Comparison of antibody titres between intradermal and intramuscular rabies vaccination using inactivated vaccine in cattle in Bhutan : a thesis presented in the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Veterinary Science at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

In developing countries, the cost of vaccination limits the use of prophylactic rabies vaccination, especially in cattle. Intradermal vaccination delivers antigen directly to an area with higher number of antigen-presenting cells. Therefore, it can produce equivalent or higher antibody titres than conventional intramuscular vaccination even when a lower dose is given. This study aimed to compare the antibody response in cattle vaccinated intramuscularly with 1mL of inactivated rabies vaccine (Raksharab, Indian Immunologicals) against intradermally vaccinated cattle with 0.2mL of the same vaccine. The study was conducted in Haa province of Bhutan where rabies is not endemic. One hundred cattle from 27 farms were selected for the study. Virus neutralising antibody (VNA) response was measured using the fluorescent antibody virus neutralisation test on the day of vaccination (day 0) and 14, 30, 60 and 90 days later. Overall, 71% of intradermally vaccinated cattle and 89% of the intramuscularly vaccinated cattle produced a protective response (≥0.5IU/mL). This difference was significant (P<0.02) on days 14 and 30 post vaccination with 36 and 56% in the intradermal group having titres ≥0.5 IU/mL respectively compared to the equivalent figures of 78 and 76% in the intramuscular group. The mean VNA titres were lower for intradermal group than intramuscular group (p<0.001) with the mean difference being greater than 0.6 IU/mL. Although low dose intradermal vaccination did produce a detectable antibody response, it was inferior to intramuscular vaccination. Thus, although, intradermal vaccination has the potential to reduce the cost of vaccination by reducing the dose required, this study showed that a single dose of 0.2mL intradermally was inferior to an intramuscular dose of 1mL. Further research evaluating dose and dose regimen is needed before intradermal vaccination using the Raksharab rabies vaccine can be recommended in cattle

Karma, Rebirth, and Mental Causation

Attempts to provide a thoroughly naturalized reading of the doctrine of karma have raised important issues regarding its role in the overall economy of the Buddhist soteriological project. This paper identifies some of the most problematic aspects of a naturalized interpretation of karma: (1) the strained relationship between retributive action and personal identity, and (2) the debate concerning mental causation in modern reductionist accounts of persons. The paper explores the benefits of a phenomenological approach in which reductionist accounts of karma are replaced with accounts that interpret virtuous and compassionate actions as emergent properties of consciousness that can be further enhanced through socialization

Karma

A short story about a woman, Indira, who undergoes a formative transformation in her understanding of Karma as she flees her mother\u27s home, and finds her own with her three daughters

Amplitude equations for polycrystalline materials with interaction between composition and stress

We investigate the ability of frame-invariant amplitude equations [G. H. Gunaratne, Q. Ouyang, and H. Swinney, Phys. Rev. E {\bf 50}, 2802 (1994)] to describe quantitatively the evolution of polycrystalline microstructures and we extend this approach to include the interaction between composition and stress. Validations for elemental materials include studies of the Asaro-Tiller-Grinfeld morphological instability of a stressed crystal surface, polycrystalline growth from the melt, grain boundary energies over a wide range of misorientation, and grain boundary motion coupled to shear deformation. Amplitude equations with accelerated strain relaxation in the solid are shown to model accurately the Asaro-Tiller-Grinfeld instability. Polycrystalline growth is also well described. However, the survey of grain boundary energies shows that the approach is only valid for a restricted range of misorientations as a direct consequence of an amplitude expansion. This range covers approximately half the complete range allowed by crystal symmetry for some fixed reference set of density waves used in the expansion. Over this range, coupled motion to shear is well described by known geometrical rules and a transition from coupling to sliding motion is also reproduced. Amplitude equations for alloys are derived phenomenologically in a Ginzburg-Landau spirit. Vegard's law is shown to be naturally described by seeking a gauge invariant form of those equations under a transformation that corresponds to a lattice expansion and deviations from Vegard's law can be easily incorporated. Those equations realistically describe the dilute alloy limit and have the same flexibility as conventional phase-field models for incorporating arbitrary free-energy/composition curves...Comment: 28 page

On the points without universal expansions

Let $1<\beta<2$. Given any $x\in[0, (\beta-1)^{-1}]$, a sequence $(a_n)\in\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$ is called a $\beta$-expansion of $x$ if $x=\sum_{n=1}^{\infty}a_n\beta^{-n}.$ For any $k\geq 1$ and any $(b_1b_2\cdots b_k)\in\{0,1\}^{k}$, if there exists some $k_0$ such that $a_{k_0+1}a_{k_0+2}\cdots a_{k_0+k}=b_1b_2\cdots b_k$, then we call $(a_n)$ a universal $\beta$-expansion of $x$. Sidorov \cite{Sidorov2003}, Dajani and de Vries \cite{DajaniDeVrie} proved that given any $1<\beta<2$, then Lebesgue almost every point has uncountably many universal expansions. In this paper we consider the set $V_{\beta}$ of points without universal expansions. For any $n\geq 2$, let $\beta_n$ be the $n$-bonacci number satisfying the following equation: $\beta^n=\beta^{n-1}+\beta^{n-2}+\cdots +\beta+1.$ Then we have $\dim_{H}(V_{\beta_n})=1$, where $\dim_{H}$ denotes the Hausdorff dimension. Similar results are still available for some other algebraic numbers. As a corollary, we give some results of the Hausdorff dimension of the survivor set generated by some open dynamical systems. This note is another application of our paper \cite{KarmaKan}.Comment: 15page