Evaluating Measures of Core Inflation

Since the Bank of Canada adopted inflation targeting in 1991, it has focused on a measure of core inflation as a shorter-term guide for monetary policy. When the targets were renewed in 2001, the Bank adopted CPIX as its measure of core inflation because of the advantages it offered. Leflèche and Armour review the experience with CPIX and whether the criteria used to select it in 2001 still favour the measure today. They describe the various measures of core inflation monitored by the Bank and evaluate them on the basis of the volatility of the components, the volatility of the core measures themselves, absence of bias relative to total CPI, predictive power, and certain practical criteria, including timeliness and credibility. They conclude that CPIX still satisfies all the empirical and practical criteria.

Paleogenomics of Animal Domestication

Starting with dogs, over 15,000 years ago, the domestication of animals has been central in the development of modern societies. Because of its importance for a range of disciplines—including archaeology, biology, and the humanities—domestication has been studied extensively. This chapter reviews how the field of paleogenomics, has, and will continue to, revolutionise our understanding of animal domestication. We discuss how the recovery of ancient DNA from archaeological remains is allowing researchers to overcome inherent shortcomings arising from the analysis of modern DNA alone. In particular, we show how DNA, extracted from ancient substrates, has proven to be a crucial source of information to reconstruct the geographic and temporal origin of domestic species. We also discuss how ancient DNA is being used by geneticists and archaeologists to directly observe evolutionary changes linked to artificial and natural selection to generate a richer understanding of this fascinating process

A genetic perspective on the domestication continuum

For the sake of simplicity, genetic studies have generally modelled domestication within a framework of strong bottlenecks (also called founder events), reproductive isolation between wild and domestic populations and strong artificial selection. New DNA sequencing technologies have realised the potential to sequence whole genomes of hundreds of individuals, thus providing ever greater degrees of resolution (and hence, power) to address the importance of intentionality and the degree to which it can be generalized across species. Here, we first discuss how genetics can be leveraged to address these issues and before reviewing the degree to which genetic evidence supports different models. We conclude that even the most recent studies have only begun to realise of the enormous potential of genomes as a window into domestication. An interesting trend is nevertheless emerging: domestication is highly species specific. Bottlenecks, reproductive isolation, and strong selection are by no means ubiquitous features, but rather linked to species (and even region) specific pathways of domestication

Small-Scale Family Poultry Production As A Substantial Source Of Animal Protein In Selected Local Government Areas In Rivers State

A survey was conducted through structured questionnaires to find out consumers’ preference for local chicken, its production and consumption in khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme Local Government Areas (LGAs) making up the Ogoni kingdom in Rivers State, Nigeria. The data collected were analyzed using frequency counts, percentages and ranking. The result showed that the 3 most available and preferred species of poultry were local chicken (47.5%), layer birds (21.9%) and broilers (17.5%). Most of the respondents agreed that although productivity of local fowl had fallen compared to the last 5 years, chicken meat was still popular, more available for sales and a relatively cheap source of meat and eggs for rural dwellers. The major reason given for reduced productivity was rural-urban drift in search of education and paid jobs. It is therefore believed that a sensitization campaign aimed at encouraging small and medium scale local chicken production organized by government agencies and/or nongovernmental organizations will be a sure way of increasing animal protein supply, generate employment opportunities for youths and women, increase income, alleviate poverty, reducerural-urban drift and enhance rural livelihood in Ogoni are

Animal domestication in the era of ancient genomics

The domestication of animals led to a major shift in human subsistence patterns, from a hunter–gatherer to a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, which ultimately resulted in the development of complex societies. Over the past 15,000 years, the phenotype and genotype of multiple animal species, such as dogs, pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and horses, have been substantially altered during their adaptation to the human niche. Recent methodological innovations, such as improved ancient DNA extraction methods and next-generation sequencing, have enabled the sequencing of whole ancient genomes. These genomes have helped reconstruct the process by which animals entered into domestic relationships with humans and were subjected to novel selection pressures. Here, we discuss and update key concepts in animal domestication in light of recent contributions from ancient genomics

Rabbits and the Specious Origins of Domestication

Rabbits are commonly thought to have been domesticated in ∼AD600 by French monks. Using historical and archaeological records, and genetic methods, we demonstrate that this is a misconception and the general inability to date domestication stems from both methodological biases and the lack of appreciation of domestication as a continuum

Inferring Bottlenecks from Genome-Wide Samples of Short Sequence Blocks

The advent of the genomic era has necessitated the development of methods capable of analyzing large volumes of genomic data efficiently. Being able to reliably identify bottlenecks—extreme population size changes of short duration—not only is interesting in the context of speciation and extinction but also matters (as a null model) when inferring selection. Bottlenecks can be detected in polymorphism data via their distorting effect on the shape of the underlying genealogy. Here, we use the generating function of genealogies to derive the probability of mutational configurations in short sequence blocks under a simple bottleneck model. Given a large number of nonrecombining blocks, we can compute maximum-likelihood estimates of the time and strength of the bottleneck. Our method relies on a simple summary of the joint distribution of polymorphic sites. We extend the site frequency spectrum by counting mutations in frequency classes in short sequence blocks. Using linkage information over short distances in this way gives greater power to detect bottlenecks than the site frequency spectrum and potentially opens up a wide range of demographic histories to blockwise inference. Finally, we apply our method to genomic data from a species of pig (Sus cebifrons) endemic to islands in the center and west of the Philippines to estimate whether a bottleneck occurred upon island colonization and compare our scheme to Li and Durbin’s pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent (PSMC) both for the pig data and using simulations. © 2015 by the Genetics Society of America

Microtensile bond strengths of composite to dentin treated with desensitizer products

Purpose: This study was designed to analyze the influence of desensitizing procedures on dentin bond strength. Materials and Methods: Forty bovine incisors were used, divided into four groups (n = 10): G1: control; G2: Gluma Desensitizer (Heraeus Kulzer); G3: Oxa-Gel (Art-Dent); G4: low-intensity laser (MMOptics). The buccal surface was wet ground flat with 180-, 400- and 600-grit silicon carbide abrasive paper to expose midcoronal dentin and create a uniform surface. After the application of the desensitizing agents to the exposed dentin, the specimens were etched with 35% phosphoric acid for 30 s, and an adhesive (Single Bond) was applied and light cured. A 4-mm high crown of composite resin (Filtek Z250) was then built up. Specimens were trimmed to an hourglass shape with cross sections of 1 mm(2). Each specimen was individually fractured by a microtensile testing machine at a crosshead speed of 0.5 mm/min. The data, recorded in MPa, were analyzed with one-way ANOVA and the Duncan test (p = 0.05). Results: Specimens treated with dentin desensitizers (except Gluma) yielded significantly lower mean bond strengths than nontreated control specimens. The mean values in MPa ( +/- SD) were: G1: 13.4 (6.2); G2: 13.2 (4.8); G3: 7.15 (4.3); G4: 7.21 (4.6). Conclusions: Among the desensitizing agents studied, only Gluma Desensitizer did not detrimentally influence the bond strength values. It is a useful material for dentin desensitization.82859