Select Cows With Rapid Milk Flow

Selecting cows with high milking flow rates reduces milking time per pound of milk produced. Time saved per cow multiplied by the number of cows you milk can be sizable if you make 730 milkings each year

Potential of MODIS ocean bands for estimating CO2 flux from terrestrial vegetation: A novel approach

A physiologically-driven spectral index using two ocean-color bands of MODIS satellite sensor showed great potential to track seasonally changing photosynthetic light use efficiency (LUE) and stress-induced reduction in net primary productivity (NPP) of terrestrial vegetation. Based on these findings, we developed a simple ‘‘continuous field’’ model solely based on remotely sensed spectral data that could explain 88% of variability in flux-tower based daily NPP. For the first time, such a procedure is successfully tested at landscape level using satellite imagery. These findings highlight the unexplored potential of narrow-band satellite sensors to improve estimates of spatial and temporal distribution in terrestrial carbon flux

Novel Signal Noise Reduction Method through Cluster Analysis, Applied to Photoplethysmography

Physiological signals can often become contaminated by noise from a variety of origins. In this paper, an algorithm is described for the reduction of sporadic noise from a continuous periodic signal. The design can be used where a sample of a periodic signal is required, for example, when an average pulse is needed for pulse wave analysis and characterization. The algorithm is based on cluster analysis for selecting similar repetitions or pulses from a periodic single. This method selects individual pulses without noise, returns a clean pulse signal, and terminates when a sufficiently clean and representative signal is received. The algorithm is designed to be sufficiently compact to be implemented on a microcontroller embedded within a medical device. It has been validated through the removal of noise from an exemplar photoplethysmography (PPG) signal, showing increasing benefit as the noise contamination of the signal increases. The algorithm design is generalised to be applicable for a wide range of physiological (physical) signals

Activated lymphocyte recruitment into the tumor microenvironment following preoperative sipuleucel-T for localized prostate cancer.

BackgroundSipuleucel-T is a US Food and Drug Administration-approved immunotherapy for asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Its mechanism of action is not fully understood. This prospective trial evaluated the direct immune effects of systemically administered sipuleucel-T on prostatic cancer tissue in the preoperative setting.MethodsPatients with untreated localized prostate cancer were treated on an open-label Phase II study of sipuleucel-T prior to planned radical prostatectomy (RP). Immune infiltrates in RP specimens (posttreatment) and in paired pretreatment biopsies were evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Correlations between circulating immune response and IHC were assessed using Spearman rank order.ResultsOf the 42 enrolled patients, 37 were evaluable. Adverse events were primarily transient, mild-to-moderate and infusion related. Patients developed T cell proliferation and interferon-γ responses detectable in the blood following treatment. Furthermore, a greater-than-three-fold increase in infiltrating CD3(+), CD4(+) FOXP3(-), and CD8(+) T cells was observed in the RP tissues compared with the pretreatment biopsy (binomial proportions: all P < .001). This level of T cell infiltration was observed at the tumor interface, and was not seen in a control group consisting of 12 concurrent patients who did not receive any neoadjuvant treatment prior to RP. The majority of infiltrating T cells were PD-1(+) and Ki-67(+), consistent with activated T cells. Importantly, the magnitude of the circulating immune response did not directly correlate with T cell infiltration within the prostate based upon Spearman's rank order correlation.ConclusionsThis study is the first to demonstrate a local immune effect from the administration of sipuleucel-T. Neoadjuvant sipuleucel-T elicits both a systemic antigen-specific T cell response and the recruitment of activated effector T cells into the prostate tumor microenvironment

