Poultry and pigeons: how to rear and manage them.

Mode of access: Internet.

The homoeopathic poultry physician (poultry veterinarian); or, Plain directions for the homoeopathic treatment of the most common ailments of fowls, ducks, geese, turkeys, and pigeons. Based on the author's large experience, and compiled from the most reliable sources. Translated from the German.

Mode of access: Internet.

Comparative ultrasonographic investigations of the gastrointestinal tract and the liver in healthy and diseased pigeons

The use of ultrasound as a diagnostic tool in birds has been documented for cardiac, urogenital, and liver disease. However, its use in gastrointestinal tract disease is not defined. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare the ultrasonographic findings of the intestine and liver of six healthy racing pigeons with those of six racing pigeons with gastrointestinal disease. The echogenicity of the liver was significantly different between the two groups. Pigeons with gastrointestinal disease had less homogeneous liver echogenicity with focal heterogeneous areas and the hepatic blood vessels were visible and dilated. The duodenum was visualized and its mean diameter of 7.2 +/- 0.3 mm in the diseased pigeons was significantly wider (P < 0.001) than the 5.7 +/- 0.2 mm in healthy birds. The thickness of the duodenal wall in healthy and diseased pigeons was 1.6 +/- 0.1 and 2.4 +/- 0.1 mm, respectively, and they were significantly different (P < 0.001). We defined baseline measurements for the duodenal loop in pigeons and provided evidence that ultrasound can be a useful diagnostic tool for investigating intestinal disease in pigeons.

Homing devices in choice of Tort Law: Australian, British and Canadian Approaches

Since 1994, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia have adopted new choice of law rules for cross-border torts that, in different ways, centre on the application of the law of the place where the tort occurred (the lex loci delicti). All three countries abandoned some species of the rule in Phillips v Eyre, which required some reference to the law of the forum (the lex fori) as well as the lex loci delicti. However, predictions were made that, where possible, courts in these countries would continue to show a strong inclination to apply the lex fori in cross-border tort cases - and would use a range of homing devices to do so. A comprehensive survey and analysis of the cases that have been decided under the Australian, British and Canadian lex loci delicti regimes suggests that courts in these countries do betray a homing instinct, but one that has actually been tightly restrained by appeal courts. Where application of the lex fori was formally allowed by use of a 'flexible exception' in Canada and the United Kingdom, this has been contained by courts of first appeal. Indeed, only the continuing characterization of the assessment of damages as a procedural question in Canada and the United Kingdom, seems to remain as a significant homing device for courts in these countries. © 2006 Oxford University Press.

NGR Tumor-Homing Peptides : Structural Requirements for Effective APN (CD13) Targeting

Acknowledgements We thank The Development Trust, University of Aberdeen, for financial support and a fellowship to M.P.

Robot navigation in sensor space

This thesis investigates the problem of robot navigation using only landmark bearings. The proposed system allows a robot to move to a ground target location specified by the sensor values observed at this ground target posi- tion. The control actions are computed based on the difference between the current landmark bearings and the target landmark bearings. No Cartesian coordinates with respect to the ground are computed by the control system. The robot navigates using solely information from the bearing sensor space. Most existing robot navigation systems require a ground frame (2D Cartesian coordinate system) in order to navigate from a ground point A to a ground point B. The commonly used sensors such as laser range scanner, sonar, infrared, and vision do not directly provide the 2D ground coordi- nates of the robot. The existing systems use the sensor measurements to localise the robot with respect to a map, a set of 2D coordinates of the objects of interest. It is more natural to navigate between the points in the sensor space corresponding to A and B without requiring the Cartesian map and the localisation process. Research on animals has revealed how insects are able to exploit very limited computational and memory resources to successfully navigate to a desired destination without computing Cartesian positions. For example, a honeybee balances the left and right optical flows to navigate in a nar- row corridor. Unlike many other ants, Cataglyphis bicolor does not secrete pheromone trails in order to find its way home but instead uses the sun as a compass to keep track of its home direction vector. The home vector can be inaccurate, so the ant also uses landmark recognition. More precisely, it takes snapshots and compass headings of some landmarks. To return home, the ant tries to line up the landmarks exactly as they were before it started wandering. This thesis introduces a navigation method based on reflex actions in sensor space. The sensor vector is made of the bearings of some landmarks, and the reflex action is a gradient descent with respect to the distance in sensor space between the current sensor vector and the target sensor vec- tor. Our theoretical analysis shows that except for some fully characterized pathological cases, any point is reachable from any other point by reflex action in the bearing sensor space provided the environment contains three landmarks and is free of obstacles. The trajectories of a robot using reflex navigation, like other image- based visual control strategies, do not correspond necessarily to the shortest paths on the ground, because the sensor error is minimized, not the moving distance on the ground. However, we show that the use of a sequence of waypoints in sensor space can address this problem. In order to identify relevant waypoints, we train a Self Organising Map (SOM) from a set of observations uniformly distributed with respect to the ground. This SOM provides a sense of location to the robot, and allows a form of path planning in sensor space. The navigation proposed system is analysed theoretically, and evaluated both in simulation and with experiments on a real robot.

