Effects of Flooring Types on Growth Performance, Behaviour and Health of Dairy Calves

In this study, perforated rubber mats (PRM), concrete floor bedded with long wheat straw (CLS and concrete floor bedded with wheat straw (CS) were compared as flooring types for dairy calves. Growth, feed efficiency ratio, gains in body measurements, some behavioural activities as well as faecal scores, bedding scores and calf’s cleanliness scores of the dairy calves were evaluated for 6 months. Overall growth rate differed significantly due to types of floor, and total weight gains of the dairy calves in PRM group was 7.0% and 16.0% higher than those of calves in CLS and CS groups respectively. However, differences with regard to the amount of dry matter of milk, concentrate as well as total dry matter of the feeds consumed per kg of weight gain during pre-weaning and post-weaning periods among the PRM, CS and CLS groups were not statistically significant. When, gains in linear body measurements were evaluated, total gains in height at withers, body length, chest depth and heart girth of the calves in PRM group were superior to those in CLS and CS groups. The calves in PRM group had high growth rate along with high percentage of time spent for lying behaviour which is one the most significant activities among the behaviours of the calves. The calves kept on PRM group exhibited 52.6% and 45.5% higher percentage of time spent for lying behaviour than those in CS and CLS groups respectively. Data regarding the bedding scores and calf's cleanliness scores also revealed that the PRM flooring was the cleanest and driest one compared to the other flooring types, and the calves in the PRM group were cleaner than those in CLS and CS groups. Calves in PRM group exhibited significantly (P<0.01) lover faecal consistency scores than those in CLS and CS groups. In conclusion, based upon growth rate, feed efficiency ratio, behavioural parameters as well as the bedding scores, calf's cleanliness scores and faecal consistency scores, PRM is preferable to CLS and CS floorings for individual dairy calves' pens

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns

Enamelin is critical for ameloblast integrity and enamel ultrastructure formation

Mutations in the human enamelin gene cause autosomal dominant hypoplastic amelogenesis imperfecta in which the affected enamel is thin or absent. Study of enamelin knockout NLS-lacZ knockin mice revealed that mineralization along the distal membrane of ameloblast is deficient, resulting in no true enamel formation. To determine the function of enamelin during enamel formation, we characterized the developing teeth of the Enam-/- mice, generated amelogenin-driven enamelin transgenic mouse models, and then introduced enamelin transgenes into the Enam-/- mice to rescue enamel defects. Mice at specific stages of development were subjected to morphologic and structural analysis using β-galactosidase staining, immunohistochemistry, and transmission and scanning electron microscopy. Enamelin expression was ameloblast-specific. In the absence of enamelin, ameloblasts pathology became evident at the onset of the secretory stage. Although the aggregated ameloblasts generated matrix-containing amelogenin, they were not able to create a well-defined enamel space or produce normal enamel crystals. When enamelin is present at half of the normal quantity, enamel was thinner with enamel rods not as tightly arranged as in wild type suggesting that a specific quantity of enamelin is critical for normal enamel formation. Enamelin dosage effect was further demonstrated in transgenic mouse lines over expressing enamelin. Introducing enamelin transgene at various expression levels into the Enam -/- background did not fully recover enamel formation while a medium expresser in the Enam+/- background did. Too much or too little enamelin abolishes the production of enamel crystals and prism structure. Enamelin is essential for ameloblast integrity and enamel formation. © 2014 Hu et al

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Performance of CMS muon reconstruction in pp collision events at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV

The performance of muon reconstruction, identification, and triggering in CMS has been studied using 40 inverse picobarns of data collected in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV at the LHC in 2010. A few benchmark sets of selection criteria covering a wide range of physics analysis needs have been examined. For all considered selections, the efficiency to reconstruct and identify a muon with a transverse momentum pT larger than a few GeV is above 95% over the whole region of pseudorapidity covered by the CMS muon system, abs(eta) < 2.4, while the probability to misidentify a hadron as a muon is well below 1%. The efficiency to trigger on single muons with pT above a few GeV is higher than 90% over the full eta range, and typically substantially better. The overall momentum scale is measured to a precision of 0.2% with muons from Z decays. The transverse momentum resolution varies from 1% to 6% depending on pseudorapidity for muons with pT below 100 GeV and, using cosmic rays, it is shown to be better than 10% in the central region up to pT = 1 TeV. Observed distributions of all quantities are well reproduced by the Monte Carlo simulation.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

Search for Dark Matter and Supersymmetry with a Compressed Mass Spectrum in the Vector Boson Fusion Topology in Proton-Proton Collisions at root s=8 TeV

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Identification and Filtering of Uncharacteristic Noise in the CMS Hadron Calorimeter

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