Interaction between Eimeria uzura infection and aflatoxicosis in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica)

The clinical signs and gross lesions caused by Eimeria uzura (10(5) oocysts) in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) exhibited little or no influence in the face of intercurrent dietary aflatoxicosis (1 p.p.m. of aflatoxin B1 from Day 0 to 55). Similarly, no significant differences in the mucosal morphology of the intestine were evident histologically between the two groups of Japanese quail. The nervous signs of ataxia, leg weakness, incoordination of movement, torticollis and terminal opisthotonos were toxin-induced manifestations. In the aflatoxic quail, hypoplastic changes and selective depletion of lymphocytes were more prominent in the bursa of fabricius. Increased relative mean weights of liver, kidney, spleen, crop, proventriculus and gizzard were observed in birds due to aflatoxin sensitivity. The combination of E. uzura infection and aflatoxicosis in Japanese quail may cause significant weight loss, and increased oocyst production and reproductive potential.     

Effects of temperature pre-treatments on the forcing of strawberry plants (cv. Glasa)

The results of an experiment, designed to study the effects of certain temperature treatments during the autumn season on the subsequent development of strawberries (cv. Glasa) during forcing, have been presented in this paper. This study was under-taken in the interest of both breeding new varieties suitable for forcing and improving the present forcing methods.Practical experience has shown that the chance of success is small when forcing is started before the 15th of January.In a recent publication it has been suggested to provide plants with strong artificial light for assimilation, which would make it possible to start forcing at an earlier date.In the present experiment, however, in which forcing was started as early as the 5th of January, good results were obtained under ordinary light conditions by previously exposing the plants to 12°C for three weeks in November. The pre-treated plants showed earlier flowring and fruiting, better fruit set and a higher yield than the control plants.These observations indicate that in order to obtain satisfactory results the inflorescences must have attained a certain stage of development at the beginning of forcing, and that this stage was reached at an earlier date by the accelerating effect of the temperature treatment.     

An adaptive analysis of covariance using tree-structured regression

In this article, we propose an adaptive procedure for testing for the effect of a factor of interest in the presence of one or more confounding variables in observational studies. It is especially relevant for applications where the factor of interest has a suspected causal relationship with a response. This procedure is not tied to linear modeling or normal distribution theory, and it offers a valuable alternative to traditional methods. It is suitable for applications where a factor of interest is categorical and the response is continuous. Confounding variables may be continuous or categorical. The method is comprised of two basic steps that are performed in sequence. First, confounding variables alone (i.e., without the factor of interest) are used to group observations into subsets. These subsets have the property that, when restricted to a subset, there is little or no remaining variation in the response that is attributable to the confounding variables. We then test for the factor of interest within each subset of observations. We propose to implement the first step using a technique that is generally referred to as tree-structured regression. We use a non parametric permutation procedure to carry out the second step. The proposed method is illustrated through an analysis of a U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service data set and an air pollution data set.     

Abnormal p-wave delays in the geysers--clear lake geothermal area, california

Large teleseismic delays, exceeding 1 second, are found near Mount Hannah in the Clear Lake volcanic field and in the steam-production area at The Geysers. The delays are superimposed on a general delay field of about 0.5 second extending over the volcanic rocks and the steam reservoir. It is postulated that a magma chamber under the surface volcanic rocks with a core of severely molten rock beneath Mount Hannah and a highly fractured steam reservoir probably underlain by partially molten rock at The Geysers are responsible for the observed delays. Both zones extend to depths of 20 kilometers or more.     

