The influence of prenatal environmental conditions on the weight of newborn domestic pigs

The weight of newborn piglets in domestic pigs depends on the maternal environment. Using an original algorithm based on the comparison of the coefficients of correlation between the half-nests (the same average genotype and the same conditions of the embryonic environment) and the twin sockets (the same genotype, different conditions of the embryonic environment), it was possible to estimate the relative contribution of the various components to the weight of the newborn in the domestic pigs. Our investigation found that the relative contribution of environmental conditions during prenatal development into newborn weight variation is equal to 0.4717, the contribution of genotypic component is 0.4032; the contribution of interaction between environmental conditions and ambivalence of the “genotype–phenotype” relationships is 0.0846, indeterminacy of phenotypic realization of the littermate’s genotypes is 0.0405. Maternal resource plays the main role amongst factors forming the environmental conditions of prenatal development. The gene pool will remain unchanged in any number of generations, despite a change in the population parameters of the trait. In principle, it can be assumed that when a population reaches a certain level, when the mean value of the trait and the gene pool are optimal (the selection pressure vectors are mutually balanced), selection becomes less effective in transforming the average phenotype than changing environmental conditions. Obviously, therefore, livestock maintenance and feeding are paid as much attention as breeding, and breeds of farmed animals are zoned

Articulation and Sharing of Distributed Design Project and Process Knowledge

The paper reports on the work in the case study of the AC-TIVE project on the use of the combination of knowledge process learning, articulation and sharing technologies for increasing the performance and decreasing the ramp-up efforts in engineering design projects. This knowledge is mined from distributed heterogeneous datasets, fused, and further used for visualizing design project plan information in a way that suggests optimized project plans and fosters collaboration on these knowledge structures in development teams. Software demonstrator architecture, implementation and validation are presented. Validation results indicate that the solution is effective in providing expert assistance to design project managers in performing their typical planning tasks

Polymorphic loci of coat color in mini-pigs

The present work is phenomenological and purely descriptive. It shows polymorphism of colors in a breeding group of mini-pig in the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ICG SB RAS) and makes some assumptions about the nature of this genetic diversity. In the ICG SB RAS mini-pig herd, wild-type coloration (agouti), black-spots, black and white color are present. All these options have variants, including previously undescribed, with genetically determined differences. In addition, the ICG SB RAS mini-pigs have variants inherent only to heterozygous individuals and archaic gray color described only in primitive domestic pig. Comparison of the observed color phenotypes in the breeding with literature data showed that EDNRB, KIT, KITLG and the MC1R are polymorphic loci, while ASIP, OCA2 and TYRP1 are monomorphic loci. Thus, the loci that control the most common coat colors in domestic pigs are polymorphic, while those controlling rare or relatively rare colors and monomorphic. The research allowed us to put forward some assumptions concerning the genetic determination of the phenotypic characteristics of color seen in the study group selection. Among these assumptions is one about the genetic control of juvenile colors in domestic pigs. Observations made in the ICG SB RAS mini-pig breeding group allowed us to examine and describe the features of age-related changes of an embodiment of black-motley suit, when newborn piglets originally have black-and-motley fur color on the brick-red background and at an age of one year, a gray roan background formed by a mixture of white and black hairs. In addition, it was shown that with the help of technical means black spots can also be detected on a black background

Juvenile coat colours in mini-pigs at ICG

This article continues a previous study colors in minipigs at ICG. It also has a phenomenological character, but it consideres juvenile colour, which is an integral element of the ontogenetic formation of the suit, wild type agouti pigs of the species Sus scrofa L. However, in ICG mini pigs, in addition to individuals with the suit of the wild type, juvenile colour is a feature of pigs with the black spotted suit. It should be noted that data about a similar phenomenon in pigs with black spotted colour were not found in the literature. We proposed that a unique juvenile colour of black spotted mini-pigs ICG is a consequence of increased synthesis of pigments of hair, the intensity of which obviously exceeds the performance by the wild boar and domestic pigs. Newborn piglets of mini pigs ICG of the colour of the wild type typically have too little or too much yellow (orange, brown) pigment, which makes the figure of juvenile livery blurry – low contrast, or the lack of it, with the result that they are gray or gray-blue color with dark gray longitudinal stripes. The pattern of juvenile livery piglets of mini pigs ICG is disrupted. As a rule, instead of a longitudinal stripe, a mesh pattern livery is observed. Therefore, the agouti like colour observed in mini-pigs ICG should rather be called more properly pseudowild type. It was suggested that the specially planned crosses were able to “reveal” the genetic load of mutations in the complex of alleles involved in the formation of the suit of the wild type and accumulated in the population, not exposed to stabilizing selection on this archaic for domestic pigs’ colour. The accumulation of this genetic cargo at the mini-pigs was made possible by gipostatic suit wild type relative to epistatic colour standard for modern commercial plant breeds

