99 research outputs found
Effects of Microencapsulated Methionine on Milk Production and Manure Nitrogen Excretions of Lactating Dairy Cows
No full text: The study objective was to determine the effects of rumen-protected methionine (Met) by microencapsulation (RPM) on amino acid (AA) supply to the udder, milk production, and manure nitrogen (N) losses of dairy cows. A corn and soybean-based diet deficient in metabolizable Met (~10 g/d) was supplemented with RPM providing 0, 11.0, 19.3, and 27.5 g/d of Met. Dry matter intake (DMI), milk production, plasma essential AA (EAA), mammary plasma flow (MPF), and fecal (FN) and urinary N (UN) outputs (g/d) were determined. The RPM increased linearly milk yield, milk protein yield, and energy corrected milk yield (p < 0.040) without affecting DMI. Milk protein yield increased by 50 g/d for the 19.3 vs. 0 g/d dose (p = 0.006) but the rate of increment decreased for 27.5 g/d dose. Plasma Met, and MPF increased linearly with RPM dose (p < 0.050). Apparent total tract digestibility of crude protein (p = 0.020) and FN (p = 0.081) decreased linearly with RPM. The UN did not change but total manure N decreased linearly with RPM (p = 0.054). The RPM (19.3 g/d) seemed to help cows overcome the metabolizable Met deficiency while mitigating manure N excretions to the environment
Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading through Swarm Intelligent Stackelberg Game
No full textThe development of smart grids has paved the way for sustainable energy infrastructure to transition towards decentralized energy trading. As intelligent agents, energy sources engage in energy trading based on their energy surplus or deficit. Buyers and sellers (participants) should achieve maximum payoffs in which buyers cut costs and sellers improve their utilities, and the security of sensitive information of smart agents must be guaranteed. This paper provides a blockchain-based energy trading network where intelligent agents can exchange energy in a secure manner, without the intervention of third parties. We model energy trading as a Stackelberg game, ensuring that the platform maximizes social welfare while participants increase their payoffs. Using the inherited characteristics of blockchain technology, a novel decentralized swarm intelligence technique is applied to solve the game while ensuring the privacy of the smart agents’ sensitive information. The numerical analysis demonstrates that the suggested method outperforms the present methods (Constant Utility Optimization, average method...) for optimizing the objectives of each agent by maximizing the sellers’ utilities and reducing the buyers’ costs. In addition, the experimental results demonstrate that it significantly reduces carbon footprint (15%) by enhancing energy exchange between intelligent agents
Tripping Over Feathers: Scenes in the Life of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams: A Narrative of the Stolen Generations
No full textJoy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams was a member of the Aboriginal Stolen Generations. She was taken from her mother at birth and put into a home for white girls. As an effected adult, she spent ten years in court suing the State Government for negligence. Not only did Joy lose the case, but lost two separate appeals. Several years later she was found dead, alone, in her Primbee flat in New South Wales. In this book, Peter Read - an award-winning author and prominent historian of Aboriginal history - tells Joy Williams's story, which exemplifies the detrimental effects of Aboriginal children removed from their mothers at birth. Joy suffered abuse, anger, violence, and mental illness. The book is a new style of biography, written in direct speech and dramatized, often using Joy's own words, with a reverse chronology from death to birth. Tripping over Feathers offers rare historical insight into the institutions, street life, and Indigenous and urban culture from 1942 to 2006. Also included are many of Joy Janaka Wiradjuri Williams's poems
Validity of currently used cutoff values of body mass index as a measure of obesity in Sri Lankan children
