Estimation of genomic breeding values for traits with high and low heritability in Brown Swiss bulls

This paper was written in the framework of the LowInputBreeds project: “Development of integrated livestock breeding and management strategies to improve animal health, product quality and performance in European organic and ‘low input’ milk, meat and egg production”. The LowInputBreeds project unites 21 partners from Europe and further afield and will develop integrated breeding and management strategies to tackle the issue of improved animal health and food quality. It will run until 2014 and is co-funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development

The obesity paradox in lung cancer : associations with body size versus body shape

Background: The association between obesity and lung cancer (LC) remains poorly understood. However, other indices of obesity on the basis of body shape instead of body size have not been examined yet. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between different indices of body size and body shape and the risk of LC. In particular, this study examined the association between A Body Shape Index, a more precise indicator of abdominal fat than traditional anthropometric measures, and the risk of LC. Methods: In the prospective cohort the Rotterdam Study, we analysed data of 9,689 participants. LC diagnoses were based on medical records and anthropometric measurements were assessed at baseline. Cox-regression analyses with corresponding Hazard Ratios were used to examine the association between the anthropometric measurements and the risk of LC with adjustment for potential confounders. Potential non-linear associations were explored with cubic splines using the Likelihood ratio (LR) test. Results: During follow-up, 319 participants developed LC. Body mass Index (BMI) was inversely associated with the risk of lung cancer (HR 0.94, 95% CI: 0.91-0.97) and persisted after excluding lung cancer cases during the first 10 years of follow-up. There was evidence for a non-linear association between BMI and the risk of lung cancer (0,04, df = 1), which indicated that the inverse association between BMI and lung cancer was mainly present in non-obese participants. Waist circumference (WC) (HR 1.03 95% CI: 1.01-1.05), Waist-to-Hip Ratio (WHR) (HR 1.23 95% CI: 1.09-1.38) and ABSI (A Body Shape Index) (HR 1.17 95% CI: 1.05-1.30) were positively and linearly associated with the risk of lung cancer. Conclusions: Body shape rather than body size may be an important risk indicator of LC. Future research should focus on the role of visceral fat and the risk of LC as well as the underlying mechanisms

Ökologische Milchviehzucht: Entwicklung und Bewertung züchterischer Ansätze unter Berücksichtigung der Genotyp x Umwelt-Interaktion und Schaffung eines Informationssystems für nachhaltige Zuchtstrategien

In dem Projekt wurden für verschiedene Merkmalskomplexe an zwei verschiedenen Datensätzen Genotyp x Umwelt-Interaktionen zwischen ökologischen und konventionellen Produktionssystemen geschätzt. Anhand Schweizer Daten wurden für Braunvieh und Fleckvieh für Milchleistungsmerkmale Korrelationen > 0.9 zwischen beiden Betriebsformen geschätzt, wohingegen die genetische Korrelationen für funktionale Merkmale (Rastzeit, Zellzahl) geringer (0.8 bis 0.9) waren. Diese Korrelationen konnten für die Rasse Holstein Friesian auf Grund einer Auswertung Deutscher Daten bestätigt werden. Generell liegt für Leistungsmerkmale keine und für funktionale Merkmale eine geringe Genotyp x Umwelt-Interaktion zwischen ökologischen und konventionellen Betrieben vor, wobei insbesondere für letztere die Informationsbasis begrenzt ist. Auswertungen der Betriebsdaten von > 450 ökologisch wirtschaftenden Milchviehbetrieben und Befragungen der Betriebsleiter haben ergeben, dass sich diese Betriebe in ihren züchterischen Zielen kaum und in ihrem züchterischen Handeln gar nicht von konventionellen Betrieben unterscheiden. Zuchtplanerische Rechnungen haben ergeben, dass unter den gefundenen genetischen Parametern weder ein geschlossenes noch ein offenes eigenes Zuchtprogramm im ökologischen Sektor wirtschaftlich gerechtfertigt ist. Vielmehr ist anzustreben, dass sich ökologisch wirtschaftende Milchviehbetriebe stärker aktiv an etablierten Zuchtprogrammen beteiligen, z.B. durch den stärkeren Einsatz von Testbullen. Es wird vorgeschlagen, aufgrund der bestehenden Teilzuchtwerte einen Ökologischen Gesamtzuchtwert zu entwickeln, in dem funktionale Merkmale stärker gewichtet werden. Ein im Projekt entwickeltes Internetportal und eine entsprechend angepasste Anpaarungssoftware kann die Umsetzung dieses Vorschlags unterstützen. Erforderlich ist allerdings eine vollständigere Erfassung der ökologischen Milchviehbetriebe als Voraussetzung für eine bessere Unterstützung der ökologischen Milchviehzucht

