Organic-Conventional Dairy Systems Trial in New Zealand: Four Years’ Results

The Organic-Conventional Comparative Dairy Systems trial at Massey University began in August 2001, and the organic farmlet achieved certification in August 2003. The trial is unique because it is the only comparative grassland-based open grazing dairy study in the world. The organic and conventional systems are managed individually according to best practice, and both are intensively monitored for production, animal health, and environmental impacts. The systems remained similar for the first two years, but began to diverge in the third and fourth years. Production has been 10-20% lower on the organic farm, but environmental impacts appear to be less than on the conventional unit, and net incomes would be similar given a 20% price premium for the organic product. Animal health issues have been manageable on the organic farmlet, and not too dissimilar from the conventional farmlet. Full results after four years of the trial will be available and presented at the conference

Visualizing probabilistic models: Intensive Principal Component Analysis

Unsupervised learning makes manifest the underlying structure of data without curated training and specific problem definitions. However, the inference of relationships between data points is frustrated by the `curse of dimensionality' in high-dimensions. Inspired by replica theory from statistical mechanics, we consider replicas of the system to tune the dimensionality and take the limit as the number of replicas goes to zero. The result is the intensive embedding, which is not only isometric (preserving local distances) but allows global structure to be more transparently visualized. We develop the Intensive Principal Component Analysis (InPCA) and demonstrate clear improvements in visualizations of the Ising model of magnetic spins, a neural network, and the dark energy cold dark matter ({\Lambda}CDM) model as applied to the Cosmic Microwave Background.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure

Modelling the Performance of Irish Credit Unions, 2002 to 2010

This study undertakes a modeling based performance assessment of all Irish credit unions between 2002 and 2010, a particularly turbulent period in their history. The analysis explicitly addresses the current challenges faced by credit unions in that the modeling approach used rewards credit unions for reducing undesirable outputs (impaired loans and investments) as well as for increasing desirable outputs (loans, earning assets and members’ funds) and decreasing inputs (labour expenditure, capital expenditure and fund expenses). The main findings are: credit unions are subject to increasing returns to scale; technical regression occurred in the years after 2007; there is significant scope for an improvement in efficiency through expansion of desirable outputs and contraction of undesirable outputs and inputs; and that larger credit unions, that are better capitalised and pay a higher dividend to members are more efficient than their smaller, less capitalised, and lower dividend paying counterparts

Advanced Space Suit PLSS 2.0 Cooling Loop Evaluation and PLSS 2.5 Recommendations

From 2012 to 2015 The NASA/JSC AdvSS (Advanced Space Suit) PLSS (Primary Life Support Subsystem) team, with support from UTC Aerospace Systems, performed the build-up, packaging and testing of PLSS 2.0. A key aspect of that testing was the evaluation of the long-term health of the water cooling circuit and the interfacing components. Intermittent and end-of-test water, residue and hardware analyses provided valuable information on the status of the water cooling circuit, and the approaches that would be necessary to enhance water cooling circuit health in the future. The evaluated data has been consolidated, interpreted and woven into an action plan for the maintenance of water cooling circuit health for the planned FY (fiscal year) 2016 through FY 2018 PLSS 2.5 testing. This paper provides an overview of the PLSS 2.0 water cooling circuit findings and the associated steps to be taken in that regard for the PLSS 2.5 testing

Advanced Space Suit PLSS 2.0 Cooling Loop Evaluation and PLSS 2.5 Recommendations

From 2012 to 2015 The NASA/JSC AdvSS (Advanced Space Suit) PLSS (Portable Life Support Subsystem) team, with support from UTC Aerospace Systems, performed the build-up, packaging and testing of PLSS 2.0. One aspect of that testing was the evaluation of the long-term health of the water cooling circuit and the interfacing components. Periodic and end-of-test water, residue and hardware analyses provided valuable information on the status of the water cooling circuit, and the approaches that would be necessary to enhance water cooling circuit health in the future. The evaluated data has been consolidated, interpreted and woven into an action plan for the maintenance of water cooling circuit health for the planned FY (fiscal year) 2016 through FY 2018 PLSS 2.5 testing. This paper provides an overview of the PLSS 2.0 water cooling circuit findings and the associated steps to be taken in that regard for the PLSS 2.5

