Morphological characteristics of "Monterufoli horse"

Monterufoli horse is a local endangered breed of the Tuscany and derives from the omonym area in province of Pisa. This horse derives from local wild and extinct equines and has Maremmano, Tolfetano and Oriental ancestors. The mean and the standard deviation of biometric characters, and the absolut and percentage frequency of morphological characteristics were calculated. The measures of the adult females were estimated by ANOVA considering three different class of age. The average sizes were: height at withers of 135.4±6.3 and 129.2±5.9, thorax circumference of 166.4±8.3 and 163.4±8.9, frontshank circumference of 17.7±1.5 and 17.5±0.9, for males and females, respectively. All the observed horses presented dark coat. Monterufoli horses showed the physical characteristics of local extinct ancestors (Selvena pony), but also the characteristics of other breeds that contributed to improve the local population. This horse, which was once used in agriculture and for light draught, is now involved for saddle use

Helioseismic constraints to the central solar temperature and neutrino fluxes

The central solar temperature T and its uncertainties are calculated in helioseismologically-constrained solar models. From the best fit to the convective radius, density at the convective radius and seismically determined helium abundance the central temperature is found to be T=1.58x10^7 K, in excellent agreement with Standard Solar Models. Conservatively, we estimate that the accuracy of this determination is Delta T/T=1.4 %, better than that in SSM. Neutrino fluxes are calculated. The lower limit to the boron neutrino flux, obtained with maximum reduction factors from all sources of uncertainties, is 2 sigma higher than the flux measured recently by SuperKamiokande.Comment: Latex, 10 pages, uses revtex styles (included), 3 postscript figure

Impact of α enhancement on the asteroseismic age determination of field stars: Application to the APO-K2 catalogue

Aims. We investigated the theoretical biases affecting the asteroseismic grid-based estimates of stellar mass, radius, and age in the presence of a mismatch between the heavy element mixture of observed stars and stellar models. Methods. We performed a controlled simulation adopting a stellar effective temperature, [Fe/H], an average large frequency spacing, and a frequency of maximum oscillation power as observational constraints. Synthetic stars were sampled from grids of stellar models computed with different [α/Fe] values from 0.0 to 0.4. The mass, radius, and age of these objects were then estimated by adopting a grid of models with a fixed [α/Fe] value of 0.0. The experiment was repeated assuming different sets of observational uncertainties. In the reference scenario, we adopted an uncertainty of 1.5% in seismic parameters, 50 K in effective temperature, and 0.05 dex in [Fe/H]. A higher uncertainty in the atmospheric constraints was also adopted in order to explore the impact on the precision of the observations of the estimated stellar parameters. Results. Our Monte Carlo experiment showed that estimated parameters are biased up to 3% in mass, 1.5% in radius, and 4% in age when the reference uncertainty scenario was adopted. These values correspond to 45%, 48%, and 16% of the estimated uncertainty in the stellar parameters. These non-negligible biases in mass and radius disappear when adopting larger observational uncertainties because of the possibility of the fitting algorithm exploring a wider range of possible solutions. However, in this scenario, the age is significantly biased by 8%. Finally, we verified that the stellar mass, radius, and age can be estimated with a high accuracy by adopting a grid with the incorrect value of [α/Fe] if the metallicity [Fe/H] of the target is adjusted to match the Z in the fitting grid. In this scenario, the maximum bias in the age was reduced to 1.5%

Proopiomelanocortin gene expression and β-endorphin localization in the pituitary, testis and epididymis of stallion

Proopiomelanocortin (POMC) is a precursor protein that contains the sequences of several bioactive peptides including adrenocorticotropin (ACTH), beta-endorphin (beta-EP), and melanocyte-stimulating-hormone (MSH). POMC is synthesized in the pituitary gland, brain, and many peripheral tissues. Immunoreactive POMC-derived peptides as well as POMC-like mRNA have been evidenced in several nonpituitary tissues, thus suggesting that POMC is actively synthesized by these tissues. The present study was aimed at evaluating if also in the case of stallion POMC-derived peptide, beta-EP, is produced locally in the testis, thus playing effects in a paracrine/ autocrine fashion. To investigate this hypothesis the POMC gene expression was analyzed using 3' RACE-PCR and Northern Blot approaches in the testis and epididimys of stallion; moreover, immunocytochemical localization for beta-EP was also performed through confocal laser microscopy. The immunofluorescence results showed a positive beta-EP reaction not only in cellular nest of pituitary but also in the testis and genital tract of stallion, which function could be related with sperm mobility. Such role seem not to be no dependent on the peptide synthesized locally, because the molecular biology approach demonstrated the presence of POMC transcript in the pituitary only. In fact the Northern Blot analysis showed the presence of a single POMC transcript in the pituitary while no signal was detected in the testis and epididimys. The same results were obtained by applied 3' RACE-PCR analysis. In conclusion, opioid-derived pepticle beta-EP is present in the genital tract of stallion, but is not locally produced as in other mammalian, and nonmammalian models; its possible biological function at testicular level could be linked to a long-loop feed-back mechanism