A very large majority of farm animals express seasonal variations in their production traits, thus inducing seasonal availability of fresh derived animal products (meat, milk, cheese and eggs). This pattern is in part the consequence of the farmer's objective to market his products in the most economically favourable period. It may also be imposed by the season-dependent access to feed resource...

BACKGROUND Some studies have provided evidence for a possible association between vitamin D and testosterone levels; however, the evidence from studies in Koreans is inconsistent. In addition, insufficient evidence is available to support an association between seasonal variations in vitamin D and testosterone levels in Koreans. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the association between vitamin...

BACKGROUND The impact of air pollution on asthma in children in different age group has not been well defined. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the association between seasonal variations in air pollution and asthma hospitalization of children within a two-year period. METHODS Using the National Health Insurance database, seasonal variations in hospitalization trends in children with ...

In a prospective study, which lasted 1 year and was performed on a large cohort of 800 patients treated at an outpatient anticoagulant clinic, we investigated possible seasonal variations in the intensity of the effect of warfarin treatment. For every season--winter, spring, summer and autumn--the mean prothrombin time reported as an international normalised ratio (INR) and the percentages of I...

One way to probe earthquake nucleation processes and the relation between stress buildup and seismicity is to analyze the sensitivity of seismicity to stress perturbations. Here, we report evidence for seasonal strain and stress (~2–4 kPa) variations in the Nepal Himalaya, induced by water storage variations which correlate with seasonal variations of seismicity. The seismicity rate is twice as...

[1] Fe/Rayleigh lidar measurements are combined with the high-altitude balloonsonde data and used to characterize the seasonal variations of atmospheric temperature at South Pole from the surface (2.835 km) to 110 km altitude. Twelve-month oscillations, associated with solar UV absorption by ozone, dominate the seasonal variations of temperature throughout the stratosphere and lower mesosphere ...

Wind and temperature observations in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) from the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) reveal strong seasonal variations of tides, a dominant component of the MLT dynamics. Simulations with the Spectral mesosphere/lower thermosphere model (SMLTM) for equinox and solstice conditions are presented and compared with the observations. The diurnal tide i...

This article reviews research on selected biomarkers of cardiovascular risk - cholesterol and other lipids, C-reactive protein (CRP), fibrinogen, homocysteine - in the attempt to determine the existence of a predictable seasonal chronobiological pattern of variation. Studies dating as far back as the 1930s have reported seasonal variations in cholesterol levels. Statistically significant season...

In two recent reports, melanopsin gene variations were associated with seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and in changes in the timing of sleep and activity in healthy individuals. New studies have deepened our understanding of the retinohypothalamic tract, which translates environmental light received by the retina into neural signals sent to a set of nonvisual nuclei in the brain that are res...