• Title/Summary/Keyword: Genetic Merit

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Cloning Livestock from Cultured Cells Creates New Opportunities for Agriculture

  • Wells, D.N.
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society of Embryo Transfer Conference
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    • 2003.10a
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    • pp.29-48
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    • 2003
  • It is remarkable that nuclear transfer using differentiated donor cells can produce physiologically normal cloned animals, but the process is inefficient and highly prone to epigenetic errors. Aberrant patterns of gene expression in clones contribute to the cumulative losses and abnormal phenotypes observed throughout development. Any long lasting effects from cloning, as revealed in some mouse studies, need to be comprehensively evaluated in cloned livestock. These issues raise animal welfare concerns that currently limit the acceptability and applicability of the technology. It is expected that improved reprogramming of the donor genome will increase cloning efficiencies realising a wide range of new agricultural and medical opportunities. Efficient cloning potentially enables rapid dissemination of elite genotypes from nucleus herds to commercial producers. Initial commercialisation will, however, focus on producing small numbers of high value animals for natural breeding especially clones of progeny-tested sires. The continual advances in animal genomics towards the identification of genes that influence livestock production traits and human health increase the ability to genetically modify animals to enhance agricultural efficiency and produce superior quality food and biomedical products for niche markets. The potential opportunities inanimal agriculture are more challenging than those in biomedicine as they require greater biological efficiency at reduced cost to be economically viable and because of the more difficult consumer acceptance issues. Nevertheless, cloning and transgenesis are being used together to increase the genetic merit of livestock; however, the integration of this technology into farming systems remains some distance in the future.

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Performance Comparison of Local and Imported Dairy Semen Used in Rep. of Korea (젖소의 주요경제형질에 대한 국내생산 및 수입 정액의 능력비교)

  • Park, Byeong-Ho;;Jo, Gwang-Hyeon;Choe, Jae-Gwan;Lee, Yeong-Chang;Seo, Gang-Seok;Salces, A.
    • Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.15-20
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    • 2006
  • The data used in the study were taken from the national dairy genetic evaluation of bulls from 1986 up to 2001. It was conducted to compare the phenotypic performance and genetic merits in terms of production traits, linear traits and selection indexes of four types of dairy semen (TypeⅠ:semen from Korean proven bull, Type Ⅱ:semen from proven bull imported by National Agricultural Cooperative Federation(NACF), Type Ⅲ:semen imported from USA, Type Ⅳ:semen imported from Canada) used in Korea. The result of national dairy genetic evaluation was used to compare genetic merits. Type Ⅲ was superior in the phenotypic performance of milk yield, milk fat and milk protein and was significantly different from Type Ⅰ. Types of semen were not significantly different in fat when semen from bull born after 1991 were compared. Likewise, types of semen were not significantly different in the genetic merit for milk yield, milk fat, milk protein and milk protein %. Moreso, for profit index (MFP) and Korean type production index (KTPI) it was not statistically different. However type Ⅰ was superior in milk fat % and was significantly different from other types. Type Ⅳ was superior in Final Score of conformation test (FS) and Udder Composite Index (UDC) and significantly different from Type Ⅰ. When semen from bull born after 1991 were compared, types of semen were not significantly different in milk yield and milk protein, although type I was superior in milk fat, milk fat %, milk protein % and MFP and was significantly different from others. Moreover type Ⅲ and type Ⅳ was superior in UDC and were significantly different from others.

An Efficient Routing Path Search Technique in Power Line Communication (효율적인 전력선통신 라우팅 경로 탐색 기법)

  • Seo, Chung-Ki;Kim, Jun-Ha;Jung, Joonhong
    • The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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    • v.67 no.9
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    • pp.1216-1223
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    • 2018
  • As field of application of AMI, AMR uses the power line as the primary means of communication. PLC has a big merit without installation of the new network for communication in a field using the power line which is the existing equipment. However, there is a serious obstacle in commercialization for the instability by noise and communication environment. Therefore, the technical method for maintaining the communication state which overcome such demerit and was stabilized is required essentially. PLC routing technology is applied with the alternative plan now. The routing technology currently managed by field includes many problems by applying the algorithm of an elementary level. PLC routing path search problem can be modeled with the problem of searching for optimal solution as similar to such as optimal routing problem and TSP(Travelling salesman problem). In this paper, in order to search for a PLC routing path efficiently and to choose the optimal path, GA(Genetic Algorithm) was applied. Although PLC was similar in optimal solution search as compared with typical GA, it also has a difference point by the characteristic of communication, and presented the new methodology over this. Moreover, the validity of application technology was verified by showing the experimental result to which GA is applied and analyzing as compared with the existing algorithm.

