Application Of Genetics

Animal breeding is an old art, which long ago developed far beyond the scientific knowledge of the subject. By actual experience men built up certain rules as to what practices were or were not good procedure for a given set of conditions. Man naturally devised philosophical. explanations which more or less satisfied his intellect as he went along. But it would be a far stretch of the imagination to call these explanations scientific

Crossbreeding hogs for pork production

Some 11 or 12 million slaughter hogs are produced on Iowa farms each year. The sale of these hogs produces the largest single item (about 40 percent) of the annual farm income of the state. Any procedure that will produce these hogs more efficiently will increase the net income o f the farmer who uses it, as well as that of the state as a whole

A preliminary investigation into personality and pain in dogs

Adherence to basic animal welfare standards involves effective monitoring and control of pain, especially in a veterinary setting. Assessment relies on behavioural and physiological indicators. However, individual differences in physiology mediate consistent individual differences in behaviour, referred to as personality (Koolhaas et al., 1999). Therefore, personality may confound measurements of pain (Ijichi et al., 2014). The current work is a preliminary investigation into whether Extraversion and Neuroticism are associated with differences in individual behavioural and physiological responses to pain. Twenty dogs were observed during recovery from routine castration in a clinical setting. Core temperature was recorded using Infrared Thermography (IRT) (Stewart et al., 2008) upon admission, 15 minutes post-extubation and every 30 minutes thereafter, until the subject was collected by their owner. Behaviour during recovery was scored using Short Form Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (Reid et al., 2007) at the same intervals as IRT readings. Personality was measured using Monash Canine Personality Questionnaire-Revised (Ley et al., 2009) and owners rated their dog’s tolerance to pain on a five-point Likert scale. Pain score did not have an association with eye temperature discrepancy or core temperature changes from control, indicating it may not predict affective response to pain. More highly extravert subjects had significantly higher pain scores (p = 0.031), despite experiencing similar tissue damage. More extravert subjects showed significantly greater right eye temperature (p = 0.035), suggesting hemispheric dominance. Neuroticism had no association with physiological or behavioural responses to pain. Finally, owners were not able to predict their dog’s behavioural or physiological response to pain. These results indicate that personality may be a useful clinical tool for assessing individual differences in response to pain, whilst owner ratings of their dog's response is not reliable

Spin-orbit coupling and the conservation of angular momentum

In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, the total (i.e. orbital plus spin) angular momentum of a charged particle with spin that moves in a Coulomb plus spin-orbit-coupling potential is conserved. In a classical nonrelativistic treatment of this problem, in which the Lagrange equations determine the orbital motion and the Thomas equation yields the rate of change of the spin, the particle's total angular momentum in which the orbital angular momentum is defined in terms of the kinetic momentum is generally not conserved. However, a generalized total angular momentum, in which the orbital part is defined in terms of the canonical momentum, is conserved. This illustrates the fact that the quantum-mechanical operator of momentum corresponds to the canonical momentum of classical mechanics.Comment: 10 pages, as published by Eur. J. Phy

The CRESST Dark Matter Search

The current status of CRESST (Cryogenic Rare Event Search using Superconducting Thermometers) and new results concerning the detector development are presented. The basic technique of CRESST is to search for particle Dark Matter (WIMPS, Weakly Interacting Massive particles) by the measurement of non-thermal phonons as created by WIMP-induced nuclear recoils. Combined with the newly developed method of simultaneous measurement of scintillation light, strong background discrimination is possible, resulting in a substantial increase in WIMP detection sensitivity. The short and long term perspectives of CRESST are discussed.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

The Influence of Individuality, Age, and Season Upon the Weights of Fleeces Produced by Angora Goats Under Range Conditions.

54 p