Body Weight Gain and Carcass Parameters of Tigray Highland Sheep Supplemented with Acacia Seyal Pods and Wheat Bran Mix in Hay Based Feeding

The study was conducted in Southern Zone of Tigray to evaluate body weight gain and carcass parameters of Sokota (Tigray Highland) sheep supplemented with Acacia seyal pods and wheat bran mix in hay based feeding. Twenty five Tigray Highland yearling rams with initial live body weight of 17.5±1.7 kg (mean ± SD) were used. The experimental sheep were divided into five blocks of 5 rams each based on their initial body weight. The feeding trial consisted of grass hay (control), supplemented Acacia seyal pods, wheat bran and their mixture. A randomized complete block design was used to conduct the feeding trial. Carcass evaluation was done at the end of digestibility trial. Highest daily body weight gain was recorded in animals supplemented with Acacia seyal pods (51.1 g/day. Acacia seyal pods is not recommended for fattening but to lessen the body weight fluctuation and uses as supplementation in the dry season and small average daily gain (28.4 g/day) was also observed in sheep on the control treatments. There was significant difference (P<0.001) amongst treatments in rib eye area muscles. The Partial budget analysis of this study was based on the total variable costs, purchasing and selling prices of sheep. Best net income was gained in Tigray Highland rams supplemented with sole Acacia seyal pods and the value; of marginal rate of return (MRR) was found positive in all treatments except in treatment one. Keywords: carcass, body weight, sheep, acacia seyal pod, Tigray highlan

Effect of Feeding Acacia Pods (Acacia seyal) with or without Wheat Bran on Feed Intake and Digestibility of Tigray Highland Sheep in Hay Based Feed

The study was conducted with the objectives to evaluate feed intake and digestibility of Tigray Highland sheep supplemented with Acacia seyal pods and wheat bran mix in hay based feeding. Twenty five Tigray Highland yearling rams with initial live body weight of 17.5 ± 1.7 kg (mean ± SD) were used. The experimental sheep were divided into five blocks of 5 rams each based on their initial body weight. The feeding trial consisted of grass hay (control), supplemented Acacia seyal pods, wheat bran and their mixture. A randomized complete block design was used to conduct the feeding trails. The chemical composition of grass hay in this experiment was found to be 119.5, 880.5, 84.4, 708.3 and 296.0 g Kg-1 for ash, organic matter (OM), crude protein (CP), Neutral detergent fiber (NDF), and Acid detergent fiber (ADF) parameters, respectively. The mean grass hay DM intake was; 481.8, 301.6, 298.9, 303.8 and 301.9 g/day for T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5, respectively. The DM intake of supplemented animals were 299.3, 298.7, 299.3 and 296.6 g/day/ram for sole Acacia seyal pods, 2:1 ratio Acacia seyal pods and wheat bran, 1:2 ratio of Acacia seyal pods and wheat bran and wheat bran, respectively and the intake was 97.81% of their offer. Grass hay DM intake was significantly depressed (P<0.001) as compared from the supplementation. Total DM, OM and CP intake were significantly higher (P<0.001) in supplemented groups than the control animals. There was significant different (P<0.05) in digestible coefficient DM, OM, CP, and NDF whereas not significant different (P>0.05) in apparent digestibility ADF amongst treatments. Keywords: acacia seyal pod, intake, wheat bran, digestibilit

Moving the Needle on Equity and Inclusion

This article, adapted from an invited lecture given by the author, addresses intersectional inequalities in U.S. higher education, particularly as they impact faculty. With a focus on structure, culture, and climate, current data is presented, highlighting the variety of ways in which academia remains stratified. These patterns contribute to continued inequality, inequity, marginalization and discrimination. A secondary focus is on change, on “moving the needle,” exploring specific strategies for how institutions can transform and individuals can labor as change agents for equity and inclusivity

Do Planners Get it Right? The Accuracy of Travel Demand Forecasting in Norway

This paper deals with the accuracy of travel demand forecasts among Norwegian road projects. We use data collected from tolled roads and toll free roads. The results reveal that while traffic forecasts of tolled schemes are fairly accurate, traffic forecasts among toll free roads have a higher degree of inaccuracy and are generally underestimated. An explanation for the observed discrepancy between estimated and actual traffic among toll free roads is that road planners may have ignored the existence of induced traffic and that the standard national traffic growth rates used in the transport models has been too low. For tolled roads, an explanation for the higher degree of forecast accuracy is that planners over the years have been scrutinized to provide careful estimates. Our recommendation is that traffic forecasts provided by planners should constantly be subjected to scrutiny by independent consultants before being presented to the decision makers. Aspects that need to be specifically examined include: (1) the extent to which a road project may lead to induced traffic, (2) the extent to which transport models accommodate appropriate factors and, (3) the extent to which forecasts made address uncertainties by providing confidence intervals of estimates.&nbsp

Assessment of Constraints and Opportunities of Small- Scale Irrigation Practices in South Tigray, Ethiopia

