Recent trends to develop farmland into improved irrigated pastures raise questions regarding the profitability of creep supplementing terminal-sired calves on these production systems. This study was initiated to answer these questions. Two previously established adjacent sprinkler-irrigated plots were separated into 2 paddocks. One plot (3.4 ha) consisted of a monoculture of Seine tall fescue while the other plot (3.9 ha) consisted of a mixture of Seine tall fescue, AC Grazeland Alfalfa, and Norcen birdsfoot trefoil. The mixture of the second plot consisted of 50% tall fescue, 37.5% alfalfa, and 12.5% birdsfoot trefoil. Plots were designated as monoculture no-creep supplement (MONOC) (1.7 ha), monoculture with creep supplement (MONOS) (1.7 ha), mixed forage no-creep supplement (MIXC) (1.95 ha), and mixed forage with creep supplement (MIXS) (1.95 ha). Twenty-four spring calving cow-calf pairs were stratified into 4 groups based on calf body weight, sex, breed, dam body weight, dam BCS, and breed. Management-intensive grazing practices were implemented with cattle receiving a new allotment of forage at 0800 daily. Cattle grazed in a west-to-east direction across the pasture completing a grazing circuit every 24 to 30 d. Pasture forage production was estimated using a 0.163 m2 clip-plot. Forage production each period was highest for cattle grazing MIXS (4492 kg DM/ha) followed by MIXC (4116 kg DM/ha) (P=.58). Production from the MIX plot differed from MONO plot (P<.0001). Similar to MIX pasture production MONOC (3154 kg/ha) and MONS (3058 kg/ha) did not vary (P=.4324). Carrying capacity differed among all treatments. The highest carrying capacity was observed in the MIXS group with 3.37 pair/ha. The next highest carrying capacity was in the MIXC group at 3.05 pair/ha, which differed from MIXS (P=.0404). There was a difference between MIXC and MONOS (2.38 pair/ha) (P=.0051). The lowest carrying capacity was observed in the MONOC group (2.07 pair/ha), differing from MONOS (P=.0450). Calf end weight was highest for the MIXS group (343 kg) and differed from MONOC group (298 kg) (P=.0272); no other groups differed. Profitability did not follow pasture productivity completely. Due to high supplemental feed costs MIXC was the most profitable management strategy ($72.03 cow/yr) and was $137.50 cow/yr more profitable than the least profitable strategy, MONOS. Results from this study show that grass-legume mixtures are much more productive than grass monocultures under irrigation and management-intensive grazing of cow-calf pairs. In addition, on these forage resources the practice of supplying creep supplementation to high-growth, terminal calves is not economically profitable.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / In this work, a finite element model based on an improved first-order formulation (IFSDT) is developed to analyze buckling phenomenon in laminated composite beams. The formulation has five independent variables and takes into account thickness stretching. Threedimensional constitutive equations are employed to define the material properties. The Trefftz criterion is used for the stability analysis. The finite element model is derived from the principle of virtual work with high-order Lagrange polynomials to interpolate the field variables and to prevent shear locking. Numerical results are compared and validated with those available in literature. Furthermore, a parametric study is presented.

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Household air pollution annually kills around 14 300 people in Kenya, due to the hazardous smoke of incomplete combustion coming from inefficient stoves. Exposure to this smokeleads to lethal health issues for the women and children staying in these kitchens, but the smoke also leads to a contribution to global warming. Which makes it important finding are placement for the inefficient traditional cooking methods. This report presents results from a field work situated in Kibugu, Embu in central Kenya. It includes testing of three stoves, the traditional Three stone open fire and two biochar producing stoves, the previously tested stove Gastov made by KIRDI and the MiG|BioCooker made by Make It Green Solutions AB. The data was collected using participatory cooking tests where five households got to cook the traditional meal Ugali with Sukuma wiki and Githeri (maize and beans). Firewood consumption, emissions of CO and PM, user experience and char production were measured during the test, to be able to compare the stoves. The results indicate that the MiG|BioCooker can decrease the emissions of PM2.5 and CO in the kitchens and produce biochar. But on the other hand, cooking with three stone open fire more effective in terms of cooking time. Even though the MiG|BioCooker could improve the conditions of the household’s indoor air, the users seems to prioritize the practical characteristics of the three stone open fire that gives them more time and making it easier to cook. But with some modifications and by further use of the MiG|BioCooker, it might be apossible substitute to the three stone open fire in the future.

