Genetic variability is a fundamental condition for the genetic gain in improvement programs (Ferreira et al. 1995). Regarding recurrent selection, it is expected that in the sequence of the consecutive cycles the mean values of the traits of interest increase in function of the concentration of favorable alleles, although without reduction in the genetic variability (Hallauer 1971). The high ge...

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...

BACKGROUND The aims of this prospective study are to clarify the outcomes of child psychiatric inpatient treatment and to identify factors associated with patient improvement. METHODS The attending psychiatrist used the Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS) to assess youths at admission to and discharge from a child and adolescent psychiatric unit in Japan(N = 126, mean age = 12.8, SD = 1...

Let τD(Z) be the first exit time of iterated Brownian motion from a domain D ⊂ Rn started at z ∈ D and let Pz [τD(Z) > t] be its distribution. In this paper we establish the exact asymptotics of Pz[τD(Z) > t] over bounded domains as an improvement of the results in [12, 24], for z ∈ D lim t→∞ t exp( 3 2 πλ 2/3 D t )Pz[τD(Z) > t] = C(z), where C(z) = (λD2 7/2)/ √ 3π (

We use Lyapunov functionals to obtain sufficient conditions that guarantee exponential stability of the zero solution of the delay difference equation x(t + 1) = a(t)x(t) + b(t)x(t− h). The highlight of the paper is the relaxing of the condition |a(t)| < 1. An instability criteria for the zero solution is obtained. Moreover, we will provide an example, in which we show that our theorems provide...