The aim of this study was to analyse the effect of supplementary feeding of DHA (Docosahexaenoic Acid) rich algae product (Algae STM Alltech Inc.) on production of milk, fat and protein as well as on ...reproduction of high yielding Holstein dairy herd. Field trial was set up on Top 10 dairy farm in western part of Slovakia, under commercial conditions. The data of high yielding dairy cows, separated in two groups of 30 (control) and 29 (trial) animals, were recorded for period of 3 subsequent months from October to December 2015. Animals were fed once a day Total Mixed Ration based diet with different feed mixture composition in trial group (+100 g Algae STM Alltech Inc. per cow and day). Performance data were collected in accordance with official milk recording system of Breeding Services of Slovak Republic s. e. and milk samples were collected once per month according to the A4 standard methodology. The control group showed higher level of milk production compared to trial. Our study indicated that the feeding of algae caused milk fat depression and generally lower protein content in milk. Significant impact of algae feeding was found also for the level of urea in milk. In addition, the supplementary feeding of DHA may represent effective strategy to increase the percentage of pregnancies per inseminations in lactating dairy cows.
The aim of the study was to analyse the effect of feeding of different sources of NPN on nutrient utilization and production performance of dairy cows under field conditions. Balancing diets for ...crude protein without consideration of protein quality or rumen degradability often led to overfeeding of nitrogen and less than optimum production. High yielding dairy cows separated in two groups with 85 resp. 80 cows in each were set up for the trial. Groups were consistent according the stage of production and reproduction cycle as well as age structure. Both groups were fed concentrate mixture with the same composition with only difference in NPN/ microbial protein source, with same dosage of 100 g per cow and day. Field trial was performed for period of 3 subsequent months. Performance data were collected in accordance with official milk recording. In both groups majority of cows were on first lactation. Significant differences in daily milk production were observed 2.87 kg (P<0.01) for group 2, in fat content 0.07 % for group 2 non-significant, whereas in protein content 0.18% for group 1 significant (P<0.01) in case of first lactations. If considering first tree lactations, group 2 produced 1.7 kg milk per day more (P<0.08), with 0.05% fat more and 0.002 % protein less than group 1. The space created in dry matter intake by a concentrated slow-release NPN can be filled with high quality forage that could reduce the cost of feeding while maintaining levels of production.
This study aimed to evaluate the impact of selected pregnancy pathologies statistically depending on overweight/obesity and excessive maternal weight gain during pregnancy on women who gave birth in ...the years 2013-2015 at the Second Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the University Hospital in Bratislava, Slovakia. In a retrospective study, we analyzed data gathered from the sample, which consisted of 7122 women. Our results suggest a statistically significant, higher risk for the groups of women with overweight and obesity and gestational hypertension (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 15.3; 95% CI 9.0-25.8 for obesity), preeclampsia (AOR = 3.4; 95% CI 1.9-6.0 for overweight and AOR = 13.2; 95% CI 7.7-22.5 for obesity), and gestational diabetes mellitus (AOR = 1.9; 95% CI 1.2-2.9 for overweight and AOR = 2.4; 95% CI 1.4-4.0 for obesity). A higher incidence of pregnancies terminated by cesarean section was observed in the group of obese women. Gestational weight gain above IOM (Institute of Medicine) recommendations was associated with a higher risk of pregnancy terminated by C-section (AOR = 1.2; 95% CI 1.0-1.3), gestational hypertension (AOR = 1.7; 95% CI 1.0-2.7), and infant macrosomia (AOR = 1.7; 95% CI 1.3-2.1). Overweight and obesity during pregnancy significantly contribute to the development of pregnancy pathologies and increased incidence of cesarean section. Systematic efforts to reduce weight before pregnancy through prepregnancy dietary counseling, regular physical activity, and healthy lifestyle should be the primary goal.
Exposure to ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) is one of the most toxic environmental exposures.
