The Iowa and Danish Pork Industries: A Comparison

Iowa produces 29.6 million markets pigs per year, representing 29% of USA swine production. Denmark produces 25.2 million pigs per year and is a major component of the European pork industry and worldwide markets. Both have competitive advantages in a global pork industry. Through available data and personal experience a reflection is made on the similarities and differences between these two distinct pig producing regions

Dupuytren’s Disease

Dupuytren’s disease is a fibroproliferative disease affecting the palmar fascia of the hand and leading to flexion contractures of the digits. It was first described in Northern European populations and derived its namesake from Dr. Baron Dupuytren, a French surgeon, who was one of the first to lecture on the disease. The etiology of Dupuytren’s disease is unclear but is likely influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Older individuals and men are most at risk of developing the disease. Dupuytren’s disease is a clinical diagnosis and patients often present with gradually worsening flexion contractures. Mild disease is usually observed, but surgical treatment is preferred for debilitating contractures. A variety of surgical techniques have been described involving either incising or excising diseased fascia. Overall, surgery is effective in correcting contractures and improving function, but despite successful treatment some patients still experience recurrence. More recently, collagenase injections and percutaneous procedures have been utilized to treat Dupuytren’s disease and have yielded promising results in select patients

Methane emission by alpaca and sheep fed on lucerne hay or grazed on pastures of perennial ryegrass/white clover or birdsfoot trefoil

Based on the knowledge that alpaca (Lama pacos) have a lower fractional outflow rate of feed particles (particulate FOR) from their forestomach than sheep (San Martin 1987), the current study measured methane (CH4) production and other digestion parameters in these species in three successive experiments (1, 2 and 3): Experiment 1, lucerne hay fed indoors; Experiment 2, grazed on perennial ryegrass/white clover pasture (PRG/WC); and Experiment 3, grazed on birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatits) pasture (Lotus). Six male alpaca and six castrated Romney sheep were simultaneously and successively fed on the forages either ad libitium or at generous herbage allowances (grazing). CH4 production (g/day) (using the sulphur hexafluoride tracer technique), voluntary feed intake (VFI), diet quality, and protozoa counts and volatile fatty acid concentrations in samples of forestomach contents were determined. In addition, feed digestibility, energy and nitrogen (N) balances and microbial N supply from the forestomach (using purine derivatives excretion) were measured in Experiment 1. Diets selected by alpaca were of lower quality than those selected by sheep, and the voluntary gross energy intakes (GEI, MJ) per kg of liveweight(0.75) were consistently lower (P0.05) in their CH4 yields (% GEI) when fed on lucerne hay (5.1 v. 4.7), but alpaca had a higher CH4 yield when fed on PRG/WC (9.4 v. 7.5, P0.05) in diet N partition or microbial N yield, but alpaca had higher (P<0.05) neutral detergent fibre digestibility (0.478 v. 0.461) and lower (P<0.01) urinary energy losses (5.2 v. 5.8 % GEI) than sheep. It is suggested that differences between these species in forestomach particulate FOR might have been the underlying physiological mechanism responsible for the differences in CH4 yield, although the between-species differences in VFI and diet quality also had a major effect on it

Effect of Feed Cost on the Economic Impact of PRRS

Economic impacts based on PRRS associated losses as reported in a previous study were modeled with varying grain prices. Sensitivity tables show that as grain (feed) prices rise, the economic impact of disease events increases. As corn prices rise from $2.25/bu up to$5.00/bu, there is a $92.6 million increase in the cost of PRRS to US pork producers. Every$0.50/bu increase in corn price costs the pork industry $18.52 million in PRRS associated losses. In the PRRS-affected farm, for every$0.50/bu increase, the cost per litter increases $0.886, the cost per nursery pig increases$0.072/hd and the cost per finisher pig increases $0.405/hd. With corn at$2.50 to $5.00/bu the national impact is estimated at$594.19 to $686.77 million annually, or$5.94 to $6.87/hd marketed in the US. As feed prices rise, the value of improved health care also rises. As costs rise, it is imperative to continue efforts on disease control and prevention

The Impact of PRRS on the Pig Cost of Production

Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS) has had a significant impact on the profitability of swine production. As a means to quantify the financial impact of PRRS to the U.S. swine industry, a study was conducted. This study utilized case studies and a Delphi survey to identify the various impacts PRRS has on farms. Results suggest that impacts to individual farms vary greatly but aggregated data for approximately 100 million market swine being sold each year in the U.S., estimates PRRS adds somewhere between $5.60 and$7.62 to the cost per head sold

