Effects of Increasing the Energy Density of a Lactating Ewe Diet by Replacing Grass Hay with Soybean Hulls and Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles

The objective of this experiment was to determine the effects of increasing the energy density of a lactating ewe diet by replacing grass hay (GH) with soybean hulls (SH) and replacing soybean meal (SBM) with dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) on ewe body condition, milk production and nutrient composition, and lamb performance. Sixteen 2-year-old ewes were selected based on a common lambing date. All diets contained 60% roughage and 40% concentrate. Dietary roughage source, however varied from completely GH to completely SH, and SBM was replaced by DDGS. Diets were formulated to contain 13.9% CP and an increasing amount of dietary energy as SH and DDGS replaced GH and SBM. The control diet for this experiment was composed of 60% GH and 11.6% SBM (GH-SBM). Treatment diets were 60% GH and 25.4% DDGS (GH-DDGS); 20% GH, 40% SH, 15.3% DDGS (SH40-DDGS); and no GH, 60% SH, 10% DDGS (SH60-DDGS). The SH, protein concentrate, and mineral portion of the diet was pelleted and mixed with the chopped GH, when GH was included in the diet. The SH60-DDGS diet was a completely pelleted diet. Ewes were offered feed twice daily, and a weigh-suckle-weigh technique was performed weekly throughout the 8-week lactation to quantify production and characterize nutrient composition milk in the ewe. Ewe BW and BCS was recorded at the beginning and end of the trial and lamb growth performance was monitored weekly. Replacing GH and SBM with SH and DDGS increased milk production without decreasing ewe BW and BCS during lactation. Although, total milk solids, protein, and fat were decreased when SH and DDGS replaced GH and SBM, lamb growth performance was improved. Increased milk production that resulted with the inclusion of SH and DDGS in the diet was sufficient to overcome the lesser nutrient composition of the milk to result in differences in lamb growth. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that replacing GH and SBM with SH and DDGS increases dietary energy density and results in increased milk production and lamb growth without compromising ewe BW and BCS

Effects of Increasing the Dietary Energy Density by Replacing Grass Hay with Soybean Hulls and Dried Distillers Grains with Solubles on Nutrient Digestibility and Rumen Fermentation

We hypothesize that soybean hulls (SH) and dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) can be used in lamb diets to increase dietary energy density compared with a traditional grass hay (GH) and soybean meal (SBM) diet without causing adverse effects on nutrient digestibility and rumen function. To test this hypothesis, four ruminally-cannulated wethers were used in a 4x4 Latin square design to determine the effects of replacing GH with SH and replacing SBM with DDGS on nutrient digestibility and rumen fermentation. All diets were formulated to contain 60% roughage and 40% concentrate on DM basis. Dietary roughage source, however, varied from completely GH to completely SH, and SBM was replaced by DDGS. Diets were formulated to contain 13.9% CP and an increasing amount of dietary energy as SH and DDGS replaced GH and SBM. The control diet was composed of 60% GH and 11.6% SBM (GH-SBM). Treatment diets were 60% GH and 25.4% DDGS (GH-DDGS); 20% GH, 40% SH, 15.3% DDGS (SH40-DDGS); or no GH, 60% SH, 10% DDGS (SH60-DDGS). The SH, protein concentrate, and mineral portion of the diet was pelleted and mixed with the chopped GH, when GH was included in the diet. The SH60-DDGS diet was a completely pelleted diet. This trial was divided into four periods. Lambs were allowed 14 d to adapt to their respective treatment diet which was offered twice daily. Following adaptation, total feed, fecal, and urine samples were collected and weighed during the 4-d collection period and subsequently composited for nutrient analyses. On the day following collection of fecal and urine samples, rumen fluid was collected at -2, 0, 1, 4, 8, 12 h relative to feeding, for analysis of VFA and ammonia concentrations. Replacing GH with SH improved DM digestibility and the DE content of the diet. Although increasing SH in the diet decreased rumen pH, ADF and NDF digestibility was not affected adversely. Lower rumen pH did favor increased propionate concentrations in the rumen. These data are consistent with the hypothesis that DDGS and SH can be used to increase the energy density of lamb diets compared to a traditional GH and SBM diet without affecting nutrient digestibility and rumen pH adversely

