Genetic parameters for productive and reproductive traits of sows in multiplier farms

Die Reproduktionsleistung ist einer der wichtigen Bestandteile der Sauenproduktivität und ist als ein Schlüsselfaktor anerkannt, der die Effizienz und Wirtschaftlichkeit der Schweineindustrie beeinflusst. Besonders führt dies dazu, die Kapazität von Vermehrungsbetrieben in Kreuzungsprogrammen zu optimieren. Es wird erwartet, dass der ökonomische Wert der Reproduktionsleistung zukünftig zunimmt. Um sowohl Produktions- als auch Reproduktionsleistung von Sauen optimal in Selektionsprogrammen zu kombinieren, sind genaue Schätzungen von Varianz- und Kovarianzkomponenten für alle gemessenen Merkmale notwendig

Application of Ohmic Heating for Accelerating Fish Sauce Fermentation

Fish sauce is a fermented condiment made primarily from anchovies and is popularly used in Asian countries as it provides unique salty and umami flavor. Its consumption is no longer limited to Southeast Asian countries, but extended to Europe, United States and Canada as a condiment in their food. Fish sauce fermentation is a time-consuming process at ambient temperatures and uses endogenous enzymes and microbes to completely degrade proteins to amino acids and/or di-peptides. Therefore, many trials and research efforts have been made to accelerate fermentation by adding exogenous protease or inoculating microbes. However, further research was suggested as there were issues such as undesired off-flavor and aroma, loss of color, and excessive energy consumption when the methods were applied. Therefore, ohmic heating and Pacific whiting were applied in this research to accelerate the fish sauce fermentation and suppress the negative outcomes. Ohmic heating is a heating system that can generate consistent and uniform heat in various heating rates through electrical resistance between two electrodes. Consistent and uniform heat was believed to accelerate the fermentation by increasing endogenous protease activity and microbial activity. Pacific whiting (Merluccius productus) is highly sustainable and abundant in the Pacific Northwest as a marine stewardship council (MSC)-certified species. Although Pacific whiting is cost effective and highly sustainable species, Pacific whiting was not fully utilized until surimi production started in 1991-1992 due to extreme softening of the fillet caused by three major proteases (cathepsin L, cathepsin B, and cathepsin H). However, intense protease activity was believed to accelerate fish sauce fermentation by rapidly degrading proteins during initial stage of fermentation. In addition, Pacific whiting is a gadoid fish which has low histidine, a precursor of histamine, content. Therefore, substituting anchovies, scombroid fish species which contains abundant histidine, with Pacific whiting was believed to lower the histamine content in fish sauce. In our research, Pacific whiting mince containing 25% salt was fermented in either water bath or ohmic heating at various temperatures sequentially for 8 weeks: 25oC for Week 1, 35oC for Week 2, and 55oC for Week 3 to 8. Different temperature conditions were applied for ohmic heating and water bath to provide optimum conditions for three major proteases in Pacific whiting (cathepsin L, B and H) and to mimic conventional heating method. Although identical temperature and incubation time were provided for both water bath sample and ohmic heating sample, a significant difference was found between the two samples. Brownness, taste value, and overall nitrogen content were significantly higher with ohmic heating than those with water bath (p < 0.05). The difference was hypothesized to be due to electroporation and uniform heat penetration by ohmic heating. Regardless of heating methods, Pacific whiting fish sauce demonstrated significantly lower histamine content when compared with commercial fish sauce made with anchovies (p < 0.05). This study discovered that ohmic heating can be utilized for fish sauce production as it significantly accelerates fermentation and add a value to the utilization of protease-laden Pacific whiting

Lack of Association between Polymorphisms of the Dopamine Receptor D4 and Dopamine Transporter Genes and Personality Traits in a Korean Population

Human personality traits have a considerable genetic component. Cloninger et al. were the first to postulate that certain personality traits, such as novelty seeking, are related to the dopamine neurotransmitter system. In this study, we investigated the associations between dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) exon III and dopamine transporter (DAT1) polymorphisms and personality traits. The DRD4 and DAT1 gene polymorphisms were genotyped in 214 healthy Korean subjects, whose personality traits were assessed with the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). There were no significant differences between scores of TCI temperament dimensions (novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence) and DRD4 gene polymorphism. The DAT1 gene polymorphisms also showed no significant association with any of the temperament subscales of the TCI. These data suggest that DRD4 and DAT1 gene polymorphism may not associated with personality traits in a Korean population

MetaMix: Meta-state Precision Searcher for Mixed-precision Activation Quantization

Mixed-precision quantization of efficient networks often suffer from activation instability encountered in the exploration of bit selections. To address this problem, we propose a novel method called MetaMix which consists of bit selection and weight training phases. The bit selection phase iterates two steps, (1) the mixed-precision-aware weight update, and (2) the bit-search training with the fixed mixed-precision-aware weights, both of which combined reduce activation instability in mixed-precision quantization and contribute to fast and high-quality bit selection. The weight training phase exploits the weights and step sizes trained in the bit selection phase and fine-tunes them thereby offering fast training. Our experiments with efficient and hard-to-quantize networks, i.e., MobileNet v2 and v3, and ResNet-18 on ImageNet show that our proposed method pushes the boundary of mixed-precision quantization, in terms of accuracy vs. operations, by outperforming both mixed- and single-precision SOTA methods

