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Negative energy balance is considered as the pathological basis of energy metabolic disorders in periparturient dairy cows. Serum non-esterified fatty acids ( NEFA) are one of the most important indicators of energy balance status. Fibroblast growth factor 21 ( FGF21) has been identified as a hepatokine involved in regulation of metabolic adaptations, such as promoting hepatic lipid oxidation and ketogenesis, during energy deprivation. However, the direct effects of NEFA on FGF21 expression and secretion in bovine hepatocytes are not entirely clear. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of different NEFA concentrations on FGF21 expression and secretion in calf hepatocytes cultured in vitro. NEFA were added to the culture solution at final concentrations of 0.6, 1.2, 1.8 and 2.4 mmol/L. After 24 hr of continuous culture, FGF21 mRNA and protein expression levels in the hepatocytes were determined by real-time PCR and Western blot respectively. FGF21 secretion in the supernatant was determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay ( ELISA). The results showed that expression and secretion of FGF21 at 0.6 mmol/L NEFA-treated hepatocytes was higher than that of the control group ( p < .05). The FGF21 expression and secretion were similar at 1.2, 1.8 and 2.4 mmol/L NEFA-treated hepatocytes and significantly higher than those observed for controls ( p < .01). These data suggest that high concentrations of NEFA significantly promote FGF21 expression and secretion in bovine hepatocytes. In particular, this promotion occurs in a dose-dependent manner and may be involved in the pathological processes of energy metabolism disorders of dairy cows in the peripartum period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, Xinong Saanen ( SN) and Guanzhong ( GZ) dairy goat breeds were used to detect single nucleotide polymorphisms ( SNPs) in the 5′-flanking region of the KITLG gene by DNA sequencing and primer-introduced restriction analysis-polymerase chain reaction. Two novel SNPs (g.13090G>T and g.13664C>A) were identified (GenBank Accession no. KM658964). Furthermore, g.13090G>T and g.13664C>A loci were closely linked in SN and GZ breeds ( r2 > 0.33). Association analysis results showed that g.13090G>T and g.13664C>A SNPs significantly affected litter size ( P < 0.05). The litter size of individuals with the combined genotype GG/ CC from both dairy goat breeds was greater than that of individuals with TT/ AA in average parity ( P < 0.05). Known biochemical and physiological functions, along with our results, indicated that GG/ CC could be used in marker-assisted selection to choose individuals with greater litter size from both breeds. These results extend the spectrum of genetic variation in the caprine KITLG gene and may contribute to genetic resources and breeding of goats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the polymorphisms of GNRH1 and GDF9 genes in 641 goats of three breeds: Xinong Saanen, Guanzhong and Boer. Two allelic variants were identified in the GNRH1 gene ( JN645280:g.3548A>G and JN645281:g.3699G>A) and one allelic variant was found in the GDF9 gene ( JN655693:g.4093G>A). Furthermore, g.4093G>A was a missense mutation (p.Val397Ile of GDF9). Results of an association analysis indicated that SNPs g.3548A>G and g.4093G>A had significant effects on litter size ( P < 0.05). The combination genotypes of SNPs g.3548A>G, g.3699G>A and g.4093G>A also affected litter size with the C5 genotype having the highest litter size in the first, third, fourth and average parity. Hence, the biochemical and physiological functions, together with the results obtained in our investigation, suggest that the GNRH1 and GDF9 genes could serve as genetic markers for litter size in goat breeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the characteristics of quench oil and coke powder, an experimental setup is designed with a hydrocyclone for a pilot test. The relationships between structure size, flow rate, pressure drop, and separation efficiency are evaluated. The separation is successful in stable, long-period operations without complications. The stability of the separation significantly helps decrease covert damage to equipment such as fractionating towers, pumps, and heat-exchange facilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary This study reported the analysis of KIT ligand ( KITLG) gene polymorphisms in 681 goats of three breeds: Xinong Saanen (SN), Guanzhong (GZ), and Boer (BG). In addition, the study identified three allelic variants: g.769 T> C and g.817 G> T in SN and GZ breeds, and g.9760 G> C in the three goat breeds. The g.769 T> C and g.817 G> T loci were closely linked ( r2 > 0.33). All the single nucleotide polymorphism loci were in Hardy-Weinberg disequilibrium ( P < 0.05). Significant associations were found for litter size with all three loci. Therefore, these results suggest that the KITLG gene is a strong candidate gene affecting litter size in goats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infection