Short estrous cycles and associated progesterone in serum of beef heifers aborted at various stages of gestation

Estrous cycles were observed and concentrations of progesterone were measured after abortion in crossbred Angus heifers that were injected with a prostaglandin F(2) alpha analogue about day 50 (15 heifers), 75 (14 heifers), 100 (13 heifers) or 125 (49 heifers) of gestation. The average interval from injection to first estrus was 3.6, 4.2, 3.7 and 6.4 d for heifers injected at an average of 50, 75, 100 or 125 d of gestation, respectively. Cycles of fewer than 13 d were classified as short, those of 13 to 16 d as intermediate, those of 16 to 24 d as normal, and those of more than 24 d as long. Heifers aborted at 50 d of gestation had seven short and eight normal first cycles; heifers aborted at 75 d had 11 short cycles, two normal cycles, and one long cycle; heifers aborted at 100 d had 12 short cycles and one normal cycle; whereas heifers aborted at 125 d had 25 short cycles, 13 normal cycles, two long cycles, six intermediate cycles. Three heifers failed to exhibit a second estrus by 50 d after abortion. Of those heifers having short first cycles, short second cycles occurred in one of seven heifers aborted at Day 50, three of 11 at Day 75, seven of 12 at Day 100 and 18 of 25 at Day 125. Serum progesterone was measured at 0, 1 and 2 d after injection and at 5 and 10 d after the first estrus. Concentration of progesterone in serum declined before estrus, then increased by 5 d after estrus in all cases. Progesterone concentration increased between 5 and 10 d after estrus in heifers exhibiting normal estrous cycles but docreased in heifers having short cycles. Data indicate that the percentage of heifers having single or repeated short cycles after abortion increases as the duration of gestation increases to 100 d.     

Syncro-mate B induces estrus in ovariectomized cows and heifers

Eleven ovariectomized Hereford x Simmental cows and 10 ovariectomized crossbred heifers (primarily Angus and Hereford) were given the Syncro-Mate B (SMB) estrous synchronization treatment. The SMB treatment consisted of a 2 ml i.m. injection containing 5 mg of estradiol valerate and 3 mg of norgestomet plus a hydron ear implant containing 6 mg of norgestomet. The ear implant was removed 9 d later. Cows and heifers were considered in estrus only if they stood for mounting by a herdmate or a bull. Observations for estrus were made four or six times each day for 3 d after implant removal. The 21 animals were used in eight trials. Each trial involved 9 or 11 cows or 5 or 10 heifers. Four days to three weeks elapsed between implant removal and implant insertion for the next trial. No ovariectomized cow or heifer was observed in estrus for 21 d before treatment with SMB. In the eight trials, 3 of 9, 7 of 9 and 6 of 11 cows exhibited estrus, whereas 5 of 10, 1 of 5, 3 of 5, 3 of 5 and 5 of 5 heifers exhibited estrus after treatment. When data were pooled, 16 of 29 (55.2%) cows and 17 of 30 (56.7%) heifers exhibited estrus after treatment. Our data indicate that the SMB treatment can induce estrus in cows and heifers, independently of the ovaries.     

Estrus after treatment with Syncro-Mate B* in ovariectomized heifers is dependent on the injected estradiol valerate

A series of experiments was conducted to determine why ovariectomized heifers exhibit estrus after they are treated with the estrus synchronization product, Syncro-Mate B(*) (SMB). In Experiment 1, 23 of 40 (58%) ovariectomized heifers exhibited estrus after treatment with SMB. The mean concentration of estradiol-17beta (E(2)) in serum was lower (P < 0.001) before treatment than after implant removal in ovariectomized heifers treated with SMB. Six of 10 heifers from which serum was collected to determine concentrations of LH exhibited estrus and 5 of 6 had a surge of LH in serum after implant removal. In Experiment 2, when no estradiol valerate (EV) was given or when the norgestomet implant period was extended from 9 to 18 d, no heifer exhibited estrus after implant removal. The mean concentration of E(2) for 3 d after implant removal was lower (P < 0.001) in ovariectomized heifers with implants for 18 d versus those with implants for 9 d and was also lower (P < 0.001) in ovariectomized heifers treated only with norgestomet compared with those receiving the standard SMB treatment. When estradiol-17beta was substituted for EV in the SMB treatment, serum E(2) was lower (P < 0.001) after implant removal than in heifers receiving the standard SMB treatment. Experiment 3 demonstrated that combining a norgestomet implant or implant plus a 3-mg injection of norgestomet with EV did not alter concentrations of E(2) in serum on the days when synchronized estrus would be expected following SMB treatment. The results indicate that the SMB-induced estrus in ovariectomized heifers is dependent upon EV in the SMB treatment. Apparently, EV elevates the concentration of E(2) in serum, and the E(2) remains sufficiently high to induce estrus after implant removal.     

