Developing and Implementing a Software Program for Configuring Three Dairy Corral Designs

Eleven simulation models were developed to plan and design several dairy farm facilities. A decision tree was developed for each simulation model, and then the simulation models were integrated into the relevant decision trees. C# programming language was used to develop a software program via the simulation models and decision trees. The objective is to develop a software program to plan and design dairy farm facilities for dairy farms in hot climates. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Assistant Professor, Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Gammaa Street, 12613 Giza, Egypt* Corresponding Author, Email: [email protected] Cite This Article As:  M. Samer. 2010. Developing and Implementing a Software Program for Configuring Three Dairy Corral Designs. J. Exp. Sci. 1(3): 19-22.Â

Adjusting Dairy Housing in Hot Climates to Meet Animal Welfare Requirements

Small dairy farms in hot climates are encountering several problems caused by the design flaws of the implemented housing designs. Consequently, heat stress increase and milk yield dramatically decreases, which leads to economic deficiency of the farm. One key issue is to develop simple means to rectify the design flaws with minimum costs. In order to develop feasible means, design flaws were detected on-site in 14 small dairy farms in Egypt to exemplify the flaws of housing designs in arid and semi-arid zones. A package of interconnected solutions is suggested to rectify the design flaws. Subsequently, the maximum temperature, dry-bulb temperature, black-globe temperature, dew point, relative humidity, shaded area, and air velocity were measured inside the rectified vs. non-rectified cowsheds and compared after conducting the statistical analysis. On the other hand, the Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) and Black Globe Humidity Index (BGHI) were calculated to find out the level of heat stress affecting the dairy cows. Furthermore, the milk yield, respiration rate, skin temperature, feed intake were recorded and compared. Moreover, the costs of the developed means were calculated and a feasibility study was carried out. The results show that the developed means are effective and feasible, where the heat stress decreased (THI decreased from 94.6 to 83.7; dry-bulb temperature decreased from 42.7 to 33.6 oC) and the average milk production increased from 18 to 26 kg/day.cow. Consequently, the costs were minimized and the revenues were maximized, which achieve economic efficiency for the farm where the profit increased by about 427 $/cow.year.      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Assistant Professor, Agricultural Engineering Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Gammaa Street, 12613 Giza, Egypt * Corresponding Author, Email: [email protected] Please Cite This Article As: M. Samer. 2010. Adjusting Dairy Housing in Hot Climates to Meet Animal Welfare Requirements. J. Exp. Sci. 1(3): 14-18

Formation of Pancreatoduodenal Fistula in Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasm of the Pancreas Decreased the Frequency of Recurrent Pancreatitis

Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMN) of the pancreas are characterized by proliferation of mucin-secreting cells in the main pancreatic duct (PD) or its branches. The secreted thick mucin usually leads to PD obstruction and dilation. A common complication of IPMN is recurrent acute pancreatitis secondary to poor pancreatic fluid drainage, and rarely, pancreatobiliary and pancreatointestinal fistulae. We describe a unique case of IPMN in a 57-year-old male who was referred to our institution for evaluation of recurrent acute pancreatitis. After extensive evaluation, he was diagnosed with main duct IPMN. Intraductal PD biopsy revealed intestinal type IPMN with intermediate grade dysplasia. Patient was managed clinically by large caliber (10 French) PD stenting which eliminated his recurrent acute pancreatitis. The patient was initially referred for pancreatic resection; however, surgery was aborted and evaluated to be high risk with high morbidity secondary to the extensive adhesions between the pancreas and surrounding structures. Patient remained clinically stable for a few years except for an episode of acute pancreatitis that happened after a trial of stent removal. Subsequently, the patient did well after the PD stent was replaced. Recently, repeat abdominal imaging revealed a large pancreatoduodenal fistula which was confirmed on repeat endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography. We were able to perform pancreatoscopy by advancing a regular upper scope through the fistula and into the PD. Interestingly, the fistula relieved the symptoms of obstruction and subsequently decreased the frequency of recurrent pancreatitis episodes with no further episodes at 6 months follow-up. This case highlights the importance of providing adequate PD drainage to reduce the frequency of recurrent acute pancreatitis in the setting of main duct IPMN, especially if the patient is not a surgical candidate. Also, physicians need to monitor for complications such as fistula formation between the pancreas and surrounding structures in the setting of chronic inflammation due to recurrent episodes of pancreatitis. Early identification of a fistula is important for surgical planning. Furthermore, since recent studies suggested a higher incidence of additional primary malignancies in patients with IPMN of the pancreas compared to the general population, patients may be considered for screening for other primary malignancies

Answer Set Solving with Bounded Treewidth Revisited

Parameterized algorithms are a way to solve hard problems more efficiently, given that a specific parameter of the input is small. In this paper, we apply this idea to the field of answer set programming (ASP). To this end, we propose two kinds of graph representations of programs to exploit their treewidth as a parameter. Treewidth roughly measures to which extent the internal structure of a program resembles a tree. Our main contribution is the design of parameterized dynamic programming algorithms, which run in linear time if the treewidth and weights of the given program are bounded. Compared to previous work, our algorithms handle the full syntax of ASP. Finally, we report on an empirical evaluation that shows good runtime behaviour for benchmark instances of low treewidth, especially for counting answer sets.Comment: This paper extends and updates a paper that has been presented on the workshop TAASP'16 (arXiv:1612.07601). We provide a higher detail level, full proofs and more example

