Most forage quality models were developed for ruminant nutrition, and may not apply to the horse. This two-part study evaluated the relationship between forage chemical composition and dry matter digestibility (DMD) using an in vitro method with equine feces as the inoculums. The first experiment determined that compared to 48 h of incubation, 72 h of incubation resulted in higher DMD for some forages. As a result of experiment 1, incubations in experiment 2 were conducted using 48 and 72 h incubation periods at 38 degrees C. The second experiment evaluated the effect of chemical composition on DMD. Thirty-one hay samples were used that ranged from 33% to 71% for NDF, 21% to 44% for ADF and 6.7 to 25.6% for CP (all on DMB). There were inverse relationships between ADF and DMD ( r = -0.826 at 48 h; -0.841 at 72 h) and NDF and DMD (r = -0.779 at 48 h; 0.812 at 72 h). There was a positive relationship between CP and DMD (r =0.572 at 48 h; 0.615 at 72 h). Forage chemical composition, particularly ADF and NDF, has potential to predict digestibility of forages by horses.

Intellectual Property (IP) based Integrated Circuit (IC) design is an established approach for the design of a complex System-on-Chip (SoC). Porting the preparatory designs to third-party without enough security margin exposes an attacker to perform reverse engineering (RE) on the designs and hence counterfeiting, IP theft etc., are common now-a-days. Design obfuscation can reduce RE attempt by an attacker. In this work, we propose a key based obfuscation and anonymization method for a behavioral IP. Given a behavioral VHDL description, the assignment and conditional statements are modified by incorporating random boolean operations with unique random key bits. The obfuscated VHDL is then anonymized by random identifiers. The resultant behavioral model can be simulated correctly upon application of original key sequence. Simulation results with nine datapath intensive benchmarks with three different lengths of test sequences show that the simulation overhead is negligible (only a few seconds). We evaluate the probability of reverse engineering the obfuscated design and show that it is extremely low.

Doctor of Philosophy / The aim of this research was to describe the epidemiology of musculoskeletal (MS) injuries in two- and three-year-old Thoroughbred racehorses. A 27 month longitudinal study commencing in May 2000 was conducted. The study convenience sampled 14 trainers with facilities at metropolitan and provincial racetracks in New South Wales, Australia. In the 2000/01 and 2001/02 racing season, 323 and 128 two-year-olds, respectively, were enrolled in the study. The 451 Thoroughbred horses contributed, 1, 272 preparations and 78, 154 training days to the study. Of the 323 horses enrolled in the 2000/01 racing season, 219 contributed three-year-old data to the study. During the study period 8%, of training days had missing training data and 3% of the 1, 986 starts in the races or barrier trials were incorrectly recorded. The rate of incorrect entries varied with both study month and trainer. Similarly, the rate of training days with missing data varied between trainers and with study month. Four hundred and twenty-eight MS injuries were recorded in association with 395 preparations in 248 two- and three-year-old Thoroughbred racehorses. The IR for all categories of MS injuries, except for tendon and ligament injuries, were higher in twoyear- olds than three-year-olds, although the differences were only significant for shin soreness. Seventy-eight percent of horses enrolled in the study started, in a barrier trial or race, within one year on entering the study. After accounting for other confounders, horses that had sustained a MS injury were 0.50 times less likely to start, in a race or trial, race than those that did not sustain an injury. Seventy percent of horses returned to training after their first MS injury, and the cumulative percentage of these horses that had recovered within six months of the initial MS injury was 55%. After adjusting for clustering at the level of the trainer, the analysis showed that horses that exercised at a gallop pace ≥ 890 m/minute (but had not started in a race) prior to the onset of MS injury, were 2.14 times more likely to recover than horses whose maximum speed, prior to the onset of the first MS injury, was less than 890 m/minute. Similarly, horses that had started in a race or barrier trial were 4.01 times more likely to recover than horses whose maximum speed was less than 890 m/minute. 8 Training days were grouped into units referred to as preparations. A preparation began on the day that the horse was enrolled in the study, or when a horse returned to training after an absence of more than seven days from the stable. The preparation continued until the horse was lost to follow-up or left the stable for a period of more than seven consecutive days. Univariable and multivariable analytical methods were used to examine the association between a range of independent variables and four preparationlevel measures of performance: (i) the duration of preparations, (ii) length of time from the beginning of the preparation until the first start in a race or barrier trial, (iii) length of time from the first start until the end of the preparation and (iv) rate of starts in races or barrier trials. After adjusting for confounders, younger horses tended to have shorter preparations, took longer to start in a race or barrier trial, had a shorter interval from the first start to the end of the preparation and fewer starts per 100 training days. MS injury was not conditionally associated with any of the outcomes considered in this chapter. Multivariate statistical models were used to explore risk factors for MS injuries. The results suggest that MS injuries involving structures in the lower forelimb (carpus to fetlock inclusive) could be reduced by limiting exposure to high-speed exercise. This supports the proposition that training injuries are caused by the accumulation of micro damage. The results suggest there are a number of other factors that vary at the trainer level that may be risk factors for injuries, in particular joint injuries. These include unmeasured variables such as the rate of increase in distance galloped at high-speed, conformation of the horse, skill of the riders and farrier and veterinary involvement.

