Thesis (M.S.)--University of Michigan, 1975.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 113-121).

Parentage testing in the domestic dog is finding increasing application for dog breed registries as well as in research. The aim of parentage verification is the correct assignment of both parents to the offspring. For accurate parentage verification informative microsatellite markers have to be identified. More powerful models to study artificial insemination in bitches will be possible if the paternity and gender of early dog conceptuses can be determined. The amelogenin gene locus has been used in bovine day six to day seven embryos for early gender determination but no research has been done on early conceptuses of the domestic dog. The aim of the current study was to establish an accurate method for parentage and gender determination from domestic dog conceptuses during early pregnancy in a multi-sire insemination trial. Semen from 10 male dogs was used in each of 12 females for artificial insemination. Blood and uterine tissue for DNA extraction was collected from males and females, and embryonic material was collected after ovariohysterectomy between 16 and 30 days after the onset of cytological dioestrus. Twenty-three microsatellite markers were used for parentage verification, and the amelogenin gene locus for gender determination. Mean observed heterozygosity, mean expected heterozygosity (HExp), and mean PIC were high (0.6753, 0.6785, and 0.628, respectively). There were 66 conceptuses. In two, neither parentage nor gender could be established because their tissue samples were contaminated. Parentage could be assigned by CERVUS 3.0.3 in 42 out of 64 of the cases (66%) without difficulty. Another 33% of the cases (21 out of 64) could be resolved using the number of exclusions, LOD scores or manual verification of genotyping errors. In one conceptus, paternity could not be established because its sire may have been either of two siblings. The gender of the female and male dogs was successfully confirmed using the amelogenin gene locus. The gender of the conceptuses was determined using the amelogenin gene locus (50% male, 50% female) but not confirmed by another method of gender determination such as karyotyping. As shown in the current study, the panel of 24 microsatellite markers used provides high information content suitable for parentage verification in multi-sire litters, as well as gender determination of early conceptuses. / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Production Animal Studies / unrestricted

We have previously shown that diets enriched with (n-3) fatty acids reduced the delayed-type hypersensitivity (DTH) skin reaction to keyhole limpet haemocyanin (KLH) in geriatric-Beagles. Although the amount of ��-tocopheryl acetate in diets of the previous study exceeded requirements, plasma ��-tocopherol concentration was significantly lower in dogs fed the high (n-3) fatty acid diets. There are several reasons that could explain the decreased DTH response. Some of these include decreased cytokine production, specifically, interleukin (IL) IL-1��, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and IL-6 by mononuclear cells. Furthermore, the reduced DTH response could be attributed to increased levels of lipid peroxides or changes in plasma ��-tocopherol levels. In this study we examined the effects of feeding 32 healthy, female, geriatric-Beagles diets containing (n-6) to (n-3) fatty acid ratios of 37:1 and 1.7:1, while varying the content of ��-tocopheryl acetate, [high (447 ug/g), med (101 ug/g) and low (17 ug/g)] for 82 days on the DTH reaction. Consumption of the 1.7:1 fatty acid diets significantly increased the total content of (n-3) fatty acids in plasma compared to the 37:1 fatty acid diets (17.00 and 2.02 wt %, respectively). There was a significant interaction between the (n-6) and (n-3) fatty acid ratio and the concentration of ��-tocopheryl acetate in the diet on the plasma concentration of ��-tocoopherol. The concentration of ��-tocopheryl acetate in plasma of dogs fed the 1.7:1 fatty acid diets was 17.3, 25.4, and 35.4 ug/ml, respectively, for the low, med and high ��-tocopheryl acetate containing diets, and in dogs fed the 37:1 fatty acids diets was 20.8, 34.9, 52.4 ug/ml, respectively. Consumption of the 1.7:1 fatty acid diets with either low or high ��-tocopheryl acetate showed no differences in DTH response from each other or from dogs consuming the 37.1:1 fatty acid diets. When the dietary ��-tocopheryl acetate concentration was moderate, a significant suppression of the DTH response occurred at 48, 72, and 96 hr in dogs consuming the 1.7:1 fatty acid diet. These data suggest that an interaction exits between dietary (n-3) fatty acid content and ��-tocopheryl acetate on the immune response as measured by the DTH test. / Graduation date: 2000

As our long-term companions, dogs’ communication with us is perhaps the most developed of all human- animal ones. This study was aimed to investigate breed differences of German Shepherds and Labradors in dog-human communication. This was obtained through two tests: a problem-solving task and a pointing test. These two tests target both directions of communication: how much dogs understand and respond to the pointing and how they communicate with humans when facing a problem. Additionally, hair cortisol was measured in the dogs and dog owners filled a behavioural questionnaire (C-BARQ). The main breed difference I found was that Labradors performed better in both tests. I also found that the latency of the dogs’ choices in the pointing test correlated with many factors, e.g. they chose quicker when: choosing correctly, when they had many physical contacts with the experimenter in the problem-solving task, when they were more intense, energetic dogs, when they had higher hair cortisol levels and when they had a confident body posture. This indicates that the latency of choice could depend on the confidence of the dog and on the trust in the experimenter as well as on energy level and focus ability. Overall, this study revealed a limited amount of breed differences, compared to a parallel study on Labrador types (hunting and show dogs), showing that intra-breed differences can be more important than inter-breed ones on a behavioural level.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center; full text release delayed at author's request until 2006 Aug 15.

