Production Inefficiency in Fed Cattle Marketing and the Value of Sorting Pens into Alternative Marketing Groups Using Ultrasound Technology

The cattle industry batch markets animals in pens. Because of this, animals within any one pen can be both underfed and overfed. Thus, there is a production inefficiency associated with batch marketing. We simulate the value of sorting animals through weight and ultrasound measurements from original pens into smaller alternative marketing groups. Sorting exploits the production inefficiency and enables cattle feeding enterprises to avoid meat quality discounts, capture premiums, more efficiently use feed resources, and increase returns. The value of sorting is between $15 and$25 per head, with declining marginal returns as the number of sort groups increases.cattle feeding, production efficiency, simulation, sorting, value-based marketing, ultrasound, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, C15, D21, D23, Q12,

RETURNS TO SORTING AND MARKET TIMING OF ANIMALS WITHIN PENS OF FED CATTLE

This research examines returns to cattle feeding operations that sort animals prior to marketing using ultrasound technology. The returns to sorting are between $11 and$25 per head depending on the number of groups the pens into which cattle can be sorted. Sorting faces declining returns. These returns can also be viewed as the costs imposed by institutional constraints that limit co-mingling of cattle. Through sorting, cattle feeding operations are able to reduce meat quality discounts, increase meat quality premiums, increase beef carcass quality characteristics, more efficiently use feed resources, and increase profits.Livestock Production/Industries,

Hubble Servicing Challenges Drive Innovation of Shuttle Rendezvous Techniques

Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing, performed by Space Shuttle crews, has contributed to what is arguably one of the most successful astronomy missions ever flown. Both nominal and contingency proximity operations techniques were developed to enable successful servicing, while lowering the risk of damage to HST systems, and improve crew safety. Influencing the development of these techniques were the challenges presented by plume impingement and HST performance anomalies. The design of both the HST and the Space Shuttle was completed before the potential of HST contamination and structural damage by shuttle RCS jet plume impingement was fully understood. Relative navigation during proximity operations has been challenging, as HST was not equipped with relative navigation aids. Since HST reached orbit in 1990, proximity operations design for servicing missions has evolved as insight into plume contamination and dynamic pressure has improved and new relative navigation tools have become available. Servicing missions have provided NASA with opportunities to gain insight into servicing mission design and development of nominal and contingency procedures. The HST servicing experiences and lessons learned are applicable to other programs that perform on-orbit servicing and rendezvous, both human and robotic

Scabies outbreaks in care homes for the elderly – authors' reply

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New findings in the pathogenesis of leprosy and implications for the management of leprosy.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review focuses on recent work in leprosy pathogenesis. New research of both innate and adaptive immune responses to Mycobacterium leprae is described. The proposition that Mycobacterium lepromatosis is a new species causing leprosy is discussed. RECENT FINDINGS: Modulation of the lipid metabolism and reprogramming of adult Schwann cells have both been suggested as mechanisms used by M. leprae to disseminate the disease. New markers associated with localized, disseminated disease or the occurrences of leprosy reactions include the human interferons, CD163, microRNA-21, NOD2, galectin-3 and toll-like receptor 4. The role of keratinocytes instead of macrophages is underlined in the pathogenesis of leprosy. Adaptive immunity reports focus on the role of T regulatory cells and cytokines secreted by T helper cells in leprosy. Finally, a newly identified species named M. lepromatosis has been detected in patients with leprosy and severe erythema nodosum leprosum. SUMMARY: Novel biological pathways have been identified to be associated with the clinical phenotype of leprosy or the occurrence of leprosy reactions. Future work should include larger numbers of clinical samples from across the leprosy spectrum in order to give new insights in the pathogenesis and management of the disease