Comparative accuracies of genetic values predicted for economically important milk traits,genome-wide association,and linkage disequilibrium patterns of Canadian Holstein cows

Genomic selection methodologies and genome-wide association studies use powerful statistical procedures that correlate large amounts of high-density SNP genotypes and phenotypic data. Actual 305-d milk (MY), fat (FY), and protein (PY) yield data on 695 cows and 76,355 genotyping-by-sequencing-generated SNP marker genotypes from Canadian Holstein dairy cows were used to characterize linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure of Canadian Holstein cows. Also, the comparison of pedigree-based BLUP, genomic BLUP (GBLUP), and Bayesian (BayesB) statistical methods in the genomic selection methodologies and the comparison of Bayesian ridge regression and BayesB statistical methods in the genome-wide association studies were carried out for MY, FY, and PY. Results from LD analysis revealed that as marker distance decreases, LD increases through chromosomes. However, unexpected high peaks in LD were observed between marker pairs with larger marker distances on all chromosomes. The GBLUP and BayesB models resulted in similar heritability estimates through 10-fold cross-validation for MY and PY; however, the GBLUP model resulted in higher heritability estimates than BayesB model for FY. The predictive ability of GBLUP model was significantly lower than that of BayesB for MY, FY, and PY. Association analyses indicated that 28 high-effect markers and markers on Bos taurus autosome 14 located within 6 genes (DOP1B, TONSL, CPSF1, ADCK5, PARP10, and GRINA) associated significantly with FY.     

Preliminary characterisation of cornelian cherry (Cornusmas L.) genotypes for their physico-chemical properties

Fruit weight, antioxidant capacity, total anthocyanins, total phenolics, ascorbic acid, soluble solid content (SSC), reducing sugar and acidity of a number of selected cornelian cherry (Cornusmas L.) genotypes of varied pigmentation were investigated. Two methods, namely β-carotene bleaching and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) were used to determine total antioxidant capacity, while Folin–Ciocalteu reagent was used to determine total phenols. Fruit weight, SSC and ascorbic acid content of genotypes were 2.09–9.17; 12.53–21.17% and 29–112 mg/100 g, respectively. Antioxidant activity and total phenolic content varied among genotypes and 44-18 genotype had the highest antioxidant capacity using both methods. This genotype also had the highest total phenolic (74.8 mg GAE/g DW) and total anthocyanin (115 mg cyanidin-3-glucoside equivalents /100 g FW) content. There are linear relationships between antioxidant capacities and total phenols. The present study demonstrates the potential of certain cornelian cherry genotypes, notably 44-18, for improvement of nutritional value through germplasm enhancement programmes.     

Modeling and prediction of Turkey’s electricity consumption using Artificial Neural Networks

Artificial Neural Networks are proposed to model and predict electricity consumption of Turkey. Multi layer perceptron with backpropagation training algorithm is used as the neural network topology. Tangent-sigmoid and pure-linear transfer functions are selected in the hidden and output layer processing elements, respectively. These input–output network models are a result of relationships that exist among electricity consumption and several other socioeconomic variables. Electricity consumption is modeled as a function of economic indicators such as population, gross national product, imports and exports. It is also modeled using export–import ratio and time input only. Performance comparison among different models is made based on absolute and percentage mean square error. Electricity consumption of Turkey is predicted until 2027 using data from 1975 to 2006 along with other economic indicators. The results show that electricity consumption can be modeled using Artificial Neural Networks, and the models can be used to predict future electricity consumption.     

Influence of advanced injection timing on the performance and emissions of CI engine fueled with ethanol‐blended diesel fuel

Ethanol has been considered as an alternative fuel for diesel engines. On the other hand, injection timing is a major parameter that sensitively affects the engine performance and emissions. Therefore, in this study, the influence of advanced injection timing on the engine performance and exhaust emissions of a single cylinder, naturally aspirated, four stroke, direct injection diesel engine has been experimentally investigated when using ethanol‐blended diesel fuel from 0 to 15% with an increment of 5%. The original injection timing of the engine is 27° crank angle (CA) before top dead center (BTDC). The tests were conducted at three different injection timings (27, 30 and 33° CA BTDC) for 30 Nm constant load at 1800 rpm. The experimental results showed that brake‐specific energy consumption (BSEC), brake‐specific fuel consumption (BSFC), NO_x and CO₂ emissions increased as brake‐thermal efficiency (BTE), smoke, CO and HC emissions decreased with increasing amount of ethanol in the fuel mixture. Comparing the results with those of original injection timing, NO_x emissions increased and smoke, HC and CO emissions decreased for all test fuels at the advanced injection timings. For BSEC, BSFC and BTE, advanced injection timings gave negative results for all test conditions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Correlations for Estimation of Solar Radiation on Horizontal Surfaces

