Feeding Hens For Egg Production

Exact date of bulletin unknown.PDF pages:

Expression of the Thyroid Hormone Receptor Gene, erbAα, in B Lymphocytes: Alternative mRNA Processing is Independent of Differentiation but Correlates with Antisense RNA Levels

The erbAα gene encodes two α-thyroid hormone receptor isoforms, TRα1 and TRα2, which arise from alternatively processed mRNAs, erbAα1 (α1) and erb α2 (α2). The splicing and alternative polyadenylation patterns of these mRNAs resemble that of mRNAs encoding different forms of immunoglobulin heavy chains, which are regulated at the level of alternative processing during B cell differentiation. This study examines the levels of erbAα mRNA in eight B cell lines representing four stages of differentiation in order to determine whether regulation of the alternatively processed α1 and α2 mRNAs parallels the processing of immunoglobulin heavy chain mRNAs. Results show that the pattern of α1 and α2 mRNA expression is clearly different from that observed for immunoglobulin heavy chain mRNAs. B cell lines display characteristic ratios of α1/α2 mRNA at distinct stages of differentiation. Furthermore, expression of an overlapping gene, Rev-ErbAα (RevErb), was found to correlate strongly with an increase in the ratio of α1/α2 mRNA. These results suggest that alternative processing of erbAα mRNAs is regulated by a mechanism which is distinct from that regulating immunoglobulin mRNA. The correlation between RevErb and erbAα mRNA is consistent with negative regulation of α2 via antisense interactions with the complementary RevErb mRNA

Quantum tomography as normalization of incompatible observations

Quantum states are successfully reconstructed using the maximum likelihood estimation on the subspace where the measured projectors reproduce the identity operator. Reconstruction corresponds to normalization of incompatible observations. The proposed approach handles the noisy data corresponding to realistic incomplete observation with finite resolution.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, 3 figure

Transport critical current density in Fe-sheathed nano-SiC doped MgB2 wires

The nano-SiC doped MgB2/Fe wires were fabricated using a powder-in-tube method and an in-situ reaction process. The depression of Tc with increasing SiC doping level remained rather small due to the counterbalanced effect of Si and C co-doping. The high level SiC co-doping allowed creation of the intra-grain defects and nano-inclusions, which act as effective pinning centers, resulting in a substantial enhancement in the Jc(H) performance. The transport Jc for all the wires is comparable to the magnetic Jc at higher fields despite the low density of the samples and percolative nature of current. The transport Ic for the 10wt% SiC doped MgB2/Fe reached 660A at 5K and 4.5T (Jc = 133,000A/cm2) and 540A at 20K and 2T (Jc = 108,000A/cm2). The transport Jc for the 10wt% SiC doped MgB2 wire is more than an order of magnitude higher than for the state-the-art Fe-sheathed MgB2 wire reported to date at 5K and 10T and 20K and 5T respectively. There is a plenty of room for further improvement in Jc as the density of the current samples is only 50%.Comment: 4 pages, 7 figures, presented at ASC 2002, Housto

Substitution induced pinning in MgB_2 superconductor doped with SiC nano-particles

By doping MgB_2 superconductor with SiC nano-particles, we have successfully introduced pinning sites directly into the crystal lattice of MgB_2 grains (intra-grain pinning). It became possible due to the combination of counter-balanced Si and C co-substitution for B, leading to a large number of intra-granular dislocations and the dispersed nano-size impurities induced by the substitution. The magnetic field dependence of the critical current density was significantly improved in a wide temperature range, whereas the transition temperature in the sample MgB_2(SiC)_x having x = 0.34, the highest doping level prepared, dropped only by 2.6 K.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure

Doping Effect of Nano-Diamond on Superconductivity and Flux Pinning in MgB2

Doping effect of diamond nanoparticles on the superconducting properties of MgB2 bulk material has been studied. It is found that the superconducting transition temperature Tc of MgB2 is suppressed by the diamond-doping, however, the irreversibility field Hirr and the critical current density Jc are systematically enhanced. Microstructural analysis shows that the diamond-doped MgB2 superconductor consists of tightly-packed MgB2 nano-grains (~50-100 nm) with highly-dispersed and uniformly-distributed diamond nanoparticles (~10-20 nm) inside the grains. High density of dislocations and diamond nanoparticles may take the responsibility for the enhanced flux pinning in the diamond-doped MgB2.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figure

Climate Change and Regions at Risk: A Look at Central America

Climate change has been a security issue for mankind since Homo sapiens first emerged on the planet, driving him to find new and better food, water, shelter, and basic resources for survival and the advancement of civilization. Only recently, however, has the rate of climate change coupled with man’s knowledge of his own role in that change accelerated, perhaps profoundly, changing the security paradigm. If we take a ―decades‖ look at the security issue, we see competition for natural resources giving way to Cold War ideological containment and deterrence, itself giving way to non-state terrorism and extremism. While we continue to defend against these threats, we are faced with even greater security challenges that inextricably tie economic, food and human security together and where the flash points may not provide clearly discernable causes, as they will be intrinsically tied to climate change. Several scientific reports have revealed that the modest development gains that can be realized by some regions could be reversed by climate change. This means that climate change is not just a long-term environmental threat as was widely believed, but an economic and developmental disaster that is unfolding. As such, addressing climate change has become central to the development and poverty reduction by the World Bank and other financial institutions. In Latin America, poorer countries and communities, such as those found in Central America, will suffer the hardest because of weaker resilience and greater reliance on climatesensitive sectors such as agriculture. The US should attempt to deliver capability to assist these states to deal with the effects of climate change

First genome-wide association study investigating blood pressure and renal traits in domestic cats

Hypertension (HTN) and chronic kidney disease (CKD) are common in ageing cats. In humans, blood pressure (BP) and renal function are complex heritable traits. We performed the first feline genome-wide association study (GWAS) of quantitative traits systolic BP and creatinine and binary outcomes HTN and CKD, testing 1022 domestic cats with a discovery, replication and meta-analysis design. No variants reached experimental significance level in the discovery stage for any phenotype. Follow up of the top 9 variants for creatinine and 5 for systolic BP, one SNP reached experimental-wide significance for association with creatinine in the combined meta-analysis (chrD1.10258177; P = 1.34 × 10(–6)). Exploratory genetic risk score (GRS) analyses were performed. Within the discovery sample, GRS of top SNPs from the BP and creatinine GWAS show strong association with HTN and CKD but did not validate in independent replication samples. A GRS including SNPs corresponding to human CKD genes was not significant in an independent subset of cats. Gene-set enrichment and pathway-based analysis (GSEA) was performed for both quantitative phenotypes, with 30 enriched pathways with creatinine. Our results support the utility of GWASs and GSEA for genetic discovery of complex traits in cats, with the caveat of our findings requiring validation