Transcriptome analyses reveal reduced hepatic lipid synthesis and accumulation in more feed efficient beef cattle

peer-reviewedThe genetic mechanisms controlling residual feed intake (RFI) in beef cattle are still largely unknown. Here we performed whole transcriptome analyses to identify differentially expressed (DE) genes and their functional roles in liver tissues between six extreme high and six extreme low RFI steers from three beef breed populations including Angus, Charolais, and Kinsella Composite (KC). On average, the next generation sequencing yielded 34 million single-end reads per sample, of which 87% were uniquely mapped to the bovine reference genome. At false discovery rate (FDR)  2, 72, 41, and 175 DE genes were identified in Angus, Charolais, and KC, respectively. Most of the DE genes were breed-specific, while five genes including TP53INP1, LURAP1L, SCD, LPIN1, and ENSBTAG00000047029 were common across the three breeds, with TP53INP1, LURAP1L, SCD, and LPIN1 being downregulated in low RFI steers of all three breeds. The DE genes are mainly involved in lipid, amino acid and carbohydrate metabolism, energy production, molecular transport, small molecule biochemistry, cellular development, and cell death and survival. Furthermore, our differential gene expression results suggest reduced hepatic lipid synthesis and accumulation processes in more feed efficient beef cattle of all three studied breeds

HMS Hampshire 100:Survey Report

HMS HAMPSHIRE was a British 10,850-long tons pre-dreadnought Devonshire-class armoured cruiser launched on 24th September 1903, completed on 15th July 1905 and commissioned one month later. She fought at the Battle of Jutland on 31st May & 1st June 1916 before returning to the Royal Navy Grand Fleet base at Scapa Flow in Orkney, off northern Scotland. On 5th June 1916 she departed Scapa Flow on a secret mission carrying the British Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener, and his staff to Archangel in northern Russia to discuss war aims and strategy. En route, some 1.5 nautical miles north west of the sheer cliffs of Marwick Head, north west Orkney, at approximately 2040hrs BST, she struck a mine laid by the Type UE 1 German submarine U 75 early on the morning of 29th May 1916 during German preparations for the Battle of Jutland. HMS HAMPSHIRE settled quickly by the head, rolling over to starboard. She capsized and sank some 15 minutes after hitting the mine. 737 men were lost, including Lord Kitchener and his staff – there were only 12 survivors. The wreck was designated a Controlled Site under the Protection of Military Remains Act 1986 (Designation of Vessels and Controlled Sites) on 30th September 2002 and no diving has been permitted on her since that date. Specialist divers conducted underwater surveys of the entire site using underwater mapping and forensic diving techniques. The wreck was documented using videography, stills photography and 3D photogrammetry

Oculomotor and linguistic processing effects in reading dynamic horizontally scrolling text.

Two experiments are reported investigating oculomotor behavior and linguistic processing when reading dynamic horizontally scrolling text (compared to reading normal static text). Three factors known to modulate processing time in normal reading were investigated: Word length and word frequency were examined in Experiment 1, and target word predictability in Experiment 2. An analysis of global oculomotor behavior across the 2 experiments showed that participants made fewer and longer fixations when reading scrolling text, with shorter progressive and regressive saccades between these fixations. Comparisons of the linguistic manipulations showed evidence of a dissociation between word-level and sentence-level processing. Word-level processing (Experiment 1) was preserved for the dynamic scrolling text condition with no difference in length and frequency effects between scrolling and static text formats. However, sentence-level integration (Experiment 2) was reduced for scrolling compared to static text in that we obtained no early facilitation effect for predictable words under scrolling text conditions

Primeras noticias de Zapote Bobal, una ciudad maya clasica del noroccidente de Petén, Guatemala

International audienceDesde hace mas de 20 anos, el nombre de Hixwitz "la colina del jaguar" estaba registrado en textos glificos clasicos que provenian de las regiones del Usumacinta y el Petén Central en las Tierras Bajas Mayas. Hasta hace poco, este nombre parecia hacer referencia a un sitio no descubierto. Sin embargo, las investigaciones de D. Stuart sobre la Joyanca, El Pajaral y Zapote Bobal demostraron en 2003 que Hixwitz representaba un territorio ocupado por varias ciudades de las que Zapote Bobal era la mas importante. Como consecuencia del descubrimiento de este antiguo territorio, bien conocido por los textos pero desconocido para la arqueologia, que comenzaro los trabajos de campo en ZB en 2004. El estudio de los tuneles de saqueo de 5 estructuras piramidales ha permitido reconstruir una cronologia preliminar de la ocupacion del sitio que en concordancia con las fechas de los monumentos, sugiere una ocupacion comprendida entre el 600 y el 700 d.C. Asi llegan, con esta primera campana, les primeras noticias de Hixwitz y la posibilidad de reconstruir la historia cultural y de los mas importante eventos de "la colina del jaguar"

Short Term Travel to the Holy Land: Questions of Potency, Pilgrimage, and Potential

There has been a significant impact on the two participants who took part in this research project. There is no doubt that this short-term travel to the Holy Land has resulted in transformative learning where both individuals experienced contextualizing through a visual perspective, which has enhanced and contributed to a deeper meaningful understanding of their personal and spiritual journey. The results show that the impact has been positive and that planning, group membership, and active engagement through reading and journaling have made this trip unlike any other. This study although limited to two related individuals from the same faith does present short-term travel to the Holy Land as a positive transformative learning experience with lasting impacts

ASIME 2018 White Paper. In-Space Utilisation of Asteroids: Asteroid Composition -- Answers to Questions from the Asteroid Miners

