The effect of geographic location on circannual adrenocorticotropic hormone plasma concentrations in horses in Australia

Background: Longitudinal evaluation of plasma endogenous ACTH concentration in clinically normal horses has not been investigated in the Southern Hemisphere. Objectives: To longitudinally determine monthly upper reference limits for plasma ACTH in 2 disparate Australian geographic locations and to examine whether location affected the circannual rhythm of endogenous ACTH in the 2 groups of horses over a 12-month period. Animals: Clinically normal horses <20 years of age from 4 properties (institutional herd and client owned animals) in Perth (n = 40) and Townsville (n = 41) were included in the study. Methods: A prospective longitudinal descriptive study to determine the upper reference limit and confidence intervals for plasma ACTH in each geographic location using the ASVCP reference interval (RI) guidelines, for individual months and monthly groupings for 12 consecutive months. Results: Plasma endogenous ACTH concentrations demonstrated a circannual rhythm. The increase in endogenous ACTH was not confined to the autumnal months but was associated with changes in photoperiod. During the quiescent period, plasma ACTH concentrations were lower, ≤43 pg/mL (upper limit of the 90% confidence interval (CI)) in horses from Perth and ≤67 pg/mL (upper limit of the 90% CI) in horses from Townsville, than at the acrophase, ≤94 pg/mL (upper limit of the 90% CI) in horses from Perth, ≤101 pg/mL (upper limit of the 90% CI) in horses from Townsville. Conclusions and Clinical Importance: Circannual rhythms of endogenous ACTH concentrations vary between geographic locations, this could be due to changes in photoperiod or other unknown factors, and upper reference limits should be determined for specific locations

Hotel Green Implementation for Future

The online hotel management system was designed for the client hotel green, colombo, sri lanka. Currently, the client uses a manual system for management purposes where employees handle large amounts of data manually. The proposed system allows users to store and manipulated all the data in their database making their data handling process very effective. The proposed system is developed to cover the process of the hotel such as employee management, resource management, food management, rooms management, and user account management. The admin adds and updates the available rooms and foods, and customers can check the available rooms and order foods through the system. Admin adds, updates, and deletes employee details. Admin can mark the attendance of the employees. Admin can search relevant details. Admin can view details of all customers. The customers register and log in to the system.&nbsp; Customers can update and delete their accounts. A web application was developed to ensure that the customers of the hotel can make orders and reservations online. The system reduces data manipulation errors in the current process, resulting in considerable development in human resource utilization. It improves the client's relationship with their customers gaining profit for the business. The system is user-friendly, reliable, and efficient and its statistics all the customer requirements

Use of mixed-type data clustering algorithm for characterizing temporal and spatial distribution of biosecurity border detections of terrestrial non-indigenous species

Appropriate inspection protocols and mitigation strategies are a critical component of effective biosecurity measures, enabling implementation of sound management decisions. Statistical models to analyze biosecurity surveillance data are integral to this decision-making process. Our research focuses on analyzing border interception biosecurity data collected from a Class A Nature Reserve, Barrow Island, in Western Australia and the associated covariates describing both spatial and temporal interception patterns. A clustering analysis approach was adopted using a generalization of the popular k-means algorithm appropriate for mixed-type data. The analysis approach compared the efficiency of clustering using only the numerical data, then subsequently including covariates to the clustering. Based on numerical data only, three clusters gave an acceptable fit and provided information about the underlying data characteristics. Incorporation of covariates into the model suggested four distinct clusters dominated by physical location and type of detection. Clustering increases interpretability of complex models and is useful in data mining to highlight patterns to describe underlying processes in biosecurity and other research areas. Availability of more relevant data would greatly improve the model. Based on outcomes from our research we recommend broader use of cluster models in biosecurity data, with testing of these models on more datasets to validate the model choice and identify important explanatory variables

