Presented as Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1916. / Cover title. Reprinted from Genetics, vol. 1 (May-July 1916). eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Hamburg, 1980.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1968. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Blastocystis is an anaerobic single-celled protozoan that commonly occurs in the intestinal tract of animals and humans. It is a genetically very variable organism. Blastocystis can be found both in healthy specimens and in patients with gastrointestinal disorders. In 2011/2012, I examinated already isolated DNA samples from domestic and wild pigs by molecular methods in the laboratory of the ASCR Parasitology Institute. In total, 110 samples were examined. The domestic pigs were positive in 91 % (51/56) and wild pigs in 67 % (36/54). The overall prevalence of domestic pigs was higher by 24 %. Several sequences of SSU rRNA gene obtained during the work suggest that pigs may serve as host for atypical Blastocystis subtypes.

Master of Science / Department of Animal Sciences and Industry / Cassandra Jones / Three experiments were conducted to analyze the average mycotoxin concentration that may be reduced by cleaning corn, and to determine how removing broken kernels may affect nursery pig growth performance. A fourth and fifth experiment evaluated pellet processing parameters and their effects on gelatinized starch, phytase stability, pellet quality, and nursery pig growth performance. In Exp. 1 and 2, corn was divided into twenty 150 kg runs then cleaned by mechanical sieving. Run were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 experimental treatments: 1) no screen 2) 12.7 mm screen, 3) 4.8 mm screen, and 4) 12.7 + 4.8-mm screen. Across both experiments, cleaning reduced (P < 0.05) aflatoxin and fumonisin concentration by an average of 26% and 42.5%, respectively, compared to the original uncleaned corn level. In Exp. 3, 360 nursery pigs were evaluated to determine the impact of cleaning or pelleting on growth performance. Treatments were arranged in a 2 × 3 factorial with corn type (uncleaned vs. cleaned) and feed form (mash vs. pelleted from either mill A or B). Neither cleaning corn nor pellet mill type affected (P > 0.19) nursery pig growth performance. Pelleting improved (P < 0.0001) G:F by 7.6% compared to mash diets. This improvement in G:F is consistent when pelleting diets, however pellet processing parameters can influence this improvement percentage. For these reasons, Exp. 4 was a 3 × 4 factorial design with 3 pellet mills (model 3016-4, 1000 HD, or CL-5, California Pellet Mill Co., Crawfordsville, IN), that produced samples collected at 4 locations (initial, post-conditioner, post-die, or post-cooler). Across each pellet mill, the greatest gelatinized starch increase (P < 0.05) was found post-pellet die, while phytase stability decreased (P < 0.05) by 70% after conditioning feed to 85˚C. This decrease led to substituting phytase in the diet for other sources of phosphorus for Exp. 5, which was a 2 × 3 factorial design plus a control, with pellet diameter (4.0 or 5.2 mm), conditioning temperature (low, medium, or high), and mash, created seven experimental treatments. Overall, neither the pellet diameter × conditioning temperature interaction, nor the main effects, affected (P > 0.06) nursery pig growth performance, even though pellet quality improved (P < 0.0001) when increasing conditioning temperature. These data suggest that cleaning is an effective method to legally reduce aflatoxin and fumonisin concentration, and that increasing conditioning temperature improves pellet quality, but neither impacts nursery pig growth performance.

It is common for pigs to engage in physical aggression when mixed into new social groups, in order to establish dominance relationships. Phenotyping aggression is time consuming, however skin lesions resulting from physical aggression are quick to record, are genetically correlated with aggressive behavioural traits, and have low to moderate heritability (0.19 to 0.43). Reducing aggression via selection on skin lesion traits would provide a socially acceptable, long-term solution to the problem. Barriers to implementing selection against skin lesions lie in the lack of understanding regarding the underlying genetic basis of aggression, and its relationship with other behaviour and production traits. This thesis has focused on dissecting the phenotypic and genetic relationship between skin lesions recorded 24 hours after mixing (SL24h), and either 3 or 5 weeks later (SL3wk/SL5wk, respectively), with aggression performed at mixing, and several production traits. Chapter 2 provided evidence of a potential trade-off between involvement in aggression upon first mixing, and receipt of aggressive attacks several weeks after mixing. In particular, animals that avoid aggression at mixing had the highest fresh skin lesion numbers at 3 weeks. This suggests that reciprocal fighting at mixing may be beneficial for long-term group social stability. It also suggests that it may be possible to phenotype the least aggressive individuals in a group using SL3wk. In Chapter 3, I quantified the magnitude of reduction in complex aggressive behavioural traits when using SL24h or SL3wk as selection criteria, to identify the optimum skin lesion trait for selection purposes. The results of Chapter 3 provided evidence that selection against anterior SL24h would result in the greatest genetic and phenotypic reduction in aggressive behaviour recorded at mixing. Although there is evidence that selection for increased SL3wk would reduce aggression at mixing, current understanding of aggressive behaviour under stable group conditions is insufficient to recommend using this trait for selection purposes. Chapter 4, presented genetic associations between skin lesion traits as a measure of short- and long-term aggression, and commonly used commercial performance measures: growth, feed intake, feed efficiency, and carcass traits. The results suggested that, genetically, animals that receive many lesions show improved performance compared to those with few lesions, except for anterior SL24h, which have been shown to be genetically positively correlated with the initiation of nonreciprocal attacks. The aim of Chapter 5, was to determine whether skin lesion traits are phenotypically or genetically associated with behavioural measures of fearfulness. As found in Chapter 4, there was some evidence of an association between SL5wk and the traits, however this was not the case for anterior SL24h. For the 6th and final Chapter, we used skin lesion data from 1,840 pigs to perform genome wide association studies (GWAS), which detected a single SNP significantly associated with SL5wk on a genome wide level, as well as several SNPs associated with both SL24h and SL5wk on a chromosome wide level.

No description available.

No description available.

The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate whether European monetary union will overcome the crisis and move towards deeper integration. The first chapter is to assess whether the EMU an optimal currency area. The second chapter aims to clarify the causes and context of the emergence of the debt crisis, the third chapter then describes the long-term measures to overcome the crisis and outlining possible scenarios for the future development of the European Monetary Union and Greece.