Effect of Direct-Fed Microbials and Enzyme Supplementation in Prepartum Holstein Cows on Colostrum and Calf Immunity

In cows, colostrum is composed of several antibodies and nutrients to provide immunity and energy to the calf. Feeding calves high quality colostrum has been shown to improve calf health, leading to reduced mortality in calves and greater milk production in cows. The addition of direct-fed microbials (DFM) to cow diets has been theorized to improve feed efficiency and milk production, with studies showing mixed results. However, few experiments have studied the effect of feeding DFM on colostrum quality. In this experiment two treatments were given, 1) DFM and 2) DFM and enzymes (DFME). Colostrum was analyzed to determine if yield, composition, and immunoglobulin (IgG and IgA) concentration were affected. Calf serum IgG and IgA concentrations were analyzed to determine if 24 h concentrations and apparent efficiency of absorption (AEA) were affected. There were no differences with regard to yield or IgA concentration. The percent of ash showed a positive trend, indicating a higher percentage with the treatments (P = 0.067). The treatments had no effect on the additional components analyzed. The results for the IgG concentration were not significant although an increase was observed from 79.1 mg/mL in the control to 91.1 mg/mL in the DFME treatment. Neither treatment had an effect on calf immunoglobulin concentration or AEA. Based on the results, feeding DFM or DFME improves percent ash and might increase IgG concentration, but further research is necessary

Influence of propionibacteria on in vivo rumen fermentation characteristics and in vitro lactic acid clearance rate in fistulated steers fed moderately high concentrate diets, The

Includes bibliographical references.2022 Fall.The objective of this experiment was to determine the impact of a direct fed microbial (DFM) supplementation on rumen fermentation characteristics and in vitro lactic acid clearance. Fistulated steers (n = 6) were sorted into two groups of three steers, randomly assigned to one of two treatments, and fed a moderately high concentrate diet (14.9% CP, 1.17 Mcal/kg NEg, and 28.3% NDF) for 21 d prior to beginning the experiment. Treatments consisted of: 1) Control (No DFM; carrier only) or 2) DFM (0.225g∙animal-1∙day-1 of 4.45x 1010 CFU/g of Propionibacteria acidipropionici - CP88). Treatments were administered daily, directly into the rumen via the cannula as a single bolus dose at the time of feeding. Immediately after treatment administration, the rumen contents were thoroughly mixed by hand. Two hours post feeding, rumen pH was determined, and rumen contents were sampled and analyzed for short chain fatty acids (SCFA), daily. On d 7 and 14, rumen fluid was collected from all steers and subjected to an in vitro lactic acid clearance challenge. Lactic acid and SCFA concentrations were determined at 0, 3, 6 and 9 h post-incubation. After d 14, all cattle received the basal diet for 21 d. On d 22, treatment crossover was implemented, and the experiment repeated. Data were analyzed by a mixed effects completely randomized block design (Proc Mixed, SAS Inst. Carey, NC). There were no treatment x block, treatment x time, or treatment x block x time interactions for any in vivo or in vitro rumen variables measured. Propionic acid concentrations were greater (P < 0.05) and total SCFA tended (P < 0.06) to be greater in rumen fluid from steers receiving DFM compared to controls. Other in vivo rumen fermentation characteristics were similar. D- and total lactic acid concentrations but not L+ lactic acid concentrations were lesser (P < 0.05) at 3 h post incubation in vitro, for steers receiving DFM. D-, L+, and total lactic acids concentrations were similar between control and DFM treatments at 0, 6, and 9 h post incubation. In vitro molar proportions of propionic acid and total SCFA concentrations were greater (P < 0.05) and acetic acid molar proportions were lesser (P < 0.05) in steers receiving DFM. Collectively, under the conditions of this experiment, these data indicate that the DFM test article (P. acidipropionici - CP88) used in this experiment alters rumen fermentation characteristics in vivo, and in vitro, and lactic acid utilization in vitro

Dynamic feature selection for clustering high dimensional data streams

open access articleChange in a data stream can occur at the concept level and at the feature level. Change at the feature level can occur if new, additional features appear in the stream or if the importance and relevance of a feature changes as the stream progresses. This type of change has not received as much attention as concept-level change. Furthermore, a lot of the methods proposed for clustering streams (density-based, graph-based, and grid-based) rely on some form of distance as a similarity metric and this is problematic in high-dimensional data where the curse of dimensionality renders distance measurements and any concept of “density” difficult. To address these two challenges we propose combining them and framing the problem as a feature selection problem, specifically a dynamic feature selection problem. We propose a dynamic feature mask for clustering high dimensional data streams. Redundant features are masked and clustering is performed along unmasked, relevant features. If a feature's perceived importance changes, the mask is updated accordingly; previously unimportant features are unmasked and features which lose relevance become masked. The proposed method is algorithm-independent and can be used with any of the existing density-based clustering algorithms which typically do not have a mechanism for dealing with feature drift and struggle with high-dimensional data. We evaluate the proposed method on four density-based clustering algorithms across four high-dimensional streams; two text streams and two image streams. In each case, the proposed dynamic feature mask improves clustering performance and reduces the processing time required by the underlying algorithm. Furthermore, change at the feature level can be observed and tracked

Time Complexity of Decentralized Fixed-Mode Verification

Given an interconnected system, this note is concerned with the time complexity of verifying whether an unrepeated mode of the system is a decentralized fixed mode (DFM). It is shown that checking the decentralized fixedness of any distinct mode is tantamount to testing the strong connectivity of a digraph formed based on the system. It is subsequently proved that the time complexity of this decision problem using the proposed approach is the same as the complexity of matrix multiplication. This work concludes that the identification of distinct DFMs (by means of a deterministic algorithm, rather than a randomized one) is computationally very easy, although the existing algorithms for solving this problem would wrongly imply that it is cumbersome. This note provides not only a complexity analysis, but also an efficient algorithm for tackling the underlying problem

Inter-organizational fault management: Functional and organizational core aspects of management architectures

Outsourcing -- successful, and sometimes painful -- has become one of the hottest topics in IT service management discussions over the past decade. IT services are outsourced to external service provider in order to reduce the effort required for and overhead of delivering these services within the own organization. More recently also IT services providers themselves started to either outsource service parts or to deliver those services in a non-hierarchical cooperation with other providers. Splitting a service into several service parts is a non-trivial task as they have to be implemented, operated, and maintained by different providers. One key aspect of such inter-organizational cooperation is fault management, because it is crucial to locate and solve problems, which reduce the quality of service, quickly and reliably. In this article we present the results of a thorough use case based requirements analysis for an architecture for inter-organizational fault management (ioFMA). Furthermore, a concept of the organizational respective functional model of the ioFMA is given.Comment: International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC

Pauli's Principle in Probe Microscopy

Exceptionally clear images of intramolecular structure can be attained in dynamic force microscopy through the combination of a passivated tip apex and operation in what has become known as the "Pauli exclusion regime" of the tip-sample interaction. We discuss, from an experimentalist's perspective, a number of aspects of the exclusion principle which underpin this ability to achieve submolecular resolution. Our particular focus is on the origins, history, and interpretation of Pauli's principle in the context of interatomic and intermolecular interactions.Comment: This is a chapter from "Imaging and Manipulation of Adsorbates using Dynamic Force Microscopy", a book which is part of the "Advances in Atom and Single Molecule Machines" series published by Springer [http://www.springer.com/series/10425]. To be published late 201