Comparison of the effects of high and low milk-replacer feeding regimens on health and growth of crossbred dairy heifers

Context: Pre-weaning growth in dairy heifers is highly dependent on the amount of milk fed. Both milk replacer (MR) and associated labour are costly, encouraging restricted milk rations and once-a-day feeding. Aims: This study compared performance relating to the growth and health of calves receiving one of two commercial feeding regimens: High or Low. Methods: All heifers born during the Spring (January–March) calving block on a commercial UK farm with mixed-breed genetics were recruited at birth, randomly assigned to the High (n = 104, receiving MR-A) or Low (n = 88, receiving MR-B) feed group and reared indoors on straw bedding, with free access to concentrate. Both groups initially received MR twice daily. The High group continued to receive MR twice daily throughout the experiment, whereas the Low group calves were reduced to a single MR feed daily during Weeks 4–8. Blood samples were taken in Weeks 1 and 6 to assess passive transfer and measure circulating insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). The Wisconsin calf-scoring system was used to assess health of calves in Weeks 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 and at 6 months and size was also measured at these times. Data were analysed by univariate and multivariate models. Key results: Passive transfer was good in both groups (serum total protein (mean ± s.d.) 60.9 ± 9.1 mg/mL) with no differences in pre-weaning disease incidence; diarrhoea occurred in 64.5% and bovine respiratory disease in 26.3% of calves. High group calves were significantly heavier, taller and longer at all pre-weaning examinations except recruitment owing to more growth in the first month, and remained significantly larger at 6 months: weight 157 ± 8 vs 149 ± 7 kg, height 103 ± 5 vs 100 ± 5 cm, length 90 ± 4 vs 88 ± 5 cm. Plasma IGF1 concentrations at around Week 6 were doubled in the High group (101 ± 38.6 vs 55 ± 34.1 ng/mL). Bovine respiratory disease was associated with reduced weight gain. Heifers with diarrhoea were leaner at weaning. High feed group, weight at recruitment and good passive transfer were positively associated with weight at 6 months. Conclusions: Higher feeding levels pre-weaning increased growth rates and IGF1, although the disease incidence was unaffected. Implications: Previous studies have shown that more growth and higher IGF1 pre-weaning are associated with a lower age at first calving and an increased chance of reaching the end of first lactation. These in turn improve long-term performance

Himalayan Tsunami : Devastating Natural Disaster in the Uttarakhand Himalaya

Abstract HKT-ISTP 2013 B

Probabilistic structural analysis to quantify uncertainties associated with turbopump blades

A probabilistic study of turbopump blades has been in progress at NASA Lewis Research Center for over the last two years. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the effects of uncertainties in geometry and material properties on the structural response of the turbopump blades to evaluate the tolerance limits on the design. A methodology based on probabilistic approach was developed to quantify the effects of the random uncertainties. The results indicate that only the variations in geometry have significant effects

Geodynamic Evolution of the Indo – Myanmar Orogenic Belt , NE India

Abstract HKT-ISTP 2013 A

Cardiac hemangioma of the right atrium in a neonate : fetal management and expedited surgical resection

Cardiac hemangioma is a rare tumor with a reported incidence of 1-2%. We describe the case of a neonate with a right atrial mass that was diagnosed prenatally. The fetus developed a supraventricular tachycardia and was delivered by cesarean section in the 35th week of gestation. The infant underwent surgery after 24 hours to remove the mass which was diagnosed as a cardiac capillary-cavernous hemangioma.peer-reviewe

An Integrated Framework for the Detection of Lung Nodules from Multimodal Images Using Segmentation Network and Generative Adversarial Network Techniques

Medical imaging techniques are providing promising results in identifying abnormalities in tissues. The presence of such tissues leads to further investigation on these cells in particular. Lung cancer is seen widely and is deadliest in nature if not detected and treated at an early stage. Medical imaging techniques help to identify the presence of suspicious tissues like lung nodules effectively. But it is very difficult to know the presence of the nodule at an early stage with the help of a single imaging modality. The proposed system increases the efficiency of the system and helps to identify the presence of lung nodules at an early stage. This is achieved by combining different methods for reaching a common outcome. Multiple schemes are combined and the extracted features are used for obtaining a conclusion. The accuracy of the system and the results depend on the quality and quantity of the authentic training data. But the availability of the data from an authentic source for the study is a challenging task. Here the generative adversarial network (GAN), is used as a data source generator. It helps to generate a huge amount of reliable data by using a minimum number of real time and authentic data set. Images generated by the GAN are of resolution 1024 x 1024.Fine tuning of the images by using the real images increases the quality of the generated images and thereby improving the efficiency.   Luna 16 is the primary data source and these images are used for the generation of 1000000 images. Training process with the huge dataset improves the capability of the proposed system. Various parameters are considered for evaluating the performance of the proposed system. Comparative analysis with existing systems highlights the strengths of the proposed system

FIR Filter Implementation by Efficient Sharing of Horizontal and Vertical Common Sub-expressions

No abstract availabl