Physiological Responses of Hallikar Bullocks for Ploughing Work under Farming Conditions

The study was carried out in eight Hallikar bullocks aged three to five years maintained by the farmers for agricultural work at Manikikere Hosahalli, Tiptur taluk, Tumkur district, Karnataka which comes under the native tract of the breed. The pairs of bullocks were subjected to normal ploughing work followed for the cultivation of ragi crop, a small millet, using country made wooden plough with iron blade attached. Four hours of ploughing work was carried out continuously during morning session. Physiological responses such as heart rate (HR), pulse rate (PR), respiratory rate (RR) per minute, ruminal motility (RM) per five minutes and rectal temperature (RT) in degree Fahrenheit were recorded before and after ploughing work. The mean values at pre work and post work were 66.38±0.42 and 90.75±0.98 for HR, 62.92±0.37 and 88.33±0.99 for PR, 26.46±0.64 and 56.75±1.87 for RR, 4.75±0.14 and 4.33±0.13 for RM and 101.10 ± 0.06 and 103.70±0.10 for RT, respectively. The results showed significant (P<0.05) increase of all the physiological parameters except ruminal motility. It was concluded that the physiological changes during ploughing work could be associated with increased metabolism which is required to provide adequate energy and oxygen to the working muscles and also to dissipate heat. Further, the present study throws some light on the welfare measures to be followed for working animals, such as providing adequate nutrition, drinking water facility, shelter and as well as restricting the working hours to four during morning session

Cerebellar Nuclear Neurons Use Time and Rate Coding to Transmit Purkinje Neuron Pauses

Copyright: © 2015 Sudhakar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are creditedNeurons of the cerebellar nuclei convey the final output of the cerebellum to their targets in various parts of the brain. Within the cerebellum their direct upstream connections originate from inhibitory Purkinje neurons. Purkinje neurons have a complex firing pattern of regular spikes interrupted by intermittent pauses of variable length. How can the cerebellar nucleus process this complex input pattern? In this modeling study, we investigate different forms of Purkinje neuron simple spike pause synchrony and its influence on candidate coding strategies in the cerebellar nuclei. That is, we investigate how different alignments of synchronous pauses in synthetic Purkinje neuron spike trains affect either time-locking or rate-changes in the downstream nuclei. We find that Purkinje neuron synchrony is mainly represented by changes in the firing rate of cerebellar nuclei neurons. Pause beginning synchronization produced a unique effect on nuclei neuron firing, while the effect of pause ending and pause overlapping synchronization could not be distinguished from each other. Pause beginning synchronization produced better time-locking of nuclear neurons for short length pauses. We also characterize the effect of pause length and spike jitter on the nuclear neuron firing. Additionally, we find that the rate of rebound responses in nuclear neurons after a synchronous pause is controlled by the firing rate of Purkinje neurons preceding it.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Search for the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair

A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair t t ¯ H (tt¯H) is presented, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb −1 and 19.7 fb −1 collected in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV respectively. The search is based on the following signatures of the Higgs boson decay: H → hadrons, H → photons, and H → leptons. The results are characterized by an observed t t ¯ H tt¯H signal strength relative to the standard model cross section, μ = σ/σ SM ,under the assumption that the Higgs boson decays as expected in the standard model. The best fit value is μ = 2.8 ± 1.0 for a Higgs boson mass of 125.6 GeV

Measurement of prompt Jψ\psi pair production in pp collisions at \sqrt s = 7 Tev

Production of prompt J/ ψ meson pairs in proton-proton collisions at s s√ = 7 TeV is measured with the CMS experiment at the LHC in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 4.7 fb −1 . The two J/ ψ mesons are fully reconstructed via their decays into μ + μ − pairs. This observation provides for the first time access to the high-transverse-momentum region of J/ ψ pair production where model predictions are not yet established. The total and differential cross sections are measured in a phase space defined by the individual J/ ψ transverse momentum ( p T J/ ψ ) and rapidity (| y J/ ψ |): | y J/ ψ | 6.5 GeV/ c ; 1.2 4.5 GeV/ c . The total cross section, assuming unpolarized prompt J/ ψ pair production is 1.49 ± 0.07 (stat) ±0.13 (syst) nb. Different assumptions about the J/ ψ polarization imply modifications to the cross section ranging from −31% to +27%

Search for neutral color-octet weak-triplet scalar particles in proton-proton collisions at √s= 8TeV

A search for pair production of neutral color-octet weak-triplet scalar particles (Θ0) is performed in processes where one Θ0 decays to a pair of b quark jets and the other to a Z boson plus a jet, with the Z boson decaying to a pair of electrons or muons. The search is performed with data collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at √s = 8TeV. The number of observed events is found to be in agreement with the standard model predictions. The 95% confidence level upper limit on the product of the cross section and branching fraction is obtained as a function of the Θ0 mass. The 95% confidence level lower bounds on the Θ0 mass are found to be 623 and 426 GeV, for two different octo-triplet theoretical scenarios. These are the first direct experimental bounds on particles predicted by the octo-triplet model. © 2015, The Author(s)

Measurement of Z0 decays to hadrons, and a precise determination of the number of neutrino species

We have made a precise measurement of the cross section for e+e--->Z0-->hadrons with the L3 detector at LEP, covering the range from 88.28 to 95.04 GeV. From a fit to the Z0 mass, total width, and the hadronic cross section to be MZ0=91.160 +/- 0.024 (experiment) +/-0.030(LEP) GeV, [Gamma]Z0=2.539+/-0.054 GeV, and [sigma]h(MZ0)=29.5+/-0.7 nb. We also used the fit to the Z0 peak cross section and the width todetermine [Gamma]invisible=0.548+/-0.029 GeV, which corresponds to 3.29+/-0.17 species of light neutrinos. The possibility of four or more neutrino flavors is thus ruled out at the 4[sigma] confidence level.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28683/3/0000500.pd

A measurement of the Z0 leptonic partial widths and the vector and axial vector coupling constants

We have measured the partial widths of the Z0 into lepton pairs, and the forward-backward charge asymmetry for the process e+e--->[mu]+[mu]- using the L3 detector at LEP. We obtain an average [Gamma]ll of 83.0+/-2.1+/-1.1 MeV.From this result and the asymmetry measurement, we extract the values of the vector and axial vector couplings of the Z0 to leptons: grmv=-0.066-0.027+0.046 and grmA= -0.495-0.007+0.007.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/28666/3/0000483.pd

Search for standard model production of four top quarks in the lepton + jets channel in pp collisions at √s = 8 TeV

A search is presented for standard model (SM) production of four top quarks t t ¯ t t ¯ (tt¯tt¯) in pp collisions in the lepton + jets channel. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.6 fb −1 recorded at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC. The expected cross section for SM t t ¯ t t ¯ tt¯tt¯ production is σ t t ¯ t t ¯ S M ≈ 1 f b σSMtt¯tt¯≈1fb . A combination of kinematic reconstruction and multivariate techniques is used to distinguish between the small signal and large background. The data are consistent with expectations of the SM, and an upper limit of 32 fb is set at a 95% confidence level on the cross section for producing four top quarks in the SM, where a limit of 32 ± 17 fb is expected