Parameters Impacting Veterinarian Students Capacity to Precisely Interpret Ovulation within Live Mare Palpation

Animal structural body size and condition are often measured to evaluate individual health, identify responses to environmental change and food availability, and relate food availability to effects on reproduction and survival. A variety of condition metrics have been developed but relationships between these metrics and vital rates are rarely validated. Identifying an optimal approach to estimate the body condition of polar bears is needed to improve monitoring of their response to decline in sea ice habitat. Therefore, we examined relationships between several commonly used condition indices (CI), body mass, and size with female reproductive success and cub survival among polar bears (Ursus maritimus) measured in two subpopulations over three decades. selleck chemical To improve measurement and application of morphometrics and CIs, we also examined whether CIs are independent of age and structural size-an important assumption for monitoring temporal trends-and factors affecting measurement precision and accuracy. Maternal CIs and mass measured the fall prior to denning were related to cub production. Similarly, maternal CIs, mass, and length were related to the mass of cubs or yearlings that accompanied her. However, maternal body mass, but not CIs, measured in the spring was related to cub production and only maternal mass and length were related to the probability of cub survival. These results suggest that CIs may not be better indicators of fitness than body mass in part because CIs remove variation associated with body size that is important in affecting fitness. Further, CIs exhibited variable relationships with age for growing bears and were lower for longer bears despite body length being related to cub survival and female reproductive success. These results are consistent with findings from other species indicating that body mass is a useful metric to link environmental conditions and population dynamics.Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is an important cause of mortality worldwide. It accounts for approximately half of all deaths from cardiovascular disease. While coronary artery disease and acute myocardial infarction account for the majority of SCD in the elderly population, inherited cardiac diseases (inherited CDs) comprise a substantial proportion of younger SCD victims with a significant genetic component. Currently, the use of next-generation sequencing enables the rapid analysis to investigate relationships between genetic variants and inherited CDs causing SCD. Genetic contribution to risk has been considered an alternate predictor of SCD. In the past years, large numbers of SCD susceptibility variants were reported, but these results are scattered in numerous publications. Here, we present the SCD-associated Variants Annotation Database (SVAD) to facilitate the interpretation of variants and to meet the needs of data integration. SVAD contains data from a broad screening of scientific literature. It was constructed to provide a comprehensive collection of genetic variants along with integrated information regarding their effects. At present, SVAD has accumulated 2,292 entries within 1,239 variants by manually surveying pertinent literature, and approximately one-third of the collected variants are pathogenic/likely-pathogenic following the ACMG guidelines. To the best of our knowledge, SVAD is the most comprehensive database that can provide integrated information on the associated variants in various types of inherited CDs. SVAD represents a valuable source of variant information based on scientific literature and benefits clinicians and researchers, and it is now available on http//svad.mbc.nctu.edu.tw/.It remains debatable whether slash-and-burn practices were adopted in rice cultivation by the Neolithic Kuahuqiao culture in the Ningshao Plain, one of the birthplaces of rice farming. Here, we established charcoal-based indices to reconstruct the history of fire and vegetation in the Ningshao Plain since the last glacial period. We collected representative modern vegetation and conducted combustion and fragmentation experiments to simulate fire and depositional processes, respectively. Charcoals from modern vegetation show clear morphological differences between herbaceous and woody plants. In particular, the length to width ratios (L/W) of herbaceous charcoals were systematically higher than those of woody charcoals, and the associated end-member values were 4.50 and 1.94, respectively. These values were then applied to sediment cores (KHQ-14/15) collected in proximity to the Kuahuqiao archaeological site. Results show that the amount of combusted herbaceous plants increased sharply after the Holocene, and the most remarkable rise occurred around 8550 yr B.P. This observation may reflect local environment (sedimentary and/or climatic) changes or small-scale early human activities. During the Kuahuqiao cultural period (8250-7450 yr B.P.), the relative abundance of woody charcoals increased, but the overall fire intensity decreased. This finding suggests that the Kuahuqiao farming was restricted to a small geographic area and large-scale slash-and-burn farming activities were not adopted.
Preeclampsia and eclampsia are common complications of pregnancy globally, including sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. Although it has a high burden on maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity, evidence on the risk of the problem is limited. Therefore, the aim of this review was to examine the factors associated with preeclampsia and eclampsia among mothers in SSA countries.
We searched article from SSA countries using electronic database MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, CINAHL published in English from January 2000 to May 2020. Two reviewers independently screened, extracted and assessed the quality of the articles. Both random and fixed effect model were used for analysis. Heterogeneity of the studies and publication bias were checked. STATA 16 used for analysis.
Fifty-one studies met the inclusion criteria and included in this review. The following factors were identified through meta-analysis being primiparous (OR 2.52; 95% CI1.19, 3.86), previous history of maternal preeclampsia/eclampsia (OR5.6; 95% CI1.