No full textObjective The aim of the study was to determine the reliability of body mass index based (BMI) cutoff values in diagnosing obesity among Sri Lankan children. Methods Height, weight, waist circumference (WC) and hip circumference (HC) in 282 children were measured. Total body water was determined by deuterium dilution and fat mass (FM) derived using age and gender specific constants. A percentage FM of 30% for girls and 25% for boys were considered as cutoff levels for obesity. Results Two hundred and eighty two children (M/F: 158/124) were studied and 99 (80%) girls and 72 (45.5%) boys were obese based on % body fat. Eight (6.4%) girls and nine (5.7%) boys were obese based on International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) cutoff values. Percentage FM and WC centile charts were able to diagnose a significant proportion of children as true obese children. The FM and BMI were closely associated in both girls (r=0.82, p < 0.001) and boys (r=0.87, p < 0.001). Percentage FM and BMI had a very low but significant association; girls (r=0.32, p < 0.001) and boys (r=0.68, p < 0.001). FM had a significant association with WC and HC. BMI based cutoff values had a specificity of 100% but a very low sensitivity, varying between 8% and 23.6%. Conclusions BMI is a poor indicator of the percentage fat and the commonly used cutoff values were not sensitive to detect cases of childhood obesity in Sri Lankan children
Effects of Age of Dairy Calves First Offered Free Drinking Water on Feed Intake, Growth, and Health
No full textOffering adequate amount of clean drinking water to dairy calves has become recently a significant concern in the dairy industry. This also brought attention to the fact that many dairy farmers wait for a couple of weeks to offer drinking water to newly borne calves even though offering water from birth is the recommendation. Neonate calves could consume considerable amount of water via whole milk or milk replacer but it’s not clear that amount alone would fulfill the water requirements to support growth and development. The present study was conducted to examine the effects of receiving drinking water from birth or about two weeks (wk) later on water and grain intake, and growth and health performances of Holstein heifer calves receiving a large amount (6 to 9 kg/d) of whole milk. The results revealed that, when offered from birth, calves drank significant amount (0.70 kg) of water in addition to a large amount of water they received via whole milk (about 5.0 kg/d) during the first two weeks of their life. Calves not receiving drinking water from birth consumed more grain and drank more water, once offered. Nonetheless, both groups achieved similar drinking water and grain intakes by the time they were 5 wk old. Regardless of the water and grain intake differences during neonate life, calves receiving or not receiving drinking water from birth had similar growth rates and body weight from birth to 10 wk of age. Nonetheless, calves receiving water from birth tended to have lower scours scores, and greater body lengths and hip heights after weaning compared to the calves receiving drinking water later. Overall, offering drinking water to calves from birth itself appeared to offer positive benefits even in systems promoting a large amount of liquid feed (whole milk or milk replacer) intake.</p
Nutritional interventions for dairy calves undergoing weaning and heat stresses
No full textDairy calves experience marked growth depressions during weaning and heat stress. Inflammation and oxidative stress are responsible for a considerable portion of that growth depression, and represent serious animal welfare concerns. The intestinal barrier function impairment is a leading cause of inflammation in young animals undergoing weaning or exposed to heat stress. As far as weaning is concerned, step-down weaning schemes are proposed to mitigate the growth slumps and associated stresses. However, the literature suggests the need to optimize those schemes to achieve expected outcomes. Despite the environmental management tools such as fans and misters to mitigate heat stress, the subpar performance of heat-stressed cattle demands nutritional interventions to mitigate the intestinal barrier function damage, inflammation, and oxidative stress. Data on pigs and poultry show that functional amino acids such as glutamine (Gln) and branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), and phytogenic feed additives (PFA) are promising strategies to alleviate the negative consequences of weaning and heat stress. This dissertation focused on evaluating those nutritional interventions in weaning and heat-stressed calves under the hypothesis that the effects seen in monogastric species would be true for dairy calves.