abstract: Previous research has indicated that certain breeds of dogs stay longer in shelters than others; however exactly how breed perception and identification influences potential adopters' decisions remains unclear. Current dog breed identification practices in animal shelters are often based upon information supplied by the relinquishing owner, or staff determination based on the dog's phenotype. However discrepancies have been found between breed identification as typically assessed by welfare agencies and the outcome of DNA analysis. In Study 1, the perceived behavioral and adoptability characteristics of a pit-bull-type dog were compared with those of a Labrador Retriever and Border Collie. How the addition of a human handler influenced those perceptions was also assessed. In Study 2, lengths of stay and perceived attractiveness of dogs that were labeled as pit bull breeds to dogs that were phenotypically similar but were labeled as another breed at an animal shelter were compared. The latter dogs were called "lookalikes." In Study 3, perceived attractiveness in video recordings of pit-bull-type dogs and lookalikes with and without breed labels were compared. Lastly, data from an animal shelter that ceased applying breed labeling on kennels was analyzed, and lengths of stay and outcomes for all dog breeds, including pit bulls, before and after the change in labeling practice were compared. In total, these findings suggest that breed labeling influences potential adopters' perceptions and decision-making. Given the inherent complexity of breed assignment based on morphology coupled with negative breed perceptions, removing breed labels is a relatively low-cost strategy that will likely improve outcomes for dogs in animal shelters. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015

Tikslas: išanalizuoti įvairių veiksnių įtaką šunų babeziozės pasireiškimui, plitimui, atsižvelgiant į šuns lytį, amžių ir veislę, naudojant literatūros šaltinius bei asmeninius tyrimus. Duomenys buvo surinkti iš " Jakovo veterinarijos centras", smulkių gyvūnų klinikos "Pas Filą " ir kraujo tyrimai buvo renkami ir atliekami Veterinarijos ir diagnostikos centre. Iš viso surinkome 1195 ligos atvejų, atsižvelgiant į lytį, amžių bei veislę. Anamnezė buvo surinkta iš 117 šunų, kraujo mėginiai buvo imami iš 31 sergančio šuns, kraujo morfologiniams tyrimams. Išanalizavus esamus duomenis, pastebėjome, kad dažniausiai babezioze serga tam tikros šunų veislės: mišrūnai, vokiečių aviganiai, labradoro retriveriai ir sibiro haskiai. Atsižvelgiant į lytį, tai daugiausiai babezioze sirgo patinai ir žymiai rečiau patelės. Babezeliozė dažniausiai buvo diagnozuojama jauniems šunims, 1 iki 2 metų, bet sunkiausia klinika buvo pasireiškusi šuniukams iki 1 metų. Dažniausiai pasireiškianti klinikinė simptomatika: apatija, anoreksija, kliniškai išreikšta anemija, pakitusi kūno temperatūra, tamsus šlapimas, vėmimas, NS sutrikimai, viduriavimas, kliniškai išreikšta gelta. Analizuojant morfologinius kraujo rodiklių pokyčius, nustatėmė, kad visais atvejais buvo pasireiškusi trombocitopenija, sumažėjęs trombokrito kiekis. Pastebėjome, kad ligai būdingas sezoniškumas. Stipriausias babeziozės bumas pasireiškia pavasarį – balandžio, gegužės, birželio mėnesiais ir kiek silpnesnis – rudenį (rugsėjį, spalį). ... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Goal: to find out a variety of factors influence the occurrence of canine babesiosis, development, according to dog sex, age and breed, using known literature and personal research. The data were collected from „Jakovo veterinary center“, small animal clinic „pas Filą“ and the blood tests were collected and conducted at Veterinaty and Diagnostic center. We collected 1195 disease cases according to sex, age and breed. Anamnesis were collected from 117 dogs, morphological studies of blood – 31. According to the studies, we found out, that there are certain breeds are more susceptible to babesiosis: mongrels, german shepherds, labrador retrievers and siberian huskies. Also found, that babesiosis more prone males than females. Dog babesiosis were usually diagnosed in young dogs, 1 to 2 years, but the hardest clinic gets puppies up to 1 year. The most frequent clinical manifestations in patients with babesiosis : apathy, anorexia, symptomatic anemia, change in body temperature, dark urine, vomiting, NS disorders, diarrhea, clinical jaundice. Morphological characteristics of the blood we found that in all cases, is characterized by thrombocytopenia, a decrease thrombocyte. The seasonal variation in the number of cases has been reported at all Veterinary clinics, with a higher incidence in the spring months (April, May) and peaking in autumn (September, November).

In this study, to increase inference speed of convolutional neural networks, the optimization technique low-rank tensor decomposition has been implemented and applied to AlexNet which had been trained to classify dog breeds. Due to a small training set, transfer learning was used in order to be able to classify dog breeds. The purpose of the study is to investigate how effective low-rank tensor decomposition is when the training set is limited. The results obtained from this study, compared to a previous study, indicate that there is a strong relationship between the effects of the tensor decomposition and how much available training data exists. A significant speed up can be obtained in the different convolutional layers using tensor decomposition. However, since there is a need to retrain the network after the decomposition and due to the limited dataset there is a slight decrease in accuracy. / För att öka inferenshastigheten hos faltningssnätverk, har i denna studie optimeringstekniken low-rank tensor decomposition implementerats och applicerats på AlexNet, som har tränats för att klassificera hundraser. På grund av en begränsad mängd träningsdata användes transfer learning för uppgiften. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur effektiv low-rank tensor decomposition är när träningsdatan är begränsad. Jämfört med resultaten från en tidigare studie visar resultaten från denna studie att det finns ett starkt samband mellan effekterna av low-rank tensor decomposition och hur mycket tillgänglig träningsdata som finns. En signifikant hastighetsökning kan uppnås i de olika faltningslagren med hjälp av low-rank tensor decomposition. Eftersom det finns ett behov av att träna om nätverket efter dekompositionen och på grund av den begränsade mängden data så uppnås hastighetsökningen dock på bekostnad av en viss minskning i precisionen för modellen.

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