Distribution of Brucella abortus in infected cattle

Experimentally and naturally infected cattle were examined bacteriologically to determine the anatomical distribution of specimens yielding Brucella abortus. In 91 experimentally infected pregnant cows, examined 3 to 4.5 months after conjunctival challenge during pregnancy, the most frequently infected specimen was the mammary (syn. supramammary) lymph node. All experimentally infected cows could be identified from cultures of the mammary, mandibular (syn. submaxillary), medial iliac, caudal superficial cervical (syn. prescapular) lymph nodes and uterine caruncles, cotyledons or foetal tissues. Forty-six naturally infected cows were examined and again the most frequently infected specimen was the mammary lymph node. All naturally infected cows could be identified from cultures of the mammary, parotid, mandibular and subiliac (syn. prefemoral) lymph nodes. The distribution of infected specimens was somewhat different in heifers. In 61 naturally infected heifers the most frequently infected specimen was the mandibular lymph node but 8 other specimens would have been required to enable identification of all infected heifers. Specimens from 3 infected bulls were cultured and 11 of the 12 specimens examined were infected in at least one of the bulls. The most frequently infected tissues were the mandibular, caudal superficial cervical, subiliac and scrotal lymph nodes. The results suggest which specimens should be selected for culture, particularly when only a limited amount of effort can be expended.     

Tolerance intervals for unbalanced one-way random effects models with covariates and heterogeneous variances

Tolerance intervals are useful in practice to help determine limits for detection monitoring or assessment monitoring of factors that may impact the environment, ecological systems, or other biological processes. This article provides a procedure for construction of one-sided and two-sided tolerance intervals for a normally distributed random variable when the mean and variance of its distribution are estimated using data following an unbalanced one-way random effects model with covariates under heterogeneous error variances. The procedure developed here is based on the concept of a generalized pivotal quantity which has been frequently used to obtain confidence intervals in situations where conventional methods are difficult to apply or fail to provide s satisfactory solutions. For the one-sided case, the generalized pivotal quantity approach yields an exact solution. On the other hand, the method leads to good approximate intervals for the two-sided case. This is confirmed by a detailed simulation study, showing that the method may be recommended for practical use. Two real-data examples are given to illustrate the applicability of the proposed procedures.     

Grouping of banana clones based on genomic groups,ploidy, and seasons of planting for sucker production in Musa spp.

ABSTRACT

Sucker production of important clones belonging to different ploidy levels and genomic groups were assessed in three different planting seasons at Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, India. The study revealed that morphological characters such as plant height, collar girth, and total number of leaves recorded very strong, significant, and positive correlation with sucker production characters but negative correlation was observed with average leaf production interval and bunch weight. The number of dead suckers was found to be positively correlated with plant height, collar girth, “D” leaf area, bunch weight, and average leaf production interval. In a cluster analysis, six banana varieties that were planted in different three seasons (18 entries) and their pooled data (6 entries) were grouped into four distinct clusters each. In factor/principle component analysis, the first three major factors/principle components amounted to a total of 85.9% of the variability. The communality values of the factor analysis revealed that collar girth was the major relative contributory trait for deciding the sucker yield and production in banana.

Abbreviations: EVS: Early vegetative stage; AVS: Active vegetative stage; FBI: Flower bud initiation; FBD: Flower bud differentiation; PCA: Principle component analysis; FA: Factor analysis     

Quick-cooking beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.): I. Investigations on quality

Soaking three beans cultivars (Phaseolus vulgaris L.: Great Northern, kidney, and pinto) in mixed salt solution (sodium chloride 2.5% + sodium bicarbonate 1.5% + sodium tripolyphosphate 1.0% + sodium carbonate 0.5%) resulted in 80%–85% reduction in cooking time over corresponding controls. Irradiation (-rays) at 500 krads of soaked and dehydrated beans caused a reduction of nearly 50% in cooking time. Water uptake and leaching losses for each treatment during soaking at 22°, 37°, and 45°C were investigated. High temperature (37° and 45°C) and pH (9.0) caused greater water imbibition and total solid loss than at room temperature (22°C). Organoleptic evaluation revealed that quick-cooking Great Northern beans appear to be more acceptable than kidney and pinto beans. Quick-cooking cooked beans had better in vitro protein digestibility than conventionally cooked beans. Phenolic content was found to be inversely related to in vitro digestibility.Utah Agricultural Experiment Station Journal article no. 2481.