Records on 65,536 Landrace pigs collected between 1985 and 1999 in herds on the National Swine Registry STAGES program were used to estimate additive genetic (animal), common environmental (litter), and residual variances and covariances for days to 250 lb, backfat, loin eye area, and lean growth rate. Analysis was by the REMLf90 program of I. Misztal using a multiple-trait animal model with fi...

We have assessed how variation in the matrix of control materials would affect error detection and false-rejection characteristics of quality-control (QC) procedures used to monitor PO2 in blood gas measurements. To determine the expected QC performance, we generated power curves for S(mat)/S(meas) ratios of 0.0-4.0. These curves were used to estimate the probabilities of rejecting analytical r...

During the last decade, an increasingly important technology in optimizing the production system has been the widespread adoption of artificial insemination (AI). The benefits of AI include decreased production costs, increased rate of genetic improvement, reduced disease transfer, and a more uniform and improved product at the packing plant. With appropriate timing and management, fertility ca...

Agroforestry and livestock-keeping both have the potential to promote anthropogenic climate changeresilience, and understanding how they can support each other in this context is crucial. Here, we discuss relevant issues in East Africa, where recent agroforestry interventions to support livestockkeeping have included the planting of mostly-exotic tree-fodders, and where most parts of the region...

How Genetic Improvement Is Achieved To obtain genetic improvement, the breeding value of the animals must be estimated from the phenotypes (that which can be observed or measured) of the animals themselves and (or) those of their relatives. The phenotypes may be performance records on the prospective replacement stock, performance records on the relatives of the prospective replacement stock, o...

A limited number of studies have been available to compare blood folate concentrations by the microbiological assay (MA) method with those using the chemiluminescent immunoassay (CLIA) method. We compared folate concentrations measured by Lactobacillus rhamnosus MA with those measured by CLIA (Access Immunoassay Systems) in human plasma/serum and erythrocytes pairs (n=35). The mean plasma folat...

Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) provides an opportunity to measure cowspecific organic matter digestibility (OMD) from fecal samples. In this study individual digestibility measurements from a trial with 47 cows were investigated. Digestibility increased when lactation progressed. The repeatability estimates between different lactation stages were low which suggests that several f...

The private sector is playing an increasingly important role in livestock genetic improvement. Specialized breeding firms now supply virtually all commercial poultry breeding stock and growing market shares of improved genetic material for swine, beef, and dairy cattle. This article examines how incentives for private investment in livestock breeding are affected by consumer demand, market stru...

CMMI practices can be poorly implemented leading to weak performance gain. SCAMPI verifies model compliance but not performance. Hence, a framework to evaluate the quality of implementation of each practice, based on compliance and performance results, will prevent poor implementation, locate and fix problems, and ultimately achieve better results. In this paper we propose such a framework, bas...

The U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA) of 1970 was meant to strengthen intellectual property protection for plant breeders. A model of investment under partial excludability is developed, leading to the hypotheses that any increase in excludability or appropriability of the returns to invention, attributable to the PVPA, would lead to increases in investment or efficiency gains in varieta...