Effect of dietary supplementation of different oils during the first or second half of pregnancy on the glucose tolerance of the sow

Poor glucose tolerance may be an under-researched contributory factor in the high (10% to 20%) pre-weaning mortality rate observed in pigs. Insulin resistance commences at around week 12 of gestation in the sow, although there are conflicting reports in the literature about the extent to which insulin resistance is modulated by maternal diet. The aim of the study was to determine the effects of supplementing the maternal diet with different dietary oils during either the first half or the second half of gestation on the glucose tolerance of the sow. Sows were offered the control (C: n = 5) diet as pellets or the C diet plus 10% extra energy (h = 16 per group) derived from either. (i) extra pellets; (ii) palm oil; (iii) olive oil; (iv) sunflower oil; or (v) fish oil. Experimental diets were fed during either the first (G1) or second (G2) half of gestation. A glucose tolerance test (GTT) was conducted on day 108 of gestation by administering 0.5g/kg glucose i.v. Blood samples were taken every 5 to 10 min for 90 min post administration. The change in body weight and backfat thickness during gestation was similar but both type and timing of dietary supplementation influenced litter size and weight. With the exception of the sunflower oil group, supplementing the maternal diet in G1 resulted in larger and heavier litters, particularly in mothers offered palm oil. Basal blood glucose concentrations tended to be more elevated in G1 than G2 groups, whilst plasma insulin concentrations were similar Following a GTT, the adjusted area under the curve was greater in G1 compared to G2 sows, despite no differences in glucose clearance. Maternal diet appeared to influence the relationship between glucose curve characteristics following a GTT and litter outcome. In conclusion, the degree of insulin sensitivity can be altered by both the period during which maternal nutritional supplementation is offered and the fatty acid profile of the diet.

The Spanish Ambassador and Samuel Daniel's Vision of the Twelve Goddesses: A New Document [with text]

The performance of Samuel Daniel's masque The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses at court on January 8, 1604 took place in the midst of the preliminary negotiations that would lead to the signing of the Anglo-Spanish peace at Somerset House the following August. Philip III sent a special ambassador to England to congratulate James on his accession, and a series of tussles between Juan de Tassis and his French counterpart ensued. As a recently-discovered document in the Archivo General de Simancas reveals, Anna of Denmark intervened personally to insure that de Tassis, and not the Frenchman, attended the masque. This was a clear signal of James and Anna's peace aims, which de Tassis conveyed to the King of Spain; moreover, he enclosed in his dispatch a text of Daniel's masque which he clearly considered both political intelligence and of interest to the theater-loving Hapsburg monarch. The Simancas text of the Daniel masque is a new version, hitherto unknown, which adds to our knowledge of the circumstances in which the first Stuart masque was performed. Here we present a transcription and annotated translation of both de Tassis' letter and the text of the masque he had compiled for Philip III. (B. C.-E. and M. H.)

Internationalized regimes: a second dimension of regime hybridity

Traditional approaches have conceptualized political regimes almost exclusively with reference to domestic-level political factors. However, many current and historical political regimes have entailed a major role for international actors, and in some cases the external influence has been so great that regimes have become internationalized. This article explores the concept of internationalized regimes and argues that they should be seen as a distinct form of hybrid regime type that demonstrates a distinct dimension of hybridity. Until now, regime hybridity has been conceived of along a single dimension of domestic politics: the level of competitiveness. Yet, some regimes are characterised by a different type of hybridity, in which domestic and international authority are found together within a single political system. The article explores the dynamics of internationalized regimes within three settings, those of international occupation, international administration and informal empire.

Vision of the body and the differentiation of perceived body side in touch

Although tactile representations of the two body sides are initially segregated into opposite hemispheres of the brain, behavioural interactions between body sides exist and can be revealed under conditions of tactile double simultaneous stimulation (DSS) at the hands. Here we examined to what extent vision can affect body side segregation in touch. To this aim, we changed hand-related visual input while participants performed a go/no-go task to detect a tactile stimulus delivered to one target finger (e.g., right index), stimulated alone or with a concurrent non-target finger either on the same hand (e.g., right middle finger) or on the other hand (e.g., left index finger = homologous; left middle finger = non-homologous). Across experiments, the two hands were visible or occluded from view (Experiment 1), images of the two hands were either merged using a morphing technique (Experiment 2), or were shown in a compatible vs incompatible position with respect to the actual posture (Experiment 3). Overall, the results showed reliable interference effects of DSS, as compared to target-only stimulation. This interference varied as a function of which non-target finger was stimulated, and emerged both within and between hands. These results imply that the competition between tactile events is not clearly segregated across body sides. Crucially, non-informative vision of the hand affected overall tactile performance only when a visual/proprioceptive conflict was present, while neither congruent nor morphed hand vision affected tactile DSS interference. This suggests that DSS operates at a tactile processing stage in which interactions between body sides can occur regardless of the available visual input from the body.