EC626 Selection and Care of Dairy Sires -- The Nebraska Safety Bull Pen

Extension circular 626 provides information on the selection and care of dairy sires as well as the arrangement and advantages of the Nebraska safety bull pen

Why do little kids ask to hear the same story over and over?

One way people learn new words is through reading books and stories. Little kids love hearing their favorite stories over and over and are also very good at learning new words. We wondered if reading the same stories could be helping preschool kids learn new words. Our research tested if it was better to read the same stories over and over or to read a few different stories. Here we tell you about three studies that show preschool kids learn more words from the same stories over and over. Our research suggests that it’s easier to learn new words from stories when you have heard the story before and know what is going to happen

EC610 Revised 1944 Helpful Practices in Producing Milk and Cream

Extension circular 610 is a 1944 revision of the original circular. It contains helpful practices in producing milk and cream

EC610 Revised 1944 Helpful Practices in Producing Milk and Cream

Extension circular 610 is a 1944 revision of the original circular. It contains helpful practices in producing milk and cream

Benefits of once-daily therapies in the treatment of hypertension

In patients with hypertension, 24-hour blood pressure control is the major therapeutic goal. The number of daily doses is one characteristic of an antihypertensive agent that may affect the adequacy of 24-hour control. One measure of therapeutic coverage is the 24-hour trough-to-peak ratio, which determines the suitability of an agent for once-daily administration. The closer an agent is to a 100% trough-to-peak ratio, the more uniform the 24-hour coverage and therefore blood pressure control. High trough-to-peak ratio, long-acting antihypertensive medications lower blood pressure more gradually, which reduces the likelihood of adverse events attributable to abrupt drug action that occurs with shorter-acting agents. In hypertension, the natural diurnal variation of blood pressure may be altered, including elevated nighttime pressures. An optimal once-daily hypertension therapy would not only lower blood pressure but also normalize any blunted circadian variations in blood pressure. The benefits of once-daily agents with sustained therapeutic coverage may also be explained, in part, by increased patient adherence to simpler regimens as well as lower loss of blood pressure control during virtually inevitable intermittent noncompliance. Studies have demonstrated that once-daily antihypertensive agents have the highest adherence compared with twice-daily or multiple daily doses, including greater adherence to the prescribed timing of doses

Incentive Sensitization for Exercise Reinforcement to Increase Exercise Behaviors

Individuals can be sensitized to the reinforcing effects of exercise, although it is unknown if this process increases habitual exercise behavior. Sedentary men and women (body mass index: 25–35 kg/m2, N = 52) participated in a 12-week aerobic exercise intervention. Exercise reinforcement was determined by how much work was performed for exercise relative to a sedentary alternative in a progressive ratio schedule task. Habitual physical activity was assessed via accelerometry. Post-intervention increases in exercise reinforcement predicted increases in physical activity bouts among those who expended over 2000 kcal per week in exercise and who compensated for less than 50 percent of their exercise energy expenditure

The Consequences of Exercise-Induced Weight Loss on Food Reinforcement. A Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Obesity remains a primary threat to the health of most Americans, with over 66% considered overweight or obese with a body mass index (BMI) of 25 kg/m2 or greater. A common treatment option many believe to be effective, and therefore turn to, is exercise. However, the amount of weight loss from exercise training is often disappointingly less than expected with greater amounts of exercise not always promoting greater weight loss. Increases in energy intake have been prescribed as the primary reason for this lack of weight loss success with exercise. Research has mostly focused on alterations in hormonal mediators of appetite (e.g.: ghrelin, peptide YY, GLP-1, pancreatic polypeptide, and leptin) that may increase hunger and/or reduce satiety to promote greater energy intake with exercise training. A less understood mechanism that may be working to increase energy intake with exercise is reward-driven feeding, a strong predictor of energy intake and weight status but rarely analyzed in the context of exercise. DESIGN: Sedentary men and women (BMI: 25-35 kg/m2, N = 52) were randomized into parallel aerobic exercise training groups partaking in either two or six exercise sessions/week, or sedentary control for 12 weeks. METHODS: The reinforcing value of food was measured by an operant responding progressive ratio schedule task (the behavioral choice task) to determine how much work participants were willing to perform for access to a healthy food option relative to a less healthy food option before and after the exercise intervention. Body composition and resting energy expenditure were assessed via DXA and indirect calorimetry, respectively, at baseline and post testing. RESULTS: Changes in fat-free mass predicted the change in total amount of operant responding for food (healthy and unhealthy). There were no correlations between changes in the reinforcing value of one type of food (healthy vs unhealthy) to changes in body composition. CONCLUSION: In support of previous work, reductions in fat-free mass resulting from an aerobic exercise intervention aimed at weight loss plays an important role in energy balance regulation by increasing operant responding for food

The effects of changes in the referential problem space of infants and toddlers (homo sapiens): implications for cross-species comparisons

Recent reviews have highlighted the tendency in the comparative literature to make claims about species’ relative evolutionarily adaptive histories based on studies comparing different species tested with procedurally and methodologically different protocols. One particularly contentious area is the use of the Object Choice Task (OCT), used to measure an individual’s ability to use referential cues, which is a core attribute of joint attention. We tested human children with versions of the OCT that have been previously used with dogs and nonhuman primates to see if manipulating the set-up would lead to behavioral changes. In Study 1, we compared the responses of 18-month-olds and 36-month-olds when tested with and without a barrier. The presence of a barrier between the child and the reward did not suppress performance but did elicit more communicative behavior. Moreover, the barrier had a greater facilitating effect on the younger children, who displayed more communicative behavior in comparison with older children, who more frequently reached through the barrier in acts of direct prehension. In Study 2, we compared the behavior of 36-month-olds when the reward was within reaching distance (proximal) and when it was out of reach (distal). The children used index-finger points significantly more in the distal condition and grabbed more in the proximal condition, showing that they were making spatial judgements about the accessibility of the reward rather than just grabbing per se. We discuss the implications of these within-species differences in behavioral responses for cross-species comparisons