Moderate-intensity oxygen uptake kinetics: is a mono-exponential function always appropriate to model the response?

Purpose: This study investigated the existence of the oxygen uptake () overshoot and the effects of exercise intensity and fitness status on the response during moderate-intensity exercise. Methods: Twelve “high-fitness” (Mage = 26 ± 5 years; Mheight = 184.1 ± 5.4 cm; Mbody mass = 76.6 ± 8.9 kg; mean peak oxygen uptake (peak) = 59.0 ± 3.3 mL·kg−1·min·−1) and 11 “moderate-fitness” (Mage = 29 ± 5 years; Mheight = 178.7 ± 7.5 cm; Mbody mass = 81.7 ± 10.9 kg; MV̇O2peak = 45.2 ± 3.1 mL·kg−1·min·−1) participants performed square-wave transitions from unloaded cycling to 3 different intensities (70%, 82.5%, and 95% of the gas exchange threshold). The data were modeled using both a mono-exponential function (Model 1) and a function that included a switch-on component (Model 2). The overshoot was computed by subtracting the steady state from the peak of the modeled response and by calculating the area of the curve that was above steady state. Results: The goodness of fit was affected by model type (p = .002) and exercise intensity (p < .001). High-fitness participants displayed a smaller τ (p < .05) and a larger amplitude (p < .05) and were more likely to overshoot the steady state (p = .035). However, while exercise intensity did affect the amplitude (p < .001), it did not affect τ (p ≥ .05) or the likelihood of an overshoot occurring (p = .389). Conclusion: While exercise intensity did not alter the response, fitness status affected τ and the likelihood of an overshoot occurring. The overshoot questions the traditional approach to modeling moderate-intensity data

Texas Citrus: Nutrition and Fertilization.

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Texas Citrus: Nutrition and Fertilization.

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The value of preventing malaria in Tembien, Ethiopia

The authors measure the monetary value households place on preventing malaria in Tembien, Tigray Region, Ethiopia. They estimate a household demand function for a hypothetical malaria vaccine and compute the value of preventing malaria as the household's maximum willingness to pay to provide vaccines for all family members. They contrast willingness to pay with the traditional costs of illness (medical costs and time lost because of malaria). Their results indicate that the value of preventing malaria with vaccines is about US$36 a household a year, or about 15 percent of imputed annual household income. This is, on average, about two or three times the expected household cost of illness. Despite the great benefits from preventing malaria, the fact that vaccine demand is price inelastic suggests that it will be difficult to achieve significant market penetration unless the vaccine is subsidized. The authors obtain similar results for insecticide-treated bed nets. Their estimates of household demand functions for bed nets suggest that at a price that might permit cost recovery (US$6 a bed net), only a third of the population of a 200-person village would sleep under bed nets.Early Child and Children's Health,Public Health Promotion,Disease Control&Prevention,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Economic Theory&Research,Climate Change,Environmental Economics&Policies,Early Child and Children's Health

Reservoir Computing in Materio : An Evaluation of Configuration through Evolution

Recent work has shown that computational substrates made from carbon nanotube/polymer mixtures can form trainable Reservoir Computers. This new reservoir computing platform uses computer based evolutionary algorithms to optimise a set of electrical control signals to induce reservoir properties within the substrate. In the training process, evolution decides the value of analogue control signals (voltages) and the location of inputs and outputs on the substrate that improve the performance of the subsequently trained reservoir readout. Here, we evaluate the performance of evolutionary search compared to randomly assigned electrical configurations. The substrate is trained and evaluated on time-series prediction using the Santa Fe Laser generated competition data (dataset A). In addition to the main investigation, we introduce two new features closely linked to the traditional reservoir computing architecture, adding an evolvable input-weighting mechanism and a reservoir time-scaling parameter. The experimental results show evolved configurations across all four test substrates consistently produce reservoirs with greater performance than randomly configured reservoirs. The results also show that applying both input-weighting and timescaling simultaneously can provide additional tuning to the task, improving performance. For one material, the evolved reservoir is shown to outperform – for this task – all other hardwarebased reservoir computers found in the literature. The same material also outperforms a simple evolved simulated Echo State Network of the same size. The performance of this material is reported to be both consistent after long time-periods and after reconfiguration to other tasks

Welfare Risks of Repeated Application of On-Farm Killing Methods for Poultry

Council Regulation (EC) no. 1099/2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing restricts the use of manual cervical dislocation in poultry on farms in the European Union (EU) to birds weighing up to 3 kg and 70 birds per person per day. However, few studies have examined whether repeated application of manual cervical dislocation has welfare implications and whether these are dependent on individual operator skill or susceptibility to fatigue. We investigated the effects of repeated application (100 birds at a fixed killing rate of 1 bird per 2 min) and multiple operators on two methods of killing of broilers, laying hens, and turkeys in commercial settings. We compared the efficacy and welfare impact of repeated application of cervical dislocation and a percussive killer (Cash Poultry Killer, CPK), using 12 male stockworkers on three farms (one farm per bird type). Both methods achieved over 96% kill success at the first attempt. The killing methods were equally effective for each bird type and there was no evidence of reduced performance with time and/or bird number. Both methods of killing caused a rapid loss of reflexes, indicating loss of brain function. There was more variation in reflex durations and post-mortem damage in birds killed by cervical dislocation than that found using CPK. High neck dislocation was associated with improved kill success and more rapid loss of reflexes. The CPK caused damage to multiple brain areas with little variation. Overall, the CPK was associated with faster abolition of reflexes, with fewer birds exhibiting them at all, suggestive of better welfare outcomes. However, technical difficulties with the CPK highlighted the advantages of cervical dislocation, which can be performed immediately with no equipment. At the killing rates tested, we did not find evidence to justify the current EU limit on the number of birds that one operator can kill on–farm by manual cervical dislocation

Brown Adipose Tissue Thermogenic Capacity Is Regulated by Elovl6.

Although many transcriptional pathways regulating BAT have been identified, the role of lipid biosynthetic enzymes in thermogenesis has been less investigated. Whereas cold exposure causes changes in the fatty acid composition of BAT, the functional consequences of this remains relatively unexplored. In this study, we demonstrate that the enzyme Elongation of Very Long Chain fatty acids 6 (Elovl6) is necessary for the thermogenic action of BAT. Elovl6 is responsible for converting C16 non-essential fatty acids into C18 species. Loss of Elovl6 does not modulate traditional BAT markers; instead, it causes reduced expression of mitochondrial electron transport chain components and lower BAT thermogenic capacity. The reduction in BAT activity appears to be counteracted by increased beiging of scWAT. When beige fat is disabled by thermoneutrality or aging, Elovl6 KO mice gain weight and have increased scWAT mass and impaired carbohydrate metabolism. Overall, our study suggests fatty acid chain length is important for BAT function.We thank the BBSRC, MRC, EU FP7 5 BetaBAT and Wellcome Trust for funding this work.This is the final version of the article. It was first available from Elsevier via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2015.11.00