The use of non-slip surfaces during loading and unloading of finishing pigs plays an important role in animal welfare and economics of the pork industry. Currently, the guidelines available only suggest the use of ramps with a slope below 20 degrees to load and unload pigs. However, the total time it takes to load and unload animals and slips, falls, and vocalizations are a welfare concern. Thr...

an experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of chemical amendments and reused litter on broiler performances, immune response and skin quality. five hundred and seventy six (576) day old broiler chickens were randomly allocated to 3x2 factorial design experiment. three amendments treatment included control (no chemical addition), alunminum sulfate and zeolite; two types of litter were ne...

Various bedding materials used in infancy, including duvets (or continental quilts), were tested for airflow using the British Standards Institution tests for pillows or fabrics. Resistance was also measured when the items were placed on a dummy infant face. Measurements were made on washed and unwashed garments, which were tested both dry and wet. Results suggest that all the bedding materials...

Mite allergens in a house are considered to sensitize the residents at levels more than 2μg/g fine dust and may cause bronchial asthma at the level over 10 μg/g. The floor materials were substituted to cork and the bedding to mite-free one, and reduction of mite allergens and improvement of the symptoms and signs of bronchial asthma were observed in two houses where there are children with bron...

On modern dairy farms, environmental mastitis pathogens are usually the predominant cause of mastitis, and bedding often serves as a point of exposure to these organisms. The objective of this longitudinal study was to determine bacterial populations of 4 different bedding types [deep-bedded new sand (NES), deep-bedded recycled sand (RS), deep-bedded manure solids (DBMS), and shallow-bedded man...

Musical rhythm perception is a natural human ability that involves complex cognitive processes. Rhythm refers to the organization of events in time, and musical rhythms have an underlying hierarchical metrical structure. The metrical structure induces the feeling of a beat and the extent to which a rhythm induces the feeling of a beat is referred to as its metrical strength. Binary ratios are t...

There is growing interest in whether the motor system plays an essential role in rhythm perception. The motor system is active during the perception of rhythms, but is such motor activity merely a sign of unexecuted motor planning, or does it play a causal role in shaping the perception of rhythm? We present evidence for a causal role of motor planning and simulation, and review theories of int...

Rhythmic brain activity is thought to reflect, and to help organize, spike activity in populations of neurons during on-going behavior. We report that during learning, a major transition occurs in task-related oscillatory activity in the ventromedial striatum, a striatal region related to motivation-dependent learning. Early on as rats learned a T-maze task, bursts of 70- to 90-Hz high-γ activi...

This study examined the young children's abilities to switch from rhythm production, with short inter-tap intervals (ITIs), to temporal interval production, with long ITI (>1 s), in a sensorimotor synchronization task. Children aged 3- and 5-year-olds were given six sessions of synchronization. In a control group, they had to synchronize their ITI to an inter-stimulus interval (ISI) of 4 s. In ...

We present the first rhythm detection experiment using a Lindenmayer grammar, a self-similar recursive grammar shown previously to be learnable by adults using speech stimuli. Results show that learners were unable to correctly accept or reject grammatical and ungrammatical strings at the group level, although five (of 40) participants were able to do so with detailed instructions before the ex...