Broken Skull Research Articles

Bleeding Time and False Aneurysm Incidence on Cattle Slaughtering Using Non-Penetrative Pre-Slaughter Stunning in Indonesia

The use of non-penetrating pre-slaughter stunning (NPPSS) in ruminants remains a contentious issue in Indonesia since it is thought to interfere with the bleeding. This paper evaluated the bleeding time (BT), incidence of the false aneurysm (FA), and factors influencing these parameters in 460 NPPSS and 50 non-NPPSS slaughters in Indonesia. In this research, bodyweight, neck skin fold, sex, incisors condition, stunner strength, door closed-final stunning interval, number of shots, stunning success rate (SSR), stunning final-slaughter interval, broken skull, shooting placement, stunner-men and slaughter-men competencies, incision direction, incision location, BT, and FA were assessed for NPPSS slaughter. The same parameters were also assessed for non-NPPSS except the stunning parameter. The results showed that the BT of the non-NPPSS slaughters (187±47.37 seconds) was faster than that of the NPPSS slaughters, with the BT for the NPPSS dependent upon the level of unconsciousness. The longest BT was found in fully unconscious cattle shot once (304.32±69.76 seconds). The risk of FA incidence in non-NPPSS cattle was higher than in the NPPSS cattle. The FA incidence was 2.64 times higher in non-NPPSS cattle than in unconscious NPPSS cattle. The BT of non-NPPSS cattle was affected by FA, whereas the NPPSS cattle were affected by SSR, number of shots, broken skull, and FA incidence. The primary influence factor of FA in non-NPPSS cattle was incision location, whereas the NPPSS cattle were DCFS, incision location, and incision direction. Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that the use of NPPSS prolongs BT and reduces the risk of FA in the slaughter of Australian Brahman cross cattle.

An innovative procedure for cranial reconstruction as an aid for human identification

Human remains are frequently recovered fragmented from forensic contexts. Taphonomic factors and peri-mortem trauma can damage human remains recovered from clandestine graves. Therefore, an incomplete or broken skull can represent a challengeto identifying an individual, osteometric analysis, and trauma interpretation. A reconstructive approach is proposed to aid forensic experts in achieving all the information from human remains. This study proposes an innovative method that involves the use of reversible glue to connect the fragments. Non-permanent wax is used to reconstruct the missing parts and stabilize the skull. The reconstruction procedure is divided into three phases: cleaning, reassembling and remodelling. The reassembling is carried out with non-permanent reversible glue. Consequently, if the reconstructed remains do not have enough solidity to undergo a forensic examination, some of the missing anatomical parts can be replaced with reversible wax modelled on the missing bone’s shape. The method allows a more comprehensive examination of the whole skull structure for biological profiling of unknown individuals and a better analysis of trauma and injuries. Moreover, Computed Tomography (CT) and radiographic analysis can be better performed on areconstructed skull; the data obtained can also be a more appropriate background for unidentified persons’ facial approximations.

The detailed anatomy of Rhamphorhynchus II: braincase, pneumatics and jaws

This second contribution on Rhamphorhynchus based on an acid-prepared specimen provides a detailed description of the braincase, concentrating on the broken skull and its hollow bones, aiming to gather data on its pneumatisation for comparative studies between crocodiles, pterosaurs and dinosaur-birds. Computed tomographic (CT) scanning was performed to further explore these cavities in the skull bones, which are easily visible especially where the bones are broken. However, it has not been possible to observe their precise origin and connections. The skull regions where the pneumatisation is most evident are the paroccipital processes and the prootics from the endoskeletal braincase, but the precise form of the cavities is not clear, and their origin as paratympanic systems cannot be seen. CT scanning with better resolution might show more details of the skull pneumatics to be used in a phylogenetic analysis.

