Genetic Analyses of Reproductive Traits in Maternal Lines of Rabbits and in their Diallel Cross / Análisis Genético de Caracteres Reproductivos en Líneas Maternales de Conejo y en su Cruzamiento Dialélico

La producción ganadera es una de las actividades económicas más importantes de los países integrantes del Mercosur (Argentina, Brasil, Paraguay y Uruguay). Para Uruguay en particular, representa una de las fuentes de ingresos de divisas más importantes con exportaciones a múltiples mercados en todo el mundo. En los últimos años han crecido a nivel internacional las exigencias en materia de las condiciones de producción de los productos derivados de la ganadería, con especial énfasis en los temas medioambientales y de bienestar animal. En este sentido, el trabajo realizado en la presente tesis pretende realizar aportes en la caracterización de diferentes sistemas de producción desde el punto de vista productivo, de comportamiento y bienestar animal, así como de aspectos medioambientales. Para ello se realizaron trabajos en dos diferentes especies, bovinos y porcinos, y en diferentes sistemas de producción. Los dos primeros capítulos corresponden a tres sistemas de producción de bovinos con diferentes grados de intensificación: uno con animales en confinamiento permanente, un sistema exclusivamente pastoril y un sistema intermedio que combina confinamiento y pastoreo por seis horas. En ellos se caracterizan aspectos productivos, se establece los patrones de uso del tiempo, las tendencias diarias en cada comportamiento y la asociación de los mismos con las condiciones ambientales. Paralelamente se cuantifican las interacciones sociales en los diferentes sistemas, y varios indicadores fisiológicos y sus posibles implicaciones en el bienestar animal. En los restantes dos capítulos se analizan dos sistemas opuestos de producción de cerdos: uno tradicional con cerdos en confinamiento y un sistema alternativo con cerdos al aire libre con acceso a pasturas. Estos sistemas se caracterizan en los aspectos medioambientales, productivos y características de la carne resultante. Además se realiza una caracterización de los aspectos de comportamiento general y comportamiento sociRagab Ghanem, MM. (2012). Genetic Analyses of Reproductive Traits in Maternal Lines of Rabbits and in their Diallel Cross / Análisis Genético de Caracteres Reproductivos en Líneas Maternales de Conejo y en su Cruzamiento Dialélico [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/16187Palanci

Productive characteristics of four maternal lines of rabbit

The objective of this study was to compare litter size traits and kindling interval in four Spanish maternal lines of rabbit (A, V, H y LP) selected for litter size at weaning. At the origin, line V had a higher litter size (total, alive, weaned and marketed) than line A. Also, LP and H lines had higher litter sizes than line A.Ragab Ghanem, MM. (2009). Productive characteristics of four maternal lines of rabbit. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/14404Archivo delegad

A Framework for Secure Group Key Management

The need for secure group communication is increasingly evident in a wide variety of governmental, commercial, and Internet communities. Secure group key management is concerned with the methods of issuing and distributing group keys, and the management of those keys over a period of time. To provide perfect secrecy, a central group key manager (GKM) has to perform group rekeying for every join or leave request. Fast rekeying is crucial to an application\u27s performance that has large group size, experiences frequent joins and leaves, or where the GKM is hosted by a group member. Examples of such applications are interactive military simulation, secure video and audio broadcasting, and secure peer-to-peer networks. Traditionally, the rekeying is performed periodically for the batch of requests accumulated during an inter-rekey period. The use of a logical key hierarchy (LKH) by a GKM has been introduced to provide scalable rekeying. If the GKM maintains a LKH of degree d and height h, such that the group size n ≤ dh, and the batch size is R requests, a rekeying requires the GKM to regenerate O(R × h) keys and to perform O(d × R × h) keys encryptions for the new keys distribution. The LKH approach provided a GKM rekeying cost that scales to the logarithm of the group size, however, the number of encryptions increases with increased LKH degree, LKH height, or the batch size. In this dissertation, we introduce a framework for scalable and efficient secure group key management that outperforms the original LKH approach. The framework has six components as follows. First, we present a software model for providing secure group key management that is independent of the application, the security mechanism, and the communication protocol. Second, we focus on a LKH-based GKM and introduce a secure key distribution technique, in which a rekeying requires the GKM to regenerate O( R × h) keys. Instead of encryption, we propose a novel XOR-based key distribution technique, namely XORBP, which performs an XOR operation between keys, and uses random byte patterns (BPs) to distribute the key material in the rekey message to guard against insider attacks. Our experiments show that the XORBP LKH approach substantially reduces a rekeying computation effort by more than 90%. Third, we propose two novel LKH batch rekeying protocols . The first protocol maintains a balanced LKH (B+-LKH) while the other maintains an unbalanced LKH (S-LKH). If a group experiences frequent leaves, keys are deleted form the LKH and maintaining a balanced LKH becomes crucial to the rekeying\u27s process performance. In our experiments, the use of a B+-LKH by a GKM, compared to a S-LKH, is shown to substantially reduce the number of LKH nodes (i.e., storage), and the number of regenerated keys per a rekeying by more than 50%. Moreover, the B +-LKH performance is shown to be bounded with increased group dynamics. Fourth, we introduce a generalized rekey policy that can be used to provide periodic rekeying as well as other versatile rekeying conditions. Fifth, to support distributed group key management, we identify four distributed group-rekeying protocols between a set of peer rekey agents. Finally, we discuss a group member and a GKM\u27s recovery after a short failure time

