The effects of various levels of fluorine on the digestability of feeds

The fluorine problem in livestock feeding is one of increasing importance. Untold damage has been caused b/ the detrimental effects of fluorine. The first problem arose through the feeding of raw rock phosphate, containing from 3 to 4 percent fluorine, as a mineral supplement. The livestock fed raw rock phosphate at high levels of intake showed a decrease in appetite, and the animals gradually took on an emaciated look. The teeth of animals fed the rock phosphate become mottled and pitted. The same symptoms were observed in cattle eating vegetation grown in the vicinity of aluminum and phosphate industries. It was found fluorine was given off from the manufacture of these materials and settled on the vegetation. This increased the fluorine problem considerably. Work is being done at the Tennessee Experiment Station to determine at what level fluorine becomes toxic and how long it takes the toxic condition to arise. This phase of the experiment was set up to determine the effects of fluorine on the digestibility of the ration

DEVELOPMENT OF 15 PSI SAFE HAVEN POLYCARBONATE WALLS FOR USE IN UNDERGROUND COAL MINES

Following three major mining accidents in 2006, the MINER Act of 2006 was enacted by MSHA and required every underground coal mine to install refuge alternatives to help prevent future fatalities of trapped miners in the event of a disaster. The following research was performed in response to NIOSH’s call for the investigation into new refuge alternatives. A 15 psi safe haven polycarbonate wall for use in underground coal mines was designed and modeled using finite element modeling in ANSYS Explicit Dynamics. The successful design was tested multiple times in both half-scale and small scale using a high explosive shock tube to determine the walls resistance to blast pressure. The safe haven wall design was modeled for an actual underground coal mine environment to determine any responses of the wall within a mine. A full scale design was fabricated and installed in an underground coal mine to determine any construction constraints and as a final step in proof of concept for the safe haven design

An Economic Analysis of Ranch Organization in Central South Dakota

A fundamental economic problem facing ranchers in central South Dakota concerns the allocation and use of scarce resources in such a way as to attain the most profit. This study was concerned with the optimum organization of a typical ranch on the Williams-Tetonka-Cavour soil association in central South Dakota. The major objectives were: (1) to present alternative ranch plans for maximizing net returns under varied capital levels and efficiency levels; (2) to determine a profit maximizing land use program from among the many pasture improvement programs and pasture management systems for beef production on a typical ranch; (3) to estimate optimum adjustment in ranch organization while undertaking a pasture renovation program

Pasture Improvement: An Analysis of Rancher Attributes in Central South Dakota

In the summer of 1965 a survey was made of 160 farmers in Faulk, Aurora, Hyde, and Gregory counties to determine their experience in beef cattle production and pasture management. This survey marked the early phase of a joint project with the Departments of Economics, Agronomy, and Animal Science title “The Efficiency of Beef Cattle Production in South Dakota with Various Methods of Land Use and Cattle Management.” The project involves developing new techniques for pasture improvement—the focus of this study—and testing various management practices

Modelling the Pressure Transients and Pushrod Extension of a Multi-Chamber Pneumatic Braking System

The pneumatic braking system for a Tractor-Truck is a crucial element for safe operation. Creating a model of the transient pressure in the brake chambers and the pushrod extension can enable a better understanding of how the braking system works and further someone’s ability to discover a malfunction in a braking system before a catastrophic failure occurs. A study done by FMCSA in July 2007 stated that brake problems were an associated factor in 29% of crashes with large trucks [15]. Previous studies have been completed on individual pieces of the braking system at Texas A&M. The purpose of this study is to verify those mathematical models when being used to monitor several brake chambers simultaneously. The experiment that has been performed, tracks the pressure in six brake chambers arranged in the "typical" tractor configuration. The results show a model that does a relatively good job of predicting the steady state of the system. However, the prediction of the transient dynamics of the pressure suffers from much error. Further exploration on this topic may be needed if the current model is to continue being used for monitoring the pressure transients in the system

A Root-Knot Nematode Secretory Peptide Functions as a Ligand for a Plant Transcription Factor

Parasitism genes expressed in the esophageal gland cells of root-knot nematodes encode proteins that are secreted into host root cells to transform the recipient cells into enlarged multinucleate feeding cells called giant-cells. Expression of a root-knot nematode parasitism gene which encodes a novel 13-amino-acid secretory peptide in plant tissues stimulated root growth. Two SCARECROW-like transcription factors of the GRAS protein family were identified as the putative targets for this bioactive nematode peptide in yeast two-hybrid analyses and confirmed by in vitro and in vivo coimmunoprecipitations. This discovery is the first demonstration of a direct interaction of a nematode-secreted parasitism peptide with a plant-regulatory protein, which may represent an early signaling event in the root-knot nematode-host interaction

Correspondence between structure and function in the human brain at rest

To further understanding of basic and complex cognitive functions, previous connectome research has identified functional and structural connections of the human brain. Functional connectivity is often measured by using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and is generally interpreted as an indirect measure of neuronal activity. Gray matter (GM) primarily consists of neuronal and glia cell bodies; therefore, it is surprising that the majority of connectome research has excluded GM measures. Therefore, we propose that by exploring where GM corresponds to function would aid in the understanding of both structural and functional connectivity and in turn the human connectome. A cohort of 603 healthy participants underwent structural and functional scanning on the same 3 T scanner at the Mind Research Network. To investigate the spatial correspondence between structure and function, spatial independent component analysis (ICA) was applied separately to both GM density (GMD) maps and to rs-fMRI data. ICA of GM delineates structural components based on the covariation of GMD regions among subjects. For the rs-fMRI data, ICA identified spatial patterns with common temporal features. These decomposed structural and functional components were then compared by spatial correlation. Basal ganglia components exhibited the highest structural to resting-state functional spatial correlation (r = 0.59). Cortical components generally show correspondence between a single structural component and several resting-state functional components. We also studied relationships between the weights of different structural components and identified the precuneus as a hub in GMD structural network correlations. In addition, we analyzed relationships between component weights, age, and gender; concluding that age has a significant effect on structural components

Signal Peptide-Selection of cDNA Cloned Directly from the Esophageal Gland Cells of the Soybean Cyst Nematode Heterodera glycines

Secretions from the esophageal gland cells of plantparasitic nematodes play critical roles in the nematodeparasitic cycle. A novel method to isolate cDNA encoding putative nematode secretory proteins was developed that utilizes mRNA for reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction derived from microaspiration of the esophageal gland cell contents of parasitic stages of the soybean cyst nematode Heterodera glycines. The resulting H. glycines gland cell cDNA was cloned into the pRK18 vector, and plasmid DNA was transformed into a mutated yeast host for specific selection of cDNA inserts that encode proteins with functional signal peptides. Of the 223 cDNA clones recovered from selection in yeast, 97% of the clones encoded a predicted signal peptide. Fourteen unique cDNA clones hybridized to genomic DNA of H. glycines on Southern blots and, among them, nine cDNA clones encoded putative extracellular proteins, as predicted by PSORT II computer analysis. Four cDNA clones hybridized to transcripts within the dorsal esophageal gland cell of parasitic stages of H. glycines, and in situ hybridization within H. glycines was not detected for eight cDNA clones. The protocol provides a direct means to isolate potential plant-parasitic nematode esophageal gland secretory protein genes