Selective accumulation of virus-specific CD8+ T cells within the peripheral blood stem cell compartment

The absence of cellular immunity is central to the pathogenesis of herpesvirus-mediated diseases after allogeneic hemopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). For both bone marrow (BM)– and granulocyte-colony stimulating factor–mobilized peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) HSCT, donor-derived Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and cytomegalovirus (CMV) peptide–specific CD8+ T cells clones undergo early expansion and persist long-term, with additional diversification arising from novel antigen-specific clones from donor-derived progenitors. Whether BM or PBSC is the superior source of antiviral CD8+ T cells is unclear. Given that PBSC has largely replaced BM as a source of stem cells for HSCT, it is unlikely that herpesvirus effector T-cell reconstitution will ever be compared prospectively. PBSC grafts contain 10 to 30 times more T cells than BM and a randomized study found proven viral infections were more frequent in BM than PBSC recipients, suggesting viral-specific T-cell immunity is enhanced in PBSC. Recently Moss showed in lung cancer patients that herpesvirus-specific BM-derived CD8+ T cells have unique homing properties relative to herpesvirus-specific CD8+ T cells present in unmobilized peripheral blood (PB). Immunodominant EBV-lytic peptide–specific CD8+ T cells were enriched in BM but were reduced for CMV peptide–specific CD8+ T cells relative to PB. EBV-latent peptide–specific CD8+ T cells were equivalent, which has relevance in the context of posttransplantation lymphoproliferative disorder for which impaired EBV-latent CD8+ T-cell immunity is a risk-factor. A comparison of herpesvirus-specific cellular immunity in PBSC versus PB has yet to be performed.

The molecular mechanisms utilised by mesenchymal stem cells in migration to acute myocardial infarction

Heart damage caused by acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is a leading cause of death and disability in Australia. Novel therapies are still required for the treatment of this condition due to the poor reparative ability of the heart. As such, cellular therapies that assist in the recovery of heart muscle are of great current interest. Culture expanded mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) represent a stem and progenitor cell population that has been shown to promote tissue recovery in pre-clinical studies of AMI. For MSC-based therapies in the clinic, an intravenous route of administration would ideally be used due to the low cost, ease of delivery and relative safety. The study of MSC migration is therefore clinically relevant for a minimally invasive cell therapy to promote regeneration of damaged tissue. C57BL/6, UBI-GFP-BL/6 and CD44-/-/GFP+/+ mice were utilised to investigate mMSC migration. To assist in murine models of MSC migration, a novel method was used for the isolation of murine MSC (mMSC). These mMSC were then expanded in culture and putative mMSC were positive for Sca-1, CD90.2, and CD44 and were negative for CD45 and CD11b. Furthermore, mMSC from C57BL/6 and UBI-GFP-BL/6 mice were shown to differentiate into cells of the mesodermal lineage. Cells from CD44-/-/GFP+/+ mice were positive for Sca-1 and CD90.2, and negative for CD44, CD45 and CD11b however, these cells were unable to differentiate into adipocytes and chondrocytes and express lineage specific genes, PLIN and ACAN. Analysis of mMSC chemokine receptor (CR) expression showed that although mMSC do express chemokine receptors, (including those specific for chemokines released after AMI), these were low or undetectable by mRNA. However, protein expression could be detected, which was predominantly cytoplasmic. It was further shown that in both healthy (unperturbed) and inflamed tissues, mMSC had very little specific migration and engraftment after intravenous injection. To determine if poor mMSC migration was due to the inability of mMSC to respond to chemotactic stimuli, chemokine expression in bone marrow, skin injury and hearts (healthy and after AMI) was analysed at various time points by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT PCR). Many chemokines were up-regulated after skin biopsy and AMI, but the highest acute levels were found for CXCL12 and CCL7. Due to their high expression in infarcted hearts, the chemokines CXCL12 and CCL7 were tested for their effect on mMSC migration. Despite CR expression at both protein and mRNA levels, migration in response to CXCL12 and CCL7 was low in mMSC cultured on Nunclon plastic. A novel tissue culture plastic technology (UpCellTM) was then used that allowed gentle non-enzymatic dissociation of mMSC, thus preserving surface expression of the CRs. Despite this the in vitro data indicated that CXCL12 fails to induce significant migration ability of mMSC, while CCL7 induces significant, but low-level migration. We speculated this may be because of low levels of surface expression of chemokine receptors. In a strategy to increase cell surface expression of mMSC chemokine receptors and enhance their in vitro and in vivo migration capacity, mMSC were pre-treated with pro-inflammatory cytokines. Increased levels of both mRNA and surface protein expression were found for CRs by pre-treating mMSC with pro-inflammatory cytokines including TNF-á, IFN-ã, IL-1á and IL-6. Furthermore, the chemotactic response of mMSC to CXCL12 and CCL7 was significantly higher with these pretreated cells. Finally, the effectiveness of this type of cell manipulation was demonstrated in vivo, where mMSC pre-treated with TNF-á and IFN-ã showed significantly increased migration in skin injury and AMI models. Therefore this thesis has demonstrated, using in vitro and in vivo models, the potential for prior manipulation of MSC as a possible means for increasing the utility of intravenously delivery for MSC-based cellular therapies.

