Farmer groups for animal health and welfare planning in European organic dairy herds

A set of common principles for active animal health and welfare planning in organic dairy farming has been developed in the ANIPLAN project group of seven European countries. Health and welfare planning is a farmer‐owned process of continuous development and improvement and may be practised in many different ways. It should incorporate health promotion and disease handling, based on a strategy where assessment of current status and risks forms the basis for evaluation, action and review. Besides this, it should be 1) farm-specific, 2) involve external person(s) and 3) external knowledge, 4) be based on organic principles, 5) be written, and 6) acknowledge good aspects in addition to targeting the problem areas in order to stimulate the learning process. Establishing farmer groups seems to be a beneficial way of stimulating a dynamic development on the farms towards continuous improvement, as in this case with focus on animal health and welfare planning. Various factors influence the process in different contexts, e.g. geographical, cultural, traditional factors, and a proper analysis of the situation as well as the purpose of the group is necessary, and can relevantly be negotiated and co‐developed with farmers as well as facilitators before being implemented. Farmer groups based on farmer‐to‐farmer advice and co‐development need a facilitator who takes on the role of facilitating the process and ‘decodes’ him‐ or herself from being ‘expert’

Renormalization Group Effects in the Process H⟶γγH \longrightarrow \gamma \gamma

The partial Higgs width $\Gamma (H \longrightarrow \gamma \gamma)$ is important at the LHC for Higgs masses in the MSSM mass window up to 140 GeV as a relatively background free signal of a fundamental scalar. At the photon photon mode at the NLC it would be the Higgs production mechanism . Two loop QCD corrections exist for the fermionic contribution and in the case of the bottom loop large non-Sudakov double logarithms can be resummed to all orders and contribute up to 12 % compared to the t-quark. In more complicated Higgs sectors, such as in the MSSM, large $\tan \beta$ enhancements of bottom type Yukawa couplings can potentially dominate even the whole partial width. A main uncertainty in all existing calculations is the scale of the strong coupling as it is only renormalized at the three loop level. In this paper we include the exact two loop running coupling to all orders into the bottom contribution. We find that the effective scale is close to $\alpha_s (10 m_b^2)$.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Community-based Initiatives in the Dutch water domain – the challenge of double helix alignment

Community-based initiatives (CBIs) are emerging in many domains such as care, sustainable energy and water management. This paper examined three initiatives in Dutch water management, focusing on their relationship with water boards. CBIs present issues that water boards find difficult to respond to because of two reasons. First, CBIs are demarcated very differently from the formal tasks that water boards pursue. This calls for internal alignment within water boards to respond adequately. Second, CBIs necessitate external alignment with other water-managing governments. Water boards must therefore implement double helix alignment to relate productively to initiatives emerging in society

Determination of Leptoquark Properties in Polarized eγe\gamma Collisions

We study leptoquark production using polarized $e\gamma$ colliders for the center of mass energies $\sqrt s=500$~GeV and 1~TeV. We show that using polarization asymmetries the ten different types of leptoquarks listed by Buchm\"uller, R\"uckl and Wyler can be distinquished from one another for leptoquark masses essentially up to the kinematic limit of the respective colliders. Thus, if a leptoquark were discovered an $e\gamma$ collider could play a crucial role in determining its origins.Comment: 10 pages (plus 10 postscript figures submitted separately), OCIP/C 94-

Resolved Photon Contributions to Leptoquark Production in e+e−e^+ e^- and eγe\gamma Collision

We calculate the resolved photon contribution to leptoquark production at $e\gamma$ colliders for the center of mass energies $\sqrt s=500$~GeV and 1~TeV. We also calculate the resolved photon contribution to leptoquark production at $e^+ e^-$ colliders for the center of mass energies $\sqrt{s} = 1$~and~2~TeV. In both cases we find that these contributions are considerably larger than the standard contributions considered in the literature.Comment: 9 pages (5 postscript figures in separate uuencoded file), OCIP/C 93-1

New hadrons as ultra-high energy cosmic rays

Ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) protons produced by uniformly distributed astrophysical sources contradict the energy spectrum measured by both the AGASA and HiRes experiments, assuming the small scale clustering of UHECR observed by AGASA is caused by point-like sources. In that case, the small number of sources leads to a sharp exponential cutoff at the energy E<10^{20} eV in the UHECR spectrum. New hadrons with mass 1.5-3 GeV can solve this cutoff problem. For the first time we discuss the production of such hadrons in proton collisions with infrared/optical photons in astrophysical sources. This production mechanism, in contrast to proton-proton collisions, requires the acceleration of protons only to energies E<10^{21} eV. The diffuse gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes in this model obey all existing experimental limits. We predict large UHE neutrino fluxes well above the sensitivity of the next generation of high-energy neutrino experiments. As an example we study hadrons containing a light bottom squark. These models can be tested by accelerator experiments, UHECR observatories and neutrino telescopes.Comment: 17 pages, revtex style; v2: shortened, as to appear in PR

Human extrahepatic and intrahepatic cholangiocyte organoids show region-specific differentiation potential and model cystic fibrosis-related bile duct disease

The development, homeostasis, and repair of intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts are thought to involve distinct mechanisms including proliferation and maturation of cholangiocyte and progenitor cells. This study aimed to characterize human extrahepatic cholangiocyte organoids (ECO) using canonical Wnt-stimulated culture medium previously developed for intrahepatic cholangiocyte organoids (ICO). Paired ECO and ICO were derived from common bile duct and liver tissue, respectively. Characterization showed both organoid types were highly similar, though some differences in size and gene expression were observed. Both ECO and ICO have cholangiocyte fate differentiation capacity. However, unlike ICO, ECO lack the potential for differentiation towards a hepatocyte-like fate. Importantly, ECO derived from a cystic fibrosis patient showed n

Materials for hydrogen-based energy storage - past, recent progress and future outlook

Globally, the accelerating use of renewable energy sources, enabled by increased efficiencies and reduced costs, and driven by the need to mitigate the effects of climate change, has significantly increased research in the areas of renewable energy production, storage, distribution and end-use. Central to this discussion is the use of hydrogen, as a clean, efficient energy vector for energy storage. This review, by experts of Task 32, “Hydrogen-based Energy Storage” of the International Energy Agency, Hydrogen TCP, reports on the development over the last 6 years of hydrogen storage materials, methods and techniques, including electrochemical and thermal storage systems. An overview is given on the background to the various methods, the current state of development and the future prospects. The following areas are covered; porous materials, liquid hydrogen carriers, complex hydrides, intermetallic hydrides, electrochemical storage of energy, thermal energy storage, hydrogen energy systems and an outlook is presented for future prospects and research on hydrogen-based energy storage

Riociguat treatment in patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension: Final safety data from the EXPERT registry

Objective: The soluble guanylate cyclase stimulator riociguat is approved for the treatment of adult patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and inoperable or persistent/recurrent chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) following Phase