In this study, variation of the solar radiation over horizontal surfaces for clear-sky atmospheres was predicted and compared with measurements carried out in Erzurum, Turkey (latitude: 39.55, longitude: 41.16, and altitude: 1869?m). Hottel’s clear-sky model was used in calculations of solar radiation on horizontal surfaces for clear-sky atmospheres. The results show that the model calculations are reasonably consistent with the measured data. It is recommended that Hottel’s clear-sky model can be used for solar radiation calculations in Erzurum. Also, correlation equations giving monthly averages of clear-sky and global solar radiation on horizontal surfaces have been developed. In order to indicate the performance of the correlation equations, the relative percentage error, correlation coefficient, mean percentage error, mean bias error, and root-mean-square-error methods were used.     

Dynamic analysis of involute spur gears with asymmetric teeth

New gear designs are needed because of the increasing performance requirements, such as high load capacity, high endurance, low cost, long life, and high speed. In some applications, such as in wind turbines, the gears experience only uni-directional loading. In these instances, the geometry of the drive side does not have to be symmetric to the coast side. This allows for the designing of gears with asymmetric teeth. In previous studies related to bending stress and load capacity, high performance has been achieved for gears with asymmetric teeth. These gears provide flexibility to designers due to their non-standard design. If they are correctly designed, they can make important contributions to the improvement of designs in aerospace industry, automobile industry, and wind turbine industry. At high operation speeds, there is always a concern of dynamic loads and vibrations of equipment. Therefore, there is a need to fully understand the dynamic behavior of gears with asymmetric teeth. Thus, the primary objective of this paper is to use dynamic analysis to compare conventional spur gears with symmetric teeth and spur gears with asymmetric teeth. The secondary objective is to optimize the asymmetric tooth design in order to minimize dynamic loads. This study offers preliminary results to designers for understanding dynamic behavior of spur gears with asymmetric teeth. For this study, a dynamic model was developed, using MATLAB, and used for the prediction of the instantaneous dynamic loads of spur gears with symmetric and asymmetric teeth. Furthermore, a 2-D three-tooth model was developed for finite element analysis. Fast Fourier transform was used for the frequency analysis of the static transmission errors. It is shown that generally, the dynamic factor, for spur gears with asymmetric teeth, increases with increasing pressure angles on the drive side. For asymmetric teeth, increasing the addendum leads to a significant decrease in the dynamic factor. The static transmission error, at the center of the single tooth contact zone, decreases with increasing pressure angle. The first two harmonics slightly increase with increasing pressure angle. It is further shown that the amplitudes of harmonics of the static transmission errors are significantly reduced when asymmetric teeth with long addendum providing high gear contact ratio close to 2.0 are used.     

Comparative experimental study of full‐scale H‐subframe using a new industrialized building system and monolithic reinforced concrete beam‐to‐column connection

Industrialized building system (IBS) is a construction process that uses techniques, products, components or building systems that involve prefabricated components and on‐site installation. The structural behaviour of a prefabricated frame structure is widely affected by the specifications of the beam‐to‐column connection. The understanding on the real behaviour of a connection can be assessed by conducting full‐scale experimental tests. In this study, a new IBS hybrid steel–concrete connection in a full‐scale H‐subframe under monotonic loading is investigated. This innovative connection system, consists of precast concrete beam‐and‐column elements with embedded steel end connectors, is patented as Smart IBS. This paper reports the testing procedures and results of this semi‐rigid IBS beam‐to‐column connection to obtain the important attributes of the connection as well as its comparison with monolithic cast‐in‐place reinforced concrete model. The height of both H‐subframes is 3.3 m while the free length of the beam is 3.2 m. The incremental loads were applied as two point loads in one‐third and two‐third of the beam length. The characteristic relationships of the connection such as load to mid‐span deflection, strength, stiffness, ductility, failure modes and crack patterns are studied and compared between both structural systems. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.