东北春玉米全生育期气候适宜度评价

适宜的气候要素是保障东北春玉米健康生长和高产稳产的基本条件。依据温、光、水气候要素对春玉米生长的影响,分别构建温度、日照和降水适宜度模型,引入有效降水提高模型精度,再基于有效降水和实际降水将三种气候要素耦合建立综合气候适宜度模型Ⅰ和模型Ⅱ,并利用1994—2013年有效气象、物候数据和2003—2010年像元尺度大田玉米生长状况时序遥感监测信息对海伦和泰来两个典型东北农业台站进行模型测试检验,将最适用模型应用于东北三省玉米典型种植区以估算2008与2009年25个站点不同生育期各气候要素适宜度。检验结果表明,“基于有效降水的模型Ⅰ”所估算的全生育期综合气候适宜度与NDVI、EVI的相关系数(0.58、0.29)均优于“基于实际降水的模型Ⅱ”(0.52、0.18),融合有效降水信息的模型Ⅰ更能有效捕获气候要素对春玉米生长胁迫现象。应用结果显示,模型Ⅰ估算的2008和2009年东北春玉米全生育期综合气候适宜度分别为0.67和0.56,与该地区2008年春玉米实际产量高于2009年表现一致;两年间东北三省春玉米各气候要素适宜度总体表现为温度>日照>有效降水;辽宁与吉林的温度、有效...     

欧盟农产品地理标志体系研究及启示

欧盟农产品地理标志体系历史悠久,法律政策体系完善,其成功经验对以小农为主、农业自然生态环境差异巨大的我国农业发展和实施乡村振兴战略具有重要的参考价值.本文详细阐述了欧盟农产品地理标志体系的起源、内涵及其保护体系的特征,总结了当前欧盟地理标志的分类和发展情况,并以此为鉴,对我国地理标志保护工作提出建议.     

A spline polynomial model to describe serum IGF-I concentration from birth to slaughter in calves: effects of weaning age,pre-weaning concentrate feeding and breed

The statistical analysis of hormones sampled throughout the production cycle is complicated because factors such as age and weight at the measuring date interfere. Spline curves constructed from pieces of low-degree, random-effects polynomials could be used for a more accurate analysis of data. Concentration of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), weight gain, and concentrate intake of Parda de Montaña (PM) (n = 27) and Pirenaica calves (n = 14) were modeled with a spline model according to age at weaning, pre-weaning concentrate feeding, and breed. At birth, calves were randomly assigned to early weaning (EW) at 90 d or traditional weaning (TW) at 150 d. During lactation, half of PM calves received concentrates (S), whereas the remainder received no concentrates (NS). After weaning, calves received concentrates on an ad libitum basis until they reached a weight of 450 kg. The spline model had better likelihood than a polynomial of 6 degrees or a split-plot model. Serum IGF-1 concentration was greatly affected by age at weaning and pre-weaning concentrate feeding, but not by breed. In NS calves, IGF-1 concentration was greater in EW than in TW calves from 120 to 300 d, irrespective of breed. During lactation, S calves had greater IGF-1 concentration than NS calves. After weaning, EWNS calves reached the IGF-1 concentration of EWS calves after 4 mo on concentrates, whereas TWNS calves attained IGF-1 concentration of TWS calves after only 2 mo, because of their increased concentrate intake relative to TWS calves. Concentration of IGF-1 was positively correlated with the immediate weight gains and intake, but it was not a good predictor of performance in the long term.     

Rough vaccines in animal brucellosis: structural and genetic basis and present status

Brucellosis control and eradication requires serological tests and vaccines. Effective classical vaccines (S19 in cattle and Rev 1 in small ruminants), however, induce antibodies to the O-polysaccharide of the lipopolysaccharide which may be difficult to distinguish from those resulting from infection and may thus complicate diagnosis. Rough attenuated mutants lack the O-polysaccharide and would solve this problem if eliciting protective immunity; the empirically obtained rough mutants 45/20 and RB51 have been used as vaccines. Strain 45/20 is reportedly unstable and it is not presently used. RB51 is increasingly used instead of S19 in some countries but it is rifampicin resistant and its effectiveness is controversial. Some controlled experiments have found good or absolute protection in adult cattle vaccinated orally (full dose) or subcutaneously (reduced dose) and in one field experiment, RB51 was reported to afford absolute protection to calves and to perform better than S19. Controlled experiments in calves, however, have shown reduced doses of RB51 to be ineffective, full doses only partially effective, and RB51 less effective than S19 against severe challenges. Moreover, other observations suggest that RB51 is ineffective when prevalence is high. RB51 is not useful in sheep and evidence in goats is preliminary and contradictory. Rough mutants obtained by molecular biology methods on the knowledge of the genetics and structure of Brucella lipopolysaccharide may offer alternatives. The B. abortus manBcore (rfbK) mutant seems promising in cattle, and analyses in mice suggest that mutations affecting only the O-polysaccharide result in better vaccines than those affecting both core and O-polysaccharide. Possible uses of rough vaccines also include boosting immunity by revaccination but solid evidence on its effectiveness, safety and practicality is not available.     

