The Influence of Growth Stage on Carcass Compositionand Factors Associated with Marbling Development in Beef Cattle

There are many cellular regulatory factors that ultimately determine the intramuscular fat, or marbling content and quality of beef carcasses. Identifying factors which play a critical role in the development of intramuscular fat throughout the feeding period and determining how cattle feeders can manipulate these factors will be crucial to continue improving beef quality. Ideally, marbling must increase without excess accumulation of adipose in depots that are undesirable and economically detrimental (subcutaneous and visceral). The results of this study are novel as they show not only what cellular factors play a role in marbling development, but also how their expression and presence change as an animal grows in an American‐style production system. The increase in both expression and presence of peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor γ (PPARγ) at the end of the feeding phase suggest the proliferation and differentiation of additional cells to adipocytes is required in order to increase intramuscular fat content. This does not mean that adipocyte filling (lipogenesis) does not play a key role as well. However marbling content will reach a plateau without the recruitment of additional adipocytes. While it has been previously established that intramuscular adipocytes have a pattern of metabolism unique to other adipocytes, further research into how the metabolism of intramuscular fat differs from other fat depots and how this metabolism changes throughout the feeding phase will enhance the ability to produce high quality carcasses while limiting undesirable carcass fat

Effects of Zilpaterol Hydrochloride Supplementation on Growth Performance,Carcass Characteristics and Production Economics of SteersDiffering in Breed Composition

The β–adrenergic agonist zilpaterol hydrochloride (ZH) affects skeletal muscle growth, but little is known if this response is influenced by differences in genetic background of cattle. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of ZH on growth, carcass characteristics and production economic responses of Angus-sired (ANG) and SimAngus-sired (SIMANG) steers. Pens within each block × breed composition were randomly assigned to either ZH (8.3 ppm of DM; fed for the final 20 d before slaughter) or control (CON; 0 ppm ZH). Steers were ultrasounded before ZH inclusion and following withdrawal to determine the influence of ZH on change in ribeye area (REA), fat thickness and percent intramuscular fat (IMF). Carcass and feedlot performance data were collected and used to determine breed composition and ZH effects on economic responses. The interaction of breed composition × ZH had no influence on measured responses. Breed composition did not influence change in ultrasound measurements during the ZH feeding period or feedlot performance. Carcasses from SIMANG steers had larger REA and improved YG, while ANG steers had increased marbling scores. SimAngus-sired steers produced a greater percentage of YG 2 and a lower percentage of YG 3 carcasses than ANG steers. A greater proportion of ANG carcasses were classified as upper 2/3 Choice while a greater proportion of SIMANG carcasses were included in the lower 1/3 Choice designation. Carcass value per cwt was greater for ANG compared to SIMANG carcasses while other economic responses were similar. Feeding ZH improved ADG, YG, and REA and resulted in increased YG 2 carcasses. Total carcass value was greater for ZH compared to CON. While CON had increased IMF during ZH feeding, this did not manifest into differences in QG. Breed composition influenced carcass grid premiums, but not overall carcass value. Feeding ZH improved carcass value by increasing HCW. Responses among breed composition were as expected for ANG vs SIMANG cattle types. The resultant economic effect was that grid premiums for higher-grading ANG cattle were offset by larger HCW for SIMANG, leading to similar overall carcass values. Finally, the influence of ZH on growth and carcass traits was as expected with increased carcass value being realized through heavier HCW

Atypical neurocognitive functioning in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Atypical neurocognitive functioning has been found in adult patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, little work has been done in children and adolescents with OCD. In this study, we investigated neurocognitive functioning in a large and representative sample of newly diagnosed children and adolescents with OCD compared to non-psychiatric controls. Children and adolescents with OCD (n = 119) and non-psychiatric controls (n = 90) underwent psychopathological assessment, intelligence testing, and a neurocognitive test battery spanning cognitive flexibility, planning and decision-making, working memory, fluency, and processing speed. The MANOVA main effect revealed that children and adolescents with OCD performed significantly worse than the control group (p < .001, [Formula: see text] = 0.256). Atypical patient performance was particularly found for indices of cognitive flexibility, decision-making, working memory, and processing speed. We found no evidence of differences in planning or fluency. Moreover, we found no significant associations between neurocognitive performance and OCD symptom severity or comorbidity status. Our results indicate that children and adolescents with OCD show selective atypical neurocognitive functioning. These difficulties do not appear to drive their OCD symptoms. However, they may contribute to lifespan difficulties and interfere with treatment efficacy, an objective of our research currently

Infant screen exposure links to toddlers' inhibition, but not other EF constructs: a propensity score study

Technology is pervasive in homes of families with young children, despite evidence for negative associations between infant exposure to screen-based media and cognitive development that has led the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to discourage parents from exposing children under the age of 18 months to any kind of screen time (AAP, 2016). Here, we apply a propensity score matching approach to estimate relations between electronic screen-based media use in infancy and executive function in early toddlerhood. In an international sample of 416 firstborn infants, parental report of regular exposure to screen-based media at 4 months predicted poorer performance on a test of inhibition at 14 months, but was unrelated to either cognitive flexibility or working memory at 14 months. Results of this study are therefore consistent with the view that early exposure to screen-based media adversely affects the development of executive function.Education and Child Studie

