Baby beef production

Methods employed and results secured in baby beef production work at Walnut Ridge Stock Farm, E. M . Cassady and Son, proprietors, Whiting, Iowa, with the Animal Husbandry, Section of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station co-operating. The ranch cattle owner has reduced the selling age.of his steers from four and five years to two-year-olds, yearlings, and to a relatively large extent, calves, depending upon conditions of climate\u27 and feed, and demands from feeders of the corn belt. The corn belt farmer contends with high priced land, feed and labor. Outside of the field of purebred beef cattle production his operations are very largely limited to the feeding of cattle purchased from the range, usually thru the central market. Some farmers have been raising their own cattle for feeding purposes. They find the conditions of high priced land, feed, arid labor favorable in some respects to baby beef production

Successful Swine Rations for the Corn Belt

Just how much or protein and mineral supplements should be fed with corn to swine or various sizes, ages, and classes is the big question which this circular considers. Up-to-date practice is reflected in the rations presented; furthermore, these rations have been tested In actual practical feeding trials under the experimental supervision of the animal husbandry section of the Iowa Agricultural Experiment station

Feeding Corn Silage to Farm Animals

The silo has, for a long time, been proving its value to the live stock farmer. It should form a part of the permanent improvements of every live stock farm. Experienced feeders from all parts of the country testify to the good qualities of silage. Information concerning the use of this feed is being sought from every available source. In answer to the many questions that arc being daily received at the Iowa Agricultural Experiment Station, this bulletin has been prepared. Corn silage only is discussed herein because it is the staple silage of Iowa

Patient access to complex chronic disease records on the internet

Background: Access to medical records on the Internet has been reported to be acceptable and popular with patients, although most published evaluations have been of primary care or office-based practice. We tested the feasibility and acceptability of making unscreened results and data from a complex chronic disease pathway (renal medicine) available to patients over the Internet in a project involving more than half of renal units in the UK. Methods: Content and presentation of the Renal PatientView (RPV) system was developed with patient groups. It was designed to receive information from multiple local information systems and to require minimal extra work in units. After piloting in 4 centres in 2005 it was made available more widely. Opinions were sought from both patients who enrolled and from those who did not in a paper survey, and from staff in an electronic survey. Anonymous data on enrolments and usage were extracted from the webserver. Results: By mid 2011 over 17,000 patients from 47 of the 75 renal units in the UK had registered. Users had a wide age range (<10 to >90 yrs) but were younger and had more years of education than non-users. They were enthusiastic about the concept, found it easy to use, and 80% felt it gave them a better understanding of their disease. The most common reason for not enrolling was being unaware of the system. A minority of patients had security concerns, and these were reduced after enrolling. Staff responses were also strongly positive. They reported that it aided patient concordance and disease management, and increased the quality of consultations with a neutral effect on consultation length. Neither patient nor staff responses suggested that RPV led to an overall increase in patient anxiety or to an increased burden on renal units beyond the time required to enrol each patient. Conclusions: Patient Internet access to secondary care records concerning a complex chronic disease is feasible and popular, providing an increased sense of empowerment and understanding, with no serious identified negative consequences. Security concerns were present but rarely prevented participation. These are powerful reasons to make this type of access more widely available

Limiting the grain ration for fattening cattle

During the past few years, the Iowa cattle feeder has been confronted with the big problem of determining how much corn grain to feed fattening cattle with corn silage allowed in conjunction with linseed oil meal as the supplement and a leguminous hay, such as alfalfa, as the dry roughage. Should the cattle be full-fed or limited-fed ? How limited should the grain ration be? If full-fed, how should the grain be given the cattle, by hand-fed or self-fed methods? Can all of the silage be replaced, economically, with alfalfa from the roughage standpoint? Should the same methods be employed for feeding from 150 to 160 days as for 120 days

A principled approach to the measurement of situation awareness in commercial aviation

The issue of how to support situation awareness among crews of modern commercial aircraft is becoming especially important with the introduction of automation in the form of sophisticated flight management computers and expert systems designed to assist the crew. In this paper, cognitive theories are discussed that have relevance for the definition and measurement of situation awareness. These theories suggest that comprehension of the flow of events is an active process that is limited by the modularity of attention and memory constraints, but can be enhanced by expert knowledge and strategies. Three implications of this perspective for assessing and improving situation awareness are considered: (1) Scenario variations are proposed that tax awareness by placing demands on attention; (2) Experimental tasks and probes are described for assessing the cognitive processes that underlie situation awareness; and (3) The use of computer-based human performance models to augment the measures of situation awareness derived from performance data is explored. Finally, two potential example applications of the proposed assessment techniques are described, one concerning spatial awareness using wide field of view displays and the other emphasizing fault management in aircraft systems

