Effect of reduced dietary protein level on energy metabolism, sow body composition and metabolites in plasma, milk and urine from gestating and lactating organic sows during temperate winter conditions

Energy spent on thermoregulation and the opportunity for increased locomotive activity increases the energy requirements of outdoor relative to indoor housed sows, whilst their protein requirement most likely is comparable on a daily basis. The purpose of this study was to quantify the energy needed for maintenance, maternal retention, milk production, thermoregulation and increased locomotive activity in organic sows. A total of 47 gilts (Landrace x Yorkshire; 190 kg at insemination) were reared outdoor under organic conditions for five months during winter. To study dietary effects of protein, gilts were fed one of two iso-energetic compound feeds, where dietary protein differed by 12%. Gilts had ad libitum access to grass clover silage and were fed similar amounts of metabolisable energy (ME) from compound feed equivalent to the energy recommendations for indoor sows + 15% in both groups. Collection of plasma and urine was performed on d60 and d100 of gestation and plasma, urine and milk was collected on d5, d20 and d40 of lactation. On all collection days, sows and piglets (n=635) were weighed individually, sows were back fat scanned and heartrate and locomotive activity was registered with a tracking system. Sow body composition was estimated using the deuterium dilution technique. Live weight and back fat thickness were not affected by the dietary protein level, neither was the number of total born, still born, piglet birth weight or piglet weight gain until weaning at seven weeks (14.5 kg). There was no effect of protein level on locomotive activity. Milk yield peaked with 12.9 kg/d around d20. In total, 58% of the gross energy intake was associated with milk production at d20 including heat. Milk energy output was 69 MJ ME/d at peak lactation at d20. Sows fed the low protein compound feed had a lower milk yield from d20 to d40 as compared with control fed sows (8.0 vs.10.3 kg/d; P 1 kg of body fat/d from d5-d20. The daily protein- and amino acid requirements were met during pregnancy, also when sows were fed the low protein compound feed, but the low protein diet supplied insufficient standardised ileal digestible lysine during lactation and this compromised the milk production. The total energy requirement of high yielding first parity outdoor sows during a mild winter was found to be ~ 68 MJ ME/d in gestation and ~153 MJ ME/d at peak lactation

Correlations in STAR: interferometry and event structure

STAR observes a complex picture of RHIC collisions where correlation effects of different origins -- initial state geometry, semi-hard scattering, hadronization, as well as final state interactions such as quantum intensity interference -- coexist. Presenting the measurements of flow, mini-jet deformation, modified hadronization, and the Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect, we trace the history of the system from the initial to the final state. The resulting picture is discussed in the context of identifying the relevant degrees of freedom and the likely equilibration mechanism.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, plenary talk at the 5th International Conference on Physics and Astrophysics of Quark Gluon Plasma, to appear in Journal of Physics G (http://www.iop.org

Strangelet search at RHIC

Two position sensitive Shower Maximum Detector (SMDs) for Zero-Degree Calorimeters (ZDCs) were installed by STAR before run 2004 at both upstream and downstream from the interaction point along the beam axis where particles with small rigidity are swept away by strong magnetic field. The ZDC-SMDs provides information about neutral energy deposition as a function of transverse position in ZDCs. We report the preliminary results of strangelet search from a triggered data-set sampling 100 million Au+Au collisions at top RHIC energy.Comment: Strange Quark Matter 2004 conference proceedin

Neutral Kaon Interferometry in Au+Au collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 200 GeV

We present the first statistically meaningful results from two-K0s interferometry in heavy-ion collisions. A model that takes the effect of the strong interaction into account has been used to fit the measured correlation function. The effects of single and coupled channel were explored. At the mean transverse mass m_T = 1.07 GeV, we obtain the values R = 4.09 +/- 0.46 (stat.) +/- 0.31 (sys) fm and lambda = 0.92 +/- 0.23 (stat) +/- 0.13 (sys), where R and lambda are the invariant radius and chaoticity parameters respectively. The results are qualitatively consistent with m_T systematics established with pions in a scenario characterized by a strong collective flow.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure

Azimuthal anisotropy and correlations at large transverse momenta in p+p and Au+Au collisions at sqrt[sNN] = 200 GeV

Results on high transverse momentum charged particle emission with respect to the reaction plane are presented for Au+Au collisions at sqrt[sNN]=200 GeV. Two- and four-particle correlations results are presented as well as a comparison of azimuthal correlations in Au+Au collisions to those in p+p at the same energy. The elliptic anisotropy v2 is found to reach its maximum at pt~3 GeV/c, then decrease slowly and remain significant up to pt ~ 7-10 GeV/c. Stronger suppression is found in the back-to-back high-pt particle correlations for particles emitted out of plane compared to those emitted in plane. The centrality dependence of v2 at intermediate pt is compared to simple models based on jet quenching

Формирование эмоциональной культуры как компонента инновационной культуры студентов

Homozygosity has long been associated with rare, often devastating, Mendelian disorders1 and Darwin was one of the first to recognise that inbreeding reduces evolutionary fitness2. However, the effect of the more distant parental relatedness common in modern human populations is less well understood. Genomic data now allow us to investigate the effects of homozygosity on traits of public health importance by observing contiguous homozygous segments (runs of homozygosity, ROH), which are inferred to be homozygous along their complete length. Given the low levels of genome-wide homozygosity prevalent in most human populations, information is required on very large numbers of people to provide sufficient power3,4. Here we use ROH to study 16 health-related quantitative traits in 354,224 individuals from 102 cohorts and find statistically significant associations between summed runs of homozygosity (SROH) and four complex traits: height, forced expiratory lung volume in 1 second (FEV1), general cognitive ability (g) and educational attainment (nominal p<1 × 10−300, 2.1 × 10−6, 2.5 × 10−10, 1.8 × 10−10). In each case increased homozygosity was associated with decreased trait value, equivalent to the offspring of first cousins being 1.2 cm shorter and having 10 months less education. Similar effect sizes were found across four continental groups and populations with different degrees of genome-wide homozygosity, providing convincing evidence for the first time that homozygosity, rather than confounding, directly contributes to phenotypic variance. Contrary to earlier reports in substantially smaller samples5,6, no evidence was seen of an influence of genome-wide homozygosity on blood pressure and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, or ten other cardio-metabolic traits. Since directional dominance is predicted for traits under directional evolutionary selection7, this study provides evidence that increased stature and cognitive function have been positively selected in human evolution, whereas many important risk factors for late-onset complex diseases may not have been