Beef Average Daily Gain and Enteric Methane Emissions on Birdsfoot Trefoil, Cicer Milkvetch and Meadow Brome Pastures

Conventional production of meat products from ruminant animals in the United States requires inputs including the cultivation and nitrogen fertilization of annual grains such as corn and barley, and transportation of cattle and grain to feedlots. Consumers have concerns about the impact of feedlot conditions on animal health, and about the implications of pharmaceutical inputs such as growth hormones and antibiotics on the environment and human health. These concerns have led to a growing interest in pasturefinished meat production by consumers. Such smaller-scale livestock production systems can be healthier and lower-stress for animals, are integrated into local food systems and are more transparent to consumers, and have higher potential profitability for producers than traditional ruminant production methods. There is a strong market for pasture-finished beef products, and prices for naturally or organically raised beef have remained well above feedlot-produced product prices. There is also concern about the impact of ruminant production on the environment, including air and water pollution from feedlot production and greenhouse gasses that are emitted from ruminant animals during feed digestion. This thesis project explored the potential of a beef production system based on perennial legumes, including the non-bloating legume birdsfoot trefoil (BFT; Lotus corniculatus L.) for producing meat products from cattle while reducing concentrate feeding and methane production. The condensed tannins that are produced by BFT bind proteins in the rumen but allow them to be digested in the abomasum and intestines, which in turn leads to better utilization of forage nutrients during the finishing period and higher gains or milk production. The higher digestibility of legumes compared with grasses reduces methane emissions in cattle both through higher digestibility of the forage and through direct impacts on methanogens operating in the rumen. As reported in this thesis, steers finished on BFT gained significantly more weight per day than steers fed another perennial forage legume, cicer milkvetch, but did not gain as rapidly as feedlot-fed steers. At the end of summer grazing, the blood plasma of pasture-fed steers was lower in saturated and omega-6 fatty acids and higher in transvaccenic and omega-3 fatty acids than the blood plasma of feedlot-fed steers. When beef cows grazed grass and legume pastures, enteric methane emissions were lower on the legume pastures than the grass pasture. These results demonstrate that, compared with other feed sources, perennial legume pastures used for cattle production can improve cattle gains and reduce environmental impacts

Superconductivity and magnetism in platinum-substituted SrFe2As2 single crystals

Single crystals of SrFe2-xPtxAs2 (0 < x < 0.36) were grown using the self flux solution method and characterized using x-ray crystallography, electrical transport, magnetic susceptibility, and specific heat measurements. The magnetic/structural transition is suppressed with increasing Pt concentration, with superconductivity seen over the range 0.08 < x < 0.36 with a maximum transition temperature Tc of 16 K at x = 0.16. The shape of the phase diagram and the changes to the lattice parameters are similar to the effects of other group VIII elements Ni and Pd, however the higher transition temperature and extended range of superconductivity suggest some complexity beyond the simple electron counting picture that has been discussed thus far.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Towards task shifting? A comparison of the accuracy of acute trauma-radiograph reporting by medical officers and senior radiographers in an African hospital

Introduction: Due to the universal shortage of radiologists, medical officers are largely responsible for acute trauma radiograph reporting in public sector healthcare facilities in well-resourced countries. In poorly-resourced countries, a shortage of medical officers results in most acute trauma radiographs being unreported. In the European Union (EU), experienced radiographers with no specific training have been shown to be more accurate than medical officers in trauma radiograph reporting, while EU radiographers who receive additional training can reach accuracies comparable to radiologists. In some EU countries, the role of the radiographer has been extended to include trauma reporting. However, there has been no study of the accuracy of trauma radiograph reporting by radiographers in Africa, where task-shifting could yield potentially greater benefits, due to shortages of both radiologists and medical officers. The aim of this study was therefore to compare the accuracy of acute traumaradiograph reporting by medical officers and senior radiographers in an African setting. Methods: A prospective study was conducted at a South African hospital from November 2013-April 2014. Medical officers and senior radiographers reported the same set of appendicular skeleton trauma radiographs. Reporting accuracy, sensitivity and specificity were calculated using a consultant radiologist's report as the reference standard. Differences were evaluated using the Mann-Whitney U test, with p &lt; 0.05 significant. Results: Senior radiographers achieved significantly higher reporting accuracy and sensitivity than medical officers (81.5% vs 67.8%, p = 0.002). Conclusion: Senior radiographers represent a potentially important resource for acute trauma-radiograph reporting in the public healthcare sector in Africa

NHEJ protects mycobacteria in stationary phase against the harmful effects of desiccation

The physiological role of the non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) pathway in the repair of DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) was examined in Mycobacterium smegmatis using DNA repair mutants (DeltarecA, Deltaku, DeltaligD, Deltaku/ligD, DeltarecA/ku/ligD). Wild-type and mutant strains were exposed to a range of doses of ionizing radiation at specific points in their life-cycle. NHEJ-mutant strains (Deltaku, DeltaligD, Deltaku/ligD) were significantly more sensitive to ionizing radiation (IR) during stationary phase than wild-type M. smegmatis. However, there was little difference in IR sensitivity between NHEJ-mutant and wild-type strains in logarithmic phase. Similarly, NHEJ-mutant strains were more sensitive to prolonged desiccation than wild-type M. smegmatis. A DeltarecA mutant strain was more sensitive to desiccation and IR during both stationary and especially in logarithmic phase, compared to wild-type strain, but it was significantly less sensitive to IR than the DeltarecA/ku/ligD triple mutant during stationary phase. These data suggest that NHEJ and homologous recombination are the preferred DSB repair pathways employed by M. smegmatis during stationary and logarithmic phases, respectively