How Fitness Impacts Quality of Modern Life

Health and fitness are an essential part of life. Nowadays, people come across a lot of fitness web applications that provides many diets and workout plans separately. This project is about the combination of workout and diet instruction for each member. First, a person must log in to this application by providing their name, mobile, email, height, weight, age, and gender. members can get memberships by registering, there will be a variety of memberships called as Gold, Silver, and Platinum under the price rate and time durations. Members can request an instructor. When members login into their individual user log they will be given a planned workout plan and a diet plan, which is provided by the instructor. Those workout and diet schedules for members were updated from the instructor login accordingly. For better service and ease, there is an online store for buying products related to maintaining health and diets. Users can do payments online. Members or customers can buy products from the online store by adding to the cart. This fitness training center is equipped with all the modern types of machinery and provides information about machinery data stored in the center. Services provided by the fitness training center are handled by the system administrator

Testing for serial correlation in large numbers of small samples

No abstract availabl

The association between exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage and race-day performance in Thoroughbred racehorses

Background: Exercise-induced pulmonary haemorrhage (EIPH) is commonly implicated as a cause of poor athletic performance but there is limited and conflicting evidence for this association. Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine if EIPH, based on endoscopic examination after racing, is associated with a variety of novel and established performance parameters. Study design: Prospective, observational cross-sectional study. Methods: Thoroughbred racehorses competing between 2012 and 2015 were examined on-course no earlier than 30 min after racing. Examinations were recorded and graded blindly by experienced veterinarians using a 0-4 scale. Linear mixed effect models were used for analysis of continuous response variables with horse name incorporated as a random effect to account for repeated sampling and horse variability. Generalised estimating equations were used for analysis of binary responses. Performance variables were examined in 2 models, comparing EIPH grade 0 to grades 1-4, and EIPH grade ≤2 compared with EIPH grades ≥3, controlling race factors that could influence performance. Results: There were 3794 observations collected from 1567 horses. EIPH was detected in 55.1% of observations. Horses with grade 4 EIPH were significantly more likely to have a lower finishing position and finish further behind the winner, less likely to place in the first 3 positions and collect race earnings, collected less earnings per race start and were slower over the last 600 m of the race than horses without EIPH (grade 0). Similar associations were seen in Model 2, with horses with EIPH grade ≥3 having inferior performance when compared to horses with EIPH ≤2. Main limitations: Enrolment was voluntary. Conclusion: Mild to moderate haemorrhage was not associated with inferior race day performance in this population of Thoroughbred racehorses

The empirical saddlepoint method applied to testing for serial correlation in panel time series data

The empirical saddlepoint method is used to develop a testing procedure to check for serial correlation in panel (longitudinal) time series data. Unlike some previous methods it is not necessary to assume normal errors, equal variances or equal series length

Saddlepoint approximation methods for testing of serial correlation in panel time series data

The saddlepoint method is used to approximate the tail probabilities of the lag one serial correlation coefficient α, of a zero mean, first-order auto-regressive process, for both large and small numbers of small samples, and to test for serial correlation in a first-order non-zero mean process. The formula for the tail probability due to Lugannani and Rice is extended to the current problem. In the case of the zero mean process, approximate tail probabilities are computed using our results, and are compared with the Edgeworth and normal approximations. Unlike the other two approximations, the saddlepoint approximation performs uniformly well over the whole range of tail probability values considered. For the testing of serial correlation in the non-zero mean process, the saddlepoint method used to obtain the P-values performs in a similar manner to the asymptotic normal approximation method used by Cox and Solomon [Cox, D.R. and Solomon, P.J. (1988). On testing for serial correlation in large numbers of small samples. Biometrika, 75, 145–148]

The empirical saddlepoint method applied to testing for serial correlation in panel time series data

The empirical saddlepoint method is used to develop a testing procedure to check for serial correlation in panel (longitudinal) time series data. Unlike some previous methods it is not necessary to assume normal errors, equal variances or equal series length.