of a Myxobolus species, previously identified as Myxobolus rotundus, was detected in 182 of 7892 (2.31%) allogynogenetic gibel carp, Carassius auratus gibelio, in a closed pond culture system in China. Morphological and molecular data showed that this myxosporean is a different species from M. rotundus parasitizing Abramis brama in Europe and is thus designated as a new species, Myxobolus turpisrotundus. M. rotundus (s.l.) ex C. auratus auratus is a synonym of M. turpisrotundus. Plasmodia of M. turpisrotundus develop in the subepidermal tissues of the body surface resulting in an unaesthetic appearance and causing severe economic losses. Prevalence of infection with the myxosporean plasmodia varied seasonally, increasing in winter and decreasing in spring. Prevalence was positively correlated to host size, but no host sex-specificity was found. No infection was observed in other fish species (grass carp, bighead carp and yellow catfish) reared in the same pond, suggesting that the parasite has a relatively strict host specificity. Plasmodia grew gradually as the parasite developed, and reached up to a maximum 5.6 mm in diameter. Plasmodia ruptured naturally to release the mature spores and host fish completely recovered with no mortality. Release of spores and regeneration of lesions were not correlated with water temperature. Histology showed that plasmodia developed sub-epidermally, and that the wall of the plasmodia was composed of a multiple complex structure, including layers of fibroblasts, a collagenous membrane, melanophores and a layer of cup-like cells of unknown derivation and function. The cup-like cells are in direct contact with pre-sporogonic stages located in the peripheral parts of the large plasmodia. No severe host inflammatory response was seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myxobolus wulii (= Myxosoma magna) was first described from the gills of goldfish, Carassius auratus auratus, in China. Subsequently, a myxosporean infecting the hepatopancreas of allogynogenetic gibel carp, C. auratus gibelio, was designated as a different species, Myxobolus guanqiaoensis, although the morphological features were almost identical to those of M. wulii. In Japan, an unidentified Myxobolus sp. was found in the gills and hepatopancreas of goldfish. Morphological and molecular analyses in the present study identified these myxosporeans as M. wulii, which was thus shown to use different habitats in the host fish. Phylogenetic analyses of small subunit ribosomal RNA gene sequences showed that M. wulii is closely related to two gill-infecting Myxobolus species, M. ampullicapsulatus and M. longisporus. Fish infected with M. wulii in the hepatopancreas exhibit swollen abdomens and chronic mortality. Hepatopancreas tissues are virtually destroyed and replaced with plasmodia of M. wulii. A remarkable difference in susceptibility to M. wulii between two clones of allogynogenetic gibel carp was observed, suggesting that resistance to the myxosporean infection was established in a clone of fish bred by allogynogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Immunological methods have been developed for the diagnosis of Myxobolus rotundus but their use has been limited for the prevention and therapy of this serious parasitic pathogen. Phage display antibody libraries are a powerful technique for the development of antibodies to molecules of interest and have advantages over traditional hybridroma approaches. In the present study, four antigen fractions related to M. rotundus were prepared and a combined phage display single-chain antibody fragments (ScFv) library was constructed against this parasite. Preliminary analysis indicated that a combined antibody library of about 2.08 x 105 individual clones and high diversity was generated. After four rounds of screening (bio-panning) against soluble spore protein prepared from lysed, intact, mature M. rotundus spores, a strain monoclonal phage display ScFv, termed pCAN-6H9, with better affinity, was isolated. The pCAN-6H9 gene fragment was sequenced and analysed. The specificity of pCAN-6H9 was further demonstrated by dot-blot. In competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, both the original and enriched phage-displayed ScFv repertoire showed significant inhibition of mouse anti-M. rotundus serum binding to coated antigen, while the inhibition rate of monoclonal pCAN-6H9 phage particles was only 11.83%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After grass carps Ctenopharyngodon idellus were injected with cortisol, with (CBC) and without (C) a cocoa butter carrier, the effects of both slowly and rapidly acting exogenous cortisol on their non-specific immune functions were investigated. On the one hand, after injection with CBC, the cortisol concentration and lysozyme activity in fish serum were enhanced and were sustained at high levels for a long period (30 days). The killing activity in the serum declined with time, and phagocytosis of head kidney macrophages diminished significantly ( P < 0·05 or P < 0·01). The