Пространственно-временной компенсатор широкополосных помех на основе метода степенны́х векторов

The article is intended for specialists in the field of electronic warfare and adaptive jammer cancellation. The main advantage of the proposed spatial adaptive broadband compensator is the ability to adaptively estimate the number of active interference for minimizing computational complexity in compare with traditional methods for suppressing wideband interference. The paper presents a strong theoretical derivation of the weight matrix of the auto-compensator. The main approach for calculating the weight matrix is the expansion in powers of vectors in the orthonormal basis. A practical approach for introducing the algorithm into software is proposed.Рассмотрен адаптивный автокомпенсатор широкополосных помех (АКШП), обеспечивающий на выходе минимальную среднюю мощность помех. Предложен алгоритм адаптивного подавления широкополосных помех, основанный на разложении весового вектора АКШП в степенном базисе, обладающий невысокой вычислительной сложностью. Получены регуляризованные оценки весов коэффициентов автокомпенсатора по ограниченному числу выборок входного процесса. Приведены результаты моделирования подавления широкополосных помех, характерных для радиолокации, действующих с различных пространственных направлений, с оценкой коэффициента подавления

Molecular Structure of Amyloid Fibrils Controls the Relationship between Fibrillar Size and Toxicity

According to the prevailing view, soluble oligomers or small fibrillar fragments are considered to be the most toxic species in prion diseases. To test this hypothesis, two conformationally different amyloid states were produced from the same highly pure recombinant full-length prion protein (rPrP). The cytotoxic potential of intact fibrils and fibrillar fragments generated by sonication from these two states was tested using cultured cells.For one amyloid state, fibril fragmentation was found to enhance its cytotoxic potential, whereas for another amyloid state formed within the same amino acid sequence, the fragmented fibrils were found to be substantially less toxic than the intact fibrils. Consistent with the previous studies, the toxic effects were more pronounced for cell cultures expressing normal isoform of the prion protein (PrP(C)) at high levels confirming that cytotoxicity was in part PrP(C)-dependent. Silencing of PrP(C) expression by small hairpin RNAs designed to silence expression of human PrP(C) (shRNA-PrP(C)) diminished the deleterious effects of the two amyloid states to a different extent, suggesting that the role of PrP(C)-mediated and PrP(C)-independent mechanisms depends on the structure of the aggregates.This work provides a direct illustration that the relationship between an amyloid's physical dimension and its toxic potential is not unidirectional but is controlled by the molecular structure of prion protein (PrP) molecules within aggregated states. Depending on the structure, a decrease in size of amyloid fibrils can either enhance or abolish their cytotoxic effect. Regardless of the molecular structure or size of PrP aggregates, silencing of PrP(C) expression can be exploited to reduce their deleterious effects

Эффективность линейной обработки сигналов в системах связи в условиях многолучевого ионосферного канала декаметрового диапазона

The architecture of digital High Frequency (HF) data modem is considered. Link level simulation of HF wireless communication system with bandwidth of 3 kHz was carried out for the multipath ionospheric channel model. The main link level performance metrics such as BER, PER and system throughput are provided and analyzed. It is shown that in frequency-selective two ray channel, the linear MMSE equalization at the receiver provides efficient ISI elimination for all modulation and coding schemes except high-order modulations that are required development of non-linear quasi-optimal signal processing algorithms.Рассмотрены системы связи декаметрового диапазона, работающие в условиях многолучевого ионосферного пространственного канала. С помощью имитационного моделирования на физическом уровне исследованы основные характеристики системы (вероятность битовой и блоковой ошибки, пропускная способность). Показано, что в условиях частотно-селективного канала в полосе 3 кГц линейный алгоритм эквализации обеспечивает высокую эффективность подавления межсимвольной помехи для всех скоростей передачи данных, кроме самой высокой

Light Sheet Microscopy for Single Molecule Tracking in Living Tissue

Single molecule observation in cells and tissue allows the analysis of physiological processes with molecular detail, but it still represents a major methodological challenge. Here we introduce a microscopic technique that combines light sheet optical sectioning microscopy and ultra sensitive high-speed imaging. By this approach it is possible to observe single fluorescent biomolecules in solution, living cells and even tissue with an unprecedented speed and signal-to-noise ratio deep within the sample. Thereby we could directly observe and track small and large tracer molecules in aqueous solution. Furthermore, we demonstrated the feasibility to visualize the dynamics of single tracer molecules and native messenger ribonucleoprotein particles (mRNPs) in salivary gland cell nuclei of Chironomus tentans larvae up to 200 µm within the specimen with an excellent signal quality. Thus single molecule light sheet based fluorescence microscopy allows analyzing molecular diffusion and interactions in complex biological systems