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Variations in meat quality traits are under complex genetic control and improvement has been hampered by the difficulty in their measurement. Several QTL have been reported for different meat quality related traits, but few genes have been described which explain large amounts of the phenotypic variation. The use of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) marker panels with predictive value for carcass traits have been evaluated for cattle and SNP are commercially available even though their predictive accuracy may be low in different breeds. To identify new molecular markers for meat quality, an association study was performed in 15 breeds of cattle using 389 SNP belonging to 206 candidate genes known to be involved in muscle development, metabolism and structure. Fifty-four SNP belonging to 20 different genes were found associated with different growth, carcass and meat quality traits. Some of them were novel associations and other were replications of known associations. Among the former, the gene-network associated with the calpain/calpastatin system was shown to be associated with meat texture, although small effects are found for the examined polymorphisms. Novel associations also included SNP in AANAT which was associated with collagen (P=0.006), CAST with fatty acid muscle composition (P=0.00003), CYP1A1 with juiciness (P=0.0005), DGAT2 with physical traits (P=0.0009) and lipid content (P=0.01) in muscle, MADH3 with the myofibrilar fragmentation index (MFI) (P=0.01), NEB with weight (P=0.00009), PCSK1 with juiciness (P=0.002), PLOD3 with carcass performance (P=0.0009) and fatty acids (P=0.04), and PGAM2 and VIM with post-mortem maturation (P=0.00008 and 0.000005, respectively). These data provide a starting point to investigate the complex gene-networks underlying economically important traits which are of importance to the beef industry for the improvement of production efficiency and meat quality., EC grant QLK5—CT2000-0147, Depto. de Producción Animal, Fac. de Veterinaria, TRUE, pub

Cattle meat provides essential nutrients necessary for a balanced diet and health preservation. Besides nutritional quality, consumers' preferences are related to specific attributes such as tenderness, taste and flavour. The present study characterizes the fatty acid composition of beef, which is an important factor in both nutritional and quality values, in 15 European cattle breeds fed a similar diet and reared in five countries (United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Italy and Spain). The effect of possible slight differences on diet composition which might have occurred between countries were included in the breed effect which confounds country, diet, slaughter house and slaughter day as all individuals of a same breed were managed simultaneously. The wide range of breeds studied and the significant differences on lipid profile described here provide a broad characterization of beef meat, which allows giving a better response to the variety of consumers' preferences. Regarding meat health benefits, the groups that stand out are: the double-muscled animals, which displayed lower total fat, lower proportion of saturated (SFA) and monounsaturated (MUFA) fatty acids, and a higher proportion of polyunsaturated (PUFA) fatty acids; and Limousin and Charolais breeds with a significantly higher conversion of 18:3n-3 PUFA to the long chain 22:6n-3 PUFA., EC grant QLK5 – CT2000-0147, Depto. de Producción Animal, Fac. de Veterinaria, TRUE, pub

Consumers demand healthy and palatable meat, both factors being affected by fat composition. However, red meat has relatively high concentration of saturated fatty acids and low concentration of the beneficial polyunsaturated fatty acids. To select animals prone to produce particular fat types, it is necessary to identify the genes influencing muscle lipid composition. This paper describes an association study in which a large panel of candidate genes involved in adipogenesis, lipid metabolism and energy homoeostasis was tested for effects on fat composition in 15 European cattle breeds. Sixteen genes were found to have significant effects on different lipid traits, and among these, CFL1 and MYOZ1 were found to have large effects on the ratio of 18:2/18:3, CRI1 on the amount of neutral adrenic acid (22:4 n-6), MMP1 on docosahexaenoic acid (22:6 n-3) and conjugated linoleic acid, PLTP on the ratio of n-6:n-3 and IGF2R on flavour. Several genes – ALDH2, CHRNE, CRHR2, DGAT1, IGFBP3, NEB, SOCS2, SUSP1, TCF12 and FOXO1 – also were found to be associated with both lipid and organoleptic traits although with smaller effect. The results presented here help in understanding the genetic and biochemical background underlying variations in fatty acid composition and flavour in beef., EC grant QLK5 – CT2000- 0147.1, Depto. de Producción Animal, Fac. de Veterinaria, TRUE, pub

