Colostrum source and passive immunity transfer in dairy bull calves

Colostrum is essential for good neonate health; however, it is not known whether different calves absorb the nutrients from colostrum equally well. In this study, the absorption of protein, IgG, and γ-glutamyl transferase was compared in newborn dairy bull calves for 1 wk after feeding colostrum from different sources. Thirty-five Holstein-Friesian bull calves were randomly allocated into 3 groups and fed colostrum within 4 h after birth. Group A calves (n = 12) were bottle fed colostrum from their own dam for 3 d. Colostrum from these group A cows was also used as foster cow colostrum for the group B calves (n = 12), such that each group A and B calf pair received identical colostrum from each milking of the respective group A dam (10% of birth weight per day). The group C calves (n = 11) were fed 1 bottle (2 L) of pooled colostrum and transition milk (referred to as pooled colostrum), as was the standard practice on the dairy farm. The pooled colostrum was collected from the other dairy cows on the farm 0 to 4 d postpartum and stored at 4°C for less than 12 h. Blood was sampled from calves before the first feeding and at 1, 2, 3, and 7 d after birth. Levels of total solids, total protein, and IgG were higher in the dam colostrum than in the pooled colostrum. At birth, there were no differences between the calf groups for any measurements, and all calves had very low IgG levels. After receiving colostrum, the glucose, plasma γ-glutamyl transferase, serum total protein, and IgG concentrations increased significantly in all calves. There were no differences in any blood measurements at any time point between the pairs of group A and group B calves that received colostrum from the same cow except for the IgG concentration 2 d after birth. However, the group A calves had a higher total serum protein level and IgG concentration than the group C calves for all the time points after the first feeding. The group B calves had a higher IgG concentration than the group C calves on d 1, 2, and 7 after birth. Compared with groups A and B, there was no difference in the proportion of calves in group C that failed to have passive immunity transferred adequately based on the IgG threshold (<10 g/L). Thus, the calves receiving identical colostrum from the same cow had the same levels of IgG, and even the pooled colostrum provided sufficient transfer of IgG as the calves were fed within 4 h after birth.     

浅谈越南三岛国家公园森林资源的影响研究

越南太原省大慈县文安乡位于三岛国家公园管理处,社区居民生活困难,收入低,所以目前森林资源侵害状况依然存在。其中,25-50岁的群人对森林资源的影响最大,50岁以上和16岁以下的群人对森林资源的影响较小。人们对森林资源的影响是:伐木,狩猎动物,收集柴火,收集蔬菜,收集竹笋、药用植物。统计结果表明,天然林中具有18种树木经常被开发利用,常用木柴12种,药用29种,食用17种。7种动物经常被猎食。这些影响使得森林结构相当大改变,生物多样性减少,森林结构破坏。造成这种情况的主要原因是人们意识不高,缺乏工作机会,缺乏耕种土地,农业生产没有满足用户的需求。因此,必要有有关部门的协调在违法森林法的处理,为人民改善物质和精神生活,教育宣传和提高执法的认识     

Operations standards for global ATM networks: network element view

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has completed work on a series of standards on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) equipment functional operations and network element management. The objective of these standards is to enable flexible design and interoperability of network elements for use in a global ATM network, independent of any specific implementation. This article discusses these standards with respect to their development and application in planning ATM networks. Specifically, it addresses the following: the modeling approach taken in the development of the ITU standards, key operational features specified in the ATM network element functional model, and the capabilities of the ATM network element management interface. Examples of ATM equipment are provided to illustrate how the functional models specified in the ITU standards may be used by network planners and equipment manufacturers to specify and develop ATM equipment tailored to specific needs, while ensuring network interoperability. The article concludes with some points on the future enhancement of these and related ATM equipment operations standards     

Integrating local action elements for action analysis

In this paper, we propose a framework for human action analysis from video footage. A video action sequence in our perspective is a dynamic structure of sparse local spatial–temporal patches termed action elements, so the problems of action analysis in video are carried out here based on the set of local characteristics as well as global shape of a prescribed action. We first detect a set of action elements that are the most compact entities of an action, then we extend the idea of Implicit Shape Model to space time, in order to properly integrate the spatial and temporal properties of these action elements. In particular, we consider two different recipes to construct action elements: one is to use a Sparse Bayesian Feature Classifier to choose action elements from all detected Spatial Temporal Interest Points, and is termed discriminative action elements. The other one detects affine invariant local features from the holistic Motion History Images, and picks up action elements according to their compactness scores, and is called generative action elements. Action elements detected from either way are then used to construct a voting space based on their local feature representations as well as their global configuration constraints. Our approach is evaluated in the two main contexts of current human action analysis challenges, action retrieval and action classification. Comprehensive experimental results show that our proposed framework marginally outperforms all existing state-of-the-arts techniques on a range of different datasets.     

