Noninvasive Measures of Stress and Lameness in Broilers

The concept of broiler chicken welfare has evolved from a component of animal husbandry to a label on a chicken product package. Recent attention from the public has led to the need for higher welfare standards for animal production. A primary concern of broiler production is low activity/locomotion attributed to fast growth rates leading to poor leg health. To collect the scientific data necessary to determine conditions providing the best welfare for the bird, multiple methods of assessment are required. Stress is influenced by external (temperature, humidity, lighting, stocking density) and internal (metabolism, thermoregulation, hormonal balance) factors. This series of studies evaluated measures of health, stress and behavior. The main objective was to investigate noninvasive measures of broiler stress and lameness. The two primary noninvasive methods were extraction of the stress hormone corticosterone (CORT) from feathers to evaluate stress and infrared thermography (IRT) to evaluate stress as well as lameness attributed to bacterial chondronecrosis with osteomyelitis (BCO). First, an ELISA was used to measure the effects of CORT administration in the drinking water over a 72 hour period on CORT from serum, cecal contents, excreta and two feather types. The next series of studies evaluated light intensity and flooring type effects on broiler stress and leg health. Results from these studies indicate light intensity did not consistently affect the stress and leg health parameters that were measured. Rearing broilers on wire flooring is an effective method for inducing BCO lameness. While the wire flooring did induce lameness, it did not consistently affect stress or leg health parameters measured on sound broilers. The final study combined stress and lameness measures from previous studies to compare lame and sound broilers. In this study, statistical models were evaluated for their potential use in predicting lameness. The results from these studies suggest 1) the current method of extracting CORT from feathers is not useful to evaluate stress; 2) IRT measures of beak surface temperatures may be a useful method to evaluate stress; and 3) IRT measures of leg region surface temperatures may be a useful method to detect/predict lameness attributed to BCO in broilers

The relationship between cynicism and dispositional attributions: Examining individual differences of police officers

Previous research has shown that veteran police officers are more cynical than less experienced police officers. Research has also shown that veterans are more likely than less experienced officers to make dispositional attributions for the actions of suspects in interpersonal disputes. This study examined these two premises and the relationship between cynicism and attributions. Participants included 127 police officers and 70 undergraduate students who completed a cynicism scale and were then asked to read two scenarios depicting interpersonal disputes. Participants answered several questions pertaining to their attributions of responsibility and their perceptions of credibility of the suspect and the victim in each scenario. This study proposed that police officers differing in length of police service would also differ in their attributions of responsibility and perceptions of credibility of suspects and victims in interpersonal disputes. It was also proposed that veteran police officers would score higher in cynicism than less experienced officers. In addition, this study predicted that a relationship existed between cynicism and attributions of responsibility. No relationships or significant differences were found between length of police service and attributions of responsibility. There was some evidence that individuals differing in length of police service differed in their perceptions of credibility. No significant differences in cynicism were found as a function of length of police service. Although cynicism was not related to length of police service, exploratory analyses indicated that cynicism was inversely related to the total length of service, which included any previous military or police experience. No relationship was present between attributions of responsibility and cynicism as predicted by this study. The results of this study do not replicate previous research regarding police cynicism and attributions. The lack of significant differences in cynicism, attributions of responsibility, and perceptions of credibility indicates that there may be no need for a great deal of concern about changes in these aspects as police officers gain experience

Complete Genome Sequences of a Clinical Isolate and an Environmental Isolate of Vibrio parahaemolyticus.

Vibrio parahaemolyticus is the leading cause of seafood-borne infections in the United States. We report complete genome sequences for two V. parahaemolyticus strains isolated in 2007, CDC_K4557 and FDA_R31 of clinical and oyster origin, respectively. These two sequences might assist in the investigation of differential virulence of this organism

Economics as a conceptual resource for the study of public management

Four related bodies of knowledge inform the study and practice of public management. Broadest in scope is knowledge about the political processes that place demands, provide opportunities, and impose constraints on public managers. Next broadest in scope is policy analysis, which provides the conceptual foundations and craft skills for determining what government should do and how it should be done. Organizational design, a subset of policy analysis, gives insight into how the public sector can be organized to facilitate the effective delivery of goods and services. Narrowest in scope, but most directly relevant to the practice of management, is knowledge about how to carry out executive functions skillfully within existing organizational designs. We take the latter two bodies of knowledge, organizational design and executive function, as the core of the craft and science of public management. In this essay we consider what the discipline of economics offers for research on the core of public management

Population Biology of Pumpkinseed in Enemy Swim Lake, South Dakota

Little information is available regarding the biology and population characteristics of pumpkinseed (Lepomis gibbosus), especially in South Dakota, a state at the western edge of the species native range. South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks summer trap net survey data, collected 1998 to 2003, suggests the Enemy Swim Lake population has low abundance (0.4-2.9 per trap net night) and moderately high size structure (proportional stock density [PSD] ranges between 71 and 91). To further examine the biological characteristics of the Enemy Swim Lake population, pumpkinseed was collected from Indian Bay with trap nets during May 2003. Total length (TL), weight, and sex were recorded for 88 fish. In addition, gonads, livers, and viscera weights were recorded for calculating organosomatic indices, and sagittal otoliths were removed for aging. Relative abundance, PSD, and relative weights (Wr) were similar to other regional populations. The sex ratio (F:M) of sampled fish was 1.5. Fish age ranged from 2 to 5 years; mean pumpkinseed age was 3. The annual survival rate for age 3 to 5 was estimated at 0.25. Ultimate length for the population was estimated to be 223 mm (K = 0.38, t0 = -0.67) and mean TL increments were 27, 16, and 14 mm for ages 2 to 3, 3 to 4, and 4 to 5, respectively. There was no difference for total length (P = 0.57), weight (P = 0.37), or Wr (P = 0.88) between sexes, but visceral somatic (VSJ; P \u3c 0.0001) and hepatosomatic (HSI; P \u3c 0.0001) indices for females were greater than males. Relative weight and fish TL were correlated positively (P \u3c 0.0001), and Wr was correlated positively with female and male VSI (P = 0.0031 and 0.0144), female HSI (P = 0.0008), and female gonadosomatic index (GSI; P = 0.0039). Because these biological characteristics are seldom reported, we anticipated this information might be useful for population comparisons throughout the range of pumpkinseed

Energy localization in an atomic chain with a topological soliton

Topological defects in low-dimensional nonlinear systems feature a sliding-to-pinning transition of relevance for a variety of scenarios, ranging from biophysics to nano- A nd solid-state physics. We find that the dynamics after a local excitation results in a highly nontrivial energy transport in the presence of a topological defect, characterized by a strongly enhanced energy localization in the pinning regime. Moreover, we show that the energy flux in ion crystals with a defect can be sensitively regulated by experimentally accessible environmental parameters. Whereas nonlinear resonances can cause an enhanced long-time energy delocalization, robust energy localization persists for distinct parameter ranges, even for long evolution times and large local excitations

Cavity-induced temperature control of a two-level system

We consider a two-level atom interacting with a single mode of the electromagnetic field in a cavity within the Jaynes-Cummings model. Initially, the atom is thermal while the cavity is in a coherent state. The atom interacts with the cavity field for a fixed time. After removing the atom from the cavity and applying a laser pulse the atom will be in a thermal state again. Depending on the interaction time with the cavity field the final temperature can be varied over a large range. We discuss how this method can be used to cool the internal degrees of freedom of atoms and create heat baths suitable for studying thermodynamics at the nanoscale