Clinical changes observed in Clarias gariepinus (Burchell 1822) fed varying levels of ascorbic acid supplementation

This study was undertaken to observe the clinical changes associated with the dietary ascorbic acid supplementation in the diet of African catfish, Clarias gariepinus, using the presence or absence of scorbutic (ascorbic acid deficiency) symptoms as indices. C. gariepinus fingerlings weighing 6.02±0.4 g were randomly distributed into glass tanks of 60 × 45 × 45 cm3 dimension at ten fish per tank in a triplicate treatment. Five isonitrogenous and isocalorific diets containing 40% crude protein was formulated. Ascorbic acid (AA) was supplemented in the diets as ascorbyl-2-polyphosphate (a mixture of phosphate esters of ascorbate). Each treatment had varying levels of ascorbic acid (AA) supplementation, at 0 (Control) 50, 100, 150 and 200 mg AA/kg, in Treatment 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Fish were fed practical diets twice daily at 900 and 1600 h GMT. Weekly weighing of fish was done and the data collected were subjected to statistical analysis. At the end of week 4, fish fed scorbutic diets (diets without ascorbic acid supplementation) had significantly lower weight than fish fed AA supplemented diets (P<0.05). After week 6 fish fed scorbutic diet began to develop clinical symptoms including lordosis (lateral curvature), broken skull, pigmentation and scoliosis (vertical curvature). Radiographs confirmed defects in the vertebral columns of fish in this treatment. Highest mortality was recorded in this treatment as 30%, followed by treatment two fed 50 mg AA/kg which had 10% mortality, fish in this treatment also showed some clinical signs like eroded fins and pigmentation. In all parameters considered, treatment 4 fed 150 mg AA/kg gave the best AA supplementation that prevented growth reduction and clinical signs of AA deficiency in this study. Key words: Clinical, ascorbic acid, Clarias gariepinus, scorbutic, supplementation.

The Realization of Contour Curve Fitting of Broken Skull Based on Cubic &lt;I&gt;B&lt;/I&gt;-Spline

The Realization of Contour Curve Fitting of Broken Skull Based on Cubic &lt;I&gt;B&lt;/I&gt;-Spline

Mother Nature, Her Eels

1 Under streetlight, the line comes reeling in. It’s Friday night on the Seekonk River, and a Dominican immigrant has an American eel, Anguilla rostrata, on the hook. This is a “yellow eel,” slightly more than a foot long, thrashing in the shallows. More accurately, its color is green. It is the mature—but not yet sexually mature—stage of eel metamorphosis , one of many in the eel life cycle. This creature is likely three or four years old, and it’s probably a male. Females are larger, heavy with fecundity. Typically they are found higher upstream. It is apparent that this probable male isn’t going to make it. Ronny—a Guatemalan—comes to the aid of his Dominican friend, who is disinclined to deal with this thing, esta anguilla, wiggling maniacally. He grapples with it in the mud, locking a hand around the line, sliding it down over the slimy body. The body wraps around Ronny’s forearm and licks frightful circles, turning like a corkscrew. This eel, while rooting around in the benthic muck of this broad stretch of river, just swam upon a clam worm, una lumbriz, threaded with a hook. The worm was a heavy one, expensive too—twelve for nine dollars at a local bait shop on Branch Avenue. These fishermen pull them from a tangle of weeds in a white cardboard box, the kind that normally pops open to reveal pastries, but these pastries elongate as they are lifted, shaping themselves with round muscles, while nubby appendages finger down the sides of their bodies. Ronny had shown me in gestures how in Guatemala they take a machete and cut up the earth for similar long, legged worms. Now he grabs a rock with his right hand and takes it to the eel he has pinned between two stones. Blow after blow, he blasts it in the head. It is sudden and brutal, and I cringe. Yet the eel wriggles on—uncontrollably —seemingly unfazed by a broken skull. Ronny holds the body against his boot and takes his fingers to the snout, feeling for the remains of the lumbriz somewhere inside. The eel’s gape looks like an open wound; the creature looks like a snake sliced in half. Mother Nature, Her Eels Nick Neely 2 Ecotone: reimagining place “Fuck, mang,” says Ronny, “dat’s fucked up.” These are universal words, easy to appreciate. The eel squirms up and down in Ronny’s circled hand, defying grasp. I’d be cursing worse. “Man, it’s really down in there, isn’t it?” says Louis, a young Dominican, a driver for a company in Massachusetts. He is here with his mother, who is the girlfriend of the man whose line holds this eel. When I arrived, Louis was in the rear of a small sedan, smoking and drinking, hip-hop lyrics rolling out the window—not fishing. He spent most of his boyhood in Miami in “the hood,” as he says. Now he tours up and down the East Coast freighting perishables, turning west just three or four times a year to pick up or deliver. The barbed hook is lodged in flesh that’s come an awful long way only to be snared by a man living in Pawtucket, Rhode Island—all the way from the Sargasso Sea, where the eel was spawned. Eels are catadromous , returning from years spent in freshwater streams to breed and die in unknown depths near Bermuda. It’s a reverse paradigm to that of inland-born shad or salmon—anadromous fish. Eel courtship has never been documented, and we know little about their long journey. We do know that they don’t come back, that they mate and die. The genes of this one on the line won’t make it to the next generation; it’ll never return to the deep, calm water country where it was born. Ronny is the first of his family to live in the United States. His was a long journey of its own. He traveled at night, and in mass, like the eel. It took him seventeen days to trek on foot to the Texan border and cross it with...

