Relationship Between Morbidity and Performance in Feedlot Cattle

Five datasets from Canada, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Nebraska were used to determine the impact of bovine respiratory disease (BRD) on performance, with emphasis on dry matter intake (DMI) and feed to gain ratio (F:G). Data included pens and individually fed cattle. In general, cattle treated for BRD had lower DMI and average daily gain (ADG) with little to no effect on F:G. When BRD occured early in the feeding period (days), little change in performance was observed

Feeding Modified Distillers Grains With Solubles and Wet Corn Gluten Feed (Synergy) to Adapt Cattle to Finishing Diets

An experiment with 236 steers and eight pens per treatment (14 or 15 steers/pen) evaluated two grain adaptation treatments. Treatments included adapting steers by decreasing alfalfa (CON) or decreasing a combination of distillers grains and corn gluten feed (SYNERGY) followed by feeding a common finishing diet to slaughter. Performance and carcass traits did not differ between adaptation systems. A combination of MDGS and SYNERGY can be used to adapt beef cattle to feedlot diets with efficacy of the traditional, foragebased method

Distinct conformations of the kinesin Unc104 neck regulate a monomer to dimer motor transition

Caenhorhabditis elegans Unc104 kinesin transports synaptic vesicles at rapid velocities. Unc104 is primarily monomeric in solution, but recent motility studies suggest that it may dimerize when concentrated on membranes. Using cryo-electron microscopy, we observe two conformations of microtubule-bound Unc104: a monomeric state in which the two neck helices form an intramolecular, parallel coiled coil; and a dimeric state in which the neck helices form an intermolecular coiled coil. The intramolecular folded conformation is abolished by deletion of a flexible hinge separating the neck helices, indicating that it acts as a spacer to accommodate the parallel coiled-coil configuration. The neck hinge deletion mutation does not alter motor velocity in vitro but produces a severe uncoordinated phenotype in transgenic C. elegans, suggesting that the folded conformation plays an important role in motor regulation. We suggest that the Unc104 neck regulates motility by switching from a self-folded, repressed state to a dimerized conformation that can support fast processive movement

GOATOOLS: A Python library for Gene Ontology analyses.

The biological interpretation of gene lists with interesting shared properties, such as up- or down-regulation in a particular experiment, is typically accomplished using gene ontology enrichment analysis tools. Given a list of genes, a gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis may return hundreds of statistically significant GO results in a "flat" list, which can be challenging to summarize. It can also be difficult to keep pace with rapidly expanding biological knowledge, which often results in daily changes to any of the over 47,000 gene ontologies that describe biological knowledge. GOATOOLS, a Python-based library, makes it more efficient to stay current with the latest ontologies and annotations, perform gene ontology enrichment analyses to determine over- and under-represented terms, and organize results for greater clarity and easier interpretation using a novel GOATOOLS GO grouping method. We performed functional analyses on both stochastic simulation data and real data from a published RNA-seq study to compare the enrichment results from GOATOOLS to two other popular tools: DAVID and GOstats. GOATOOLS is freely available through GitHub: https://github.com/tanghaibao/goatools

Effect of sulfur content in wet or dry distillers grains fed at several inclusions on cattle growth performance, ruminal parameters, and hydrogen sulfide

