Viral Causes of Respiratory Diseases in Swine

Respiratory disease is one of the most frequently encountered pathological conditions in swine. The history of respiratory conditions in swine is indeed mystifying. At one time it was presumed that the majority of chronic pneumonias were associated with a virus causing enzootic pneumonia or with lung worms. it now seems probable that there are many primary causal agents

Testing the Delivery of an Interactive Second Grade Nutrition Education Curriculum

Childhood obesity rates in the United States are alarming. Interventions incorporating nutrition education and physical activity are important for initiating behavior changes that may reduce the risk of childhood obesity and future health complications. The availability of nutrition curriculum for use in a second grade audience is limited. For this project, a nutrition education curriculum for second grade students was developed and tested over a two-week period in the fall of 2013. Six second grade classrooms (N=118) received four 20-minute interactive nutrition lessons. Lesson topics included: My Plate, Handy Portions, Sugar Shockers, and MyTray. Pre and post assessments of nutrition knowledge were used to determine the effectiveness of the nutrition education. Overall, there was an increase in the number of correct survey responses recorded following the nutrition education. By category, there were increases in the students’ ability to identify healthy snacks, grains, dairy products, and protein sources, but not fruits and vegetables. Further development and testing of innovative nutrition education curriculum for the second grade audience is an important step in establishing the knowledge to influence lifelong behavior changes that could reduce future risk of obesity

Identification and instruction of visual and auditory learners

Children have modality strengths through which they learn more efficiently. Certain characteristics and observations have been identified which allow instructors to distinguish between children whose modality strength is visual and those whose strength is auditory. Once a child is recognized as either a visual or auditory learner, appropriate instructional methods can be applied to improve learning

The Convertible Bond Announcement Effect - An Event Study on the Nordic Markets

The announcement effect of convertible bonds is a well-researched topic. However, there is no clear consensus whether the announcements of convertible bond issuance affect the stock price positively or negatively. Previous research shows that this effect differs between markets. As no previous research has been examining the Nordic markets, we find this to be of interest. The aim of this thesis is to examine if there is an announcement effect of convertible bond issues on the Nordic markets. To find if there is an announcement effect, we conduct an event study on 53 observations to obtain abnormal returns for several different event windows. Furthermore, we examine if the firm-specific variables; size of the issuing firm, leverage, market-to-book and the relative issue size are significantly affecting the abnormal returns. Based on the findings of the abnormal returns we find a negative significant announcement effect. The result is also in line with what the majority of studies finds in other European markets. Furthermore, we find leverage to have a positive effect and the relative issue size to have a negative effect on the abnormal returns

Moving and staying together without a leader

A microscopic, stochastic, minimal model for collective and cohesive motion of identical self-propelled particles is introduced. Even though the particles interact strictly locally in a very noisy manner, we show that cohesion can be maintained, even in the zero-density limit of an arbitrarily large flock in an infinite space. The phase diagram spanned by the two main parameters of our model, which encode the tendencies for particles to align and to stay together, contains non-moving "gas", "liquid"' and "solid" phases separated from their moving counterparts by the onset of collective motion. The "gas/liquid" and "liquid/solid" are shown to be first-order phase transitions in all cases. In the cohesive phases, we study also the diffusive properties of individuals and their relation to the macroscopic motion and to the shape of the flock

Self-organized Vortex State in Two-dimensional Dictyostelium Dynamics

We present results of experiments on the dynamics of Dictyostelium discoideum in a novel set-up which constraints cell motion to a plane. After aggregation, the amoebae collect into round ''pancake" structures in which the cells rotate around the center of the pancake. This vortex state persists for many hours and we have explicitly verified that the motion is not due to rotating waves of cAMP. To provide an alternative mechanism for the self-organization of the Dictyostelium cells, we have developed a new model of the dynamics of self-propelled deformable objects. In this model, we show that cohesive energy between the cells, together with a coupling between the self-generated propulsive force and the cell's configuration produces a self-organized vortex state. The angular velocity profiles of the experiment and of the model are qualitatively similar. The mechanism for self-organization reported here can possibly explain similar vortex states in other biological systems.Comment: submitted to PRL; revised version dated 3/8/9

