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Objective The growth, carcass and retail cut yield records on 1,428 Hanwoo steers obtained through progeny testing were analyzed in this study, and their heritability and genetic relationships among the traits were estimated using animal models. Methods Two different models were compared in this study. Each model was fitted for different fixed class effects, date of slaughter for carcass traits and batch of progeny test live measurement traits, and a choice of covariates (carcass weight in Model 1 or backfat thickness in Model 2) for carcass traits. Results The differences in body composition among individuals were deemed being unaffected by their age at slaughter, except for carcass weight and backfat thickness. Heritability estimates of body size measurements were 0.21 to 0.36. Heritability estimates of retail cut percentage were high (0.56 from Model 1 and 0.47 from Model 2). And the heritability estimates for loin muscle percentage were 0.36 from Model 1 and 0.42 from Model 2, which were high enough to consider direct selection on carcass cutability traits as effective. The genetic correlations between body size measurements and retail cut ratio (RCR) were close to zero. But, some negative genetic correlations were found with chest girths measured at yearling (Model 1) or at 24 months of age or with chest widths. Loin muscle ratio (LMR) was genetically negatively correlated with body weights or body size measurements, in general in Model 1. These relationships were low close to zero but positive in Model 2. Phenotypic correlation between cutability traits (RCR, LMR) and live body size measurements were moderate and negative in Model 1 while those in Model 2 were all close to zero. Conclusion Therefore, the body weights or linear body measurements at an earlier age may not be the most desirable selection traits for exploitation of correlated responses to improve loin muscle or lean meat yield.

This paper proposes a line inversion-based stepwise data driving scheme for use in low-power mobile TFT-LCDs. The proposed stepwise data driving scheme adopts a stepwise pull-up and pull-down transition operations of source and common lines in an LCD penal, resulting in greatly reduced power consumption as compared to the conventional line inversion-based data driving schemes. Moreover, the proposed scheme shows relatively uniform power consumption for different image patterns, making background image design easy for use in commercial portable display devices. Three test chips for mobile devices having QCIF+, QVGA, and HVGA resolutions were fabricated in a 6-V/0.7-µm quadruple-metal CMOS process. The experimental results showed that overall power reductions of 25%-37% for QCIF+, 31%-47% for QVGA, and 42%-53% for HVGA TFT-LCDs were achieved, depending on image pattern, with a die size overhead of less than 1%. They also indicated that the proposed driving scheme allowed around 55% to 32% reduction on image pattern-dependent power variation as compared to conventional driving schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extra-heavy oil fraction upgrading process, which consisted of a pyrolyzer and a bubbling bed as a combustor/gasifier, was developed. Prior to operating a dual circulating fluidized bed reactor, the transition velocities of flow regime were determined at different temperatures using silica sand particles as the bed material. The transition velocities included minimum fluidization velocity (Umf), transition velocity to turbulent fluidization (Uc, Uk) and transport velocity (Utr). The minimum fluidization velocity determined by measuring bed pressured drop with increasing gas velocity was observed to decrease with increasing temperature. Both the transition velocities from bubbling to turbulent fluidized bed behavior determined by measuring bed pressure drop fluctuation and transport velocity from turbulent to fast fluidized bed behavior by emptying time method increased with increasing temperature. Based on the experimental data, correlations are proposed to predict the transition velocities at different temperatures. As the actual dual circulating fluidized bed reactor operation occurs at relatively high temperature, the correlations obtained in this study are directly applicable to the extra-heavy oil fraction upgrading process. Thus, the transition velocities and flow regimes in a dual circulating fluidized bed reactor are determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]