Cloud-based data management system for automatic real-time data acquisition from large-scale laying-hen farms

: Management of poultry farms in China mostly relies on manual labor. Since such a large amount of valuable data for the production process either are saved incomplete or saved only as paper documents, making it very difficult for data retrieve, processing and analysis. An integrated cloud-based data management system (CDMS) was proposed in this study, in which the asynchronous data transmission, distributed file system, and wireless network technology were used for information collection, management and sharing in large-scale egg production. The cloud-based platform can provide information technology infrastructures for different farms. The CDMS can also allocate the computing resources and storage space based on demand. A real-time data acquisition software was developed, which allowed farm management staff to submit reports through website or smartphone, enabled digitization of production data. The use of asynchronous transfer in the system can avoid potential data loss during the transmission between farms and the remote cloud data center. All the valid historical data of poultry farms can be stored to the remote cloud data center, and then eliminates the need for large server clusters on the farms. Users with proper identification can access the online data portal of the system through a browser or an APP from anywhere worldwide

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

A Sound Source Localisation Analytical Method for Monitoring the Abnormal Night Vocalisations of Poultry

Due to the increasing scale of farms, it is increasingly difficult for farmers to monitor their animals in an automated way. Because of this problem, we focused on a sound technique to monitor laying hens. Sound analysis has become an important tool for studying the behaviour, health and welfare of animals in recent years. A surveillance system using microphone arrays of Kinects was developed for automatically monitoring birds’ abnormal vocalisations during the night. Based on the principle of time-difference of arrival (TDOA) of sound source localisation (SSL) method, Kinect sensor direction estimations were very accurate. The system had an accuracy of 74.7% in laboratory tests and 73.6% in small poultry group tests for different area sound recognition. Additionally, flocks produced an average of 40 sounds per bird during feeding time in small group tests. It was found that, on average, each normal chicken produced more than 53 sounds during the daytime (noon to 6:00 p.m.) and less than one sound at night (11:00 p.m.–3:00 a.m.). This system can be used to detect anomalous poultry status at night by monitoring the number of vocalisations and area distributions, which provides a practical and feasible method for the study of animal behaviour and welfare

Low frequency absolute calibration of complex sensitivity of vector receivers in free-field

Three-transducers spherical wave reciprocity method in free-field is demonstrated effectively for absolute calibration of the complex sensitivity of underwater sound pressure gradient of vector receiver in the frequency range 250 Hz to 4 kHz. The regularity of underwater sound pressure gradient distribution in the spherical wave, the theory of three-transducers reciprocity calibration method and the technique of complex moving weighted average (CMWA) are studied and reviewed. The VHS90 vector receiver manufactured by Hangzhou Applied Acoustics Research Institute (HAARI) is calibrated using underwater sound pressure gradient calibration facility in a 50 m×15 m×10 m anechoic tank. To verify the results of measurements, the VHS90 vector receiver is also calibrated using low frequency vector receiver calibration facility and the underwater sound pressure calibration facility. The calibration results and the comparisons with these facilities prove the accuracy of the calibration method and facilities described in this paper. The max deviation of modulus of complex sensitivity is 0.7 dB and max deviation of phase congruency of three channels is 1.6°

Energy Balance Closure in the Tugai Forest in Ebinur Lake Basin, Northwest China

A persistent problem in surface flux research is that turbulent fluxes observed by eddy covariance methods tend to be lower than the available energy. Using 7 years of eddy covariance flux observations in the Ebinur Lake National Wetland Nature Reserve (ELNWNR) in Xinjiang, Northwest China, this study analyzes the surface–atmosphere energy transfer characteristics at the station to explore variation characteristics of the energy flux and the energy balance closure (EBC), and the factors that influence EBC. The results show that: (1) diurnal and seasonal variations are observed in turbulent flux, available energy, and the partitioning of sensible and latent fluxes affected by environmental factors; (2) the degree of EBC varies significantly diurnally and seasonally, with EBC during the growing season significantly higher than during the dormant season; (3) due to the surface heterogeneity, EBC exhibits significant variations with wind direction that differ between the growing and dormant seasons; (4) environmental factors (e.g., vapor pressure deficit and air temperature) are important in limiting near-surface EBC, but they play a secondary role compared with the state of atmospheric motion. This study provides a basis for accurately assessing the material and energy exchanges between the desert Tugai forest ecosystem and the atmosphere

Pig Weight and Body Size Estimation Using a Multiple Output Regression Convolutional Neural Network: A Fast and Fully Automatic Method

Pig weight and body size are important indicators for producers. Due to the increasing scale of pig farms, it is increasingly difficult for farmers to quickly and automatically obtain pig weight and body size. Due to this problem, we focused on a multiple output regression convolutional neural network (CNN) to estimate pig weight and body size. DenseNet201, ResNet152 V2, Xception and MobileNet V2 were modified into multiple output regression CNNs and trained on modeling data. By comparing the estimated performance of each model on test data, modified Xception was selected as the optimal estimation model. Based on pig height, body shape, and contour, the mean absolute error (MAE) of the model to estimate body weight (BW), shoulder width (SW), shoulder height (SH), hip width (HW), hip width (HH), and body length (BL) were 1.16 kg, 0.33 cm, 1.23 cm, 0.38 cm, 0.66 cm, and 0.75 cm, respectively. The coefficient of determination (R2) value between the estimated and measured results was in the range of 0.9879–0.9973. Combined with the LabVIEW software development platform, this method can estimate pig weight and body size accurately, quickly, and automatically. This work contributes to the automatic management of pig farms

Study on Acoustic Features of Laying Hens’ Vocalization

International audienceIn this paper, vocalizations of laying hens (Hyline Brown) were focused. An experiment was designed to obtain acoustic features of laying hens with different ages: 35days-old, 95days-old and 125days-old. Vocalizations were recorded by the microphone MPA201. Analysis was done by some analytical software in order to gain time-domain features and frequency-domain properties of laying hens’ sound. The duration time, pitch frequency, formant track and spectrums of vocalizations were all included. Results showed that some characteristics of vocalizations of laying hens with different ages were dissimilar when under given state. It was proved that the vocalization of laying hens could be recognized and identified

Experimental Investigation of Wave Velocity-Permeability Model for Granite Subjected to Different Temperature Processing

Understanding the change of permeability of rocks before and after heating is of great significance for exploitation of hydrocarbon resources and disposal of nuclear waste. The rock permeability under high temperature cannot be measured with most of the existing methods. In this paper, quality, wave velocity, and permeability of granite specimen from Maluanshan tunnel are measured after high temperature processing. Quality and wave velocity of granite decrease and permeability of granite increases with increasing temperature. Using porosity as the medium, a new wave velocity-permeability model is established with modified wave velocity-porosity formula and Kozeny-Carman formula. Under some given wave velocities and corresponding permeabilities through experiment, the permeabilities at different temperatures and wave velocities can be obtained. By comparing the experimental and the theoretical results, the proposed formulas are verified. In addition, a sensitivity analysis is performed to examine the effect of particle size, wave velocities in rock matrix, and pore fluid on permeability: permeability increases with increasing particle size, wave velocities in rock matrix, and pore fluid; the higher the rock wave velocity, the lower the effect of wave velocities in rock matrix and pore fluid on permeability