33 research outputs found
Performance and carcass characteristics of steers fed with two levels of metabolizable energy intake during summer and winter season
Climate change is producing an increase on extreme weather events around the world such as flooding, drought and extreme ambient temperatures impacting animal production and animal welfare. At present, there is a lack of studies addressing the effects of climatic conditions associated with energy intake in finishing cattle in South American feed yards. Therefore, two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of environmental variables and level of metabolizable energy intake above maintenance requirements (MEI) on performance and carcass quality of steers. In each experiment (winter and summer), steers were fed with 1.85 or 2.72 times of their requirements of metabolizable energy of maintenance. A total of 24 crossbred steers per experiment were used and located in four pens (26.25 m2/head) equipped with a Calan Broadbent Feeding System. Animals were fed with the same diet within each season, varying the amount offered to adjust the MEI treatments. Mud depth, mud scores, tympanic temperature (TT), environmental variables, average daily gain, respiration rates and carcass characteristics plus three thermal comfort indices were collected. Data analysis considered a factorial arrangement (Season and MEI). In addition, a repeated measures analysis was performed for TT and respiration rate. Mean values of ambient temperature, solar radiation and comfort thermal indices were greater in the summer experiment as expected (P<0.005). The mean values of TT were higher in steers fed with higher MEI and also in the summer season. The average daily gain was greater during summer v. winter (1.10±0.11 v. 0.36±0.06) kg/day, also when steers were fed 2.72 v. 1.85 MEI level (0.89±0.12 v. 0.57±0.10) kg/day. In summer, respiration rate increased in 41.2% in the afternoon. In winter, muddy conditions increased with time of feeding, whereas wind speed and rainfall had significant effects on TT and average daily gain. We conclude that MEI and environmental variables have direct effects on the physiology and performance of steers, including TT and average daily gain, particularly during the winter. In addition, carcass characteristics were affected by season but not by the level of MEI. Finally, due to the high variability of data as well as the small number of animals assessed in these experiments, more studies on carcass characteristics under similar conditions are required
Ab initio optical properties of Si(100)
We compute the linear optical properties of different reconstructions of the
clean and hydrogenated Si(100) surface within DFT-LDA, using norm-conserving
pseudopotentials. The equilibrium atomic geometries of the surfaces, determined
from self-consistent total energy calculations within the Car-Parrinello
scheme, strongly influence Reflectance Anisotropy Spectra (RAS), showing
differences between the p(2x2) and c(4x2)reconstructions. The Differential
Reflectivity spectrum for the c(4x2) reconstruction shows a positive peak at
energies < 1 eV, in agreement with experimental results.Comment: fig. 2 correcte
Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology
notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations
Case study : Visualization of annotated DNA sequences
DNA sequences and their annotations form ever expanding data sets. Proper explorations of such data sets require new tools for visualization and analysis. In this case study, we have defined the requirements for a visualization tool for annotated DNA sequences.We have implemented these requirements in a new and flexible tool for browsing and comparing annotated DNA sequences interactively and in real-time. The use of standard information visualization techniques, such as linked windows, perspective walls, and smooth interaction, enables genome researchers to obtain better insight in large DNA data sets in an effective, efficient, and attractive way
Hydrophobic cluster analysis: An efficient new way to compare and analyse amino acid sequences
Milk production responses, rumen fermentation, and blood metabolites of dairy cows fed increasing concentrations of forage rape (Brassica napus ssp. Biennis)
Interactive Data Exploration Using Pattern Mining
We live in the era of data and need tools to discover valuable
information in large amounts of data. The goal of exploratory data mining
is to provide as much insight in given data as possible. Within this
field, pattern set mining aims at revealing structure in the form of sets
of patterns. Although pattern set mining has shown to be an effective
solution to the infamous pattern explosion, important challenges remain.
One of the key challenges is to develop principled methods that allow
user- and task-specic information to be taken into account, by directly
involving the user in the discovery process. This way, the resulting patterns
will be more relevant and interesting to the user. To achieve this,
pattern mining algorithms will need to be combined with techniques from
both visualisation and human-computer interaction. Another challenge
is to establish techniques that perform well under constrained resources,
as existing methods are usually computationally intensive. Consequently,
they are only applied to relatively small datasets and on fast computers.
The ultimate goal is to make pattern mining practically more useful, by
enabling the user to interactively explore the data and identify interesting
structure. In this paper we describe the state-of-the-art, discuss open
problems, and outline promising future directions.status: publishe