Effects of season and sample handling on measurement of plasma α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone concentrations in horses and ponies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To investigate effects of sample handling, storage, and collection time and season on plasma alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone (alpha-MSH) concentration in healthy equids. ANIMALS: 11 healthy Standardbreds and 13 healthy semiferal ponies. PROCEDURE: Plasma alpha-MSH concentration was measured by use of radioimmunoassay. Effects of delayed processing were accessed by comparing alpha-MSH concentrations in plasma immediately separated with that of plasma obtained from blood samples that were stored at 4 degrees C for 8 or 48 hours before plasma was separated. Effects of suboptimal handling were accessed by comparing alpha-MSH concentrations in plasma immediately stored at -80 degrees C with plasma that was stored at 25 degrees C for 24 hours, 4 degrees C for 48 hours or 7 days, and -20 degrees C for 30 days prior to freezing at -80 degrees C. Plasma alpha-MSH concentrations were compared among blood samples collected at 8:00 AM, 12 noon, and 4:00 PM. Plasma alpha-MSH concentrations were compared among blood samples collected in January, March, April, June, September, and November from horses and in September and May from ponies. RESULTS: Storage of blood samples at 4 degrees C for 48 hours before plasma was separated and storage of plasma samples at 4 degrees C for 7 days prior to freezing at -80 degrees C resulted in significant decreases in plasma alpha-MSH concentrations. A significantly greater plasma alpha-MSH concentration was found in September in ponies (11-fold) and horses (2-fold), compared with plasma alpha-MSH concentrations in spring. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Handling and storage conditions minimally affected plasma alpha-MSH concentrations. Seasonal variation in plasma alpha-MSH concentrations must be considered when evaluating pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction in equids.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".