boost the Barbervax immune response following a pre-lambing vaccination. A total of 60 age-matched ewes, running together in a larger mob, were split into three treatment groups to test the hypotheses and WEC and ELISA sampled at frequent intervals. Results revealed that neither hypotheses could be supported by the data. In Chapter 3 I tested the hypothesis that the second 'priming' vaccination in lambs could be removed by reducing the marking to weaning interval to 6 weeks and doubling the vaccine dose at marking and/or weaning. The progeny from the group of ewes referred to in Chapter were split into five treatment groups, each with a different vaccine protocol. The results confirmed that the second priming vaccination could be removed with a 6-week marking to weaning interval and provision of a double dose of Barbervax® at either marking or weaning. Finally, in Chapter 4 I report on the effects of the different Barbervax® treatments applied in the previous chapters on ewe and lamb production and performance. Performance measures included; greasy fleece weight, fibre diameter, ewe body condition score and ewe and lamb bodyweights at routine husbandry time points, and transfer of maternal Barbervax® antibody to their progeny prior to weaning. There was clear evidence of maternal transfer of Barbervax® antibody to progeny, but were no negative or positive effects on ewe and lamb performance

Seasonal melting and the formation of sedimentary rocks on Mars, with predictions for the Gale Crater mound

A model for the formation and distribution of sedimentary rocks on Mars is proposed. The rate-limiting step is supply of liquid water from seasonal melting of snow or ice. The model is run for a O(10^2) mbar pure CO2 atmosphere, dusty snow, and solar luminosity reduced by 23%. For these conditions snow only melts near the equator, and only when obliquity >40 degrees, eccentricity >0.12, and perihelion occurs near equinox. These requirements for melting are satisfied by 0.01-20% of the probability distribution of Mars' past spin-orbit parameters. Total melt production is sufficient to account for aqueous alteration of the sedimentary rocks. The pattern of seasonal snowmelt is integrated over all spin-orbit parameters and compared to the observed distribution of sedimentary rocks. The global distribution of snowmelt has maxima in Valles Marineris, Meridiani Planum and Gale Crater. These correspond to maxima in the sedimentary-rock distribution. Higher pressures and especially higher temperatures lead to melting over a broader range of spin-orbit parameters. The pattern of sedimentary rocks on Mars is most consistent with a Mars paleoclimate that only rarely produced enough meltwater to precipitate aqueous cements and indurate sediment. The results suggest intermittency of snowmelt and long globally-dry intervals, unfavorable for past life on Mars. This model makes testable predictions for the Mars Science Laboratory rover at Gale Crater. Gale Crater is predicted to be a hemispheric maximum for snowmelt on Mars.Comment: Submitted to Icarus. Minor changes from submitted versio

DataSHIELD: taking the analysis to the data, not the data to the analysis

Research in modern biomedicine and social science requires sample sizes so large that they can often only be achieved through a pooled co-analysis of data from several studies. But the pooling of information from individuals in a central database that may be queried by researchers raises important ethico-legal questions and can be controversial. In the UK this has been highlighted by recent debate and controversy relating to the UK's proposed 'care.data' initiative, and these issues reflect important societal and professional concerns about privacy, confidentiality and intellectual property. DataSHIELD provides a novel technological solution that can circumvent some of the most basic challenges in facilitating the access of researchers and other healthcare professionals to individual-level data. Commands are sent from a central analysis computer (AC) to several data computers (DCs) storing the data to be co-analysed. The data sets are analysed simultaneously but in parallel. The separate parallelized analyses are linked by non-disclosive summary statistics and commands transmitted back and forth between the DCs and the AC. This paper describes the technical implementation of DataSHIELD using a modified R statistical environment linked to an Opal database deployed behind the computer firewall of each DC. Analysis is controlled through a standard R environment at the AC. Based on this Opal/R implementation, DataSHIELD is currently used by the Healthy Obese Project and the Environmental Core Project (BioSHaRE-EU) for the federated analysis of 10 data sets across eight European countries, and this illustrates the opportunities and challenges presented by the DataSHIELD approach. DataSHIELD facilitates important research in settings where: (i) a co-analysis of individual-level data from several studies is scientifically necessary but governance restrictions prohibit the release or sharing of some of the required data, and/or render data access unacceptably slow; (ii) a research group (e.g. in a developing nation) is particularly vulnerable to loss of intellectual property-the researchers want to fully share the information held in their data with national and international collaborators, but do not wish to hand over the physical data themselves; and (iii) a data set is to be included in an individual-level co-analysis but the physical size of the data precludes direct transfer to a new site for analysis

Why Are We Reading Ovid\u27s Handbook On Rape?: Teaching And Learning At A Women\u27s College

https://works.swarthmore.edu/alum-books/2248/thumbnail.jp

Narrative Transvestism: Rhetoric And Gender In The Eighteenth-Century English Novel

https://works.swarthmore.edu/alum-books/2191/thumbnail.jp

Factors influencing Barbervax® immunity and effects on wellbeing and production in Merino ewes and lambs

The data includes WEC and antibody titre (Barbervax specific on ewes and lambs and H. contortus antibody titres on the ewes. Also included are body weight and BCS measures of ewes and lambs, parentage measures, pregnancy scanning and fleece data from the ewes. All data was collected over 12 months. The data was used to analyse Barbervax immunity of ewes and lambs and effects of vaccination on performance

Vaccinomics: a cross-sectional survey of public values

Objective: We characterize public values regarding vaccinomics, which aims to improve vaccine safety and effectiveness using genomics. Methods: Panel survey (2020) of ≥18-year-olds with embedded animation introduced vaccinomics. Sociodemographic, health, and vaccination-related items were adapted from validated scales. Novel items measured trust in public health authorities, vaccinomics-related values, and preferences for federal funding: vaccinomics compared with vaccine issues and chronic diseases. Beginning and end of survey confidence in vaccine safety was measured to assess potential changes. Data were weighted to the U.S. Census. Vaccinomics-related concerns were stratified by sociodemographic characteristics, vaccine hesitancy status (composite outcome), reported serious vaccine reactions, and trust in public health authorities (PHA). Log binomial regression models estimated associations between these variables and agency to make vaccine-related decisions. Results: Most (70.7%, N = 1,925) respondents expected vaccinomics would increase their vaccine confidence compared to now. Agreement was highest among those without serious vaccine reaction experience (unexperienced: 74.2% versus experienced: 62.3%), with high trust in PHA (high: 83.3% versus low: 57.4%), and low vaccine hesitancy among parents of teenagers (low: 78.8% versus high: 62.5%) and adults without minor children (low: 79.8% versus high: 60.6%; all p < .01). Belief that vaccination was an individual’s choice was associated with reported serious reactions (adjusted Prevalence Ratio (aPR): 1.16; 95% CI: 1.07, 1.25) and low trust (aPR: 0.91; 0.84, 0.98). Beginning versus end of survey vaccine safety perceptions were similar. Conclusion: Federal funding, communications, and policies should assure the public that vaccinomics will not remove their decision–making power and engender trust in PHA