Welfare assessment as part of welfare planning in organic calf production

Animalwelfare is regarded as a basic parameter in organic beef– and milk production. It is important to focus on good animal welfare at all levels, also including calves. Experiences from former projects show that calf welfare often represents a problem in organic and conventional farms, depending on the farmer’s priorities, attitudes and knowledge. A CORE Organic project “Minimizing medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare planning” (ANIPLAN) was initiated in 2008 and is a collaboration between seven European countries, including Norway. The aim of the Norwegian project group, lead by the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, was to develop a calf welfare assessment system, suitable for welfare advising and planning in organic milk production farms. The system focuses on animal based parameters, management, individual clinical score, colostrum intake and feeding system

Effective Modes for Encouraging Faculty Involvement in Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development

The integration of vocational and academic classes is often recognized as an effective method to motivate students and involve them in career preparation. This is also a goal of the dropout prevention efforts of many school districts. In Baker County, Florida, as in other districts, teacher participation in integrative efforts is recognized as a crucial factor. This project examines curricula and instructional and leadership practices that led to the successful implementation of academic and vocational integration in a Florida middle school. The resultant success and modus operandi may be used as a model for encouraging faculty involvement in interdisciplinary curriculum development

Mental health service delivery in South Africa from 2000 to 2010: One step forward, one step back

Objectives. To identify progress and challenges in mental healthcare in South Africa, as well as future mental health services research priorities. Method. A systematic review of mental health services research. Literature searches were conducted in Medline, PsychInfo and Sabinet databases from January 2000 to October 2010 using key phrases. Hand searches of key local journals were also conducted. Of 215 articles retrieved, 92 were included. Data were extracted onto a spreadsheet and analysed thematically. Results. While progress in epidemiological studies has been good, there is a paucity of intervention and economic evaluation studies. The majority of studies reviewed were on the status of mental healthcare services. They indicate some progress in decentralised care for severe mental disorders, but also insufficient resources to adequately support community-based services, resulting in the classic revolving-door phenomenon. Common mental disorders remain largely undetected and untreated in primary healthcare. Cross-cutting issues included the need for promoting culturally congruent services as well as mental health literacy to assist in improving help-seeking behaviour, stigma reduction, and reducing defaulting and human rights abuses. Conclusion. While there has been some progress in the decentralisation of mental health service provision, substantial gaps in service delivery remain. Intervention research is needed to provide evidence of the organisational and human resource mix requirements, as well as cost-effectiveness of a culturally appropriate, task shifting and stepped care approach for severe and common mental disorders at primary healthcare level

Universal aspects of string propagation on curved backgrounds

String propagation on D-dimensional curved backgrounds with Lorentzian signature is formulated as a geometrical problem of embedding surfaces. When the spatial part of the background corresponds to a general WZW model for a compact group, the classical dynamics of the physical degrees of freedom is governed by the coset conformal field theory SO(D-1)/SO(D-2), which is universal irrespective of the particular WZW model. The same holds for string propagation on D-dimensional flat space. The integration of the corresponding Gauss-Codazzi equations requires the introduction of (non-Abelian) parafermions in differential geometry.Comment: 15 pages, latex. Typo in Eq. (2.12) is corrected. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Registration of the First Thermonuclear X-ray Burst from AX J1754.2-2754

During the analysis of the INTEGRAL observatory archival data we found a powerful X-ray burst, registered by JEM-X and IBIS/ISGRI telescopes on April 16, 2005 from a weak and poorly known source AX J1754.2-2754. Analysis of the burst profiles and spectrum shows, that it was a type I burst, which result from thermonuclear explosion on the surface of nutron star. It means that we can consider AX J1754.2-2754 as an X-ray burster. Certain features of burst profile at its initial stage witness of a radiation presure driven strong expansion and a corresponding cooling of the nutron star photosphere. Assuming, that the luminosity of the source at this phase was close to the Eddington limit, we estimated the distance to the burst source d=6.6+/-0.3 kpc (for hidrogen atmosphere of the neutron star) and d=9.2+/-0.4 kpc (for helium atmosphere).Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Scattering of second sound waves by quantum vorticity

A new method of detection and measurement of quantum vorticity by scattering second sound off quantized vortices in superfluid Helium is suggested. Theoretical calculations of the relative amplitude of the scattered second sound waves from a single quantum vortex, a vortex ring, and bulk vorticity are presented. The relevant estimates show that an experimental verification of the method is feasible. Moreover, it can even be used for the detection of a single quantum vortex.Comment: Latex file, 9 page

Scattering of dislocated wavefronts by vertical vorticity and the Aharonov-Bohm effect II: Dispersive waves

Previous results on the scattering of surface waves by vertical vorticity on shallow water are generalized to the case of dispersive water waves. Dispersion effects are treated perturbatively around the shallow water limit, to first order in the ratio of depth to wavelength. The dislocation of the incident wavefront, analogous to the Aharonov-Bohm effect, is still observed. At short wavelengths the scattering is qualitatively similar to the nondispersive case. At moderate wavelengths, however, there are two markedly different scattering regimes according to wether the capillary length is smaller or larger than $\sqrt{3}$ times depth. The dislocation is characterized by a parameter that depends both on phase and group velocity. The validity range of the calculation is the same as in the shallow water case: wavelengths small compared to vortex radius, and low Mach number. The implications of these limitations are carefully considered.Comment: 30 pages, 11 figure

Effects of organic plant oils and role of oxidation on nutrient utilization in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)

The study compared the effect of four either fresh or force oxidized organic plant oils in diets for juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in which 47% of conventional LT fish meal protein was substituted by a mixture of 3 organic plant protein concentrates. Fish oil was completely substituted with either organic linseed oil; rape seed oil; sunflower oil or grape seed oil and evaluated based on feed intake, feed utilization, growth and digestibility. None of the plant oils affected feed intake and growth parameters. Organic plant oils had all a positive effect on lipid digestibility as compared with the fish oil based control diet, despite the very different FA profiles. The organic vegetable oils did not undergo autoxidation, as opposed to the fish oil control for which lipid digestibility was significantly negative influenced