Brief of Interested Law Professors As \u3ci\u3eAmici Curiae\u3c/i\u3e Supporting Petitioner in \u3ci\u3eBrohl v. Direct Marketing Association\u3c/i\u3e

Amici curiae are 14 professors of law who have devoted much of their teaching and research to the area of state taxes and the role of state tax policy in our federal system. The names and affiliations (for identification purposes only) of amici are included in an addendum to this brief. The amici are concerned with the effect of this Court’s dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence on the development of fair and efficient state tax systems. No decision of this Court has had more effect on state sales and use tax systems than Quill Corporation v. North Dakota. We believe the Tenth Circuit properly decided the case below. But if the Court decides to grant the Direct Marketing Association’s petition to review the issue of discrimination which it raises, we respectfully request that the Court also grant the conditional crosspetition filed by Executive Director Barbara J. Brohl of the Colorado Department of Revenue asking the Court to reconsider Quill. This brief sets forth the reasons for our support of that cross-petitio

EEG Correlates of Attentional Load during Multiple Object Tracking

While human subjects tracked a subset of ten identical, randomly-moving objects, event-related potentials (ERPs) were evoked at parieto-occipital sites by task-irrelevant flashes that were superimposed on either tracked (Target) or non-tracked (Distractor) objects. With ERPs as markers of attention, we investigated how allocation of attention varied with tracking load, that is, with the number of objects that were tracked. Flashes on Target discs elicited stronger ERPs than did flashes on Distractor discs; ERP amplitude (0–250 ms) decreased monotonically as load increased from two to three to four (of ten) discs. Amplitude decreased more rapidly for Target discs than Distractor discs. As a result, with increasing tracking loads, the difference between ERPs to Targets and Distractors diminished. This change in ERP amplitudes with load accords well with behavioral performance, suggesting that successful tracking depends upon the relationship between the neural signals associated with attended and non-attended objects

History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945-2001

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91765/1/Schuman-History_Commemoration_Belief.pd

Analysis of Audio-Video Correlation in Vowels in Australian English

This paper investigates the statistical relationship between acoustic and visual speech features for vowels. We extract such features from our stereo vision AV speech data corpus of Australian English. A principal component analysis is performed to determine which data points of the parameter curve for each feature are the most important ones to represent the shape of each curve. This is followed by a canonical correlation analysis to determine which principal components, and hence which data points of which features, correlate most across the two modalities. Several strong correlations are reported between acoustic and visual features. In particular, F1 and F2 and mouth height were strongly correlated. Knowledge about the correlation of acoustic and visual features can be used to predict the presence of acoustic features from visual features in order to improve the recognition rate of automatic speech recognition systems in environments with acoustic noise

Programming by Demonstration: Coping with Suboptimal Teaching Actions

The difficulty associated with programing existing robots is one of the main impediments to them finding application in domestic environments such as the home. A promising method for simplifying robot programing is Programing by Demonstration (PbD). Here, an end user can provide a demonstration of the task to be programed, with a PbD "interface" interpreting the demonstration in order to determine low-level control details for the robot. A key aspect of the interpretation process is to make it robust to the noise typically included in a demonstration by the human. In this paper we present a method to help identify and eliminate any noise present in the demonstration. Our method involves two steps. The first step uses the demonstration to build up a partial knowledge of the geometry present in the task. Statistical regression analysis is used on demonstrated trajectories to determine equations describing curved surfaces in configuration space. The second step in our method uses the geometric information obtained in the first step to determine if there are more optimal paths than those demonstrated for completing the task. If there are, our method proposes these as the appropriate control commands for the robot. We show the validity of our approach by presenting successful experiments on a realistic household-type task - changing rolls on a paper roll holder