ECONOMIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION OF DAIRY MANURE UTILIZATION FOR YEAR ROUND CROP PRODUCTION

The production of excess on-farm manure is placing continuous pressures on dairy producers to meet or exceed standards for environmental regulations while maintaining profitability and competitiveness. Evaluation of the effects of recycling nutrients on the profitability of the whole farm enterprise is important for a dairy operation. The objective of this study was to develop a linear programming model that evaluates the economic performance of a dairy operation considering production and environmental constraints. The main goal was to maximize profits from the dairy enterprise considering milk production, manure production, crop production while maintaining a balance of nutrients in the system. Results from simulation analyses showed greater effects on total farm profits at the more restrictive P-based than N-based manure application rates.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Processing of fear and anger facial expressions::the role of spatial frequency

Spatial frequency (SF) components encode a portion of the affective value expressed in face images. The aim of this study was to estimate the relative weight of specific frequency spectrum bandwidth on the discrimination of anger and fear facial expressions. The general paradigm was a classification of the expression of faces morphed at varying proportions between anger and fear images in which SF adaptation and SF subtraction are expected to shift classification of facial emotion. A series of three experiments was conducted. In Exp. 1 subjects classified morphed face images that were unfiltered or filtered to remove either low (<8 cycles/face), middle (12 to 28 cycles/f) or high (>32 cycles/f) SF components. In Exp. 2 subjects were adapted to unfiltered or filtered prototypical (non-morphed) fear face images and subsequently classified morphed face images. In Exp. 3 subjects were adapted to unfiltered or filtered prototypical fear face images with the phase component randomized before classifying morphed face images. Removing mid frequency components from the target images shifted classification towards fear. The same shift was observed under adaptation condition to unfiltered and low- and middle-range filtered fear images. However, when the phase spectrum of the same adaptation stimuli was randomized, no adaptation effect was observed. These results suggest that medium SF components support the perception of fear more than anger at both low and high level of processing. They also suggest that the effect at high-level processing stage is related more to high-level featural and/or configural information than to the low-level frequency spectrum

Self-similar shear-thickening behavior in CTAB/NaSal surfactant solutions

The effect of salt concentration Cs on the critical shear rate required for the onset of shear thickening and apparent relaxation time of the shear-thickened phase, has been investigated systematically for dilute CTAB/NaSal solutions. Experimental data suggest a self-similar behavior of the critical shear rate and relaxation time as functions of Cs. Specifically, the former ~ Cs^(-6) whereas the latter ~ Cs^(6) such that an effective Weissenberg number for the onset of the shear thickened phase is only weakly dependent on Cs. A procedure has been developed to collapse the apparent shear viscosity versus shear rate data obtained for various values of Cs into a single master curve. The effect of Cs on the elastic modulus and mesh size of the shear-induced gel phase for different surfactant concentrations is discussed. Experiments performed using different flow cells (Couette and cone-and-plate) show that the critical shear rate, relaxation time and the maximum viscosity attained are geometry-independent. The elastic modulus of the gel phase inferred indirectly by employing simplified hydrodynamic instability analysis of a sheared gel-fluid interface is in qualitative agreement with that predicted for an entangled phase of living polymers. A qualitative mechanism that combines the effect of Cs on average micelle length and Debye parameter with shear-induced configurational changes of rod-like micelles is proposed to rationalize the self-similarity of SIS formation.Comment: 27 pages, 17 figure

Spontaneous Calcium Release in Cardiac Myocytes: Store Overload and Electrical Dynamics

Heart disease is the leading cause of mortality in the United States. One cause of heart arrhythmia is calcium (Ca2+) mishandling in cardiac muscle cells. We adapt Izu\u27s et al. mathematical reaction-diffusion model of calcium in cardiac muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes implemented by Gobbert, and analyzed in Coulibaly et al. to include calcium being released from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), the effects of buffers in the SR, particularly calsequestrin, and the effects of Ca2+ influx due to voltage across the cell membrane. Based on simulations of the model implemented in parallel using MPI, our findings aligned with known biological models and principles, giving us a thorough understanding of several factors that influence Ca2+ dynamics in cardiac myocytes. Specifically, dynamic calcium store will cap previous calcium blow-up seen in the model. Calcium channels located in spatial opposition of calcium release units produce more predictable intracellular calcium propagation. And we used multi-parametric calcium dynamics tables, which act as a multidimensional bifurcation diagram, to visualize parameter boundaries between different biophysical dynamics

Operational Issues and Trends Associated with the Pilot Introduction of Zinc for Childhood Diarrhoea in Bougouni District, Mali

