Choosing the best forage species for a dairy farm: The Whole-farm approach

Although a handful of forage species such as perennial ryegrass are predominant, there are a wide range of forage species that can be grown in sub tropical and temperate regions in Australia as dairy pastures. These species have differing seasonal yields, nutrient quality and water use efficiency characteristics, as demonstrated in a large study evaluating 30 species University of Sydney in New South Wales, Australia. Some species can be grazed, while others require mechanical harvesting that incurs a further cost. Previous comparisons of species that relied on yields of dry matter per unit of some input (typically land or water) cannot simultaneously take into account the season in which forage is produced, or other factors related to the costs of production and delivery to the cows. To effectively compare the profitability of individual species, or combinations of species, requires the use of a whole-farm model. Linear programming was used to find the most profitable mix of forage species for an irrigated dairy farm in an irrigation region of New South Wales, Australia. It was concluded that a typical farmer facing the prevailing milk and purchased feed prices with average milk production per cow would find a mix of species including large proportions of perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and prairie grass (Bromus willdenowii) was most profitable. The result was robust to changes in seasonal milk pricing and moving from year round to seasonal calving patterns.Dairy, Forage, Whole-farm, Linear programming

Distributed OpenGL Rendering in Network Bandwidth Constrained Environments

Display walls made from multiple monitors are often used when very high resolution images are required. To utilise a display wall, rendering information must be sent to each computer that the monitors are connect to. The network is often the performance bottleneck for demanding applications, like high performance 3D animations. This paper introduces ClusterGL; a distribution library for OpenGL applications. ClusterGL reduces network traffic by using compression, frame differencing and multi-cast. Existing applications can use ClusterGL without recompilation. Benchmarks show that, for most applications, ClusterGL outperforms other systems that support unmodified OpenGL applications including Chromium and BroadcastGL. The difference is larger for more complex scene geometries and when there are more display machines. For example, when rendering OpenArena, ClusterGL outperforms Chromium by over 300% on the Symphony display wall at The University of Waikato, New Zealand. This display has 20 monitors supported by five computers connected by gigabit Ethernet, with a full resolution of over 35 megapixels. ClusterGL is freely available via Google Code

ARL Library Director Survey Results

Presents the findings from a national survey sent to library directors at ARL institutions. Neal estimates that 65 institutions employ approximately 564 area librarians nationwide. Neal discusses recent efforts to recruit qualified individuals for vacant positions and concludes that these institutions do not plan to increase the overall number of area librarians they employ

Introduction of Speaker

James Neal introduces the keynote speaker, Patrick O'Meara, and highlights his professional accomplishments

Introduction to Conference

Outlines the conference objectives, which are to discuss the results of the National Survey on Area Librarianship and draft a national action plan aimed at strengthening and advancing area librarianship

Fair Use is Not Civil Disobedience: Rethinking the Copyright Wars and the Role of the Academic Library

The academic library community has been at the center of the copyright wars, advancing the interests of students and faculty. Digital and network technologies, the licensing of electronic content, and the globalization of copyright have combined to challenge our traditional views of intellectual property. New laws and legislation over the past decade have threatened the sustenance of fair use and key exceptions to copyright. We must re-commit to the education of our campuses, to political advocacy, and to collective risk taking

Prospects for Systemic Change across Academic Libraries

"Charles J. Henry, in the January/February 2011 column for the E-Content department, challenged readers to focus on a fundamental repositioning, consolidation, and convergence and to steer away from isolation and adhocracy in the future development of the academy and its critical components. I will focus here on the academic library, and argue further that primal innovation, a basic commitment to risk and experimentation, and deconstruction—breaking down the current incoherence and rebuilding according to new axioms—are the essential instruments. Understanding and acting on the critical trends affecting academic library progress is essential. After that, translating those influences into bold and systemic change is imperative.