A note on the design and testing of single teatcups for automatic milking systems

peer-reviewedIn automatic milking units single independent teatcups or shell/liner combinations are required. The milking characteristics of three designs of single-teatcup milking units were compared with a conventional milking unit in a pipeline milking system. The combined weight of each single-teatcup shell and liner used in the single-teatcup units was 0.18 kg, 0.38 kg or 0.56 kg. The conventional milking cluster had a claw volume of 150 mL and a weight of 3.16 kg. The single sets of teatcups were applied manually and removed automatically when milk flow from the four teatcups reached 0.2 kg/min. The experiment involved a latin square design with four groups of Friesian cows (10 cows/group), four 2-day periods and four treatments. At a flow rate of 4 L/min during simulated milking the mean vacuum level at the teat-end (artificial teat) during the “bphase” of pulsation was 43.8 kPa with the conventional milking unit and 33 kPa for the three single-teatcup units. The corresponding mean and minimum teat-end vacuum in the “d-phase” were 38.46 kPa and 29.54 kPa, respectively, for the conventional system and 24.95 kPa and 17.59 kPa, respectively, for the single-teatcup configuration. The light teatcup (weight 0.18 kg) gave longer time to milk letdown, longer milking time and both lower peak and average milk flow than the conventional cluster

A study of the somatic cell count (SCC) of Irish milk from herd management and environmental perspectives

End of project reportThe objective of this study was to investigate the herd management practices associated with somatic cell count (SCC) and total bacteria count (TBC), to geographically analyse SCC on a national basis, to investigate cow factors associated with SCC and to estimate the milk loss associated with high SCC across parities. From the 400 farms surveyed during farm visits throughout spring and winter, a profile of herd management was developed and the associations between management practices and milk SCC and TBC were established. Management practices associated with low SCC included the use of dry cow therapy, participation in a milk recording scheme, the use of teat disinfection post-milking, a higher frequency of cleaning and increased farm hygiene. Management practices associated with low TBC included the use of heated water in the milking parlour, participation in a milk recording scheme, tail clipping of cows at a frequency greater than once per year and increased farm hygiene. The spatial analysis showed that the south of the country had the greatest density of milk-recording herds. Approximately 60% of all herds in the study were from four counties (Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary). Average bulk tank SCC increased from 110,264 cells/mL in 2003 to 118,782 cells/mL in 2005, followed by a decrease to 108,454 cells/mL in 2007. Spatial clustering of high SCC scores was not observed (i.e., SCC on one farm was not related to SCC on other farms), which is consistent with mastitis being a herd problem as opposed to an area-based problem. SCC increased with parity from 97,000 cells/mL in parity 1 to 199,000 cell/mL in parity 6. SCC decreased between the period 5 to 35 days in milk (DIM) and 36 to 65 DIM, and increased thereafter. Cows calving in the months of January and September were associated with lower average 305 day SCC. The rate of increase in SCC from mid to late lactation was greatest in older parity animals. There was a test day milk loss of 1.43, 2.08, 2.59, 2.56 and 2.62 litres (parities 1 to 5, respectively) associated with an increase of SCC category from 400,000 cells/mL. When SCC was adjusted (test day SCC/dilution estimate, and test day SCC + (-ß)(test day milk yield)) to account for milk yield, similar trends in milk loss were observed. Alternatively, adjusting SCC (SCC*test day milk yield/mean test day milk yield) to account for milk yield showed an increase in test day milk with increasing SCC category. The results from this study highlight that adherence to best milking/farming practice will help reduce SCC and TBC on farms. The results contribute to the knowledge relating to SCC through increasing the accuracy of milk loss due to SCC and management practices associated with SCC. The results in the study can also be used in the development of strategies to reduce SCC on farms

The Effects of Forest Harvest on Water Quality and Aquatic Life (Phase I)

