Environmental effects and genotype-environment interactions in laying stocks of chickens

Data collected during the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Tennessee Random Sample Laying Tests (1964 to 1969) were analyzed statistically using analysis of variance. Egg production, egg size distribution, egg quality and feed efficiency variables were calculated on a yearly and quarterly basis. The effects: strains (20 strains), years (3 years), density level (1 per cage and 2 per cage), protein level (13 and 17 percent), insulation value (4R and 13R), quarters (four quarters) and their interactions were tested for statistical significance. Strains were found to differ significantly with respect to nearly all traits studied. Strain-density and strain-protein interactions were found for many variables. Differences between quarters were significant as would be expected for the traits studied. The other main effects, years, insulation value, protein level and density level were not consistently significant. Many of the strain-environment interactions were found to be significant. More strain-environment interactions were detectable as statistically significant when quarterly records, instead of year records, were used as a basis for analysis. Several of the second-order interactions also were found to be significant. These data indicate that strain-environment interactions are real, are difficult to detect and require experimental procedures which allow for detection of small differences if statistical significance is to be shown. Sub-samples of egg production strains entered in the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Random Sample Laying Test did not perform equally within a strain when subjected to different environments

The comparison of commercially bred egg laying stocks with one advanced generation of the respective stocks

The increase in egg production in the last 20 to 30 years has been due to improved nutrition, management and the use of hybrid chickens; crossbreds, strain crosses, inorosses and in-crossbreds. The commercial poultryman, as a rule, no longer produces his own replacement stock from his existing flock. He generally obtains new stock each year from the commercial breeders\u27 outlets. It is generally thought that if hybrids produced by these breeding systems were used to produce replacement pullets there would be a significant reduction in performance and an increase in variation. It is assumed that hybrid vigor expressed by these stocks would be reduced in the advanced generation as a result of the segregation and recombinations of the favorable genes or gene combinations. Since the advent of chicken hybrids, it has been recommended to the poultryman that he purchase his replacement stock from the commercial breeder on a yearly basis. This recommendation is based in part on the many population experiments exemplifying the increased variability and decrease in the mean in a segregating generation. The recommendation is also based, to a great extent, on experiments with hybrid corn and a statement by Wright (1922) that, a randombred stock derived from inbred families will have 1/nth less superiority over its inbred ancestry than the first cross or a random-tred stock from which the inbred families might have been derived without selection. Also, Falconer, (1960) gives a good discussion by use of the Hardy-Weinberg formula of the reduced heterosis expressed in the F2 generation. His conclusion is that heterosis in the F2 generation can only be one half that shown in the F1 generation. The experiments with corn and Wright\u27s work both deal with inbred lines used in the breeding system. However, not all commercial poultry breeders, today, employ inbred lines to produce their product. This experiment is designed to ascertain if the reduction, if any, in the performance of an advanced generation produced from chicken hybrids is significant

Gestational diabetes mellitus- right person, right treatment, right time?

Background: Personalised treatment that is uniquely tailored to an individual’s phenotype has become a key goal of clinical and pharmaceutical development across many, particularly chronic, diseases. For type 2 diabetes, the importance of the underlying clinical heterogeneity of the condition is emphasised and a range of treatments are now available, with personalised approaches being developed. While a close connection between risk factors for type 2 diabetes and gestational diabetes has long been acknowledged, stratification of screening, treatment and obstetric intervention remains in its infancy. Conclusions: Although there have been major advances in our understanding of glucose tolerance in pregnancy and of the benefits of treatment of gestational diabetes, we argue that far more vigorous approaches are needed to enable development of companion diagnostics, and to ensure the efficacious and safe use of novel therapeutic agents and strategies to improve outcomes in this common condition

Open-incubation, diffusion methods for measuring solute reaction rates in sediments

Sedimentary solute distributions and fluxes are determined in part by the kinetics of production/consumption reactions in a deposit. It is possible to estimate rates and investigate kinetic relations in undisturbed or manipulated sediments by documenting build-up or depletion patterns of solutes allowed to diffuse either between relatively thin sections of sediment and a well-stirred water reservoir (plug incubation); or through a large section of sediment without an overlying reservoir (whole-core incubation). The time-dependent concentrations in the sediment in both cases depend on reaction rates, kinetics, diffusion coefficients, and geometric scaling of the sediment and contacting reservoir. Major advantages of the plug incubation method are that interactions between classes of sedimentary reactions can be examined by manipulating the composition of the stirred water reservoir, and kinetic relations, such as reaction order, can be inferred from comparisons of reaction rate with steady-state concentrations of pore water solutes. The water reservoir size and sediment thickness can be altered to allow rapid estimates of reaction rates at near steady-state or to examine nonsteady-state behavior. Nonsteady-state models are always required for the whole-core incubation method. This latter method has the advantages that it is less labor-intensive than many other rate measurement methods and the incubations can be performed in situ. Experimental comparisons between open-incubation and more traditional closed-incubation estimates of reaction rates show good agreement for solutes such as NH4+, SO4–, HPO4– and I–. In some cases, such as Mn++, Fe++, and HPO4– production, where major back-reactions with sediment occur, open-incubations without substantial build-up of solutes may provide the most accurate method for estimating production rates. In principle, the open incubation methods described in this paper can be used for any diffusable species

