A crossed beam study of the reaction N/plus/ plus O2 yields NO/plus/ plus O

Studying reaction N/plus/ plus O2 yields NO/plus/ plus O as function of collision energy using crossed beam

Genetic Polymorphisms of the Coding Region (Exon 6) of Calpastatin in Indonesian Sheep

Calpastatin (CAST) is an indigenous inhibitor of calpain that involved in regulation of protein turn over and growth. The objective of this research was to identify genetic polymorphisms in the entire exon 6 of calpastatin gene in Indonesian local sheep. A PCR-SSCP method was carried out to identify genetic variation of CAST gene. In total 258 heads of local sheep from 8 populations were investigated, three groups of samples were Thin Tail Sheep (TTS) from Sukabumi, Jonggol, and Kissar. The rest samples were Priangan sheep (PS) from Margawati (Garut meat type) and Wanaraja (Garut fighting type) and Fat Tail Sheep (FTS) from Donggala, Sumbawa, and Rote islands. SSCP analysis revealed that three different SSCP patterns corresponded to three different alleles in the CAST locus (CAST-1, 2, and 3 allele) with five different genotypes. Genetic variation between local sheep populations were calculated based on genotypic and allelic frequencies. Most populations studied were polymorphic, with genotype frequencies of CAST-11, CAST-12, CAST-22, CAST-32, and CAST-33 were 0.286, 0.395, 0.263, 0.046, and 0.007 respectively. CAST-1 and 2 alleles were most commonly found in all populations with total frequency was 0.970, while CAST-3 was a rare allele 0.030 and only found in TTS population. Variation in the CAST gene could be used for the next research as genetic diversity study or to find any association between CAST polymorphism with birth weight, growth trait and carcass quality in Indonesian local sheep

Assessing time knowledge in children aged 10 to 11 years

The acquisition of time knowledge involves learning how to read clocks, estimate time, read dates and learn about temporal sequences. Evidence suggests that many of these competencies are acquired by 10 years of age although not all children may follow this developmental path. The main purpose of this study was to collect normative data for a screening tool that assesses time knowledge. These data identify the prevalence and pattern of difficulties with time knowledge among a UK sample of Year 6 pupils (aged 10 to 11 years). The Time Screening Assessment tool (Doran, Dutt & Pembery, 2015), designed to assess time knowledge, was administered individually to a sample of 79 children. Findings revealed a median overall score of 32 out of a maximum score of 36. 25% of children performed at or close to ceiling, however seven children scored more than -1.5 standard deviations below the mean. The value of these findings to practitioners working with children in schools is discussed

Observation of Pure Spin Transport in a Diamond Spin Wire

Spin transport electronics - spintronics - focuses on utilizing electron spin as a state variable for quantum and classical information processing and storage. Some insulating materials, such as diamond, offer defect centers whose associated spins are well-isolated from their environment giving them long coherence times; however, spin interactions are important for transport, entanglement, and read-out. Here, we report direct measurement of pure spin transport - free of any charge motion - within a nanoscale quasi 1D 'spin wire', and find a spin diffusion length ~ 700 nm. We exploit the statistical fluctuations of a small number of spins ($\sqrt{N}$ < 100 net spins) which are in thermal equilibrium and have no imposed polarization gradient. The spin transport proceeds by means of magnetic dipole interactions that induce flip-flop transitions, a mechanism that can enable highly efficient, even reversible, pure spin currents. To further study the dynamics within the spin wire, we implement a magnetic resonance protocol that improves spatial resolution and provides nanoscale spectroscopic information which confirms the observed spin transport. This spectroscopic tool opens a potential route for spatially encoding spin information in long-lived nuclear spin states. Our measurements probe intrinsic spin dynamics at the nanometre scale, providing detailed insight needed for practical devices which seek to control spin.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, under consideration at Nature Nanotechnolog

