Farmed foxes prefer a cage with an unobstructed View

We have observed earlier that farmed blue foxes (Alopex lagopus) and silver foxes (Vulpes vulpes) tend to avoid resting at those sites in their cages from which the view to the surroundings is obstmeted. In the present study this hypothesis wastested in a preference test in Which the foxes could choose between a cage with an unobstructed view and a cage with a partially obstructed view. Both blue foxes and silver foxes spent a smaller percentage of their daily active time in the cage with the obstructed view than in the cage with the unobstructed view. They almost exclusively preferred the cage with the unobstructed view as a resting site. Obstructed/unobstrueted View is a key feature of the cage environment that should be taken into consideration when designing housing systems for farmed foxes

VARIATION IN MOTION ANALYSIS OF SPRINT HURDLES: PART 1CO-ORDINATE DEVIATION IN 3-DIMENSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION

INTRODUCTION. An understanding of the different variation sources in experimental sport research is fundamental to technical analysis (Yeadon, 1994). Individual variable level variation in the event of sprint hurdles was presented by Salo el al. (1995). The aim of this study was to investigate the variation al the digitised co-ordinate level. METHODS Hurdle c1earances were videotaped with two genlocked cameras (50 Hz, at a 90 degree angle from the hurdle symmetrically on both sides of the lane). Two randomly selected trials (female and male) were digitised eight times by the same operator using APAS. The separate raw co-ordinates (u, v) of both camera views and the raw 30 co-ordinates (after OLT) 01 all digitised trials were transformed to Excel software. Standard deviation (SO) for the all 18 body landmarks were calculated separately for every single analysed field. The lowest SO of each condition and each co-ordinate direction (including diagonal combination) was selected as a base unit. All other SOs were standardised to these base units. RESULTS The mean SO of each landmark over all digitised fjelds in u-and v-directions ranged fram 2.3 to 8.7 (female) and from 2.6 to 7.1 (male) relative SO units. This variation resulted in SO of 0.017, 0.009, 0.016 and 0.025 m in X-, y-, z-and diagonal directions, respectively, for the female athlete as a maxirna mean of an individual landmark in the 30 re-construction. The respective SO values for the male trial were 0.017, 0.012, 0.018 and 0.027m. The maximum variation of an individual landmark in a single field of one view was 22.5 SO-units (female) and 30.0 SO-units (male). However, most of the landmarks had less than 4 SO-units variation in most of the analysed fields. DISCUSSION The lowest SO was selected for the base unit, as this presented the most accurate situation which an operator was able to reach in repeated digitising. Generally at an average level, the variation of raw 3D coordinates can be considered acceptable. However, there were c1early problematic situations, when landmarks gained up to 30 times more variation in a single field than the best situation. The influence of this huge variation on variables depends upon whether it appears at a critical moment. In this study, the largest variation occurred in an air phase around the highest point of the flight path. For the male athlete, the trailleg and the ipsilateral arm were obstructed by the trunk for the other camera view. This had only a slight eHect on the maximum height of the centre of mass (GM) (SO= 0.01 m). However, the distance of the GM peak to the hurdle varied significantly (SO= 0.11 m). Oue to lower trail leg path Ihe same problem did not occur for the female athlete (SO= 0.00 and 0.01 m, respectively). Based on this study, it is elear that large variation occurs in manual digitising at the co-ordinate level and this variation can have critica! and important effects for variable values. REFERENCES Salo, A., Grimshaw, P.N. & Viitasalo, J.T. (1995). The repeatabIlity of motion analysis and the reproducibility of athletes in sprint hurdles. In: XlIIISBS Symposium. Abstracts. Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Yeadon, M.A., & Ghallis, J.H. (1994). The future of pertormance-related sports biomechanics research. Journal 01 Sports Sciences, 12, 3-32

Computational challenges in deriving dairy cows' action patterns from accelerometer data

We describe an attempt to build a computational model for deriving dairy cows' action patterns automatically from accelerometer data

An example of a method to wirelessly transfer measurement data from cows in a free stall barn

Here we describe a wireless data measurement and transfer system that operates within a free stall barn. We report also the reliability of the system. This system was designed and built in Very Intelligent Cow Barn project in 2006-2007

