Heterosis, direct and maternal additive effects on rabbit growth and carcass traits from a Canadian experiment

A total of 479 male and female rabbits from the Californian (CA), American Chinchilla (CH) and New-Zealand White (NZ) breeds and nine crosses between them were used in this experiment. This study aimed to estimate heterosis and direct and maternal additive effects as well as some non genetic effects on rabbit growth and carcass traits in order to identify the most appropriate crossbreeding plan to use for rabbit meat production under Quebec conditions. Each rabbit was identified and weighed individually at weaning (35 d) and at slaughter (63 d). Rabbits were slaughtered after an 18 h fasting period from feed only. Statistical analyses were performed solving fixed models that allow different variances between genetic types. Significant statistical differences were obtained between genetic types for rabbit growth performance. Rabbits from purebred NZ females mated to CA and NZ males or from CAxNZ and NZxCH crossbred females mated to NZ males ranked first for live weight at 35 and 63 d body weight and for average daily gain (ADG). ADG of NZxNZ, NZx(NZxCH) and NZx(CAxNZ) rabbits reached around 50 g/d and their feed conversion ratio was about 3.4. Significant differences between genetic types were observed for all carcass traits except for meat/bone ratio. Rabbits from CH, NZ, CAxNZ and NZxCH does mated to NZ males, and from NZ does mated to CA males had the highest commercial carcass weight and the lowest commercial carcass yield (CCY), whereas CHxCA rabbits ranked first with a CCY higher by 4 to 8% than rabbits from other genetic types. The highest hind part yields were obtained with CHxCH, CHxNZ and NZxCH rabbits. Concerning the intermediate part percentages, the highest values corresponded to the highest CCY. The CH breed had unfavourable direct effects but favourable maternal effects on growth traits. The CA breed had negative maternal effects on weight traits from weaning to slaughtering. The CA and CH breeds had positive direct and negative maternal effects on intermediate part yield of the carcass compared to NZ. Direct heterosis effects were found for body weight traits, particularly in the crosses involving the NZ breed, with a magnitude ranging from 5 to 10% of the parental mean.Ouyed, A.; Rivest, J.; Brun, JM. (2011). Heterosis, direct and maternal additive effects on rabbit growth and carcass traits from a Canadian experiment. World Rabbit Science. 19(1). doi:10.4995/wrs.2011.783.SWORD19

MyD88-adaptor protein acts as a preventive mechanism for memory deficits in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an age-related neurodegenerative disorder associated with brain innate immune activation mainly mediated by microglia. These cells are known to be activated in the brain of AD patients and to produce inflammatory cytokines and neurotoxic molecules in response to Amyloid beta (Aβ). Activation of microglia can also promote Aβ clearance via Toll-like receptors (TLRs). Myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) is the adaptor molecule for most of these innate immune receptors, transducing the intracellular signal from TLRs to nucleus.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we report that more than 50% reduction in MyD88 expression in a mouse model of AD accelerated spatial learning and memory deficits. Brain of APP_swe/PS1-MyD88^+/-mice was characterized by a delay in accumulation of Aβ plaques and increased soluble levels of Aβ oligomers. Furthermore, inflammatory monocyte subset and brain IL-1β gene expression were significantly reduced in APP_swe/PS1 mice with impaired MyD88 signaling.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>These data indicate that activation of MyD88 intracellular signaling pathway, likely by TLRs, acts as a natural innate immune mechanism to restrict disease progression of APP_swe/PS1 mice.</p

Fast and User-friendly Quantum Key Distribution

Some guidelines for the comparison of different quantum key distribution experiments are proposed. An improved 'plug & play' interferometric system allowing fast key exchange is then introduced. Self-alignment and compensation of birefringence remain. Original electronics implementing the BB84 protocol and allowing user-friendly operation is presented. Key creation with 0.1 photon per pulse at a rate of 486 Hz with a 5.4% QBER - corresponding to a net rate of 210Hz - over a 23 Km installed cable was performed.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, added referenc

Revisiting Shared Data Protection Against Key Exposure

This paper puts a new light on secure data storage inside distributed systems. Specifically, it revisits computational secret sharing in a situation where the encryption key is exposed to an attacker. It comes with several contributions: First, it defines a security model for encryption schemes, where we ask for additional resilience against exposure of the encryption key. Precisely we ask for (1) indistinguishability of plaintexts under full ciphertext knowledge, (2) indistinguishability for an adversary who learns: the encryption key, plus all but one share of the ciphertext. (2) relaxes the "all-or-nothing" property to a more realistic setting, where the ciphertext is transformed into a number of shares, such that the adversary can't access one of them. (1) asks that, unless the user's key is disclosed, noone else than the user can retrieve information about the plaintext. Second, it introduces a new computationally secure encryption-then-sharing scheme, that protects the data in the previously defined attacker model. It consists in data encryption followed by a linear transformation of the ciphertext, then its fragmentation into shares, along with secret sharing of the randomness used for encryption. The computational overhead in addition to data encryption is reduced by half with respect to state of the art. Third, it provides for the first time cryptographic proofs in this context of key exposure. It emphasizes that the security of our scheme relies only on a simple cryptanalysis resilience assumption for blockciphers in public key mode: indistinguishability from random, of the sequence of diferentials of a random value. Fourth, it provides an alternative scheme relying on the more theoretical random permutation model. It consists in encrypting with sponge functions in duplex mode then, as before, secret-sharing the randomness