Nu bli’r der ballade

Nu bli’r der ballade

‘Broken‐Skull Disease’ in African Catfish Clarias gariepinus is Related to a Dietary Deficiency of Ascorbic Acid

Abstract.— Diets containing 0. 23, 46, 69, 92, and 185 mg ascorbic acid/kg of diet were fed to African catfish Clarias gariepinus juveniles (average initial weight, 19.9 g) for 20 wk in glass aquaria. Fish fed diets supplemented with 0 or 23 mg ascorbic acid/kg showed overt signs of broken‐skull disease, such as hemorrhages along the spinal column and inflammation of dorsal skull bone followed by broken skull and death. They also had significantly lower vertebral collagen content and had significantly higher mortality than fish fed 46 mg or more ascorbic acid/kg of diet. Results from this study indicate that a dietary deficiency of ascorbic acid can cause broken‐skull disease and high mortality in African catfish. A concentration of 46 mg ascorbic acid/kg of diet will prevent this anomaly and allow optimum synthesis of vertebral collagen.

Ordovician Formations and Faunas, Southern Mackenzie Mountains

Ordovician strata of the South Nahanni River area occur as a western fine clastic facies with graptolitic faunas (Road River Formation) and an eastern carbonate facies with shelly faunas (Broken Skull, Sunblood, Esbataottine, and Whittaker Formations). The lithofacies are controlled by major tectonic features. In the early Ordovician the Selwyn Basin received fine clastic sedimentation (Road River) while carbonate sedimentation (Broken Skull, Sunblood, Esbataottine) was confined to the Root Basin and the fringes of the emergent Redstone Arch. Later in the Ordovician a pronounced transgression caused a marked eastwardly shift of facies belts and resulted in the flooding of the Arch and deposition of a widespread carbonate sheet (Whittaker) in the northeastern part of the study area.The carbonate facies of the Root Basin and south of the Redstone Arch contains a complete record of shelly faunas of Canadian to, probably, Maysvillian age. The Broken Skull Formation consists of craggy weathering, variably sandy carbonates and contains, in its highest parts, the Hesperonomia fauna (Canadian). The Sunblood Formation consists of generally resistant, red-orange-buff weathering limestones and minor dolostones and contains two faunas; the Orthidiella-'Goniotelina' fauna (Whiterockian) and the Bathyurus sp. 1 fauna (?Chazyan). The Esbataottine Formation (proposed) comprises moderately recessive, grey-buff weathering limestones and contains two faunas; the Mimella fauna (Chazyan) and the Doleroides fauna (Blackriveran). The lower Whittaker Formation (Trentonian to ?Maysvillian) comprises three lithosomes containing discrete faunas which appear to represent coeval communities: The Strophomena-Ceraurus fauna in thinly bedded, argillaceous limestones; the Bighornia-Thaerodonta fauna in well bedded, nonargillaceous limestones; and the Hesperorthis-Oepikina fauna in well bedded dolostones. A unique fauna of deep water aspect, the Cryptolithus-Anataphrus fauna, occurs in shales and black limestones of the Road River Formation and is, in part, equivalent to the faunas of the lower Whittaker Formation. The Sunblood, Esbataottine, and Whittaker Formations contain abundant and well preserved silicified trilobites; many of which are reported for the first time from western and northern Canada.