Sustainably managing buffalo trophy quality

Presented at the 9th international wildlife ranching symposium: wildlife - the key to prosperity for rural communities, held on 12-16 September 2016 at Hotel Safari & the Safari Court, Windhoek, Namibia in conjuction with the IUCN 2nd African Buffalo Symposium.To be successful, wildlife utilization needs to be financially, ecologically and genetically sustainable. Regarding buffalo, trophy hunters invariably target the highest scoring, largest-horned bulls with little regard to their age or breeding status. This is a situation compounded by ill-conceived trophy scoring methods which actively encourage the hunting of pre-breeding or active breeding bulls. Over time the 'best' trophy genetics have consequently been lost and as a result trophy quality is dropping. This presentation will in detail explain the Taylor first molar teeth buffalo aging process and demonstrate how it is possible to age live buffalo bulls accurately. It will also help participants to identify breeding age bulls and those considered to be of post breeding age. The presentation will also demonstrate how to trophy score live buffalo accurately. Suggestions will also be made as to how to change public opinion as to what should constitute a 'real' buffalo trophy

The in silico macrophage: toward a better understanding of inflammatory disease

Macrophages function as sentinel, cell-regulatory hubs capable of initiating, perpetuating and contributing to the resolution of an inflammatory response, following their activation from a resting state. Highly complex and varied gene expression programs within the macrophage enable such functional diversity. To investigate how programs of gene expression relate to the phenotypic attributes of the macrophage, the development of in silico modeling methods is needed. Such models need to cover multiple scales, from molecular pathways in cell-autonomous immunity and intercellular communication pathways in tissue inflammation to whole organism response pathways in systemic disease. Here, we highlight the potential of in silico macrophage modeling as an amenable and important yet under-exploited tool in aiding in our understanding of the immune inflammatory response. We also discuss how in silico macrophage modeling can help in future therapeutic strategies for modulating both the acute protective effects of inflammation (such as host defense and tissue repair) and the harmful chronic effects (such as autoimmune diseases).Comment: 7 pages plus 1 figur

William H. Sorrell, Attorney General of Vermont, et al. v. IMS Health Inc., et al. - Amicus Brief in Support of Petitioners

On April 26, 2011, the US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Vermont data mining case, Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc. Respondents claim this is the most important commercial speech case in a decade. Petitioner (the State of Vermont) argues this is the most important medical privacy case since Whalen v. Roe. The is an amicus brief supporting Vermont, written by law professors and submitted on behalf of the New England Journal of Medicin

Functional significance of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes in the immune response to murine gammaherpesvirus 68

Murine gammaherpesvirus 68 (MHV-68) is a natural pathogen of murid rodents and is closely related to Human Herpesvirus 8, Herpesvirus saimiri and Epstein Barr virus. Intranasal infection of inbred mouse strains with MHV-68 results in the lungs of these animals becoming productively infected with virus. In immunocompetent mice, MHV-68 is cleared from the lungs by day 10 after infection. By this time the virus has reached the spleen and has adopted a latent form of infection in B lymphocytes. Depletion of CD8+ T cells from mice, prior to infection, results in uncontrolled MHV-68 replication in the lungs and death of the animal by day 12 post-infection. Such evidence indicates that CD8+ T cells play an important role in the immune response of mice to primary infection with MHV-68.In this study T lymphocyte responses to MHV-68 were examined in vitro and in vivo.In vitro work focused on developing a conventional assay to measure MHV-68-specific CTL activity. It was found that splenocytes from MHV-68-infected mice consistently lysed 'S11' cells, a B cell lymphoma line originally isolated from an MHV-68-infected mouse. All S11 cells are latently infected with MHV-68 and around 5% of these cells support viral replication. Treatment of S11 cells with the anti-viral drug, 4'- S-EtdU, is known to prevent lytic MHV-68 protein expression. 4'-S-EtdU-treated S11 target cells were killed by lymphocytes from infected mice. This indicates that the T lymphocytes responsible for killing S11 cells were specific for a latent antigen of MHV-68. No measurable cytolytic activity against any other target cell line, infected in vitro with MHV-68, was detected.S11 has been shown to divide and expand when implanted subcutaneously into nude (T cell-deficient) mice. S11 does not expand when implanted into normal, immunocompetent mice, implying that T lymphocytes play a key role in inhibiting tumour formation. To investigate this theory, S11 cells were injected subcutaneously into nude mice. This was followed by transfer of re-stimulated lymphocyte populations, enriched for either CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, into the animals. This protocol consistently resulted in regression of S11 tumours. Splenocyte populations depleted of CD8+ T lymphocytes were most effective in preventing tumour formation. This suggests that CD4+ T cells play a major role in preventing B cell lymphoma outgrowth. Immunohistochemical analyses highlighted populations of macrophages and CD4+ T cells in regressing tumours. It may be hypothesised that CD4+ T cells elicit tumour regression via the initiation of a delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) response.Further in vivo work involved depleting BALB/c mice T lymphocyte subsets (CD4 and CD8) at a range of times before or after MHV-68 infection. Subsequently, virus titre in the lungs was assessed by plaque assay. Latently-infected B cells in the spleen were quantified by infectious centre assay and visualised by in situ hybridisation. Using these techniques it was demonstrated that both CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes contribute to clearance of MHV-68 from the lungs. CD8+ T cells also appear to limit the extent of B lymphocyte infection in the spleen. However, CD8+ T cells do not appear to be responsible for the decline in latently infected B cells which occurs in MHV-68 infected mice 2 to 3 weeks after infection.In conclusion, MHV-68 infection of inbred laboratory mouse strains has potential to model immunological responses to primary gammaherpesvirus infection in humans. In addition, histopathology induced by the S11 cell line implanted into nude mice could provide insight into gammaherpesvirus-associated B lymphoproliferative disease in immunocompromised individuals

A Target Restricted Assembly Method (TRAM) for Phylogenomics

While next generation sequencing technology can produce sequences covering the entire genome, assembly and annotation are still prohibitive steps for many phylogenomics applications. Here we describe a method of Target Restricted Assembly (TRAM) of a single lane of Illumina sequences for genes of relevance to phylogeny reconstruction, i.e. single copy protein-coding genes. This method has the potential to produce a data set of hundreds of genes using only one Illumina lane per taxon

Rectangular Emotion: The Expression of Awe in Painting and the Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater

This project studies the practical and theoretical expression of awe in contemporary painting. Works by Sidney Nolan and Mamma Andersson provide a backdrop to this investigation. The Wolfe Creek Meteorite Crater was selected as a subject from which to translate the experience of awe into large scale works painted on site. An original methodology was developed that combines Deleuzian affect theory with theories of representation, resulting in an affective trans-representational model of expressive painting

Dr. Right : Elderly Women in Pursuit of Negotiated Health Care and Mutual Decision Making

This study explores a group of elderly women who were searching for physicians that were interested in providing negotiated health care options with particular interest in mutual decision making. The grounded theory approach was used to explore the health care interactions between the physicians and the elderly women (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Qualitative interviews were conducted with eleven women, 75 years and older. The categorical working title of Looking for Dr. Right helped to focus our discovery of the reasons for these women\u27s search for a new physician. Grounded in the data, a proposed hypothesis was developed regarding the need for a two-way dialogue addressing specific health care concerns between an elderly woman and her physician