Study of some physicochemical parameters in the water Of El-Bagouria Canal at El-Menoufia Governorate, Egypt

Background: Environmental pollution is one of the most serious problems facing humanity in the 20th century and still require great efforts at all levels. This is especially rivers are the main sources for drinking and irrigation.Objective: The present study was aimed to investigate some physicochemical parameters in the water at different sites of El-Bagouria Canal, El-Menoufia Governorate during the period of study.Materials and methods: Water samples were collected seasonally from the four stations during the year and stored for the final examination. Environmental factors and heavy metals concentrations were determined by using specific methods.Results: Spring showed the highest value of pH and turbidity, while autumn and winter showed the highest levels of electric conductivity, total dissolved solids, and chloride. However, alkalinity and total hardness were peaked during autumn. Statistically, there is strong positive correlation between pH, alkalinity with water temperatures, turbidity, (TDS) and total hardness with pH. The results indicated that the maximum levels of the concentrations of studied heavy metals in water were recorded during the hot season compared to the cold seasons. Correlation coefficient indicated that, a positive correlation between cadmium concentration in the water with lead, plus positive correlation between lead, copper with iron were present.Conclusion: It could be concluded that increased levels of physicochemical factors and heavy metal concentrations may pose a high risk to aquatic organisms and human health. So, the present study shows that precautionary measures must be taken to reduce pollution at the freshwater canals in the future

Genetic, metabolic, and histopathological studies of particle -associated respiratory alterations

Cytochrome P450s (CYPs) form a superfamily of enzymes crucial for the oxidative metabolism of a wide variety of endogenous and exogenous (xenobiotic) compounds. Cytochrome P4501A1 (CYP1A1) is a member of the CYP1A subfamily that is involved in pulmonary carcinogenesis. CYP1A1 metabolizes polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), such as benzo[a]pyrene in cigarette smoke into DNA-binding reactive metabolites resulting in gene mutation and carcinogenesis. Silicosis and coal workers\u27 pneumoconiosis (CWP) are two pulmonary diseases associated with occupational exposure to silica and coal dust (CD), respectively. Most coal miners are smokers or ex-smokers and epidemiologic studies of coal dust carcinogenesis are confounded by the presence of both cigarette smoke and respirable particles. To clarify the nature of this interaction, we investigated the hypotheses that (1) CYP1A1 induction and activity (EROD) are inhibited by CD and silica. (2) CYP1A1 inhibition by particle exposure is associated with changes in the cellular populations in the exposed lung. Western blot analysis, immunofluorescent-labeling, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid analysis, biochemical assays, and histopathology were used to evaluate our hypotheses. Because of a current debate about using the rat to extrapolate particle-induced pulmonary alterations to humans, the rabbit silicosis and sheep CWP model, were also used. The results indicate that (1) CYP1A1 induction and its metabolic activity (EROD) were suppressed by CD exposure in rats and sheep; and by silica in rabbits; (2) CYP1A1 expression was reduced in alveolar epithelial cells by CD or silica exposure; (3) silica and CD increased the size (hypertrophy) and number (hyperplasia) of alveolar type II cell with reduction of CYP1A1 expression in these cells; (4) CD particles induced dose-dependent pulmonary inflammation, manifested by recruitment of alveolar macrophages and polymorphonuclear leucocytes; (5) CD particles induced the preapoptotic Bax protein expression in alveolar epithelial cells and triggered apoptosis; (6) inhibition of apoptosis and Bax by the caspase inhibitor, Q-VD-OPH, did not alter CYP1A1 induction; (7) suppression of CYP1A1 induction was associated with pulmonary inflammation. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that CYP1A1 induction and its metabolic activity are inhibited by particle exposure and associated with pulmonary inflammation

