Over the last few decades, there has been a constant increase in sow litter size, the consequences of which include parturition duration extension, an increase in the percentage of stillborn and ...hypoxic piglets, and increased variation in piglet birth weight, which reduces their vitality. As such, it seems clear that further increasing sow fertility will generate difficulties and costs in rearing numerous litters with low birth weights. Therefore, the current study aimed to analyze the genetic background of sow hyperprolifcacy using a genome-wide association study (GWAS). The research included 144 sows in the maternal component, divided into two equal groups. The first group (control) consisted of females giving birth to the optimal number of piglets in their third and fourth litters (14–16), while the second group (cases) included those with excessive litter size (>16). The analyzed sows were genotyped using Illumina's PorcineSNP60v2 BeadChip microarray, comprising 64,232 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Statistical analysis using R included quality control of genotyping data and GWAS analysis based on five logistic regression models (dominant, codominant, overdominant, recessive, and log-additive) with a single SNP marker as the explanatory variable. On this basis, one SNP (SIRI0000069) was identified on chromosome seven within the EFCAB11 (EF-hand calcium binding domain 11) gene that had a statistically significant effect on sow hyperprolificacy. Additionally, ten SNPs (INRA0007631, ALGA0011600, ALGA0043433, ALGA0043428, M1GA0010535 ALGA00443338, ALGA0087116, MARC0056787, ALGA0112928, and ALGA0089047) had a relationship with the analyzed feature at a level close to significance, set at 1−5. These SNPs appear important since they are located on chromosomes on which a large number of quantitative trait loci (QTLs) and SNPs associated with reproductive characteristics, including litter size, have been identified.
•Numerous piglets of hyperprolific sows generate additional costs for rearing them.•Sow hyperprolificacy decreases piglets survival rate during and after parturition.•SNP SIRI000069 have significant (p ≤ 0.05) relationship with excessive sow prolificacy.•Within this SNP sows with AA genotype are more likely to give birth to a surplus litter.•EFCAB11 gene is potentially related with litter size in sows.
The purpose of the study was to present the principles of creating and implementing an integrated water and wastewater management system based on hydrodynamic modeling of water distribution and ...sewerage disposal systems in small and medium-sized municipal enterprises. The computer modeling of water and sewerage networks is an efficient tool for finding the causes of increased costs of operation of these plants. The simulations carried out in modeling programs enable to quickly find the optimal variant to solve the problem of exploitation or economically effective direction of their modernization. Geospatial data (GIS) is being increasingly often being used to optimally manage the municipial water and sewerage infrastructure. This gives an additional analytical tool for planning, designing, obtaining operational data, etc. The integration of hydraulic models of the water supply and living and economic networks into one coherent management system is possible, owing to which, a holistic assessment of the functioning of the water and sewerage management system in the city is possible. The decision support systems based on the spatial information system (GIS) associated with various specialized software, are becoming the standard of modern management of a water and sewerage company. To date, only about 40% of enterprises in this industry in Poland have used systems of this type. In addition, most of the GIS-based management systems used in practice are limited to an inventory of existing network resources and integration of many databases in one coherent IT system. Only in a few cases, the systems of this type contain modules modeling the network operation under dynamic conditions, which results primarily from additional implementation costs related to the construction of sufficiently reliable models of the water supply and / or sewerage network. The implementation of the proposed solution includes: construction of a water supply network simulation system, construction of a domestic and economic sewerage system simulation system, devising scenarios for system operation under the conditions of city development and climate change, multi-criteria assessment of the economic effectiveness of systems operation taking into account social and environmental criteria, development of an integrated management system the system, taking into account the guidelines for increasing the effectiveness of its operation and work safety.
Water and energy are the main natural resources, and their rational use is the basis for sustainable development. Therefore, the energy efficiency of water supply networks is one of the priorities ...for the management system of water utilities. Many methods and indicators can be used to assess the energy efficiency of water distribution networks (WDNs), and their choice should be adapted to the characteristics of a WDN. This paper presents an energy audit of WDNs that are supplied from five reservoirs located above the supply area, to which water is supplied from four underground and surface water intakes. In the analysis of the system operation, a hydrodynamic computer model of the water distribution network was used to estimate the operating parameters that are necessary to determine the energy efficiency indicators. A new method for calibrating the emitter coefficient used for water loss modeling is also proposed. The conducted audit showed that more than 70% of the energy supplied to the WDS was “lost”, mainly due to friction (37%) and water losses (27%). Thanks to hydraulic modeling, it was possible to indicate that 34% of the energy lost in the system was related to the use of pressure-reducing valves (PRV), and that only 3% was directly related to friction. In turn, the majority of leaks are attributed to service connections (17.4% vs. 8.8% in the water distribution network).
The present research aimed to study twelve reproductive indicators related to litter size and the farrowing interval for three maternal (Polish Large White, Polish Landrace, and Yorkshire) and three ...paternal (Duroc, Berkshire, Hampshire) breeds, raised on two farms in Poland and a farm in the United States. The study included 196 sows (45 Polish Large White, 37 Polish Landrace, 26 Berkshire, 33 Duroc, 40 Yorkshire, and 15 Hampshire), which altogether gave birth to 736 litters. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to verify the influence of the breed on the reproductive traits, with a post-hoc procedure for pairwise comparisons implemented in the pgirmes of R. The adegenet, ade4, and factoextra packages of R were used to conduct multivariate analysis of the traits by means of principal component analysis. The breed significantly (p ≤ 0.05) influenced the following traits related to litter size: the total number of piglets born per litter, the number and percentage of piglets born alive per litter, the percentage of stillborn piglets per litter, the number and percentage of weaned piglets per litter; and those related to the farrowing interval: the lengths of gestation, lactation, the farrowing-to-conception interval, and the farrowing interval. The breed did not statistically significantly influence the number of stillborn piglets per litter and the length of the weaning-to-conception interval. Polish Landrace and Polish Large White sows had the highest numbers of born (for both, the mean of 14.0), born alive (12.9 and 12.7), and weaned piglets (11.5 and 10.5), which statistically significantly differed from these parameters in the other breeds. Polish Landrace sows significantly differed from all the other breeds in terms of the percentage of weaned piglets (84.1%), while Berkshire sows in terms of gestation length (118.4 days).
The paper presents the results of computer modeling of flowsand the age of the water in two rural communi-ties province Podlasie - Rutka and Jeleniewo. The model is made using Epanet. In the study, a ...series of variants of models simulating the behavior of existing distribution systems and water analyzes were performed century. Analysis of the age of the water in water works modeled showed areas where standing water is aging, not having the estuary and not giving way to fresh. Age of water in the pipes is an important indicator of its quality and shelf life. The longer standing water in the aqueduct, the more likely that it will develop dangerous bacteria and produce deposits which remain on the walls of the ducts.
The age of water in the municipal water supply system is one of the main factors influencing water quality. To create a good quality hydraulic model, one must achieve a high level of calibration ...accuracy with real life measurement data. Before we start building our model, we must decide on the model’s level of detail, that is, its complexity. We must know if skeletonization of the network graph and different hydraulic timesteps have an influence on simulation results. This study strives to prove that this decision can lead to unforeseen problems during the calibration process, thus making it impossible to achieve the required calibration precision. In order to prove this, two different model variants were created with different levels of graph detail, and simulation data results were used to determine which model variant is best suited to achieve the highest fidelity simulation results. Following this, the chosen model was run with different hydraulic timestep settings, which made it possible to showcase the large influence this setting has on achieved results.