Einfluss der genetischen Architektur auf die empirische Genauigkeit der genomischen Zuchtwertschätzung

Einfluss der genetischen Architektur auf die empirische Genauigkeit der genomischen Zuchtwertschätzung. Das Projekt wird als Verbundprojekt von der Europäischen Kommission im siebten Rahmenprogramm für Forschung und Entwicklung ko-finanziert (Vertrag Nr. 222623)

A statistical method for revealing form-function relations in biological networks

Over the past decade, a number of researchers in systems biology have sought to relate the function of biological systems to their network-level descriptions -- lists of the most important players and the pairwise interactions between them. Both for large networks (in which statistical analysis is often framed in terms of the abundance of repeated small subgraphs) and for small networks which can be analyzed in greater detail (or even synthesized in vivo and subjected to experiment), revealing the relationship between the topology of small subgraphs and their biological function has been a central goal. We here seek to pose this revelation as a statistical task, illustrated using a particular setup which has been constructed experimentally and for which parameterized models of transcriptional regulation have been studied extensively. The question "how does function follow form" is here mathematized by identifying which topological attributes correlate with the diverse possible information-processing tasks which a transcriptional regulatory network can realize. The resulting method reveals one form-function relationship which had earlier been predicted based on analytic results, and reveals a second for which we can provide an analytic interpretation. Resulting source code is distributed via http://formfunction.sourceforge.net.Comment: To appear in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 17 pages, 9 figures, 2 table

Na2IrO3 as a spin-orbit-assisted antiferromagnetic insulator with a 340 meV gap

We study Na2IrO3 by ARPES, optics, and band structure calculations in the local-density approximation (LDA). The weak dispersion of the Ir 5d-t2g manifold highlights the importance of structural distortions and spin-orbit coupling (SO) in driving the system closer to a Mott transition. We detect an insulating gap {\Delta}_gap = 340 meV which, at variance with a Slater-type description, is already open at 300 K and does not show significant temperature dependence even across T_N ~ 15 K. An LDA analysis with the inclusion of SO and Coulomb repulsion U reveals that, while the prodromes of an underlying insulating state are already found in LDA+SO, the correct gap magnitude can only be reproduced by LDA+SO+U, with U = 3 eV. This establishes Na2IrO3 as a novel type of Mott-like correlated insulator in which Coulomb and relativistic effects have to be treated on an equal footing.Comment: Accepted in Physical Review Letters. Auxiliary and related material can be found at: http://www.phas.ubc.ca/~quantmat/ARPES/PUBLICATIONS/articles.htm

Utilisation of cardiac pacemakers over a 20-year period: Results from a nationwide pacemaker registry

The implantation of cardiac pacemakers has become a well-established therapy for conduction disorders and sinus node dysfunction. In many countries pacemaker registries have been initiated in order to collect information on patient characteristics, trends in numbers and the types of pacemakers used, to identify problematic devices, and for safety monitoring. For this utilisation study the Central Pacemaker Patients Registration (CPPR) from the Netherlands Pacemaker Registry Foundation (CPPR-SPRN) containing data collected for more than 20 years was used. During this period nearly 97,000 first pacemakers were implanted. Analyses show an increase in the rate of implanted devices. The change in pacemaker type from VVI to DDD, followed by biventricular stimulation, is reflected by the number of simultaneously implanted leads, which is partly a consequence of cardiac resynchronisation therapy. Our data demonstrate that indications for implantation and type of pacemaker are comparable with other European countries

Influence of the in-medium pion dispersion relation in heavy ion collisions

We investigate the influence of medium corrections to the pion dispersion relation on the pion dynamics in intermediate energy heavy ion collisions. To do so a pion potential is extracted from the in-medium dispersion relation and used in QMD calculations and thus we take care of both, real and imaginary part of the pion optical potential. The potentials are determined from different sources, i.e. from the $\Delta$--hole model and from phenomenological approaches. Depending on the strength of the potential a reduction of the anti-correlation of pion and nucleon flow in non-central collisions is observed as well as an enhancement of the high energetic yield in transverse pion spectra. A comparison to experiments, in particular to $p_t$-spectra for the reaction Ca+Ca at 1 GeV/nucleon and the pion in-plane flow in Ne+Pb collisions at 800 MeV/nucleon, generally favours a weak potential.Comment: 25 pages, using REVTeX, 6 postscript figures; replaced by published versio