Alarm Forecasting in Natural Gas Pipelines

This thesis examines alarm forecasting methods for a natural gas production pipeline to assure the efficient transportation of high-quality natural gas. Natural gas production companies use pipelines to transport natural gas from the extraction well to a distribution point. Forecasting natural gas pipeline pressure alarms helps control room operators maintain a functioning pipeline and avoid costly down time. As gas enters the pipeline and travels to the distribution point, it is expected that the gas meets certain specifications set in place by either state law or the customer receiving the gas. If the gas meets these standards and is accepted at the distribution point, the pipeline is referred to as being in a steady-state. If the gas does not meet these standards, the production company runs the risk of being shut-in, or being unable to flow any more gas through the distribution point until the poor-quality gas is removed.Sensors are used to collect real-time gas quality information from within the pipe, and alarms are used to alert the control operators when a threshold is exceeded. If operators fail to keep the pipeline’s gas quality within an acceptable range, the company risks being shut¬¬-in or rupturing the pipeline. Predicting gas quality alarms enables operators to act earlier to avoid being shut-in and is a form of predictive maintenance. We forecast alarms by using a 10th-order autoregressive model, autoregressive model with exogenous variable, simple exponential smoothing with drift (Theta Method) and an artificial neural network with alarm thresholds. The alarm thresholds are defined by the production company and are occasionally adjusted to meet current environment conditions. The results of the alarm forecasting method show that we accurately forecast natural gas pipeline alarms up to a 30-minute time horizon. This translates into sensitivity rates that drop from around 100% at one minute to 82.7% at a 30-minute forecast horizon. This means that at 30 minutes, we correctly forecast 82.7% of the alarms. All alarm forecasting models outperform the state-or-the-art forecaster used by the production company, with the artificial neural network performing the best

The Recent Star Formation History of NGC 5102

We present Hubble Space Telescope photometry of young stars in NGC 5102, a nearby gas-rich post-starburst S0 galaxy with a bright young stellar nucleus. We use the IAC-pop/MinnIAC algorithm to derive the recent star formation history in three fields in the bulge and disk of NGC 5102. In the disk fields, the recent star formation rate has declined monotonically and is now barely detectable, but a starburst is still in progress in the bulge and has added about 2 percent to the mass of the bulge over the last 200 Myr. Other studies of star formation in NGC 5102 indicate that about 20 percent of its stellar mass was added over the past Gyr. If this is correct, then much of the stellar mass of the bulge may have formed over this period. It seems likely that this star formation was fueled by the accretion of a gas-rich system with HI mass of about 2 x 10^9 Msol which has now been almost completely converted into stars. The large mass of recently formed stars and the blue colours of the bulge suggest that the current starburst, which is now fading, may have made a significant contribution to build the bulge of NGC 5102.Comment: 36 pages, 16 figures, accepted in A

Ecological interactions involving plant selenium hyperaccumulation

2010 Summer.Includes bibliographic references.Covers not scanned.Print version deaccessioned 2022.To view the abstract, please see the full text of the document

Effects of Exercise Training and Doxorubicin on Myogenic Regulatory Factors

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a widely used anthracycline antibiotic used to treat a number of hematological and solid tumor cancers. Dosage; however, is limited due to its toxic effects in healthy tissues. Negative consequences include myotoxicity in skeletal muscle, which may limit mobility and activities of daily living. The capacity for skeletal muscular regeneration relies heavily of the activity of myogenic regulatory factor (MRF) proteins. In vitro experiments with DOX depress expression of MRFs but in vivo treatment may elicit different responses. Endurance exercise has been shown to elevate MRF expression, and may preserve MRFs following in vivo DOX-treatment. Purpose: To determine the effect of short-term endurance training and acute DOX administration of skeletal muscle force production and fatigue resistance, levels of lipid peroxidation, and expression of MRFs. Methods: Ten week old male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly assigned to one of four groups: sedentary + saline (SED-SAL), SED- DOX, endurance exercise training + saline (EXER-SAL), or EXER-DOX. Animals remained sedentary or performed treadmill training for two weeks. Twenty four hours after the activity period, animals were injected with a bolus 15 mg/kg i.p. injection of DOX or SAL. Twenty four hours after injection, soleus (SOL) and extensor digitorum longus (EDL) skeletal muscles were removed for ex vivo function measures. Analyses of lipid peroxidation as malondialdehyde and 4-hydroxyalkenals (MDA + 4-HAE) and Western blotting for concentration for MRFs (Myf5, MyoD, myogenin, Mrf4) were performed on contralateral muscles. Results: Endurance exercise significantly elevated Myf5 and Mrf4 in the SOL (p\u3c0.05). No significant differences existed in MRF expression levels in the EDL. No significant muscle force production or fatigue resistance differences were identified due to drug or activity treatment. MDA + 4-HAE was higher in the SOL of SAL animals (p\u3c0.05) and EDL of EXER animals (p\u3c0.05). Conclusion: Short-term endurance exercise effectively elevated Myf5 and Mrf4 in slow, oxidative muscle after acute DOX treatment. Endurance exercise prior to chemotherapy may augment skeletal muscles’ regenerative capacity following treatment, when loss of muscle mass is common