Mastitis in dairy heifers: Prevalence and risk factors

Poor udder health represents a serious problem in dairy production and has been investigated intensively, but heifers generally have not been the main focus of mastitis control. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence, risk factors and consequences of heifer mastitis in Switzerland. The study included 166,518 heifers of different breeds (Swiss Red Pied, Swiss Brown Cattle and Holstein). Monthly somatic cell counts (SCCs) provided by the main dairy breeding organisations in Switzerland were monitored for 3 years; the prevalence of subclinical mastitis (SCM) was determined on the basis of SCCs ≥100,000 cells/mL at the first test date. The probability of having SCM at the first test date during lactation was modelled using logistic regression. Analysed factors included data for the genetic background, morphological traits, geographical region, season of parturition and milk composition. The overall prevalence of SCM in heifers during the period from 2006 to 2010 was 20.6%. Higher frequencies of SCM were present in heifers of the Holstein breed (odds ratio, OR, 1.62), heifers with high fat:protein ratios (OR 1.97) and heifers with low milk urea concentrations combined with high milk protein concentrations (OR 3.97). Traits associated with a low risk of SCM were high set udders, high overall breeding values and low milk breeding values. Heifers with SCM on the first test day had a higher risk of either developing chronic mastitis or leaving the herd prematurely.

Increasing the career choice readiness of young adolescents: an evaluation study

A career workshop that applies models of the Cognitive Information Processing Approach (Sampson, Reardon, Peterson, & Lenz, 2004) and incorporates critical ingredients (Brown and Ryan Krane, 2000) to promote the career choice readiness of young adolescents was developed and evaluated with 334 Swiss students in seventh grade applying a Solomon four group design with a three-month follow-up. Participants significantly increased their performance in terms of career decidedness, career planning, career exploration, and vocational identity. Implications for evaluation research and counselling practice are presented.

Neurotized lateral gastrocnemius muscle transfer for persistent traumatic peroneal nerve palsy: Surgical technique

INTRODUCTION Persistent traumatic peroneal nerve palsy, following nerve surgery failure, is usually treated by tendon transfer or more recently by tibial nerve transfer. However, when there is destruction of the tibial anterior muscle, an isolated nerve transfer is not possible. In this article, we present the key steps and surgical tips for the Ninkovic procedure including transposition of the neurotized lateral gastrocnemius muscle with the aim of restoring active voluntary dorsiflexion. SURGICAL TECHNIQUE The transposition of the lateral head of the gastrocnemius muscle to the tendons of the anterior tibial muscle group, with simultaneous transposition of the intact proximal end of the deep peroneal nerve to the tibial nerve of the gastrocnemius muscle by microsurgical neurorrhaphy is performed in one stage. It includes 10 key steps which are described in this article. Since 1994, three clinical series have highlighted the advantages of this technique. Functional and subjective results are discussed. We review the indications and limitations of the technique. CONCLUSION Early clinical results after neurotized lateral gastrocnemius muscle transfer appear excellent; however, they still need to be compared with conventional tendon transfer procedures. Clinical studies are likely to be conducted in this area largely due to the frequency of persistant peroneal nerve palsy and the limitations of functional options in cases of longstanding peripheral nerve palsy, anterior tibial muscle atrophy or destruction.

Los nuevos desafíos de América Latina en el mundo del siglo XXI

Con el resultado de la doctrina Monroe en 1823, el conjunto de América Latina estaba situado de facto bajo el protectorado de Estados Unidos y era considerado como un patio trasero. Por otra parte, durante la primera mitad del siglo XX se encontraba menos poblada que América del Norte y las riquezas económicas generadas en sus territorios siempre fueron menores. Sin embargo las relaciones demográficas evolucionan y modifican la geopolítica de las poblaciones. En los comienzos del siglo XXI, el peso demográfico de América Latina supera al de América del Norte. Brasil, el gigante del sector, está en el quinto lugar según la clasificación demográfica de los países, mientras que México se encuentra en la undécima posición. Tres megalópolis latinoamericanas, México, Sao Paulo y Buenos Aires están dentro de las ocho primeras ciudades del mundo. A ellos se le agrega un importante crecimiento de grupos diaspóricos, luego de que América Latina se ha vuelto un continente de emigración.

