Performance of mid-lactating dairy cows fed a grain sorghum-soybean silage base diet

Whole-plant silage from intercropped grain sorghum and Williams 82 soybean was compared to corn silage in a mixed diet for mid-lactation dairy cows. Cows fed the grain sorghum-soybean silage yielded 45.13 lb and those fed corn silage yielded 44.05 lb of fat (4%)-corrected milk daily. Milk yield, milk fat, and milk lactose percentages were similar between cows fed the two silages. Protein and solids non-fat percentages for the cows fed the corn silage diet were .09 and .06 units greater than those of cows fed the grain sorghum silage. Cows fed the corn silage tended to gain more (+105.8 lb) than those fed the grain sorghum-soybean silage (+95.2 lb). We conclude that, if the cost for producing intercropped grain sorghum and soybean silage (ton/acre) is at least similar to that of producing corn silage, the intercropped grain sorghum and soybean silage can be substituted for corn silage in a mid-lactation dairy cow diet

The ecology of herbivore-induced silicon defences in grasses

Silicon as a defence against herbivory in grasses has gained increasing recognition and has now been studied in a wide range of species, at scales from individual plants in pots to plant communities in the field. The impacts of these defences have been assessed on herbivores ranging from insects to rodents to ungulates. Here, we review current knowledge of silicon mediation of plant-herbivore interactions in an ecological context. The production of silicon defences by grasses is affected by both abiotic and biotic factors and by their interactions. Climate, soil type and water availability all influence levels of silicon uptake, as does plant phenology and previous herbivory. The type of defoliation matters and artificial clipping does not appear to have the same impact on silicon defence induction as herbivory which includes the presence of saliva. Induction of silicon defences has been demonstrated to require a threshold level of damage, both in the laboratory and in the field. In recent studies of vole-plant interactions, the patterns of induction were found to be quantitatively similar in glasshouse compared with field experiments, in terms of both the threshold required for induction and timing of the induction response. The impacts of silicon defences differ between different classes of herbivore, possibly reflecting differences in body size, feeding behaviour and digestive physiology. General patterns are hard to discern however, and a greater number of studies on wild mammalian herbivores are required to elucidate these, particularly with an inclusion of major groups for which there are currently no data, one such example being marsupials. We highlight new research areas to address what still remains unclear about the role of silicon as a plant defence, particularly in relation to plant-herbivore interactions in the field, where the effects of grazing on defence induction are harder to measure. We discuss the obstacles inherent in scaling up laboratory work to landscape-scale studies, the most ecologically relevant but most difficult to carry out, which is the next challenge in silicon ecology

Recovery of strength after reduced pediatric fractures of the forearm, wrist or hand; A prospective study

INTRODUCTION: The way strength recovers after reduction of pediatric fractures of the upper extremity has not previously been the specific scope of research. This is remarkable, since strength measurements are often used as an outcome measure in studies on trauma of the upper extremity. The aim of this study was to evaluate how strength recovers after sustainment of fractures of the forearm, wrist or hand treated by closed or open reduction in children and adolescents in the first 6 months after trauma. How much strength is lost at 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after trauma, and is this loss significant? Are there differences in the pattern of recovery between children who underwent a different treatment? And finally, which of the following factors are associated with an increase in the ratio between affected grip strength and expected strength: type of fracture, cast immobilization, occurrence of complications, and degree of pain? DESIGN: Prospective observational study. PARTICIPANTS: Children and adolescents aged 4-18 years with a reduced fracture of the forearm, wrist or hand. METHODS: Grip strength, key grip and three-jaw chuck grip were measured twice in each hand 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after trauma. Details on fracture type and location, treatment received, cast immobilization and complications were obtained. Hand-dominance and pain were verbally confirmed. RESULTS: Loss of strength was more prominent and prolonged the more invasive the treatment, hence most extensive in the group receiving open reduction with internal fixation (ORIF), intermediate in the group receiving closed reduction with percutaneous pinning (CRIF), and least extensive in the group undergoing closed reduction without internal fixation (CR). Besides time passed, gender and age were of significant influence on strength, although there was no difference in pattern of recovery over time between children who received a different treatment. In the period of 6 weeks to 3 months after trauma, female gender, type of fracture sustained and occurrence of an unwanted event were associated with an increased ratio between affected and expected grip strength. For the later phase of recovery, between 3 and 6 months, this was only true for the occurrence of an unwanted event

The golden circle: A way of arguing and acting about technology in the London ambulance service

