Trace Mineral Clearance from Plasma and Liver Following Injection is Affected by Cattle Breed

Trace mineral supplementation during times of stress and critical production periods may prove beneficial to overall animal health and performance. A decrease in trace mineral status may negatively impact reproduction, immunity, and general performance of the animal. Little research is available inquiring into breed differences on trace mineral status and clearance. This study concluded that Multimin®90 appeared to be an effective way to improve the trace mineral status, specifically of liver copper (Cu) and selenium (Se), of Angus and Simmental calves when compared to controls receiving sterilized saline

KINETICS OF THE LOWER EXTEREMITIES IN ERGOMETER ROWING DEPEND ON BODY MASS INDEX

The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of body mass index (BMI) on the kinetics of the lower extremities in ergometer rowing. Our results indicate that BMI has a major impact on lower extremity kinetics in ergometer rowing. Significantly increased knee joint torques with respect to external adduction and internal rotation were found. Furthermore, differences in hip and knee extension torques were found. The results indicate that obese individuals are at higher risk of overloading the knee joint during ergometer rowing

Effects of Changes in Background Colour on the Identification of Own- and Other-Race Faces

The current study investigated whether small differences in the background colours between the lineup members would influence identification accuracy of own-race and other-race faces. Using the well-established 1 in 10 paradigm, half of the array faces had exactly the same backgrounds and half were on backgrounds of slightly different hues of green. For TP arrays, participants were more accurate at identifying own-race faces, as compared to the other-race faces when all backgrounds were the same. However, when backgrounds had slightly different hues, there was no difference in how accurate people were at identifying faces from both races. For TA arrays, participants were more likely to incorrectly choose a face if the backgrounds were not all the same, regardless of the race of faces. Real world implications from these findings are that using lineups where the backgrounds are slightly different hues may increase the likelihood of the false identification of innocent suspects

THE IMPACT OF BODY MASS AND SKILL LEVEL ON ROWING KINEMATICS

Rowing is a non-weight-bearing aerobic full body exercise, which is often recommended for weight loss programs. Previous studies demonstrated that Body Mass Index (BMI) is correlated with changes in the kinematics of humans. We extend this area of research to compare the effect of both BMI and skill-level on the kinematics of the lower extremities during rowing. Findings highlight differences such as knee flexion, knee internal rotation, hip extension, hip external rotation between normal weight and obese individuals. These findings suggest that injury risks are correlated to body type and previous skill level. This research indicates the need for adjustable setups for the rowing ergometer. This recommendation would not only increase comfort for all types of athletes, but reduce risks of injury and create the necessary conditions to accomplish a proper technique

Look at that! BERT can be easily distracted from paying attention to morphosyntax

Syntactic knowledge involves not only the ability to combine words and phrases, but also the capacity to relate different and yet truth-preserving structural variations (e.g. passivization, inversion, topicalization, extraposition, clefting, etc.), as well as the ability to infer that these syntactic variations all adhere to common morphosyntactic rules, like subject-verb agreement. Although there is some evidence that BERT has rich syntactic knowledge, our adversarial approach suggests that it is not deployed in a robust and linguistically appropriate way. English BERT can be tricked to miss even quite simple syntactic generalizations, when compared with GPT-2, underscoring the need for stronger priors and for linguistically controlled experiments in evaluatio