Pilot opinions on high level flight deck automation issues: Toward the development of a design philosophy

There has been much concern in recent years about the rapid increase in automation on commercial flight decks. The survey was composed of three major sections. The first section asked pilots to rate different automation components that exist on the latest commercial aircraft regarding their obtrusiveness and the attention and effort required in using them. The second section addressed general 'automation philosophy' issues. The third section focused on issues related to levels and amount of automation. The results indicate that pilots of advanced aircraft like their automation, use it, and would welcome more automation. However, they also believe that automation has many disadvantages, especially fully autonomous automation. They want their automation to be simple and reliable and to produce predictable results. The biggest needs for higher levels of automation were in pre-flight, communication, systems management, and task management functions, planning as well as response tasks, and high workload situations. There is an irony and a challenge in the implications of these findings. On the one hand pilots would like new automation to be simple and reliable, but they need it to support the most complex part of the job--managing and planning tasks in high workload situations

Tweeting about sexism motivates further activism: A social identity perspective

Women, more so than men, are using social media activism to respond to sexism. However, when they do, they are also faced with gendered criticisms (\u27hashtag feminism\u27) that may instead serve to silence them. Based in social identity theory, this research examined how women\u27s social media activism, in response to sexism, may be a first step toward further activism. Two studies used a simulated Twitter paradigm to expose women to sexism and randomly assigned them to either tweet in response, or to a no-tweet control condition. Both studies found support for a serial mediation model such that tweeting after sexism strengthened social identity, which in turn increased collective action intentions, and in turn, behavioural collective actions. Study 2 further showed that validation from others increases the indirect effect of tweeting on behavioural collective action through collective action intentions, but group efficacy did not moderate any indirect effects. It was concluded that when social media activism in response to sexism promotes an enactment of women’s social identity, thereby mobilizing them to further action

Performance Analysis of Error-Control B-spline Gaussian Collocation Software for PDEs

Pre-printB-spline Gaussian collocation software has been widely used in the numerical solution of boundary value ordinary differential equations (BVODEs) and partial differential equations (PDEs) in one space dimension (1D) for many years. The software package, BACOL, developed over a decade ago, was one of the first 1D PDE packages to provide both temporal and spatial error control. A new package, BACOLI, improves upon the efficiency of BACOL through the use of new types of spatial error estimation and control. The complexity of the interactions among the component numerical algorithms used by these packages implies that extensive testing and analysis of the test results is an essential factor in their development. In this paper, we investigate the performance of the BACOL and BACOLI packages with respect to several important machine independent algorithmic measures and examine the effectiveness of the new error estimation and error control strategies. We also investigate the influence of the choice of the degree of the B-splines on the efficiency and reliability of the solvers. These results will provide new insights into how to improve BACOLI, lead to improvements in the Gaussian collocation BVODE solvers, COLSYS and COLNEW, and guide the further development of B-spline Gaussian collocation software with error control for 2D PDEs

Using Learning Analytics to Devise Interactive Personalised Nudges for Active Video Watching

Videos can be a powerful medium for acquiring soft skills, where learning requires contextualisation in personal experience and ability to see different perspectives. However, to learn effectively while watching videos, students need to actively engage with video content. We implemented interactive notetaking during video watching in an active video watching system (AVW) as a means to encourage engagement. This paper proposes a systematic approach to utilise learning analytics for the introduction of adaptive intervention - a choice architecture for personalised nudges in the AVW to extend learning. A user study was conducted and used as an illustration. By characterising clusters derived from user profiles, we identify different styles of engagement, such as parochial learning, habitual video watching, and self-regulated learning (which is the target ideal behaviour). To find opportunities for interventions, interaction traces in the AVW were used to identify video intervals with high user interest and relevant behaviour patterns that indicate when nudges may be triggered. A prediction model was developed to identify comments that are likely to have high social value, and can be used as examples in nudges. A framework for interactive personalised nudges was then conceptualised for the case study