This research evaluates the efficiency of swine firms differing by specialization type and employed technologies. Measures of technical, allocative, scale, economic, and overall efficiency are separately and jointly estimated for farrow-to-finish, farrow-to-feeder, feeder-tofinish, farrow-to-weanling, weanling-to-feeder, and mixed operations. Findings confirm appreciable differences in efficien...

Objective . Investigate whether the disruption of normal hippocampal rhythms via optogenetic stimulation medial septum (MS) during late postnatal development has enduring effects on allocentric memory rat pups. Methods Hippocampal theta oscillations were non-endogenously regulated in pups using blue light (465-nm) pan-neuronal activation MS from day (P)21–25 random sinewave frequencies ranging ...

In our previous work with rats, plasma and tissue homocysteine concentrations were decreased by selenium deprivation. The purpose of this study was to follow up and expand on that work by determining the effects of selenium status (deficient, adequate, and supranutritional) on several aspects of homocysteine metabolism involving methionine recycling and transsulfuration. A 2nd objective was to ...

Four experiments were conducted with an arginine (Arg)-deficient, semipurified diet to determine the Arg requirement of the weanling pig. The semipurified diet contained .18% bioavailable Arg as determined by a chick bioassay procedure and, when properly supplemented with Arg, allowed rat growth equal to that obtained with a 19.2% protein corn-soybean meal diet. A preliminary experiment with pi...

Activation of the insulin receptor initiates signaling through both the phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase and the mitogen-activated protein kinase [MAPK, also referred to as extracellular signal-regulated kinases (ERK1/2)] pathways. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of feeding high sucrose low magnesium diet to weanling rats on the insulin signal transduction pathways. T...

Anesthetized Sprague-Dawley weanling rats were scanned for bone mineral density (BMD) values after 7 days of treatment to determine whether resorption/growth at the proximal tibia can be quantified by peripheral quantitative computed tomography scanning techniques. Because the weanling rat is in a rapid growth stage, all groups showed significant increases in change from baseline values of BMD....

Nerve growth factor (NGF) controls sensorineural development and responsiveness and modulates immuno-inflammatory reactions. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) potentiates the proinflammatory effects of sensory nerves in rat airways by upregulating the substance P (NK1) receptor. We investigated whether the expression of NGF and its trkA and p75 receptors in the lungs is age-dependent, whether i...

The purpose of this study was to examine the in vivo effects of Ekebergia capensis leaf ethanolic extract (EKE) on the blood pressure of anaesthetised normotensive male Wistar rats and conscious weanling Dahl salt-sensitive (DSS) rats, which develop hypertension as they age. To investigate possible mechanism(s) of the extract's hypotensive effects, the contractile or relaxant responses to EKE i...