Cayó la yuta : Basta de contrabando en la pasiva

El presente trabajo esboza una crítica con base empírica y conceptual al análisis de la construcción pasiva basado en la operación contrabando (smuggling) propuesto por Collins (2005). En primer lugar, se exponen los argumentos de tipo empírico, los cuales se basan en aspectos de la construcción pasiva española (y de otras lenguas romance de sujeto nulo) que la derivación de Collins no permite explicar. Los fenómenos más salientes que se discuten son: (i) la imposibilidad de dar cuenta de los sujetos postverbales en la pasiva de lenguas romance de sujeto nulo (e.g. fueron detenidos los asaltantes) dado el ascenso del Sintagma de Participio a la posición de especificador de Voz (contra Belletti 2009); (ii) el obligatorio tratamiento como argumento verbal del complemento agente que impide dar cuenta de su comportamiento ante islas de extracción débiles (e.g. *por el docente, no sabe Juan por qué fue desaprobada María); (iii) y la imposibilidad de explicar el arrastre de la preposición (pied-piping) ante movimiento del nominal que recibe interpretación de argumento externo a la periferia izquierda (e.g. ¿por quién fueron arrestados los asaltantes?). Los argumentos conceptuales se basan, principalmente, en la inexistencia de requerimientos gramaticales para varias de las suboperaciones y movimientos de los que depende esta derivación de la pasiva. Además, se defienden las observaciones de Gehrke y Grillo (2007) con respecto a la naturaleza ad-hoc del análisis (que, en términos técnicos, se reducen a que las computaciones propuestas por Collins requieren "ver hacia adelante" (look-ahead) en la derivación). Ante estas consideraciones, se defiende el análisis de la construcción pasiva presentado durante el auge del modelo GB (Jaeggli 1986, Baker et al. 1989), el cual, sin ser perfecto, resulta mucho más consistente con respecto al requerimiento de adecuación descriptiva de toda teoría gramatical

Théorie des jeux expérimentale & action motrice

How do sportspeople succeed in a non-collaborative game? An illustration of a perverse side effect of altruism Are team sports specialists predisposed to collaboration? The scientific literature on this topic is divided. The present article attempts to end this debate by applying experimental game theory. We constituted three groups of volunteers (all students aged around 20): 25 team sports specialists; 23 individual sports specialists (gymnasts, track & field athletes and swimmers) and a control group of 24 non-sportspeople. Each subgroup was divided into 3 teams that played against each other in turn (and not against teams from other subgroups). The teams played a game based on the well-known Prisoner's Dilemma (Tucker, 1950) - the paradoxical "Bluegill Sunbass Game" (Binmore, 1999) with three Nash equilibria (two suboptimal equilibria with a pure strategy and an optimal equilibrium with a mixed, egotistical strategy (p= 1/2)). This game also features a Harsanyi equilibrium (based on constant compliance with a moral code and altruism by empathy: "do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you"). How, then, was the game played? Two teams of 8 competed on a handball court. Each team wore a distinctive jersey. The game lasted 15 minutes and the players were allowed to touch the handball ball with their feet or hands. After each goal, each team had to return to its own half of the court. Players were allowed to score in either goal and thus cooperate with their teammates or not, as they saw fit. A goal against the nominally opposing team (a "guardian" strategy, by analogy with the Bluegill Sunbass Game) earned a point for everyone in the team. For an own goal (a "sneaker" strategy), only the scorer earned a point - hence the paradox. If all the members of a team work together to score a goal, everyone is happy (the Harsanyi solution). However, the situation was not balanced in the Nashian sense: each player had a reason to be disloyal to his/her team at the merest opportunity. But if everyone adopts a "sneaker" strategy, the game becomes a free-for-all and the chances of scoring become much slimmer. In a context in which doubt reigns as to the honesty of team members and "legal betrayals", what type of sportsperson will score the most goals? By analogy with the Bluegill Sunbass Game, we recorded direct motor interactions (passes and shots) based on either a "guardian" tactic (i.e. collaboration within the team) or a "sneaker" tactic (shots and passes against the player's designated team). So, was the group of team sports specialist more collaborative than the other two groups? The answer was no. A statistical analysis (difference from chance in a logistic regression) enabled us to draw three conclusions: ?For the team sports specialists, the Nash equilibrium (1950) was stronger than the Harsanyi equilibrium (1977). ?The sporting principles of equilibrium and exclusivity are not appropriate in the Bluegill Sunbass Game and are quickly abandoned by the team sports specialists. The latter are opportunists who focus solely on winning and do well out of it. ?The most altruistic players are the main losers in the Bluegill Sunbass Game: they keep the game alive but contribute to their own defeat. In our experiment, the most altruistic players tended to be the females and the individual sports specialists

