Winter Performance of North American \u3ci\u3eBos grunniens\u3c/i\u3e Offered Hay Harvested From Different Forage Species

Bos grunniens or the domesticated yak was brought to North America in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. In Asia, yaks have been observed to lose 25% or more of their body weight over the winter in the high mountain altitudes. Little research has been conducted with the domesticated yak and their nutritional needs. Maintaining positive weight change during the winter is expected to improve the profitability and viability of yak production systems in North America. An on-farm study was conducted near Wellington, KY, USA to investigate the winter performance of yaks and hay type. Four outdoor grass lots approximate 0.32 hectares in size were utilized for growing yaks through the winter. Three hay types were offered to yaks and included alfalfa (Medicago sativa), a mixture of orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) and red clover (Trifolium pratense), or a mixture of common pasture cool-season grasses (Year 1) or orchardgrass (Year 2). Hay disappearance and weight change were monitored. Hay disappearance was found to be similar across the hay types when expressed as a percentage of body weight but was numerically greatest for alfalfa. Weight change was similar for alfalfa and orchardgrass-red clover mixture in both years with alfalfa having greater weight gain than the grass hay fed. Average daily gain was greatest for alfalfa and similar to the orchardgrass-red clover mixture in Year 1. In Year 2, orchardgrass-red clover mixture and orchardgrass had similar ADG. Yaks respond positively to higher forage quality in hay during the winter-feeding period

Scales of Seafloor Sediment Resuspension in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Seafloor sediment resuspension events of different scales and magnitudes and the resulting deep (\u3e1,000 m) benthic nepheloid layers were investigated in the northern Gulf of Mexico during Fall 2012 to Summer 2013. Time-series data of size-specific in-situ settling speeds of marine snow in the benthic nepheloid layer (moored flux cameras), particle size distributions (profiling camera), currents (various current meters) and stacked time-series flux data (sediment traps) were combined to recognize resuspension events ranging from small-scale local, to small-scale far-field to hurricane-scale. One smallscale local resuspension event caused by inertial currents was identified based on local high current speeds (\u3e10 cm s–1) and trap data. Low POC content combined with high lithogenic silica flux at 30 m above bottom (mab) compared to the flux at 120 mab, suggested local resuspension reaching 30 mab, but not 120 mab. Another similar event was detected by the changes in particle size distribution and settling speeds of particles in the benthic nepheloid layer. Flux data indicated two other small-scale events, which occurred at some distance, rather than locally. Inertia-driven resuspension of material in shallower areas surrounding the traps presumably transported this material downslope leaving a resuspension signal at 120 mab, but not at 30 mab. The passage of hurricane Isaac left a larger scale resuspension event that lasted a few days and was recorded in both traps. Although hurricanes cause large-scale events readily observable in sediment trap samples, resuspension events small in temporal and spatial scale are not easily recognizable in trapped material as they tend to provide less material and become part of the background signal in the long-term averaged trap samples. We suggest that these small-scale resuspension events, mostly unnoticed in conventional time-series sampling, play an important role in the redistribution and ultimate fate of sediment distribution on the seafloor

UML Extensions for Honeypots in the ISTS Distributed Honeypot Project 1

A Distributed Honeypot System is a collection of honeypots distributed throughout the Internet that send their data to a central analysis point. In such a system, the need for automation, flexibility, and transparency in data control, data capture, and honeypot cleanup is more readily satisfied with virtual machine technology than with native installations. The Distributed Honeypot Project at Dartmouth College’s Institute for Security Technology Studies has extended (and proposed further extensions to) User-Mode Linux (UML), a virtualmachine version of the Linux operating system, to satisfy these needs. The extensions make UML a more suitable honeypot platform, and will be useful to any Linux-based honeypot researcher. I

Biological function of unannotated transcription during the early development of Drosophila melanogaster

Many animal and plant genomes are transcribed much more extensively than current annotations predict. However, the biological function of these unannotated transcribed regions is largely unknown. Approximately 7% and 23% of the detected transcribed nucleotides during D. melanogaster embryogenesis map to unannotated intergenic and intronic regions, respectively. Based on computational analysis of coordinated transcription, we conservatively estimate that 29% of all unannotated transcribed sequences function as missed or alternative exons of well-characterized protein-coding genes. We estimate that 15.6% of intergenic transcribed regions function as missed or alternative transcription start sites (TSS) used by 11.4% of the expressed protein-coding genes. Identification of P element mutations within or near newly identified 5′ exons provides a strategy for mapping previously uncharacterized mutations to their respective genes. Collectively, these data indicate that at least 85% of the fly genome is transcribed and processed into mature transcripts representing at least 30% of the fly genome. © 2006 Nature Publishing Group

Identification and analysis of functional elements in 1% of the human genome by the ENCODE pilot project.

We report the generation and analysis of functional data from multiple, diverse experiments performed on a targeted 1% of the human genome as part of the pilot phase of the ENCODE Project. These data have been further integrated and augmented by a number of evolutionary and computational analyses. Together, our results advance the collective knowledge about human genome function in several major areas. First, our studies provide convincing evidence that the genome is pervasively transcribed, such that the majority of its bases can be found in primary transcripts, including non-protein-coding transcripts, and those that extensively overlap one another. Second, systematic examination of transcriptional regulation has yielded new understanding about transcription start sites, including their relationship to specific regulatory sequences and features of chromatin accessibility and histone modification. Third, a more sophisticated view of chromatin structure has emerged, including its inter-relationship with DNA replication and transcriptional regulation. Finally, integration of these new sources of information, in particular with respect to mammalian evolution based on inter- and intra-species sequence comparisons, has yielded new mechanistic and evolutionary insights concerning the functional landscape of the human genome. Together, these studies are defining a path for pursuit of a more comprehensive characterization of human genome function