<p>Djur har historiskt haft en central roll i människans utveckling och behandling av ohälsa, och djurs hälso- och terapifrämjande egenskaper har de senaste decennierna börjat uppmärksammas. Med syfte att utröna hur hästar kan användas i terapeutiskt arbete intervjuades sex yrkesverksamma kvinnor på två behandlingshem med hästassisterad terapi (HAT) för tonårsflickor med psykosocial problematik. Därtill enkätintervjuades fyra kvinnor som genomgått HAT. Det framkom att hästar kan utgöra terapeutiska och kommunikativa verktyg som kringgår klientens försvarsmekanismer, reducerar det hotfulla i samtals-situationer samt underlättar koncentration och anknytning. Klienten upplever ett ömsesidigt förhållande med hästen, och meningsfullhet och kärlek. Det dis-kuteras att HAT effektivt kan komplettera redan etablerade behandlingsformer, samt att bredare acceptans av djurassisterade behandlingsmetoder tycks närmas genom ökad öppenhet och kunskap.</p>

It is nice to give animators artistic freedom, but having to animate every bounce, sway, and counter-balancing movement of a rider on a horse isn't freedom at all. It is painstaking labor that could easily be prevented with an effective character setup. If an animation piece is only going to have a few shots with a horse and rider, then the trouble of setting up an automated character rig is not practical, but if there are a significant amount of shots with a horse and rider galloping across the prairie, doing death defying stunts, and walking for an extended time into the sunset then there needs to be a way to automate the reactions of the rider to the horse. This thesis focuses on what parts of a horse one can analyze to know at what point a rider will lean forward, bounce up from the saddle, or in any way react to a variety of different horse movements. The automated character setup, or rig, makes animating a rider on a horse much more efficient.

Recently, the European Union published regulations regarding the welfare of horses during transport requiring that horses be transported in individual stalls separated by partitions. The objective of this study was to determine if concentrations of cortisol, corticosterone, or dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) differed among horses with no prior transport experience when transported in individual stalls versus loose groups. Twenty na�ve yearlings were assigned to either individual stalls or a loose group, then transported for 6 hours. Ten horses were transported per day (5 in stalls and 5 in a loose group) over a two day trial. The experiment was replicated with a second trial 35 days later, and utilized a switchback design where the horses exchanged treatments between trials. Blood samples were collected and analyzed for cortisol, corticosterone, and DHEA concentrations at pre-transport, 2, 4, and 6 h of transport, and at 2 and 4 h after unloading. After Trial 2, the horses? changed housing from group paddocks to stalls and a follow-up experiment was conducted. The data were analyzed using a mixed model repeated measures ANOVA with the animal as the subject, with trial, treatment, sample time, and treatment-sample time interaction in the model with unstructured covariance (SAS 9.1). Differences between sample times within each trial, and pre-transport concentrations between trials, were analyzed using paired t-tests (SPSS 12.0.1). No significant differences were found in hormone concentrations for horses transported in individual stalls versus in loose groups. Horses exhibited a significant elevation in cortisol and corticosterone during transport which returned to pre-transport concentrations by 2 hr after transport (P < 0.01). Mean pre-transport cortisol concentrations rose significantly in Trial 3 (7.87 ng/ml) from Trials 1 (2.71 ng/ml) and 2 (2.84 ng/ml) (P < 0.001). Pre-transport concentrations of DHEA in Trials 1 (482 pg/ml) and 2 (392 pg/ml) also rose significantly in Trial 3 (1607 pg/ml) (P < 0.01). Changes in cortisol and DHEA indicated that transportation was a significant stressor for horses, however, being transported in a loose group versus individual stalls was not different. Also, housing changes from paddocks to stalls resulted in significant increases in pre-transport concentrations of stress-related compounds.

