A note on the effect of post-mortem maturation on colour of bovine Longissimus dorsi muscle

peer-reviewedFinancial support to P.G. Dunne was provided under the Walsh Fellowship programme of Teagasc.Fifteen heifers were housed and fed a concentrate diet while 54 counterparts grazed at pasture for 90 days at which stage six heifers from each group were slaughtered. The remaining animals in the pasture group were then housed and offered either: concentrate only; concentrate plus grass silage with silage accounting for either 20% or 50% of the total dry matter offered; or zero-grazed grass plus concentrate with grass accounting for 83% of the dry matter offered. Heifers (3/diet) were slaughtered 28, 56, 91 and 120 days thereafter. Colour characteristics of M. longissimus dorsi (LD) were measured at 48 h post mortem. The LD was then vacuum-packaged and stored at between 0 and 4 °C in darkness for 12 days, when colour characteristics were again measured. Maturation of LD resulted in meat that had higher redness values (‘a’ value; P<0.001) and a more intense red colour (higher ‘C’ value; P<0.001) at 14 days post mortem than at 2 days, regardless of diet/duration of feeding. Maturation also resulted in a brighter colour (higher ‘L’ value; P<0.001) but this difference was greatest when cattle were slaughtered the day-56 time point

Determining Military Expenditures: Arms Races and Spill-Over Effects in Cross-Section and Panel Data

This paper considers the determinants of military spending, building on an emerging literature that estimates military expenditure demand functions in cross-section and panel data, incorporating ‘arms-race’ type effects. It updates Dunne and Perlo-Freeman (2003b) using the SIPRI military expenditure database for the period 1988-2003, finding broadly similar results. It also shows differences in results across panel methods, particularly the within and between estimates and illustrates the importance of recognising and modelling dynamic processes within panel data. Heterogeneity is also found to be an important issue and when countries are broken up into groups on the basis of per capita income there is no obvious systematic pattern in the results. This is seen to imply that the demand for military spending, even between two mutually hostile powers, may depend on the whole nature of the relationship between them (and other countries and events in the region), and not simply Richardsonian action-reaction patterns.Military Spending; Demand; Arms races; Spillovers; Panel data

Exotic galilean symmetry and the Hall effect

The ``Laughlin'' picture of the Fractional Quantum Hall effect can be derived using the ``exotic'' model based on the two-fold centrally-extended planar Galilei group. When coupled to a planar magnetic field of critical strength determined by the extension parameters, the system becomes singular, and ``Faddeev-Jackiw'' reduction yields the ``Chern-Simons'' mechanics of Dunne, Jackiw, and Trugenberger. The reduced system moves according to the Hall law.Comment: Talk given by P. A. Horvathy at the Joint APCTP- Nankai Symposium. Tianjin (China), Oct.2001. To appear in the Proceedings, to be published by Int. Journ. Mod. Phys. B. 7 pages, LaTex, IJMPB format. no figure

Hopf instantons, Chern-Simons vortices, and Heisenberg ferromagnets

The dimensional reduction of the three-dimensional fermion-Chern-Simons model (related to Hopf maps) of Adam et el. is shown to be equivalent to (i) either the static, fixed--chirality sector of our non-relativistic spinor-Chern-Simons model in 2+1 dimensions, (ii) or a particular Heisenberg ferromagnet in the plane.Comment: 4 pages, Plain Tex, no figure

The Demand for Military Expenditure in Developing Countries: Hostility versus Capability

This paper has considers the interpretation of the empirical results of the developing literature on the demand for military spending that specifies a general model with arms race and spillover effects and estimates it on cross-section and panel data. It questions whether it is meaningful to talk of an ‘arms race’ in panel data or cross-section data, and suggests that it may be more appropriate to talk about the relevant variables – aggregate military spending of the ‘Security Web’ (i.e. all neighbours and other security-influencing powers) and the aggregate military spending of ‘Potential Enemies’– as acting as proxies for threat perceptions, which will reflect both hostility and capability.Military Spending, Developing Countries, Demand.