This paper analyses the way in which the London Ambulance Service recovered from the events of October 1992, when it implemented a computer-aided despatch system (LASCAD) that remained in service for less than two weeks. It examines the enactment of a programme of long-term organizational change, focusing on the implementation of an alternative computer system in 1996. The analysis in this paper is informed by actor-network theory, both by an early statement of this approach developed by Callon in the sociology of translation, and also by concepts and ideas from Latour’s more recent restatement of his own position. The paper examines how alternative interests emerged and were stabilized over time, in a way of arguing and acting among key players in the change programme, christened the Golden Circle. The story traces four years in the history of the London Ambulance Service, from the aftermath of October 1992 through the birth of the Golden Circle to the achievement of National Health Service (NHS) trust status. LASCAD was the beginning of the story, this is the middle, an end lies in the future, when the remaining elements of the change programme are enacted beyond the Golden Circle

Towards Transparent Linguistic Analysis of Dutch Newspaper Article Genres using Machine Learning

Systematic study of genre in newspapers sheds light on the development of journalism discourse. The genre conventions that can be discerned in a newspaper text signal the underlying discursive norms and practices of journalism as a profession. Historical newspapers are increasingly becoming available thanks to digital newspaper archives (in the Netherlands available through Delpher.nl), providing the opportunity for large-scale empirical research. However, the digital archives do not contain fine-grained genre information that is required for this purpose. Therefore, we use machine learning to automatically assign genre labels to newspaper articles.Machine learning facilitates substantial improvements to the outcomes of existing research by providing increased amounts of enriched data. However, the decision-making process of the machine learning pipeline needs to be verified. Our previous findings (Bilgin et al., 2018) show that accuracy scores alone are not enough to assess the performance of these pipelines and that making an informed choice not only empowers optimal study of the historical development of genre, but also increases the trustworthiness of the results. This work shows that employing a transparent approach driven by model interpretability facilitates fair comparison as well as validation of the underlying decision-making criteria of the machine learning pipelines. The criteria are presented in the form of important features, creating insights on interactions between genre-related linguistic features and bag-of-words features.</p

Ensuring meiotic DNA break formation in the mouse pseudoautosomal region

In mice, the pseudoautosomal region of the sex chromosomes undergoes a dynamic structural rearrangement to promote a high rate of DNA double-strand breaks and to ensure X-Y recombination. Sex chromosomes in males of most eutherian mammals share only a small homologous segment, the pseudoautosomal region (PAR), in which the formation of double-strand breaks (DSBs), pairing and crossing over must occur for correct meiotic segregation(1,2). How cells ensure that recombination occurs in the PAR is unknown. Here we present a dynamic ultrastructure of the PAR and identify controlling cis- and trans-acting factors that make the PAR the hottest segment for DSB formation in the male mouse genome. Before break formation, multiple DSB-promoting factors hyperaccumulate in the PAR, its chromosome axes elongate and the sister chromatids separate. These processes are linked to heterochromatic mo-2 minisatellite arrays, and require MEI4 and ANKRD31 proteins but not the axis components REC8 or HORMAD1. We propose that the repetitive DNA sequence of the PAR confers unique chromatin and higher-order structures that are crucial for recombination. Chromosome synapsis triggers collapse of the elongated PAR structure and, notably, oocytes can be reprogrammed to exhibit spermatocyte-like levels of DSBs in the PAR simply by delaying or preventing synapsis. Thus, the sexually dimorphic behaviour of the PAR is in part a result of kinetic differences between the sexes in a race between the maturation of the PAR structure, formation of DSBs and completion of pairing and synapsis. Our findings establish a mechanistic paradigm for the recombination of sex chromosomes during meiosis.Peer reviewe

Update of the FANTOM web resource: from mammalian transcriptional landscape to its dynamic regulation

The international Functional Annotation Of the Mammalian Genomes 4 (FANTOM4) research collaboration set out to better understand the transcriptional network that regulates macrophage differentiation and to uncover novel components of the transcriptome employing a series of high-throughput experiments. The primary and unique technique is cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE), sequencing mRNA 5′-ends with a second-generation sequencer to quantify promoter activities even in the absence of gene annotation. Additional genome-wide experiments complement the setup including short RNA sequencing, microarray gene expression profiling on large-scale perturbation experiments and ChIP–chip for epigenetic marks and transcription factors. All the experiments are performed in a differentiation time course of the THP-1 human leukemic cell line. Furthermore, we performed a large-scale mammalian two-hybrid (M2H) assay between transcription factors and monitored their expression profile across human and mouse tissues with qRT-PCR to address combinatorial effects of regulation by transcription factors. These interdependent data have been analyzed individually and in combination with each other and are published in related but distinct papers. We provide all data together with systematic annotation in an integrated view as resource for the scientific community (http://fantom.gsc.riken.jp/4/). Additionally, we assembled a rich set of derived analysis results including published predicted and validated regulatory interactions. Here we introduce the resource and its update after the initial release