Zinc for the treatment of childhood diarrhoea was introduced in a pilot area in southern Mali to prepare for a cluster-randomized effectiveness study and to inform policies on how to best introduce and promote zinc at the community level. Dispersible zinc tablets in 14-tablet blister packs were provided through community health centres and drug kits managed by community health workers (CHWs) in two health zones in Bougouni district, Mali. Village meetings and individual counselling provided by CHWs and head nurses at health centres were the principal channels of communication. A combination of methods were employed to (a) detect problems in communication about the benefits of zinc and its mode of administration; (b) identify and resolve obstacles to implementation of zinc through existing health services; and (c) describe household-level constraints to the adoption of appropriate home-management practices for diarrhoea, including administration of both zinc and oral rehydration solution (ORS). Population-based household surveys with caretakers of children sick in the previous two weeks were carried out before and four months after the introduction of zinc supplementation. Household follow-up visits with children receiving zinc from the health centres and CHWs were conducted on day 3 and 14 after treatment for a subsample of children. A qualitative process evaluation also was conducted to investigate operational issues. Preliminary evidence from this study suggests that the introduction of zinc does not reduce the use of ORS and may reduce inappropriate antibiotic use for childhood diarrhoea. Financial access to treatments, management of concurrent diarrhoea and fever, and high use of unauthorized drug vendors were identified as factors affecting the effectiveness of the intervention in this setting. The introduction of zinc, if not appropriately integrated with other disease-control strategies, has the potential to decrease the appropriate presumptive treatment of childhood malaria in children with diarrhoea and fever in malaria-endemic areas

Diritto Privato

Lo scritto ha ad oggetto i capitoli su modi di estinzione dell'obbligazione diversi dall'adempimento, singoli contratti, possesso, famiglia e trascrizione dei tomi secondo e terzo del manuale Diritto Privato (Utet) in adozione presso alcune Università Italiane e diffuso anche all’estero. I menzionati capitoli si segnalano per una trattazione non meramente istituzionale, ma particolarmente attenta al dato applicativo e giurisprudenziale, che rende il manuale stesso utilizzato largamente per la preparazione all’esame per avvocato e ai concorsi pubblici di secondo livello (magistratura ordinaria e amministrativa.

Effect of vessel wettability on the foamability of "ideal" surfactants and "real-world" beer heads

The ability to tailor the foaming properties of a solution by controlling its chemical composition is highly desirable and has been the subject of extensive research driven by a range of applications. However, the control of foams by varying the wettability of the foaming vessel has been less widely reported. This work investigates the effect of the wettability of the side walls of vessels used for the in situ generation of foam by shaking aqueous solutions of three different types of model surfactant systems (non-ionic, anionic and cationic surfactants) along with four different beers (Guinness Original, Banks’s Bitter, Bass No 1 and Harvest Pale). We found that hydrophilic vials increased the foamability only for the three model systems but increased foam stability for all foams except the model cationic system. We then compared stability of beer foams produced by shaking and pouring and demonstrated weak qualitative agreement between both foam methods. We also showed how wettability of the glass controls bubble nucleation for beers and champagne and used this effect to control exactly where bubbles form using simple wettability patterns

Measurement of the Structure Function of the Nearly Free Neutron Using Spectator Tagging in Inelastic ²H(e,e\u27pˢ) X Scattering with CLAS

Background: Much less is known about neutron structure than that of the proton due to the absence of free neutron targets. Neutron information is usually extracted from data on nuclear targets such as deuterium, requiring corrections for nuclear binding and nucleon off-shell effects. These corrections are model dependent and have significant uncertainties, especially for large values of the Bjorken scaling variable x . As a consequence, the same data can lead to different conclusions, for example, about the behavior of the d quark distribution in the proton at large x . Purpose: The Barely Off-shell Nucleon Structure experiment at Jefferson Lab measured the inelastic electron-deuteron scattering cross section, tagging spectator protons in coincidence with the scattered electrons. This method reduces nuclear binding uncertainties significantly and has allowed for the first time a (nearly) model-independent extraction of the neutron structure function F2(x,Q2) in the resonance and deep-inelastic regions. Method: A novel compact radial time projection chamber was built to detect protons with momentum between 70 and 150 MeV/c and over a nearly 4π angular range. For the extraction of the free-neutron structure function Fn2 , spectator protons at backward angles (\u3e100∘ relative to the momentum transfer) and with momenta below 100 MeV/c were selected, ensuring that the scattering took place on a nearly free neutron. The scattered electrons were detected with Jefferson Lab\u27s CLAS spectrometer, with data taken at beam energies near 2, 4, and 5 GeV. Results: The extracted neutron structure function Fn2 and its ratio to the inclusive deuteron structure function Fd2 are presented in both the resonance and the deep-inelastic regions for momentum transfer squared Q2 between 0.7 and 5 GeV2/c2 , invariant mass W between 1 and 2.7 GeV/c2 , and Bjorken x between 0.25 and 0.6 (in the deep-inelastic scattering region). The dependence of the semi-inclusive cross section on the spectator proton momentum and angle is investigated, and tests of the spectator mechanism for different kinematics are performed. Conclusions: Our data set on the structure function ratio Fn2/Fd2 can be used to study neutron resonance excitations, test quark-hadron duality in the neutron, develop more precise parametrizations of structure functions, and investigate binding effects (including possible mechanisms for the nuclear EMC effect) and provide a first glimpse of the asymptotic behavior of d/u at x→1