Cayó la yuta : Basta de contrabando en la pasiva

El presente trabajo esboza una crítica con base empírica y conceptual al análisis de la construcción pasiva basado en la operación contrabando (smuggling) propuesto por Collins (2005). En primer lugar, se exponen los argumentos de tipo empírico, los cuales se basan en aspectos de la construcción pasiva española (y de otras lenguas romance de sujeto nulo) que la derivación de Collins no permite explicar. Los fenómenos más salientes que se discuten son: (i) la imposibilidad de dar cuenta de los sujetos postverbales en la pasiva de lenguas romance de sujeto nulo (e.g. fueron detenidos los asaltantes) dado el ascenso del Sintagma de Participio a la posición de especificador de Voz (contra Belletti 2009); (ii) el obligatorio tratamiento como argumento verbal del complemento agente que impide dar cuenta de su comportamiento ante islas de extracción débiles (e.g. *por el docente, no sabe Juan por qué fue desaprobada María); (iii) y la imposibilidad de explicar el arrastre de la preposición (pied-piping) ante movimiento del nominal que recibe interpretación de argumento externo a la periferia izquierda (e.g. ¿por quién fueron arrestados los asaltantes?). Los argumentos conceptuales se basan, principalmente, en la inexistencia de requerimientos gramaticales para varias de las suboperaciones y movimientos de los que depende esta derivación de la pasiva. Además, se defienden las observaciones de Gehrke y Grillo (2007) con respecto a la naturaleza ad-hoc del análisis (que, en términos técnicos, se reducen a que las computaciones propuestas por Collins requieren "ver hacia adelante" (look-ahead) en la derivación). Ante estas consideraciones, se defiende el análisis de la construcción pasiva presentado durante el auge del modelo GB (Jaeggli 1986, Baker et al. 1989), el cual, sin ser perfecto, resulta mucho más consistente con respecto al requerimiento de adecuación descriptiva de toda teoría gramatical