Determining Military Expenditures: Arms Races and Spill-Over Effects in Cross-Section and Panel Data

This paper considers the determinants of military spending, building on an emerging literature that estimates military expenditure demand functions in cross-section and panel data, incorporating ‘arms-race’ type effects. It updates Dunne and Perlo-Freeman (2003b) using the SIPRI military expenditure database for the period 1988-2003, finding broadly similar results. It also shows differences in results across panel methods, particularly the within and between estimates and illustrates the importance of recognising and modelling dynamic processes within panel data. Heterogeneity is also found to be an important issue and when countries are broken up into groups on the basis of per capita income there is no obvious systematic pattern in the results. This is seen to imply that the demand for military spending, even between two mutually hostile powers, may depend on the whole nature of the relationship between them (and other countries and events in the region), and not simply Richardsonian action-reaction patterns.Military Spending; Demand; Arms races; Spillovers; Panel data

The role of HER1-HER4 and EGFRvIII in hormone-refractory prostate cancer

&lt;b&gt;Purpose&lt;/b&gt;: The role of the type I receptor tyrosine kinase (HER) family in progression of prostate cancer is controversial. Breast cancer studies show that these receptors should be investigated as a family. The current study investigates expression of HER1-HER4 and EGFRvIII in matched hormone-sensitive and hormone-refractory prostate tumors. &lt;b&gt;Experimental Design&lt;/b&gt;: Immunohistochemical analysis was used to investigate protein expression of HER1-HER4, EGFRvIII, and phosphorylated Akt (pAkt) in matched hormone-sensitive and hormone-refractory prostate tumors. &lt;b&gt;Results&lt;/b&gt;: Surprisingly, high HER2 membrane expression in hormone-sensitive tumors was associated with an increased time to biochemical relapse (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.0003), and this translated into longer overall survival (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.0021). Consistent with other studies, HER4 membrane expression in hormone-sensitive tumors was associated with longer time to biochemical relapse (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.042), and EGFRvIII membrane expression was associated with shorter time to biochemical relapse (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.015). An increase in pAkt expression was associated with reduced survival (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.0098). Multivariate analysis showed that HER2 was an independent positive predictive marker of time to relapse in hormone-sensitive prostate tumors (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.014). In contrast, high HER2 expression in hormone-refractory tumors was associated with decreased time to death from biochemical relapse (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.039), and EGFRvIII nuclear expression was associated with decreased time to death from biochemical relapse and decreased overall survival (&lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.02 and &lt;i&gt;P&lt;/i&gt; = 0.005). &lt;b&gt;Conclusion&lt;/b&gt;: These results suggest that the HER family may have multiple roles in prostate cancer, and that expression of the proteins alone is insufficient to predict the biological response that they may elicit

The SCUBA Local Universe Galaxy Survey I: First Measurements of the Submillimetre Luminosity and Dust Mass Functions

We have used SCUBA to observe a complete sample of 104 galaxies selected at 60 microns from the IRAS BGS and we present here the 850 micron measurements. Fitting the 60,100 and 850 micron fluxes with a single temperature dust model gives the sample mean temperature T=36 K and beta = 1.3. We do not rule out the possibility of dust which is colder than this, if a 20 K component was present then our dust masses would increase by factor 1.5-3. We present the first measurements of the luminosity and dust mass functions, which were well fitted by Schechter functions (unlike those 60 microns). We have correlated many global galaxy properties with the submillimetre and find that there is a tendancy for less optically luminous galaxies to contain warmer dust and have greater star formation efficiencies (cf. Young 1999). The average gas-to-dust ratio for the sample is 581 +/- 43 (using both atomic and molecular hydrogen), significantly higher than the Galactic value of 160. We believe this discrepancy is due to a cold dust component at T < 20 K. There is a suprisingly tight correlation between dust mass and the mass of molecular hydrogen as estimated from CO measurements, with an intrinsic scatter of ~50%.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures, 8 tables, accepted for publication in MNRA