The use of electrochemically activated saline as a uterine instillation in pony mares

Twelve pony mares were randomly assigned to either a control or a treatment group and inseminated with fresh, raw semen from a single stallion of known fertility in a cross-over trial design. Pregnancy was diagnosed by transrectal ultrasound 12-14 days post-ovulation and then terminated by administration of a luteolytic dose of cloprostenol. Treatment mares received a uterine instillation of 100 m of electrochemically activated (ECA) saline 4-12 hours post-insemination. Control mares received no treatment post-insemination. Per cycle pregnancy rate was 58.3 % in the control group and 50 % in the treatment group. There was no statistical difference (P = 1.000) in pregnancy rate between the 2 groups. The principles of ECA and applications of ECA saline are discussed

The presence of endotoxin activity in cases of experimentally-induced heartwater in sheep

The presence of endotoxin was examined in 5 sheep with experimentally-induced heartwater. Two peaks in endotoxin levels were recorded in 4 out of the 5 sheep during the acute stage of the disease. The 1st peak coincided with or occurred shortly after the febrile reaction (over 40 °C). The 2nd peak occurred 3-5 days after the 1st, and in 2 sheep this 2nd elevation in endotoxin levels was associated with severe clinical signs (rapid and laboured breathing, cyanosis and recumbency), and 1 of the 2 sheep died on the day of the 2nd elevation. Both endotoxin peaks were of short duration and levels had decreased in the 24-h follow-up samples.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat XI Pro was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.lmchunu2014mn201

On the complexity of strongly connected components in directed hypergraphs

We study the complexity of some algorithmic problems on directed hypergraphs and their strongly connected components (SCCs). The main contribution is an almost linear time algorithm computing the terminal strongly connected components (i.e. SCCs which do not reach any components but themselves). "Almost linear" here means that the complexity of the algorithm is linear in the size of the hypergraph up to a factor alpha(n), where alpha is the inverse of Ackermann function, and n is the number of vertices. Our motivation to study this problem arises from a recent application of directed hypergraphs to computational tropical geometry. We also discuss the problem of computing all SCCs. We establish a superlinear lower bound on the size of the transitive reduction of the reachability relation in directed hypergraphs, showing that it is combinatorially more complex than in directed graphs. Besides, we prove a linear time reduction from the well-studied problem of finding all minimal sets among a given family to the problem of computing the SCCs. Only subquadratic time algorithms are known for the former problem. These results strongly suggest that the problem of computing the SCCs is harder in directed hypergraphs than in directed graphs.Comment: v1: 32 pages, 7 figures; v2: revised version, 34 pages, 7 figure

Measuring the Initial Mass Function of Low Mass Stars and Brown Dwarfs

I review efforts to determine the form and any lower limit to the initial mass function in the Galactic disk, using observations of low-mass stars and brown dwarfs in the field, young clusters and star forming regions. I focus on the methodologies that have been used and the uncertainties that exist due to observational limitations and to systematic uncertainties in calibrations and theoretical models. I conclude that whilst it is possible that the low-mass IMFs deduced from the field and most young clusters are similar, there are too many problems to be sure; there are examples of low-mass cluster IMFs that appear to be very discrepant and the IMFs for brown dwarfs in the field and young clusters have yet to be reconciled convincingly.Comment: From a series of lectures presented at the Evry-Schatzman school on Low-mass stars and the transition from stars to brown dwarfs, edited by C. Charbonnel, C. Reyle, M. Schultheis. To appear in the EAS Conference Series. 47p

Magnetic and structural properties of Mg–Co nanostructures fabricated

Reductive chemical synthesis is a versatile tool for fabricating elemental nanostructures; however, less work has been completed on understanding and controlling alloy formation. Magnetic Mg–Co and Mg–Co–C nanocomposites have been fabricated using a reductive chemical synthesis designed to produce highly active metals. The as-synthesized powder was annealed at temperatures from 150 to 650 °C. Samples were investigated using x-ray diffraction, alternating gradient force magnetometry, and superconducting quantum interference device magnetometry. X-ray diffraction indicates that the resulting structures are multiphase with MgCo2, MgCo3C0. 5, fcc Co, Mg, MgO, and Li2CO3 present depending on annealing temperature. The temperature-dependent magnetization of the as-synthesized sample indicates ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic or ferrimagnetic contributions. Increases in coercivity and remanance ratio with increasing annealing temperature are consistent with the formation and growth of small Co grains