Risk factors limiting first service conception rate in dairy cows and their economic impact

Objective We determined the risk factors limiting first service conception (FSC) rate in dairy cows and their economic impact. Methods Data were collected from 790 lactations regarding cow parity, peri- and postpartum disorders, body condition score (BCS), reproductive performance, and expenses associated with reproductive management (treatment, culling, and others). Initially, we identified the risk factors limiting FSC rate in dairy cows. Various biological and environmental factors, such as herd, cow parity, BCS at 1 month postpartum and first artificial insemination (AI), resumption of cyclicity within 1 month of calving, year, AI season, insemination at detected estrus or timed AI, peri- and postpartum disorders, and calving to first AI interval, were evaluated. Next, we evaluated the economic impact of the success or failure of FSC by comparing the expense associated with reproductive management until conception between cows that did or did not conceive at their first service. Results Cows with BCS <3.0 had a lower probability of conceiving at first insemination (odds ratio [OR] = 0.64, p<0.05) than cows with BCS ≥3.0. Cows inseminated during summer were less likely to conceive (OR = 0.44, p<0.001) than cows inseminated during spring. Cows with peri- or postpartum disorders were less likely to conceive (OR = 0.55, p<0.001) than cows without disorders. Survival curves generated using MedCalc showed an 81 day extension in the mean interval between calving and conception in cows that failed to conceive over those that did conceive at first insemination. Cows failing conceive required additional expenditure on reproductive treatment ($55.40) and other management ($567.00) than cows that conceived at first insemination. Conclusion Lower BCS, hot weather at first insemination, and peri- and postpartum disorders are risk factors limiting FSC, which result in an economic loss of $622.40 per dairy cow

Interpreting positive signs of the supraspinatus test in screening for torn rotator cuff.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the validity of the supraspinatus test as a screening test for detecting torn rotator cuff and to determine what its valuable positive signs were. Both the empty-can test and full-can test were performed on 200 shoulders diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-and in some cases, surgical findings-to have full-thickness or partial-thickness torn rotator cuff s, or no tear in the rotator cuff . During the maneuver, the presence of pain or weakness or both pain and weakness were recorded as positive signs, and the distribution of these signs were analyzed according to the degree of tear. The predictive values were calculated in 2 ways by considering (1) only full-thickness tears as tears and (2) both full- and partial-thickness tears as tears. The 2 tests and the 2 ways of considering partial-thickness tears were compared. Pain and weakness were severity-dependent, and the empty-can test had a higher incidence of pain. The sensitivities of the 2 supraspinatus tests in all positive signs were higher when including partial-thickness tears in the tear group ; however, their specificities were higher when excluding partial-thickness tears. Both pain and weakness were interpretive for the supraspinatus test, and both tests were sensitive to full- and partial- thickness tears and specific for full-thickness tears

DS-ARP: A New Detection Scheme for ARP Spoofing Attacks Based on Routing Trace for Ubiquitous Environments

Despite the convenience, ubiquitous computing suffers from many threats and security risks. Security considerations in the ubiquitous network are required to create enriched and more secure ubiquitous environments. The address resolution protocol (ARP) is a protocol used to identify the IP address and the physical address of the associated network card. ARP is designed to work without problems in general environments. However, since it does not include security measures against malicious attacks, in its design, an attacker can impersonate another host using ARP spoofing or access important information. In this paper, we propose a new detection scheme for ARP spoofing attacks using a routing trace, which can be used to protect the internal network. Tracing routing can find the change of network movement path. The proposed scheme provides high constancy and compatibility because it does not alter the ARP protocol. In addition, it is simple and stable, as it does not use a complex algorithm or impose extra load on the computer system

Improvement of electrolessly gap-filled Cu using 2,2'-dipyridyl and bis-(3-sulfopropyl)-disulfide (SPS)

