The ability to predict the effects of extreme climatic variables on livestock is important in terms of welfare and performance. An index combining temperature and humidity (THI) has been used for more than 4 decades to assess heat stress in cattle. However, the THI does not include important climatic variables such as solar load and wind speed (WS, m/s). Likewise, it does not include management...

OBJECTIVE To systematically tabulate published and unpublished sources of reliable glycemic index (GI) values. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS A literature search identified 205 articles published between 1981 and 2007. Unpublished data were also included where the data quality could be verified. The data were separated into two lists: the first representing more precise data derived from testing...

Observing a load process above high thresholds, modeling it as a pulse process with random occurrence times and magnitudes, and extrapolating life-time maximum or design loads from the data is a common task in structural reliability analyses. In this paper, we consider a stationary live load sequence that arrive according to a dependent point process and allow for a weakened mixing-type depende...

Existing file searching tools do not have the performance or accuracy that search engines have. This is especially a problem in large-scale distributed file systems, where better-performing file searching tools are much needed for enterprise-level systems. Search engines use inverted indices to store terms and other metadata. Although some desktop file searching tools use indices to store file ...

CONTEXT Carbohydrate-restricted diets have been popular in recent years. The theoretical glycemic impact of these diets, compared with other popular weight-loss diets, has not been reported. OBJECTIVE To assess the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL) of 2 popular, carbohydrate-restricted diets (South Beach and Sugar Busters!) and compare them with a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet (Orn...

BACKGROUND Risk of thyroid cancer has already been related to refined cereals and starch food, but the association has not been studied in terms of glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). PATIENTS AND METHODS We analyzed data from a case-control study conducted in Italy from 1986 to 1992 and including 399 histologically confirmed and incident cases of thyroid cancer and 616 control subjec...

BACKGROUND The risk of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) has been related to refined cereals and starchy foods, but the association has not been studied in terms of glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL). To provide information on this issue, we analyzed data from an Italian multicentric case-control study. MATERIALS AND METHODS Cases were 767 patients with histologically confirmed, incident RCC...

The aim of this study was to test whether the simple ratio of right ventricular (RV) end-systolic pressure (Pes) to stroke volume (SV), known as the effective arterial elastance (Ea), provides a valid assessment of pulmonary arterial load in case of pulmonary embolism- or endotoxin-induced pulmonary hypertension. Ventricular pressure-volume (PV) data (obtained with conductance catheters) and in...

The possibility that high, long-term intake of carbohydrates that are rapidly absorbed as glucose may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes has been a long-standing controversy. Two main mechanisms have been hypothesized, one mediated by increases in insulin resistance and the other by pancreatic exhaustion as a result of the increased demand for insulin. During the past decade, several lines of...