A study on mechanical properties of natural gas pipe material in high pressure hydrogen gas environment

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Unmanned aerial vehicle remotely sensed datasets, a reference dataset for coastal topography change and shoreline analysis

To analyze tendency of temporal and spatial change of coast using long-term topography and shoreline change data is important. In this study, high-resolution digital elevation model and orthorectified image data were generated using rotary-wing UAV(unmanned aerial vehicle) system for coastal topography and shoreline change analysis. The UAV system has advantage of low cost and high efficiency compared to satellite remote sensing platform so UAV system easily acquire time series image data. The spatial resolution of generated digital elevation model and orthorectified images are very high, in centimeter. Therefore, the above image data can be used in various fields of remote sensing and geography such as detailed coastal topography

CSGM Designer: a platform for designing cross-species intron-spanning genic markers linked with genome information of legumes.

BackgroundGenetic markers are tools that can facilitate molecular breeding, even in species lacking genomic resources. An important class of genetic markers is those based on orthologous genes, because they can guide hypotheses about conserved gene function, a situation that is well documented for a number of agronomic traits. For under-studied species a key bottleneck in gene-based marker development is the need to develop molecular tools (e.g., oligonucleotide primers) that reliably access genes with orthology to the genomes of well-characterized reference species.ResultsHere we report an efficient platform for the design of cross-species gene-derived markers in legumes. The automated platform, named CSGM Designer (URL: http://tgil.donga.ac.kr/CSGMdesigner), facilitates rapid and systematic design of cross-species genic markers. The underlying database is composed of genome data from five legume species whose genomes are substantially characterized. Use of CSGM is enhanced by graphical displays of query results, which we describe as "circular viewer" and "search-within-results" functions. CSGM provides a virtual PCR representation (eHT-PCR) that predicts the specificity of each primer pair simultaneously in multiple genomes. CSGM Designer output was experimentally validated for the amplification of orthologous genes using 16 genotypes representing 12 crop and model legume species, distributed among the galegoid and phaseoloid clades. Successful cross-species amplification was obtained for 85.3% of PCR primer combinations.ConclusionCSGM Designer spans the divide between well-characterized crop and model legume species and their less well-characterized relatives. The outcome is PCR primers that target highly conserved genes for polymorphism discovery, enabling functional inferences and ultimately facilitating trait-associated molecular breeding

Red tide dataset in the waters around the Korean Peninsula

Red tide blooms are increasing worldwide. Since 1995, Margalefidium polykrikoides blooms have occurred frequently in the waters around the Korean Peninsula. These blooms generally appear first on the South Sea of Korea in summer. When they occur on a large scale, they extend to the East Sea of Korea and the West Sea of Korea, causing great damage to fisheries and marine ecosystems. Harmless red tide can also adversely affect the environment of the waters by causing oxygen depletion in waters when occurring at high density. Currently, the National Institute of Fisheries Science (NIFS) is providing the daily red tide report based on M. polykrikoides red tide species. This report contains red tide species, location, and cell abundance information, but is limited to use as cell abundance data based on exact location. In addition, the waters around the Korean peninsula have different characteristics, so that the optical characteristics and seawater environment are different for each water. In the East Sea in Aug. 2013, the West Sea in Aug. 2016, the South Sea in Aug. 2018, and the South Sea in Aug. and Sep. 2019, during red tide season, dataset were obtained for red tide cell abundance, spectrum, chlorophyll concentration, and suspended particulate matter concentration. Noctiluca scintillans species were observed in the field survey conducted in 2016, and M. polykrikoides was mainly found in the other field surveys. Location-based red tide cell abundance data and seawater environment information obtained during red tide occurrence will be useful data for the construction of red tide warning system to reduce damage due to red tide blooms

Pattern of distant recurrence according to the molecular subtypes in Korean women with breast cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Distant recurrence is one of the most important risk factors in overall survival, and distant recurrence is related to a complex biologic interaction of seed and soil factors. The aim of the study was to investigate the association between the molecular subtypes and patterns of distant recurrence in patients with breast cancer.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In an investigation of 313 women with breast cancer who underwent surgery from 1994 and 2000, the expressions of estrogen and progestrone receptor (ER/PR), and human epithelial receptor-2 (HER2) were evaluated. The subtypes were defined as luminal-A, luminal-HER2, HER2-enriched, and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) according to ER, PR, and HER2 status.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Bone was the most common site of distant recurrence. The incidence of first distant recurrence site was significantly different among the subtypes. Brain metastasis was more frequent in the luminal-HER2 and TNBC subtypes. In subgroup analysis, overall survival in patients with distant recurrence after 24 months after surgery was significantly different among the subtypes.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Organ-specific metastasis may depend on the molecular subtype of breast cancer. Tailored strategies against distant metastasis concerning the molecular subtypes in breast cancer may be considered.</p