Swine in Confinement - Animal Health

In considering the effects of complete confinement on swine, there are several different ways to view the interaction between the animal and physical housing

Career Opportunities in Veterinary Medical Research

There is a vague recognition in many students during the course of their professional studies that some members of their profession devote a significant amount or event he major portion of their careers to research. This discernment usually intensifies during the final phases of their professional studies. The selection of initial career direction that occurs during the final weeks or months of the senior year should be based on information that includes at least a general awareness of both the major rewards and the major drawbacks associated with a career in research

Inclusion Body Rhinitis

Recognition of a new disease in swine may occur because of one of two reasons. The first is occasioned by the recognition of an existing but previously overlooked specific disease agent and its attendant clinical syndrome while the second is due to the introduction of a hitherto absent pathogen into an area, region, or country. In general, it requires some interval of time to be reasonably certain which of these two situations is applicable to a newly recognized clinical problem

Nearest neighbor - A new non-parametric test used for classifying spectral data

Nonparametric statistical interference program for spectral data classificatio

CFD Analysis of Experimental Wing and Winglet for FalconLAUNCH 8 and the ExFIT Program

Reusable launch vehicles have many benefits over their expendable counterparts. These benefits range from cost reductions to increased functionality of the vehicles. Further research is required in the development of the technology necessary for reusable launch vehicles to come to fruition. The Air Force Institute of Technology’s future involvement in the ExFIT program will entail designing and testing of a new wing tip mounted vertical stabilizer in the hypersonic regime. One proposed venue for experimentation is to utilize the United States Air Force Academy’s FalconLAUNCH Program which annually designs, builds, and launches a sounding rocket capable of reaching hypersonic speeds. In the Spring of 2010 an experimental wing geometry will be flown on FalconLAUNCH VIII for the ExFIT Program. The following study outlines the Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis used to determine lift and drag characteristics as well as temperature distributions of the wing geometry before testing to produce a successful launch. A majority of this analysis focused on the effects caused by shock waves forming on the winglet and their impact on the lifting characteristics and temperature distribution of the wing. Ultimately a recommendation of a 3˚ angle of attack is given for the experimental wings on the rocket. At this configuration the lift and drag generated by the experimental wings will be at a minimum allowing for greater stability and speed throughout the flight of the rocket

Longitude distribution of solar flares

Longitude distribution of solar flare

Hydrogen Recombination with Multilevel atoms

Hydrogen recombination is one of the most important atomic processes in many astrophysical objects such as Type II supernova (SN~II) atmospheres, the high redshift universe during the cosmological recombination era, and H II regions in the interstellar medium. Accurate predictions of the ionization fraction can be quite different from those given by a simple solution if one takes into account many angular momentum sub-states, non-resonant processes, and calculates the rates of all atomic processes from the solution of the radiative transfer equation instead of using a Planck function under the assumption of thermal equilibrium. We use the general purpose model atmosphere code PHOENIX 1D to compare how the fundamental probabilities such as the photo-ionization probability, the escape probability, and the collisional de-excitation probability are affected by the presence of other metals in the environment, multiple angular momentum sub-states, and non-resonant processes. Our comparisons are based on a model of SN 1999em, a SNe Type II, 20 days after its explosion.Comment: 29 pages, 12 figures, MNRAS, in pres

Phenotypic consequences of RNA polymerase dysregulation in Escherichia coli

Many bacterial adaptive responses to changes in growth conditions due to biotic and abiotic factors involve reprogramming of gene expression at the transcription level. The bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP), which catalyzes transcription, can thus be considered as the major mediator of cellular adaptive strategies. But how do bacteria respond if a stress factor directly compromises the activity of the RNAP? We used a phage-derived small protein to specifically perturb bacterial RNAP activity in exponentially growing Escherichia coli. Using cytological profiling, tracking RNAP behavior at single-molecule level and transcriptome analysis, we reveal that adaptation to conditions that directly perturb bacterial RNAP performance can result in a biphasic growth behavior and thereby confer the ‘adapted’ bacterial cells an enhanced ability to tolerate diverse antibacterial stresses. The results imply that while synthetic transcriptional rewiring may confer bacteria with the intended desirable properties, such approaches may also collaterally allow them to acquire undesirable traits