Effects of field crops on animals: Considerations with regard to design using Chlormequat-treated wheat crop as an example

There is concern whether consuming products based on crop from Chlormequat-treated fields can cause reproduction problems in animals and humans. An experiment is presently being conducted to investigate this using the pig as a model. Considerations with regard to experimental design when investigating whether differently treated crop can affect animal/human biology is discussed. Only about half of the data are presently available. A preliminary survey of these data does not show clear differences between Chlormequat-treated and organic non-treated wheat with regard to reproduction performance of pigs

Analyticity of the density of electronic wavefunctions

We prove that the electronic densities of atomic and molecular eigenfunctions are real analytic in ${\mathbb R}^3$ away from the nuclei.Comment: 19 page

Stability and structure of two coupled boson systems in an external field

The lowest adiabatic potential expressed in hyperspherical coordinates is estimated for two boson systems in an external harmonic trap. Corresponding conditions for stability are investigated and the related structures are extracted for zero-range interactions. Strong repulsion between non-identical particles leads to two new features, respectively when identical particles attract or repel each other. For repulsion new stable structures arise with displaced center of masses. For attraction the mean-field stability region is restricted due to motion of the center of masses

Performance and diarrhoea in piglets following weaning at seven weeks of age: Challenge with E. coli O 149 and effect of dietary factors

Four dietary factors (ad libitum versus feed restriction, control versus protein restriction at ad libitum feeding, control versus inclusion of lupine as a protein source at ad libitum feeding, and control versus extra vitamin E at ad libitum feeding) were tested in four separate experiments for the effect on diarrhoea. To introduce a diarrhoea-like condition, half of the piglets were challenged with an inoculation of an E. coli O 149 dose of 1 x 108 colony forming units on day two and three after weaning (day of weaning = day one). All piglets were susceptible since the dams were tested mono-zygotic susceptible to the attachment site of E. coli O 149 in the intestines. Each of the four experiments included 32 piglets from 4 sows. The design was 2 x 2 factorial with dietary factor and E. coli O 149 challenge as the two factors, each at two levels. The piglets were housed individually during the experiment which lasted for 10 days from weaning at 7 weeks of age. The daily recordings included feed intake, weight and faeces score (from 1 = firm and solid to 6 = yellow and watery). Faeces from days 2 to 5 were tested for E. coli strains. In addition, blood was sampled and serum was analysed for E. coli antibodies, IgG and IgM. Generally the E. coli challenge had no effect on growth and feed intake whereas faeces score and number of faeces haemolytic bacteria increased and faeces dry matter decreased. Feed restriction decreased the weight gain while faeces characteristics were unaffected. An analysis including all four experiments revealed that a feed intake of less than 200 g day one after weaning seems to be associated with a relatively high incidence of a post-weaning diarrhoea-like condition. Protein restriction decreased faeces score and increased faeces dry matter while weight gain tended to decrease. Inclusion of lupine affected neither weight gain nor faeces characteristics. Extra vitamin E did not affect weight gain while faeces dry matter decreased, and faeces score and number of faecal haemolytic bacteria increased. The dietary treatments had no effect on the immunological responses. In conclusion, the studied dietary factors could not alleviate a diarrhoea-like condition and at the same time maintain the growth rate. Furthermore, the results indicate that performance can be improved if piglets achieve a daily feed intake of at least 200 g from day one after weaning

PROPIG

Farm specific strategies to reduce environmental impact by improving health, welfare and nutrition of organic pig