ECONOMICS OF SOME SWINE PRODUCTION SYSTEMS WITH REFERENCE TO ANIMAL WELFARE

Livestock Production/Industries,

A hidden scale dependency in conserving working woodlands

Because plans for large-scale landscape preservation in the US do not rely exclusively on lands held in trust, conservation programs have a vested interest in forest stewardship by private landowners. Selective harvests for commercial sale are often highlighted as a financial incentive for owners of non-industrial "family forests" to sustainably maintain the working character of their acreage rather than subdivide it or convert it for development. However, the business costs inherent in even a small-scale commercial timber harvest typically mean that forest parcels smaller than approximately 80 acres are too small to support a financial return. Statistics for private forest ownership in the U.S. suggest this minimum scale makes commercial harvest incentives effectively inaccessible to more than 90% of forest owners. Rural landscape conservation and commercial timber harvests depend on the same economies of scale to be viable. Designs for regional-scale forest conservation need to account for non-industrial but nonetheless commercial economies of scale that set an inherent limit on financial incentives intended to foster stewardship activity among family-forest landowner

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccination and control in cattle at the wildlife/livestock interface of the Mnisi communal area

Foot-and-mouth Diseases (FMD) is an important livestock disease with economic implications on trade. In southern Africa, the epidemiology of FMD is complicated as a result of the role of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer) in the maintenance and transmission of the South African Territories (SAT) virus serotypes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the FMD vaccination of cattle at the wildlife/livestock interface. A structured questionnaire was administered to communal farmers through in-person interview using the local language (Shangaan) to evaluate their perceptions concerning the current FMD vaccination programme. Cross-sectional sampling by cluster at herd levels was used to estimate proportions of cattle with high titres to FMDV-structural proteins, which was assumed to indicate an immunological response to vaccine routinely administered bi-annually in the absence of recently recorded outbreaks. A prospective cohort study was employed to evaluate immune responses and the duration of antibody responses to an inactivated aqueous trivalent FMD vaccine (SAT 1, SAT 2 & SAT 3) with blood samples collected on fortnightly bases. One hundred and four farmers responded to the questionnaire with 73% (76/104) being cattle owners while the remainder being hired cattle handlers. The majority of the respondents (79%; 95%CI: 70%-86%) indicated high level of satisfaction with the current animal health programme. The education level of the farmers varied over levels of satisfaction with the median education level being standard 9 (IQR: 2-12) for non-satisfied respondents, standard 3 (IQR: 0-6) for the little satisfied and standard 7 (IQR: 2-11) for the very satisfied respondents (P=0.036). Non-satisfied respondents were more likely to treat sick animals themselves than seek veterinary assistance (P=0.002). The majority of respondents identified the African buffalo as a risk factor for FMD outbreak (92%, 95%CI: 85%-96%). Two hundred and eighty-six cattle were sampled within six months post-vaccination and relative to antibody titre of ≥1.6 Log10 (1:40 dilution), 20% (95%CI: 14%-26%) of cattle had serologically converted to SAT 1, 39% (95%CI: 32%-46%) to SAT 2 and 22% (95%CI: 17%-27%) to SAT 3. Overall, only 4%, 15% and 9% of cattle had antibody titre ≥2 log10 to SAT 1, SAT 2 and SAT 3 respectively over a median period of 189 days since the most recent vaccination. Within the longitudinal study, few cattle had evidence of pre-existing antibody responses to SAT viruses at the beginning of the study. However, 14 days post-vaccination, the proportion of seropositive cattle (≥2 log10 titre) to the three SAT type viruses varied between 39% - 77% with SAT 2 having the highest proportions. Antibody responses peaked up to 98%, 98% and 65% at 42 days post-vaccination for SAT 2, SAT 3 and SAT 1 respectively until starting to decline at 56 days-post-vaccination.Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2014.National Research Foundation, South AfricaResearch Development ProjectUniversity of PretoriaProduction Animal StudiesMScUnrestricte

Arecibo PALFA Survey and Einstein@Home: Binary Pulsar Discovery by Volunteer Computing

We report the discovery of the 20.7 ms binary pulsar J1952+2630, made using the distributed computing project Einstein@Home in Pulsar ALFA survey observations with the Arecibo telescope. Follow-up observations with the Arecibo telescope confirm the binary nature of the system. We obtain a circular orbital solution with an orbital period of 9.4 hr, a projected orbital radius of 2.8 lt-s, and a mass function of f = 0.15 M ☉ by analysis of spin period measurements. No evidence of orbital eccentricity is apparent; we set a 2σ upper limit e 1.7 × 10–3. The orbital parameters suggest a massive white dwarf companion with a minimum mass of 0.95 M ☉, assuming a pulsar mass of 1.4 M ☉. Most likely, this pulsar belongs to the rare class of intermediate-mass binary pulsars. Future timing observations will aim to determine the parameters of this system further, measure relativistic effects, and elucidate the nature of the companion star