leukocrit values in the high dose group (31·8 mg cortisol fish−1) increased over time, however, with the maximum average being 5·6% at day 30. The spleen mass index in the high dose group was 0·93 × 10−3 after 30 days, notably lower ( P < 0·05) than that in the control group. In addition, a decrease in resistance to Aeromonas hydrophila infection in cortisol-treated fish was shown, with the final cumulative mortalities being 54·5 and 66·7% in the low and high dose groups, respectively. On the other hand, there was a decrease in both serum cortisol concentration and lysozyme activity of the experimental fish within 2 weeks after injection with C, where plasma bactericidal activities in the high dose group (31·8 mg cortisol fish−1) were remarkably lower ( P < 0·01) than those in the control group at each sampling, but were increased slightly over time. The results of which were different from those in the CBC trial. Phagocytic activity of head kidney macrophages and spleen mass index decreased significantly ( P < 0·05), while there were increases in leukocrit value and cumulative mortality due to A. hydrophila. The results of which were similar to those in the CBC trial. This study indicated that the injection of cortisol depressed the non-specific immune functions of the grass carp and increased its susceptibility to disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Describes the use of monoclonal antibodies (MAb) in an antigenic study of Myxobolus rotundus, a myxosporean parasite infecting crucian carp. Reaction of MAb with spores; Stage-specificity of antigens; Antigen profile of the parasite.

Studies the occurrence of thelohanellosis caused by Thelohanellus wuhanensis in juvenile allogynogenetic silver crucian carp, Carassius auratus gibelio. Efficacy of fumagillin as a therapeutant; Seasonal changes in the mean abundance of plasmodia of Thelohanellus wuhanensis in juvenile allogynogenetic silver crucian carp.

We have evaluated the Commerce Department's Composite Index of Leading Indicators as a predictor of business cycle turning points using the two-state Markov switching model as the filter. Contrary to some recent studies, we found that the predictive performance of CLI is quite good and, with an exception of the 1973:11 peak, it made very little difference to the prediction of turning points whether real-time data are used instead of the revised series. We found, however, that imposing any degree of autoregression in the errors on the simple regime-shift model caused the filter to signal turning points inappropriately. Also, we found no evidence of duration dependence in post-war U.S. business cycles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient VLSI architecture of a lossless ECG encoding circuit is proposed for wireless healthcare monitoring applications. To reduce the transmission and storage data, a novel lossless compression algorithm is proposed for ECG signal compression. It consists of a novel adaptive rending predictor and a novel two‐stage entropy encoder based on two Huffman coding tables. The proposed lossless ECG encoder design was implemented using only simple arithmetic units. To improve the performance, the proposed ECG encoder was designed by pipeline technology and implemented the two‐stage entropy encoder by the architecture of a look‐up table. The VLSI architecture of this work contains 3.55 K gate counts and its core area is 45987 µm2 synthesised by a 0.18 µm CMOS process. It can operate at 100 MHz processing rate with only 36.4 µW. The data compression rate reaches an average value 2.43 for the MIT‐BIH Arrhythmia Database. Compared with the previous low‐complexity and high performance techniques, this work achieves lower hardware cost, lower power consumption, and a better compression rate than other lossless ECG encoder designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient VLSI architecture of a lossless ECG encoding circuit is proposed for wireless healthcare monitoring applications. To reduce the transmission and storage data, a novel lossless compression algorithm is proposed for ECG signal compression. It consists of a novel adaptive rending predictor and a novel two-stage entropy encoder based on two Huffman coding tables. The proposed lossless ECG encoder design was implemented using only simple arithmetic units. To improve the performance, the proposed ECG encoder was designed by pipeline technology and implemented the two-stage entropy encoder by the architecture of a look-up table. The VLSI architecture of this work contains 3.55 K gate counts and its core area is 45987 μm2 synthesised by a 0.18 μm CMOS process. It can operate at 100 MHz processing rate with only 36.4 μW. The data compression rate reaches an average value 2.43 for the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database. Compared with the previous low-complexity and high performance techniques, this work achieves lower hardware cost, lower power consumption, and a better compression rate than other lossless ECG encoder designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]