The aim of this thesis was to explore conditions for selection and genetic improvement of fertility and longevity in dairy cattle. The background is that single-trait selection for milk production is known to lead to impaired fertility and consequently to shorter lifespan. This in turn results in financial losses and ethical concerns. Since many years, the Swedish dairy farmers have recorded mi...

Peasant agriculture has been neglected as modern farming occupied its space in the production of basic foods. Exclusion of smallholders in LDCs is the outcome of declining prices for basic foods now produced and marketed globally by developed countries. This is an effect of globalization: it responds to advances in information technologies, communications, and biotechnology. Productivity gains ...

The data entered into KIDPLAN, the national goat performance recording program in Australia was summarised. The summary includes the number of active breeding animals added since the development of the program, the number of records recorded per trait in 2013 with the average phenotype and variance and, the average EBV and accuracy for various traits since the programs’ development. The number ...

Benchmarking of clinical laboratory activities has become a tool used increasingly to enable administrators and managers to obtain an independent evaluation of the performance of the laboratory and identify opportunities for improvement. Benchmarking is particularly important because of the diversity and complexity of the various sections of the laboratory. The critical component of laboratory ...

ould any of the following mistakes occur in your practice on a given day? You forget to charge for CLIA-waived lab tests even though your supplier charged you for the test kits, you inject a patient with 10 units of a drug but only bill for one unit, or you perform four minor surgical procedures but forget to note them on the encounter form. These simple mistakes are costly, and repeatedly forg...

Awareness of the need for biodiversity conservation is now universally accepted, but most often recent conservation activities have focused on wild species. Crop species and the diversity between and within them has significant socioeconomic as well as heritage value. The bulk of genetic diversity in domesticated species is located in traditional varieties maintained by traditional farming syst...

Peanut or groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) sown in early spring often has poor seed germination and seedling development. The influence of soil temperature on seedling emergence and early growth of six peanut cultivars (Florida MDR98, Southern Runner, Georgia Green, SunOleic 97R, Florunner and C-99R) was studied in natural field soil profiles in temperature-gradient greenhouses. We evaluated the...

An efficient plant regeneration protocol has been developed from leaf explants of Stevia rebaudiana, an economically and medicinally important herbaceous plant species belonging to the family Asteraceae. Plant regeneration and multiple shoot proliferation was initiated from leaf explants cultured on MS medium supplemented with various concentrations of 6-benzyladenine (BA) and kinetin (KN) in c...

Historically, genetic improvement programs for dairy cattle focused on within-breed selection strategies due to the strong role of breed associations in developing selection policies and a milk pricing system that rewarded volume rather than cheese yield. As a result, Holsteins became the predominant breed in the US and most other major milk producing nations. However, farmers have become incre...

A major goal in proteomics is the comprehensive and accurate description of a proteome. This task includes not only the identification of proteins in a sample, but also the accurate quantification of their abundance. Although mass spectrometry typically provides information on peptide identity and abundance in a sample, it does not directly measure the concentration of the corresponding protein...