Accuracy of recorded birth and calving dates of dairy cattle in the United States

Frequencies of births that were reported for specific days of the month were documented for US dairy cattle born since 1987 by birth year, herd size, and registry status and compared with calving frequencies for those dates. Because birth dates are expected to be random and uniformly distributed throughout each month, percentages of births on individual dates were expected to be equal (3.3% for d 1 to d 28, 3.2% for d 29, 3.0% for d 30, and 1.9% for d 31). However, percentages of reported birth dates for d 1, 2, 10, 15, and 20 were higher than expected. The percentage of reported births for d 1 was highest (5.3%) of all days of the month regardless of herd size or registry status. The nonuniform distribution of birth dates within month indicated that a substantial number of birth dates were unknown and that estimated birth dates had been reported. About one-third of the birth dates recorded on d 1 appeared to have been estimated, or altered to gain an advantage in cattle shows. The highest frequencies for birth dates on d 1 (5.9 to 7.4%) were found for registered cows during months that initiated age groupings for dairy shows (March, June, September, and December). Birth dates for some registered cows were intentionally misreported as confirmed by comparison of birth dates of individual cows with calving dates of their dams. Reported calving dates appeared to be more accurate than reported births; the inflated frequency of recorded calvings on d 1 was only about 30% as large as the inflated frequency of recorded births. Because cow age is determined by birth date, proper reporting of birth dates is important to ensure the accuracy of standardized yield and fitness records and the genetic evaluations that are based on those records. When animals' recorded birth dates and their dams' calving dates differ, more credence should be given to the latter to improve accuracy.     

Biogeochemical processes and microbial characteristics across groundwater-surface water boundaries of the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River

Biogeochemical processes within riverbed hyporheic zones (HZ) can potentially impact the fate and transport of contaminants. We evaluated a modified freeze core technique for the collection of intact cobble-bed samples from the Columbia River HZ along a stretch of the Hanford Reach in Washington State and investigated microbiological and geochemical parameters of corresponding frozen and unfrozen samples. During three sampling periods (March, May, and November 2000), relatively high numbers of viable aerobic heterotrophic bacteria were recovered from both unfrozen (10(6)-10(7) cfu/g) and frozen samples (10(5)-10(6) cfu/g). Relatively large populations of sulfate-, nitrate-, and iron-reducing bacteria were present, and significant concentrations of acid-volatile sulfide were measured in some samples, indicating that anoxic regions exist within this zone. Cr(VI), a priority groundwater pollutant on adjacent U.S. Department of Energy lands, was probably removed from solution in HZ samples by a combination of microbial activity and chemical reduction, presumably via products of anaerobic microbial metabolism. These results suggest that biogeochemical processes in the Columbia River HZ may contribute to the natural attenuation of Cr(VI). Although freezing modestly diminished recovery of viable bacteria, freeze core techniques proved reliable for the collection of intact hyporheic sediments.     

Herd and state means for somatic cell count from dairy herd improvement

To determine the impact of reducing the current legal limit of 750,000 cells/ml for somatic cell count (SCC) in US market milk, data were examined from 539,577 herd test days for Dairy Herd Improvement herds on test during 1996 and 1997. Somatic cell scores for individual cows were converted to SCC. The SCC for each cow was weighted by milk yield and used to compute herd mean on test day. The mean for each state was derived by weighting herd test-day SCC by herd test-day milk yield. State means were lowest in the West and highest in the Southeast. The percentage of herd test days with an SCC of >750,000 cells/ml ranged from 0 to 14% across states; the mean was 4%. Only 1% of the herd tests were >750,000 cells/ml on 2 consecutive test days. Mean SCC in the United States was 307,100 cells/ml for 1996 and 313,500 cells/ml for 1997. Mean SCC was lower during October through January (280,000 to 300,000 cells/ml) than during July and August (340,000 cells/ml). Herd size and SCC were negatively related; larger herds had lower SCC. Because records of some cows treated with antibiotics were included in the data, herd SCC means likely were higher than corresponding bulk tank SCC. Most herds had test-day SCC that were substantially below legal bulk tank limits and could have met lower limits (e.g., 500,000 cells/ml).     

