Level of Drug Dispensing and Future Changes Anticipated by Food Animal Veterinary Practices - A Regional Comparison

Veterinary practices are continually undergoing change in response to scientific and economic activities. The types of services offered can change over time in response to client needs. \u27 As with any industry, changes are dynamic and a natural phenomenon for increasing or at least maintaining the income base. Drug dispensing as a part of the veterinary practice is one element of change currently receiving attention. Evaluation and discussion of this alternative is occurring in the animal health field

The fundamental plane of evolving red nuggets

We present an exploration of the mass structure of a sample of 12 strongly lensed massive, compact early-type galaxies at redshifts $z\sim0.6$ to provide further possible evidence for their inside-out growth. We obtain new ESI/Keck spectroscopy and infer the kinematics of both lens and source galaxies, and combine these with existing photometry to construct (a) the fundamental plane (FP) of the source galaxies and (b) physical models for their dark and luminous mass structure. We find their FP to be tilted towards the virial plane relative to the local FP, and attribute this to their unusual compactness, which causes their kinematics to be totally dominated by the stellar mass as opposed to their dark matter; that their FP is nevertheless still inconsistent with the virial plane implies that both the stellar and dark structure of early-type galaxies is non-homologous. We also find the intrinsic scatter of their FP to be comparable to the local value, indicating that variations in the stellar mass structure outweight variations in the dark halo in the central regions of early-type galaxies. Finally, we show that inference on the dark halo structure -- and, in turn, the underlying physics -- is sensitive to assumptions about the stellar initial mass function (IMF), but that physically-motivated assumptions about the IMF imply haloes with sub-NFW inner density slopes, and may present further evidence for the inside-out growth of compact early-type galaxies via minor mergers and accretion.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 3 tables; submitted to MNRA

Galaxy Groups Associated with Gravitational Lenses and H_0 from B1608+656

Compact groups of galaxies recently have been discovered in association with several strong gravitational lens systems. These groups provide additional convergence to the lensing potential and thus affect the value of H_0 derived from the systems. Lens system time delays are now being measured with uncertainties of only a few percent or better. Additionally, vast improvements are being made in incorporating observational constraints such as Einstein ring structures and stellar velocity dispersions into the lens models. These advances are reducing the uncertainties on H_0 to levels at which the the effects of associated galaxy groups may contribute significantly to the overall error budget. We describe a dedicated multiwavelength program, using Keck, HST, and Chandra, to find such groups and measure their properties. We present, as a case study, results obtained from observations of the CLASS lens system B1608+656 and discuss the implications for the value of H_0 derived from this system.Comment: To appear in Proceedings of IAU Symposium 225: Impact of Gravitational Lensing on Cosmology, 6 pages, 2 figure

Red nuggets grow inside-out: evidence from gravitational lensing

We present a new sample of strong gravitational lens systems where both the foreground lenses and background sources are early-type galaxies. Using imaging from HST/ACS and Keck/NIRC2, we model the surface brightness distributions and show that the sources form a distinct population of massive, compact galaxies at redshifts $0.4 \lesssim z \lesssim 0.7$, lying systematically below the size-mass relation of the global elliptical galaxy population at those redshifts. These may therefore represent relics of high-redshift red nuggets or their partly-evolved descendants. We exploit the magnifying effect of lensing to investigate the structural properties, stellar masses and stellar populations of these objects with a view to understanding their evolution. We model these objects parametrically and find that they generally require two S\'ersic components to properly describe their light profiles, with one more spheroidal component alongside a more envelope-like component, which is slightly more extended though still compact. This is consistent with the hypothesis of the inside-out growth of these objects via minor mergers. We also find that the sources can be characterised by red-to-blue colour gradients as a function of radius which are stronger at low redshift -- indicative of ongoing accretion -- but that their environments generally appear consistent with that of the general elliptical galaxy population, contrary to recent suggestions that these objects are predominantly associated with clusters.Comment: 21 pages; accepted for publication in MNRA

Palinopsia from a posteriorly placed glioma - an insight into its possible causes

Palinopsia is a distortion of processing in the visual system in which images persist or recur after the visual stimulus has been removed. It is a dysfunction of the association areas at the junction of temporal, occipital and parietal lobes and can be triggered by any lesion or dysfunction in this region. Here, the authors report the case of a Patient with a glioma involving this region of the brain, who presented with palinopsia that subsequently disappeared once the tumour was surgically debulked. In the few cases of palinopsia that have been published so far, no such case has ever been reported. Furthermore, we took an insight into this rare and elusive phenomenon\u27s causes and suggested Bayesian inference as a possible cause. The authors also mentioned visual evoked potentials as a useful test to be considered in future palinoptic Patients

Temporal and spatial variability in dune reactivation across the Nebraska Sand Hills, USA

