Publications by authors named "Ashby M"

Background: Bluetongue virus serotype 3 (BTV-3) was detected for the first time in cattle and sheep in southern England in 2023, the first UK BTV incursion for more than 15 years. Clinical signs were not observed, yet severe clinical disease and mortality were reported during recent BTV-3 outbreaks in northern Europe.

Methods: To investigate the clinical disease and infection kinetics associated with this UK BTV-3 strain, five British sheep were infected with a UK BTV-3 isolate using Culicoides biting midges.

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Nano-patterned magnetic materials have opened new venues for the investigation of strongly correlated phenomena including artificial spin-ice systems, geometric frustration, and magnetic monopoles, for technologically important applications such as reconfigurable ferromagnetism. With the advent of atomically thin 2D van der Waals (vdW) magnets, a pertinent question is whether such compounds could make their way into this realm where interactions can be tailored so that unconventional states of matter can be assessed. Here, it is shown that square islands of CrGeTe vdW ferromagnets distributed in a grid manifest antiferromagnetic correlations, essential to enable frustration resulting in an artificial spin-ice.

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  • - The study evaluated the reliability of a method called detrended fluctuation analysis of heart rate variability (DFA-α1) for determining exercise intensity thresholds and compared it to traditional methods based on blood lactate and gas exchange for a group of 37 participants.
  • - Test results showed that DFA-α1 had good reliability and moderate agreement with the other two methods, although the accuracy of thresholds varied depending on participants' cardiorespiratory fitness levels.
  • - The findings indicated that male participants had a higher bias in threshold measurements compared to females, and to improve DFA-α1 accuracy, adjustments should be made based on both sex and fitness levels.
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  • Real-time RT-PCR is a crucial method for quickly and accurately identifying animal diseases like epizootic hemorrhagic disease (EHD).
  • The provided protocol focuses on detecting the genetic material of the EHD virus (EHDV) in blood and tissue samples, specifically targeting a key region of the virus's genome.
  • This method allows for the analysis of around 90 samples at once and can be finished in under 4 hours.
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Introduction: Unlike white adipose tissue depots, bone marrow adipose tissue (BMAT) expands during caloric restriction (CR). Although mechanisms for BMAT expansion remain unclear, prior research suggested an intermediary role for increased circulating glucocorticoids.

Methods: In this study, we utilized a recently described mouse model () to exclusively target bone marrow adipocytes (BMAds) for elimination of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) (i.

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NMDA receptors (NMDARs) are ionotropic receptors crucial for brain information processing. Yet, evidence also supports an ion-flux-independent signaling mode mediating synaptic long-term depression (LTD) and spine shrinkage. Here, we identify AETA (Aη), an amyloid-β precursor protein (APP) cleavage product, as an NMDAR modulator with the unique dual regulatory capacity to impact both signaling modes.

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Background And Objectives: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has developed into an effective therapy for several disease states including treatment-resistant Parkinson disease and medically intractable essential tremor, as well as segmental, generalized and cervical dystonia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Dystonia and OCD are approved with Humanitarian Device Exemption. In addition, DBS is also approved for the treatment of epilepsy in the anterior nucleus of the thalamus.

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African horse sickness is a severe and often fatal disease affecting all species of equids. The aetiological agent, African horse sickness virus (AHSV), can be differentiated into nine serotypes. The identification of AHSV serotypes is vital for disease management, as this can influence vaccine selection and help trace disease incursion routes.

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Synapse loss is currently the best biological correlate of cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and other tauopathies. Synapses seem to be highly vulnerable to tau-mediated disruption in neurodegenerative tauopathies. However, it is unclear how and when this leads to alterations in function related to the progression of tauopathy and neurodegeneration.

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  • A phase II study investigated the combined treatment of venetoclax and low-dose cytarabine (LDAC) for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) experiencing first measurable residual disease (MRD) or oligoblastic relapse.
  • The study enrolled 48 adults, primarily older patients with a history of intensive chemotherapy, and assessed their response to the treatment over several cycles, with notable differences in side effects based on relapse type.
  • Results showed that the combination was not only well tolerated but also led to significant remission rates, with many patients achieving either MRD negativity or complete remission, indicating the treatment's potential effectiveness.
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Introduction: Bluetongue virus (BTV) is an arthropod-borne that is almost solely transmitted by biting midges and causes a globally important haemorrhagic disease, bluetongue (BT), in susceptible ruminants. Infection with BTV is characterised by immunosuppression and substantial lymphopenia at peak viraemia in the host.

Methods: In this study, the role of cell-mediated immunity and specific T-cell subsets in BTV pathogenesis, clinical outcome, viral dynamics, immune protection, and onwards transmission to a susceptible vector is defined in unprecedented detail for the first time, using an arboviral infection model system that closely mirrors natural infection and transmission of BTV.

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Arsenic trioxide is an essential component of therapy for acute promyelocytic leukaemia (APL) and is currently dosed on actual body weight with no upper limit. Arsenic-induced neurotoxicity is a well-recognised complication; however, there is uncertainty about its relationship to arsenic dose and obesity. We conducted a large multicentre retrospective study of 487 patients with APL treated with arsenic-based therapy across 23 sites in Australia from 2008 to 2023.

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  • Peste des petits ruminants (PPR) is a viral disease affecting mainly sheep and goats, but can also infect other animals like buffalos and camels, highlighting concerns about how the virus spreads between wildlife and livestock.
  • Validated serological tools, such as the virus neutralisation test (VNT) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), have been used to detect previous infections but their effectiveness for atypical species is still uncertain.
  • A study analyzing 793 serum samples found that while VNT and ELISAs showed a high agreement (75-88%) for typical species, the accuracy dropped significantly (44-62%) for atypical species, indicating a need for better diagnostic approaches in these cases.
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The goals of care (GOC) framework (2014) is an illness phase categorisation system that enables limitations of medical treatment (LOMT) to be documented and communicated within a healthcare system. It incorporates a clinical assessment of illness phase and GOC discussion on aims and LOMT for an episode of care. Together, this results in documentation of a GOC category that guides treatment escalation decisions during episodes of patient deterioration.

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Microbiomes are intricately intertwined with human health, geochemical cycles, and food production. While many microbiomes of interest are highly complex and experimentally intractable, cheese rind microbiomes have proven to be powerful model systems for the study of microbial interactions. To provide a more comprehensive view of the genomic potential and temporal dynamics of cheese rind communities, we combined longitudinal, multi-platform metagenomics of three ripening washed-rind cheeses with whole-genome sequencing of community isolates.

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