Rate dependence of hysteresis in one-dimensional phase transitions

Two models for solid-solid phase transition in one-dimension are examined. Thermal dissipation and a rate-type viscosity are added to a stress with strain gradient. Numerical examinations of both models reveal similar results, in particular, stress-strain hysteresis, which is a commonly observed phenomena, and stability of single-phase boundary solutions

Motivating Employee Owners in ESOP Firms: Human Resource Policies and Company Performance

What enables some employee ownership firms to overcome the free rider problem andmotivate employees to improve performance? This study analyzes the role of humanresource policies in the performance of employee ownership companies, using employeesurvey data from 14 companies and a national sample of employee-owners. Between-firmcomparisons of 11 ESOP firms show that an index of human resource policies, nominallycontrolled by management, is positively related to employee reports of co-workerperformance and other good workplace outcomes (including perceptions of fairness, goodsupervision, and worker input and influence). Within-firm comparisons in three ESOP firms,and exploratory results from a national survey, show that employee-owners who participatein employee involvement committees are more likely to exert peer pressure on shirking coworkers.We conclude that an understanding of how and when employee ownership workssuccessfully requires a three-pronged analysis of: 1) the incentives that ownership gives; 2)the participative mechanisms available to workers to act on those incentives; and 3) thecorporate culture which battles against tendencies to free ride.human resources, industrial relations, employee ownership

Factors associated with stillbirth in women with diabetes

Aims/hypothesis: Stillbirth risk is increased in pregnancy complicated by diabetes. Fear of stillbirth has major influence on obstetric management, particularly timing of delivery. We analysed population-level data from Scotland to describe timing of stillbirths in women with diabetes and associated risk factors. Methods: A retrospective cohort of singleton deliveries to mothers with type 1 (n = 3778) and type 2 diabetes (n = 1614) from 1 April 1998 to 30 June 2016 was analysed using linked routine care datasets. Maternal and fetal characteristics, HbA1c data and delivery timing were compared between stillborn and liveborn groups. Results: Stillbirth rates were 16.1 (95% CI 12.4, 20.8) and 22.9 (95% CI 16.4, 31.8) per 1000 births in women with type 1 (n = 61) and type 2 diabetes (n = 37), respectively. In women with type 1 diabetes, higher HbA1c before pregnancy (OR 1.03 [95% CI 1.01, 1.04]; p = 0.0003) and in later pregnancy (OR 1.06 [95% CI 1.04, 1.08]; p < 0.0001) were associated with stillbirth, while in women with type 2 diabetes, higher maternal BMI (OR 1.07 [95% CI 1.01, 1.14]; p = 0.02) and pre-pregnancy HbA1c (OR 1.02 [95% CI 1.00, 1.04]; p = 0.016) were associated with stillbirth. Risk was highest in infants with birthweights <10th centile (sixfold higher born to women with type 1 diabetes [n = 5 stillbirths, 67 livebirths]; threefold higher for women with type 2 diabetes [n = 4 stillbirths, 78 livebirths]) compared with those in the 10th–90th centile (n = 20 stillbirths, 1685 livebirths). Risk was twofold higher in infants with birthweights >95th centile born to women with type 2 diabetes (n = 15 stillbirths, 402 livebirths). A high proportion of stillborn infants were male among mothers with type 2 diabetes (81.1% vs 50.5% livebirths, p = 0.0002). A third of stillbirths occurred at term, with highest rates in the 38th week (7.0 [95% CI 3.7, 12.9] per 1000 ongoing pregnancies) among mothers with type 1 diabetes and in the 39th week (9.3 [95% CI 2.4, 29.2]) for type 2 diabetes. Conclusions/interpretation: Maternal blood glucose levels and BMI are important modifiable risk factors for stillbirth in diabetes. Babies at extremes of weight centiles are at most risk. Many stillbirths occur at term and could potentially be prevented by change in routine care and delivery policies

Antipsychotic olanzapine-induced misfolding of proinsulin in the endoplasmic reticulum accounts for atypical development of diabetes

