Fleece rot and footrot are two bacterial skin diseases of potential significance in sheep. Both diseases are associated with sheep production in high rainfall-environments. Meece rot is currently the most efficient indicator trait known for genetic improvement in resistance to body strike. Exploitation of genetic variation in resistance to fleece rot is feasible through selection of sheep withi...

A Mycoplasma synoviae (MS)-free flock of broiler breeders was housed for brooding and rearing on an MS endemic farm. PCR revealed that the flock became infected within nine weeks. At 22 weeks the flock was transferred to a clean and disinfected house on a previously depopulated farm. The birds were then subjected to three treatments with fluoroquinolones due to recurrent Escherichia coli perito...

While techniques exist for simulating group behaviors, these methods usually only provide simplistic navigation and planning capabilities. In this work, we explore the benefits of integrating roadmap-based path planning methods with flocking techniques. We show how group behaviors such as exploring can be facilitated by using dynamic roadmaps (e.g., modifying edge weights) as an implicit means ...

Pyrotechnics have long been used to frighten birds from specific areas but birds might habituate to them. Anecdotal and limited published reports suggest that killing a flock member can reduce habituation. However, little behavioral work has been conducted in this area. We exposed brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) to noise from either 0.22 caliber blanks or 15-mm pyrotechnics in a series o...

INTRODUCTION. .......... ....................................................... Historical. ..................................................................... Materials and methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Analysis of data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

In this paper, we implement recent theoretical progress of depth-first algorithms for mining flock patterns (Arimura et al., 2013) based on depth-first frequent itemset mining approach, such as Eclat (Zaki, 2000) or LCM (Uno et al., 2004). Flock patterns are a class of spatio-temporal patterns that represent a groups of moving objects close each other in a given time segment (Gudmundsson and va...

This paper presents a brief review of the factors affecting flystrike (cutaneous myiasis) as background to the on-going analysis of information on strike incidence, flock management, weather conditions and fly abundance in three discrete sheep grazing areas in eastern Australia (Flinders Island, Gunning and Inverell). These data were assembled in the late 1980s early 1990s as part of a program ...

Many animals spend their lives performing two often mutually exclusive tasks: feeding and watching out for predators (anti-predator vigilance). There have been many theoretical and empirical studies investigating this trade-off, especially for birds. An important characteristic of a flock of real birds is the area occupied by the flock. Individuals feeding close together experience increased co...

Ecological speciation is well-known from adaptive radiations in cichlid fishes inhabiting lentic ecosystems throughout the African rift valley and Central America. Here, we investigate the ecological and morphological diversification of a recently discovered lotic predatory Neotropical cichlid species flock in subtropical South America. We document morphological and functional diversification u...

In this paper, we describe a complete computer classification of the hemisystems in the two known flock generalized quadrangles of order (5, 5) and give numerous further examples of hemisystems in all the known flock generalized quadrangles of order (s, s) for s 6 11. By analysing the computational data, we identify two possible new infinite families of hemisystems in the classical generalized ...