Creativity and Autonomy in Swarm Intelligence Systems

This work introduces two swarm intelligence algorithms -- one mimicking the behaviour of one species of ants (\emph{Leptothorax acervorum}) foraging (a `Stochastic Diffusion Search', SDS) and the other algorithm mimicking the behaviour of birds flocking (a `Particle Swarm Optimiser', PSO) -- and outlines a novel integration strategy exploiting the local search properties of the PSO with global SDS behaviour. The resulting hybrid algorithm is used to sketch novel drawings of an input image, exploliting an artistic tension between the local behaviour of the `birds flocking' - as they seek to follow the input sketch - and the global behaviour of the `ants foraging' - as they seek to encourage the flock to explore novel regions of the canvas. The paper concludes by exploring the putative `creativity' of this hybrid swarm system in the philosophical light of the `rhizome' and Deleuze's well known `Orchid and Wasp' metaphor

Evaluation of developmental phenotypes produced by morpholino antisense targeting of a sea urchin Runx gene

BACKGROUND: Runx transcription factors are important regulators of metazoan development. The sea urchin Runx gene SpRunt was previously identified as a trans-activator of the CyIIIa actin gene, a differentiation marker of larval aboral ectoderm. Here we extend the functional analysis of SpRunt, using morpholino antisense oligonucleotides (morpholinos) to interfere with SpRunt expression in the embryo. RESULTS: The developmental effects of four different SpRunt-specific morpholinos were evaluated. The two morpholinos most effective at knocking down SpRunt produce an identical mitotic catastrophe phenotype at late cleavage stage that is an artifact of coincidental mis-targeting to histone mRNA, providing a cautionary example of the insufficiency of two different morpholinos as a control for specificity. The other two morpholinos produce gastrula stage proliferation and differentiation defects that are rescued by exogenous SpRunt mRNA. The expression of 22 genes involved in cell proliferation and differentiation was analyzed in the latter embryos by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Knockdown of SpRunt was found to perturb the expression of differentiation markers in all of the major tissue territories as well as the expression of cell cycle control genes, including cyclin B and cyclin D. CONCLUSIONS: SpRunt is essential for embryonic development, and is required globally to coordinate cell proliferation and differentiation

Impact of post-fire management on soil respiration, carbon and nitrogen content in a managed hemiboreal forest

Boreal forests are an important carbon (C) sink and fire is the main natural disturbance, directly affecting the C-cycle via emissions from combustion of biomass and organic matter and indirectly through long-term changes in C-dynamics including soil respiration. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from soil (soil respiration) is one of the largest fluxes in the global C-cycle. Recovery of vegetation, organic matter and soil respiration may be influenced by the intensity of post-fire management such as salvage logging. To study the impact of forest fire, fire and salvage, and recovery time on soil respiration and soil C and N content, we sampled two permanent research areas in north-western Estonia that were damaged by fire: Vihterpalu (59 degrees 13' N 23 degrees 49' E) in 1992 and Nova (59 degrees 10' N 23 degrees 45' E) in 2008. Three types of sample plots were established: 1) unburned control with no harvesting (CO); 2) burned and uncleared (BU); and 3) burned and cleared (BC). Measurements were made in 2013, 21 years after wildfire in Vihterpalu and 5 years after wildfire in NOva. Soil respiration ranged from 0.00 to 1.38 g CO2 m(-2) h(-1). Soil respiration in the burned and cleared areas (BC) was not reduced compared to burned and uncleared (BU) areas but the average soil respiration in unburned control areas was more than twice the value in burned areas (average soil respiration in CO areas was 0.34 CO2 m(-2) h(-1), versus 0.16 CO2 m(-2) h(-1), the average soil respiration of BC and BU combined). Recovery over 20 years was mixed; respiration was insignificantly lower on younger than older burned sites (when BC and BU values were combined, the average values were 0.15 vs. 0.17 g CO2 m(-2) h(-1), respectively); soil-C was greater in the older burned plots than the younger (when BC and BU values were combined, the average values were 9.71 vs. 5.99 kg m(-2), respectively); but root biomass in older and recently burned areas was essentially the same (average 2.23 and 2.11 kg m(-2), respectively); soil-N was highest on burned areas 20 years after fire. Twenty years post-fire may be insufficient time for carbon dynamics to fully recover on these low productivity sandy sites.Peer reviewe