Sheep Updates 2006 -Part 1

This session covers seven papers from different authors: PLENARY 1. Making Dollars from Merinos, David Sackett, Holmes Sackett & Associates Pty Limited, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2. A new variety of sulla (Hedysarun coronarium)for forage production in southern Australia, Kevin Foster, Ron Yates, Phil Nichols, Department of Agriculture and Food, WA and Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, UWA 3. Mating - Short and fast is better, Graeme Martin, John Milton, Faculty of Natural & Agricultural Sciences, The University of Western Australia 4. Breech strike protection in sheep post 2010, Scott Williams, Program Manager Animal Health and Welfare, Australian Wool Innovation Limited 5. How the West can win!, Garry McAlister, Meat & Livestock Australia Limited, New South Wales. 6. The Merino Company (TMC) - Active Marketing and supply chain management, Mark Suttie, General Manager Marketing – The Merino Company (TMC) 7. Driving on-farm productivity: the next 20 years, Peter Fennessy, Jack Cocks, AbacusBio Limited, Dunedin, New Zealan

Sheep Updates 2006 -Part 1

This session covers seven papers from different authors: PLENARY 1. Making Dollars from Merinos, David Sackett, Holmes Sackett & Associates Pty Limited, Wagga Wagga, NSW 2. A new variety of sulla (Hedysarun coronarium)for forage production in southern Australia, Kevin Foster, Ron Yates, Phil Nichols, Department of Agriculture and Food, WA and Centre for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, UWA 3. Mating - Short and fast is better, Graeme Martin, John Milton, Faculty of Natural & Agricultural Sciences, The University of Western Australia 4. Breech strike protection in sheep post 2010, Scott Williams, Program Manager Animal Health and Welfare, Australian Wool Innovation Limited 5. How the West can win!, Garry McAlister, Meat & Livestock Australia Limited, New South Wales. 6. The Merino Company (TMC) - Active Marketing and supply chain management, Mark Suttie, General Manager Marketing – The Merino Company (TMC) 7. Driving on-farm productivity: the next 20 years, Peter Fennessy, Jack Cocks, AbacusBio Limited, Dunedin, New Zealan

Field testing a questionnaire assessing parental psychosocial factors related to consumption of calcium-rich foods by Hispanic, Asian, and Non-Hispanic white young adolescent children

Intervention strategies to increase calcium intake of parents and young adolescent children could be improved by identifying psychosocial factors influencing intake. The objective was to develop a tool to assess factors related to calcium intake among parents and Hispanic, Asian, and non-Hispanic white young adolescent children (10–13 years) meeting acceptable standards for psychometric properties. A parent questionnaire was constructed from interviews conducted to identify factors. Parents (n = 166) in the United States completed the questionnaire, with seventy-one completing it twice. Two constructs (Attitudes/Preferences and Social/Environmental) were identified and described by eighteen subscales with Cronbach’s alpha levels from.50 to.79. Test-retest coefficients ranged from.68 to.85 (p < .001). Several subscales were statistically significantly associated with parent characteristics consistent with theory and published literature. This tool shows promise as a valid and reliable measure of factors associated with calcium-rich food intake among parents and young adolescent children

Humoral and cellular immune responses to Lassa fever virus in Lassa fever survivors and their exposed contacts in Southern Nigeria.

Funder: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious DiseasesFunder: Science for Africa FoundationElucidating the adaptive immune characteristics of natural protection to Lassa fever (LF) is vital in designing and selecting optimal vaccine candidates. With rejuvenated interest in LF and a call for accelerated research on the Lassa virus (LASV) vaccine, there is a need to define the correlates of natural protective immune responses to LF. Here, we describe cellular and antibody immune responses present in survivors of LF (N = 370) and their exposed contacts (N = 170) in a LASV endemic region in Nigeria. Interestingly, our data showed comparable T cell and binding antibody responses from both survivors and their contacts, while neutralizing antibody responses were primarily seen in the LF survivors and not their contacts. Neutralizing antibody responses were found to be cross-reactive against all five lineages of LASV with a strong bias to Lineage II, the prevalent strain in southern Nigeria. We demonstrated that both T cell and antibody responses were not detectable in peripheral blood after a decade in LF survivors. Notably LF survivors maintained high levels of detectable binding antibody response for six months while their contacts did not. Lastly, as potential vaccine targets, we identified the regions of the LASV Glycoprotein (GP) and Nucleoprotein (NP) that induced the broadest peptide-specific T cell responses. Taken together this data informs immunological readouts and potential benchmarks for clinical trials evaluating LASV vaccine candidates