Effects of Concurrent Selection for Residual Feed Intake and Average Daily Gain on Fertility and Longevity in Black Angus Beef Females

Data from this analysis suggest that concurrent selection for both average daily gain and residual feed intake (RFI) may identify beef heifers that have improved fertility and longevity without impacting growth and maternal EPDs. As the beef industry continues to focus on sustainability, and thus efficiency, identification of commercial breeding stock that fit this mold will be imperative

2010–2011 Beef Forage Summary

Forage is the most common and most variable input for beef production. NIR analysis allows a convenient means to evaluate the feedstuff input and facilitate balancing of an adequate ration. In years with extended periods of unfavorable harvest conditions, feed evaluation may be of more importance due to the greater chance of feed variability and reduced quality

2010–2011 Beef Forage Summary—Cutting Dates and Quality Results

Delayed harvest and subsequent advances in maturity decrease quality as does rain leached hay that has been cut. Both situations result in increased hay fiber content relative to available energy and protein. Quality of first cutting grasses tends to be more affected by advanced maturity. Legume or legume mixed forage may tend to have a greater quality reduction from rain leached windrows

Letters of Comment

Letters from readers in The Mythic Circle #

Iowa Beef Center

During 2016, IBC staff made 183 presentations to more than 13,700 participants, conducted 564 personal consultations, and over 4,100 phone or email consultations. The webinars and videos IBC produced were viewed more than 20,000 times, and the online software tools had 375,000 downloads. There were 180,000 website visitors and 3,500 social media contacts. IBC funded 4 mini grant projects investigating current industry questions including: Management effects on ergovaline content of stockpiled tall fescue for winter grazing • Grazing cover crops • Calving management on Iowa beef cattle farms • Corn silage characteristics on Iowa farms Iowa Beef Center staff are also involved in current ISU Beef Research projects related to cover crop grazing by stocker cattle, bull reproduction and fescue tolerance. Beef team staff authored nine 2017 Animal Industry Research reports. They annually conduct a needs assessment such as listening sessions, formal surveys, or think tanks. The following are some examples of featured programs evaluated in 2016

Iowa Beef Center

The Iowa Beef Center (IBC) is Iowa State University’s extension and outreach program to cattle producers. Our center has a dedicated group of faculty and staff from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Veterinary Medicine, and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. We work together to develop and deliver the latest research-based information to improve the profitability and vitality of Iowa’s beef industry

Project Re•center dot Vision: disability at the edges of representation

The representational history of disabled people can largely be characterized as one of being put on display or hidden away. Self-representations have been a powerful part of the disability rights and culture movement, but recently scholars have analysed the ways in which these run the risk of creating a ‘single story’ that centres the experiences of white, western, physically disabled men. Here we introduce and theorize with Project Re•Vision, our arts-based research project that resists this singularity by creating and centring, without normalizing, representations that have previously been relegated to the margins. We draw from body becoming and new materialist theory to explore the dynamic ways in which positionality illuminates bodies of difference and open into a discussion about what is at stake when these stories are let loose into the world

The khmer software package: enabling efficient nucleotide sequence analysis

The khmer package is a freely available software library for working efficiently with fixed length DNA words, or k-mers. khmer provides implementations of a probabilistic k-mer counting data structure, a compressible De Bruijn graph representation, De Bruijn graph partitioning, and digital normalization. khmer is implemented in C++ and Python, and is freely available under the BSD license at https://github.com/dib-lab/khmer/

The khmer software package: enabling efficient nucleotide sequence analysis [version 1; referees: 2 approved, 1 approved with reservations]

The khmer package is a freely available software library for working efficiently with fixed length DNA words, or k-mers. khmer provides implementations of a probabilistic k-mer counting data structure, a compressible De Bruijn graph representation, De Bruijn graph partitioning, and digital normalization. khmer is implemented in C++ and Python, and is freely available under the BSD license at https://github.com/dib-lab/khmer/

Prisoners’ Families’ Research: Developments, Debates and Directions

After many years of relative obscurity, research on prisoners’ families has gained significant momentum. It has expanded from case-oriented descriptive analyses of family experiences to longitudinal studies of child and family development and even macro analyses of the effects on communities in societies of mass incarceration. Now the field engages multi-disciplinary and international interest although it arguably still remains on the periphery of mainstream criminological, psychological and sociological research agendas. This chapter discusses developments in prisoners’ families’ research and its positioning in academia and practice. It does not aim to provide an all-encompassing review of the literature rather it will offer some reflections on how and why the field has developed as it has and on its future directions. The chapter is divided into three parts. The first discusses reasons for the historically small body of research on prisoners’ families and for the growth in research interest over the past two decades. The second analyses patterns and shifts in the focus of research studies and considers how the field has been shaped by intersecting disciplinary interests of psychology, sociology, criminology and socio-legal studies. The final part reflects on substantive and ethical issues that are likely to shape the direction of prisoners’ families’ research in the future