In keeping with the Luxembourg government's initiative to support the future use of space resources, ASIME 2018 was held in Belval, Luxembourg on April 16-17, 2018. The goal of ASIME 2018: Asteroid Intersections with Mine Engineering, was to focus on asteroid composition for advancing the asteroid in-space resource utilisation domain. What do we know about asteroid composition from remote-sensing observations? What are the potential caveats in the interpretation of Earth-based spectral observations? What are the next steps to improve our knowledge on asteroid composition by means of ground-based and space-based observations and asteroid rendez-vous and sample return missions? How can asteroid mining companies use this knowledge? ASIME 2018 was a two-day workshop of almost 70 scientists and engineers in the context of the engineering needs of space missions with in-space asteroid utilisation. The 21 Questions from the asteroid mining companies were sorted into the four asteroid science themes: 1) Potential Targets, 2) Asteroid-Meteorite Links, 3) In-Situ Measurements and 4) Laboratory Measurements. The Answers to those Questions were provided by the scientists with their conference presentations and collected by A. Graps or edited directly into an open-access collaborative Google document or inserted by A. Graps using additional reference materials. During the ASIME 2018, first day and second day Wrap-Ups, the answers to the questions were discussed further. New readers to the asteroid mining topic may find the Conversation boxes and the Mission Design discussions especially interesting.Comment: Outcome from the ASIME 2018: Asteroid Intersections with Mine Engineering, Luxembourg. April 16-17, 2018. 65 Pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1612.0070

Parafoveal preview effects in reading unspaced text

In English reading, eye guidance relies heavily on the spaces between words for demarcating word boundaries. In an eye tracking experiment, we examined the impact of removing spaces on parafoveal processing. Using the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975), a high or low frequency pre-boundary word was followed by a post-boundary preview presented either normally (i.e. identical to the post- boundary word), or with letters replaced creating an orthographically illegal preview. The spaces between words were either retained or removed. Results replicate previous findings of increased reading times during unspaced reading (Rayner, Fischer & Pollatsek, 1998) and indicate rather limited evidence for more distributed processing: Observations of processing of the previous word (spill-over effects) or processing of the next word (parafoveal-on-foveal effects) influencing fixation durations on the currently fixated word were limited. Spill-over effects were only observed in the unspaced layout when the post-boundary preview was correct, presumably because the orthographically illegal, incorrect preview was visually salient enough to allow for relatively easy word segmentation and therefore more focused processing of the pre- boundary word. As such, results points towards a system that prefers narrowly focused processing of a single word, at least when means for easy word segmentation are available

Observational and Dynamical Characterization of Main-Belt Comet P/2010 R2 (La Sagra)

We present observations of comet-like main-belt object P/2010 R2 (La Sagra) obtained by Pan-STARRS 1 and the Faulkes Telescope-North on Haleakala in Hawaii, the University of Hawaii 2.2 m, Gemini-North, and Keck I telescopes on Mauna Kea, the Danish 1.54 m telescope at La Silla, and the Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma. An antisolar dust tail is observed from August 2010 through February 2011, while a dust trail aligned with the object's orbit plane is also observed from December 2010 through August 2011. Assuming typical phase darkening behavior, P/La Sagra is seen to increase in brightness by >1 mag between August 2010 and December 2010, suggesting that dust production is ongoing over this period. These results strongly suggest that the observed activity is cometary in nature (i.e., driven by the sublimation of volatile material), and that P/La Sagra is therefore the most recent main-belt comet to be discovered. We find an approximate absolute magnitude for the nucleus of H_R=17.9+/-0.2 mag, corresponding to a nucleus radius of ~0.7 km, assuming an albedo of p=0.05. Using optical spectroscopy, we find no evidence of sublimation products (i.e., gas emission), finding an upper limit CN production rate of Q_CN<6x10^23 mol/s, from which we infer an H2O production rate of Q_H2O<10^26 mol/s. Numerical simulations indicate that P/La Sagra is dynamically stable for >100 Myr, suggesting that it is likely native to its current location and that its composition is likely representative of other objects in the same region of the main belt, though the relatively close proximity of the 13:6 mean-motion resonance with Jupiter and the (3,-2,-1) three-body mean-motion resonance with Jupiter and Saturn mean that dynamical instability on larger timescales cannot be ruled out.Comment: 23 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A

NFIRAOS: TMT's facility adaptive optics system

NFIRAOS, the TMT Observatory's initial facility AO system is a multi-conjugate AO system feeding science light from 0.8 to 2.5 microns wavelength to several near-IR client instruments. NFIRAOS has two deformable mirrors optically conjugated to 0 and 11.2 km, and will correct atmospheric turbulence with 50 per cent sky coverage at the galactic pole. An important requirement is to have very low background: the plan is to cool the optics; and one DM is on a tip/tilt stage to reduce surface count. NFIRAOS' real time control uses multiple sodium laser wavefront sensors and up to three IR natural guide star tip/tilt and/or tip/tilt/focus sensors located within each client instrument. Extremely large telescopes are sensitive to errors due to the variability of the sodium layer. To reduce this sensitivity, NFIRAOS uses innovative algorithms coupled with Truth wavefront sensors to monitor a natural star at low bandwidth. It also includes an IR acquisition camera, and a high speed NGS WFS for operation without lasers. For calibration, NFIRAOS includes simulators of both natural stars at infinity and laser guide stars at varying range distance. Because astrometry is an important science programme for NFIRAOS, there is a precision pinhole mask deployable at the input focal plane. This mask is illuminated by a science wavelength and flat-field calibrator that shines light into NFIRAOS' entrance window. We report on recent effort especially including trade studies to reduce field distortion in the science path and to reduce cost and complexity