Real-time automatic integrated monitoring of barn environment and dairy cattle behaviour: Technical implementation and evaluation on three commercial farms

Due to increasing herd sizes and automation on dairy farms there is an important need for automated monitoring of cow production, health, and welfare. Despite much progress in automatic monitoring techniques, there is still a need to integrate data from multiple sources to create a comprehensive overview and accurate diagnosis of a cow’s state. To aid the technological development of data integration, a prototype of an open and customizable automatic system that integrates data from multiple sensors relating to barn environment and cow behaviour was developed. The system integrates data from sensors that measure barn climate (e.g., temperature, humidity, wind speed), air quality (e.g., CO2 concentration), water use and temperature, the moisture and temperature of the litter and cow behaviour (e.g., lying, eating, ruminating). An external weather system and video recording system are also included. The system’s architecture consists of four main elements: sensors, nodes, gateways, and backend. The data are recorded by sensors, then locally processed on custom-developed sensor nodes, and then transmitted via radio channels to local gateways that combine the data from multiple nodes and transmit them to distributed digital storage (“the cloud”) via a 3G/4G cellular network. On the cloud, the data are further processed and stored in a database. The data are then presented to the user continuously and in real time on a dashboard that can be accessed via the internet. In the design of the local wireless network, care was taken to avoid data packet collision and thus to minimize data loss. To test the system’s performance, the system was installed and operated on three commercial dairy cattle farms for one year. The system provided high data stability with minimal loss and outliers, showing that the system is reliable and suitable for long term application on commercial dairy farms. The system’s architecture, communication network, and data processing and visualization applications form an open framework for research and development purposes, allowing it to be customized and fine-tuned before being deployed as a management assistant on commercial dairy farms. Missing elements that should be added in the future are the integration of the data from the milking parlour and cow identification. Algorithms to integrate information from multiple sensors can be added to provide a comprehensive system that monitors all aspects related to cow welfare, health, and production automatically, remotely and in real time, thereby supporting farmers in important management decision-making

Evaluation of ruminal degradation profiles of forages using bags made from different textiles

The objective of this study was to evaluate the in situ degradation profiles of dry matter (DM) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) of different forages using nylon (50 µm), F57 (Ankom®) and non-woven textile (NWT - 100 g/m²) bags. Eight forage samples were used: sugarcane, corn silage, elephant grass cut at 50 and 250 days of regrowth, corn straw, signal grass hay, coast cross hay, and fresh alfalfa. Samples were incubated for 0, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, 144, 168, 192, 216, 240, and 312 hours. Two bags of each textile were used at each incubation time, totaling 768 bags, using two crossbred Holstein × Zebu steers fitted with ruminal canullae. There was difference in the common rate of lag and degradation (λ) of DM for all forages, except for sugarcane. In general, higher λ estimates were obtained using nylon, followed by NWT and F57. Concerning NDF degradation profiles, differences in λ were observed for all forages. Greater estimates were obtained using nylon. Degradation profiles of DM and NDF must not be evaluated using F57 and NWT. These textiles underestimate the degradation rate due to constraints regarding exchange between bags' content and rumen environment

Teachers' network and digital repository of educational resources: A history of contemporary capitalism I. The crisis of the liberal State and the first globalization through filmic, literary and aesthetic sources.

Se trata de crear un repositorio digital de apoyo a la docencia virtual, con contribuciones innovadoras en el empleo de fuentes artísticas y culturales para el estudio de la crisis del Estado liberal y de la primera globalización (1920-1930).This project aims to create a digital repository to support virtual teaching, with innovative contributions in the use of artistic and cultural sources for the study of the crisis of the liberal State and the first globalization (1920-1930).Depto. de Filosofía y SociedadFac. de FilosofíaFALSEUCMsubmitte