Economics of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Strategies in a North-Eastern Brazilian Beef Production System

The state of Maranhão, Brazil, has been among the country’s fastest-growing cattle regions in recent years and it now faces important conflicts for beef production. Pasture degradation, low cattle productivity, and land-use changes due to agriculture and forestry expansion are key challenges. Additionally, beef production systems are a focus for emissions reduction, particularly in the context of increasing deforestation and its impact on global warming. A sustainable intensification of currently used pastures, enhancing economic viability and reducing environmental effects of beef production can help to mitigate the climate impact. Since economics is an important incentive in the decision-making processes of farmers, we analysed the effects of greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation strategies on performance, economics and emissions in a representative north-eastern Brazilian beef production system. Improved pasture and herd management, feed supplementation and Silvopastoral Systems (SPS) were included. Based on a case study, we applied six strategies to the production system, covering the complete cycle from cow-calf (CC) to finishing cattle (FIN). We compared the improved production scenarios to the baseline representing the status quo of beef production in Maranhão. Our production-economic analysis shows a significant increase in land, labour and capital productivity, resulting in increased whole farm profitability. The scenario is long-term profitable, covering direct costs, depreciation and opportunity costs. Applying IPCC methodology, we found a reduction of GHG emissions per kg live weight added by 29 % in CC and by 45 % in FIN. Considering the increased stocking rate, enhanced carbon sequestration via SPS systems are necessary to counterbalance the increased emissions per land unit. Our results confirm the possibility to offset beef-production-related emissions by SPS. With regard to effects and economic implications, our findings contribute valuable knowledge on available, appropriate and feasible pathways for upscaling sustainable beef production

Behavior Analysis of Human Locomotion in Real World and Virtual Reality for Manufacturing Industry

Agethen P, Subramanian Sekar V, Gaisbauer F, Pfeiffer T, Otto M, Rukzio E. Behavior Analysis of Human Locomotion in Real World and Virtual Reality for Manufacturing Industry. ACM Transactions on Applied Perception (TAP). 2018;15(3): 20.With the rise of immersive visualization techniques, many domains within the manufacturing industry are increasingly validating production processes in virtual reality (VR). The validity of the results gathered in such simulations, however, is widely unknown - in particular with regard to human locomotion behavior. To bridge this gap, this paper presents an experiment, analyzing the behavioral disparity between human locomotion being performed without any equipment and in immersive virtual reality while wearing a head-mounted display (HMD). The presented study (n = 30) is split up in three sections and covers linear walking, non-linear walking and obstacle avoidance. Special care has been given to design the experiment so that findings are generally valid and can be applied to a wide range of domains beyond the manufacturing industry. The findings provide novel insights into the effect of immersive virtual reality on specific gait parameters. In total, a comprehensive sample of 18.09 km is analyzed. The results reveal that the HMD had a medium effect (up to 13%) on walking velocity, on non-linear walking towards an oriented target and on clearance distance. The overall-differences are modeled using multiple regression models, thus allowing the general usage within various domains. Summarizing, it can be concluded that VR can be used to analyze and plan human locomotion, however, specific details may have to be adjusted in order to transfer findings to the real world

Approaches to fattening dairy calves

Innovative organic producers have developed alternative systems for fattening calves, bulls and steers from dairy farming. This technical guide presents the systems and shows what to pay attention to when fattening calves

InP-BASED HBT with graded InGaAlAs BASE layer grown by LP-MOVPE

A compositionally graded InGaAlAs:C base layer is inserted in an InP-based HBT grown by LP-MOVPE with a novel non-gaseous source configuration. Due to the addition of 6% Al the active hole concentration in the HBT base layer, deduced from Hall measurements, is increased from 1.5 10 19 to 3.8 10 19 cm -3 . Moreover, an In-grading within the base layer results in an intrinsic electric field of about 5.4 kV/cm. A high dc current gain of β = 35 is provided at a high p-type doping level. First HBT devices exhibit a current gain cut-off frequency of fT = 117 GHz and an unilateral gain cut-off frequency of 90 GHz (not de-embedded)