Endogenous musculoskeletal tissue engineering : a focussed perspective

Two major difficulties facing widespread clinical implementation of existing Tissue Engineering (TE) strategies for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders are (1) the cost, space and time required for ex vivo culture of a patient’s autologous cells prior to re-implantation as part of a TE construct, and (2) the potential risks and availability constraints associated with transplanting exogenous (foreign) cells. These hurdles have led to recent interest in endogenous TE strategies, in which the regenerative potential of a patient’s own cells is harnessed to promote tissue regrowth without ex vivo cell culture. This article provides a focused perspective on key issues in the development of endogenous TE strategies, progress to date, and suggested future research directions toward endogenous repair and regeneration of musculoskeletal tissues and organs.

PITX2 and non-canonical Wnt pathway interaction in metastatic prostate cancer

The non-canonical Wnt pathway, a regulator of cellular motility and morphology, is increasingly implicated in cancer metastasis. In a quantitative PCR array analysis of 84 Wnt pathway associated genes, both non-canonical and canonical pathways were activated in primary and metastatic tumors relative to normal prostate. Expression of the Wnt target gene PITX2 in a prostate cancer (PCa) bone metastasis was strikingly elevated over normal prostate (over 2,000-fold) and primary prostate cancer (over 200-fold). The elevation of PITX2 protein was also evident on tissue microarrays, with strong PITX2 immunostaining in PCa skeletal and, to a lesser degree, soft tissue metastases. PITX2 is associated with cell migration during normal tissue morphogenesis. In our studies, overexpression of individual PITX2A/B/C isoforms stimulated PC-3 PCa cell motility, with the PITX2A isoform imparting a specific motility advantage in the presence of non-canonical Wnt5a stimulation. Furthermore, PITX2 specific shRNA inhibited PC-3 cell migration toward bone cell derived chemoattractant. These experimental results support a pivotal role of PITX2A and non-canonical Wnt signaling in enhancement of PCa cell motility, suggest PITX2 involvement in homing of PCa to the skeleton, and are consistent with a role for PITX2 in PCa metastasis to soft and bone tissues. Our findings, which significantly expand previous evidence that PITX2 is associated with risk of PCa biochemical recurrence, indicate that variation in PITX2 expression accompanies and may promote prostate tumor progression and metastasis.

Visual predictive control of spiral motion

This paper deals with constrained image-based visual servoing of circular and conical spiral motion about an unknown object approximating a single image point feature. Effective visual control of such trajectories has many applications for small unmanned aerial vehicles, including surveillance and inspection, forced landing (homing), and collision avoidance. A spherical camera model is used to derive a novel visual-predictive controller (VPC) using stability-based design methods for general nonlinear model-predictive control. In particular, a quasi-infinite horizon visual-predictive control scheme is derived. A terminal region, which is used as a constraint in the controller structure, can be used to guide appropriate reference image features for spiral tracking with respect to nominal stability and feasibility. Robustness properties are also discussed with respect to parameter uncertainty and additive noise. A comparison with competing visual-predictive control schemes is made, and some experimental results using a small quad rotor platform are given.

Translocation of bats as a conservation strategy : previous attempts and potential problems

Translocation is an increasingly popular conservation tool from which a wide range of taxa have benefited. However, to our knowledge, bats have not been translocated successfully. Bats differ behaviourally, morphologically and physiologically from the taxa for which translocation the- ory has been developed, so existing guidelines may not be directly transferable. We review previous translocations of bats and discuss characteristics of bats that may require special consideration dur- ing translocation. Their vagility and homing ability, coloniality, roost requirements, potential ability to transmit diseases, susceptibility to anthropomorphic impacts, and cryptic nature have implications for establishing populations, effects of these populations on the release site, and ability to monitor translocation success following release. We hope that our discussion of potential problems will be able to supplement the existing, more generic guidelines to provide a starting point for the planning of bat translocations.

