Recently, egg-laying preference of Drosophila has emerged as a genetically tractable model to study the neural basis of simple decision-making processes. When selecting sites to deposit their eggs, female flies are capable of ranking the relative attractiveness of their options and choosing the "greater of two goods." However, most egg-laying preference assays are not practical if one wants to ...

Animals have to judge environmental cues and choose the most suitable option for them from many different options. Female fruit flies selecting an optimum site to deposit their eggs is a biologically important reproductive behavior. When given the direct choice between ovipositing their eggs in a sucrose-containing medium or a caffeine-containing medium, female flies prefer the latter. However,...

We present a new kind of parametric Lindenmayer-systems called nonlinear CSG-pL-Systems, which are useful for the modeling of nonlinear fractals and fractal like objects. Nonlinear CSGpL-systems describe cyclic CSG-Graphs, which can include several nonlinear transformations. To render the given objects a ray tracing algorithm is introduced, that is independent of the transformations and the und...

It is now recognised that people often collaborate when completing information seeking tasks, and a number of specialised tools and systems have been developed to support such behaviour. Such systems often allow for distribution of search results among collaborators. The goal of this division of labour is to enable concurrent work while also preventing redundancy in results distribution. This p...

Vaccination of laying hens has been successfully used to reduce egg contamination by Salmonella Enteritidis, decreasing human salmonellosis cases worldwide. Currently used vaccines for layers are either inactivated vaccines or live attenuated strains produced by mutagenesis. Targeted gene deletion mutants hold promise for future vaccines, because specific bacterial functions can be removed that...

In the laying hen, very low density lipoprotein (VLDL) particles contain large amounts of apolipoprotein (apo)-VLDL-II in addition to apoB. These triglyceride-rich lipoproteins are transported from the liver primarily to growing oocytes. Since no appreciable hydrolysis of triglyceride occurs during this transport, we have investigated the possibility that apoVLDL-II functions as an inhibitor of...

Understanding egg-laying behaviour of brood parasites in space and time can improve our knowledge interactions between hosts parasites. However, no studies have combined information on the laying activity an obligate parasite with detailed distribution host nests within area period. Here, we used molecular methods analysis egg phenotypes to determine maternal identity common cuckoo, Cuculus can...

The laying hen industry is implementing aviary systems intended to improve welfare by providing hens with more space and resources to perform species-specific behaviors. To date, limited research has examined spatial requirements of various strains of laying hens for performing key behaviors and none has been conducted within an alternative housing system. This study investigated the amount of ...

the aim of the present study was to investigate the possibility of improving egg lipids and fatty acids composition of laying hens through inclusion of olive cake plus barley malt rootlets in the diets. seventy, 54-week-old, lohman laying hens were fed for a 12 weeks laying period on 3 iso-caloric and iso-nitrogenous diets contained 0 (control), 28.5 g olive cake (oc) + 25.5 g barley malt rootl...

this experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of costmary(tanacetum balsamita)medicinal plant on performance, egg traits, and blood biochemical parameters of laying hens. hundred-eighty of hi-line laying hens (w 36) from 46 until 58 weeks of age were used in a completely randomized design in five treatments and three replicates (12 birds per replicate). the treatment...