Effects of S from wet or dry distillers grains with solubles (DGS) containing 0.82 or 1.16% S on animal growth performance, carcass characteristics, apparent total tract digestibility, and ruminal parameters were evaluated. In Exp. 1, crossbred beef steers (n = 120; 345 ± 34 kg BW) were individually fed ad libitum using Calan gates. Treatments were applied as a 2 × 2 × 3 + 1 factorial treatment arrangement with factors of DGS type (wet or dry), S content in DGS (0.82 or 1.16% DM basis), and DGS inclusion (20, 30, and 40%, DM basis), as well as a corn control diet (no DGS). In Exp. 2, ruminally cannulated crossbred beef steers (n = 6; 381 ± 31 kg BW) were assigned to 1 of 5 diets in a 5 × 6 unbalanced Latin Square design and fed ad libitum through five 14-d periods. A 2 × 2 + 1 factorial treatment arrangement was used with the factors of DGS type and S content in DGS (similar to Exp. 1). Inclusion of DGS was 40%, except for a MATCH diet containing wet 1.16% S DGS included at 31.4% (DM basis). Intake of DM decreased linearly (P \u3c 0.01) and quadratically (P \u3c 0.01) for steers fed wet and dry DGS that was 1.16% S, respectively. In addition, steers fed dry DGS consumed 9% more DM (P \u3c 0.01) than those fed wet. Gain decreased linearly (P = 0.02) when wet 1.16% S DGS increased in the diet, representing a 12% drop in ADG between the Control and 40% DGS inclusion. A quadratic (P = 0.02) improvement in G:F was observed for steers fed wet DGS compared with dry, regardless of S content (P = 0.52). Feeding diets with wet 1.16% S DGS linearly decreased (P = 0.03) HCW. In Exp. 2, molar proportion of propionate declined (P = 0.01) 9% and A:P ratio tended (P = 0.13) to be greater when 1.16 compared with 0.82% S DGS was fed. Apparent total tract DMD was not affected (P \u3e 0.16) and only subtle changes (P \u3c 0.01) in ruminal pH parameters were observed. Greater (P = 0.02) ruminal H2S concentration for steers fed wet compared with dry DGS was observed, while 1.16% S DGS tended (P = 0.12) to produce greater ruminal H2S than 0.82% S. Sulfur in wet DGS appears to be more prone to be converted to ruminal H2S, because feeding 1.16% S as wet DGS had a greater impact on ADG, DMI, and ruminal H2S compared with dry DGS

GOATOOLS: A Python library for Gene Ontology analyses

The biological interpretation of gene lists with interesting shared properties, such as up- or down-regulation in a particular experiment, is typically accomplished using gene ontology enrichment analysis tools. Given a list of genes, a gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis may return hundreds of statistically significant GO results in a “flat” list, which can be challenging to summarize. It can also be difficult to keep pace with rapidly expanding biological knowledge, which often results in daily changes to any of the over 47,000 gene ontologies that describe biological knowledge. GOATOOLS, a Python-based library, makes it more efficient to stay current with the latest ontologies and annotations, perform gene ontology enrichment analyses to determine over- and under-represented terms, and organize results for greater clarity and easier interpretation using a novel GOATOOLS GO grouping method. We performed functional analyses on both stochastic simulation data and real data from a published RNA-seq study to compare the enrichment results from GOATOOLS to two other popular tools: DAVID and GOstats. GOATOOLS is freely available through GitHub: https://github.com/tanghaibao/goatools

Search for Large Extra Dimensions in Dielectron and Diphoton Production

We report a search for effects of large extra spatial dimensions in ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.8 TeV with the DZero detector, using events containing a pair of electrons or photons. The data are in good agreement with the expected background and do not exhibit evidence for large extra dimensions. We set the most restrictive lower limits to date, at the 95% confidence level, on the effective Planck scale between 1.0 TeV and 1.4 TeV for several formalisms and numbers of extra dimensions.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Search for Top Squark Pair Production in the Dielectron Channel

This report describes the first search for top squark pair production in the channel stop_1 stopbar_1 -> b bbar chargino_1 chargino_1 -> ee+jets+MEt using 74.9 +- 8.9 pb^-1 of data collected using the D0 detector. A 95% confidence level upper limit on sigma*B is presented. The limit is above the theoretical expectation for sigma*B for this process, but does show the sensitivity of the current D0 data set to a particular topology for new physics.Comment: Five pages, including three figures, submitted to PRD Brief Report

Search for a Fourth Generation Charge -1/3 Quark via Flavor Changing Neutral Current Decay

We report on a search for pair production of a fourth generation charge -1/3 quark (b') in pbar p collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.8 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron using an integrated luminosity of 93 pb^-1. Both quarks are assumed to decay via flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC). The search uses the signatures gamma + 3 jets + mu-tag and 2 gamma + 2 jets. We see no significant excess of events over the expected background. We place an upper limit on the production cross section times branching fraction that is well below theoretical expectations for a b' quark decaying exclusively via FCNC for b' quark masses up to m(Z) + m(b).Comment: Eleven pages, two postscript figures, submitted to Physical Review Letter