The Nebraska Sand Hills is a stabilized dune field on the Great Plains of North America. Although it is well known that this dune field, like several others on the Great Plains, last experienced widespread activity during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA, ~AD 900–1300), spatial variation in the timing and nature of drought development is poorly constrained. To elucidate spatial trends in dune reactivation, samples potentially representing MCA activity across the Sand Hills were collected and dated using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL). Ages from the older part of the MCA were obtained from eolian sediments in the northwestern Sand Hills, while ages from later in the episode were obtained to the southeast, suggesting a geographic trend in the timing of revegetation of the dunes near the end of the drought. Revegetation likely occurred to the northwest initially as a result of renewed moisture availability from a rising water table in the interdunes, which serve as refugia for vegetation during times of drought. Vegetation then gradually spread to the southeastern Sand Hills. An additional spatial trend in ages is apparent in the chronology of linear dune mobilization across the Sand Hills. Linear dunes in the northwest are superimposed on megadunes and originated during the last reactivation, while linear dunes in the southeast are built around older cores of dunes and formed during several reactivations. Our geochronology reveals three episodes of eolian transport, including the MCA, in the formation of linear dunes in the southeast

A practical, multiplatform app for climate stress to aid animal producers and science education

Project Leaders: Michael McKean: Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI)/Missouri School of Journalism; Dale Musser: Director of the IT Program in the College of Engineering; Ray Massey and Pat Guinan: Commercial Agriculture Program; Ben Gallup: 4-H Center for Youth Development; David Kemp: Future Farmers of America; John Travlos: Electronic Bulletin Board (AgEBB); Stacey Hamilton, Southwest Center, College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources"Climate variability is a concern in a number of sectors, particularly in the Agriculture industry. The National Climatic Data Center for the US announced on September 9, 2011 that last summer was the hottest in 75 years, with the greatest impact in Texas and neighboring states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri. The result was daily appearance of news stories regarding losses of livestock and productivity, which during a normal year amount to $897, 369, and 299 million for dairy, beef, and swine industries, respectively. Thermal stress indices have existed for years for these groups, but are underutilized because they require elaborate combinations of environmental (e.g., weather) and physiological (e.g., body temperature) data. There is also increased concern that student interest in science, at both high school and college levels, is declining, and that the United States could be at a disadvantage in solving complex problems of the future such as climate variability due to a lack of qualified scientists. It has been suggested, that the traditional read, recite, regurgitate models for teaching science are ineffective ways to motivate students to learn science, and help them understand and retain science concepts. D.A. Kolb noted that an experiential approach increases interest of youth in science. Experiential learning in the sciences includes gathering the facts surrounding a problem, reflecting on the findings, formulating ideas, and finally testing them, and generating new knowledge. A mechanism to facilitate this process using advanced instructional technologies that are more engaging to a technology-oriented generation of learners will stimulate interest in and learning of science. Our proposal is to develop a native smart phone app (Apple and Android) that combines weather information (both current and projected) with individual animal information to aid the producer in the decision-making process to reduce heat strain and improve animal welfare. At the same time, the app will be a learning device that attracts and stimulates student interest in climate and environmental stress related to themselves and their production animals. Our approach will use students in the "Team-Based Mobile Application Development" course (College of Engineering, IT Program, and School of Journalism) together with CAFNR undergraduate students trained in environmental physiology to develop the prototype. The educational component will require input from a select group of high school/college students in 4-H and FFA (and related agricultural youth organizations), with backgrounds in animal science and a strong interest in using technology to improve animal production and welfare. These students will collaborate with others in the app design and evaluation course for a truly multidisciplinary learning experience. This product will then be promoted, displayed, and tested in select venues, such as CAFNR field days and at the Missouri State Fair." --DescriptionMU Interdisciplinary Innovations Fun

Progress with the LOFAR Imaging Pipeline

One of the science drivers of the new Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) is large-area surveys of the low-frequency radio sky. Realizing this goal requires automated processing of the interferometric data, such that fully calibrated images are produced by the system during survey operations. The LOFAR Imaging Pipeline is the tool intended for this purpose, and is now undergoing significant commissioning work. The pipeline is now functional as an automated processing chain. Here we present several recent LOFAR images that have been produced during the still ongoing commissioning period. These early LOFAR images are representative of some of the science goals of the commissioning team members.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in proceedings of "ISKAF2010 Science Meeting", PoS(ISKAF2010)05

Survey of Market Swine to Determine Prevalence of Trichinella Antibodies in Meat Juice Samples from Selected Abattoirs

Trichinella spp. have been associated with human zoonotic disease, predominately in temperate and polar regions. Humans and other mammals are incidentally involved after consumption of infected raw or inadequately cooked muscle tissues or from direct contact with infectious oocysts. Recent USA outbreaks have been mainly attributed to carnivorous wildlife (bears, mountain cats, and wild boar). This change has been aided by the steady decrease in swine Trichinella prevalence as USA swine herds moved toward confinement and limited feeding of uncooked garbage. For this study presence of Trichinella antibodies in meat-juice samples was tested by a commercial competitive ELISA test