Tissue engineered humanized bone supports human hematopoiesis in vivo

Advances in tissue-engineering have resulted in a versatile tool-box to specifically design a tailored microenvironment for hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) in order to study diseases that develop within this setting. However, most current in vivo models fail to recapitulate the biological processes seen in humans. Here we describe a highly reproducible method to engineer humanized bone constructs that are able to recapitulate the morphological features and biological functions of the HSC niches. Ectopic implantation of biodegradable composite scaffolds cultured for 4 weeks with human mesenchymal progenitor cells and loaded with rhBMP-7 resulted in the development of a chimeric bone organ including a large number of human mesenchymal cells which were shown to be metabolically active and capable of establishing a humanized microenvironment supportive of the homing and maintenance of human HSCs. A syngeneic mouse-to-mouse transplantation assay was used to prove the functionality of the tissue-engineered ossicles. We predict that the ability to tissue engineer a morphologically intact and functional large-volume bone organ with a humanized bone marrow compartment will help to further elucidate physiological or pathological interactions between human HSCs and their native niches.

The genetic structure of Australasian green turtles (Chelonia mydas): Exploring the geographical scale of genetic exchange

Ecological and genetic studies of marine turtles generally support the hypothesis of natal homing, but leave open the question of the geographical scale of genetic exchange and the capacity of turtles to shift breeding sites. Here we combine analyses of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) variation and recapture data to assess the geographical scale of individual breeding populations and the distribution of such populations through Australasia. We conducted multiscale assessments of mtDNA variation among 714 samples from 27 green turtle rookeries and of adult female dispersal among nesting sites in eastern Australia. Many of these rookeries are on shelves that were flooded by rising sea levels less than 10 000 years (c. 450 generations) ago. Analyses of sequence variation among the mtDNA control region revealed 25 haplotypes, and their frequency distributions indicated 17 genetically distinct breeding stocks (Management Units) consisting either of individual rookeries or groups of rookeries in general that are separated by more than 500 km. The population structure inferred from mtDNA was consistent with the scale of movements observed in long-term mark-recapture studies of east Australian rookeries. Phylogenetic analysis of the haplotypes revealed five clades with significant partitioning of sequence diversity (Φ = 68.4) between Pacific Ocean and Southeast Asian/Indian Ocean rookeries. Isolation by distance was indicated for rookeries separated by up to 2000 km but explained only 12% of the genetic structure. The emerging general picture is one of dynamic population structure influenced by the capacity of females to relocate among proximal breeding sites, although this may be conditional on large population sizes as existed historically across this region.

Transcriptome and glycome profiling of human hematopoietic CD133+ and CD34+ cells

New blood cells are continuously provided by self-renewing multipotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSC). The capacity of HSCs to regenerate the hematopoietic system is utilized in the treatment of patients with hematological malignancies. HSCs can be enriched using an antibody-based recognition of CD34 or CD133 glycoproteins on the cell surface. The CD133+ and CD34+ cells may have partly different roles in hematopoiesis. Furthermore, each cell has a glycome typical for that cell type. Knowledge of HSC glycobiology can be used to design therapeutic cells with improved cell proliferation or homing properties. The present studies characterize the global gene expression profile of human cord blood-derived CD133+ and CD34+ cells, and demonstrate the differences between CD133+ and CD34+ cell populations that may have an impact in transplantation when CD133+ and CD34+ selected cells are used. In addition, these studies unravel the glycome profile of primitive hematopoietic cells and reveal the transcriptional regulation of N-glycan biosynthesis in CD133+ and CD34+ cells. The gene expression profile of CD133+ cells represents 690 differentially expressed transcripts between CD133+ cells and CD133- cells. CD34+ cells have 620 transcripts differentially expressed when compared to CD34- cells. The integrated CD133+/CD34+ cell gene expression profiles proffer novel transcripts to specify HSCs. Furthermore, the differences between the gene expression profiles of CD133+ and CD34+ cells indicate differences in the transcriptional regulation of CD133+ and CD34+ cells. CD133+ cells express a lower number of hematopoietic lineage differentiation marker genes than CD34+ cells. The expression profiles suggest a more primitive nature of CD133+ cells. Moreover, CD133+ cells have characteristic glycome that differ from the glycome of CD133- cells. High mannose-type and biantennary complex-type N-glycans are enriched in CD133+ cells. N-glycosylation-related gene expression pattern of CD133+ cells identify the key genes regulating the CD133+ cell-specific glycosylation including the overexpression of MGAT2 and underexpression of MGAT4. The putative role of MAN1C1 in the increase of unprocessed high mannose-type N-glycans in CD133+ cells is also discussed. These studies provide new information on the characteristics of HSCs. Improved understanding of HSC biology can be used to design therapeutic cells with improved cell proliferation and homing properties. As a result, HSC engineering could further their clinical use.