Early Growth and Reproductive Performances of Horro Cattle and thier F1 Jersey Crosses in and around Horro-Guduru Livestock Production and Research Center, Ethiopia

A cross-sectional survey, an assessment of recorded data and  measurements of different traits were conducted to determine the reproductive and early growth performances of Horro cattle and their F1 Jersey crosses of the study area. The mean(SD) total farmland, cropland and grazing land holdings of individual smallholder householders were 3.6±3.16, 2.86±2.51 and 0.81±0.89 respectively, while the mean(SD) livestock species holding were 17±11.66, 2.9±3.98,2.9 ±4.83, 1.8±1.66 and 9.3±8.97 for cattle, sheep, goats, equine and poultry respectively. Anestrous, repeat breeder, endo-metritis and dystocia were the main reproductive health problems which were found to occurs with the  proportion of 21.1%, 19.7%, 5.6% and 1.4%, while the remaining 52% attribute to non pregnancy in cows due to voluntary waiting period, postpartum period and lack of AI service. The overall mean age at first service across both production sites(on station and on farm) was 48.85 months for local Horro and 33.25 months for Horro-Jersey F1 Crosses, where as the mean (SD) NSPC for Horro and Horro-Jersey crossbred heifers was found 2.1±1.09 and 1.7±0.94 respectively. Breed of animals had high  significance effect at (P < 0.001) on AFS and AFC. The mean birth weight of Horro and Horro-Jersey crossbred calves was 17.5±2.25 and 18.2±2.03 kg respectively. Calf birth weight was significantly (P<0.001) influenced by breed and sex, season and year of birth of a calf. The mean (SD) body weight measure of Horro calves at six, twelve, eighteen and twenty four months age is found to be 69.8±31.19, 117.7±22.65, 129.4±24.82 and 150±23.56 Kg respectively. While, their respective counterpart Horro-Jersey F1 crossbred calves were found to weigh 64.42±10.18, 136.6±27.97 and 145.1±22.27 kg mean(SD) body weight at six, twelve and eighteen  months of ages respectively

Dairy Productive Potential, Challenges and Production opportunities of Horro and their F1 Jersey Crossbred Cows: A Case of Guduru Livestock Production and Research Center and Its Surroundings, West Oromia, Ethiopia

A survey was conducted on 75 smallholder householders and 205 sample cows selected by random and purposive sampling with the objectives of investigating the challenges, potential and opportunities of production of indigenous Horro and their F1 Jersey cross heifers and cows. The means ± SDs of total farmland, cropland and grazing land holding of individual smallholder householders of the study area was 3.6±3.16, 2.86±2.51 and 0.81±0.89 respectively. The means and SDs of livestock species holdings were 17±11.66, 2.9±3.98, 2.9±4.83, 1.8 ±1.66 and 9.3±8.97 for cattle, sheep, goats, equine and poultry respectively. Breeding method of cattle used was within the proportion of 63.8% and 36.2% for natural mating, and for bull and AI services respectively for on-farm production, while both AI and controlled natural mating were used in the Research Center. The means±SD of NSPC for Horro and their Jersey crossbred heifers was 2.1±1.09 and 1.7±0.94 respectively, where NSPC was significantly influenced by breed of cattle at P<0.05. The overall mean ± SE milk off-take per cow per day for local and crossbred cows were 1.5±0.01 and 5.02±0.12 litres, respectively. Feeding management, breed of animal and site of production significantly influenced milk productivity at P<0.001 both in wet and dry seasons of the year

THE ROLE OF RISK ASSESSMENT IN MANAGING RISK

Risk and Uncertainty,

Disclosure of Bank Fossil Fuel Exposures

Climate change is set to dramatically impact both financial markets and the wider economy. Most immediate risks that stem from climate change, relate to the risk of physical changes such as extreme weather events or alteration of climate patterns and the implied risk of economic impact and damages from such events. However, the impact of the transition to a low carbon economy manifests itself also in an alteration of the financial viability of a part of the capital stock and business models, particularly impacted are fossil-fuel companies and other high-carbon projects

