Ankle instability effects on joint position sense when stepping across the active movement extent discrimination apparatus

CONTEXT: Individuals with and without functional ankle instability have been tested for deficits in lower limb proprioception with varied results. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether a new protocol for testing participants' joint position sense during stepping is reliable and can detect differences between participants with unstable and stable ankles. DESIGN: Descriptive laboratory study. SETTING: University clinical laboratory. PATIENTS OR OTHER PARTICIPANTS: Sample of convenience involving 21 young adult university students and staff. Ankle stability was categorized by score on the Cumberland Ankle Instability Tool; 13 had functional ankle instability, 8 had healthy ankles. INTERVENTION(S): Test-retest of ankle joint position sense when stepping onto and across the Active Movement Extent Discrimination Apparatus twice, separated by an interim test, standing still on the apparatus and moving only 1 ankle into inversion. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Difference in scores between groups with stable and unstable ankles and between test repeats. RESULTS: Participants with unstable ankles were worse at differentiating between inversion angles underfoot in both testing protocols. On repeated testing with the stepping protocol, performance of the group with unstable ankles was improved (Cohen d = 1.06, P = .006), whereas scores in the stable ankle group did not change in the second test (Cohen d = 0.04, P = .899). Despite this improvement, the unstable group remained worse at differentiating inversion angles on the stepping retest (Cohen d = 0.99, P = .020). CONCLUSIONS: The deficits on proprioceptive tests shown by individuals with functional ankle instability improved with repeated exposure to the test situation. The learning effect may be the result of systematic exposure to ankle-angle variation that led to movement-specific learning or increased confidence when stepping across the apparatus

Farmers' Taxonomies as a Participatory Diagnostic Tool: Soil Fertility Management in Chihota, Zimbabwe

Soil infertility is a major constraint to food production in the communal areas of Zimbabwe. Smallholders in the region recognize the problems of low soil fertility and have devised ways of coping with them. This study describes the use of farmers� taxonomies of themselves and their soils to identify and understand the options they have, and the constraints they face in managing poor soil fertility in Chihota, a sub-humid communal area of north central Zimbabwe. It is part of an effort by a group of agricultural researchers and extensionists working on improved soil fertility technologies, to better integrate their work with farmers in order to expose the latter to promising technologies, get feedback on the technologies merits and feasibility, and help farmers experiment with them. The results show that these farmers have relatively sophisticated taxonomies, which provide a good picture of the resources, constraints, and concerns they have about soil infertility and ways to manage it. The taxonomies are an important framework for integration of technical interventions with farmers� requirements, systems, and circumstances.participatory methods, soil fertility, local taxonomies, smallholders, Zimbabwe, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Archaeology and Environment in Northumberland

Eventful, influential and absorbing, the early history of Northumberland is a fascinating story that has rarely been brought together under one cover. In this authoritative historical account, the authors bring to bear a huge quantity of old and new data and craft it into an in-depth synthesis. The authors deliver this history in chronological order from a perspective that places human activity and environment at its core. The narrative extends from the Palaeolithic through to, and including, the Anglo-Saxon period. This enormous sweep of history is supported by a robust radiocarbon chronology, with all available dates for the region brought together and calibrated against the most recent calibration curves for the first time. The geographic focus of the volume is North Northumberland but the narrative frequently extends to cover the whole county and occasionally further afield into neighbouring areas so as to deal with key topics at an appropriate geographic scale and to take account of important information from nearby areas. This second volume in the Till-Tweed monograph series follows on from the first volume, Managing Archaeological Landscapes in Northumberland , which provided a considerable quantity of new field data, in addition to presenting a landscape management methodology based around the "landform element" approach

Identification of novel candidate genes for follicle selection in the broiler breeder ovary

BACKGROUND: Broiler breeders fed ad libitum are characterised by multiple ovulation, which leads to poor shell quality and egg production. Multiple ovulation is controlled by food restriction in commercial flocks. However, the level of food restriction raises welfare concerns, including that of severe hunger. Reducing the rate of multiple ovulation by genetic selection would facilitate progress towards developing a growth profile for optimum animal welfare. RESULTS: The study utilised 3 models of ovarian follicle development; laying hens fed ad libitum (experiment 2) and broiler breeders fed ad libitum or a restricted diet (experiments 1 & 3). This allowed us to investigate gene candidates for follicular development by comparing normal, abnormal and “controlled” follicle hierarchies at different stages of development. Several candidate genes for multiple ovulation were identified by combining microarray analysis of restricted vs. ad libitum feeding, literature searches and QPCR expression profiling throughout follicle development. Three candidate genes were confirmed by QPCR as showing significant differential expression between restricted and ad libitum feeding: FSHR, GDF9 and PDGFRL. PDGFRL, a candidate for steroidogenesis, showed significantly up-regulated expression in 6–8 mm follicles of ad libitum fed broiler breeders (P = 0.016), the period at which follicle recruitment occurs. CONCLUSIONS: Gene candidates have been identified and evidence provided to support a possible role in regulation of ovarian function and follicle number. Further characterisation of these genes will be required to assess their potential for inclusion into breeding programmes to improve the regulation of follicle selection and reduce the need for feed restriction