Estimation of environmental effects and genetic parameters for somatic cell score, stress and immunological traits in Holstein cattle (젖소에 있어서 원유 중 체세포수, 스트레스 및 면역물질에 대한 환경효과와 유전모수 추정)

  • An, Byeong-Seok;Seo, Guk-Hyeon;Gwon, Eung-Gi
    • Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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    • v.48 no.1
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    • pp.9-14
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    • 2006
  • Milk yield and its quality traits determine the dairy enterprise profitability and sustainability. Milk quality traits including somatic cell counts (SCC) is an upcoming economic challenge for dairy farming community in Korea. This study estimated the effect of parity, stage of lactation (early, mid and late lactation) on SCC, stress (blood cortisol) and immunity (blood IgG, lymphocyte and neutrophil) traits, their heritabilities and genetic correlations between them. SCS and blood neutrophil count were significantly affected by both parity and stage of lactation, however; IgG was affected by only stage of lactation, and blood cortisol and lymphocyte were not affected by both factors. The SCS has shown increasing trend with the parity, however; the difference between first and second parity, second and third parity were not significant. The SCS in early (≤90 days) and late lactation (181≤days) were higher than that of mid lactation (91~180 days). Cortisol concentration in blood was lowest in fourth parity, however; the differences among the first three parties were not significant. The IgG was higher in fourth parity compare with first parity however; all other comparisons were noted non-significant. The IgG concentration was significantly higher in early lactation than those of mid and late lactation. The blood lymphocytes were decreased with increasing parity however the differences beyond second parity were not significant. The neutrophils were increased with the increasing lactation stage however; the difference between early and mid lactation was not significant. Although heritability of SCS was still lower, but it was meaningful value (0.09) and may be considered to improve milk quality. The genetic correlations between SCS and cortisol (-0.96), and lymphocyte (-0.76) were highly negative. Heritability of cortisol was low, however genetic correlations between cortisol and lymphocyte (0.79) was highly positive. IgG with medium heritability was correlated negatively with lymphocyte (-0.88) and neutrophil (-0.98). Lymphocyte was lowly heritable and highly correlated with neutrophil concentration (0.87).This study suggested that cortisol, IgG, lymphocyte and neutrophil being positively genetically correlation with somatic cell score could be used as alternative traits to enhance milk quality in Holstein cattle. Further studies are warranted to estimate genetic relationships between immunological and production traits to increase the genetic merit of Holstein cows for milk yield, to improve animal health and economic viability under intensive management system.

FACTORS INFLUENCING FEED EFFICIENCY AND BACKFAT THICKNESS IN STATION TESTED BEEF BULLS

  • Liu, M.F.;Makarechian, M.;Price, M.A.;Huedepohl, C.
    • Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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    • v.8 no.5
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    • pp.495-498
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    • 1995
  • Records taken on 372 young beef bulls tested at the Ellerslie Bull Test Station, Alberta, Canada from November 1981 to April 1987 were analyzed to quantify the effects of age of dam, on-test age, on-test liveweight and herd of origin of bull on feed efficiency (feed/gain, kg/kg) in the test period (n = 231) and ultrasonic measurement of bakcfat thickness (mm) at the end of the test (n = 372). The reduction in $R^2$ due to each influencing factor (i.e. the variation accounted for by the factor) was used to indicate the importance of the influencing factor. Age of dam and on-test age of bull were not important factors on feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness, as they accounted for less than 0.5% of the variation in feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness, respectively (p > 0.1). On-test liveweight had some influence on feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness, accounting for 3.5% (p < 0.01) and 0.4% (p < 0.05) of the total variation, respectively. The regression coefficients of feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness on on-test liveweight were 0.016 (kg/kg)/kg and .013 mm/kg, respectively, both being significant (p < 0.05), indicating that lighter bulls entering the test were generally more efficient in feed utilization in the test period and had less backfat at the end of the test than heavier entering bulls. Herd of origin of bull accounted for a substantial amount of the total variation (> 16%) in feed/gain and ultrasonic backfat thickness (p = 0.08), indicating that a prolonged aqjustment period was needed to reduce the influence of herd of origin when assessing aggregate genetic merit of beef bulls for growth rate, feed efficiency and lean meat production using a central station performance testing program.

