Numerous methods exist for quantifying body composition and body fat mass in companion animals. In a clinical setting, the most widely accepted and practical method of body condition evaluation is condition scoring using visual assessment and palpation (1). All such systems attempt to partition a body composition continuum into a finite number of categories. Currently, 3 main systems exist, all...

Direct policy search (DPS) and look-ahead tree (LT) policies are two popular techniques for solving difficult sequential decision-making problems. They both are simple to implement, widely applicable without making strong assumptions on the structure of the problem, and capable of producing high-performance control policies. However, computationally, both of them are, each in their own way, ver...

Use of body condition scores in clinical assessment of the provision of optimal nutrition T he concept of providing optimal nutrition has been promoted by nutritionists and manufacturers of diets and feeds for a number of years. The nutrient profiles and feeding management that constitute optimal nutrition are ultimately determined by the productivity or outcome desired for each animal in a giv...

Affect and motivation influence the error-related negativity (ERN) elicited by full errors; however, it is unknown whether they also influence ERNs to correct responses accompanied by covert incorrect response activation (partial errors). Here we compared a neutral condition with conditions, where correct responses were rewarded or where incorrect responses were punished with gains and losses o...

STUDY DESIGN Cross-section analysis. OBJECTIVE A quality-of-life oriented scoring system for evaluation of lower limbs, bladder, and bowel functions of patients after sacral tumor resection has been proposed and was adopted in a clinical research. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Surgical resections of sacral tumors usually cause postoperative neurologic deficits. A widely agreed scoring system f...

expert systems can help to build banks customers' credit scoring models. here, selection of key features of the credit scoring is important. also, it is possible to express the features values as fuzzy. the problem is how to improve features selection by genetic algorithm, in way that these features can be employed as input in fuzzy expert system. this paper presents a hybrid credit scorin...

background: spinal cord injury (sci) is a major clinical condition and research is commonly done to find suitable treatment options. however, there are some degrees of spontaneous recovery after sci and gender is said to be a contributing factor in recovery, but this is controversial. this study was done to compare the effects of sexual dimorphism on spontaneous recovery after spinal cord injur...

The present study uses a numerical model to investigate the effects of flow turbulence on premixed iso-octane HCCI engine combustion. Different levels of in-cylinder turbulence are generated by using different piston geometries, namely a disc-shape versus a square-shape bowl. The numerical model is based on the KIVA code which is modified to use CHEMKIN as the chemistry solver. A detailed react...