Improvement of flock productivity through supply of vitamins for higher laying performance and better egg quality

An adequate supply of all nutrients, including proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and water, has to be provided to support maximum productivity of laying hens. Among these nutrients, vitamins are particularly important, since they are essential for optimum health as well as normal physiological functions of the hens. As most vitamins cannot be synthesized by poultry in sufficient amounts to meet physiological demand, they must be obtained from the diet. The absence from feed or impaired absorption or utilization of vitamins can lead to specific deficiency disorders. This review reports on the occurrence and the physiological functions of all vitamins and summarizes research related to the requirements for and the beneficial effects of supplemental vitamins for laying hens. The recommendations for dietary supplementation of vitamins from various organizations are compared and put into perspective of modern poultry genotypes and current husbandry conditions. As there is good evidence that the minimum dietary vitamin levels, required to prevent clinical deficiencies may not support optimum health, performance and welfare of poultry under today's conditions it is recommended to include a safety margin to the vitamin requirements of laying hen

MultiS: A Context-Server for Pervasive Computing

AbstractContext-aware applications are capable of recognizing environmental changes and adapting their behavior to the new context. This process can be divided into three stages: monitoring, context recognition and adaptation. On the monitoring layer, raw information about the environment is collected from sensors. The context recognition layer processes the data acquired from the context and transforms it into information which can be useful for the adaptation process. With this information, the adaptation system can determine what behavior is correct for the application in each different context. This paper proposes a context server called MultiS, which has the goal of solving the problems arising from the context recognition layer, and which includes the following advantages: a) the production of new context data based on the information of several sensors and an ability to react to changes in the environment; b) definition of a composed language for the context data called CD-XML; c) support for mobility

Towards Autopoietic Computing

A key challenge in modern computing is to develop systems that address complex, dynamic problems in a scalable and efficient way, because the increasing complexity of software makes designing and maintaining efficient and flexible systems increasingly difficult. Biological systems are thought to possess robust, scalable processing paradigms that can automatically manage complex, dynamic problem spaces, possessing several properties that may be useful in computer systems. The biological properties of self-organisation, self-replication, self-management, and scalability are addressed in an interesting way by autopoiesis, a descriptive theory of the cell founded on the concept of a system's circular organisation to define its boundary with its environment. In this paper, therefore, we review the main concepts of autopoiesis and then discuss how they could be related to fundamental concepts and theories of computation. The paper is conceptual in nature and the emphasis is on the review of other people's work in this area as part of a longer-term strategy to develop a formal theory of autopoietic computing.Comment: 10 Pages, 3 figure

Deep Hole States in Two Particle Transfer Reactions

This work was supported by National Science Foundation Grants PHY 76-84033A01, PHY 78-22774, and Indiana Universit

Probing the Drosophila retinal determination gene network in Tribolium (II): The Pax6 genes eyeless and twin of eyeless

AbstractThe Pax6 genes eyeless (ey) and twin of eyeless (toy) are upstream regulators in the retinal determination gene network (RDGN), which instructs the formation of the adult eye primordium in Drosophila. Most animals possess a singleton Pax6 ortholog, but the dependence of eye development on Pax6 is widely conserved. A rare exception is given by the larval eyes of Drosophila, which develop independently of ey and toy. To obtain insight into the origin of differential larval and adult eye regulation, we studied the function of toy and ey in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum. We find that single and combinatorial knockdown of toy and ey affect larval eye development strongly but adult eye development only mildly in this primitive hemimetabolous species. Compound eye-loss, however, was provoked when ey and toy were RNAi-silenced in combination with the early retinal gene dachshund (dac). We propose that these data reflect a role of Pax6 during regional specification in the developing head and that the subsequent maintenance and growth of the adult eye primordium is regulated partly by redundant and partly by specific functions of toy, ey and dac in Tribolium. The results from embryonic knockdown and comparative protein sequence analysis lead us further to conclude that Tribolium represents an ancestral state of redundant control by ey and toy