Théorie des jeux expérimentale & action motrice

How do sportspeople succeed in a non-collaborative game? An illustration of a perverse side effect of altruism Are team sports specialists predisposed to collaboration? The scientific literature on this topic is divided. The present article attempts to end this debate by applying experimental game theory. We constituted three groups of volunteers (all students aged around 20): 25 team sports specialists; 23 individual sports specialists (gymnasts, track & field athletes and swimmers) and a control group of 24 non-sportspeople. Each subgroup was divided into 3 teams that played against each other in turn (and not against teams from other subgroups). The teams played a game based on the well-known Prisoner's Dilemma (Tucker, 1950) - the paradoxical "Bluegill Sunbass Game" (Binmore, 1999) with three Nash equilibria (two suboptimal equilibria with a pure strategy and an optimal equilibrium with a mixed, egotistical strategy (p= 1/2)). This game also features a Harsanyi equilibrium (based on constant compliance with a moral code and altruism by empathy: "do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you"). How, then, was the game played? Two teams of 8 competed on a handball court. Each team wore a distinctive jersey. The game lasted 15 minutes and the players were allowed to touch the handball ball with their feet or hands. After each goal, each team had to return to its own half of the court. Players were allowed to score in either goal and thus cooperate with their teammates or not, as they saw fit. A goal against the nominally opposing team (a "guardian" strategy, by analogy with the Bluegill Sunbass Game) earned a point for everyone in the team. For an own goal (a "sneaker" strategy), only the scorer earned a point - hence the paradox. If all the members of a team work together to score a goal, everyone is happy (the Harsanyi solution). However, the situation was not balanced in the Nashian sense: each player had a reason to be disloyal to his/her team at the merest opportunity. But if everyone adopts a "sneaker" strategy, the game becomes a free-for-all and the chances of scoring become much slimmer. In a context in which doubt reigns as to the honesty of team members and "legal betrayals", what type of sportsperson will score the most goals? By analogy with the Bluegill Sunbass Game, we recorded direct motor interactions (passes and shots) based on either a "guardian" tactic (i.e. collaboration within the team) or a "sneaker" tactic (shots and passes against the player's designated team). So, was the group of team sports specialist more collaborative than the other two groups? The answer was no. A statistical analysis (difference from chance in a logistic regression) enabled us to draw three conclusions: ?For the team sports specialists, the Nash equilibrium (1950) was stronger than the Harsanyi equilibrium (1977). ?The sporting principles of equilibrium and exclusivity are not appropriate in the Bluegill Sunbass Game and are quickly abandoned by the team sports specialists. The latter are opportunists who focus solely on winning and do well out of it. ?The most altruistic players are the main losers in the Bluegill Sunbass Game: they keep the game alive but contribute to their own defeat. In our experiment, the most altruistic players tended to be the females and the individual sports specialists

Cayó la yuta : Basta de contrabando en la pasiva

El presente trabajo esboza una crítica con base empírica y conceptual al análisis de la construcción pasiva basado en la operación contrabando (smuggling) propuesto por Collins (2005). En primer lugar, se exponen los argumentos de tipo empírico, los cuales se basan en aspectos de la construcción pasiva española (y de otras lenguas romance de sujeto nulo) que la derivación de Collins no permite explicar. Los fenómenos más salientes que se discuten son: (i) la imposibilidad de dar cuenta de los sujetos postverbales en la pasiva de lenguas romance de sujeto nulo (e.g. fueron detenidos los asaltantes) dado el ascenso del Sintagma de Participio a la posición de especificador de Voz (contra Belletti 2009); (ii) el obligatorio tratamiento como argumento verbal del complemento agente que impide dar cuenta de su comportamiento ante islas de extracción débiles (e.g. *por el docente, no sabe Juan por qué fue desaprobada María); (iii) y la imposibilidad de explicar el arrastre de la preposición (pied-piping) ante movimiento del nominal que recibe interpretación de argumento externo a la periferia izquierda (e.g. ¿por quién fueron arrestados los asaltantes?). Los argumentos conceptuales se basan, principalmente, en la inexistencia de requerimientos gramaticales para varias de las suboperaciones y movimientos de los que depende esta derivación de la pasiva. Además, se defienden las observaciones de Gehrke y Grillo (2007) con respecto a la naturaleza ad-hoc del análisis (que, en términos técnicos, se reducen a que las computaciones propuestas por Collins requieren "ver hacia adelante" (look-ahead) en la derivación). Ante estas consideraciones, se defiende el análisis de la construcción pasiva presentado durante el auge del modelo GB (Jaeggli 1986, Baker et al. 1989), el cual, sin ser perfecto, resulta mucho más consistente con respecto al requerimiento de adecuación descriptiva de toda teoría gramatical

