Optimising sward structure and herbage yield for the performance of dairy cows at pasture.

End of Project ReportsThe basic unit of intake is the bite. The total daily intake of grazed grass is determined by the number of bites taken and the weight of the average bite. In this project the focus was on sward structure (architecture) and its effects on bite volume and weight. There were two objectives. The first was to determine the plant growth mechanism responsible for variations in sward structure. The investigation was carried out at The Queen’s University in Belfast and involved microscopic study of leaves from plants grown under controlled conditions. The second objective, to determine how bite volume and mass was affected by differences in sward structure was a field study using fistulated cows and was done at Moorepark.EU Structural Funds (EAGGF

An adaptive turbulence filter for decomposition of organized turbulent flows

A new decomposition has been developed in which turbulent processes in shear flows may be represented as a combination of organized and more random turbulent motions. Each component is modeled as a summation of its characteristic eddies, of strength that varies in time and space as a function of the entire process. The contribution of all turbulent eddies of the more random component are estimated with an adaptive turbulence filter, which recognizes this component as the orthogonal partner to organized motion, with a power density spectrum of appropriate shape. The decomposition recovers organized motion from time and space series of data in a physically meaningful way, and can be used to characterize interaction between coherent and more random motions. It also provides an estimate for the turbulence in shear flows that are too complex for a meaningful average motion to be identified.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69639/2/PHFLE6-6-5-1775-1.pd

Chemical Spectral Analysis through Sonification

Chemical spectra are an important part of how research chemists analyse the outcomes of experiments. However these complex spectra can be very difficult and time consuming to analyse. This paper outlines an investigation into using sonification to improve the understanding and ease of analysis of chemical spectral data. The project specifically uses sonification techniques to display Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectra. Two sonification methods were designed to offer different perspectives on the data; "Spectral Audification" allows a quick overview of the data while maintaining its subtleties whereas a simple parameter mapping method allows more in-depth analysis of the spectra such as the use of rhythmic patterns to make sets of peaks easily identifiable

Hydrogeological and geotechnical rock property characterization from geophysics

Boreholes drilled at Sellafield penetrated a variety of rock units. Core samples and wireline logs indicate that rock mass properties and in situ fluid properties vary from one unit to another, but that properties are relatively uniform for each unit within a particular borehole. Variability is superimposed upon the bulk rock mass properties, however, where faults or zones of fractured rock intersect a borehole. Furthermore, lateral variability within a particular unit may be expected between boreholes and throughout the rock volume. The primary objectives of the work were: to establish a means of determining the spatial heterogeneity and distribution of rock mass and fluid properties using measurements made on core samples and derived from wireline logs; to determine the spatial heterogeneity and distribution of rock mass properties away from boreholes and in three-dimensions, by extrapolating the detailed understanding gained from boreholes into the seismic survey volume; and to develop a visualization model of rock mass properties in three-dimensions. It has been demonstrated that acoustic impedance is the principal property in common between surface seismic and borehole measurements, and that it provides a link between the various scales of measurement. Dynamic rock quality and hydrogeological indices have been developed which allow qualitative comparisons to be made between the boreholes. Empirical relationships have also been established between acoustic impedance and rock quality, and between acoustic impedance and hydrogeological properties. These relationships enable continuous profile quantitative estimations of Rock Mass Rating and hydraulic conductivity to be made from wireline logs, and have allowed these properties to be extrapolated into the seismic acoustic impedance volume, thereby providing three-dimensional visualizations of the spatial heterogeneity of rock mass properties

An Adaptive Computational Model for Predicting the Density Distribution of the Proximal Femur

A custom algorithm was developed to simulate adaptive boneremodeling. The process of adaptive bone remodeling can besimulated with a self-optimizing finite element method (FEM). Thebasic remodeling rule attempts to obtain a constant value for thestrain energy per unit bone mass, by adapting density. The precisesolution is dependent on the loads, initial conditions and theparameters in the remodeling rule. The aim of this study was toidentify how the bone density distribution of the proximal femurwas affected by parameters which govern the remodeling process.The forces at different phases of the gait cycle were applied asboundary conditions. The bone density distributions from theseforces were averaged to estimate the density distribution in theproximal femur. The effect of varying the spatial influencefunction, and the influence range on the converged solution wereinvestigated. It was shown that varying these parameters withinreasonable upper and lower bounds had very little impact on thequalitative form of the converged solution. In all cases, thesolutions obtained are comparable with the actual density in theproximal femur, as measured by DEXA scans

Irish Dairy Farming: Effects of Introducing a Maize Component on Grassland Management Over the Next 50 Years

Typical management of Irish dairy units is based on a low-cost spring-calving strategy with 90% of annual feed derived from grass grown on the farm. Almost 70% of feed is from grazed grass managed by rotational grazing, the remainder is conserved forage and concentrates. The objectives of the work were to examine how the management system has to be modified when part of the dairy unit land is allocated to maize silage instead of grass silage production, and to examine how climate change over the next 50 years will impact on grass and maize management within the production system

Increasing intake by the development of optimal grazing management in relation to animal behaviour at pasture.