A long term study on the effects of clearcut forest harvest and regeneration was conducted in a representative watershed of the Ouachita National Forest. Fourteen water quality parameters were analyzed to characterize baseline water quality. Water quality was classified as excellent. A total of 350 quantitative benthic samples and 15 ultraviolet light trap samples yielded 173 species of macroinvertebrates. Mean densities of macroinvertebrates ranged from 4,800/m2 to 23,040/m2 and averaged 12,499/m2 in the upper Little Missouri River. Twenty-two quantitative collections of fishes were made at representative riffles and pools. The average biomass estimates for riffles and pools were 5.69 kg/ha and 16.66 kg/ha, respectively. The total numbers of individuals per hectare were higher in riffles than in pools. Lower standing crops were observed in a tributary stream. A Phase II study will evaluate and summarize the effects of clearcutting approximately 113.3 hectares of deciduous forest on water quality and aquatic life in the watershed

‘Canaanising Madagascar’: Africa in English imperial imagination, 1635–1650

Africa has often been seen as a barrier between oceanic systems, and a dividing line within English imperial activity – with colonialism a key strategy to the west and trading favoured to the east of the continent. This article will consider English plans for colonisation on the islands of Madagascar and Assada on the east African coast and question how these can help us understand how the English thought about Africa as a geographical and imagined space within England’s developing imperial activities. This, in turn, will support an argument that English activities overseas operated within an environment where information was carefully controlled, created and disseminated to support the aims of the commercial community

Alien Registration- Silva, Edmond J. (Millinocket, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/7274/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Bastarach, Edmond J. (Medway, Penobscot County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/8238/thumbnail.jp

Alien Registration- Breault, Edmond J. (Madison, Somerset County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/6787/thumbnail.jp

Yaws and syphilis in contrast comparison and combination: based on short course mass treatment in East Africa, with 2300 case records, 24 photographs and 50 references to the literature

"A somewhat paradoxical title" might well be the remark from the theoretical point of view. "t.hy; the diseases are so contrasted as to admit of no comparison and their combination even is denied by some."Granted; when you have, on the one hand, a truth_ ful intelligent European, with the presence or histor of a Hunterian Chancre, _ Glands, _ Secondary rashes or tertiary manifestations, and on the other, a native of the Tropics with an Extragenital mother Yaw, and the pathegnomonic or, (to employ an expressive Scottish word) 'Kenspeckle' Eruption of Secondary Yaws. "Ca saute aux Yeux ".With these classical features of the two disease I am not concerned, since they admit of no discussion when so portrayed, but,let us plunge into Central Africa among a people recently more primitive than those of Old Testament narrative, and we can readily understand if opinion is still divided as to the identity of the widely differing diseases mentioned in the Bible, what chance the /African native had in the past of differentiating Yaws and Syphilis for himself. Further, _ what chance has the skilled observer even now of obtaining a satisfactory history of one or other or perhaps of both diseases.When he comes to examine the lesions he may be even more at sea. He is at once 'up against' the black skin; he finds the lesions perhaps obscured by dirt or native medicines, and, if not superimposed on tissues already attacked by other diseases, e.g. Filarasis, Leprosy or Tubercle, he may find them so profoundly altered by deficiency disease, tropical anaemias, secondary infection, or all three that he cannot even say with any certainty that they are Spirochaetal in origin, let alone, differentiate the particular species concerned. Little wonder then, that many have considered them one and the same.Such an observer is of necessity denied the crucial tests of microscopical, histological and serological diagnosis, and he must therefore fall back on other and more unorthodox means; he must familiarise himself with the combinations and one might even say the permutations of his two diseases with each other and with the other local conditions already mentioned, and he must know something of the history of the diseases he is treating and the people he is working among.It is then along these lines and with these reservations that I wish to discuss the subject. Fortunate it is that the mass diagnosis of these diseases, so liable to be confused and so profoundly altered by concomitant conditions, is merely of statistical interest, and that the mass treatment of both is only a matter of intensity

A Job Suvey of Full-Time Secretaries at Prairie View A. and M. College with a Suggested Office Training Program for Business Education Students and Secretarial Science Students

From observation, business education students do not participate in a wide variety of duties while in office practice at Prairie View A. and M. College. Hence, a suggested office training program has been formulated to provide practical experience for business education students. This observation was done on a random sample of business education students. The importance of the study is to get a general idea of the work activities of fulltime secretaries so that these duties can be incorporated in an office training program to bring the business education student into actual contact with the college business offices and give the student an opportunity to develop productive skills that are needed on the job. This study is limited to the duties and responsibilities of the full-time secretaries employed at Prairie View A. and M. College