The Dreams for Digital Spaces Representative Symposium was presented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) annual meeting held in Chicago, US, 14th April 2023. These are the slides that accompanied the presentation. Note that Part 1. (whole contribution) and Part 3 (video walk-through of metaverse) contain pop-up video material from the presentation, pre-recorded by colleagues unable to travel to the event. For full details of each of the four interrelated contributions and a full, combined reference list see the The Dreams for Digital Spaces joint symposium paper, co-written to accompany the symposium. Abstract: Dreams for Digital Spaces Symposium explores the array of so-called truths that shape the digital worlds of children, educators, researchers, imaginaries, data, AI, algorithms and more through a series of four interconnected presentations involving research that takes up the digital as a focus and/or mode of inquiry. Together the presentations demonstrate the power of combining data science with philosophy, artistry, co-design, and educational research through interdisciplinary collaborations – collaborations which have folded in and out of each other as ideas, methods and even people have travelled. The symposium offers the audience an opportunity to consider how digital practices become the stuff of dreams and nightmares, making room for a multiplicity of potentially transformative truths to take place across virtual and physical sites.

Over a number of decades, studies have revealed compelling relationships between experiences of the natural environment and positive health outcomes in adult communities. These psychosocial health benefits have typically been described via key theoretical frameworks in the health sciences, such as the biophilia hypothesis. Despite the body of evidence for nature design and well-being, propositions for immersive virtual nature experiences are still emerging across the fields of creativity and health. In this article, we identify the potential for immersive virtual nature art as a creative well-being intervention, articulated through a discussion of background literature and concepts leading to the development of our artwork, Inner Forest (2020‐21). This article incorporates a transdisciplinary suite of perspectives across three key parts; in the first section, we review key health and design research around beneficial nature experiences, with particular emphasis on designing technological nature. Secondly, we propose considerations for immersive virtual nature experiences, as distinct from prior iterations of technological nature; these considerations are framed through discussion of our artistic and well-being rationale for designing the collaborative artwork Inner Forest. This extended reality (XR) project was developed in response to well-being challenges such as social isolation and restricted nature access- of particular valence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The artwork incorporates multisensory, aesthetic elements drawn from biophilic design guidelineswhich support creative, evidence-based approaches to designed nature and societal health. To conclude this article, we report on prospects for further scaling of the Inner Forest artwork, with ongoing scope to contribute to both nature-health design and immersive virtual nature art practices.

Local breeds of livestock are of conservation significance as components of global biodiversity and as reservoirs of genetic variation relevant to the future sustainability of agriculture. One such rare historic breed, the Chillingham cattle of northern England, has a 350-year history of isolation and inbreeding yet shows no diminution of viability or fertility. The Chillingham cattle have not been subjected to selective breeding. It has been suggested previously that the herd has minimal genetic variation. In this study, high-density SNP genotyping with the 777K SNP chip showed that 9.1% of loci on the chip are polymorphic in the herd, compared with 62-90% seen in commercial cattle breeds. Instead of being homogeneously distributed along the genome, these loci are clustered at specific chromosomal locations. A high proportion of the Chillingham individuals examined were heterozygous at many of these polymorphic loci, suggesting that some loci are under balancing selection. Some of these frequently heterozygous loci have been implicated as sites of recessive lethal mutations in cattle. Linkage disequilibrium equal or close to 100% was found to span up to 1350 kb, and LD was above r2 = 0.25 up to more than 5000 kb. This strong LD is consistent with the lack of polymorphic loci in the herd. The heterozygous regions in the Chillingham cattle may be the locations of genes relevant to fitness or survival, which may help elucidate the biology of local adaptation in traditional breeds and facilitate selection for such traits in commercial cattle

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have been widely applied to disentangle the genetic basis of complex traits. In cattle breeds, classical GWAS approaches with medium-density marker panels are far from conclusive, especially for complex traits. This is due to the intrinsic limitations of GWAS and the assumptions that are made to step from the association signals to the functional variations. Here, we applied a gene-based strategy to prioritize genotype-phenotype associations found for milk production and quality traits with classical approaches in three Italian dairy cattle breeds with different sample sizes (Italian Brown n=745; Italian Holstein n=2058; Italian Simmental n=477). Although classical regression on single markers revealed only a single genome-wide significant genotype-phenotype association, for Italian Holstein, the gene-based approach identified specific genes in each breed that are associated with milk physiology and mammary gland development. As no standard method has yet been established to step from variation to functional units (i.e., genes), the strategy proposed here may contribute to revealing new genes that play significant roles in complex traits, such as those investigated here, amplifying low association signals using a gene-centric approach.

