Mid-pregnancy shearing has been promoted in New Zealand as a technique to improve both lamb birthweights and survival. In the literature mid-pregnancy shearing has resulted in an increase lamb birthweight. However, the results have been inconsistent in magnitude and birthrank specificity. Additionally the mechanism responsible for the birthweight response has not been identified. The objectives...

Optimization is becoming a crucial element in industrial applications involving sustainable alternative energy systems. During the design of such systems, the engineer/decision maker would often encounter noise factors (e.g. solar insolation and ambient temperature fluctuations) when their system interacts with the environment. In this chapter, the sizing and design optimization of the solar po...

OBJECTIVES The risk for many chronic diseases increases with obesity. In addition to these, the risk for depression also increases. Exercise interventions for weight loss among those who are not overweight or obese have shown a moderate effect on depression, but few studies have looked at those with obesity. The objectives of this study were to determine 1) the prevalence of depressed mood in o...

Range ewes are commonly evaluated for milking ability by producers to determine the ewe's ability to rear lamb(s). The U.S. Sheep Experiment Station has subjectively scored (low, average, high) a ewe's milking ability within 24 h of lambing for many years. The relationship of subjective milk scores with lamb production was investigated using lambing records of Columbia (n = 1,731), Polypay (n =...

A method providing the efficient way of construction of weighted coefficients for linear weighted sum method is provided. By applying this method, all of the resulting points are Pareto optimal points of the corresponding multi-objective optimization problem. A method for the efficient construction of weighting coefficients wi > 0 in programming package MATHEMATICA is presented. Run-time symbol...

BACKGROUND The prevention of obesity and health concerns related to obesity are major challenges worldwide. The use of eHealth communication and the tailoring of information delivered via the Internet at the individual level may increase the effectiveness of interventions. Mastering behaviors related to nutrition, physical activity, and weight management are the main issues in preventing obesit...

Objectives were to estimate effects of sire breed (Dorset, Finnsheep, Romanov, Texel, and Montadale), dam breed (Composite III and northwestern whiteface), mating season (August, October, and December), ewe age (1, 2, and 3 yr), and their interactions on reproductive traits of F1 ewes. A total of 1,799 F1 ewes produced 3,849 litters from 4,804 exposures to Suffolk rams during 35-d mating season...

The weighted sum method of vector objective scalarization is known to generate points on convex Pareto front whose distribution cannot be controlled. This work presents a method of improving the distribution of Pareto points generated by weighted sum method by nonlinear weight selection. Numerical examples are presented to show the effectiveness of the method.

Ghrelin, the first identified endogenous ligand for the growth hormone secretagogue receptor 1A, is a 28 amino acid peptide produced mainly by the stomach. Pharmacological studies indicate a role for ghrelin in the regulation of growth hormone secretion from the pituitary and also in the regulation of body weight, fat accumulation and food intake. Using a classical endocrine deletion/replacemen...