Ant approaches for the QAP

Diese Diplomarbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem wissenschaftlichen Forschungsgebiet der Ameisenoptimierung und deren Algorithmen und wendet diese auf das Quadratische Zuordnungsproblem an. Das Hauptziel des Quadratischen Zuordnungsproblems besteht darin eine geeignete Zuordnung von einer gewissen Anzahl an Funktionen zu der gleichen Anzahl an möglichen Plätzen zu finden, um die Gesamtkosten zu minimieren. Dieser theoretische Ansatz kann auf direktem Weg auf Probleme der Wirklichkeit übertragen werden. Eines der besten Beispiele hierfür ist die Herausforderung, welcher ein Unternehmen sich stellen muss wenn es eine neue Produktionsstätte eröffnet. Die Produktionskosten können solang auf einem minimalen Level gehalten werden wie die verwendeten Maschinen intelligent auf ihren Standorten angeordnet werden, sodass die Gesamtsumme der Produkte zwischen Materialflüsse und Distanzen einen ökonomisch angemessenen Wert ergibt. Im theoretischen Teil dieser Arbeit werden einige der wichtigsten Ameisenalgorithmen wie MMAS und HAS-QAP diskutiert und es wird gezeigt wie die zusätzliche Implementierung von effektiven Local Search Methoden die Lösungsqualität verbessern kann. Der praktische Teil dieser Arbeit versucht einen grundlegenden MMAS Algorithmus um zusätzliche Local Search Methoden, welche auf den Ideen von Iterated Ants und Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search basieren, zu erweitern und so zu verbessern. Hierfür wurden fünf verschiedene Algorithmen in C++ implementiert: MMAS Basis, MMAS Random Removal, MMAS Product Removal Highest, MMAS Product Removal Lowest and MMAS 3 Iterated. Zuletzt werden die generierten Ergebnisse diskutiert und die Lösungsqualitäten der einzelnen Algorithmen untereinander verglichen.This diploma thesis deals with the scientific research area of Ant Colony Optimization algorithms and applies them to the Quadratic Assignment Problem. The central aim of the Quadratic Assignment Problems is to find an optimal allocation of a certain number of facilities to the equal number of possible locations in order to minimize the overall costs. This theoretical formulation can be passed on real life problems in a straightforward way. One of the best examples is the challenge each company has to deal with when opening a new production site. The production cost can be kept to a minimum as long as the used machines are cleverly arranged to their locations so that the overall sum of the products between material flows and distances comes to an economical appropriate value. In the theoretical part of this thesis some of the most important ant algorithms like MMAS and HAS-QAP are discussed and it is shown how the additional implementation of an effective local search method can improve the solution quality. The practical part of this thesis tries to enhance a basic MMAS algorithm by implementing additional local search methods based on the ideas of Iterated Ants and Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search. Therefore five different algorithms have been implemented in C++: MMAS Basis, MMAS Random Removal, MMAS Product Removal Highest, MMAS Product Removal Lowest and MMAS 3 Iterated. At the end the generated results are discussed and the solution qualities of the individual algorithms are compared among themselves

Planning strategies for inter-fractional robustness in pancreatic patients treated with scanned carbon therapy

Background: Managing inter-fractional anatomy changes is a challenging task in radiotherapy of pancreatic tumors, especially in scanned carbon-ion delivery. This treatment planning study aims to focus on clinically feasible solutions, such as the beam angle selection and margin design to increase the robustness against inter-fractional uncertainties. Methods: This study included 10 patients with weekly 3D-CT imaging and physician-approved Clinical Target Volume (CTV). The study was directed to keep the CTV-coverage using six beam angle configurations in combination with different Internal Target Volume (ITV) concepts. These were: geometric-margin (symmetric 3 and 5 mm margin); range-equivalent margins with an isotropic HU replacement; and to evaluate the need of asymmetric margins the water-equivalent range path (WEPL) was determined per patient from the set of CTs. Plan optimization and forward dose calculation in each week-CT were performed with the research treatment planning system TRiP98 and the plan quality evaluated in terms of CTV coverage (V95CTV) and homogeneity dose (HCTV = D5-D95). Results: The beam geometry had a substantial impact on the target irradiation over the treatment course, with the single posterior or two beams showing the best average coverage of the CTV. The use of geometric margins for the more robust beam geometries showed acceptable results, with a V95CTV of (99.2 ± 1.2)% for the 5 mm-margin. For the non-robust configurations, due to substantial changes in the radiological depth, the use of this margin results in a V95CTV that might be below 80%, only showing improvement when the range changes are included. Conclusions: Selection of adequate beam configurations and treatment margins in ion-beam therapy of pancreatic tumors is of great importance. For a single posterior beam or two beam configurations, application of geometrical margins compensate for dose degradation induced by inter-fractional anatomy changes for the majority of the analyzed treatment fractions