Paying it Forward with a Successful Transition Cow Program

This educational program guided decision-making process to assist small, beginning, traditional commercial producers to determine best management practices in their transition cow program. Focused topic areas included facilities, nutrition, health, records, financial and production variables. Twenty-five risk management surveys, 7 on-farm workshops, 3 on-farm demonstrations of transition cow monitoring tools, 3on-line learning modules, and 60 individual visits were used to increase awareness, understanding, and decision-making ability. Following the educational programming along with numerous articles published in national dairy magazines, 48 producers have begun to develop or implement change to their transition cow program best suited for their management, labor, and financial structure. Long term application of these management changes includes changes in reduced stress, reduced fresh cow problems, and improved milk production through a better start of the cow’s lactation

Distribution-Free Proofs of Proximity

Motivated by the fact that input distributions are often unknown in advance, distribution-free property testing considers a setting in which the algorithmic task is to accept functions $f : [n] \to \{0,1\}$ having a certain property $\Pi$ and reject functions that are $\epsilon$-far from $\Pi$, where the distance is measured according to an arbitrary and unknown input distribution $D \sim [n]$. As usual in property testing, the tester is required to do so while making only a sublinear number of input queries, but as the distribution is unknown, we also allow a sublinear number of samples from the distribution $D$. In this work we initiate the study of distribution-free interactive proofs of proximity (df-IPP) in which the distribution-free testing algorithm is assisted by an all powerful but untrusted prover. Our main result is a df-IPP for any problem $\Pi \in NC$, with $\tilde{O}(\sqrt{n})$ communication, sample, query, and verification complexities, for any proximity parameter $\epsilon>1/\sqrt{n}$. For such proximity parameters, this result matches the parameters of the best-known general purpose IPPs in the standard uniform setting, and is optimal under reasonable cryptographic assumptions. For general values of the proximity parameter $\epsilon$, our distribution-free IPP has optimal query complexity $O(1/\epsilon)$ but the communication complexity is $\tilde{O}(\epsilon \cdot n + 1/\epsilon)$, which is worse than what is known for uniform IPPs when $\epsilon<1/\sqrt{n}$. With the aim of improving on this gap, we further show that for IPPs over specialised, but large distribution families, such as sufficiently smooth distributions and product distributions, the communication complexity can be reduced to $\epsilon\cdot n\cdot(1/\epsilon)^{o(1)}$ (keeping the query complexity roughly the same as before) to match the communication complexity of the uniform case

Exponential decay of loop lengths in the loop O(n)O(n) model with large nn

The loop $O(n)$ model is a model for a random collection of non-intersecting loops on the hexagonal lattice, which is believed to be in the same universality class as the spin $O(n)$ model. It has been conjectured that both the spin and the loop $O(n)$ models exhibit exponential decay of correlations when $n>2$. We verify this for the loop $O(n)$ model with large parameter $n$, showing that long loops are exponentially unlikely to occur, uniformly in the edge weight $x$. Our proof provides further detail on the structure of typical configurations in this regime. Putting appropriate boundary conditions, when $nx^6$ is sufficiently small, the model is in a dilute, disordered phase in which each vertex is unlikely to be surrounded by any loops, whereas when $nx^6$ is sufficiently large, the model is in a dense, ordered phase which is a small perturbation of one of the three ground states.Comment: 35 pages, 9 figures. Added a discussion about the relation to the square-lattice random-cluster model and the dilute Potts mode

An eccentrically biased rehabilitation program early after TKA surgery

Journal ArticleRehabilitation services are less-studied aspects of the management following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) despite long-term suboptimal physical functioning and chronic deficits in muscle function. This paper describes the preliminary findings of a six-week (12 session) eccentrically-biased rehabilitation program targeted at deficits in physical function and muscle function, initiated one month following surgery. A quasiexperimental, one group, pretest-posttest study with thirteen individuals (6 female, 7 male; mean age 57 ? 7 years) examined the effectiveness of an eccentrically-biased rehabilitation program. The program resulted in improvements in the primary physical function endpoints (SF-36 physical component summary and the six-minute walk test) with increases of 59% and 47%, respectively. Muscle function endpoints (knee extension strength and power) also increased 107% and 93%, respectively. Eccentrically-biased exercise used as an addition to rehabilitation may help amplify and accelerate physical function following TKA surgery

Improvement of quality of life with implant-supported mandibular overdentures and the effect of implant type and surgical procedure on bone and soft tissue stability : a three-year prospective split-mouth trial