Localization criteria for Anderson models on locally finite graphs

We prove spectral and dynamical localization for Anderson models on locally finite graphs using the fractional moment method. Our theorems extend earlier results on localization for the Anderson model on \ZZ^d. We establish geometric assumptions for the underlying graph such that localization can be proven in the case of sufficiently large disorder

Study of Two-Step Mechanisms in Pion Absorption on 6Li, 12C via Deuteron Emission

The (pi+,pd), and (pi+,dd) reactions were investigated with pions of 100 and 165 MeV kinetic energy on 6Li and 12C targets. In comparison with previously published (pi+,pp) data on the same targets and at the same beam energies, kinematic regions were identified in which the neutron pickup process n+p->d dominated the observed deuteron yield. The importance of this mechanism increases with energy, contributing half of the observed cross section at 165 MeV. The contribution of direct quasi-triton absorption is significant only at 100 MeV.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figure

ATM Mutations and Phenotypes in Ataxia-Telangiectasia Families in the British Isles: Expression of Mutant ATM and the Risk of Leukemia, Lymphoma, and Breast Cancer

SummaryWe report the spectrum of 59 ATM mutations observed in ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T) patients in the British Isles. Of 51 ATM mutations identified in families native to the British Isles, 11 were founder mutations, and 2 of these 11 conferred a milder clinical phenotype with respect to both cerebellar degeneration and cellular features. We report, in two A-T families, an ATM mutation (7271T→G) that may be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in both homozygotes and heterozygotes (relative risk 12.7; P=.0025), although there is a less severe A-T phenotype in terms of the degree of cerebellar degeneration. This mutation (7271T→G) also allows expression of full-length ATM protein at a level comparable with that in unaffected individuals. In addition, we have studied 18 A-T patients, in 15 families, who developed leukemia, lymphoma, preleukemic T-cell proliferation, or Hodgkin lymphoma, mostly in childhood. A wide variety of ATM mutation types, including missense mutations and in-frame deletions, were seen in these patients. We also show that 25% of all A-T patients carried in-frame deletions or missense mutations, many of which were also associated with expression of mutant ATM protein

Job Crafting via Decreasing Hindrance Demands:The Motivating Role of Interdependence Misfit and the Facilitating Role of Autonomy

Job crafting theory suggests that misalignment between an employee’s preferred and actual amount of job characteristics acts as a motivational trigger for job crafting. We test this unexplored, yet key proposition underlying job crafting theory. To do so, however, we take a more comprehensive misfit perspective than previously applied, evaluating person-job undersupply and oversupply. We propose that task interdependence misfit motivates a reductive form of job crafting, decreasing hindrance demands. We also propose that low autonomy mitigates the misfit to decreasing hindrance demands relationship. To empirically evaluate this direction, we employ moderated polynomial regression and response surface analysis. Study 1 (N = 159 English-speaking respondents) findings suggest that task interdependence misfit (both undersupply and oversupply) is positively related to decreasing hindrance demands. Study 2 (N = 363 Dutch-speaking respondents) findings replicate and support our misfit hypothesis. Further, as expected, low levels of autonomy neutralize the relationship between task interdependence misfit and decreasing hindrance demands. Theoretical and practical implications regarding the misfit-as-motivation hypothesis, and the simultaneous investigation of job crafting facilitators (i.e., autonomy) and motivators (i.e., misfit) are discussed

Comparison of advanced gravitational-wave detectors

We compare two advanced designs for gravitational-wave antennas in terms of their ability to detect two possible gravitational wave sources. Spherical, resonant mass antennas and interferometers incorporating resonant sideband extraction (RSE) were modeled using experimentally measurable parameters. The signal-to-noise ratio of each detector for a binary neutron star system and a rapidly rotating stellar core were calculated. For a range of plausible parameters we found that the advanced LIGO interferometer incorporating RSE gave higher signal-to-noise ratios than a spherical detector resonant at the same frequency for both sources. Spheres were found to be sensitive to these sources at distances beyond our galaxy. Interferometers were sensitive to these sources at far enough distances that several events per year would be expected