Capturing and analysing how designers use CAD software

Current Computer-Aided Design (CAD) packages support the storage of the final design models and solutions in different formats, and PLM software manages the high-level information about the design process, such as the versioning of the design solutions. However, the processes happening inside the CAD software are not being fully captured. Information such as the sequence of actions (create a sketch, set a distance constraint, remove a pocket, modify the diameter of a through hole, etc.), versioning of the created objects, etc. is missing. This information can be used to understand how a designer uses CAD software to generate geometric representations. In design companies, capturing this information during a product design project would help to evaluate the designer’s way of working with CAD software. In design education, collecting information on how design students generate geometric representations would allow teachers to identify the areas of misunderstanding, improve the education process by representing the optimal way of working, and help teachers to correctly evaluate their students’ performance in using CAD software. This paper proposes a framework to support an analysis of how designers use CAD software to generate geometric representations. This framework consists of structured models and an approach which guides the actor in capturing the design process. We use CATIA as a CAD software solution, but the proposed approach is generic and can be extended to any CAD software. The validity of the proposed approach is illustrated through a case study

Mathematical Modeling of Transport and Degradation of Feedstuffs in the Small Intestine

We describe a mathematical modeling of the digestion in the small intestine. The main interest of our work is to consider, at the same time, different aspects of the digestion i.e. the transport of the bolus all along the intestine, feedstuffs degradation according to the enzymes and local physical conditions, and nutrients absorption. A system of coupled ordinary differential equations is used to model these phenomena. The major unknowns of this system are the position of the bolus and its composition. This system of equations is solved numerically. We present different numerical computations for the degradation, absorption and transport of the bolus with acceptable accuracy with experimental data. The main feature and interest of this model are its generality. Even if we are at an early stage of development, our approach can be adapted to treat any kind of feedstuffs in any non-ruminant animal to predict the composition and velocity of bolus in the small intestine

Radiomics strategies for risk assessment of tumour failure in head-and-neck cancer

Quantitative extraction of high-dimensional mineable data from medical images is a process known as radiomics. Radiomics is foreseen as an essential prognostic tool for cancer risk assessment and the quantification of intratumoural heterogeneity. In this work, 1615 radiomic features (quantifying tumour image intensity, shape, texture) extracted from pre-treatment FDG-PET and CT images of 300 patients from four different cohorts were analyzed for the risk assessment of locoregional recurrences (LR) and distant metastases (DM) in head-and-neck cancer. Prediction models combining radiomic and clinical variables were constructed via random forests and imbalance-adjustment strategies using two of the four cohorts. Independent validation of the prediction and prognostic performance of the models was carried out on the other two cohorts (LR: AUC = 0.69 and CI = 0.67; DM: AUC = 0.86 and CI = 0.88). Furthermore, the results obtained via Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated the potential of radiomics for assessing the risk of specific tumour outcomes using multiple stratification groups. This could have important clinical impact, notably by allowing for a better personalization of chemo-radiation treatments for head-and-neck cancer patients from different risk groups.Comment: (1) Paper: 33 pages, 4 figures, 1 table; (2) SUPP info: 41 pages, 7 figures, 8 table

Systematic comparison of digital maturity assessment models

ABSTRACT: Assessing the digital maturity of companies is essential to prepare for digital transformation in the context of Industry 4.0. Several digital maturity assessment models have emerged in the past few years to support this evaluation. One obstacle for companies is the impossibility of easily comparing themselves to one another quantitatively or qualitatively. This paper introduces a new way to compare digital maturity models through a quantitative framework that is compatible with a wide variety of models. Comparisons are performed in the space of the keywords used to characterize key performance indicators (KPIs) that are reverse engineered from the models. The matches are encoded in a keyword matrix that is used to automatically compute the match level of KPI pairs. The framework has been validated on 13 state-of-the-art maturity models whose analysis resulted in the identification of 451 KPIs characterized using 263 keywords structured according to 12 dimensions and 58 subdimensions

Capturing and analysing how designers use CAD software

Current Computer-Aided Design (CAD) packages support the storage of the final design models and solutions in different formats, and PLM software manages the high-level information about the design process, such as the versioning of the design solutions. However, the processes happening inside the CAD software are not being fully captured. Information such as the sequence of actions (create a sketch, set a distance constraint, remove a pocket, modify the diameter of a through hole, etc.), versioning of the created objects, etc. is missing. This information can be used to understand how a designer uses CAD software to generate geometric representations. In design companies, capturing this information during a product design project would help to evaluate the designer’s way of working with CAD software. In design education, collecting information on how design students generate geometric representations would allow teachers to identify the areas of misunderstanding, improve the education process by representing the optimal way of working, and help teachers to correctly evaluate their students’ performance in using CAD software. This paper proposes a framework to support an analysis of how designers use CAD software to generate geometric representations. This framework consists of structured models and an approach which guides the actor in capturing the design process. We use CATIA as a CAD software solution, but the proposed approach is generic and can be extended to any CAD software. The validity of the proposed approach is illustrated through a case study