1,720,959 research outputs found
Assessment of feeding, ruminating and locomotion behaviors in dairy cows around calving - a retrospective clinical study to early detect spontaneous disease appearance.
The study aims to verify the usefulness of new intervals-based algorithms for clinical interpretation of animal behavior in dairy cows around calving period. Thirteen activities associated with feeding-ruminating-locomotion-behaviors of 42 adult Holstein-Friesian cows were continuously monitored for the week (wk) -2, wk -1 and wk +1 relative to calving (overall 30'340 min/animal). Soon after, animals were retrospectively assigned to group-S (at least one spontaneous diseases; n = 24) and group-H (healthy; n = 18). The average activities performed by the groups, recorded by RumiWatch® halter and pedometer, were compared at the different weekly intervals. The average activities on the day of clinical diagnosis (dd0), as well as one (dd-1) and two days before (dd-2) were also assessed. Differences of dd0 vs. dd-1 (ΔD1), dd0 vs. wk -1 (ΔD2), and wk +1 vs. wk -1 (Δweeks) were calculated. Variables showing significant differences between the groups were used for a univariate logistic regression, a receiver operating characteristic analysis, and a multivariate logistic regression model. At wk +1 and dd0, eating- and ruminating-time, eating- and ruminate-chews and ruminating boluses were significantly lower in group-S as compared to group-H, while other activity time was higher. For ΔD2 and Δweeks, the differences of eating- and ruminating-time, as well as of eating-and ruminate-chews were significantly lower in group-S as compared to group-H. Concerning the locomotion behaviors, the lying time was significantly higher in group-S vs. group-H at wk +1 and dd-2. The number of strides was significantly lower in group-S compared to group-H at wk +1. The model including eating-chews, ruminate-chews and other activity time reached the highest accuracy in detecting sick cows in wk +1 (area under the curve: 81%; sensitivity: 73.7%; specificity: 82.4%). Some of the new algorithms for the clinical interpretation of cow behaviour as described in this study may contribute to monitoring animals' health around calving
Automatic lameness detection in cattle.
There is an increasing demand for health and welfare monitoring in modern dairy farming. The development of various innovative techniques aims at improving animal behaviour monitoring and thus animal welfare indicators on-farm. Automated lameness detection systems have to be valid, reliable and practicable to be applied in veterinary practice or under farm conditions. The objective of this literature review was to describe the current automated systems for detection of lameness in cattle, which have been recently developed and investigated for application in dairy research and practice. The automatic methods of lameness detection broadly fall into three categories: kinematic, kinetic and indirect methods. The performance of the methods were compared with the reference standard (locomotion score and/or lesion score) and evaluated based on level-based scheme defining the degree of development (level I, sensor technique; level II, validation of algorithm; level III, performance for detection of lameness and/or lesion; level IV, decision support with early warning system). Many scientific studies have been performed on levels I-III, but there are no studies of level IV technology. The adoption rate of automated lameness detection systems by herd managers mainly yields returns on investment by the early identification of lame cows. Long-term studies, using validated automated lameness detection systems aiming at early lameness detection, are still needed in order to improve welfare and production under field conditions
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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