Djur har historiskt haft en central roll i människans utveckling och behandling av ohälsa, och djurs hälso- och terapifrämjande egenskaper har de senaste decennierna börjat uppmärksammas. Med syfte att utröna hur hästar kan användas i terapeutiskt arbete intervjuades sex yrkesverksamma kvinnor på två behandlingshem med hästassisterad terapi (HAT) för tonårsflickor med psykosocial problematik. Därtill enkätintervjuades fyra kvinnor som genomgått HAT. Det framkom att hästar kan utgöra terapeutiska och kommunikativa verktyg som kringgår klientens försvarsmekanismer, reducerar det hotfulla i samtals-situationer samt underlättar koncentration och anknytning. Klienten upplever ett ömsesidigt förhållande med hästen, och meningsfullhet och kärlek. Det dis-kuteras att HAT effektivt kan komplettera redan etablerade behandlingsformer, samt att bredare acceptans av djurassisterade behandlingsmetoder tycks närmas genom ökad öppenhet och kunskap.

Mobility of the horse to initiate motion from the standing position is examined in this thesis. In particular, the thesis focuses on the study of the mobility of a horse with fixed hooves to the ground, and on how its musculoskeletal system is used to free the legs from restraints. Possible leg patterns to initiate motions are investigated. The breaking forces generated at front and hind hooves during static-pulling and dynamic jerking are evaluated. Design of the restraint system that uses ropes to immobilize certain joints in order to prevent the horse from generating these forces is the main objective of this thesis. Such a system could be applied as an alternative to rather massive mechanical devices, the main purpose of which is to block the breaking forces (which are quite large when fully developed).<p> Analysis of the mobility of the horse is based on the mechanics of a skeletal linkage system driven by muscle forces. Only major muscles involved in fighting the restraints are included in the analysis. The force generation capability of a muscle is determined by physiological cross sectional area (PCSA) of the muscle. Possible leg patterns are predicted with the kinematics analysis considering range of motion at each joint in the legs. Corresponding breaking forces generated in each pattern is evaluated with the kinetics analysis. Relationship between the characteristic parameter of the pattern and the breaking force at hoof are established. <p>The horse's computer model is used to justify the analytical result. Fighting mechanisms of the horse are simulated in the dynamic simulation software package. Patterns and the breaking forces developed by the horse model simulation agree well with the analytical results. To the authors best knowledge, this is the first time a computer model is used in analyzing the method of restraining an animal. <p>The mobility of the animal with hoof restraints and methods to remove mobility were further confirmed with a preliminary animal restraint test conducted on a sheep. The sheep was chosen because the leg patterns to initiate motion on a horse are similar to that of sheep, but the sheep is more convenient to handle. The experiment showed that the mobility of the sheep could be removed completely by restraining its hooves, lower legs, and head with easily attached ropes.

This thesis explores the Crazy Horse Memorial orientation film and its rhetorical claim to represent Lakota values in the rhetorically contested Black Hills of South Dakota. Walter Fisher’s concept of narrative rationality is used to analyze the informal logic of the memorial film narrative. The Crazy Horse Memorial is seen as a response to Mt. Rushmore’s colonialist legacy. Analysis shows that the Crazy Horse Memorial actually has much in common with Rushmore’s legacy of Euro-American colonialism. This thesis discusses the effects of this redefinition of Lakota cultural values on the rhetorical sphere of the contested Black Hills.

Mobility of the horse to initiate motion from the standing position is examined in this thesis. In particular, the thesis focuses on the study of the mobility of a horse with fixed hooves to the ground, and on how its musculoskeletal system is used to free the legs from restraints. Possible leg patterns to initiate motions are investigated. The breaking forces generated at front and hind hooves during static-pulling and dynamic jerking are evaluated. Design of the restraint system that uses ropes to immobilize certain joints in order to prevent the horse from generating these forces is the main objective of this thesis. Such a system could be applied as an alternative to rather massive mechanical devices, the main purpose of which is to block the breaking forces (which are quite large when fully developed).<p> Analysis of the mobility of the horse is based on the mechanics of a skeletal linkage system driven by muscle forces. Only major muscles involved in fighting the restraints are included in the analysis. The force generation capability of a muscle is determined by physiological cross sectional area (PCSA) of the muscle. Possible leg patterns are predicted with the kinematics analysis considering range of motion at each joint in the legs. Corresponding breaking forces generated in each pattern is evaluated with the kinetics analysis. Relationship between the characteristic parameter of the pattern and the breaking force at hoof are established. <p>The horse's computer model is used to justify the analytical result. Fighting mechanisms of the horse are simulated in the dynamic simulation software package. Patterns and the breaking forces developed by the horse model simulation agree well with the analytical results. To the authors best knowledge, this is the first time a computer model is used in analyzing the method of restraining an animal. <p>The mobility of the animal with hoof restraints and methods to remove mobility were further confirmed with a preliminary animal restraint test conducted on a sheep. The sheep was chosen because the leg patterns to initiate motion on a horse are similar to that of sheep, but the sheep is more convenient to handle. The experiment showed that the mobility of the sheep could be removed completely by restraining its hooves, lower legs, and head with easily attached ropes.