Search for direct production of charginos and neutralinos in events with three leptons and missing transverse momentum in √s = 7 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with three electrons or muons and missing transverse momentum is presented. The analysis is based on 4.7 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data delivered by the Large Hadron Collider and recorded with the ATLAS detector. Observations are consistent with Standard Model expectations in three signal regions that are either depleted or enriched in Z-boson decays. Upper limits at 95% confidence level are set in R-parity conserving phenomenological minimal supersymmetric models and in simplified models, significantly extending previous results

Jet size dependence of single jet suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s(NN)) = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions at the LHC provide direct sensitivity to the physics of jet quenching. In a sample of lead-lead collisions at sqrt(s) = 2.76 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of approximately 7 inverse microbarns, ATLAS has measured jets with a calorimeter over the pseudorapidity interval |eta| < 2.1 and over the transverse momentum range 38 < pT < 210 GeV. Jets were reconstructed using the anti-kt algorithm with values for the distance parameter that determines the nominal jet radius of R = 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5. The centrality dependence of the jet yield is characterized by the jet "central-to-peripheral ratio," Rcp. Jet production is found to be suppressed by approximately a factor of two in the 10% most central collisions relative to peripheral collisions. Rcp varies smoothly with centrality as characterized by the number of participating nucleons. The observed suppression is only weakly dependent on jet radius and transverse momentum. These results provide the first direct measurement of inclusive jet suppression in heavy ion collisions and complement previous measurements of dijet transverse energy imbalance at the LHC.Comment: 15 pages plus author list (30 pages total), 8 figures, 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters B. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/HION-2011-02

Measurement of the polarisation of W bosons produced with large transverse momentum in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS experiment

This paper describes an analysis of the angular distribution of W->enu and W->munu decays, using data from pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2010, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb^-1. Using the decay lepton transverse momentum and the missing transverse energy, the W decay angular distribution projected onto the transverse plane is obtained and analysed in terms of helicity fractions f0, fL and fR over two ranges of W transverse momentum (ptw): 35 < ptw < 50 GeV and ptw > 50 GeV. Good agreement is found with theoretical predictions. For ptw > 50 GeV, the values of f0 and fL-fR, averaged over charge and lepton flavour, are measured to be : f0 = 0.127 +/- 0.030 +/- 0.108 and fL-fR = 0.252 +/- 0.017 +/- 0.030, where the first uncertainties are statistical, and the second include all systematic effects.Comment: 19 pages plus author list (34 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, revised author list, matches European Journal of Physics C versio

Observation of a new chi_b state in radiative transitions to Upsilon(1S) and Upsilon(2S) at ATLAS

The chi_b(nP) quarkonium states are produced in proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb^-1, these states are reconstructed through their radiative decays to Upsilon(1S,2S) with Upsilon->mu+mu-. In addition to the mass peaks corresponding to the decay modes chi_b(1P,2P)->Upsilon(1S)gamma, a new structure centered at a mass of 10.530+/-0.005 (stat.)+/-0.009 (syst.) GeV is also observed, in both the Upsilon(1S)gamma and Upsilon(2S)gamma decay modes. This is interpreted as the chi_b(3P) system.Comment: 5 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 1 table, corrected author list, matches final version in Physical Review Letter

Search for displaced vertices arising from decays of new heavy particles in 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS

We present the results of a search for new, heavy particles that decay at a significant distance from their production point into a final state containing charged hadrons in association with a high-momentum muon. The search is conducted in a pp-collision data sample with a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 33 pb^-1 collected in 2010 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Production of such particles is expected in various scenarios of physics beyond the standard model. We observe no signal and place limits on the production cross-section of supersymmetric particles in an R-parity-violating scenario as a function of the neutralino lifetime. Limits are presented for different squark and neutralino masses, enabling extension of the limits to a variety of other models.Comment: 8 pages plus author list (20 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version to appear in Physics Letters

Measurement of the inclusive isolated prompt photon cross-section in pp collisions at sqrt(s)= 7 TeV using 35 pb-1 of ATLAS data

A measurement of the differential cross-section for the inclusive production of isolated prompt photons in pp collisions at a center-of-mass energy sqrt(s) = 7 TeV is presented. The measurement covers the pseudorapidity ranges |eta|<1.37 and 1.52<=|eta|<2.37 in the transverse energy range 45<=E_T<400GeV. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 35 pb-1, collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The yields of the signal photons are measured using a data-driven technique, based on the observed distribution of the hadronic energy in a narrow cone around the photon candidate and the photon selection criteria. The results are compared with next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculations and found to be in good agreement over four orders of magnitude in cross-section.Comment: 7 pages plus author list (18 pages total), 2 figures, 4 tables, final version published in Physics Letters