The Emergence of Biotechnology in the State of Mississippi: A Review

This publication was written with the intention of performing an analysis of the present in-state bioscience initiative and subsequent Mississippi industry incumbents. Hopefully, this publication will be employed as an informative tool to Mississippi residents, universities, policy makers and private corporations considering investment in research and development in the state of Mississippi

Can you transform a country by design?

At the beginning of 1993 an enthusiastic designer from London considered that the impossible might be possible, to help reverse the downward spiral of the economy of Romania through product design. Groups of British and Romanian designers are collaborating on various design projects that can improve the living standards of the average Romanian by providing work, education and affordable products. Although it is too early to say if the scheme has been a success, already it has progressed further than many could have hoped. This paper describes the stages towards fulfilling this dream

Cluster Munitions: Should They be Banned?

Cluster munitions have been used in at least 23 countries, produced in 33 and stockpiled in over 70; their submunitions number into the billions. They cause lasting humanitarian problems and have recently been the target of campaigns to ban their use. This article aims to summarize the history, utility, legacy and legislation surrounding cluster munitions

Automobile design history – what can we learn from the behavior at the edges?

The paper is developed from a larger evaluation of the history of automobile design. This evaluation used categorical principal component analysis to analyze the direction of the product history, investigating how automobiles developed from 1878 to the present (2013), particularly focusing on whether automobile designers appear to be working within what are termed product paradigms. Rather than looking at how design thinking and paradigms became established in automobile design, this paper takes a sideways look at the variations and quirky automobiles that have been built by investigating the outliers of the analysis and categorizing them into three categories: those that are always outside of general trends, those that are throwbacks to earlier thinking and those that are innovative and ahead of later thinking. The paper ends with a brief look at how and why novelty might become innovation and hence alter the course of the greater product history rather than remaining outliers, interesting as they are. This is where the novelty demonstrates significant advantages for the customer and manufacturer. The conclusion is that the process of investigating statistical outliers is useful and may lead to insights when investigating changes, developments and innovations and their causes

Progesterone Levels in Cows Suspected of Embryonic Mortality

The competitive protein binding assay without chromatography was used to quantitate progesterone in the peripheral plasma of cows. The objective of this experiment was to estimate progesterone concentrations in cows suspected of experiencing embryonic mortality. Samples from 19 cows were assayed. The cows were divided into the following groups according to their estrous cycle length: (1) 20-22 days, (2) 26-32 days, (3) 40-69 days, and (4) pregnant. Jugular vein blood samples were taken beginning 12 days after insemination. The blood sampling schedule was as follows: 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26, 29, 32, 35, 38, 41, 44, 47, 58, 61, and 64 days post-breeding. Plasma was separated and stored at -200C until assayed. The progesterone determinations were performed on 0.5 ml aliquots of plasma. To monitor the effectiveness of each assay, steer plasma fortified with 3 ng of progesterone were assayed for progesterone. The progesterone content of steer plasma could not be distinguished from zero and the fortified steer plasma averaged 2.75±0.09 ng per ml. Tritiated progesterone was used to estimate the recovery percentage from cow plasma. the average recovery rate for all assays was 95.6±0.6 percent. Analysis of variance on all groups through Day 21 indicated that Group 1 was different (P\u3c0.05) from Groups 2, 3, and 4. A significant (P\u3c0.10) day difference was found in Group 1 and no group-day interactions (P\u3e0.05) were found in all groups. Group 2 had greater (P\u3c0.05) progesterone concentrations than Group 1 indicating that the cows in the delayed estrus group (Group 2) may have been pregnant but experienced embryonic death shortly after implantation. This group was not different (P\u3e0.05) from Group 4 (pregnant) at 21 days. Comparison of Groups 3 and 4 through 47 days indicated that the progesterone level of Group 3 was significantly (P\u3c0.01) less than the level of Group 4. From this analysis it was postulated that the cows in Group 3 may have had less progesterone than required for maintenance of pregnancy