Rhythms of locomotion and seasonal changes in activity expressed by horseshoe crabs in their natural habitat

The American horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus expresses both tidal and daily rhythms of locomotion in the laboratory and the tidal rhythms can be entrained to artificial tides. The main purpose of this study was to determine the types of rhythms horseshoe crabs express when freely moving in their natural habitat where they are exposed to natural light:dark and tidal cycles. A secondary goal was to determine if their overall activity patterns and depth preferences changed during the year. In 2010 and 2011, 20 adult horseshoe crabs (11 males, 9 females) were fitted with ultrasonic tags and released in the Great Bay Estuary, NH, USA. The tags transmitted acceleration and depth data every 3 to 5 min from June until December during the year in which they were tagged, and from March to May of the following year. Acoustic transmissions from the tags were detected and logged by a series of VR2W receivers moored throughout the estuary. Accelerometer data were used to assess when animals were active and to determine (1) whether they were expressing tidal or daily rhythms and (2) their overall activity level each month. We discovered that horseshoe crabs were just as likely to express tidal rhythms as daily rhythms, despite being continuously exposed to natural tide cycles. In addition, there was a tendency to move into deeper water and become less active as water temperatures cooled in the fall, and then to move up into the estuary and become more active as water temperatures warmed in the spring

Racializing The Discourse of Adult Education

This symposium began in 2002 as a dialogue between Stephen Brookfield, Scipio Colin III and me. The circumstances that brought about the dialogue are indicative of the need for a symposium on race talk among educators and even more specifically among adult educators. At the time, Stephen was at Harvard and because of his work there he was asked to contribute an article to the Harvard Educational Review about racializing the discourse of adult education. As a White male Stephen felt strongly that minority voices should included and proposed inviting several African American academics as well—the topic was important enough to warrant a special issue

Sow and Litter Performance for Individual Crate and Group Hoop Barn Gestation Housing Systems: A Progress Report II

The effects of swine gestation housing on sow and litter performance were evaluated at the Iowa State University Lauren Christian Swine Research and Demonstration Farm near Atlantic, IA. The gestation systems were 1) individual gestation crates in a mechanically ventilated, partially slatted floor, manure flush confinement building (CRATE); and 2) group pens in deep-bedded, naturally ventilated hoop structures (HOOP). The HOOP sows were fed with individual feed stalls. The sows were artificially inseminated in a confinement breeding barn with slatted floors and were later moved to their assigned gestation housing treatment. Sows included in the study continued in the same gestation housing their entire time at the farm. All first-litter gilts were gestated in individual gestation crates to minimize sow size differential in the groups. There were 35 sows per group in the HOOP barns. Farrowing occurred every 2 weeks on a year-round basis. All sows were fed 4.5 lb/day and increased to 6 lb/day during the last trimester of gestation. During the winter, HOOP sows were fed 25% more and CRATE sows were fed 5% more. Reproductive performance was summarized for 493 litters during the period March 2001 to September 2003. This is a progress report of a continuing study. Preliminary trends were a shorter wean-to-breed interval, 0.5 more live pigs born per litter, and 0.5 more pigs weaned/sow/year for HOOP sows compared with CRATE sows. Higher percentages of stillborn and mummied pigs were observed in the HOOP sows compared with the CRATE sows. Slightly lower pre-wean mortality and sow culling rates occurred in the CRATE sows as compared with HOOP sows, with similar sow mortality rates for both groups. The preliminary data suggests that gestating sows can be housed in deep-bedded hoop barns equipped with individual feeding stalls and achieve results comparable to individual crated gestation systems

Self-repair ability of evolved self-assembling systems in cellular automata

Self-repairing systems are those that are able to reconfigure themselves following disruptions to bring them back into a defined normal state. In this paper we explore the self-repair ability of some cellular automata-like systems, which differ from classical cellular automata by the introduction of a local diffusion process inspired by chemical signalling processes in biological development. The update rules in these systems are evolved using genetic programming to self-assemble towards a target pattern. In particular, we demonstrate that once the update rules have been evolved for self-assembly, many of those update rules also provide a self-repair ability without any additional evolutionary process aimed specifically at self-repair