Benthic invertebrates and samples of blue duck faeces were collected in September 1988 from sites along Manganuiateao River, central North Island, and in November 1988 from seven rivers and streams on the East Cape. The occurrence of invertebrate taxa in the faeces varied within and between rivers, and within pairs of birds and family groups on the East Cape. In both regions, most blue duck had...

Study was undertaken to provide a reference for the gross anatomy of the sternum of emu as one of the ratite species and also to compare the structural differences with sternum of duck and turkey. The sternum from four adult emu, turkey and duck were collected and used for the present study. The sternum was a large unsegmented bone located on the antero-ventral aspect of the body cavity, bowl-s...

Traditional, general-purpose operating systems strictly separate user processes from the kernel. Processes can only communicate with the kernel through system calls. As a means to ensure system security, system calls inevitably involve performance overhead. Direct User Callback from the Kernel, or DUCK, is a framework that improves the performance of network-centric applications by executing a ...

The ruddy duck, Oxyura jamaicensis, was introduced to Great Britain in the mid-20th century and has recently spread to other Western European countries. In Spain, ruddy ducks hybridize with the globally endangered white-headed duck, Oxyura leucocephala. We assessed the effects of hybridization on the Spanish white-headed ducks, which constitute 25% of the global population of this species, usin...

Indigenous ducks play a vital role in sustainable livelihood of the poor duck farmers. In Tamil Nadu, two popular indigenous duck varieties viz., Sanyasi and Keeri are being reared traditionally by the duck farmers under nomadic system. In the same way, Kuttanad ducks are popular in Kerala and Assam ducks are popular in Assam. The present research work was undertaken to study the genetic distan...

The duck histone H5 gene contains a 12 base pair (bp) sequence motif within the coding region, which shows homology in 10 out of 12 bp with the consensus sequence of the USF binding site in the Ad2ML-promoter. The functional equivalent of transcription factor USF, partially purified from whole cell extracts of duck erythrocytes (EUSF), was shown to interact with this intragenic sequence. Electr...

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of using tapioca and sago flours with or without egg white powder (EWP) on the physicochemical and sensory properties of duck sausages. There was significant increase (P<0.05) in protein content, folding test, cooking yield, water holding capacity (WHC), lightness, moisture retention and fat retention in duck sausages prepared using flours...

We have developed a spatially explicit modelling framework that links duck migration patterns with gene transport. The model is individual-based and simulates the journey of a duck from migration start locations through stopover sites to breeding or wintering sites. We investigate two different migration strategies: ‘hopper’ (where the bird makes many stopovers) and ‘jumper’ (where the bird mak...

Primary cultures of intrahepatic bile duct epithelial (IBDE) cells isolated from duckling livers were successfully grown for studies of duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV). The primary IBDE cells were characterized by immunohistochemistry using CAM 5.2, a cytokeratin marker which was shown to react specifically to IBDE cells in duck liver tissue sections and in primary cultures of total duck liver ce...

Heparin is an anionic polysaccharide that has tremendous clinical importance as an anticoagulant. Several dyes have been developed that can detect heparin, and the latest example — named Mallard Blue — has now been shown to have excellent sensing properties under biologically relevant conditions. Heparin and heparan sulfate (HS) are complex linear polysaccharides that modulate a range of normal...