Wrinkles Riding Waves in Soft Layered Materials

The formation of periodic wrinkles in soft layered materials due to mechanical instabilities is prevalent in nature and has been proposed for use in multiple applications. However, such phenomena have been explored predominantly in quasi-static settings. In this work, we measure the dynamics of soft elastomeric blocks with stiff surface films subjected to high-speed impact, and observe wrinkles forming along with, and riding upon, waves propagating through the system. We analyze our measurements with large-deformation, nonlinear visco-hyperelastic Finite Element simulations coupled to an analytical wrinkling model. The comparison between the measured and simulated dynamics shows good agreement, and suggests that inertia and viscoelasticity play an important role. This work encourages future studies of the dynamics of surface instabilities in soft materials, including large-deformation, highly nonlinear morphologies, and may have applications to areas including impact mitigation, soft electronics, and the dynamics of soft sandwich composites

Toward Creative Cities: Assessing the Culturally Emerging Creative Doha City- Qatar

Through the holistic visionary plan 2032, Qatar is aiming for a future knowledge and economic creative based development. It is taking one main pillar in the country vision strategy to build a well-established human force that will sustain the country growth. Doha City is assigned to be a cultural and creative hub that attracts creative workers from around the globe and establish its local creative human capital. Since the 2011-2016 national development strategy plan varied initiatives have been serving the country to put itself on the creative map such as Katara and Qatar museum authority investments. In that regard, one can raise two essential questions: 1) is this vision enough to start the creative culture economy and reduce its dependency on the oil-based economy to accelerate the creative city growth? 2) or do we need to adjust our city planning to flourish and support Doha creative cultural aspect? This study responds to these questions in the analysis chapter of it through running a comparative study of the creative cultural state of Doha before the strategic plan and after it, to assess the move toward the creative city planning direction. In the end, strategies are proposed to promote the level of activities in Doha physical environment to support its global position

Board of Directors, Audit Committee and Firms’ Performance

This study explores the different attributes of audit committees and boards of directors' effect on firm performance. Mainly the board’s size and independence and the audit committee’s employment, size, independence, financial experience, and frequency of meetings. This paper also talks about resource dependency theory which considers that. Non-independent directors have a positive effect on firm performance. On the contrary, agency theory suggests that the more independent the board is, the better the performance. Many accounting scandals and worldwide failures in corporate governance have occurred in the past few decades, affecting stakeholders and taking a heavy toll on national and global economies. After many infamous corporates, the United States passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), which acted to heighten the responsibilities of the board of directors in corporations, promotes fairness to both shareholders and stakeholders alike by enforcing listed companies to employ independent, knowledgeable, and proactive audit committees and directors and ultimately set the utmost importance on the protection of investors and stakeholders. Taking a sample of 96 companies, the results show that a more extensive and independent board positively affects business results, and the same applies to the implementation of an audit committee. However, our results found no link between the different characteristics of audit committees with firm performance. The findings above give us insight into how companies’ governance operates.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Molecular genetic analysis of bovine oocytes with different developmental potentials