Théorie des jeux expérimentale & action motrice

How do sportspeople succeed in a non-collaborative game? An illustration of a perverse side effect of altruism Are team sports specialists predisposed to collaboration? The scientific literature on this topic is divided. The present article attempts to end this debate by applying experimental game theory. We constituted three groups of volunteers (all students aged around 20): 25 team sports specialists; 23 individual sports specialists (gymnasts, track & field athletes and swimmers) and a control group of 24 non-sportspeople. Each subgroup was divided into 3 teams that played against each other in turn (and not against teams from other subgroups). The teams played a game based on the well-known Prisoner's Dilemma (Tucker, 1950) - the paradoxical "Bluegill Sunbass Game" (Binmore, 1999) with three Nash equilibria (two suboptimal equilibria with a pure strategy and an optimal equilibrium with a mixed, egotistical strategy (p= 1/2)). This game also features a Harsanyi equilibrium (based on constant compliance with a moral code and altruism by empathy: "do not unto others that which you would not have them do unto you"). How, then, was the game played? Two teams of 8 competed on a handball court. Each team wore a distinctive jersey. The game lasted 15 minutes and the players were allowed to touch the handball ball with their feet or hands. After each goal, each team had to return to its own half of the court. Players were allowed to score in either goal and thus cooperate with their teammates or not, as they saw fit. A goal against the nominally opposing team (a "guardian" strategy, by analogy with the Bluegill Sunbass Game) earned a point for everyone in the team. For an own goal (a "sneaker" strategy), only the scorer earned a point - hence the paradox. If all the members of a team work together to score a goal, everyone is happy (the Harsanyi solution). However, the situation was not balanced in the Nashian sense: each player had a reason to be disloyal to his/her team at the merest opportunity. But if everyone adopts a "sneaker" strategy, the game becomes a free-for-all and the chances of scoring become much slimmer. In a context in which doubt reigns as to the honesty of team members and "legal betrayals", what type of sportsperson will score the most goals? By analogy with the Bluegill Sunbass Game, we recorded direct motor interactions (passes and shots) based on either a "guardian" tactic (i.e. collaboration within the team) or a "sneaker" tactic (shots and passes against the player's designated team). So, was the group of team sports specialist more collaborative than the other two groups? The answer was no. A statistical analysis (difference from chance in a logistic regression) enabled us to draw three conclusions: ?For the team sports specialists, the Nash equilibrium (1950) was stronger than the Harsanyi equilibrium (1977). ?The sporting principles of equilibrium and exclusivity are not appropriate in the Bluegill Sunbass Game and are quickly abandoned by the team sports specialists. The latter are opportunists who focus solely on winning and do well out of it. ?The most altruistic players are the main losers in the Bluegill Sunbass Game: they keep the game alive but contribute to their own defeat. In our experiment, the most altruistic players tended to be the females and the individual sports specialists

Bird count in Mastbos forest (Breda, Netherlands) in the years 1950 to 1981

Notes from Henrik de Nie: The project started as a phenological study in cooperation with the (Dutch) meteorological institute (KNMI) to register the time of arrival of Fitis and Tjiftaf. During 1951 to 1969 he went every day to the wood (except 1966, in this year his wife died). Thereafter he went no more daily, but because he knew the wood very well and he was free to choice the day on which he did a survey, therefore he choose days with relatively good weather. He did not observe very common bird species, maybe because they are dependent on nest boxes and he did not want to be dependent on the management of the nest box-people (in fact I forgot precisely his arguments, and now I cannot ask him this): Common Starling; Eurasian Tree Sparrow (not common); Great Tit; Eurasian Blue Tit Pieter mentioned 14 species that scored many zero values or only one observation: Stock Dove; Common Cuckoo; Lesser Spotted Woodpecker; Eurasian Golden Oriole; Eurasian Nuthatch; Short-toed Treecreeper; Common Nightingale; Marsh Warbler; Lesser Whitethroat; Goldcrest; Common Firecrest (after 1970 he had difficulties in hearing these two species); Spotted Flycatcher; Eurasian Bullfinch; Black Woodpecker He also mentioned species that he found much fewer as: European Greenfinch; European Pied Flycatcher; Long-eared Owl; Red Crossbill; Sedge Warbler; Icterine Warbler; Eurasian Woodcock; Eurasian Siskin; European Green Woodpecker; Great Spotted Woodpecker; Eurasian Hobby; Western Barn Owl; Woodlark; Common Wood Pigeon; Little Owl; European Crested Tit; Hawfinch. But for these species I think that observations are strongly dependent on the number of visits to the wood. Also here, many zeros and few 1 x during the whole series of visits.

