Mild and severe udder cleft dermatitis—Prevalence and risk factors in Swedish dairy herds

Udder cleft dermatitis (UCD) is an inflammatory skin condition affecting the anterior parts of the udder of dairy cows. The lesions may present as mild or severe skin lesions and have been associated with mastitis and digital dermatitis. The full etiology and pathogenesis are not understood and no large-scale studies have investigated prevalence and risk factors. Therefore, the main objectives of the study were to investigate the prevalence of mild and severe UCD in Swedish dairy herds and to identify risk factors associated with such lesions. We also wanted to investigate risk factors for all cases of UCD and to determine whether UCD increases the risk for mastitis and culling. A random sample of 100 freestall dairy herds were included in the study, and each herd was visited once. Cows were registered as having no, mild, or severe UCD. Additional cow and herd data were obtained via observations, interviews, and the Swedish Official Milk Recording Scheme. The data were analyzed using logistic regression models to identify risk factors for mild and severe UCD. In total, data from 3,479 cows in 99 herds were analyzed. The prevalence of mild and severe UCD was 19 and 9%, respectively. Lesions were found in 98 of 99 herds but the within-herd prevalence of mild (0–43%) and severe (0–33%) UCD varied notably between herds. Breed (Swedish Red compared with Swedish Holstein), certain udder conformation traits, and higher parity were risk factors associated with increased risk of UCD. In addition, cows with hock lesions and cows in herds with high incidence of culling due to hoof and leg diseases had a higher risk for mild UCD. More days in milk and high milk yield were cow-related risk factors associated with severe UCD. Three housing-related factors (shorter cubicles, mattress as cubicle base, and cubicles installed before 2001 compared with 2001–2005), a high incidence of veterinary-treated clinical mastitis and culling due to udder diseases, and a low incidence of culling of first-parity cows in early lactation were herd-related risk factors associated with increased risk for severe UCD. In addition, cows in herds with a high proportion of heifers older than 17 mo that were not inseminated were associated with lower risk of all UCD. Finally, UCD was not associated with the outcomes milk somatic cell count, veterinary-treated clinical mastitis, or culling in the multivariable analyses. The etiology of UCD is most likely multifactorial, involving udder conformation traits and other cow-related risk factors as well as herd-related risk factors. The high prevalence of severe UCD lesions in Swedish dairy cows emphasizes the need for preventive measures and efficient treatments.     

Universals and cultural differences in the judgments of facial expressions of emotion.

We present here new evidence of cross-cultural agreement in the judgment of facial expression. Subjects in 10 cultures performed a more complex judgment task than has been used in previous cross-cultural studies. Instead of limiting the subjects to selecting only one emotion term for each expression, this task allowed them to indicate that multiple emotions were evident and the intensity of each emotion. Agreement was very high across cultures about which emotion was the most intense. The 10 cultures also agreed about the second most intense emotion signaled by an expression and about the relative intensity among expressions of the same emotion. However, cultural differences were found in judgments of the absolute level of emotional intensity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Approach-withdrawal and cerebral asymmetry: Emotional expression and brain physiology: I.

In this experiment, we combined the measurement of observable facial behavior with simultaneous measures of brain electrical activity to assess patterns of hemispheric activation in different regions during the experience of happiness and disgust. Disgust was found to be associated with right-sided activation in the frontal and anterior temporal regions compared with the happy condition. Happiness was accompanied by left-sided activation in the anterior temporal region compared with disgust. No differences in asymmetry were found between emotions in the central and parietal regions. When data aggregated across positive films were compared to aggregate negative film data, no reliable differences in brain activity were found. These findings illustrate the utility of using facial behavior to verify the presence of emotion, are consistent with the notion of emotion-specific physiological patterning, and underscore the importance of anterior cerebral asymmetries for emotions associated with approach and withdrawal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adaptive modulation systems for predicted wireless channels

When adaptive modulation is used to counter short-term fading in mobile radio channels, signaling delays create problems with outdated channel state information. The use of channel power prediction will improve the performance of the link adaptation. It is then of interest to take the quality of these predictions into account explicitly when designing an adaptive modulation scheme. We study the optimum design of an adaptive modulation scheme based on uncoded M-quadrature amplitude modulation, assisted by channel prediction for the flat Rayleigh fading channel. The data rate, and in some variants the transmit power, are adapted to maximize the spectral efficiency, subject to average power and bit-error rate constraints. The key issues studied here are how a known prediction error variance will affect the optimized transmission properties, such as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) boundaries that determine when to apply different modulation rates, and to what extent it affects the spectral efficiency. This investigation is performed by analytical optimization of the link adaptation, using the statistical properties of a particular, but efficient, channel power predictor. Optimum solutions for the rate and transmit power are derived, based on the predicted SNR and the prediction error variance.     

Nonorthogonal PEEC formulation for time- and frequency-domain EM and circuit modeling

Electromagnetic solvers based on the partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) approach have proven to be well suited for the solution of combined circuit and EM problems. The inclusion of all types of Spice circuit elements is possible. Due to this, the approach has been used in many different tools. Most of these solvers have been based on a rectangular or Manhattan representation of the geometries. In this paper, we systematically extend the PEEC formulation to nonorthogonal geometries since many practical EM problems require a more general formulation. Importantly, the model given in this paper is consistent with the classical PEEC model for rectangular geometries. Some examples illustrating the application of the approach are given for both the time and frequency domain.     

Development of a Modelica Compiler Using JastAdd

This paper describes experiences from implementing key parts of a compiler for Modelica, an object-oriented language supporting declarative modeling and simulation of complex physical systems. Our implementation uses the attribute-grammar based tool JastAdd. In particular, we discuss the implementation of Modelica name analysis which is highly context-dependent, type analysis which is based on structural subtyping, and flattening which is a fundamental part of the Modelica compilation process.of so called modifications, Modelica.     

Variation of total phenolic content and individual low-molecular-weight phenolics in foliage of mountain birch trees (Betula pubescens ssp.tortuosa)

We studied seasonal and between-tree variation in the composition and content of total and individual low-molecular-weight phenolics (LMWP) in leaves of mountain birch trees (Betula pubescens ssp.tortuosa). The major phenolic compounds were chlorogenic acid, quercetin-3-O--D-glucuronopyranoside, myricetin-3-O-(5-acetyl)-L-rhamnopyranoside, and 1-O-galloyl--D-(2-O-acetyl)-glucopyranose. The content of total phenolics, as well as the sum of individual LMWP, varied only slightly among trees while variation in contents of individual LMWP was large. Concentrations of almost all phenolics decreased during the growing season but pairwise correlations between individual phenolics remained similar over the whole season indicating tree-specific LMWP profiles over the season. Among flavonoids, the between-tree component of variation was 2.6 times as large as the seasonal component, while for variation of nonflavonoids the between-tree component was larger than the seasonal one. To explain the significant correlations within both flavonoid and nonflavonoid compounds, we discuss the biogenesis of LMWP in birch leaves, as well as their ecological role.