978 research outputs found
Gastrointestinal helminths in calves and cows in an organic milk production system
The main aim of this study was to determine the distribution of populations of gastrointestinal helminths in lactating crossbred cows and calves during the grazing season in an organic milk production system. In addition, the potential importance of the peripartum in relation to the parasite load was examined. Between January 2007 and December 2008, parasitological fecal examinations were performed on cattle belonging to the Integrated Animal Production Program of Embrapa Agrobiology. The cows' parasite load remained low during the study period, and there were no statistical differences (p > 0.05) in comparisons between the seasons. The average egg count showed a positive correlation (0.80) with the peripartum, such that egg elimination per gram (p < 0.05) was higher during the week of labor than during the pre and postpartum periods. Calves showed low parasite loads, with significantly higher egg elimination (p < 0.05) during the winter. The study indicated that infection with gastrointestinal helminths was not a limiting factor for milk production in the organic system. Specifically, it was concluded that the nematode load can be maintained at moderate levels throughout the production system, even in the absence of anthelmintic treatment
DogOnt - Ontology Modeling for Intelligent Domotic Environments
Abstract. Home automation has recently gained a new momentum thanks to the ever-increasing commercial availability of domotic components. In this context, researchers are working to provide interoperation mechanisms and to add intelligence on top of them. For supporting intelligent behaviors, house modeling is an essential requirement to understand current and future house states and to possibly drive more complex actions. In this paper we propose a new house modeling ontology designed to fit real world domotic system capabilities and to support interoperation between currently available and future solutions. Taking advantage of technologies developed in the context of the Semantic Web, the DogOnt ontology supports device/network independent description of houses, including both âcontrollable â and architectural elements. States and functionalities are automatically associated to the modeled elements through proper inheritance mechanisms and by means of properly defined SWRL auto-completion rules which ease the modeling process, while automatic device recognition is achieved through classification reasoning.
Ontology Mapping and Data Discovery for the Translational Investigator
An integrated data repository (IDR) containing aggregations of clinical, biomedical, economic, administrative, and public health data is a key component of an overall translational research infrastructure. But most available data repositories are designed using standard data warehouse architecture that employs arbitrary data encoding standards, making queries across disparate repositories difficult. In response to these shortcomings we have designed a Health Ontology Mapper (HOM) that translates terminologies into formal data encoding standards without altering the underlying source data. We believe the HOM system promotes inter-institutional data sharing and research collaboration, and will ultimately lower the barrier to developing and using an IDR
First AMBER/VLTI observations of hot massive stars
AMBER is the first near infrared focal instrument of the VLTI. It combines
three telescopes and produces spectrally resolved interferometric measures.
This paper discusses some preliminary results of the first scientific
observations of AMBER with three Unit Telescopes at medium (1500) and high
(12000) spectral resolution. We derive a first set of constraints on the
structure of the circumstellar material around the Wolf Rayet Gamma2 Velorum
and the LBV Eta Carinae
SADI, SHARE, and the in silico scientific method
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The emergence and uptake of Semantic Web technologies by the Life Sciences provides exciting opportunities for exploring novel ways to conduct <it>in silico</it> science. Web Service Workflows are already becoming first-class objects in âthe new wayâ, and serve as explicit, shareable, referenceable representations of how an experiment was done. In turn, Semantic Web Service projects aim to facilitate workflow construction by biological domain-experts such that workflows can be edited, re-purposed, and re-published by non-informaticians. However the aspects of the scientific method relating to explicit discourse, disagreement, and hypothesis generation have remained relatively impervious to new technologies.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here we present SADI and SHARE - a novel Semantic Web Service framework, and a reference implementation of its client libraries. Together, SADI and SHARE allow the semi- or fully-automatic discovery and pipelining of Semantic Web Services in response to <it>ad hoc</it> user queries.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The semantic behaviours exhibited by SADI and SHARE extend the functionalities provided by Description Logic Reasoners such that novel assertions can be automatically added to a data-set without logical reasoning, but rather by analytical or annotative services. This behaviour might be applied to achieve the âsemantificationâ of those aspects of the <it>in silico</it> scientific method that are not yet supported by Semantic Web technologies. We support this suggestion using an example in the clinical research space.</p
Mental Distress Under Occupation: The Journal of Madeleine Blaess
Madeleine Blaess a British doctoral student studying at the Sorbonne was trapped in Paris unable to return home to York for the duration of the Occupation. In October 1940 she began a diary which she kept diligently until September 1944. This unique testimony written from the perspective of a British student at liberty to roam wartime Paris, focuses more on the civilian struggle through the everyday than on the political and military situation which Blaess, vulnerable to arrest, thinks wise to mention as little as possible. This exhaustively documented, voluminous record of the minutiae of a daily struggle with material hardship discloses a struggle with mental illness articulated and managed through the writing of the diary. That diaries can have a therapeutic purpose for writers under mental strain is axiomatic and this article examines a variety of palliative strategies both deliberate and involuntary invoked through the writing process. In so doing, the article will survey the incidence and causes of civilian mental distress on the home front over the period; an area of inquiry which, other than recent work into the psychological impact of Allied bombing of civilians, has been largely neglected in recent work foregrounding and valorising the historical importance of life-writing sources in the field of Occupation studies
Direct constraint on the distance of y2 Velorum from AMBER/VLTI observations
In this work, we present the first AMBER observations, of the Wolf-Rayet and
O (WR+O) star binary system y2 Velorum. The AMBER instrument was used with the
telescopes UT2, UT3, and UT4 on baselines ranging from 46m to 85m. It delivered
spectrally dispersed visibilities, as well as differential and closure phases,
with a resolution R = 1500 in the spectral band 1.95-2.17 micron. We interpret
these data in the context of a binary system with unresolved components,
neglecting in a first approximation the wind-wind collision zone flux
contribution. We show that the AMBER observables result primarily from the
contribution of the individual components of the WR+O binary system. We discuss
several interpretations of the residuals, and speculate on the detection of an
additional continuum component, originating from the free-free emission
associated with the wind-wind collision zone (WWCZ), and contributing at most
to the observed K-band flux at the 5% level. The expected absolute separation
and position angle at the time of observations were 5.1±0.9mas and
66±15° respectively. However, we infer a separation of
3.62+0.11-0.30 mas and a position angle of 73+9-11°. Our analysis thus
implies that the binary system lies at a distance of 368+38-13 pc, in agreement
with recent spectrophotometric estimates, but significantly larger than the
Hipparcos value of 258+41-31 pc
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