Partitioning Variation in Measurements of Beef Carcass Traits Made Using Ultrasound

Ultrasound technology provides cattle breeders a relatively quick, non-invasive, and economical way to gather carcass data on live animals. Ultrasound provides the means to accurately predict body composition and develop estimated breeding values; however, national cattle genetic evaluations assume homogenous additive genetic and residual variances. These assumptions may be violated when estimating genetic merit for carcass traits by ultrasound because of differences in variance due to scanning technician and image interpretation laboratory. The objective of this study was to partition the phenotypic variance of measurements of carcass traits that were made using ultrasound into components attributable to additive genetic effects, scanning technician, contemporary group, and residual effects. Data for longissimus muscle area (LMA), percent intramuscular fat (IMF), and subcutaneous fat depth (SFD) were provided by the American Angus Association (AAA; N=65953), American Hereford Association (AHA; N=43180), and American Simmental Association (ASA; N=48298) representing a sample of animals scanned between 2015 to 2017. Data provided by each association included ultrasound carcass measurements, contemporary group, technician ID, imaging lab, and a three-generation pedigree for each animal. First, variance components for ultrasound carcass measurements were estimated with a univariate animal model for each breed and imaging laboratory separately by multiple trait derivative free restricted maximum likelihood. Genetic correlations between laboratories for longissimus muscle area, percent intramuscular fat, and subcutaneous fat were estimated with tri-variate animal models treating measurements from each image interpretation laboratory as a separate trait. Technician explained 12-27%, 5-23%, and 4-26% of variance for IMF, SFD and LMA respectively across all three breeds. Variance contributed by technician was often greater than variance contributed by additive genetics but almost always less than that explained by contemporary group. Genetic correlations between labs across breeds ranged from 0.79 to 0.95 for IMF, 0.26 to 0.94 for SFD and 0.78 to 0.98 for LMA. Most genetic correlations were relatively high (rg \u3e 0.80). Overall, both technician and imaging laboratory contributed to phenotypic variation of ultrasound carcass measurements

Tacit knowledg and the problem of computer modelling cognitive processes in science

Once one has said that there is a “tacit dimension” of some sort to communication or to some cognitive activity, it seems like an appropriate step to make it a topic for research. The difficulty with this suggestion is that it assumes that in fact we have some sort of unproblematic mode of access to our implicit understandings, to the “tacit dimension.” To be sure, sometimes portions of this “dimension” are revealed to us, as when we find that others don’t share some procedure we follow “naturally” or habitually, or when we find ourselves in circumstances where these procedures fail, and we are forced to, and can, find replacements for them. But these are perhaps exceptional cases, revealed for us through contingent and possibly rare circumstances. And if this is so, it follows that a project of revealing the tacit dimension would depend on some premises that would give one some assurances that one’s techniques indeed reveal the necessary parts of it. It is one thing to have a method of turning over rocks to see if there are salamanders under them; it is another to form a project of counting all the salamanders in a given area, for one doesn’t know that they are all assessable by the known means

Prioritising surveillance for alien organisms transported as stowaways on ships travelling to South Africa

The global shipping network facilitates the transportation and introduction of marine and terrestrial organisms to regions where they are not native, and some of these organisms become invasive. South Africa was used as a case study to evaluate the potential for shipping to contribute to the introduction and establishment of marine and terrestrial alien species (i.e. establishment debt) and to assess how this varies across shipping routes and seasons. As a proxy for the number of species introduced (i.e. 'colonisation pressure') shipping movement data were used to determine, for each season, the number of ships that visited South African ports from foreign ports and the number of days travelled between ports. Seasonal marine and terrestrial environmental similarity between South African and foreign ports was then used to estimate the likelihood that introduced species would establish. These data were used to determine the seasonal relative contribution of shipping routes to South Africa's marine and terrestrial establishment debt. Additionally, distribution data were used to identify marine and terrestrial species that are known to be invasive elsewhere and which might be introduced to each South African port through shipping routes that have a high relative contribution to establishment debt. Shipping routes from Asian ports, especially Singapore, have a particularly high relative contribution to South Africa's establishment debt, while among South African ports, Durban has the highest risk of being invaded. There was seasonal variation in the shipping routes that have a high relative contribution to the establishment debt of the South African ports. The presented method provides a simple way to prioritise surveillance effort and our results indicate that, for South Africa, port-specific prevention strategies should be developed, a large portion of the available resources should be allocated to Durban, and seasonal variations and their consequences for prevention strategies should be explored further. (Résumé d'auteur

Lines of Descent: Kuhn and Beyond

yesThomas S. Kuhn is famous both for his work on the Copernican Revolution and his ‘paradigm’ view of scientific revolutions. But Kuhn later abandoned the notion of paradigm (and related notions) in favour of a more ‘evolutionary’ view of the history of science. Kuhn’s position therefore moved closer to ‘continuity’ models of scientific progress, for instance ‘chain-of-reasoning’ models, originally championed by D. Shapere. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate around Kuhn’s new ‘developmental’ view and to evaluate these competing models with reference to some major innovations in the history of cosmology, from Copernicanism to modern cosmology. This evaluation is made possible through some unexpected overlap between Kuhn’s earlier discontinuity model and various versions of the later continuity models. It is the thesis of this paper that the ‘chain-of-reasoning’ model accounts better for the cosmological evidence than both Kuhn’s early paradigm model and his later developmental view of the history of science

Normative productivity of the global vegetation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The biosphere models of terrestrial productivity are essential for projecting climate change and assessing mitigation and adaptation options. Many of them have been developed in connection to the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) that backs the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In the end of 1990s, IGBP sponsored release of a data set summarizing the model outputs and setting certain norms for estimates of terrestrial productivity. Since a number of new models and new versions of old models were developed during the past decade, these normative data require updating.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we provide the series of updates that reflects evolution of biosphere models and demonstrates evolutional stability of the global and regional estimates of terrestrial productivity. Most of them fit well the long-living Miami model. At the same time we call attention to the emerging alternative: the global potential for net primary production of biomass may be as high as 70 PgC y^-1, the productivity of larch forest zone may be comparable to the productivity of taiga zone, and the productivity of rain-green forest zone may be comparable to the productivity of tropical rainforest zone.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The departure from Miami model's worldview mentioned above cannot be simply ignored. It requires thorough examination using modern observational tools and techniques for model-data fusion. Stability of normative knowledge is not its ultimate goal – the norms for estimates of terrestrial productivity must be evidence-based.</p

Natural Intelligence and Anthropic Reasoning

This paper aims to justify the concept of natural intelligence in the biosemiotic context. I will argue that the process of life is (i) a cognitive/semiotic process and (ii) that organisms, from bacteria to animals, are cognitive or semiotic agents. To justify these arguments, the neural-type intelligence represented by the form of reasoning known as anthropic reasoning will be compared and contrasted with types of intelligence explicated by four disciplines of biology – relational biology, evolutionary epistemology, biosemiotics and the systems view of life – not biased towards neural intelligence. The comparison will be achieved by asking questions related to the process of observation and the notion of true observers. To answer the questions I will rely on a range of established concepts including SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence), Fermi’s paradox, bacterial cognition, versions of the panspermia theory, as well as some newly introduced concepts including biocivilisations, cognitive/semiotic universes, and the cognitive/semiotic multiverse. The key point emerging from the answers is that the process of cognition/semiosis – the essence of natural intelligence – is a biological universal.Brunel University Londo