Poor oocyte developmental potential contributes to reduced fertility in livestock species and hampers the application of biotechnology techniques in cattle industry that could be used for spreading certain genotypes with production advantages. However, the molecular mechanisms regulating oocyte developmental potential are generally poorly understood. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify differentially regulated genes in oocytes with different developmental potential that could be associated with their competence. For this, oocytes were selected based on phase of follicular turnover (growth vs. dominance) and BCB staining (BCB+ vs. BCB-) as two independent models for screening of oocyte competence. For each model, six pools of oocytes were used for mRNA isolation and subsequent RNA amplification. A custom-made cDNA array with ~ 2000 clones was used to compare the gene expression profiles of competent versus incompetent oocytes of each model. The Significance Analysis of Microarray (SAM) has been used for data generation. A total of 51 and 185 genes to be differentially expressed have been identified between the oocytes derived from growth compared to dominance follicular phase and BCB+ compared to BCB- ones, respectively. Based on biological process annotation, genes involved in protein biosynthesis as structural constituent of ribosome (RPL24, ARL6IP, RPS14 and RPS15), translation elongation factor activity (EEF1A1), chromosome organization and biogenesis (H2AFZ) and signal transduction (GNB2L1) were commonly up-regulated in competent compared to incompetent oocytes of both models. On the other hand, incompetent oocytes from both models were enriched with transcripts regulating transcription (PTTG1) and growth factor activity (BMP 15). Quantitative real-time PCR has confirmed the relative abundance of 8 out of 10 and 9 out of 10 genes to be in accordance with microarray analysis for follicular phase and BCB staining models, respectively. Overall, this study provides a genome-wide expression profiling of genes that could be associated with developmental competence of bovine oocytes. However, further functional investigations based on this data could help to define the exact key regulatory genes controlling oocyte quality that could be considered as good biomarkers.Molekulargenetische Analyse von Rinderoocyten mit unterschiedlichen Entwicklungspotentialen Ein geringes Entwicklungspotential von Oozyten führt zu einer verringerten Fruchtbarkeit in der Rinderhaltung. Gleichzeitig erschwert es moderne biotechnologie Zuchtmethoden, wie z.B. Embryotransfer, die für die schnelle Verbreitung von positiven Genotypen genutzt werden können. Allerdings sind die molekularen Mechanismen, die das Oozytenentwicklungspotential regulieren, bisher nur wenig bekannt. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es demzufolge, unterschiedlich regulierte Gene in Oozyten mit unterschiedlichem Entwicklungspotential zu identifizieren, die mit der Entwicklungskompetenz der Oozyten assoziiert sein könnten. Dafür wurden Oozyten auf Grund ihres follikularen Umsatzes (Wachstum gegenüber Dominanzverhalten) (Modell 1) bzw. auf Grund von BCB Färbung (BCB+ gegen BCB-) (Modell 2), ausgewählt. Für jedes Modell wurden sechs Pools von Oocyten für die mRNA-Isolierung und RNA-Amplifikation verwendet. Ein speziell angefertigter cDNA Array mit ~ 2000 Klonen wurde genutzt, um Genexpressionsprofile von kompetenten und inkompetenten Oocyten zu vergleichen. Das Programm Significance Analysis of Microarray (SAM) wurde für die Datenauswertung herangezogen. Insgesamt konnten 51 bzw. 185 unterschiedlich exprimierte Gene für die Oozyten mit unterschiedlichem follikularem Wachstum bzw. mit unterschiedlicher BCB Färbung identifiziert werden. Für die weiteren Untersuchungen wurden Gene, die in der Proteinbiosynthese als struktureller Bestandteil des Ribosoms vorkommen (RPL24, ARL6IP, RPS14 und RPS15), ein Translations-Elongations-Faktor (EEF1A1), ein Gen für Chromosomenorganisation und Biogenese (H2AFZ), sowie ein Gen für die Signal Transduktion (GNB2L1) ausgewählt. Diese Gene waren in kompetenten Oozyten höher exprimiert als in inkompetenten Oozyten. Des weiteren wurden ein Gen für die Transkriptionsregulierung (PTTG1) sowie ein Gen für die Wachstumsfaktor Aktivität (BMP15) ausgesucht, welche wiederum in inkompetenten Oozyten hochreguliert waren. Mittels quantitativer Real-time PCR wurde die relative Abundanz aus der Microarray Analyse bei acht von zehn Genen (Modell 1) bzw. neun von zehn Genen (Modell 2) bestätigt. Insgesamt beschreibt diese Arbeit ein genomweites Expressionsprofil von Genen, die mit der Entwicklungskompetenz von Rinderoozyten assoziiert werden können. Darüber hinaus könnten weitere funktionelle Analysen, basierend auf unseren Ergebnissen, helfen, die exakten regulierenden Schlüsselgene zu finden, welche die Oozytenqualität steuern, und die zukünftig als Biomarker verwendet werden könnten