Effect of mid-line or low-line milking systems on milking characteristics in goats

Two experiments were carried out to compare mechanical milking in mid-level (ML) and low-level (LL) milkline in goats. The first trial used 40 intramammary infection (IMI)-free goats that had been milked in ML during a pre-experimental period of 4±1 weeks post partum. These animals were divided into two groups (n=20), randomly assigning each group to ML or LL milking for a 17-week experimental period. During this period, several strategies were applied to increase teat exposure to pathogens in both experimental groups. The IMI rate was the same in both experimental groups (30% of goats), although the majority of new infections appeared earlier in ML (weeks 1-5) than in LL (weeks 7-16). Teat-end vacuum range (maximum minus minimum vacuum) was higher in ML than in LL, but no significant differences were found in the remaining variables [milk production and composition, somatic cell count (SCC), frequency of liner slips+teatcups fall off]. In the second experiment, in a crossover design (54 goats in fourth month of lactation; 2 treatments, ML and LL, in 2 experimental periods each lasting 1 week) it was observed that both the milk fractioning (reduced machine milk and increased machine stripping) and average machine milk flow worsened slightly in ML milking; in contrast, no differences were observed in total milking time or teat thickness changes after milking. It was concluded that the differences found between ML and LL are not sufficiently important to discourage breeders from using ML in goat milking.     

Silicon-Containing Carbonates—Synthesis,Characterization, and Additive Effects for Silicon-Based Polymer Electrolytes

New silane and siloxane compounds containing cyclic carbonate functional groups were synthesized and characterized. The compounds were prepared via two routes: hydrosilation of SiH containing siloxanes and alcoholysis of chlorosilanes with hydroxy-terminated oligoethers. The products were purified by distillation and solvent extraction and characterized using ¹H, ¹³C, and ²⁹Si NMR. Upon doping with lithium bis(oxolato)borate (LiBOB), the conductivities of the compounds were determined. These carbonate compounds themselves did not show promising conductivities. However, when used as additives to silicone-containing oligoether electrolytes, the conductivities of the resulting mixtures were increased by up to 35%.     

Hydrothermal synthesis and crystal structure of a new open-framework 3-D AlPO-DACH: [NH3-(C6H10)-NH3]3 [H6Al12P16 O64]

In this paper we describe the preparation of a new aluminophosphate (AlPO-DACH) [C₆ H₁₈ N₂Al₄ P_5.32O_21.32] by hydrothermal method. The structure was characterized by the single-crystal X ray diffraction. This material crystallizes in the trigonal system, space group P-3c1, a = 12.948 Å, b = 12.948 Å, c = 18.466 Å; α = 90° ; β = 90° ; γ = 120°.V = 26811(16)ų, Z = 12, R:0.086 with 808 reflections.     

Cross‐layer design for MIMO systems over spatially correlated and keyhole Nakagami‐m fading channels

Cross‐layer design is a generic designation for a set of efficient adaptive transmission schemes, across multiple layers of the protocol stack, that are aimed at enhancing the spectral efficiency and increasing the transmission reliability of wireless communication systems. In this paper, one such cross‐layer design scheme that combines physical layer adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) with link layer truncated automatic repeat request (T‐ARQ) is proposed for multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) systems employing orthogonal space‐‐time block coding (OSTBC). The performance of the proposed cross‐layer design is evaluated in terms of achievable average spectral efficiency (ASE), average packet loss rate (PLR) and outage probability, for which analytical expressions are derived, considering transmission over two types of MIMO fading channels, namely, spatially correlated Nakagami‐m fading channels and keyhole Nakagami‐m fading channels. Furthermore, the effects of the maximum number of ARQ retransmissions, numbers of transmit and receive antennas, Nakagami fading parameter and spatial correlation parameters, are studied and discussed based on numerical results and comparisons. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving UF particleboard adhesives water resistance by small albumin and sunflower oil additions

The addition of small amounts of albumin solution to urea–formaldehyde (UF) resins improves markedly the UF bond line water resistance. It was shown that already an addition of 2 % (by mass) of egg albumin and sunflower oil to the UF resin improves the durability of particleboards in water.