In fully edentulous patients, the support of a lower dental prosthesis by two implants could improve the chewing ability, retention, and stability of the prosthesis. Despite high success rates of dental implants, complications, such as peri-implantitis, do occur. The latter is a consequence of crestal bone loss and might be related to the implant surface and peri-implant soft tissue thickness. The aim of this paper is to describe the effect of implant surface roughness and soft tissue thickness on crestal bone remodeling, peri-implant health, and patient-centered outcomes. The mandibular overdenture supported by two implants is used as a split-mouth model to scrutinize these aims. The first study compared implants placed equicrestal to implants placed biologically (i.e., dependent on site-specific soft tissue thickness). The second clinical trial compared implants with a minimally to a moderately rough implant neck. Both studies reported an improvement in oral health-related quality of life and a stable peri-implant health after three years follow-up. Only equicrestal implant placement yielded significantly higher implant surface exposure, due to the establishment of the biologic width. Within the limitations of this study, it can be concluded that an implant supported mandibular overdenture significantly improves the quality of life, with limited biologic complications and high survival rates of the implants

The long-term effect of adapting the vertical position of implants on peri-implant health : a 5-year intra-subject comparison in the edentulous mandible including oral health-related quality of life

Despite high success rates of dental implants, surface exposure may occur as a consequence of biologic width establishment associated with surgery. This prospective split-mouth study evaluated the effect of early implant surface exposure caused by initial bone remodeling on long-term peri-implant bone stability and peri-implant health. Additionally, Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQoL) was assessed by means of the Oral Health Impact Profile-14 (OHIP-14). Twenty-six patients received two non-splinted implants supporting an overdenture in the mandible by means of locators. One implant was installed equicrestally (control) and the second one was installed subcrestally, taking at least 3 mm soft tissue thickness into account (test). During initial bone remodeling (up to 6 months postoperatively), equicrestal placement yielded 0.68 mm additional surface exposure compared to subcrestal placement (p < 0.001). Afterwards, bone level and peri-implant health were comparable in both treatment conditions and stable up to 5 years. The implant overdenture improved OHRQoL (p < 0.01) and remained unchanged thereafter (p = 0.51). In conclusion, adapting the vertical position of the implant concerning the soft tissue thickness prevents early implant surface exposure caused by initial bone remodeling, but in a well-maintained population, this has no impact on long-term prognosis. The treatment of edentulousness with an implant mandibular overdenture improves OHRQoL

14N and 15N coupling constants of the oxidized primary donor P-860 of bacterial photosynthesis obtained by electron spin echo envelope modulation spectroscopy

An electron spin echo modulation frequency analysis of P+-860 is performed in 14N chromatophores of Rhodospirillum rubrum, and in 15N substituted reaction centers from Rhodopseudomonas sphaeroides 2.4.1. For the 14N material two sets of nuclear quadrupole parameters are obtained. From the frequencies found for 15N reaction centers the perpendicular, parallel and isotropic hyperfine previous termcouplingnext term constants of three of the four bacteriochlorophyll nitrogen nuclei are inferred

Visualizing 17 Years of CDIO Influence via Bibliometric Data Analysis

Bibliometric data analysis has gained popularity in recent years as an efficient means of\ua0visualizing multi-dimensional indicators of influence in communities of practice (Youtie &amp;\ua0Shapira, 2008). Such an approach has been used to map emerging fields of research such as\ua0synthetic biology and nanotechnology (Shapira, Kwon, &amp; Youtie, 2017; Youtie &amp; Shapira,\ua02008). Using this approach, one can track citation and social network data over time to develop\ua0a deeper understanding of the influence of the CDIO initiative on engineering education\ua0publications since its inception (i.e., the past 17 years). In this paper, bibliometric data analysis\ua0will be used to examine how publications on the CDIO Initiative have evolved. Visualizations\ua0are presented using an open-source visualization tool, VOSViewer, and used to understand\ua0geographic distribution and co-authorship. A word frequency and co-occurrence analysis has\ua0been used to analyze title and abstract data over the same time period. Geographic author\ua0network analysis reveals continued growth in regional collaborations over the past seventeen\ua0years. Co-authorship by author name reveals a core community of researchers, which has\ua0diverged over time into dispersed collaboration groups. Word co-occurrence analysis of title\ua0and abstract data from Scopus reveals that design-implement and project-based learning\ua0activities have been the central topic of CDIO-related engineering education literature over this\ua0time period. An analysis of the terms “faculty competence” and “learning assessment” indicates\ua0that these topics are comparatively under-served in the literature, representing fertile research\ua0topics for practitioners. The benefit of this research is to provide insight to past development\ua0areas and opportunities for growth in the CDIO Initiative