The use of bis~3-sulfopropyl! disulfide ~SPS! in Cu electroless deposition resulted in Cu bottom-up filling. However, the high accelerating effect of SPS led to a poor electrical property of the film and generated many voids in the film by increasing the surface roughness and causing unstable deposition behavior. The addition of 2,28-dipyridyl together with SPS substantially improved the film quality of the gap-filled Cu maintaining the bottom-up filling behavior. It lowered the film resistivity by approximately 23% and enhanced the crystallinity. No voids were detected in the as-deposited Cu even after annealing

Cu Electroless Deposition onto Ta substrates-Application to Create a Seed Layer for Cu Electrodeposition

Copper electroless deposition ELD was investigated for applications that create a seed layer for Cu electrodeposition. On Pd catalysts formed on the Ta substrates through Sn sensitization–Pd activation, continuous Cu seed layer of 40 nm was electrolessly deposited in a diluted electrolyte. Dilution of the electrolyte enabled the film to make a thin and conformal layer without oxygen incorporation, by which the ELD Cu seed had properties comparable to the physical vapor deposited seed layer regarding surface roughness and resistivity, even after subsequent Cu electrodeposition, and had superior step coverage. Defect-free bottom-up filling by electrodeposition was achieved on these ELD seed layers.This work was supported by KOSEF through the Research Center for Energy Conversion and Storage RCECS , Dongbu Electronics Co. Ltd., and by the Institute of Chemical Processes ICP

Influence of the surface roughness on inner-outer interactions in a turbulent Couette-Poiseuille flow

When rod surface roughness is introduced in a turbulent Couette-Poiseuille flow (CP-flow), it is known that the Reynolds stresses near the centerline decrease due to weakened very-large-scale motions (VLSMs) and roll-cell motions [Lee, Y. M. et al., &quot;Direct numerical simulation of a turbulent Couette-Poiseuille flow with a rod-roughened wall,&quot; Phys. Fluids 30, 105101 (2018)]. In the present study, we examine the origin of the weakened turbulent structures near the centerline in a CP-flow with roughness (CPR-flow) using a dataset from direct numerical simulation. The top-down and bottom-up interactions to organize a CP-flow are very similar to those found in earlier studies in turbulent channel/pipe and boundary layer flows. The circulation of roll-cells in the outer region induces the spanwise congregation of negative streamwise velocity fluctuating structures (u) near the wall, leading to a large-scale ejection into the outer region. This large-scale ejection contributes to the formation of a negative VLSM when two adjacent negative large-scale motions merge, and the VLSM induces the circulation of roll-cell motion due to the pure kinematics. A similar process for the inner-outer interactions is found for a CPR-flow. However, because the impact of the surface roughness suppresses the collective motion of negative u-structures near the surface roughness, strong congregation by roll-cells is observed to occur far from the wall, indicating that relatively few negative u-structures with low strength contribute to the formation of a large-scale ejection for the CPR-flow. The weakened large-scale ejection decreases the strength of the VLSM, resulting in weakened roll-cell motion

Effect of 2-Mercapto-5-benzimidazolesulfonic Acid in Superconformal Cu Electroless Deposition

Superconformal Cu electroless deposition is demonstrated in a CuSO4–EDTA–HCHO (where EDTA is ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) electrolyte containing 2-mercapto-5-benzimidazolesulfonic acid (MBIS). MBIS reveals a concentration-dependent effect in the deposition rate on planar substrates, whereby acceleration at low concentration and suppression at high concentration are evident. The half-cell reaction experiments show that the acceleration effect of MBIS is mainly associated with the cathodic reaction, while MBIS inhibits the oxidation of HCHO in the anodic reaction. The addition of MBIS offers preferential Cu electroless deposition at the bottom of 500 nm wide trenches. Poly(ethylene glycol) improved the surface roughness, maintaining the shape evolution of superconformal feature filling.The authors are grateful to Dr. Thomas P. Moffat at NIST for helpful discussions. This research was supported by the Nano R&D program through the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (no. 2008-02857