MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON VIRGINIA DAIRY FARMS

Livestock Production/Industries,

Marshall information retrieval and display system (MIRADS)

Program for data management system allows sophisticated inquiries while utilizing simplified language. Online system is composed of several programs. System is written primarily in COBOL with routines in ASSEMBLER and FORTRAN V

A Meta-Assessment of an Institution\u27s Administrative Assessment Processes

Many institutions establish assessment teams to assist faculty in developing their knowledge of and confidence in conducting academic program assessment, and some extend these teams to address administrative and student affairs assessment as well. These teams may function as more formal distributed leadership models, as described by Spillane (2006), or they may be less formal groups with little or no leadership roles. Regardless of their level of formality, these teams are often used to implement other resources such as rubrics, peer review, and feedback, but the effectiveness of these resources and processes is not commonly reviewed through an intentionally designed programmatic assessment process. Programmatic assessment allows institutions to look at the impact of multiple resources and processes in place to determine which most positively impact assessment practices at institutions of higher education. This study implemented a programmatic assessment to help one large, public southeastern institution answer questions about the effectiveness of the processes and resources in place in support of administrative and student affairs assessment. Determining the most appropriate processes and resources is especially important in case of institutional consolidation or merger. Study findings corroborate the positive effects of peer review, rubrics, and feedback and provide baseline data for the institution to begin a decision making process and determine, based on evidence collected, which resources and processes should be continued or modified as it proceeds with a consolidation

Evaluation of experimental design and computational parameter choices affecting analyses of ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data in undomesticated poplar trees.

BackgroundOne of the great advantages of next generation sequencing is the ability to generate large genomic datasets for virtually all species, including non-model organisms. It should be possible, in turn, to apply advanced computational approaches to these datasets to develop models of biological processes. In a practical sense, working with non-model organisms presents unique challenges. In this paper we discuss some of these challenges for ChIP-seq and RNA-seq experiments using the undomesticated tree species of the genus Populus.ResultsWe describe specific challenges associated with experimental design in Populus, including selection of optimal genotypes for different technical approaches and development of antibodies against Populus transcription factors. Execution of the experimental design included the generation and analysis of Chromatin immunoprecipitation-sequencing (ChIP-seq) data for RNA polymerase II and transcription factors involved in wood formation. We discuss criteria for analyzing the resulting datasets, determination of appropriate control sequencing libraries, evaluation of sequencing coverage needs, and optimization of parameters. We also describe the evaluation of ChIP-seq data from Populus, and discuss the comparison between ChIP-seq and RNA-seq data and biological interpretations of these comparisons.ConclusionsThese and other "lessons learned" highlight the challenges but also the potential insights to be gained from extending next generation sequencing-supported network analyses to undomesticated non-model species

INFLUENCE OF SOIL AND PLANT-PLANT INTERACTIONS ON GROWTH AND FLOWERING OF TWO POTENTIALLY DOMINANT BUNCHGRASSES IN THE LONGLEAF PINE ECOSYSTEM

Neighborhood interactions and edaphic conditions can help predict the distribution of species and the composition and structure of plant communities. The longleaf pine ecosystem of the southeastern U.S. provides an ideal setting in which to study interactions among dominant members of the understory community. Bunchgrasses provide the structure and fuel that enable frequent fires to mediate succession and maintain the extremely diverse understory community characteristic of the imperiled longleaf pine ecosystem. I investigated responses to bunchgrass neighborhood composition by wiregrass (Aristida stricta Michx.) and little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium [Michx.] Nash), two competing and potentially dominant C4 bunchgrasses occurring in north Florida longleaf pine savannas. I conducted (1) a reciprocal transplant experiment and (2) a multi-factorial greenhouse experiment to better understand how these two species influence each other in the context of their neighborhoods and their native soils. I asked: (1) What is the effect of these two species interacting with each other in neighborhoods in determining the performance of both species? (2) What is the effect of edaphic conditions in determining the performance of the two species? And lastly, (3) how do neighborhood composition and edaphic conditions interact to influence bunchgrass performance and potential dominance of the two species? Overall, bluestem individuals grew faster, produced more total biomass, more aboveground biomass and more flowering culms than wiregrass, although wiregrass produced more belowground biomass. In the greenhouse, conspecific competition was more intense for both species. The two species responded differently to conspecific crowding in terms of biomass production, with bluestems decreasing in aboveground biomass with additional conspecific neighbors, while wiregrass decreased in terms of belowground biomass production with additional conspecific neighbors. Overall our findings suggest that wiregrass may compete more in terms of belowground biomass production, while bluestems respond competitively in terms of aboveground resource allocation. A lack of variation in soils among sites indicates that the edaphic condition we assessed does not determine bunchgrass dominance in these sites

