Safety of improved Milbond-TX mycotoxin binder when fed to broiler breeders above recommended levels

An increasing concern in poultry nutrition is the effects of mycotoxins in contaminated grain. Several new products have come onto the market that chemically bind these toxins preventing mycotoxicosis. However, many of these products have not been tested for safety if accidently overfed to broiler breeders. In order to simulate a feed mixing error at a feed mill, Improved Milbond-TX® was overfed to broiler breeders to see if this would cause any negative effects on bird performance. A typical corn-soybean based diet supplemented with Milbond-TX mycotoxin binder at three different levels of inclusion (0%, 0.5%, and 1%) was fed to 300 broiler breeder hens. Data were collected on egg production, egg weights, hatchability, fertility, and chick weights from 24 to 35 weeks of age. Eggs per hen housed were not significantly different between the three treatments. The differences in egg weights, hatchability, fertility, and chick weights were also insignificant among the three treatments. We were able to conclude that overfeeding Improved Milbond-TX had no negative effect on bird performance and is safe to feed at a level of up to 1%

A Descriptive Case Study of Staff Development In Two Seventh-day Adventist Districts as They Relate to Potential Change

Problem. Leadership at the superintendent level is paramount in the process of change in Seventh-day Adventist schools. The superintendent/education director of state-sized districts, known as conferences, is responsible for staff development programs. How a superintendent performs his or her duties in the area of staff development is the focus of this study. Purpose. The purpose of this study is to describe staff development programs of two Seventh-day Adventist districts who have a reputation for being active in promoting staff development among their teachers. I wanted to know what the superintendents of these districts were doing in this active mode of staff development. This study is intended to provide data for other districts to follow similar paths of staff development. Method. Two conferences/districts in North America were identified as being exemplary in terms of their staff development programs. Using a case study approach, the district programs were analyzed utilizing interviews, observations, surveys, documents, and records. A quantitative analysis of existing survey data (Profile \u2795) was compared with findings from the qualitative portions of the study. Results. Several recurring motifs emerged in the area of staff development within the two exemplary Seventh-day Adventist school districts: (1) the superintendents of these districts have a clear sense of organizational vision and values, (2) the superintendents actively promote innovative practices to be used in staff development, and (3) the superintendents challenge their teachers to assess and revise their own actions in order to improve the likelihood of success for their students. I discovered that these two exemplary school districts incorporate the following characteristics in their staff-development program: (1) a supportive, cooperative climate in the schools and district, (2) adequate resources provided by the superintendents, (3) implementation of the Joyce and Showers Training Model, (4) time during the school day for collaboration, and (5) realistic goals set by the district

Cancer Immunotherapy Comes of Age

Modern cancer immunotherapy is the reemergence of an old field striving to use the body’s immune system to target cancer. Though cancer subverts the innate and adaptive immune systems, various non-cellular and cellu-lar based therapies have been developed to overcome these mechanisms. The variety of these techniques and their potential in the treatment of cancer has been a truly exciting development in medicine

Ultrafast slow-light: Raman-induced delay of THz-bandwidth pulses

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a scheme to generate optically-controlled delays based on off-resonant Raman absorption. Dispersion in a transparency window between two neighboring, optically-activated Raman absorption lines is used to reduce the group velocity of broadband 765 nm pulses. We implement this approach in a potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP) waveguide at room temperature, and demonstrate Raman-induced delays of up to 140 fs for a 650-fs duration, 1.8-THz bandwidth, signal pulse; the available delay-bandwidth product is $\approx1$. Our approach is applicable to single photon signals, offers wavelength tunability, and is a step toward processing ultrafast photons.Comment: 5+4 pages, 4+2 figure

Time-bin to Polarization Conversion of Ultrafast Photonic Qubits

The encoding of quantum information in photonic time-bin qubits is apt for long distance quantum communication schemes. In practice, due to technical constraints such as detector response time, or the speed with which co-polarized time-bins can be switched, other encodings, e.g. polarization, are often preferred for operations like state detection. Here, we present the conversion of qubits between polarization and time-bin encodings using a method that is based on an ultrafast optical Kerr shutter and attain efficiencies of 97% and an average fidelity of 0.827+/-0.003 with shutter speeds near 1 ps. Our demonstration delineates an essential requirement for the development of hybrid and high-rate optical quantum networks

A Microwave Radiance Assimilation Study for a Tundra Snowpack

Recent studies have begun exploring the assimilation of microwave radiances for the modeling and retrieval of snow properties. At a point scale, and for short durations (i week), radiance assimilation (RA) results are encouraging. However, in order to determine how practical RA might be for snow retrievals when applied over longer durations, larger spatial scales, and/or different snow types, we must expand the scope of the tests. In this paper we use coincident microwave radiance measurements and station data from a tundra site on the North Slope of Alaska. The field data are from the 3rd Radio-brightness Energy Balance Experiment (REBEX-3) carried out in 1994-95 by the University of Michigan. This dataset will provide a test of RA over months instead of one week, and for a very different type of snow than previous snow RA studies. We will address the following questions: flow well can a snowpack physical model (SM), forced with local weather, match measured conditions for a tundra snowpack?; How well can a microwave emission model, driven by the snowpack model, match measured microwave brightnesses for a tundra snowpack?; How well does RA increase or decrease the fidelity of estimates of snow depth and temperatures for a tundra snowpack

Towards the generation of catalytic antibodies for glycoside hydrolysis

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemistry, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-136).by Pamela Michael Jeffrey England.Ph.D

Economic Conditions And How It Effects Trade Between The U.S. And India

This paper examines the economic conditions that effect trade between the U.S. and India. Examining the existing economic conditions of both countries is important to determine the current and future trade issues that both countries may face. Since India’s formation in 1947 and up until 1991, India was a closed economy with strict controls and regulations regarding trade. After a severe economic crisis in 1991 India started opening its borders to foreign trade, embraced globalization and drastically liberalized its trade policy.  However, the exploding population in India is having strong economic and environmental implications for India and how it relates to the rest of the world.

Culicoides species composition and abundance on Irish cattle farms: implications for arboviral disease transmission

peer-reviewedBackground Following the emergence of Schmallenberg virus (SBV) in Ireland in 2012, a sentinel herd surveillance program was established in the south of Ireland with the primary aim of investigating the species composition and abundance of Culicoides on livestock farms in the region. Methods Ultraviolet-light trapping for Culicoides was carried out on 10 sentinel farms. Each site was sampled fortnightly over 16 weeks (21st July to 5th November 2014). One Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute UV light trap was run overnight at each site and catches were transferred immediately into 70% ethanol. Culicoides were morphologically identified to species level. Collection site habitats were characterised using the Phase 1 habitat survey technique (Joint Nature Conservation Committee). Results A total of 23,929 individual Culicoides from 20 species was identified, including one species identified in Ireland for the first time, Culicoides cameroni. The most abundant species identified were Culicoides obsoletus/Culicoides scoticus (38%), Culicoides dewulfi (36%), Culicoides pulicaris (9%), Culicoides chiopterus (5%) and Culicoides punctatus (5%), comprising 93% of all Culicoides specimens identified. Collection site habitats were dominated by improved grassland and a combination of broadleaf woodland and native woodland species. Conclusions The most abundant species of Culicoides identified were the putative vectors of bluetongue virus (BTV) and SBV in northern Europe. Their presence and abundance demonstrates the potential for future transmission of arboviruses among livestock in this region