Rational selection and usage of rotary type milking equipment

The advisable time of operation of the rotary type milking equipment per day depending on the specific exploitation costs has been investigated. It has been stated that these costs can be reduced, if the rotary type milking equipment load is increased. Therefore, it is advisable to organise the work of milkers in two shifts, so that the milking equipment is operated even up to 16 h per day. For this reason the herd of cows should be accordingly large. For instance, milking twice with the equipment with 50 milking places the cow herd can reach having even 2,500 cows, but at milking three times – up to 1,400 cows

Protein docking by Rotation-Based Uniform Sampling (RotBUS) with fast computing of intermolecular contact distance and residue desolvation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Protein-protein interactions are fundamental for the majority of cellular processes and their study is of enormous biotechnological and therapeutic interest. In recent years, a variety of computational approaches to the protein-protein docking problem have been reported, with encouraging results. Most of the currently available protein-protein docking algorithms are composed of two clearly defined parts: the sampling of the rotational and translational space of the interacting molecules, and the scoring and clustering of the resulting orientations. Although this kind of strategy has shown some of the most successful results in the CAPRI blind test <url>http://www.ebi.ac.uk/msd-srv/capri</url>, more efforts need to be applied. Thus, the sampling protocol should generate a pool of conformations that include a sufficient number of near-native ones, while the scoring function should discriminate between near-native and non-near-native proposed conformations. On the other hand, protocols to efficiently include full flexibility on the protein structures are increasingly needed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In these work we present new computational tools for protein-protein docking. We describe here the RotBUS (Rotation-Based Uniform Sampling) method to generate uniformly distributed sets of rigid-body docking poses, with a new fast calculation of the optimal contacting distance between molecules. We have tested the method on a standard benchmark of unbound structures and we can find near-native solutions in 100% of the cases. After applying a new fast filtering scheme based on residue-based desolvation, in combination with FTDock plus pyDock scoring, near-native solutions are found with rank ≤ 50 in 39% of the cases. Knowledge-based experimental restraints can be easily included to reduce computational times during sampling and improve success rates, and the method can be extended in the future to include flexibility of the side-chains.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This new sampling algorithm has the advantage of its high speed achieved by fast computing of the intermolecular distance based on a coarse representation of the interacting surfaces. In addition, a fast desolvation scoring permits the screening of millions of conformations at low computational cost, without compromising accuracy. The protocol presented here can be used as a framework to include restraints, flexibility and ensemble docking approaches.</p

ZnO Nanorods via Spray Deposition of Solutions Containing Zinc Chloride and Thiocarbamide

In this work we present the results on formation of ZnO nanorods prepared by spray of aqueous solutions containing ZnCl2and thiocarbamide (tu) at different molar ratios. It has been observed that addition of thiocarbamide into the spray solution has great impact on the size, shape and phase composition of the ZnO crystals. Obtained layers were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with energy selected backscattered electron detection system (ESB), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL). Small addition of thiocarbamide into ZnCl2solution (ZnCl2:tu = 1:0.25) supports development of significantly thinner ZnO nanorods with higher aspect ratio compared to those obtained from ZnCl2solution. Diameter of ZnO rods decreases from 270 to 100 nm and aspect ratio increases from ∼2.5 to 12 spraying ZnCl2and ZnCl2:tu solutions, respectively. According to XRD, well crystallized (002) orientated pure wurtzite ZnO crystals have been formed. However, tiny ‘spot’—like formations of ZnS were detected on the side planes of hexagonal rods prepared from the thiocarbamide containing solutions. Being adsorbed on the side facets of the crystals ZnS inhibits width growth and promotes longitudinalc-axis growth

Challenging fear: Chemical alarm signals are not causing morphology changes in crucian carp (Carassius carassius)

Crucian carp develops a deep body in the presence of chemical cues from predators, which makes the fish less vulnerable to gape-limited predators. The active components originate in conspecifics eaten by predators, and are found in the filtrate of homogenised conspecific skin. Chemical alarm signals, causing fright reactions, have been the suspected inducers of such morphological changes. We improved the extraction procedure of alarm signals by collecting the supernatant after centrifugation of skin homogenates. This removes the minute particles that normally make a filtered sample get turbid. Supernatants were subsequently diluted and frozen into ice-cubes. Presence of alarm signals was confirmed by presenting thawed ice-cubes to crucian carp in behaviour tests at start of laboratory growth experiments. Frozen extracts were added further on three times a week. Altogether, we tested potential body-depth-promoting properties of alarm signals twice in the laboratory and once in the field. Each experiment lasted for a minimum of 50&nbsp;days. Despite growth of crucian carp in all experiments, no morphology changes were obtained. Accordingly, we conclude that the classical alarm signals that are releasing instant fright reactions are not inducing morphological changes in this species. The chemical signals inducing a body-depth increase are suspected to be present in the particles removed during centrifugation (i.e., in the precipitate). Tissue particles may be metabolized by bacteria in the intestine of predators, resulting in water-soluble cues. Such latent chemical signals have been found in other aquatic organisms, but hitherto not reported in fishe