A multicentric retrospective study of serum/plasma urea and creatinine concentrations in dogs using univariate and multivariate decision rules to evaluate diagnostic efficiency

BACKGROUND: Urea and creatinine are the most frequently used indirect markers in plasma and serum of glomerular filtration rate in dogs. Both have been shown to lack sensitivity but their diagnostic efficiency for the diagnosis of kidney disease has been minimally investigated. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this retrospective study was to investigate the influence of possible factors of variation on both analytes and to determine whether specific decision rules should be drawn up for subpopulations of dogs. METHODS: The results of urea and creatinine measurements, breed, sex, age, and health status (healthy, renal disease, or nonrenal disease) of 3822 dogs were collected from the archives of 5 veterinary clinics. Data were analyzed with univariate and multivariate decision rules with and without adjustment. RESULTS: There were significant effects and interactions of almost all of the sources of variation. Slight improvements in diagnostic efficiency were obtained by adjusting the decision rules to these sources of variations. Univariate decision rules gave approximately the same diagnostic efficiency for urea and creatinine concentrations, with sensitivity and specificity in the range of 70% and 90%, respectively, using the upper limit of the reference interval as the threshold value. Multivariate decision rules provided only minor improvements in diagnostic efficiency. CONCLUSION: Simultaneous measurement of both urea and creatinine is of limited diagnostic value over the analysis of a single variable. Creatinine is the preferred analyte as it is affected by fewer extrarenal factors of variation.     

陇东肉牛PON1基因结构与功能的生物信息学分析

为阐明陇东肉牛对氧磷酶1（paraoxonase 1,PON1）基因的结构与功能,本研究运用PCR扩增陇东肉牛PON1基因所有外显子序列并测序,通过Seqman软件完成序列拼接,结合生物信息学方法预测和分析其碱基组成、开放阅读框及编码蛋白的理化性质、原子组成、氨基酸残基数、亲水性和疏水性、分子质量、等电点、二级结构、高级结构等。结果显示,陇东肉牛PON1基因CDS区序列全长1 068 bp,编码355个氨基酸残基,其中数目最多的为亮氨酸（Leu）,数目最少的为半胱氨酸和色氨酸（Cys和Trp）。碱基组成中A+T含量（56.55%）高于G+C含量（43.26%）。与GenBank中牛PON1基因序列（登录号：EU289337）比对分析发现,在PON1基因外显子4、6、8、9中存在突变,但均未导致氨基酸发生变化,为同义突变。PON1蛋白的原子组成是C₁₈₁₀H₂₇₉₆N₄₅₄O₅₃₃S₁₂,分子质量为39.83 ku,理论等电点为5.24,为稳定的水溶性蛋白质。PON1蛋白二级结构中无规则卷曲、延展链、α-螺旋和β-转角分别由159、116、55和25个氨基酸构成,最终形成了以无规则卷曲和延展链为主的混合型。PON1蛋白的疏水性结果表明,第8位苏氨酸（Thr）疏水性最强（最高分值2.878）,第299位脯氨酸（Pro）亲水性最强（最低分值-2.222）。本试验结果为深入研究陇东肉牛PON1蛋白功能及探讨PON1基因突变对甘肃地方肉牛胴体、肉质性状的影响奠定基础。     

Application of unmanned aerial systems for high throughput phenotyping of large wheat breeding nurseries

Background

Low cost unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have great potential for rapid proximal measurements of plants in agriculture. In the context of plant breeding and genetics, current approaches for phenotyping a large number of breeding lines under field conditions require substantial investments in time, cost, and labor. For field-based high-throughput phenotyping (HTP), UAS platforms can provide high-resolution measurements for small plot research, while enabling the rapid assessment of tens-of-thousands of field plots. The objective of this study was to complete a baseline assessment of the utility of UAS in assessment field trials as commonly implemented in wheat breeding programs. We developed a semi-automated image-processing pipeline to extract plot level data from UAS imagery. The image dataset was processed using a photogrammetric pipeline based on image orientation and radiometric calibration to produce orthomosaic images. We also examined the relationships between vegetation indices (VIs) extracted from high spatial resolution multispectral imagery collected with two different UAS systems (eBee Ag carrying MultiSpec 4C camera, and IRIS+ quadcopter carrying modified NIR Canon S100) and ground truth spectral data from hand-held spectroradiometer.

Results

We found good correlation between the VIs obtained from UAS platforms and ground-truth measurements and observed high broad-sense heritability for VIs. We determined radiometric calibration methods developed for satellite imagery significantly improved the precision of VIs from the UAS. We observed VIs extracted from calibrated images of Canon S100 had a significantly higher correlation to the spectroradiometer (r = 0.76) than VIs from the MultiSpec 4C camera (r = 0.64). Their correlation to spectroradiometer readings was as high as or higher than repeated measurements with the spectroradiometer per se.

Conclusion

The approaches described here for UAS imaging and extraction of proximal sensing data enable collection of HTP measurements on the scale and with the precision needed for powerful selection tools in plant breeding. Low-cost UAS platforms have great potential for use as a selection tool in plant breeding programs. In the scope of tools development, the pipeline developed in this study can be effectively employed for other UAS and also other crops planted in breeding nurseries.