The anatomical organization of many neuroendocrine systems implies multiple sites of hormone release in areas mediating multiple aspects of physiology and behavior, yet this neurosecretory complexity has not often been verified. Here we probe the well-characterized hormonal model, the reproductive bag cell neuroendocrine system of the sea slug Aplysia californica. The bag cell neurons of Aplysi...

There has been an increased interest in alternative housing for laying hens in certain parts of the world, including the United States. Associated with the movement are many questions to be addressed concerning sustainability of such systems. This study continually quantifies concentrations and emissions of ammonia (NH3), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and particulate matters (PM10 and PM...

We present a formal investigation of artifact-based systems, a relatively novel framework in service oriented computing, aimed at laying the foundations for verifying these systems through model checking. We present an infinite-state, computationally grounded semantics for these systems that allows us to reason about temporal-epistemic specifications. We present abstraction techniques for the s...

Very-low-density (VLD) lipoproteins and portomicrons were isolated from the plasma of immature and laying hens and their size, lipid composition and susceptibility to hydrolysis by lipoprotein lipase were compared. In agreement with other studies, VLD lipoproteins from laying hens were found to be smaller and have a different lipid composition than VLD lipoproteins from immature hens. Portomicr...

The present study was carried out to determine the effects of fenugreek powder (FP) and extract (FE) on performance, egg quality, blood parameters and immune responses of laying hens. One-hundred and fifty Leghorn laying hens were used in a completely randomized design with five treatments and five replicates for eight weeks. Treatments were various levels of FP and FE including zero (control; ...

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of different levels of licorice powder (LP) in diet on performance, egg traits and some serum biochemical parameters of laying hens in the late laying period. Totally 180 Hy-Line W-36 layer hens aged 55-68 weeks with similar weight were selected and assigned to 5 treatments, 3 replicates and 12 hens in each replicate in a completely randomized...

Biogenic amines have been implicated in the modulation of neural circuits involved in diverse behaviors in a wide variety of organisms. In the nematode C. elegans, serotonin has been shown to modulate the temporal pattern of egg-laying behavior. Here we show that serotonergic neurotransmission is also required for modulation of the timing of behavioral events associated with locomotion and for ...

Egg laying is an important phase of the life cycle of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). Previous studies examined egg-laying events manually. This paper presents a method for automatic detection of egg-laying onset using deformable template matching and other morphological image analysis techniques. Some behavioral changes surrounding egg-laying events are also studied. The resu...

Objective: The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels of germinated barley on performance and egg quality in laying hen. Methods: One hundred and twenty laying hens, 44-weeks old, Lohmann LSL hens were used in this experiment. Birds were assigned randomly to the groups, each of which consisted of 20 birds (4 replicate cages each containing 5 birds). The experiment w...