High-Performance Switched Reluctance Brushless Drives

Switched reluctance (SR) drives offer the advantages of simple and robust motor construction, high speeds, high overall efficiencies over a wide operating range of torque and speed, simple power converter circuits with a reduced number of switches, and excellent controllability. The basis of these claims is explained. The history of the SR system, in particular the extensive research at Nottingham and Leeds Universities, and the basic operating principles and design considerations for motors and power converters are reviewed. Alternative configurations are discussed. The difficulties of establishing a simple mathematical model for the motor and of calculating torque and inverter VA requirements are examined. A comparison of the VA requirements for SR and pulsewidth modulation (PWM) is given for a 7.85-kW system. Measured drive performance is discussed in terms of efficiency over an operating envelope, specific output, controllability, and power converter ratings. Earlier traction drives, incorporating a constant power range and including regeneration, are reported together with the constant torque industrial drives and more recent traction extensions. The long-term potential of the drive is discussed for a wide range of applications. A comprehensive list of references is provided.     

Improving biomolecular pattern discovery and visualization with hybrid self-adaptive networks

There is an increasing need to develop powerful techniques to improve biomedical pattern discovery and visualization. This paper presents an automated approach, based on hybrid self-adaptive neural networks, to pattern identification and visualization for biomolecular data. The methods are tested on two datasets: leukemia expression data and DNA splice-junction sequences. Several supervised and unsupervised models are implemented and compared. A comprehensive evaluation study of some of their intrinsic mechanisms is presented. The results suggest that these tools may be useful to support biological knowledge discovery based on advanced classification and visualization tasks.     

Continuous self-improvement: systems thinking in a personal context

BACKGROUND: Continuous quality improvement (CQI) thinking and tools have broad applicability to improving people's lives--in continuous self-improvement (CSI). Examples include weight loss, weight gain, increasing exercise time, and improving relationship with spouse. In addition, change agents, who support and facilitate organizational efforts, can use CSI to help employees understand steps in CQI. A STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH: Team members should be involved in both the definition of the problem and the search for the solution. How do everyday processes and routines affect the habit that needs to change? What are the precursors of the event? Clients list possible solutions, prioritize them, and pilot test the items selected. One needs to change the daily routines until the desired behavior is accomplished habitually and with little external decision. DISCUSSION: CSI is successful because of its emphasis on habits embedded in personal processes. CSI organizes support from process owners, buddies, and coaches, and encourages regular measurement, multiple small improvement cycles, and public reporting.     

Designing safe job rotation schedules using optimization and heuristic search

Job rotation is one method that is sometimes used to reduce exposure to strenuous materials handling; however, developing effective rotation schedules can be complex in even moderate sized facilities. The purpose of this research is to develop methods of incorporating safety criteria into scheduling algorithms to produce job rotation schedules that reduce the potential for injury. Integer programming and a genetic algorithm were used to construct job rotation schedules. Schedules were comprised of lifting tasks whose potential for causing injury was assessed with the Job Severity Index. Each method was used to design four job rotation schedules that met specified safety criteria in a working environment where the object weight, horizontal distance and repetition rate varied over time. Each rotation was assigned to a specific gender/lifting capacity group. Five versions of the integer programming search method were applied to this problem. Each version generated one job rotation schedule. The genetic algorithm model was able to create a population of 437 feasible solutions to the rotation problem. Utilizing cluster analysis, a rule set was derived from the genetic algorithm generated solutions. These rules provided guidelines for designing safe job rotation schedules without the use of a computer. The advantages and limitations of these approaches in developing administrative controls for the prevention of back injury are discussed.     

Role of entrepreneurial task motivation in the growth of technologically innovative firms.

The Miner Sentence Completion Scale—Form T (MSCS—T) and an innovative technology survey were administered to applicants for development grants under the National Science Foundation Small Business Innovation Research Program. Data were obtained from 118 entrepreneurs who had founded their firms and from a comparison group of 41 manager/scientists who had submitted applications but were not founders. Measures of firm growth were developed from the innovative technology survey to serve as dependent variables. The MSCS—T has been developed to measure the motivational variables of a task theory that closely parallels achievement motivation theory. Task motivation exhibited a substantial relationship with the indexes of firm growth; it also differentiated between entrepreneurs and nonentrepreneurs. Thus, this article presents a new research direction that differs substantially from previous efforts to use the hierarchic theory of managerial motivation and the MSCS—Form H to study the motivation of entrepreneurs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)