To investigate the association of ETS with physiological, biochemical, and psychological indicators, as ...well as with urine antioxidant capacity (AC) and oxidative damage to lipids in a pilot sample of healthy pregnant women.
Exposure to ETS was investigated via a validated questionnaire, and urine cotinine and the marker of oxidative damage to lipids via 8-isoprostane concentrations using an ELISA kit. Urine AC was determined by the spectrophotometric Trolox-equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC) method. From a sample of pregnant women (
= 319, average age 30.84 ± 5.09 years) in 80, the levels of cotinine and oxidative stress markers were analyzed.
Among the 80 pregnant women, 5% (7.4% confirmed by cotinine) reported being current smokers and 25% reported passive smoking in the household (18.8% confirmed by cotinine). The Kappa was 0.78 for smokers and 0.22 for ETS-exposed nonsmokers. Pregnant women in the ETS-exposed group had significantly reduced AC compared to both the nonsmoker (ETS-) and the smoker groups (
< 0.05). Nonsmokers had significantly lower levels of 8-isoprostane than smokers (
< 0.01) and ETS-exposed nonsmokers (
< 0.05). Correlations between urine levels of cotinine and AC were positive in ETS-exposed nonsmokers.
A harmful association of active and passive smoking and oxidative stress parameters among pregnant women has been indicated.
The aim of the study was to analyse the fatty acid profile of wild boar (
Sus scrofa
) meat. The samples were obtained from the mountain Tríbeč (southwest part of the Slovak Republic). A total of 36 ...samples in 3 age categories of meat were analysed. The effect of age on the intramuscular (IMF) fat content was analysed. The highest (
P
< 0.05) IMF content was found in the samples from the youngest animals (18.07%), the lowest (
P
< 0.05) in the sub-adult animals. Significant (
P
< 0.05) differences were found in palmitic acid (C16:0). Significant decrease of heptadecanoic acid (C17:0) as an effect of age was analysed in the samples. Of the important fatty acids, the most abundant in all age categories of wild boar were oleic (C18:1 cis 9), palmitic (C16:0), and linolelaidic acid (C18:2 cis n6). Differences in the content of mentioned acids were significant (
P
< 0.05). In α-linolenic and γ-linoleic acids, non-significant (
P
> 0.05) differences were detected. Significant differences (
P
< 0.05) between age categories were found in cis-11-eicosenoic (C20:1 n9) and cis-11,14-eicosadienoic acids (C20:2 n6). Significant differences (
P
< 0.05) were found in PUFA (polyunsaturated fatty acids), MUFA (monounsaturated fatty acids), and SFA (saturated fatty acids) concentrations. The highest PUFA content was typical for the samples from the oldest animals, MUFA from the sub-adults, and SFA from the youngest wild boar. More significant results were observed in the normalized data with the factor component scores. The wild boar fatty acid profile is significantly affected by age.
Many service mobile robots have an articulated robotic manipulator mounted on their platform. The mobile platform extends the workspace of the arm, whereas the arm offers several operational ...functionalities. The basic idea is to mount two cameras to the robotic arm. One camera provides the perception of the surrounding environment and navigation of the robot, the second one located on the robot arm provides for the perception of the object of cooperation. This paper deals with an early-stage design process of the mentioned robotic manipulator using dual visual perception. It includes kinematic, dynamic and stress-strength analysis. For the kinematic analysis the homogeneous matrix method and for dynamic analysis the Newton-Euler method has been used. These analyses are required for control solution.
