Behavioral repertoire assessment of Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris) with focus on thermoregulatory behavior.

The behavioral repertoire and environmental feature needs for thermoregulatory comfort have not been reported in the literature for large captive exotics. An observational study was done to investigate the behavioral repertoire of tigers via continuous observation, while focusing on thermoregulatory behavior, in order to examine behavioral and thermoregulatory needs of these animals, and inform microclimatic landscape design for thermal comfort. Nine Bengal tigers (n = 6 females, n = 3 males) were observed in June 2012, and behavior data were recorded every minute, while thermal images of each individual, wind speed, ambient temperature, and relative humidity were recorded every 15 min.

Estimation of direct and maternal genetic parameters for individual birth weight, weaning weight, and probe weight in Yorkshire and Landrace pigs.

As a result of selecting for increased litter size, newborn piglets are being born lighter and have a lower chance of survival. Raising fewer pigs to market weight would have a negative impact on the industry and farmer profitability; thus, understanding the genetics of individual growth performance traits will determine whether these traits will play an important role in pig breeding schemes. This study aimed to estimate genetic parameters for individual birth weight (BW), weaning weight (WW), and probe weight (PW) in Canadian-purebred Yorkshire and Landrace pigs.

Impact of PET - CT motion correction in minimizing the gross tumor volume in non-small cell lung cancer.

Objectives: To investigate the impact of respiratory motion on localization, and quantification of lung lesions for the Gross Tumor Volume utilizing a fully automated Auto3Dreg program and dynamic NURBS-based cardiac-torso digitized phantom (NCAT).

Methods: Respiratory motion may result in more than 30% underestimation of the SUV values of lung, liver and kidney tumor lesions. The motion correction technique adopted in this study was an image-based motion correction approach using, a voxel-intensity-based and a multi-resolution multi-optimization (MRMO) algorithm.