The Importance of Animal Comfort for Animal Production in Intensive Grassland Systems

Animals utilise a wide range of regulatory systems to control the conditions within their bodies or homeostasis. These regulatory systems control for example, body temperature, nutritional state, water balance, social interactions and fear and these systems react to environmental and endogenous stimuli so as to correct or prevent displacements from the optimal range. The behavioural and physiological responses utilised by the animal are usually proportional to the challenge to homeostasis. The stress response commences with the central nervous system perceiving a potential challenge to homeostasis. Once the central nervous system perceives a threat, it develops a biological response or defence that consists of some combination of the four general biological defence responses: behavioural responses, responses of the autonomic nervous system, responses of the neuroendocrine system and responses of the immune system. Although biological regulation is occurring constantly, adaptation is not always possible and when homeostasis fails, there are biological costs for the animal, which may include growth and reproductive failure, injury, disease as a consequence of immunosuppression or even death. While animal comfort is not strictly defined in the scientific literature, an appropriate definition of comfort that is utilised in this review is a dictionary definition, “at ease in body and mind”. With the likely trend to greater intensification of grassland production, there are a number of factors that will affect animal comfort. Both group size and space allowance are key features of the social environment that may affect animal comfort, while the nature of human contact is an important factor, which through fear, may also affect animal comfort. Thermal stressors can have significant impact on animal comfort with cold around parturition being a serious problem for the offspring and heat having adverse consequences for adult animal production and welfare. The concerns for animal comfort over husbandry procedures include practices ranging from simple interventions such as shearing that involve challenges including restraint, close human contact and isolation to more complex surgical interventions such as tail docking and castration that may include additional challenges such as acute and chronic pain, as well as short-term production depressions. Others issues include risks associated with animal biotechnologies, including simple manipulations such as twinning to more complex transgenic manipulations

Overview of the design of the ITER heating neutral beam injectors

The heating neutral beam injectors (HNBs) of ITER are designed to deliver 16.7MWof 1 MeVD0 or 0.87 MeVH0 to the ITER plasma for up to 3600 s. They will be the most powerful neutral beam\uf0a0(NB) injectors ever, delivering higher energy NBs to the plasma in a tokamak for longer than any previous systems have done. The design of the HNBs is based on the acceleration and neutralisation of negative ions as the efficiency of conversion of accelerated positive ions is so low at the required energy that a realistic design is not possible, whereas the neutralisation ofH 12 andD 12 remains acceptable ( 4856%). The design of a long pulse negative ion based injector is inherently more complicated than that of short pulse positive ion based injectors because: \u2022 negative ions are harder to create so that they can be extracted and accelerated from the ion source; \u2022 electrons can be co-extracted from the ion source along with the negative ions, and their acceleration must be minimised to maintain an acceptable overall accelerator efficiency; \u2022 negative ions are easily lost by collisions with the background gas in the accelerator; \u2022 electrons created in the extractor and accelerator can impinge on the extraction and acceleration grids, leading to high power loads on the grids; \u2022 positive ions are created in the accelerator by ionisation of the background gas by the accelerated negative ions and the positive ions are back-accelerated into the ion source creating a massive power load to the ion source; \u2022 electrons that are co-accelerated with the negative ions can exit the accelerator and deposit power on various downstream beamline components. The design of the ITER HNBs is further complicated because ITER is a nuclear installation which will generate very large fluxes of neutrons and gamma rays. Consequently all the injector components have to survive in that harsh environment. Additionally the beamline components and theNBcell, where the beams are housed, will be activated and all maintenance will have to be performed remotely. This paper describes the design of theHNBinjectors, but not the associated power supplies, cooling system, cryogenic system etc, or the high voltage bushingwhich separates the vacuum of the beamline fromthehighpressureSF6 of the high voltage (1MV) transmission line, through which the power, gas and coolingwater are supplied to the beam source. Also themagnetic field reduction system is not described

Activity, stability and 3-D structure of the Cu(II) form of a chitin-active lytic polysaccharide monooxygenase from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens

The enzymatic deconstruction of recalcitrant polysaccharide biomass is central to the conversion of these substrates for societal benefit, such as in biofuels. Traditional models for enzyme-catalysed polysaccharide degradation involved the synergistic action of endo-, exo-and processive glycoside hydrolases working in concert to hydrolyse the substrate. More recently this model has been succeeded by one featuring a newly discovered class of mononuclear copper enzymes: lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs; classified as Auxiliary Activity (AA) enzymes in the CAZy classification). In 2013, the structure of an LPMO from Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, BaAA10, was solved with the Cu centre photoreduced to Cu(I) in the X-ray beam. Here we present the catalytic activity of BaAA10. We show that it is a chitin-active LPMO, active on both α and β chitin, with the Cu(II) binding with low nM KD, and the substrate greatly increasing the thermal stability of the enzyme. A spiral data collection strategy has been used to facilitate access to the previously unobservable Cu(II) state of the active centre, revealing a coordination geometry around the copper which is distorted from axial symmetry, consistent with the previous findings from EPR spectroscopy

Frequent range visits further from the shed relate positively to free-range broiler chicken welfare