School Bus Routing Problem with Mixed-Load and Dynamic Arrivals (혼승 및 시간대별 학생들의 동적유입을 고려한 스쿨버스 경로 문제)

  • Lee, Young-Ki;Jeong, Suk-Jae;Yun, Ho-Young;Kim, Kyung-Sup
    • Journal of the Korea Society for Simulation
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    • v.22 no.1
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    • pp.63-75
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    • 2013
  • The School Bus Routing Problem(SBRP) seeks to plan an efficient schedule of a fleet of school buses that must pick up student from various bus stops and deliver them by satisfying various constraints; maximum capacity of the bus, maximum riding time of students, arrival time between a school's time window. By extending the existing SBRP, we consider a case study of SBRP with allowance of mixed-loading and dynamic arrivals reflecting the school bus operation of university in Korea. Our solution procedure is based on constructing the initial solution using sweep algorithm and then improving solution within the framework of the evolutionary approach known as efficient meta-heuristics. By comparing the various scenarios through the constraints relaxation for reflecting the real operational strategies, we assess the merit of our proposed procedure.

Genetic Environments of the High-purity Limestone in the Upper Zone of the Daegi Formation at the Jeongseon-Samcheok Area (정선-삼척 일대 대기층 상부 고품위 석회석의 생성환경)

  • Kim, Chang Seong;Choi, Seon-Gyu;Kim, Gyu-Bo;Kang, Jeonggeuk;Kim, Kyeong Bae;Kim, Hagsoo;Lee, Jeongsang;Ryu, In-Chang
    • Economic and Environmental Geology
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    • v.50 no.4
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    • pp.287-302
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    • 2017
  • The carbonate rocks of the Daegi Formation are composed of the limestone at the upper and lower zones, and the dolomite at the middle zone, in which the upper zone has higher CaO content than others. The colors of carbonate rock in the Daegi Formation can be divided into five types; white, light brown, light gray, gray, and dark gray. The white to light gray colored rocks correspond to the high purity limestone with 53.15 ~ 55.64 wt. % CaO, and the light brown colored rocks contain 20.71 ~ 21.67 wt. % MgO. The bleaching of carbonate rocks are not related to CaO composition of the rocks, as light gray rocks tend to be higher in CaO content than those of the white rocks at the lower zone. The pelitic components are also occasionally increased in white limestone than light grey one. $Al_2O_3$ is one of the most difficult content to remove during hydrothermal processes, so the interpretation that the limestone is purified together with hydrothemral bleaching, has little merit. The wide range (over 16 ‰) of ${\delta}^{18}O_{SMOW}$, smaller variation (within 2 ‰) of ${\delta}^{13}C_{PDB}$ are apparent in both the upper and lower zones, which indicate the Daegi Formation had been affected overall by hydrothermal fluids. The K-Ar isotopic age of hydrothermal alteration in the GMI limestone mine is $85.1{\pm}1.7Ma$. Gradual change from grey through light grey to white limestone is accompaned by lower oxygen stable isotope values, which is major evidence that the hydrothermal effect is the main process of the bleaching. Although the Daegi Formation has suffered from hydrothermal activity and increase in whiteness, there is no clear evidence demonstrating the relationship between bleaching and high purity of limestone. The purification of limestone has nothing to do with the hydrothermal activity in this area. Instead, it should be considered that the change of sedimentary environment related to see-level fluctuation which can prevent deposition of pelitic components especially $Al_2O_3$ contrbuted to the formation of the high purity limestone in the upper zone of the Daegi Formation. Considering the evidences such as increase in CaO content of limestone by depth, gradual change from calcite to dolomite at the lower zones, and occurring the high purity limestone at the upper zone, the interpretation of sequence stratigraphic aspect to the formation of the high purity Daegi limestone appears to be more suitable than that of hydrothermal alteration origin.