Refinement Type Inference via Horn Constraint Optimization

We propose a novel method for inferring refinement types of higher-order functional programs. The main advantage of the proposed method is that it can infer maximally preferred (i.e., Pareto optimal) refinement types with respect to a user-specified preference order. The flexible optimization of refinement types enabled by the proposed method paves the way for interesting applications, such as inferring most-general characterization of inputs for which a given program satisfies (or violates) a given safety (or termination) property. Our method reduces such a type optimization problem to a Horn constraint optimization problem by using a new refinement type system that can flexibly reason about non-determinism in programs. Our method then solves the constraint optimization problem by repeatedly improving a current solution until convergence via template-based invariant generation. We have implemented a prototype inference system based on our method, and obtained promising results in preliminary experiments.Comment: 19 page

Genome-wide association analysis of cardiovascular-related quantitative traits in the Framingham Heart Study

Multivariate linear growth curves were used to model high-density lipoprotein (HDL), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), triglycerides (TG), and systolic blood pressure (SBP) measured during four exams from 1659 independent individuals from the Framingham Heart Study. The slopes and intercepts from each of two phenotype models were tested for association with 348,053 autosomal single-nucleotide polymorphisms from the Affymetrix Gene Chip 500 k set. Three regions were associated with LDL intercept, TG slope, and SBP intercept (p < 1.44 × 10-7). We observed results consistent with previously reported associations between rs599839, on chromosome 1p13, and LDL. We note that the association is significant with LDL intercept but not slope. Markers on chromosome 17q25 were associated with TG slope, and a single-nucleotide polymorphism on chromosome 7p11 was associated with SBP intercept. Growth curve models can be used to gain more insight on the relationships between SNPs and traits than traditional association analysis when longitudinal data has been collected. The power to detect association with changes over time may be limited if the subjects are not followed over a long enough time period

Dietary intake and biomarkers of alpha linolenic acid and risk of all cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality: systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of cohort studies

OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations between dietary intake and tissue biomarkers of alpha linolenic acid (ALA) and risk of mortality from all causes, cardiovascular disease (CVD), and cancer. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies. DATA SOURCES: PubMed, Scopus, ISI Web of Science, and Google Scholar to 30 April 2021. STUDY SELECTION: Prospective cohort studies that reported the risk estimates for death from all causes, CVD, and cancer. DATA SYNTHESIS: Summary relative risks and 95% confidence intervals were calculated for the highest versus lowest categories of ALA intake using random effects and fixed effects models. Linear and non-linear dose-response analyses were conducted to assess the dose-response associations between ALA intake and mortality. RESULTS: 41 articles from prospective cohort studies were included in this systematic review and meta-analysis, totalling 1 197 564 participants. During follow-up ranging from two to 32 years, 198 113 deaths from all causes, 62 773 from CVD, and 65 954 from cancer were recorded. High intake of ALA compared with low intake was significantly associated with a lower risk of deaths from all causes (pooled relative risk 0.90, 95% confidence interval 0.83 to 0.97, I2=77.8%, 15 studies), CVD (0.92, 0.86 to 0.99, I2=48.2%, n=16), and coronary heart disease (CHD) (0.89, 0.81 to 0.97, I2=5.6%, n=9), and a slightly higher risk of cancer mortality (1.06, 1.02 to 1.11, I2=3.8%, n=10). In the dose-response analysis, a 1 g/day increase in ALA intake (equivalent to one tablespoon of canola oil or 0.5 ounces of walnut) was associated with a 5% lower risk of all cause (0.95, 0.91 to 0.99, I2=76.2%, n=12) and CVD mortality (0.95, 0.91 to 0.98, I2=30.7%, n=14). The pooled relative risks for the highest compared with lowest tissue levels of ALA indicated a significant inverse association with all cause mortality (0.95, 0.90 to 0.99, I2=8.2%, n=26). Also, based on the dose-response analysis, each 1 standard deviation increment in blood concentrations of ALA was associated with a lower risk of CHD mortality (0.92, 0.86 to 0.98, I2=37.1%, n=14). CONCLUSIONS: The findings show that dietary ALA intake is associated with a reduced risk of mortality from all causes, CVD, and CHD, and a slightly higher risk of cancer mortality, whereas higher blood levels of ALA are associated with a reduced risk of all cause and CHD mortality only. SYSTEMATIC REVIEW REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42021229487