A missense substitution A49T in the steroid 5-alpha-reductase gene (SRD5A2) is not associated with prostate cancer in Finland

Prostatic steroid 5-alpha-reductase gene (SRD5A2) encodes a critical enzyme involved in the conversion of testosterone to dihydrotestosterone. A germline mis-sense substitution (A49T) leads to a variant SRD5A2 protein, which has a 5-fold higher in vitro V max than the wild-type protein (Ross et al, 1998; Makridakis et al, 1999). The A49T variant was recently associated with 2.5 to 3.28-fold increased risk of prostate cancer (PC) in African-American and Hispanic men (Makridakis et al, 1999). Also, Jaffe et al (2000) reported an association between A49T and more aggressive disease among Caucasian patients. Here, we report that the prevalence of the A49T variant in 449 Finnish PC patients was 6.0%, not significantly different from 6.3% observed in 223 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia or 5.8% in 588 population-based controls (odds ratio for PC 1.04, 95% C.I. 0.62–1.76 P = 0.89). There was no association between A49T and the family history of the patients nor with tumour stage or grade. Our results argue against a prominent role of the A49T variant as a genetic risk factor for prostate cancer development and progression in the Finnish population. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign www.bjcancer.co

Quiet Eye Duration and Gun Motion in Elite Shotgun Shooting

INTRODUCTION: No literature exists to document skill-related differences in shotgun shooting and whether these may be a function of eye movements and control of gun motion. We therefore conducted an exploratory investigation of the visual search behaviors and gun barrel kinematics used by elite and subelite shooters across the three shotgun shooting subdisciplines. METHODS: Point of gaze and gun barrel kinematics were recorded in groups of elite (n = 24) and subelite (n = 24) shooters participating in skeet, trap, and double trap events. Point of gaze was calculated in relation to the scene, while motion of the gun was captured by two stationary external cameras. Quiet eye (final fixation or tracking gaze that is located on a specific location/object in the visual display for a minimum of 100 ms) duration and onset were analyzed as well as gun motion profiles in the horizontal and vertical planes. RESULTS: In skeet, trap, and double trap disciplines, elite shooters demonstrated both an earlier onset and a longer relative duration of quiet eye than their subelite counterparts did. Also, in all three disciplines, quiet eye duration was longer and onset earlier during successful compared with unsuccessful trials for elite and subelite shooters. Kinematic analyses indicated that a slower movement of the gun barrel was used by elite compared with subelite shooters. CONCLUSIONS: Overall, stable gun motion and a longer quiet eye duration seem critical to a successful performance in all three shotgun disciplines

An EMG-Assisted Muscle-Force Driven Finite Element Analysis Pipeline to Investigate Joint- and Tissue-Level Mechanical Responses in Functional Activities : Towards a Rapid Assessment Toolbox

Publisher Copyright: © 1964-2012 IEEE.Joint tissue mechanics (e.g., stress and strain) are believed to have a major involvement in the onset and progression of musculoskeletal disorders, e.g., knee osteoarthritis (KOA). Accordingly, considerable efforts have been made to develop musculoskeletal finite element (MS-FE) models to estimate highly detailed tissue mechanics that predict cartilage degeneration. However, creating such models is time-consuming and requires advanced expertise. This limits these complex, yet promising, MS-FE models to research applications with few participants and makes the models impractical for clinical assessments. Also, these previously developed MS-FE models have not been used to assess activities other than gait. This study introduces and verifies a semi-automated rapid state-of-the-art MS-FE modeling and simulation toolbox incorporating an electromyography- (EMG) assisted MS model and a muscle-force driven FE model of the knee with fibril-reinforced poro(visco)elastic cartilages and menisci. To showcase the usability of the pipeline, we estimated joint- and tissue-level knee mechanics in 15 KOA individuals performing different daily activities. The pipeline was verified by comparing the estimated muscle activations and joint mechanics to existing experimental data. To determine the importance of the EMG-assisted MS analysis approach, results were compared to those from the same FE models but driven by static-optimization-based MS models. The EMG-assisted MS-FE pipeline bore a closer resemblance to experiments compared to the static-optimization-based MS-FE pipeline. Importantly, the developed pipeline showed great potential as a rapid MS-FE analysis toolbox to investigate multiscale knee mechanics during different activities of individuals with KOA.Peer reviewe