Protective Efficacy of Decreasing Antigen Doses of a Subcellular Vaccine Against Ovine Enzootic Abortion in a Pregnant Sheep Challenge Model.

Background/objective: , the cause of ovine enzootic abortion, is a zoonotic bacterial pathogen and one of the most infectious causes of foetal death in sheep worldwide. Although the disease can be controlled using commercial inactivated and live whole-organism vaccines, there are issues with both, particularly concerning efficacy and safety. Recently, we have described the development of a new COMC (chlamydial outer membrane complex) vaccine based on a detergent-extracted outer membrane protein preparation of the pathogen, which can be delivered in a single inoculation and is both efficacious and safe.

Can home care work be organized to promote musculoskeletal health for workers? Results from the GoldiCare cluster randomized controlled trial.

Background: Workers in home care have high sick leave rates, predominantly because of musculoskeletal pain. The Goldilocks Work Principle proposes that health should be promoted by a "just right" composition of work tasks. Weekly workloads differ substantially between home care workers, suggesting that certain workers may have workloads that are too high, impacting their musculoskeletal health.

Comparison of serum microRNA in healthy horses and horses with moderate to severe mitral valve regurgitation using a commercially available canine cardiac panel.

Background: MicroRNA (miRNA) has previously been used as a biomarker for cardiac disease in humans and dogs, however, studies in horses are not yet available.

Objectives: To determine if adult horses with moderate or severe mitral valve regurgitation have a different serum miRNA expression profile compared to healthy controls.

Study Design: Retrospective cross-sectional.

Towards a microRNA-based Johne's disease diagnostic predictive system: Preliminary results.

Background: Johne's disease, caused by Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), is a chronic enteritis that adversely affects welfare and productivity in cattle. Screening and subsequent removal of affected animals is a common approach for disease management, but efforts are hindered by low diagnostic sensitivity. Expression levels of small non-coding RNA molecules involved in gene regulation (microRNAs), which may be altered during mycobacterial infection, may present an alternative diagnostic method.

Assessing the use of blood microRNA expression patterns for predictive diagnosis of myxomatous mitral valve disease in dogs.

Background: Myxomatous mitral valve disease (MMVD) is a common, acquired, and progressive canine heart disease. The presence of heart murmur and current cardiac biomarkers are useful in MMVD cases but are not sufficiently discriminatory for staging an individual patient.

Objectives: This study aimed to conduct a preliminary assessment of canine serum and plasma expression profiles of 15 selected miRNA markers for accurate discrimination between MMVD patients and healthy controls.

Association Between 24-Hour Movement Behaviors and Adiposity in Malaysian Schoolchildren: A Compositional Isotemporal Substitution Analysis.

Background: Physical activity (PA), sedentary behavior (SB), and sleep are interrelated 24-hour movement behaviors that are important for the growth and well-being of children. This cross-sectional study examined the relationship between 24-hour movement behaviors and adiposity, and predicted changes in adiposity following compositional time reallocations in 7- to 12.9-year-old Malaysian children from the South East Asian Nutrition Surveys II Malaysia.

Association between musculoskeletal pain and exposures to awkward postures during work: a compositional analysis approach.

Objectives: This study aimed to explore the association between arm elevation and neck/shoulder pain, and trunk forwarding bending and low back pain among home care workers.

Methods: Home care workers (N = 116) from 11 home care units in Trondheim, Norway, filled in pain assessment and working hours questionnaire, and wore 3 accelerometers for up to 7 consecutive days. Work time was partitioned into upright awkward posture, nonawkward posture, and nonupright time, i.

Measuring behaviour in hens using an ethogram to assess analgesia during further refinement of a high welfare, on-hen, poultry red mite feeding device.

: To refine an on-hen mite feeding device, an ethogram was employed to measure the reactions of hens during a routine experimental procedure (feather plucking) and to assess effects of analgesic cream on those reactions. : Three experimental groups were used; one treated with EMLA 5% before plucking ("EMLA group"); one with aqueous cream ("placebo group") and a "no treatment" group. Behaviours were measured and compared on three days: 'dummy handling day' i.

Characterisation of protective vaccine antigens from the thiol-containing components of excretory/secretory material of Ostertagia ostertagi.

Previous vaccination trials have demonstrated that thiol proteins affinity purified from Ostertagia ostertagi excretory-secretory products (O. ostertagi ES-thiol) are protective against homologous challenge. Here we have shown that protection induced by this vaccine was consistent across four independent vaccine-challenge experiments.

Evaluation of species-specific polyclonal antibodies to detect and differentiate between and .

Neosporosis and toxoplasmosis are major causes of abortion in livestock worldwide, leading to substantial economic losses. Detection tools are fundamental to the diagnosis and management of those diseases. Current immunohistochemistry (IHC) tests, using sera raised against whole parasite lysates, have not been able to distinguish between and We used and recombinant proteins, expressed in and purified using insoluble conditions, to produce specific polyclonal rabbit antisera.

A curated multivariate approach to study efficacy and optimisation of a prototype vaccine against teladorsagiasis in sheep.

This work discusses and demonstrates the novel use of multivariate analysis and data dimensionality reduction techniques to handle the variety and complexity of data generated in efficacy trials for the development of a prototype vaccine to protect sheep against the Teladorsagia circumcincta nematode. A curated collection of data dimension reduction and visualisation techniques, in conjunction with sensible statistical modelling and testing which explicitly model key features of the data, offers a synthetic view of the relationships between the multiple biological parameters measured. New biological insight is gained into the patterns and associations involving antigen-specific antibody levels, antibody avidity and parasitological parameters of efficacy that is not achievable by standard statistical practice in the field.

Compositional functional regression and isotemporal substitution analysis: Methods and application in time-use epidemiology.