Quasi-experimental study designs series-paper 6: risk of bias assessment.

OBJECTIVES: Rigorous and transparent bias assessment is a core component of high-quality systematic reviews. We assess modifications to existing risk of bias approaches to incorporate rigorous quasi-experimental approaches with selection on unobservables. These are nonrandomized studies using design-based approaches to control for unobservable sources of confounding such as difference studies, instrumental variables, interrupted time series, natural experiments, and regression-discontinuity designs. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: We review existing risk of bias tools. Drawing on these tools, we present domains of bias and suggest directions for evaluation questions. RESULTS: The review suggests that existing risk of bias tools provide, to different degrees, incomplete transparent criteria to assess the validity of these designs. The paper then presents an approach to evaluating the internal validity of quasi-experiments with selection on unobservables. CONCLUSION: We conclude that tools for nonrandomized studies of interventions need to be further developed to incorporate evaluation questions for quasi-experiments with selection on unobservables

Candidate genes and reproductive traits in a commercial broiler breeder population, an association study

To take advantage of programmes to identify candidate genes for variation in traits of economic importance, methods to test these genes in selected pedigree populations need to be developed. To this end we have carried out a study of association between candidate genes and reproductive traits in a pedigree line of broiler breeders. Gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), its receptor (GnRHR), growth hormone receptor (GHR) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) were selected for their role in controlling aspects of reproduction. Genetic markers for NPY, GnRHR and GHR alleles were detected using bulk PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism or BESS-T Scan (Epicentre Technologies). Genotyping of 772 hens from one generation was by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism. Total number of eggs, age at first egg (AFE) and number of double yolked eggs (DY) for each hen were recorded. Additive and dominance effects were fitted for the autosomal GnRHR and NPY genes; additive effects were fitted for the sex linked GHR gene. To control for some of the background genetic variation, candidate genes were assessed within heterozygous sire families. A dominance effect of NPY (14 sire families) on AFE and an additive effect of GnRHR (36 sire families) on DY, were found (P<0.02). If the latter effect were true, selection could increase overall flock performance by 0.13 usable eggs per hen. A simplified model, omitting sires, was also fitted. This analysis gave four significant associations (P<0.05), a surprisingly large number. In conclusion it is possible to detect association between economic traits and candidate genes in a population undergoing selection, and test if a candidate gene explains some of the trait variation. However, statistical associations between trait and genes require to be treated with caution and models should account for as many genetic and environmental variables as possible

PERICLES Deliverable 4.3:Content Semantics and Use Context Analysis Techniques

The current deliverable summarises the work conducted within task T4.3 of WP4, focusing on the extraction and the subsequent analysis of semantic information from digital content, which is imperative for its preservability. More specifically, the deliverable defines content semantic information from a visual and textual perspective, explains how this information can be exploited in long-term digital preservation and proposes novel approaches for extracting this information in a scalable manner. Additionally, the deliverable discusses novel techniques for retrieving and analysing the context of use of digital objects. Although this topic has not been extensively studied by existing literature, we believe use context is vital in augmenting the semantic information and maintaining the usability and preservability of the digital objects, as well as their ability to be accurately interpreted as initially intended.PERICLE

Association between candidate genes and reproductive traits in a commercial broiler breeder population [Изучение связи между кандидатными генами и показателями воспроизводительной продуктивности у кур-несушек бройлерного типа в товарных популяциях. (Великобритания)]

Increasing amounts of information are emerging from new and traditional genetic technologies to identify genes that control traits of economic importance. If poultry breeding is to capitalise on this, methods to validate whether variation within a gene contributes to trait variation in highly selected pedigree populations must be developed. One way in which we believe this will be possible is by association studies, or the candidate gene approach. Association analysis assesses the effect of candidate genotypes on traits, while allowing for additional variables. We present methods to identify and test candidate genes for statistical association with reproductive traits in a pedigree line of broiler breeders..