Effects of coralline lime on nutrient uptake and yield of field-grown sweet corn and peanuts in Oxidic soils of Western Samoa

Effects of coralline lime on yield and nutrient uptake by sweet corn (Zea mays saccharata Sturt.) and peanut (Arachis hypogea) were studied at three locations in Western Samoa. Coarse (0-10 mm) coralline material containing 31.1% Ca and 1.67% Mg was used as lime. There were two modes of application: band and broadcast, and three rates: 6, 12 and 18 ton ha^–1. In the highest rainfall location, marketable yields were increased by 250% for peanut and 160% for sweet corn by liming at 6 ton ha^–1, relative to the unamended control. Peanut yield increases were associated with reduced Mn toxicity and/or with Ca and Mg deficiency. Sweet corn was less susceptible to Mn toxicity, but more responsive to exchangeable Ca. The critical level of exchangeable Ca was found to be about 2.0 cmol(+)kg^–1. Applying lime to a band of 0.25-m wide did not reduce yield relative to broadcast. Soil cultivation caused the lime to spread over a wider band, diluting the applied calcium with a larger soil volume, suggesting that less than 6 ton ha^–1 broadcast coarse coralline lime could still be adequate for most Samoan soils.     

Designing amino acid sequences to fold with good hydrophobic cores

We present two methods for designing amino acid sequences ofproteins that will fold to have good hydrophobic cores. Giventhe coordinates of the desired target protein or polymer structure,the methods generate sequences of hydrophobic (H) and polar(P) monomers that are intended to fold to these structures.One method designs hydrophobic inside, polar outside; the otherminimizes an energy function in a sequence evolution process.The sequences generated by these methods agree at the levelof 60–80% of the sequence positions in 20 proteins inthe Protein Data Bank. A major challenge in protein design isto create sequences that can fold uniquely, i.e. to a singleconformation rather than to many. While an earlier lattice-basedsequence evolution method was shown not to design unique folders,our method generates unique folders in lattice model tests.These methods may also be useful in designing other types offoldable polymer not based on amino acids     

Chain Vacancies in 2D Crystals

Defects in bulk crystals can be classified into vacancies, interstitials, grain boundaries, stacking faults, dislocations, and so forth. In particular, the vacancy in semiconductors is a primary defect that governs electrical transport. Concentration of vacancies depends mainly on the growth conditions. Individual vacancies instead of aggregated vacancies are usually energetically more favorable at room temperature because of the entropy contribution. This phenomenon is not guaranteed in van der Waals 2D materials due to the reduced dimensionality (reduced entropy). Here, it is reported that the 1D connected/aggregated vacancies are energetically stable at room temperature. Transmission electron microscopy observations demonstrate the preferential alignment direction of the vacancy chains varies in different 2D crystals: MoS₂ and WS₂ prefer direction, while MoTe₂ prefers direction. This difference is mainly caused by the different strain effect near the chalcogen vacancies. Black phosphorous also exhibits directional double‐chain vacancies along 〈01〉 direction. Density functional theory calculations predict that the chain vacancies act as extended gap (conductive) states. The observation of the chain vacancies in 2D crystals directly explains the origin of n‐type behavior in MoTe₂ devices in recent experiments and offers new opportunities for electronic structure engineering with various 2D materials.     

p34cdc2 expression and meiotic competence in growing goat oocytes

Proper control of environmental factors can be crucial to the identification of genes that influence susceptibility to a complex trait, especially for a trait such as lung cancer, for which the environmental factor (smoking) accounts for a significant etiologic fraction of the disease. An earlier segregation analysis of 337 Louisiana families, which incorporated direct measure of tobacco consumption, provided evidence for autosomal codominant inheritance of a major gene that influenced age at onset of lung cancer. Subsequent analyses were performed in which the families were stratified into two subsets based on birth cohort of the proband; results suggested the presence of heterogeneity that were postulated to reflect the influence of cohort trends in tobacco consumption. To evaluate this hypothesis further, we simulated a population of three-generation pedigrees in which an autosomal dominant mode of susceptibility to lung cancer was transmitted, but tobacco use varied across generations corresponding to published trends in smoking. A total of 200,000 individuals in families of various sizes, ages, and cigarette smoking habits were simulated from 1900 to 1980. From this population, 324 families (2,405 individuals) with 380 cases of lung cancer were ascertained through 328 lung cancer probands. Complex segregation analysis was performed using the REGTL program of S.A.G.E. in which pack-years of tobacco exposure were incorporated directly into the likelihood calculations. Although the no major gene, environmental, and Mendelian recessive hypotheses were rejected, both dominant and codominant transmission provided a good fit to the data. Thus in a population of simulated families with autosomal dominant susceptibility to lung cancer, intergenerational differences in tobacco consumption led to the detection of autosomal codominant transmission as an acceptable hypothesis. These results underscore the potential danger of segregation analysis of complex traits in which exposure to known environmental influences may differ across generations.     

Coefficients of active and passive pressure. Angles of collapse and bulging with seismic actions

This article gives the most general and accurate solution, within the framework of the hypothesis of flat sliding surfaces, for computing coefficients of active and passive pressure, and angles of collapse and bulging, with a forward or reverse direction of contact friction forces, generalized for the case of any direction of seismic actions.Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 2, pp. 2–4, March–April, 1992.     

New tools for electromechanical characterisation of piezoceramics

This paper presents three methods that can be used to characterise piezoelectric integrated structures or materials, based on the resolution of an inverse problem. Analytical models that describe the electrical and/or mechanical behaviour of the material or structure as a function of piezoelastic properties are developed, and the appropriate measurements are carried out on the piezoelectric materials. The fitting of these models with experimental data allows the piezoelastic properties to be determined. Three characterisation methods are described. The first one is based on the electrical impedance measurement of piezoelectric integrated structures. The second one, purely acoustic, is based on the measurement of transmission coefficients of a plane wave through a piezoelectric plate. The third method uses the principle of resonance ultrasound spectroscopy of a piezoelectric cube combined with Laser detection.