Little is known about the implications of accessing an outdoor range for broiler chicken welfare, particularly in relation to the distance ranged from the shed. Therefore, we monitored individual ranging behaviour of commercial free-range broiler chickens and identified relationships with welfare indicators. The individual ranging behaviour of 305 mixed-sex Ross 308 broiler chickens was tracked on a commercial farm from the second day of range access to slaughter age (from 16 to 42 days of age) by radio frequency identification (RFID) technology. The radio frequency identification antennas were placed at pop-holes and on the range at 2.7 and 11.2 m from the home shed to determine the total number of range visits and the distance ranged from the shed. Chickens were categorised into close-ranging (CR) or distant-ranging (DR) categories based on the frequency of visits less than or greater than 2.7 m from the home shed, respectively. Half of the tracked chickens (n=153) were weighed at 7 days of age, and from 14 days of age their body weight, foot pad dermatitis (FPD), hock burn (HB) and gait scores were assessed weekly. The remaining tracked chickens (n=152) were assessed for fear and stress responses before (12 days of age) and after range access was provided (45 days of age) by quantifying their plasma corticosterone response to capture and 12 min confinement in a transport crate followed by behavioural fear responses to a tonic immobility (TI) test. Distant-ranging chickens could be predicted based on lighter BW at 7 and 14 days of age (P=0.05), that is before range access was first provided. After range access was provided, DR chickens weighed less every week (P=0.001), had better gait scores (P=0.01) and reduced corticosterone response to handling and confinement (P

Discovery and characterization of a new family of lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs) are a recently discovered class of enzymes capable of oxidizing recalcitrant polysaccharides. They are attracting considerable attention owing to their potential use in biomass conversion, notably in the production of biofuels. Previous studies have identified two discrete sequence-based families of these enzymes termed AA9 (formerly GH61) and AA10 (formerly CBM33). Here, we report the discovery of a third family of LPMOs. Using a chitin-degrading exemplar from Aspergillus oryzae, we show that the three-dimensional structure of the enzyme shares some features of the previous two classes of LPMOs, including a copper active center featuring the 'histidine brace' active site, but is distinct in terms of its active site details and its EPR spectroscopy. The newly characterized AA11 family expands the LPMO clan, potentially broadening both the range of potential substrates and the types of reactive copper-oxygen species formed at the active site of LPMOs

Effect of photoperiod on sexual activity of boar

The main objective of this study was to assess the effect of photoperiod on sexual activity of three breeds of boars: Swedish Landrace (n=34), Large White (n=38), and Duroc (n=32). Boar sexual activity was analysed based on the libido index and intensity of ejaculation. The libido index was calculated as the ratio between the duration of ejaculation and time of preparation until ejaculation. The intensity of ejaculation was the volume of ejaculate (mL) secreted in the unit of time (min). The effect of photoperiod was analysed as the effect of duration of daylight ( lt 12 h and >12 h) within photoperiod intervals (increasing and decreasing). Impact assessment was carried out by applying the General Linear Model procedure. Libido and intensity of ejaculation varied under the impact of photoperiod and the breed of boars. With the increase in age, the boar libido weakened, while the volume of ejaculate and intensity of ejaculation increased. Boars manifested better libido when the daylight lasted longer than 12 h in both photoperiod intervals. Different from libido, the volume of ejaculate and intensity of ejaculation were highest when the daylight was shorter than 12 h, but only in the decreasing photoperiod interval. Swedish Landrace boars manifested best libido, while in the production of sperm the Duroc boars were inferior compared with Swedish Landrace and Large White. The phenotypic relationship among libido, ejaculate volume, and ejaculation intensity ranges from very low to high; however, the coefficients were positive, which indicates the possibility of simultaneous improvement of these traits

The molecular basis of polysaccharide cleavage by lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases.

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMOs) are copper-containing enzymes that oxidatively break down recalcitrant polysaccharides such as cellulose and chitin. Since their discovery, LPMOs have become integral factors in the industrial utilization of biomass, especially in the sustainable generation of cellulosic bioethanol. We report here a structural determination of an LPMO-oligosaccharide complex, yielding detailed insights into the mechanism of action of these enzymes. Using a combination of structure and electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, we reveal the means by which LPMOs interact with saccharide substrates. We further uncover electronic and structural features of the enzyme active site, showing how LPMOs orchestrate the reaction of oxygen with polysaccharide chains.We thank K. Rasmussen and R.M. Borup for experimental assistance, and MAXLAB, Sweden and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), France, for synchrotron beam time and assistance. This work was supported by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (grant numbers BB/L000423 to P.D., G.J.D. and P.H.W., and BB/L021633/1 to G.J.D. and P.H.W.), Agence Française de l'Environnement et de la Maîtrise de l'Energie (grant number 1201C102 to B.H.), the Danish Council for Strategic Research (grant numbers 12-134923 to L.L.L. and 12-134922 to K.S.J.). Travel to synchrotrons was supported by the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science through the Instrument Center DANSCATT and the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under BioStruct-X (grant agreement 283570). L.M., S.F., S.C. and H.D. were supported by Institut de Chimie Moléculaire de Grenoble FR 2607, LabEx ARCANE (ANR-11-LABX-0003-01), the PolyNat Carnot Institute and the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (PNRB2005-11).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.202