In this study we show that anti-tumor effect of sulforaphane (SFN) is partially realized through the type 1 inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R1). This effect was verified in vitro on three ...different stable cell lines and also in vivo on the model of nude mice with developed tumors. Early response (6 hours) of A2780 ovarian carcinoma cells to SFN treatment involves generation of mitochondrial ROS and increased transcription of NRF2 and its downstream regulated genes including heme oxygenase 1, NAD(P)H:quinine oxidoreductase 1, and KLF9. Prolonged SFN treatment (24 hours) upregulated expression of NRF2 and IP3R1. SFN induces a time-dependent phosphorylation wave of HSP27. Use of IP3R inhibitor Xestospongin C (Xest) attenuates both SFN-induced apoptosis and the level of NRF2 protein expression. In addition, Xest partially attenuates anti-tumor effect of SFN in vivo. SFN-induced apoptosis is completely inhibited by silencing of IP3R1 gene but only partially blocked by silencing of NRF2; silencing of IP3R2 and IP3R3 had no effect on these cells. Xest inhibitor does not significantly modify SFN-induced increase in the rapid activity of ARE and AP1 responsive elements. We found that Xest effectively reverses the SFN-dependent increase of nuclear content and decrease of reticular calcium content. In addition, immunofluorescent staining with IP3R1 antibody revealed that SFN treatment induces translocation of IP3R1 to the nucleus. Our results clearly show that IP3R1 is involved in SFN-induced apoptosis through the depletion of reticular calcium and modulation of transcription factors through nuclear calcium up-regulation.
Medullary thyroid carcinoma is a relatively rare tumor with poor prognosis and therapy response. Its phenotype is determined by both genetic alterations (activating RET oncoprotein) and physiological ...stresses, namely hypoxia activating hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). Here, we investigated the cooperation between these two mechanisms. The idea emerged from the immunohistochemical analysis of carbonic anhydrases (CA) IX and XII expression in thyroid cancer. Although CAXII was present in all types of thyroid carcinomas, CAIX, a direct HIF target implicated in tumor progression, was associated with aggressive medullary and anaplastic carcinomas, and its expression pattern in medullary thyroid carcinomas suggested contribution of both hypoxic and oncogenic signaling. Therefore, we analyzed the CA9 promoter activity in transfected tumor cells expressing RET and/or the HIF-α subunit. We showed that overexpression of both wild-type and mutant RET can increase the CA9 promoter activity induced by HIF-1 (but not HIF-2) in hypoxia. Similar results were obtained with another HIF-1–regulated promoter derived from the lactate dehydrogenase A gene. Moreover, inhibition of the major kinase pathways, which transmit signals from RET and regulate HIF-1, abrogated their cooperative effect on the CA9 promoter. Thus, we brought the first experimental evidence for the crosstalk between RET and HIF-1 that can explain the increased expression of CAIX in medullary thyroid carcinoma and provide a rationale for therapy simultaneously targeting both pathways.
In this article, we present results of an auditing study performed over YouTube aimed at investigating how fast a user can get into a misinformation filter bubble, but also what it takes to “burst ...the bubble,” i.e., revert the bubble enclosure. We employ a sock puppet audit methodology, in which pre-programmed agents (acting as YouTube users) delve into misinformation filter bubbles by watching misinformation-promoting content. Then they try to burst the bubbles and reach more balanced recommendations by watching misinformation-debunking content. We record search results, home page results, and recommendations for the watched videos. Overall, we recorded 17,405 unique videos, out of which we manually annotated 2,914 for the presence of misinformation. The labeled data was used to train a machine learning model classifying videos into three classes (promoting, debunking, neutral) with the accuracy of 0.82. We use the trained model to classify the remaining videos that would not be feasible to annotate manually.
Using both the manually and automatically annotated data, we observe the misinformation bubble dynamics for a range of audited topics. Our key finding is that even though filter bubbles do not appear in some situations, when they do, it is possible to burst them by watching misinformation-debunking content (albeit it manifests differently from topic to topic). We also observe a sudden decrease of misinformation filter bubble effect when misinformation-debunking videos are watched after misinformation-promoting videos, suggesting a strong contextuality of recommendations. Finally, when comparing our results with a previous similar study, we do not observe significant improvements in the overall quantity of recommended misinformation content.
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