Chapter 2 describes a study to examine the effects of a Gln supplementation (2.0% of DMI) in a step-down weaning scheme on starter feed intake (SFI), average daily gain (ADG), paracellular permeability of intestinal epithelium (PPIE), and inflammation markers of dairy heifer calves weaned from a high milk volume (9.0 L/d). The step-down weaning was initiated by decreasing the milk volume to 3.0 L/d, and calves continued to receive the 3.0 L/d milk until they were weaned completely with a 1.0 kg/d SFI. Glutamine was fed dissolved in the 3.0 L/d milk, and PPIE was determined with lactulose: D-mannitol (LMR) in blood serum 1.0 h after feeding those sugars in milk using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The responses of calves beginning the scheme at 35 d of age with, or without Gln were compared with that of calves beginning the scheme without Gln at 49 d of age (n = 12). Additionally, an in vitro experiment with calf intestinal epithelial cells (CIEC) was conducted to elucidate the impact of Gln on the tight junction protein abundance and the localization to the cell membrane. The in vivo study results revealed that the milk volume restriction at 35 d negated ADG during weaning. The supplementation of Gln tended to increase the ADG to a level similar to that of calves beginning weaning without Gln at 49 d. Calves with Gln increased the SFI faster and completed weaning 3 d earlier than calves without Gln (51 vs. 54 d of age). Despite the SFI increase, serum BCAA concentrations decreased more rapidly in calves with vs. without Gln. Regardless of the age, weaning without Gln increased LMR 7 d after the milk restriction, whereas calves with Gln did not experience such an LMR increase. Blood haptoglobin, and LPS-binding protein concentrations, however, increased earlier than the LMR increase suggesting that inflammation might have preceded the PPIE increase in response to the milk volume restriction. The in vitro experiment results revealed a 2 to 3-fold increase in tight junction protein expression in CIEC when media Gln concentration increased from 0.0 to ≥5.0 mM. The extracellular Gln supplementation improved energy status but did not affect the localization of tight junction proteins to the cell membrane of CIEC. Overall, the supplementation of Gln at 2.0% of DMI could improve ADG and preserve intestinal barrier function of dairy calves weaned from a high milk volume without affecting post-weaning growth or SFI.
In the following study (Chapter 3), the Gln supplementation was decreased from 2.0 to 1.0% of DMI as the literature showed that the 1.0% supplementation was related to >5.0 mM Gln in the intestinal lumen of weaning piglets. Moreover, the 1.0% supplementation of Gln improved feed intake, ADG, and immune responses of piglets undergoing weaning and transportation stresses. Given the critical roles of BCAA as precursors and stimulatory signals in muscle growth, BCAA at the ratio of milk protein (17, 10, and 11 g/d Leu, Ile, and Val, respectively) were supplemented with the 1.0% Gln dose (~8.0 g/d). The Gln and BCAA supplementations were hypothesized to mitigate additively the growth slump of dairy calves undergoing the step-down weaning from a high milk volume at an early age of 35 d (n = 11). As observed in the previous experiment, the milk volume restriction (9.0 to 3.0 L/d) negated the ADG, but the 1.0% Gln supplementation did not affect ADG, SFI, or the efficiency (ADG: SFI) during weaning (35 to ~50 d of age). The supplementation of Gln and BCAA tended to increase ADG without affecting SFI and ADG: SFI during weaning. Neither Gln nor Gln+BCAA supplementations affected blood haptoglobin concentrations during weaning. Paradoxically, Gln and Gln+BCAA supplementations during weaning were associated with 9 and 18% decreases in SFI post-weaning (~50 to 70 d of age). Those SFI decreases were positively and negatively associated with plasma serotonin and leptin concentrations determined on the last day of the amino acid supplementations, respectively. Glutamine and BCAA fed in milk during weaning seemed to exert sustained and negative effects on the feed intake of dairy calves by modulating hormones secreted by the gastrointestinal tract.
