Feeding and Management of Horses

The successful feeding of horses requires a knowledge of the composition. of the common feeding stuffs, the requirements of horses under various conditions and their proper management. Those who have studied horse feeding problems generally concede that considerable feed may be saved by the proper use of the various feeds and an up-to-date system of management. Surveys have shown that some horses, even tho they get twice as much feed as others, do no more work and are kept in no better condition. This can be explained by the fact that one farmer understands how to feed and care for his animals, while the other simply wastes feed because he does not know the amount and the kind needed

Testing draft horses

“When animals are viewed from the standpoint of machines they are wonderful mechanisms. Not only are they self-feeding, self-controlling, self-maintaining and self-reproducing, but they are far more economical in the energy they are able to develop from a given weight of fuel material, than any other existing form of motor. While they are like the steam engine in requiring carbonaceous fuel, oxygen and water for use in developing energy; these are made to combine in the animal body at a much lower temperature than is possible in the steam engine, and a much smaller proportion of the fuel value is lost in the form of heat, when work is being done.

The role of working memory and verbal fluency in autobiographical memory in early Alzheimer’s disease and matched controls

Retrieval of autobiographical memories (AMs) is important for “sense of self”. Previous research and theoretical accounts suggest that working memory (WM) and semantic and phonemic fluency abilities facilitate the hierarchical search for, and reliving of past, personal events in the mind’s eye. However, there remains a lack of consensus as to the nature of the relationships between these cognitive functions and the truly episodic aspects of AM. The present study therefore aimed to explore the associations between these variables in a sample with a wide range of cognitive abilities. The study incorporated a between-groups component, and a correlational component with multiple regression. Participants with Alzheimer’s disease (n = 10) and matched healthy controls (n = 10) were assessed on measures of semantic and episodic AM search and retrieval, auditory and spatial WM, and semantic and phonemic fluency. The AD group produced less episodic AM content compared to controls. Semantic fluency predicted episodic AM retrieval independent of age effects but there were no significant relationships between measures of phonemic fluency, WM and episodic AM. The results suggest that the ability to maintain hierarchical search of the semantic knowledge-base is important for truly episodic reliving, and interventions for people with AM impairment might therefore benefit from incorporating structured, individualised external memory-aids to facilitate AM search and retrieval

Caregiver Integration During Discharge Planning for Older Adults to Reduce Resource Use: A Metaanalysis

Objectives To determine the effect of integrating informal caregivers into discharge planning on postdischarge cost and resource use in older adults. Design A systematic review and metaanalysis of randomized controlled trials that examine the effect of discharge planning with caregiver integration begun before discharge on healthcare cost and resource use outcomes. MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library databases were searched for all English‐language articles published between 1990 and April 2016. Setting Hospital or skilled nursing facility. Participants Older adults with informal caregivers discharged to a community setting. Measurements Readmission rates, length of and time to post‐discharge rehospitalizations, costs of postdischarge care. Results Of 10,715 abstracts identified, 15 studies met the inclusion criteria. Eleven studies provided sufficient detail to calculate readmission rates for treatment and control participants. Discharge planning interventions with caregiver integration were associated with a 25% fewer readmissions at 90 days (relative risk (RR) = 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.62–0.91) and 24% fewer readmissions at 180 days (RR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.64–0.90). The majority of studies reported statistically significant shorter time to readmission, shorter rehospitalization, and lower costs of postdischarge care among discharge planning interventions with caregiver integration. Conclusion For older adults discharged to a community setting, the integration of caregivers into the discharge planning process reduces the risk of hospital readmission

Interferon lambda protects the female reproductive tract against Zika virus infection

Zika virus infections can cause devastating congenital birth defects but the underlying interactions with the host immune system are not well understood. Here, the authors examine the immune basis of vaginal protection and susceptibility to Zika viral infection, and identify a hormonal dependent role for interferon-lambda-mediated protection against disease

Pre-stressed plates as a mechanism to provide additional under belly blast protection

The use of curved pre-stressed plates is investigated as this provides a possible additional mechanism to resist both initial folding and later structural collapse. Numerical modelling in Autodyn (R) and empirical calculations based on the Westine model were used to determine starting conditions for the explosive trials. Trials were conducted in which plates were pre-stressed by the imposition of a large bending moment from two parallel sides resulting in a tensile stress on the outer surface facing the blast. Tests were conducted at approximately one third linear scale using target plates of 500mm x 500mm and a charge of between 100g and 250g buried in dried sand was used to load them. Unstressed but curved plates were tested and then compared to similar shaped curved plates with an imposed bending stress equal to the yield stress or ultimate tensile stress of the plate material

Magnetic resonance findings and outcome in ten cats with traumatic spondylomyelopathy

In this retrospective study, the MR findings of ten cats with acute post-traumatic spondylomyelopathy were described and the most useful MR sequences were determined. Spinal cord injury (SCI), bone and muscle trauma were compared with the clinical outcome (recovery or euthanasia). The extension of spinal cord injury (SCI) was measured in vertebral body length (VBL). Of the ten cats, only five fully recovered. In the recovery group, no SCI (n=1) or SCI <1 VBL (n=4) were found. In the group of euthanized dogs, SCI > 2 VBLs (n=4) or spinal cord transection (n=1) were found. Lesions were best seen on T2WSE (spinal cord injury), STIR (soft tissue trauma) and T1WSE (bone injury). Low-field MR was therefore helpful to assess feline spinal trauma and may prove helpful to predict the clinical outcome, although a larger case series is needed. The authors suggest that protocols with low-field MR should include T1WSE, T2WSE and STIR sequences

On Toric Poisson Structures of Type (1,1) and their Cohomology

We classify real Poisson structures on complex toric manifolds of type (1,1) and initiate an investigation of their Poisson cohomology. For smooth toric varieties, such structures are necessarily algebraic and are homogeneous quadratic in each of the distinguished holomorphic coordinate charts determined by the open cones of the associated simplicial fan. As an approximation to the smooth cohomology problem in each Cn chart, we consider the Poisson differential on the complex of polynomial multi-vector fields. For the algebraic problem, we compute H⁰ and H¹ under the assumption that the Poisson structure is generically non-degenerate. The paper concludes with numerical investigations of the higher degree cohomology groups of (C²,πB) for various B