Coyote Occupancy and Movement in Hanover County, Virginia

Although the coyote (Canis latrans) is native to North America, we have limited understanding of its presence in Virginia. Coyote range expansion is linked to anthropogenic factors, including habitat fragmentation and the extirpation of apex predators. Information on coyote adaptations to Virginia habitats is scarce, and eastern coyotes may have unique adaptations for colonizing an area. Anecdotal evidence suggests that coyotes are abundant in Hanover County (north of Richmond, VA), but this has not been confirmed. This study was conducted over an 18-month period with multiple survey sites throughout Hanover County, each equipped with game camera stations and 20% with scent lures. Coyote detection probability and occupancy was estimated using the “Unmarked” package in “R”. With a low detection rate of 16.8%, the study found that coyotes occupied 76.8% of the County. Sixty-one percent of detections may support movement along powerlines, game trails, and fire roads versus movement in dense forest and open fields. This study is the first to provide insight into the occupancy, detection, and movement of the eastern coyote in Hanover County, Virginia. Some movement observations were made and are offered in this study

Voluntary Exercise and Neurotrophin Signaling Affect the Development and Presentation of Painful Neuropathy

Diabetic neuropathy (DN) is the most common and debilitating complication of type 1 and type 2 diabetes with approximately half of all patients developing neuropathy during the course of their lives. Additionally, patients with prediabetes also develop neuropathy, often presenting with painful symptoms, including burning and stinging sensations, as well as hyperalgesia and allodynia. Research suggests that altered neurotrophism may account for the development and maintenance of PDN, resulting in a dying back of peripheral neurons, leading to pain. Furthermore, patients suffering from painful diabetic neuropathy (PDN) have few therapeutic options, as pharmaceuticals are rarely effective and are only palliative in nature. However, recent research suggests that exercise may be beneficial in reducing PDN. The purpose of this work was to test the effects of obesity and a high-fat diet on the development of DN, to investigate how diabetes alters neurotrophins and to determine if voluntary exercise is capable of reducing PDN. Initial studies used a model of obese, type 2 diabetes and investigated if voluntary exercise could reverse PDN. Diabetes resulted in mechanical allodynia, yet because these mice did not exercise, no benefit was gained; however, there was a significant correlation between physical activity and mechanical withdrawal thresholds. Additionally, we found that glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) was decreased in the diabetic mice. These results suggest that diabetes does alter neurotrophin levels, which may lead to PDN. Next, using a high-fat diet to induce prediabetes, we found increased levels of nerve growth factor (NGF) protein, a neurotrophin known to mediate pain signaling, in the periphery, while exercise normalized these levels. Furthermore, prediabetes resulted in a switching of axonal phenotypes in the skin, increasing peptidergic nerve fibers, which was reversed with exercise. These results suggest that increased NGF plays a critical role in mediating pain sensation in prediabetes and that exercise is capable of reversing this increase. Particularly, this study suggests that the ratio of peptidergic to nonpeptidergic axons may mediate the occurrence of PDN and may be more clinically significant than overall fiber density measures. Finally, we demonstrated that high-fat diet-induced PDN was reversed with a blocking antibody to NGF. In addition to decreases in mechanical withdrawal thresholds, anti-NGF treatment also normalized NGF levels within the DRG as well as normalizing epidermal innervation. Taken together, these studies demonstrate that exercise is capable of attenuating PDN, possibly through mediating NGF levels. It therefore appears that exercise and anti-NGF treatment are effective therapeutic strategies to prevent and reverse PDN

The Taming of the Internet: A New Approach Third-Party Internet Defamation

This article examines the liability of interactive Internet forum operators for defamatory statements written by third parties. It discusses Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and how the courts have applied it to third-party Internet defamation. The article concludes that the courts\u27 various approaches fail to adequately protect the various interests involved, as immunizing distributors fails to adequately protect defamation victims, and notice-based liability fails to adequately protect free expression on the web. Policy challenges and the constitutional foundations of libel law should be jointly considered to create a new test to evaluate liability for third-party libel on the Internet