Electronic Structure and Lattice dynamics of NaFeAs

The similarity of the electronic structures of NaFeAs and other Fe pnictides has been demonstrated on the basis of first-principle calculations. The global double-degeneracy of electronic bands along X-M and R-A direction indicates the instability of Fe pnictides and is explained on the basis of a tight-binding model. The de Haas-van Alphen parameters for the Fermi surface (FS) of NaFeAs have been calculated. A $\mathbf{Q}_{M}=(1/2,1/2,0)$ spin density wave (SDW) instead of a charge density wave (CDW) ground state is predicted based on the calculated generalized susceptibility $\chi(\mathbf{q})$ and a criterion derived from a restricted Hatree-Fock model. The strongest electron-phonon (e-p) coupling has been found to involve only As, Na z-direction vibration with linear-response calculations. A possible enhancement mechanism for e-p coupling due to correlation is suggested

Dual-site TMS demonstrates causal functional connectivity between the left and right posterior temporal sulci during facial expression recognition

Abstract Background Neuroimaging studies suggest that facial expression recognition is processed in the bilateral posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS). Our recent repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) study demonstrates that the bilateral pSTS is causally involved in expression recognition, although involvement of the right pSTS is greater than involvement of the left pSTS. Objective/Hypothesis: In this study, we used a dual-site TMS to investigate whether the left pSTS is functionally connected to the right pSTS during expression recognition. We predicted that if this connection exists, simultaneous TMS disruption of the bilateral pSTS would impair expression recognition to a greater extent than unilateral stimulation of the right pSTS alone. Methods Participants attended two TMS sessions. In Session 1, participants performed an expression recognition task while rTMS was delivered to the face-sensitive right pSTS (experimental site), object-sensitive right lateral occipital complex (control site) or no rTMS was delivered (behavioural control). In Session 2, the same experimental design was used, except that continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) was delivered to the left pSTS immediately before behavioural testing commenced. Session order was counter-balanced across participants. Results In Session 1, rTMS to the rpSTS impaired performance accuracy compared to the control conditions. Crucially in Session 2, the size of this impairment effect doubled after cTBS was delivered to the left pSTS. Conclusions Our results provide evidence for a causal functional connection between the left and right pSTS during expression recognition. In addition, this study further demonstrates the utility of the dual-site TMS for investigating causal functional links between brain regions

Obese Subjects Show Sex-Specific Differences in Right Ventricular Hypertrophy

As right ventricular (RV) remodeling in obesity remains underinvestigated, and the impact of left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction on RV hypertrophy is unknown, we aimed to investigate whether (1) sex-specific patterns of RV remodeling exist in obesity and (2) LV diastolic dysfunction in obesity is related to RV hypertrophy.Seven hundred thirty-nine subjects (women, n=345; men, n=394) without identifiable cardiovascular risk factors (body mass index [BMI], 15.3-59.2 kg/m2) underwent cardiovascular magnetic resonance (1.5 T) to measure RV mass (g), RV end-diastolic volume (mL), RV mass/volume ratio, and LV diastolic peak filling rate (mL/s). All subjects were normotensive (average, 119±11/73±8 mm Hg), normoglycaemic (4.8±0.5 mmol/L), and normocholesterolaemic (4.8±0.9 mmol/L) at the time of scanning. Across both sexes, there was a moderately strong positive correlation between BMI and RV mass (men, +0.8 g per BMI point increase; women, +1.0 g per BMI point increase; both P&lt;0.001). Whereas women exhibited RV cavity dilatation (RV end-diastolic volume, +1.0 mL per BMI point increase; P&lt;0.001), BMI was not correlated with RV end-diastolic volume in men (R=0.04; P=0.51). Concentric RV remodeling was present in both sexes, with RV mass/volume ratio being positively correlated to BMI (men, R=0.41; women, R=0.51; both P&lt;0.001). Irrespective of sex, the LV peak filling rate was negatively correlated with both RV mass (men, R=-0.43; women, R=-0.44; both P&lt;0.001) and RV mass/volume ratio (men, R=-0.37; women, R=-0.35; both P&lt;0.001).A sex difference in RV remodeling exists in obesity. Whereas men exhibit concentric RV remodeling, women exhibit a mixed pattern of eccentric and concentric remodeling. Regardless of sex, reduced LV diastolic function is associated with concentric RV remodeling

Measuring Information Service Outcomes: A Tale of Two Libraries

“The MISO (Measuring Information Service Outcomes) Survey is a web-based quantitative survey designed to measure how faculty, students, and staff view library and computing services in higher education” (http://www.misosurvey.org/). Fifty-five colleges will be using it in 2016 to collect user input regarding library and IT services. It has been administered at the College at Brockport every two years since 2008. SUNY Geneseo began using the tool a few years later. The survey assesses use, importance and satisfaction for a sample of campus groups that can include undergraduates, graduates, faculty and staff. The survey has helped to track changing technologies and resource use and can be used to determine service gaps (e.g., need to increase wireless coverage or improve quiet space, etc.). This poster will compare how the MISO instrument is administered and used at two public four-year comprehensive colleges in New York State. It will focus on the populations included, survey methodology, results, and how responses have been disseminated. The MISO online comparison tool will also be highlighted as a way to benchmark with peers. Suggested improvements to better use MISO data as part of assessing library impact and to ‘close the loop’ will also be included