Investigations into the expression of sirtuins in breast cancer: in vivo and in vitro studies

Breast cancer remains the most common malignancy in women and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the western World, despite the advances in diagnosis and treatment. The main challenge remains to identify new, and improve existing treatment modalities. Understanding the mechanism by which tumours grow and metastasise is key to developing new therapeutic targets Similar to most cancers, the incidence of breast cancer increases with age. Therefore, genes involved in biological ageing and factors affecting genomic integrity, considered critical to cellular senescence and organismal life span, are also relevant to neoplastic transformation and tumour growth. Thus exploring factors associated with biological ageing in cancer may improve our understanding of the disease as an aberration of normal biological ageing and result in new prognostic markers or therapeutic targets. There is increasing evidence for the involvement of sirtuins in biological ageing, along with other essential cellular processes including cell cycle control, DNA damage repair and differentiation. This is suggestive of a possible role for sirtuins in cancer. Therefore, this study was conducted to investigate a potential role for sirtuins in breast cancer disease (including anti-tumour treatment). Firstly, Real time PCR was used to compare the transcriptional expression level of individual sirtuin genes in vivo. The experimental result showed that only SIRT1 and SIRT4 showed an association with age in “normal patients” (normal and non malignant patient grouped together), with decreasing levels of SIRT1 and increasing levels of SIRT4 being associated with increasing chronological age. All sirtuin levels were significantly decreased in malignant tumours, when compared to either normal and/ or non-malignant biopsies. Decreased relative transcriptional expression of SIRT1, SIRT2, SIRT3, SIRT6 and SIRT7 showed significant association with higher tumour grade, when breast cancer patients were divided according to the known histopathological markers. The Kaplan-Meier analysis for cancer specific survival and tumour recurrence was preformed on entire patient cohorts and in patient subgroups selected to have moderate prognosis (ER+ve and NPI between 3.4 and 5.4). The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that higher levels of SIRT6 and SRT7 were associated with a longer survival period in all patient cohorts. Furthermore, higher levels of SIRT6 remained significantly associated with better survival, when breast cancer patients were selected to have intermediate prognosis (ER+ve and NPI between 3.4 and 5.4). Whereas, higher levels of SIRT7 remained significantly associated with longer survival period only in patients with ER+ve tumours. The Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that lower levels of SIRT1 gene expression were associated with longer patient survival and lower tumour recurrence in a patient group, selected by NPI, to have an intermediate clinical prognosis. Multivariate Cox-regression analysis demonstrated that the relative transcriptional level of the SIRT6 gene was independent of tumour size, grade, nodal status, oestrogen receptor status, lymphovascular invasion status, and the NPI in influencing survival. The decreased sirtuin gene expression observed in this study is consistent with an anti-cancer effect and suggests that sirtuins might be implicated in breast cancer pathogenesis. For example, decreased levels of SIRT2 might assist DNA-damaged tumour cells, as indicated by the decreased expression of another sirtuin involved in DNA damage responses, SIRT6, in escaping cell cycle arrest during tumour initiation and progression. Furthermore, The associations between sirtuins and survival period suggest that these sirtuins (especially SIRT6) might be used as an additional prognostic marker in breast cancer patients, especially in those individuals who have equivocal prognostic pathological markers. Therefore, the level of expression of sirtuin genes (SIRT6) might help explaining those breast cancer cases, which behave unexpectedly, according to the known pathological prognostic markers. Secondly, The changes in the relative transcriptional expression levels of the sirtuin genes were investigated in response to adjuvant chemotherapy therapies, commonly used in breast cancer (Tamoxifen and Docetaxel), in breast caner cell lines. The first experiment determining sirtuins changes in response to Docetaxel treatment for 72 hours in ER-ve breast cancer cell line (MDA-MB-231) showed significant increase in the relative transcriptional expression levels of all sirtuins after Docetaxel treatment. These data were consistent with the pro-apoptotic role for SIRT1, SIRT3 and SIRT7, and suggestive of DNA damage involvement at higher doses of Docetaxel, as indicated by increased SIRT6 and XRCC5. Finally, increased SIRT2 levels are suggestive of SIRT2 involvement in the mitotic arrest caused by Docetaxel, through its contribution to microtubule dysfunction. The second experiment, determining sirtuin changes in response to Tamoxifen treatment in ER+ve (MCF-7) and ER-ve (MDA-MB-453) breast cancer cell lines, showed significant increase in the relative transcriptional expression levels of all sirtuins after Tamoxifen treatment. These data were consistent with the pro-apoptotic role for sirtuins. Furthermore, the observed increased levels of SIRT6 are suggestive of DNA damage involvement at higher doses of Tamoxifen. Another noteworthy result of this experiment is the increased levels of SIRT2 in response to Tamoxifen treatment. This might explain the failure of a TAM-treated cell to proceed through the cell cycle, in spite of the increases in transcription factors that promote cell cycle after Tamoxifen treatment. There was no significant difference in sirtuin changes after Tamoxifen treatment between these two cell lines to indicate that sirtuin changes were ER-dependent. In total, the data accumulated from this study demonstrated the involvement of sirtuins in breast cancer disease (pathogenesis and anti-tumour treatment) and suggest the possible use of SIRT6 as a novel, additional and biological prognostic marker. Finally, this study suggests that sirtuins activators, rather than inhibitors, might be beneficial in breast cancer disease and enhance the response to adjuvant chemotherapy