A limited number of studies have been available to compare blood folate concentrations by the microbiological assay (MA) method with those using the chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA) method. We compared folate concentrations measured by Lactobacillus rhamnosus MA with those measured by CLIA (Access Immunoassay Systems) in human plasma/serum and erythrocytes pairs (n=35). The mean plasma folat...

Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) provides an opportunity to measure cowspecific organic matter digestibility (OMD) from fecal samples. In this study individual digestibility measurements from a trial with 47 cows were investigated. Digestibility increased when lactation progressed. The repeatability estimates between different lactation stages were low which suggests that several f...

The private sector is playing an increasingly important role in livestock genetic improvement. Specialized breeding firms now supply virtually all commercial poultry breeding stock and growing market shares of improved genetic material for swine, beef, and dairy cattle. This article examines how incentives for private investment in livestock breeding are affected by consumer demand, market stru...

CMMI practices can be poorly implemented leading to weak performance gain. SCAMPI verifies model compliance but not performance. Hence, a framework to evaluate the quality of implementation of each practice, based on compliance and performance results, will prevent poor implementation, locate and fix problems, and ultimately achieve better results. In this paper we propose such a framework, bas...

The U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) of 1970 was meant to strengthen intellectual property protection for plant breeders. A model of investment under partial excludability is developed, leading to the hypotheses that any increase in excludability or appropriability of the returns to invention, attributable to the PVPA, would lead to increases in investment or efficiency gains in varieta...

A genetic improvement program on the Creole goat of Guadeloupe is presently underway. It is a medium-sized meat breed with a traditional slaughter weight of 18 kg which can be reached at 6 to 18 months of age, depending on the system. Experiments are on-going at INRA upon the effects of diet, management conditions, helminth infestation on Creole kids with the aim of improving the goat meat prod...

Genetic improvement of planting material (in a broad sense) is an important component of agricultural growth for nations and regions in the process of economic development. Asia’s Green Revolutions in rice and wheat are perhaps the best-known examples of dramatic agricultural growth associated with crop genetic improvement. Most experts agree that no such seed-based revolution has occurred in S...

iv 1 Problem Definition 1 2 Origins from Two Extremes 3 2.1 The Origins of Agile Methods 3 2.2 The Origins of CMMI 5 3 Factors that Affect Perception 7 3.1 Misuse 7 3.2 Lack of Accurate Information 8 3.3 Terminology Difficulties 9 4 The Truth About CMMI 11 4.1 CMMI Is a Model, Not a Process Standard 11 4.2 Process Areas, Not Processes 13 4.3 SCAMPI Appraisals 14 5 The Truth About Agile 16 6 The...

Studies on the priorities for agricultural research in Eastern and Central Africa concluded that milk is the most important commodity for research and development in the region, based on its potential contribution to the agricultural GDP. It has been presumed that, the right policies, marketing systems and technical support must be sought for dairy development in Africa. In order to determine t...

Readers of this issue will find a provocative position put forward by Peddecord and Hammond (Clin Chem 1990;36:2027-35). In their article reviewing the Clinical Laboratory Improvements Act (CLIA) of 1988, they present, within the historical context for laboratory regulation, a comprehensive view of the proposed regulations implementing this law and provide insight into the complex process of ma...