Effects of dietary fibre and the provision of a foraging substrate on the welfare of sows in different grouping systems

End of project reportThere are no clear guidelines on how best to meet the EU legislative requirement (Council Directive 2001/88/EC) that pregnant sows and gilts should be provided with sufficient amounts of bulky or high fibre diets and high energy food to satisfy hunger and the motivation to chew. Therefore the aim of this project was to investigate the effect of increasing dietary fibre levels and providing access to a foraging substrate on the welfare of sows housed in dynamic and static groups. To achieve this a review paper was compiled and three experiments were conducted. The aim of the review paper was to assess the effectiveness of increasing dietary fibre levels on the welfare of pregnant sows. Previous research found that increasing dietary fibre levels decrease activity levels and the performance of stereotypic behaviour, and increase resting behaviour. However, high fibre diets do not appear to reduce aggression between group-housed pregnant sows. The research clearly showed that the effectiveness of high fibre diets is influenced by the source of fibre, with soluble fibres being more effective in reducing stereotypic behaviours than insoluble fibres. However the optimum fibrous ingredient, or combination of ingredients, and the optimum dietary inclusion rate for these ingredients remains unclear

The quark-photon vertex and meson electromagnetic form factors

The ladder Bethe-Salpeter solution for the dressed photon-quark vertex is used to study the low-momentum behavior of the pion electromagnetic and the $\gamma^\star \pi^0 \gamma$ transition form factors. With model parameters previously fixed by light meson masses and decay constants, the low-momentum slope of both form factors is in excellent agreement with the data. In comparison, the often-used Ball-Chiu Ansatz for the vertex is found to be deficient; less than half of the obtained $r_\pi^2$ is generated by that Ansatz while the remainder of the charge radius could be attributed to the tail of the $\rho$ resonance.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, uses espcrc1.sty, talk presented at PANIC99, Uppsala, Swede

A case study of the four-year, eight-year, and twelve-year graduates of the College of Business Administration: an investigation of the correlation between academic and professional experience

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston University. Missing page 8

Analysis of permanent magnets as elasmobranch bycatch reduction devices in hook-and-line and longline trials

Previous studies indicate that elasmobranch fishes (sharks, skates and rays) detect the Earth’s geomagnetic field by indirect magnetoreception through electromagnetic induction, using their ampullae of Lorenzini. Applying this concept, we evaluated the capture of elasmobranchs in the presence of permanent magnets in hook-and-line and inshore longline fishing experiments. Hooks with neodymium-iron-boron magnets significantly reduced the capture of elasmobranchs overall in comparison with control and procedural control hooks in the hook-and-line experiment. Catches of Atlantic sharpnose shark (Rhizoprionodon terraenovae) and smooth dogfish (Mustelus canis) were signif icantly reduced with magnetic hook-and-line treatments, whereas catches of spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) and clearnose skate (Raja eglanteria) were not. Longline hooks with barium-ferrite magnets significantly reduced total elasmobranch capture when compared with control hooks. In the longline study, capture of blacktip sharks (Carcharhinus limbatus) and southern stingrays (Dasyatis americana) was reduced on magnetic hooks, whereas capture of sandbar shark (Carcharhinus plumbeus) was not affected. Teleosts, such as red drum (Sciaenops ocellatus), Atlantic croaker (Micropogonias undulatus), oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau), black sea bass (Centropristis striata), and the bluefish (Pomatomas saltatrix), showed no hook preference in either hook-and-line or longline studies. These results indicate that permanent magnets, although eliciting species-specific capture trends, warrant further investigation in commercial longline and recreational fisheries, where bycatch mortality is a leading contributor to declines in elasmobranch populations

New insights into the biological role of mammalian ADARs; the RNA editing proteins

The ADAR proteins deaminate adenosine to inosine in double-stranded RNA which is one of the most abundant modifications present in mammalian RNA. Inosine can have a profound effect on the RNAs that are edited, not only changing the base-pairing properties, but can also result in recoding, as inosine behaves as if it were guanosine. In mammals there are three ADAR proteins and two ADAR-related proteins (ADAD) expressed. All have a very similar modular structure; however, both their expression and biological function differ significantly. Only two of the ADAR proteins have enzymatic activity. However, both ADAR and ADAD proteins possess the ability to bind double-strand RNA. Mutations in ADARs have been associated with many diseases ranging from cancer, innate immunity to neurological disorders. Here, we will discuss in detail the domain structure of mammalian ADARs, the effects of RNA editing, and the role of ADARs in human diseases

Disentanglement and Decoherence without dissipation at non-zero temperatures

Decoherence is well understood, in contrast to disentanglement. According to common lore, irreversible coupling to a dissipative environment is the mechanism for loss of entanglement. Here, we show that, on the contrary, disentanglement can in fact occur at large enough temperatures $T$ even for vanishingly small dissipation (as we have shown previously for decoherence). However, whereas the effect of $T$ on decoherence increases exponentially with time, the effect of $T$ on disentanglement is constant for all times, reflecting a fundamental difference between the two phenomena. Also, the possibility of disentanglement at a particular $T$ increases with decreasing initial entanglement.Comment: 3 page

Assessment of Aeroacoustic Simulations of the High-Lift Common Research Model

This paper presents further validation of PowerFLOWR aeroacoustic simulations of the High-Lift Common Research Model through comparisons with experimental data from a recently completed wind tunnel test. Preliminary time- averaged surface pressure and microphone array data from the experiment are in reasonably good agreement with the simulations, and the slat is shown to be a dominant noise source on this model. The simulations did not predict slat tones that were very prominent in the experiment, but they did capture the broadband component of slat noise in the low-frequency range up to 1 kHz at full scale. Future tests are planned to demonstrate slat noise reduction technology, and simulations are being used to guide this development