Pollen records of profile Krumbach from southern Germany

Some years ago a fossil lake basin was found in the northeastern part of the former Rhine-pied- mont-glacier, situated between the endmoraine system ofthe elassical Riß- andWürm glacia- tions, respectively. The lacustrine sediments contain the pollenflora ofthe Eemian interglacial. They are intensively thrusted. These sediments are eovered by a loam-layer, rieh in elasts. The thickness of this loam-layer varies between at least 170 and 400 cm. It consists in its major part of loess-loam and solifluction material. Yet just on top of the lake sediments mentioned an in- tensively compressed loam, characterized by quarzgrains with all features of glacially pressed material, together with striated elasts is met with. It strongly resembles atil!. Ifthis is true, the stratigraphie division ofthe last glaciation strongly deviates from the hitherto accepted scheme, incorporating an early glacier advance, long before the elassical young-endmoraine systems of the Würm glaciation were formed.

Le sport dans l'Espagne franquiste

Jusqu'à sa mort, en novembre 1975, le Général Franco fut, tel que le proclamaient ses pièces de monnaie, le « Caudillo d'Espagne par la grâce de Dieu » et, selon ses apologistes, il était responsable uniquement devant Dieu et l'Histoire. Bien que durant les dernières années de sa vie, sa participation directe dans les décisions politiques courantes fut assez réduite, il est pourtant certain qu'aucune décision importante ne pouvait être prise sans son consentement. Jusqu'au tout dernier moment, il conserva, grâce à la dénommée « Constitution franquiste », le pouvoir de nommer et de destituer les ministres, pouvoir qu'il utilisa toujours à sa guise. De telles prémisses conduisent à considérer logique l'utilisation du sport au service d'une idée politique. On assista alors à une tentative de mise sur pied du modèle de l'Allemagne nazie, mais il fallait tenir compte du fait que Franco n'avait jamais été disposé à construire un état totalitaire ayant un seul et unique parti, à l'image du modèle italien ou allemand. Après l'échec des puissances de l'Axe, Franco vit très clairement la nécessité d'abandonner le côté fasciste de son régime. Et, en ce qui concerne tout particulièrement le sport, Franco ne fut jamais disposé à dépenser la moindre somme d'argent dans ce domaine, comme l'avaient pourtant fait Hitler ou Mussolini.

Maternal effort mediates the prevalence of trypanosomes in the offspring of a passerine bird.

The relationships between parental effort, offspring growth, and offspring blood parasitemias are poorly known. We examined the effect of parental effort on offspring size and prevalence of trypanosomes in peripheral blood of nestling Pied Flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca aged 13 days. Trypanosome infections were likely to be shared by siblings, indicating the role of a common environment and/or shared genes in the susceptibility to infection. Broods infected by trypanosomes had reduced growth, but this was due to decreased parental, especially maternal, energy expenditure in broods with nestlings infected by trypanosomes. There was no association between parental infection with trypanosomes and both their energy expenditure and the infection of their broods. Under stressful conditions caused by low maternal energy expenditure, the immune response of nestlings during growth was probably impaired, in a way analogous to the relapses of blood parasitemias with reproductive effort in breeding animals.

El sur también existe: las relaciones migratorias entre las islas Baleares y la Argelia francesa (1830-1962)

La Argelia francesa (1830-1962) constituyó un poderoso polo de atracción para los habitantes de las islas Baleares y del sudeste peninsular. En este artículo se analizan las relaciones migratorias y comerciales entre el archipiélago balear y su por entonces próspero vecino del sur. Además, también se estudian los diferentes exilios que vincularon las dos riberas del Mediterráneo. Para realizar este artículo se han combinado tanto fuentes primarias como la bibliografía existente.