Maximizing Use of an Extension Beef Cattle Data Set: Part 2—Reproductive Rates

Previously, we described CHAPS20Y, a historical data set, and trends in CHAPS20Y calving distributions. In this article, we describe reproductive rates, including total females exposed to bull(s), pregnancy, pregnancy loss, calving, calf death loss, weaning, culling, and replacement percentages. Yearly mean exposed females increased from 1994 through 2013, consistent with a greater replacement percentage versus culling percentage. Yearly mean reproductive percentages varied over time. Factors such as weather, body condition, temperament, nutrition, and health likely contributed to this variation. CHAPS20Y is a tool Extension professionals can use to understand beef reproductive rates and help producers set and achieve their herd management goals

Maximizing Use of Extension Beef Cattle Benchmarks Data Derived from Cow Herd Appraisal Performance Software

One goal of Extension is to provide practical information that makes a difference to producers. Cow Herd Appraisal Performance Software (CHAPS) has provided beef producers with production benchmarks for 30 years, creating a large historical data set. Many such large data sets contain useful information but are underutilized. Our goal was to create a 20-year data set (CHAPS20Y) to examine trends in beef production from 1994 to 2013. In this article, we describe the CHAPS program and the process used to select herds for CHAPS20Y. We hope to publish additional related articles that will examine trends in calving distributions, reproduction, and growth and discuss implications for producers and Extension

Commissioning the SPEAR3 Diagnostic Beamlines

SPEAR3 has two diagnostic beam lines: an x-ray pinhole camera and a visible/UV beam line. The pinhole camera images {approx}8 keV dipole synchrotron radiation (SR) incident on a phosphor screen. The visible beam line delivers conventional optical radiation to an array of cameras and diagnostic elements on a 1x3m optical bench. This paper briefly reviews the pinhole camera system while concentrating more on visible beam line power transmission calculations and streak camera data. Impedance estimates in the nominal optics and bunch length measurements in low-alpha optics are presented

Breeding soundness evaluation of beef bulls

V-833 (Revised

Glycoprotein B Cleavage Is Important for Murid Herpesvirus 4 To

Glycoprotein B (gB) is a conserved herpesvirus virion component implicated in membrane fusion. As with many — but not all— herpesviruses, the gB of murid herpesvirus 4 (MuHV-4) is cleaved into disulfide-linked subunits, apparently by furin. Preventing gB cleavage for some herpesviruses causes minor infection deficits in vitro, but what the cleavage contributes to host coloniza-tion has been unclear. To address this, we mutated the furin cleavage site (R-R-K-R) of the MuHV-4 gB. Abolishing gB cleavage did not affect its expression levels, glycosylation, or antigenic conformation. In vitro, mutant viruses entered fibroblasts and epithelial cells normally but had a significant entry deficit in myeloid cells such as macrophages and bone marrow-derived den-dritic cells. The deficit in myeloid cells was not due to reduced virion binding or endocytosis, suggesting that gB cleavage pro-motes infection at a postendocytic entry step, presumably viral membrane fusion. In vivo, viruses lacking gB cleavage showed reduced lytic spread in the lungs. Alveolar epithelial cell infection was normal, but alveolar macrophage infection was signifi-cantly reduced. Normal long-term latency in lymphoid tissue was established nonetheless. Glycoprotein B (gB) is a conserved herpesvirus virion com-ponent involved in cell binding and viral membrane fu-sion (1). It and the structurally homologous vesicular stomati-tis virus (VSV) G protein and baculovirus gp64 are considered to be class III fusion proteins (2–7). Most herpesvirus gBs con-tain an R-X-K/R-R recognition motif for the ubiquitously ex