Chapter 4 covers a study, which was aimed to evaluate a PFA added to a total mixed ration on DMI, ADG, indices of hyperthermia, and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory markers of weaned heifer calves (5-6 months old) subjected to a cyclic heat stress bout (HS) in the summer. Calves were fed total mixed ration with or without PFA (n = 11) for 7 d under usual summer conditions (the baseline), and then subjected to HS employed by setting the barn temperature at 33 °C during the daytime (0900 to 2000 h) for 7 d. Similar to what was observed with weaning, HS negated ADG relative to the baseline. However, the growth slump was not related to a DMI decrease indicating a substantial diversion of nutrients from growth, a significant energy efficiency decreases of growth, or both in response to HS. Calves decrease DMI during the day but ate more during the night making DMI similar between HS and the baseline. The PFA increased DMI during the day but did not affect the total daily DMI. Rectal temperature (>40 °C) and respiration rate (>120 breaths/min) indicated similar degrees of hyperthermia in calves with and without PFA. The blood carbon dioxide decreased, but oxygen increased in response to PFA postulating increased blood flow to the lungs, and perhaps to the periphery during HS. The blood inflammation markers, serum haptoglobin and plasma LPS-binding protein increased in calves without PFA while calves with PFA did not experience such a change in response to HS. Moreover, blood oxidative stress markers, plasma L-lactate, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, protein carbonyl, and cortisol concentrations were lower in calves with PFA than calves without PFA during HS.
In summary, weaning from a high milk volume and summer heat stress bouts can result in substantial growth depression in dairy calves. The weaning-associated growth slumps were primarily a result of slow SFI increase and thus prolonged nutrient deficiencies. Nevertheless, the elevated blood markers of intestinal barrier function damage and inflammation of weaning calves indicate that energy diverted to other functions such as immune system activation could contribute to some part of the weight gain decline. The improved intestinal barrier function and weight gain improvement for Gln supplementation during weaning attest to such contribution. Nevertheless, supplementation of functional amino acids such as Gln and BCAA during weaning could negatively affect post-weaning SFI. Further investigation into the mechanisms involving those effects would explain the negative link between high milk volumes and SFI as Gln and BCAA represent a major part of free and protein-bound amino acid pools in milk. The diurnal heatwaves in the summer would not change daily DMI, as calves seem to consume more during the night to compensate for the DMI losses during extremely hot daytime. Despite the unchanged DMI, summer heat waves can result in zero weight gain in calves possibly due to the diversion of energy from growth to functions involved in thermoregulation and immune system activation. Feeding PFA often known to possess anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties could improve health and wellbeing, but may not be potent enough to improve the weight gain of calves exposed to intense heat stress episodes. Nevertheless, further investigations into PFA addressing the variability in inclusion rates, diet composition, feeding duration, and interaction with other heat abatement practices would yield a better understanding of their potential to improve the growth of heat-stressed calves
Proceedings of the National Conference on Water, Food Security and Climate Change in Sri Lanka, BMICH, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 9-11 June 2009. Vol. 1. Irrigation for food security
No full textFood security / Climate change / River basins / Water shortage / Irrigated farming / Water quality / Tanks / Aquatic plants / Rice / Food insecurity / Water resource management / Zero tillage / Weed control / Agroforestry / Canals / Surface runoff / Remote sensing / Sri Lanka
La question de la non-dualité dans la Jaiminiyasamhita du Brahmandapurana. Le JanakaprasnaLe Janakaprasna