The distribution of time that people spend in physical activity of various intensities has important health implications. Physical activity (commonly categorised by the intensity into light, moderate and vigorous physical activity), sedentary behaviour and sleep, should not be analysed separately, because they are parts of a time-use composition with a natural constraint of h/day. To find out how are relative reallocations of time between physical activity of various intensities associated with health, herewith we describe compositional scalar-on-function regression and a newly developed compositional functional isotemporal substitution analysis.

Blue prescription: A pilot study of health benefits for oncological patients of a short program of activities involving the sea.

Performing outdoor activities in blue spaces can help improve human health and mental well-being by reducing stress and promoting social relationships. The number of people surviving cancer has increased globally to experience this disease as a life-changing and chronic condition with physical and psychosocial symptoms that have negative impacts on their quality of life. While there has been a growth of programs in green spaces to meet the needs of cancer patients, such as follow-up post-treatment care, support groups and physical activity programs, very few studies have examined the effects of activities involving the sea for the health and well-being of oncology patients.

Efficacy of Phase I and Phase II Bacterin Vaccines in a Pregnant Ewe Challenge Model.

The bacterium can cause the disease Q-fever in a wide range of animal hosts. Ruminants, including sheep, are thought to play a pivotal role in the transmission of to humans; however, the only existing livestock vaccine, namely, Coxevac (Ceva Animal Health Ltd., Libourne, France), a killed bacterin vaccine based on phase I strain Nine-Mile, is only approved for use in goats and cattle.

Compositional analysis of the association between mortality and 24-hour movement behaviour from NHANES.

Aims: Previous prospective studies of the association between mortality and physical activity have generally not fully accounted for the interplay between movement behaviours. A compositional data modelling approach accounts for relative scale and co-dependency in time-use data across physical activity behaviours of the 24-hour day.

Methods: A prospective analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005-2006 on N = 1468 adults (d = 135 deaths) in ages 50-79 years was undertaken using compositional Cox regression analysis.

Joint association between accelerometry-measured daily combination of time spent in physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep and all-cause mortality: a pooled analysis of six prospective cohorts using compositional analysis.

Objective: To examine the joint associations of daily time spent in different intensities of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep with all-cause mortality.

Methods: Federated pooled analysis of six prospective cohorts with device-measured time spent in different intensities of physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep following a standardised compositional Cox regression analysis.

Participants: 130 239 people from general population samples of adults (average age 54 years) from the UK, USA and Sweden.

Distribution and Severity of Placental Lesions Caused by the 1B Vaccine Strain in Vaccinated Ewes.

infects livestock species worldwide and is the cause of enzootic abortion of ewes (EAE). In Europe, control of the disease is achieved using a live vaccine based on 1B strain. Although the vaccine has been useful for controlling disease outbreaks, abortion events due to the vaccine have been reported.

The Impact of Pulmonary Rehabilitation on 24-Hour Movement Behavior in People With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: New Insights From a Compositional Perspective.

Background: Physical activity levels are low in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and there is limited knowledge about how pulmonary rehabilitation transforms movement behaviors. This study analyzed data from a pulmonary rehabilitation trial and identified determinants of movement behaviors.

Methods: Objectively assessed time in daily movement behaviors (sleep, sedentary, light-intensity physical activity, and moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity) from a randomized controlled trial (n = 73 participants) comparing home- and center-based pulmonary rehabilitation was analyzed using conventional and compositional analytical approaches.

The evaluation of feeding, mortality and oviposition of poultry red mite ( ) on aging hens using a high welfare on-hen feeding device.

A study was performed to examine any effect of hen age on the feeding ability and mortality of different life-stages of [Poultry Red Mite (PRM)] when fed using a high welfare, on-hen mite feeding device. Mite feeding assays were carried out every two weeks on a cohort of five Lohman Brown hens with devices containing adult and deutonymph PRM or adult and protonymph PRM. Feeding rates and mortality of each PRM life stage and oviposition of adult female PRM were evaluated over an 18-week period.

The 1B vaccine strain of Chlamydia abortus produces placental pathology indistinguishable from a wild type infection.

Chlamydia abortus is one of the most commonly diagnosed causes of infectious abortion in small ruminants worldwide. Control of the disease (Enzootic Abortion of Ewes or EAE) is achieved using the commercial live, attenuated C. abortus 1B vaccine strain, which can be distinguished from virulent wild-type (wt) strains by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) analysis.

Zero problems with compositional data of physical behaviors: a comparison of three zero replacement methods.

Background: Researchers applying compositional data analysis to time-use data (e.g., time spent in physical behaviors) often face the problem of zeros, that is, recordings of zero time spent in any of the studied behaviors.

Mineral-nutrient relationships in African soils assessed using cluster analysis of X-ray powder diffraction patterns and compositional methods.

Soil mineral compositions are often complex and spatially diverse, with each mineral exhibiting characteristic chemical properties that determine the intrinsic total concentration of soil nutrients and their phyto-availability. Defining soil mineral-nutrient relationships is therefore important for understanding the inherent fertility of soils for sustainable nutrient management, and data-driven approaches such as cluster analysis allow for these relations to be assessed in new detail. Here the fuzzy-c-means clustering algorithm was applied to an X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) dataset of 935 soils from sub-Saharan Africa, with each diffractogram representing a digital signature of a soil's mineralogy.

Compositional data analysis of smoke emissions from debris piles with low-density polyethylene.

Data describing the composition of smoke are inherently multivariate and always non-negative parts of a whole. The data are relative and the information is contained in the ratios between parts of the composition. A prior analysis of smoke emissions produced from the burning of manzanita wood mixed with low-density polyethylene plastic applied traditional statistical methods to the compositional data and found no effect.