Increased inbreeding is an inevitable consequence of selection in livestock populations. The analysis of high-density single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) facilitates the identification of long and uninterrupted runs of homozygosity (ROH) that can be used to identify chromosomal regions that are identical by descent. In this work, the distribution of ROH of different lengths in five Italian cattle breeds is described. A total of 4095 bulls from five cattle breeds (2093 Italian Holstein, 749 Italian Brown, 364 Piedmontese, 410 Marchigiana and 479 Italian Simmental) were genotyped at 54K SNP loci. ROH were identified and used to estimate molecular inbreeding coefficients (FROH), which were compared with inbreeding coefficients estimated from pedigree information (FPED) and using the genomic relationship matrix (FGRM). The average number of ROH per animal ranged from 54 ± 7.2 in Piedmontese to 94.6 ± 11.6 in Italian Brown. The highest number of short ROH (related to ancient consanguinity) was found in Piedmontese, followed by Simmental. The Italian Brown and Holstein had a higher proportion of longer ROH distributed across the whole genome, revealing recent inbreeding. The FPED were moderately correlated with FROH > 1 Mb (0.662, 0.700 and 0.669 in Italian Brown, Italian Holstein and Italian Simmental respectively) but poorly correlated with FGRM (0.134, 0.128 and 0.448 for Italian Brown, Italian Holstein and Italian Simmental respectively). The inclusion of ROH > 8 Mb in the inbreeding calculation improved the correlation of FROH with FPED and FGRM. ROH are a direct measure of autozygosity at the DNA level and can overcome approximations and errors resulting from incomplete pedigree data. In populations with high linkage disequilibrium (LD) and recent inbreeding (e.g. Italian Holstein and Italian Brown), a medium-density marker panel, such as the one used here, may provide a good estimate of inbreeding. However, in populations with low LD and ancient inbreeding, mark

Genetic studies of livestock populations focus on questions of domestication, within- and among-breed diversity, breed history and adaptive variation. In this review, we describe the use of different molecular markers and methods for data analysis used to address these questions. There is a clear trend towards the use of single nucleotide polymorphisms and whole-genome sequence information, the application of Bayesian or Approximate Bayesian analysis and the use of adaptive next to neutral diversity to support decisions on conservation., Genetic studies of livestock populations focus on questions of domestication, within- and among-breed diversity, breed history and adaptive variation. In this review, we describe the use of different molecular markers and methods for data analysis used to address these questions. There is a clear trend towards the use of single nucleotide polymorphisms and whole-genome sequence information, the application of Bayesian or Approximate Bayesian analysis and the use of adaptive next to neutral diversity to support decisions on conservation.

Mastitis is the most costly disease for dairy production, and control of the disease is often difficult, due to its multi-factorial nature. Susceptibility to mastitis is under partial genetic control and the industry uses indirect selection for decreased concentrations of somatic cells in milk to reduce mastitis. Background: Mastitis is the most costly disease for dairy production, and control of the disease is often difficult, due to its multi-factorial nature. Susceptibility to mastitis is under partial genetic control and the industry uses indirect selection for decreased concentrations of somatic cells in milk to reduce mastitis. Methods: A genome-wide scan was performed to identify genomic regions associated with deregressed estimated breeding values (EBVs) for somatic cell counts (SCC) in Holstein bulls. In total 1183 proven bulls of the Italian of Holstein population, were genotyped with the BovineSNP50 BeadChip (Illumina, San Diego, CA) and a whole genome association analysis was performed using the R package GenABEL. Results: Two chromosomal regions showed association with SCC, a region on chromosome 14 with high significance (P < 5x10-6) and a region on chromosome 6 with moderate significance (P < 5x10-5). Conclusions: Two regions with effects on SCC have been identified with good statistical support. A further study of these candidate regions will be performed to verify the results and identify the causal mutations.