Geometric origin of mechanical properties of granular materials

Some remarkable generic properties, related to isostaticity and potential energy minimization, of equilibrium configurations of assemblies of rigid, frictionless grains are studied. Isostaticity -the uniqueness of the forces, once the list of contacts is known- is established in a quite general context, and the important distinction between isostatic problems under given external loads and isostatic (rigid) structures is presented. Complete rigidity is only guaranteed, on stability grounds, in the case of spherical cohesionless grains. Otherwise, the network of contacts might deform elastically in response to load increments, even though grains are rigid. This sets an uuper bound on the contact coordination number. The approximation of small displacements (ASD) allows to draw analogies with other model systems studied in statistical mechanics, such as minimum paths on a lattice. It also entails the uniqueness of the equilibrium state (the list of contacts itself is geometrically determined) for cohesionless grains, and thus the absence of plastic dissipation. Plasticity and hysteresis are due to the lack of such uniqueness and may stem, apart from intergranular friction, from small, but finite, rearrangements, in which the system jumps between two distinct potential energy minima, or from bounded tensile contact forces. The response to load increments is discussed. On the basis of past numerical studies, we argue that, if the ASD is valid, the macroscopic displacement field is the solution to an elliptic boundary value problem (akin to the Stokes problem).Comment: RevTex, 40 pages, 26 figures. Close to published paper. Misprints and minor errors correcte

High purity semi-insulating 4H-SiC epitaxial layers by Defect-Competition Epitaxy

Thick, high-purity semi-insulating (SI)homoepitaxial layers on Si-face 4H-SiC weregrownsystematically, with resistivity \geq 109{\Omega}-cmby maintaining high C/Si ratios 1.3-15 during growth.Comparison of secondary ion mass spectra betweenlow-dopedepilayers grown at C/Si ratio<1.3andSI-epilayers grown at C/Si ratio>1.3 showed little difference in residual impurity concentrations. A reconciliation of impurity concentration with measured resistivity indicated a compensating trap concentration of ~1015cm-3present only in the SI-epilayers. High- resolution photo induced transient spectroscopy (HRPITS) identified themas Si-vacancy related deep centers, with no detectable EH6/7 and Z1/2levels. Recombination lifetimes ~5ns suggest application in fast-switching power devices.Comment: Submitted to Applied Physics Letter

Important Determinants for Fucoidan Bioactivity: A Critical Review of Structure-Function Relations and Extraction Methods for Fucose-Containing Sulfated Polysaccharides from Brown Seaweeds

Seaweeds—or marine macroalgae—notably brown seaweeds in the class Phaeophyceae, contain fucoidan. Fucoidan designates a group of certain fucose-containing sulfated polysaccharides (FCSPs) that have a backbone built of (1→3)-linked α-l-fucopyranosyl or of alternating (1→3)- and (1→4)-linked α-l-fucopyranosyl residues, but also include sulfated galactofucans with backbones built of (1→6)-β-d-galacto- and/or (1→2)-β-d-mannopyranosyl units with fucose or fuco-oligosaccharide branching, and/or glucuronic acid, xylose or glucose substitutions. These FCSPs offer several potentially beneficial bioactive functions for humans. The bioactive properties may vary depending on the source of seaweed, the compositional and structural traits, the content (charge density), distribution, and bonding of the sulfate substitutions, and the purity of the FCSP product. The preservation of the structural integrity of the FCSP molecules essentially depends on the extraction methodology which has a crucial, but partly overlooked, significance for obtaining the relevant structural features required for specific biological activities and for elucidating structure-function relations. The aim of this review is to provide information on the most recent developments in the chemistry of fucoidan/FCSPs emphasizing the significance of different extraction techniques for the structural composition and biological activity with particular focus on sulfate groups