Questions and Answers

"I was curious about websites because we’re now beginning to accumulate websites and we were thinking about using a website service so it makes it very simple just to find it, click it, ship it and we have archival access to it. But the problem of course is these websites are so complicated and you don’t actually know what you’re fully accessing because there are lots of links; there are lots of portions that may go unexamined. Have you had any experiences with websites that are essentially transnational, that are essentially built in this country but linked to things that are governed by laws outside of U.S. control?

Late-season Insect Pests of Soybean in Louisiana: Preventive Management and Yield Enhancement (Bulletin #880)

The velvetbean caterpillar and the soybean looper are important pests of soybeans in Louisiana. These late-season soybean insect pests create the need for the continuous development of insecticide programs that are cost effective, maintain profitable yields and conserve natural enemies.https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/agcenter_bulletins/1020/thumbnail.jp

Nouveaux résultats d'estimation de l'héritabilité des gains en course des pur-sang en France

Le logarithme du gain annuel de 232 893 chevaux en plat et de 85 145 chevaux sur les obstacles ayant couru en France au galop de 1950 à 1990 a été analysé selon un modèle animal. La méthode REML a permis d’estimer les composantes de la variance sur un ensemble de sous-fichiers établis en fonction de cohortes d’année de naissance. En plat, sur les naissances de 1960 à 1987, l’héritabilité a augmenté d’une manière hautement significative linéairement de 0,22 à 0,28, tandis que la répétabilité des performances entre 2 et 3 ans connaissait une évolution très significative parallèle passant de 0,35 à 0,40. En obstacles sur les naissances de 1962 à 1965, à cause des à-coups dus à la moindre précision des estimations, on ne perçoit pas d’évolution significative de l’héritabilité (autour de 0,25). La répétabilité entre 4 et 5 ans augmente cependant significativement. Les raisons de l’évolution de ces paramètres au cours du temps sont discutées. On retiendra deux hypothèses : i) un apport de variabilité extérieure par l’intermédiaire du sang américain dans les origines françaises, qui pourrait expliquer la variation des paramètres. Cette hypothèse se heurte cependant à la grande proximité génétique des deux populations; ii) un jeu d’équilibre entre deux sources principales de création de déséquilibre de liaison que sont la sélection et l’homogamie, dont l’intensité observée dans chaque sous échantillon permet d’expliquer assez bien les variations observées des paramètres.Logarithms of yearly earnings of 232 893 horses in flat races and 85145 horses in steeplechases and hurdle races in France from 1950 to 1990 were analysed according to an animal model. REML methodology was applied to chronological subsamples of this enormous file to estimate genetic parameters. In flat races, from the birth year 1960 to 1987, heritability increased from 0.22 to 0.28 according to a statistically highly significant linear trend, and the repeatability between 2 and 3 years changed in a similary significant manner from 0.85 to 0.40. Over the jumps, from 1962 to 1985, fluctuations appeared probably due to a lower precision of the estimates and no significant evolution could be seen for heritability (near 0.25). Repeatability between 4 and 5 years, however, increased significantly. The reasons for the evolution of these parameters over time are discussed. Two main hypotheses are mentioned: (i) introduction of external genetic variability in French pedigrees through American blood (this hypothesis however is not in agreement with the very small genetic distance between the two populations); and (ii) an equilibrium between two opposite sources generating linkage disequilibrium, selection and assortative mating. The intensity of these two forces observed in each subsampLe allows us to explain fairly well the variations of observed parameters

Electrical vestibular stimuli evoke robust muscle activity in deep and superficial neck muscles in humans

Neck muscle activity evoked by vestibular stimuli is a clinical measure for evaluating the function of the vestibular apparatus. Cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP) are most commonly measured in the sternocleidomastoid muscle (and more recently the splenius capitis muscle) in response to air-conducted sound, bone-conducted vibration or electrical vestibular stimuli. It is currently unknown, however, whether and how other neck muscles respond to vestibular stimuli. Here we measured activity bilaterally in the sternocleidomastoid, splenius capitis, sternohyoid, semispinalis capitis, multifidus, rectus capitis posterior, and obliquus capitis inferior using indwelling electrodes in two subjects exposed to binaural bipolar electrical vestibular stimuli. All recorded neck muscles responded to the electrical vestibular stimuli (0-100 Hz) provided they were active. Furthermore, the evoked responses were inverted on either side of the neck, consistent with a coordinated contribution of all left-right muscle pairs acting as antagonists in response to the electrically-evoked vestibular error of head motion. Overall, our results suggest that, as previously observed in cat neck muscles, broad connections exist between the human vestibular system and neck motoneurons and highlight the need for future investigations to establish their neural connections

Electrical Vestibular Stimuli Evoke Robust Muscle Activity in Deep and Superficial Neck Muscles in Humans

Neck muscle activity evoked by vestibular stimuli is a clinical measure for evaluating the function of the vestibular apparatus. Cervical vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials (cVEMP) are most commonly measured in the sternocleidomastoid muscle (and more recently the splenius capitis muscle) in response to air-conducted sound, bone-conducted vibration or electrical vestibular stimuli. It is currently unknown, however, whether and how other neck muscles respond to vestibular stimuli. Here we measured activity bilaterally in the sternocleidomastoid, splenius capitis, sternohyoid, semispinalis capitis, multifidus, rectus capitis posterior, and obliquus capitis inferior using indwelling electrodes in two subjects exposed to binaural bipolar electrical vestibular stimuli. All recorded neck muscles responded to the electrical vestibular stimuli (0–100 Hz) provided they were active. Furthermore, the evoked responses were inverted on either side of the neck, consistent with a coordinated contribution of all left-right muscle pairs acting as antagonists in response to the electrically-evoked vestibular error of head motion. Overall, our results suggest that, as previously observed in cat neck muscles, broad connections exist between the human vestibular system and neck motoneurons and highlight the need for future investigations to establish their neural connections