Effect of Female Superhero Body Types on Parasocial Relationships, Perceived Homophily and Self-Esteem of College Women

This study examines how exposure to female superheroes’ body images increases the strength of parasocial relationships, perceived homophily, and level of self-esteem that female college students experience. Three images of female superheroes were manipulated into round, muscular, and hyper-thin body types. Eighty-one students at a west coast university were randomly assigned to view one of three images of the female superhero. After viewing the images, the participants were asked to answer three Likert scales to determine the strength of parasocial relationships to the superheroine (bonds with the character), perceived homophily (perceived similarity), and self-esteem. The results of the study indicate that a female superhero with a muscular body type is the most prominent in the strength of parasocial relationships and increase in self-esteem of female college students compared to round and hyper-thin body types, whereas none of the body types had a significant effect on perceived homophily

The regulative effect of Urtica dioica on sex hormones imbalance: elevated follicle-stimulating hormone/luteinizing hormone ratio ≥4.5 is associated with low performance in aged breeder quails

The age-related reproductive disorders are the main concerns in old birds. It was suggested that a drop in egg production and reproductive performance, towards the end of their laying period was caused partly by a decrease in the baseline concentration of plasma LH. Urtica dioica (nettle) is a plant with natural aromatase inhibitors. Steroid hormone levels are regulated by inhibition of the aromatase enzyme. Few studies have examined the effect of nettle on the egg production in adult hens. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of diet supplemented with nettle powder (NP) in aged quails. One hundred and forty-52-week-old Japanese quails were randomly assigned to four treatments consisting of seven replicates (n = 5; four females and one male) and fed with diets containing NP at 0% (control group), 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5% (treatment groups). At 62 week of age, our results indicated the NP improved egg production, feed conversion ratio, eggshell thickness and Haugh unit (p < .05). Notably, fertility and hatchability of fertile eggs were significantly increased, while total embryonic mortality decreased significantly by supplementing diet with nettle powder (p < .05). Higher luteinizing hormone, lower oestrogen, malondialdehyde and total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations were associated with percent of the nettle powder in diet (p ≤ .05). Elevated follicle-stimulating hormone/luteinizing hormone ratio ≥4 is associated with low egg production in control group and nettle supplementation can balance FSH/LH ratio to ≤2.7. It is concluded that nettle powder could be used as a worthwhile feed additive at the late laying period of aged quails.HIGHLIGHTS Nettle powder can be used as a food additive with aged quails at late laying period. Addition of 1 and 1.5% nettle powder improves egg production, FCR, egg shell thickness. Nettle enhances reproductive performances, such as fertility, hatchability, weight of ovary, and weight of follicles by balancing reproductive hormones at late laying period

Effect of replacing dietary FeSO4 with cysteine-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles on quails

Iron is an important mineral for animal development and function. The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of FeSO4 replacement with cysteine-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles in quail. We hypothesised that the iron nanoparticles could be used as a dietary supplement. The quails were randomly allotted to five dietary treatments with four replicate pens and 10 birds per pen. The treatments consisted of: negative control without any iron supplementation, positive control with 120 mg/kg of FeSO4 and three experimental groups that contained 1.2, 12 and 120 mg/kg of l-cysteine coated iron oxide nanoparticles, organic iron, in their diet, respectively. The least weight gain was recorded in the negative control group. Similar weight gain, FCR, haematological and biochemical parameter results between the experimental and positive control groups show that organic iron successfully performed the biological role of iron in the quail. We concluded that 1.2 mg/kg cysteine-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles are required and sufficient for quails’ optimal maintenance and growth. The results confirm that cysteine-coated Fe3O4 nanoparticles can be used as an iron source in the quail diet

Antibody Tracing, Seroepidemiology and Risk Factors of Bovine Respiratory Syncytial Virus and Bovine Adenovirus-3 in Dairy Holstein Farms

Antibody tracing, risk factors and seroepidemiology of bovine respiratory syncytial virus and bovine adenovirus-3 were investigated in 22 Industrial and Semi-Industrial dairy Holstein farms. Serum samples (n=736) from various ages of unvaccinated cows were collected from May to September 2012. Risk factors including age, past history of respiratory diseases, amount of milk production, husbandry type and herd size were considered. Data were analyzed by Chi-square and logistic regression. Results indicated that the infection with some of individual viruses was related to past history of respiratory disease and herd size. No specific pattern was seen on the effect of level of milk production on seropositivity of animals. The seroprevalence for BRSV and BAV-3 were 89.1% and 88%, respectively. The present study indicates that infections of bovine respiratory viruses frequently occur in cattle of Fars province and the main viral cause of primary occurrence of respiratory diseases may be due to aforementioned viruses

Sacrificial Templates for Galvanic Replacement Reactions: Design Criteria for the Synthesis of Pure Pt Nanoshells with a Smooth Surface Morphology

The galvanic replacement of sacrificial templates offers one of the most synthetically viable approaches for generating platinum-based nanostructures with impressive catalytic activity. Here, we present template design criteria for the synthesis of morphologically smooth platinum nanoshells which undergo minimal alloying with the template material. The criteria is founded on comparisons of nanoshells derived from reacting substrate-immobilized templates of silver, lead, copper, nickel, and cobalt with aqueous H₂PtCl₆. It is shown that template-surface modifications are the primary mode by which smooth Pt nanoshells are obtained, with template composition playing a secondary role. The degree of alloying is strongly dependent upon whether the template applies tensile or compressive heteroepitaxial strains to the depositing nanoshell. On the basis of these findings, we propose a mechanistic framework and an overall strategy for the synthesis of advanced templates for substrate-based galvanic replacement reactions