Liver fluke infections in cattle and sheep

The trematode, Fasciola hepatica, is a cosmopolitan parasite of temperate regions that can infect a wide variety of wild and domestic mammalian species, including man. Host-responses differ amongst different species and this article focuses on the contrast between cattle and sheep, the two classes of livestock in which fasciolosis assumes the greatest economic importance. In the sheep, acute fasciolosis resulting from parenchymal damage to the liver and haemorrhage caused by migrating juvenile flukes is a severe and potentially fatal disease. In contrast, the parenchymal stages have limited effects in cattle and the acute form of the disease is extremely rare. Though there is no evidence for a functional, acquired immune response to Fasciola hepatica, cattle provide a less hospitable environment, probably due to the profound changes in parasitised bile ducts, which render them as unsuitable habitats for feeding fluke. Consequently, in untreated cattle, many liver fluke die within 18 months of infection, though some can survive for 2 years or more. In the sheep, essentially, the fluke can live as long as the sheep; up to 11 years has been reported. These differences lead to the need for different treatment approaches in cattle and sheep with respect to juvenile fluke, but do also provide some opportunities for novel control approaches, based on the relative tolerance of cattle and their ability to limit parasitic damage to the liver parenchyma

Duck fleas as evidence for eiderdown production on archaeological sites

Acknowledgements This project was undertaken as part of my doctoral studies funded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission (CACR-2009-39) in the United Kingdom. I would like to thank my supervisors Karen Milek and Andrew Dugmore for their help and support. I also wish to thank Jónas Helgason, his son Alexius Jónasson and Baldur Vilhelmsson for kindly having allowed access to the eiderdown stores and workshops at Æðey and Vatnsfjörður and for having provided assistance when needed. I would like to thank Fornleifastofnun Íslands for supporting my fieldwork at Vatnsfjörður, as well as Paul Ledger and Garðar Guðmundsson for their help during fieldwork. I am especially grateful to Richard Marriott for his invaluable help with flea identifications and for lending me reference material. Erling Ólafsson and Jan Klimaszewski also helped with the beetle identifications. Consultation of the BugsCEP database (Buckland and Buckland, 2006) aided the redaction of this paper.Peer reviewedPostprin

Grassland management and helminth control on cattle farms

Farmers manage their pastures and grazing animals primarily to ensure that swards provide adequate, quality nutrients to support animal performance, but it is also possible to provide useful levels of parasite control without compromising production. On cattle only farms the easiest options for the control of parasitic gastroenteritis in young cattle revolve around the avoidance of high risk pastures from July onwards. On many farms, silage/hay aftermaths that have not been grazed by cattle for 12 months or more can provide low risk fields on which cattle can thrive with minimal reliance on anthelmintics

Globular Cluster Luminosity Functions and the Hubble Constant from WFPC2 Imaging: Galaxies in the Coma I Cloud

The membership of some galaxies in the nearby (d ~ 12 Mpc) Coma I cloud is uncertain. Here we present globular cluster luminosity functions (GCLFs) from the HST for two bright ellipticals which may belong to this group. After fitting the GCLF, we find a turnover magnitude of m_V^0 = 23.23 +/- 0.11 for NGC 4278 and m_V^0 = 23.07 +/- 0.13 for NGC 4494. Our limiting magnitude is about two magnitudes fainter than these values, making this data among the most complete GCLFs published to date. The fitted GCLF dispersions (~ 1.1 mag.) are somewhat smaller than typical values for other ellipticals. Assuming an absolute turnover magnitude of M_V^0 = -7.62, and after applying a small metallicity correction, we derive distance modulii of (m -- M) = 30.61 +/- 0.14 for NGC 4278 and 30.50 +/- 0.15 for NGC 4494. These distance estimates are compared to other methods, and lie within the published range of values. We conclude that both galaxies lie at the same distance and are both members of the Coma I cloud.Comment: 13 pages, Latex. Full paper also available at http://www.ucolick.org/~forbes/home.htm

Exploring Patient Satisfaction among Transgender and Non-Binary Identified Healthcare Users: The Role of Microaggressions and Inclusive Healthcare Settings

Patient satisfaction is an important indicator of quality of healthcare delivery. Transgender and non-binary (TGNB) people regularly report experiencing discrimination when in healthcare settings and few TGNB-inclusive services are available. Researchers have not examined how discrimination and access to TGNB-inclusive services are associated with patient satisfaction among TGNB healthcare users. Among a convenience sample of TGNB people (n = 146) from Canada and the United States, I examined the relationship between patient satisfaction, experiencing microaggressions from primary healthcare providers, and receiving care in a TGNB-inclusive healthcare setting. The results from a multivariable linear regression suggest that experiencing microaggressions is negatively associated with patient satisfaction while obtaining services from an inclusive healthcare setting is positively associated with satisfaction. These findings emphasize the importance of preparing healthcare providers to engage in inclusive practice with TGNB healthcare users, especially in terms of avoiding microaggressions. They also highlight the importance of creating TGNB-inclusive healthcare settings in fostering patient satisfaction. Researchers, medical professionals, and others working towards health equity, should consider the implications of these findings when developing solutions to improve healthcare access and patient satisfaction