End of Project ReportIn each month from July to December, grazing activity for each of 12 animals was recorded over a number of days continuously using vibrarecorders. The work was done at Killarney National Park and the animals were heifers of the Kerry breed living under semi-natural conditions with abundant pasture available. In July (16 hour day-length) - all animals began grazing at dawn and grazed for about 2.5 hours. This first bout was followed at intervals of about 2 hours by shorter bouts each about one hour in duration. In late afternoon another bout commenced which continued for 4 to 5 hours through until after dusk. During darkness, about midnight, there was a short bout of grazing. All of the animals behaved thus and the pattern was repeated each day. Total grazing time was near 11 hours each day. By October day-length had decreased. There was still a bout at dawn and a bout at sunset. As in July there were three smaller bouts but all occurred during darkness. The total grazing time was close to 11 hours as before. The pattern of grazing was consistent between animals and days. In August-September-October and November there were always two major bouts of grazing related to dawn and dusk. Grazing total time was always near 11 hours. As day-length decreased the smaller daylight bouts were progressively replaced by bouts during darkness. Similar patterns were also found in studies of grazing Holstein/Friesian heifers and of housed non-lactating cows at Moorepark. The primary feature of the grazing pattern is the bout. The bout implies that there is a control that determines when grazing commences and ends. Rumen capacity plays a part but does not explain why minor bouts are only one hour and major bouts are more than 4 hours. The rigid association of the two major bouts with dawn and dusk implies that light also plays a part. That the total grazing time is constant suggests that yet another control is operating that is related to the state of the animal relative to a target state. And this control relates to a 24-hour period. Domestic bovines do not display any patterns of behaviour related to seasonal or lunar cycles. The patterns appear to be circadian and in that case it would not be surprising to find that the suggested light cue was present as a means of measuring the day.EU Structural Funds (EAGGF

Surface segregation of conformationally asymmetric polymer blends

We have generalized the Edwards' method of collective description of dense polymer systems in terms of effective potentials to polymer blends in the presence of a surface. With this method we have studied conformationally asymmetric athermic polymer blends in the presence of a hard wall to the first order in effective potentials. For polymers with the same gyration radius $R_g$ but different statistical segment lengths $l_{A}$ and $l_{B}$ the excess concentration of stiffer polymers at the surface is derived as % \delta \rho _{A}(z=0)\sim (l_{B}^{-2}-l_{A}^{-2}){\ln (}R_{g}^{2}/l_{c}^{2}{)%}, where $l_{c}$ is a local length below of which the incompressibility of the polymer blend is violated. For polymer blends differing only in degrees of polymerization the shorter polymer enriches the wall.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, revtex

A Systematic Mapping Study of Empirical Studies on Software Cloud Testing Methods

Context: Software has become more complicated, dynamic, and asynchronous than ever, making testing more challenging. With the increasing interest in the development of cloud computing, and increasing demand for cloud-based services, it has become essential to systematically review the research in the area of software testing in the context of cloud environments. Objective: The purpose of this systematic mapping study is to provide an overview of the empirical research in the area of software cloud-based testing, in order to build a classification scheme. We investigate functional and non-functional testing methods, the application of these methods, and the purpose of testing using these methods. Method: We searched for electronically available papers in order to find relevant literature and to extract and analyze data about the methods used. Result: We identified 69 primary studies reported in 75 research papers published in academic journals, conferences, and edited books. Conclusion: We found that only a minority of the studies combine rigorous statistical analysis with quantitative results. The majority of the considered studies present early results, using a single experiment to evaluate their proposed solution

The comparison of core and geophysical log measurements obtained in the Nirex investigation of the Sellafield region

The Sellafield region, west Cumbria, is the focus of one of the most thorough geological investigations in the United Kingdom. The Sellafield Site is defined as an area immediately around the potential repository, extending 6.5 km north-south by 8 km eastwest. Twenty six deep boreholes were drilled within the area up to the end of 1995, with a total depth of approximately 28 km. Most of these boreholes have been continuously cored, a total of over 17 kilometres of core, with average core recovery well in excess of 90%. All boreholes were logged with a comprehensive suite of geophysical logs, including many state of the art tools. Laboratory physical property analysis of hundreds of sample cores has been carried out. Pilot studies were carried out to compare and contrast datasets and to investigate the relationships between the different data scales. Various techniques, including fractal analysis and Artificial Neural Networks, were tried in order to explore the relationships of these data at a variety of measurement scales. The pilot study was conducted in two stages: (1) evaluation of the primary controlling factors of the physical properties; (2) testing the validity of ‘Up-scaling’. The rocks of the Borrowdale Volcanic Group provided the most challenging problems due to the physical properties being dominated by fracturing and associated alteration zones. Relationships between data types at different scales were established suggesting that the extrapolation of properties derived from core and wireline logs across three-dimensional seismic grids would allow an understanding of the properties throughout a three-dimensional volum