No full textLa Jaiminiyasamhita, en partie inédite, est une œuvre puranique de nature «encyclopédique». Dans une section de six chapitres intitulée « La question de Janaka » (Janakaprasna), le roi Kartaviryarjuna rend visite à Dattatreya, afin de recevoir un enseignement sur l’advaita, la «non-dualité». Ce dernier lui rapporte l’enseignement que le sage Asita transmit autrefois au roi mythique Janaka. Cette «question de Janaka», à l’instar des Upanisad, se présente sous la forme d’un dialogue entre un maître et un disciple. La thématique au cœur de ce dialogue concerne la nature du brahman et son rapport au corps. Elle permet à l’auteur de faire montre de l’étendue de son savoir dans des domaines aussi riches que variés: le développement embryonnaire et les théories physiologiques, les conceptions cosmogoniques, les paradoxes de la non-dualité et les disciplines de salut, en particulier le yoga, influencé par des conceptions tantriques. Cette editio princeps du Janakaprasna est accompagnée d’une traduction et d’un commentaire qui approfondit les thématiques abordées, avec une attention particulière pour l’identification des sources et des textes parallèles. The Jaiminiyasamhita, which is partly unpublished, is a puranic and encyclopaedic work. In its section called «Janaka’s question» (Janakaprasna), King Kartaviryarjuna questions Dattatreya about the «non-duality» (advaita). The latter gives the answer that the wise Asita gave once to the mythical King Janaka. «Janaka’s question», exactly as the Upanisads, is composed as a dialogue between a master and his disciple. Its central theme is the nature of Brahman and the relationship of the former to the body. Therefrom, the author shows the extent of his knowledge in many and various fields: embryonic development and physiological theories, cosmogonical conceptions, paradoxes of non-duality, paths to salvation, especially yoga, influenced by Tantric patterns. This editio princeps is accompanied by a translation and a commentary that goes deeper into the different topics and focuses its attention on the sources and parallel texts
THIRD YEAR INTEGRATED DESIGN PROJECT FOR THIRD YEAR CIVIL ENGINEERING STUDENTS
No full textThere is a lack of courses for design education in civil engineering curriculum except in fourth year at many Canadian Universities. An innovative approach introduced and implemented by the author to promote design education at the third year using a design competition at the University of Calgary was very successful. Student learned design concepts, applied them in the third year using a real project, integrated several civil engineering deliverables in one project without doing them in a separate course, and gained experience to get ready for their final year design course through this design competition. The eight courses included in the competition comprise all civil engineering aspects including structural, geotechnical, transportation, environmental, construction, material, and project management. The lessons learned by implementing the competition for 2 years, the author suggests a new idea to introduce a third year design project for civil engineering students. The paper discusses the purpose, structure, student participation, deliverables of the new idea.</jats:p
Learning tactical urbanism: an action-research workshop in Brussels
No full textThis paper contends that participatory action and public engagement are crucial elements in tactical urbanism. Based on an action research workshop that he coordinated as part of an architectural design studio, the author argues that students, professionals and “the public” need to familiarize themselves with public involvement strategies and tactics in order to cope effectively with contemporary urbanism.
The most overwhelming urban transformation since the 1992 European Urban Charter has been an exacerbated socio-economic polarisation in cities. The resulting conditions of temporality, multiplicity and simultaneity deeply affect practices of place-making and urban coherence. Today’s fragile and ever-fleeting urban realities call for responses of the “lighter-quicker-cheaper” (LQC) type favoured by planning approaches commonly known as Tactical Urbanism or DIY Urbanism. Mastering these approaches – like any skill – requires practice.
As an integral part of a design studio revolving around current and anticipated threats to Brussels’ urban cohesion, the one-week “crossing” workshop sought to integrate (action) research into architectural design and professional practice. It created an opportunity for students to design an on-site installation through which they could try out the vision they had elaborated after group-work analysis of a project site. It also allowed them to collect feedback and comments that could make their individual design firmly “rooted” in urban reality.
These experiments did not necessarily seek to re-establish urban coherence: some merely sought to collect people’s ideas for change or attract their attention to discarded places. Whilst short-lived and modest, the interventions underlined the importance of small-scale, step-by-step approaches where neighbours get to know each other, work together and acquire a sense of ownership and pride in what they do. Moreover, they foreshadowed architects’ and urban professionals’ practices where students, neighbourhood dwellers and professionals join hands in realizing effective change.sponsorship: KU Leuven Faculty od Architecture, Campus Sint-lucas Brussels
Department of Architecture, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lankastatus: Publishe
- …