Efficient Nash Equilibrium Resource Allocation Based on Game Theory Mechanism in Cloud Computing by Using Auction

One of the most complex issues in the cloud computing environment is the problem of resource allocation so that, on one hand, the cloud provider expects the most profitability and, on the other hand, users also expect to have the best resources at their disposal considering the budget constraints and time. In most previous work conducted, heuristic and evolutionary approaches have been used to solve this problem. Nevertheless, since the nature of this environment is based on economic methods, using such methods can decrease response time and reducing the complexity of the problem. In this paper, an auction-based method is proposed which determines the auction winner by applying game theory mechanism and holding a repetitive game with incomplete information in a non-cooperative environment. In this method, users calculate suitable price bid with their objective function during several round and repetitions and send it to the auctioneer; and the auctioneer chooses the winning player based the suggested utility function. In the proposed method, the end point of the game is the Nash equilibrium point where players are no longer inclined to alter their bid for that resource and the final bid also satisfies the auctioneer’s utility function. To prove the response space convexity, the Lagrange method is used and the proposed model is simulated in the cloudsim and the results are compared with previous work. At the end, it is concluded that this method converges to a response in a shorter time, provides the lowest service level agreement violations and the most utility to the provider.     

Protocol of a prospective study on the diagnostic value of transcranial duplex scanning of the substantia nigra in patients with parkinsonian symptoms

Background  

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder. As there is no definitive diagnostic test, its diagnosis is based on clinical criteria. Recently transcranial duplex scanning (TCD) of the substantia nigra in the brainstem has been proposed as an instrument to diagnose PD. We and others have found that TCD scanning of substantia nigra duplex is a relatively accurate diagnostic instrument in patients with parkinsonian symptoms. However, all studies on TCD so far have involved well-defined, later-stage PD patients, which will obviously lead to an overestimate of the diagnostic accuracy of TCD.     

Effects of aerobic exercise therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy on functioning and quality of life in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: protocol of the FACTS-2-ALS trial

Background

Neuropathic pain must be correctly diagnosed for optimal treatment. The questionnaire named Neuropathic Pain Symptom Inventory (NPSI) was developed in its original French version to evaluate the different symptoms of neuropathic pain. We hypothesized that the NPSI might also be used to differentiate neuropathic from non-neuropathic pain.

Methods

We translated the NPSI into German using a standard forward-backward translation and administered it in a case-control design to patients with neuropathic (n = 68) and non-neuropathic pain (headache and osteoarthritis, n = 169) to validate it and to analyze its discriminant properties, its sensitivity to change, and to detect neuropathic pain subgroups with distinct profiles.

Results

Using a sum score (the NPSI-G score), we found sensitivity to change (r between 0.37 and 0.5 for pain items of the graded chronic pain scale) and could distinguish between neuropathic and other pain on a group basis, but not for individual patients. Post hoc development of a discriminant score with optimized diagnostic properties to distinguish neuropathic pain from non-neuropathic pain resulted in an instrument with high sensitivity (91%) and acceptable specificity (70%). We detected six different pain profiles in the patient group with neuropathic pain; three profiles were found to be distinct.

Conclusions

The NPSI-G potentially combines the properties of a diagnostic tool and an instrument to identify subtypes of neuropathic pain.     

Zebrafish transgenic Enhancer TRAP line database (ZETRAP)

Background  

The zebrafish, Danio rerio, is used as a model organism to study vertebrate genetics and development. An effective enhancer trap (ET) in zebrafish using the Tol2 transposon has been demonstrated. This approach could be used to study embryogenesis of a vertebrate species in real time and with high resolution.     

Resolving structure and mechanical properties at the nanoscale of viruses with frequency modulation atomic force microscopy

Structural Biology (SB) techniques are particularly successful in solving virus structures. Taking advantage of the symmetries, a heavy averaging on the data of a large number of specimens, results in an accurate determination of the structure of the sample. However, these techniques do not provide true single molecule information of viruses in physiological conditions. To answer many fundamental questions about the quickly expanding physical virology it is important to develop techniques with the capability to reach nanometer scale resolution on both structure and physical properties of individual molecules in physiological conditions. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) fulfills these requirements providing images of individual virus particles under physiological conditions, along with the characterization of a variety of properties including local adhesion and elasticity. Using conventional AFM modes is easy to obtain molecular resolved images on flat samples, such as the purple membrane, or large viruses as the Giant Mimivirus. On the contrary, small virus particles (25-50 nm) cannot be easily imaged. In this work we present Frequency Modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM) working in physiological conditions as an accurate and powerful technique to study virus particles. Our interpretation of the so called "dissipation channel" in terms of mechanical properties allows us to provide maps where the local stiffness of the virus particles are resolved with nanometer resolution. FM-AFM can be considered as a non invasive technique since, as we demonstrate in our experiments, we are able to sense forces down to 20 pN. The methodology reported here is of general interest since it can be applied to a large number of biological samples. In particular, the importance of mechanical interactions is a hot topic in different aspects of biotechnology ranging from protein folding to stem cells differentiation where conventional AFM modes are already being used.