Introduction. Cow longevity is one of the most economically important traits in the beef cow. Longevity is inter-related to other important traits, and, therefore, it is difficult to separate the importance of longevity, itself, from the importance of traits that are related to longevity. For example, reproductive performance is usually part of the culling criteria. It is often stated that repr...

Somatic embryogenesis is widely preferred as the regeneration route for in vitro studies in cotton. However, the regeneration efficiency through this approach is low; a problem that is believed to be as a result of the biochemical properties of the plant. The objective of this study was to investigate possible relationships between three biochemical factors (reducing sugars, phenols, and free a...

Crossbreeding is a popular tool for genetic improvement of pigs, beef cattle, and other livestock species, but its use in US dairy cattle has been limited for several reasons. The primary reason is the advantage of Holstein cows in milk volume, coupled with a milk pricing system that still tends to reward quantity, rather than quality, in many regions of the country (i.e., through volume premiu...

In recent years, agricultural growth in China has accelerated remarkably, but most of this growth has been driven by increased yield per unit area rather than by expansion of the cultivated area. Looking towards 2030, to meet the demand for grain and to feed a growing population on the available arable land, it is suggested that annual crop production should be increased to around 580 Mt and th...

Parameters based on the probability of gene origin were used to describe the genetic variability in strains of Nellore and polled Nellore (Bos indicus) cattle that participated in the Program for Genetic Improvement of the Nellore Breed (Programa de Melhoramento Genético da Raça Nelore). The effective number of founders was 87.2 for Nellore and 107.9 for polled Nellore, while the number of ance...

The number of pigs weaned per sow per year was defined as the overall goal for improving reproductive performance during a PRDC workshop in 1997 (PRDC, 1997). This criterion is influenced by two main components, number of litters per sow per year and the number of piglets weaned. Previous work at AGBU (Tholen et al., 1996) has shown that genetic improvement to increase the number of litters per...

Over the last years, more and more sensor systems emerged that can not only be accessed but also controlled and configured using the Internet. This trend allows mobile applications that rely on sensor data; however, the access and configuration of sensor systems is a tedious task. As many sensor manufacturers implement their own protocols, there are many communication protocols. Although unifyi...

Common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) is an important legume crop worldwide. However, abiotic and biotic stress limits bean yields to <600 kg ha 1 in low-income countries. Current low yields result in food insecurity, while demands for increased yields to match the rate of population growth combined with the threat of climate change are significant. Novel and significant advances in genetic impro...

OBJECTIVES To identify opportunities to perform point-of-care (POC) testing and/or screening for infectious diseases in community pharmacies, provide an overview of such tests and how they are used in current practice, discuss how the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments of 1988 (CLIA) affect pharmacists performing POC testing, and identify and discuss barriers and provide recommendations...

To assess the analytic quality of laboratory testing in the United States, we obtained proficiency testing survey results from several national programs that comply with Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) regulations. We studied regulated tests (cholesterol, glucose, calcium, fibrinogen, and prothrombin time) and nonregulated tests (international normalized ratio [INR], glycohemo...