The cultivation of crop sunflower or Helianthus annuus is a 20 billion USD industry globally. Crop wild relatives of H. annuus have a long history of being used to breed improved traits into cultivated varieties. Cultivated H. annuus is not known to have a pleasant aroma, and at times seed yield is limited by pollination services, particularly in the production of hybrid seed. Improved floral fragrance could improve pollinator attraction and would add value to ornamental sunflowers in the context of the cut-flower industry. If volatile organic compounds that together generate favorable scents are present in wild Helianthus species, they could be bred into domesticated varieties. In order to assess the diversity of floral fragrance available in crop wild relatives, 30 diverse accessions of wild Helianthus as well as seven varieties of H. annuus spanning a domestication gradient were grown in a greenhouse experiment and variation in floral volatiles was analyzed by solid phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. While alpha-pinene made up a significant portion of the volatiles emitted for most taxa, there was substantial diversity present across the genus. Most volatiles emitted were found to be monoterpenoids with a significant share of sesquiterpenoids. Several wild accessions such as H. debilis subsp. tardiflorus and H. praecox subsp. praecox as well as open-pollinated domesticated accessions of H. annuus show promise for breeding for improved floral fragrance due to high volatile abundance and likely favorable compound compositions.

The Family Forest Research Center recently conducted a mail survey of about 1,400 Massachusetts landowners. Respondents were given questions about themselves and their land and were then asked to rate three carbon sequestration programs in terms of their likelihood to participate. An ordered logit model is used to estimate probabilities that landowners would participate in various improved forest management programs. There are several estimation issues to consider with the ordered logit model. The relative merits of alternative models, including the multinomial and binomial logit, rank-ordered logit, binary logit and mixed ordered logit are discussed. Results of the ordered logit indicate that older males with less education and who own less than 100 acres are less likely to participate in an improved forest management program. All landowners are less likely to participate in a program that requires a management plan and that has a lengthy time commitment, low revenue stream and early withdrawal penalty. Policy implications and direction for future research are discussed.

<p>  This dissertation has two essays that are focused on understanding the effects of technology adoption decisions made by smallholder farmers who have incomplete information. The first essay employed a clustered randomized control trial (RCT) with factorial design in upper Eastern Kenya to estimate the impact of three different interventions at improving credence attributes of smallholder farmers’ maize. This essay also utilized a Becker DeGroot Marschak auction method to determine if farmers were willing to adopt a credence technology, and if yes, if their willingness to pay varied based on having previous experience with this agricultural technology. The second essay used the 2018/19 Ethiopia Socio-economic Survey to analyze the impacts of three sources of measurement error caused by farmers’ misperceptions on maize yields. Moreover, this essay explored how farmers’ incomplete information about adoption of one agricultural input led to misallocation of other complementary inputs. </p>

In this paper, an algorithm for estimating lead-acid battery state of charge (SOC) is implemented. The algorithm, named “Improved Coulomb Counting Algorithm”, was developed within a master thesis project (M. M. Samolyk &amp; J. Sobczak, “Development of an algorithm for estimating Lead-acid Battery State of Charge and State of Health”, M.S. thesis, Dept. Signal Processing, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden, 2013) with cooperation of a Swedish company – Micropower – Research and Development department.  Currently used method at Micropower is Coulomb Counting; implemented algorithm compares coulomb counting method with open circuit voltage method and uses current, terminal voltage and temperature measurements to finally produce improvement for the very same coulomb counting method and get a better estimation of SOC.  The algorithm was implemented on Micropower Access Battery Monitoring Unit (BMU) using C programming language, so that it can be tested in real time application of the regular battery operation. In the end specific gravity measurements were also presented to comparing the methods.

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Background: Much has happened in information technology in the last decade, and the amount of information someone can be exposed to is enormous. There are many digital information channels today used at different organizations. This research study has investigated which channel is used the most, and if there are any methods for handling the flow of information. With these tools and methods, together with a sufficient literature review a proposed model was developed to aid organizations with their information flow. Aim: To conduct research in the field of internal communication with focus on digital channels, to finally come up with what tools and methods can be used for improved internal communication, and to propose a model for this. Method: Three sources of data collections have been used. The first one is semi-structured interviews, where six volunteers have participated, the age ranging from 31-60. The targeted volunteers were the managers, and the employees of the organizations. The second is surveys where 14 volunteers contributed, where we used snowball sampling. The third is a document study that consists of research-generated literature review. Results/Conclusion: Our analysis concluded that the most useful tools for communicating with digital channel sare, namely, email, intranet and telephone. However, the usefulness of the tools decline rapidly when too much unnecessary information flows in the wrong channels. What this research study came up with regarding contribution was an easy to use four step model to be able to classify the information and use the correct channel for it. Working alongside this model, will help with minimizing information overload in the channels used for communication. It is also important from an organization perspective when onboarding employees to learn which channels are used for which kind of information.