Genetic factors affecting milk production in a selected Holstein-Friesian herd

"September, 1950."Analyses were made of all normal lactation records (up to the ninth record of each cow) in the Missouri Station Holstein-Friesian herd from its foundation in 1902 to January 1, 1950. There were 314 cows with a total of 933 lactation records. The progeny of 34 herd sires were represented. Within the 34 sire progeny groups are 299 daughters with records and 270 daughter-dam pairs. All lactation records were standardized to a herd test, 305 day, 2x, mature equivalent basis by means of factors derived from the data. A significant upward time trend in production was found. Differences between 5 year periods accounted for 5.5 per cent of the total variance in milk production, 20.4 per cent of the total variance in butterfat production and 38 .8 per cent of the total variance in butterfat percentage. Estimates of the repeatability of contemporary production records were 0.41 for milk production, 0.36 for butterfat production and 0.61 for butterfat percentage. Heritability estimates derived from the intra-sire regression of daughter on dam were found to be: 0.36 for milk production, 0.29 for butterfat production and 0.54 for butterfat percentage. Lifetime average es were used a s the measure of each cow's producing ability but the heritability estimates were expressed on a single record basis. Variation of daughters and dams records was found to be essentially equal. When each cow's lifetime average was expressed as her "most probable producing ability" no increase was observed in the correlation between the records of daughter and dam. The correlation between lifetime average milk and butterfat yield was found to be + 0.89, between milk and butterfat per cent - 0.10 and between butterfat yield and butterfat per cent + 0.35. The corresponding genetic correlations were estimated by two methods: ( a ) by the ratios of appropriate regression coefficients and ( b) by the ratios of genetic covariance to the geometric mean of genetic variance estimates. The estimated genetic correlations by method ( a ) were: + 0.87 between milk and butterfat yield. - 0.52 between milk yield and butterfat per cent, and -0.03 between butterfat yield and butterfat per cent. The three estimates by method ( b) were : + 0.99, - 0.20 and -0.13 respectively. Both the gross and genetic correlations indicate that a slight but real relative decline in butterfat percentage may be expected to accompany increased milk production. The effect of mild inbreeding was analyze d by the intra-sire regression of production on inbreeding. A significant decline of 66 pounds of milk and 2 pounds of butterfat p e r one percent in crease in inbreeding was observed. Th er e was no significant effect on butterfat percentage. The performance of herd sires a s indicated by daughter-dam comparison s is presented for 20 sires having at least 5 daughter-dam pairs. Ten of these sires increased milk production, 15 increased butterfat production, and 13 increased butterfat percentage of their daughters over their corresponding dams. No evidence of nicking was found in a tabulation of sires' daughters according to their maternal grandsires

Removing black-hole singularities with nonlinear electrodynamics

We propose a way to remove black hole singularities by using a particular nonlinear electrodynamics Lagrangian that has been recently used in various astrophysics and cosmological frameworks. In particular, we adapt the cosmological analysis discussed in a previous work to the black hole physics. Such analysis will be improved by applying the Oppenheimer-Volkoff equation to the black hole case. At the end, fixed the radius of the star, the final density depends only on the introduced quintessential density term $\rho_{\gamma}$ and on the mass.Comment: In this last updated version we correct two typos which were present in Eqs. (21) and (22) in the version of this letter which has been published in Mod. Phys. Lett. A 25, 2423-2429 (2010). In the present version, both of Eqs. (21) and (22) are dimensionally and analytically correc

Feature preserving noise removal for binary voxel volumes using 3D surface skeletons

Skeletons are well-known descriptors that capture the geometry and topology of 2D and 3D shapes. We leverage these properties by using surface skeletons to remove noise from 3D shapes. For this, we extend an existing method that removes noise, but keeps important (salient) corners for 2D shapes. Our method detects and removes large-scale, complex, and dense multiscale noise patterns that contaminate virtually the entire surface of a given 3D shape, while recovering its main (salient) edges and corners. Our method can treat any (voxelized) 3D shapes and surface-noise types, is computationally scalable, and has one easy-to-set parameter. We demonstrate the added-value of our approach by comparing our results with several known 3D shape denoising methods