オランザピンの非典型的糖尿病誘発機構を解明 --体重増加以外にも注意が必要--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2020-12-02.Second-generation antipsychotics are widely used to medicate patients with schizophrenia, but may cause metabolic side effects such as diabetes, which has been considered to result from obesity-associated insulin resistance. Olanzapine is particularly well known for this effect. However, clinical studies have suggested that olanzapine-induced hyperglycemia in certain patients cannot be explained by such a generalized mechanism. Here, we focused on the effects of olanzapine on insulin biosynthesis and secretion by mouse insulinoma MIN6 cells. Olanzapine reduced maturation of proinsulin, and thereby inhibited secretion of insulin; and specifically shifted the primary localization of proinsulin from insulin granules to the endoplasmic reticulum. This was due to olanzapine’s impairment of proper disulfide bond formation in proinsulin, although direct targets of olanzapine remain undetermined. Olanzapine-induced proinsulin misfolding and subsequent decrease also occurred at the mouse level. This mechanism of olanzapine-induced β-cell dysfunction should be considered, together with weight gain, when patients are administered olanzapine

Diabetes and pregnancy:national trends over a 15 year period

Aims/hypothesis: We aimed to examine time trends in national perinatal outcomes in pregnancies complicated by pre-existing type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Methods: We analysed episode-level data on all obstetric inpatient delivery events (live or stillbirth) between 1 April 1998 and 31 March 2013 (n = 813,921) using the Scottish Morbidity Record (SMR02). Pregnancies to mothers with type 1 (n = 3229) and type 2 (n = 1452) diabetes were identified from the national diabetes database (Scottish Care Information-Diabetes), and perinatal outcomes were compared among women with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and those without diabetes. Results: The number of pregnancies complicated by diabetes increased significantly, by 44% in type 1 diabetes and 90% in type 2 diabetes, across the 15 years examined, to rates of 1 in 210 and 1 in 504 deliveries, respectively. Compared with women without diabetes, delivery occurred 2.6 weeks earlier (type 1 diabetes 36.7 ± 2.3 weeks) and 2 weeks earlier (type 2 diabetes 37.3 ± 2.4 weeks), respectively, showing significant reductions for both type 1 (from 36.7 weeks to 36.4 weeks, p = 0.03) and type 2 (from 38.0 weeks to 37.2 weeks, p < 0.001) diabetes across the time period. The proportions of preterm delivery were markedly increased in women with diabetes (35.3% type 1 diabetes, 21.8% type 2 diabetes, 6.1% without diabetes; p < 0.0001), and these proportions increased with time for both groups (p < 0.005). Proportions of elective Caesarean sections (29.4% type 1 diabetes, 30.5% type 2 diabetes, 9.6% without diabetes) and emergency Caesarean sections (38.3% type 1 diabetes, 29.1% type 2 diabetes, 14.6% without diabetes) were greatly increased in women with diabetes and increased over time except for stable rates of emergency Caesarean section in type 1 diabetes. Gestational age-, sex- and parity-adjusted z score for birthweight (1.33 ± 1.34; p < 0.001) were higher in type 1 diabetes and increased over time from 1.22 to 1.47 (p < 0.001). Birthweight was also increased in type 2 diabetes (0.94 ± 1.34; p < 0.001) but did not alter with time. There were 65 perinatal deaths in offspring of mothers with type 1 diabetes and 39 to mothers with type 2 diabetes, representing perinatal mortality rates of 20.1 (95% CI 14.7, 24.3) and 26.9 (16.7, 32.9) per 1000 births, respectively, and rates 3.1 and 4.2 times, respectively, those observed in the non-diabetic population (p < 0.001). Stillbirth rates in type 1 and type 2 diabetes were 4.0-fold and 5.1-fold that in the non-diabetic population (p < 0.001). Perinatal mortality and stillbirth rates showed no significant fall over time despite small falls in the rates for the non-diabetic population. Conclusions/interpretation: Women with diabetes are receiving increased intervention in pregnancy (earlier delivery, increased Caesarean section rates), but despite this, higher birthweights are being recorded. Improvements in rates of stillbirth seen in the general population are not being reflected in changes in stillbirth or perinatal mortality in our population with diabetes

A rhetoric-in-context approach to building commitment to multiple strategic goals

There are still few explanations of the micro-level practices by which top managers influence employee commitment to multiple strategic goals. This paper argues that, through their language, top managers can construct a context for commitment to multiple strategic goals. We therefore propose a rhetoric-in-context approach to illuminate some of the micro practices through which top managers influence employee commitment. Based upon an empirical study of the rhetorical practices through which top managers influence academic commitment to multiple strategic goals in university contexts, we demonstrate relationships between rhetoric and context. Specifically, we show that rhetorical influences over commitment to multiple goals are associated with the historical context for multiple goals, the degree to which top managers' rhetoric instantiates a change in that context, and the internal consistency of the rhetorical practices used by top managers. Copyright © 2007 SAGE Publications