Improper irrigation management practices play a vital role in decreament of agricultural productivity. The findings of this paper were focused on technical performane assessment of small scale irrigation systems. The technical performance of the small scale irrigation schemes in relation to the water harvesting structures and delivery canals of all schemes were assessed technically in order to check whether they meet their objective and to distinguish their problems. Survey were undertaken to investigate the technical performance of the water harvesting structures and challenges on irrigation water utilization and management. Farmers, professional experts and other stakeholders were participated on the investigation of the technical performance of small scale irrigation schemes. Sedimentation, structural failure, untreated upper watershed, poor irrigation water management, lack of knowledge, lack of technical training, free grazing, lack of market access and transport problems are the bottlenack problems to the small scale irrigation schemes.  57.4 % of the small scale irrigation scheme beneficiaries are practicing both full and supplementary irrigation systems. The irrigation rounds per year are 24.6%, 55.7 % and 19.7% for three, tw and one times respectively. The irrigation intervals for cabbage, onion and maize are 12, 15 and 24 days respectively. Problems related to crop productions are shortage of technical training on irrigation water management, recurrent drought, free grazing, lack of market access, transport problems, flood hazard and disease and pest. These problems are getting beyond the beneficiaries capacity and they cannot able to maintain. Any concerned governmental and non-governmental body has to support the farmers by making maintenance and provision of neccessary trainings and accesses. Keywords: irrigation, irrigation structure, performance indicators schemes, water managemen

The Impact of External Quality Assurance of Costs Estimates on Cost Overruns: Empirical Evidence from the Norwegian Road Sector

Cost overruns in transport infrastructure projects are prevalent and have been well documented in the literature; see, for instance, Flyvbjerg et al. (2003), Odeck (2004 and 2014) and Cantarelli et al. (2010). Governments may therefore exert efforts to reduce overruns by implementing strategies such as quality assurance of cost estimates, whereby external consultants are engaged to assure the accuracy of estimates. However, the literature has to a lesser extent provided evidence on what governments do to combat overruns and whether those efforts work in practice. This paper provides such evidence for the case of Norway, where the government implemented a quality assurance regime for cost estimates above 500 million NOK in the early 2000. Apart from explaining the Norwegian quality assurance regime, the paper uses statistical inferences to compare the magnitudes of cost overruns in the pre-and post- quality assurance periods. The statistically significant derived results are as follows: (i) quality assurance has led to a reduction in cost overruns; (ii) quality assurance has not, however, led to improved accuracy of the estimates provided by the authorities – rather, it has led to systematic overestimation by the authorities; and (iii) external consultants are more accurate than the authorities. We conclude that the quality assurance regime is achieving the objectives of reducing cost overruns and that similar regimes should be considered for smaller projects where overruns have been shown to be very large

Forecasting air traffic demand for major infrastructure changes

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Warum man Menschenwürde nicht mit Hilfe eines Selbstachtungskonzepts erklären sollte. Drei problematische Konsequenzen

Was das Menschenwürdekonzept inhaltlich umfasst, ist umstritten. Folgt man einer jüngeren, im deutschsprachigen Raum populären Interpretation, so ist Menschenwürde als die fragile Haltung der Selbstachtung zu begreifen. Welche problematischen Konsequenzen sich aus dieser Interpretation ergeben, zeigt der vorliegende Aufsatz anhand der Positionenen von Arnd Pollmann, Ralf Stoecker und Peter Schaber. Die Konsequenzen sind problematisch, da sie grundlegenden Intuitionen zur Menschenwürde widersprechen. Diese Grundintuitionen werden als Adäquatheitsbedingungen für eine Interpretation des Menschenwürdekonzepts verstanden. Es wird also Folgendes gezeigt: Die Selbstachtungstheorien sind nur dann plausibel, wenn sie angeben können, warum sie den eigentlichen Sinn des Menschenwürdekonzepts erfassen, obwohl sie den Grundintuitionen nicht gerecht werden. What is comprised by the concept of human dignity is a controversial issue. Following one recent interpretation, which is popular especially in German-speaking philosophy, human dignity is to be grasped as a fragile attitude of self-respect. Explicating the positions of Arnd Pollmann, Ralf Stoecker and Peter Schaber, this essay shows three problematic consequences of this theory of self-respect. What is problematical about these consequences is their being inconsistent with some of the basic intuitions about the concept of human dignity. These basic intuitions can be understood as conditions of adequacy for the interpretation of what human dignity is. Thus it will be shown that if the theory of self-respect is to be plausible, its proponents have to give an answer as to why their account of human dignity is nonetheless adequate

The Role of Symmetry in Constructing Geometric Flat Outputs for Free-Flying Robotic Systems

Mechanical systems naturally evolve on principal bundles describing their inherent symmetries. The ensuing factorization of the configuration manifold into a symmetry group and an internal shape space has provided deep insights into the locomotion of many robotic and biological systems. On the other hand, the property of differential flatness has enabled efficient, effective planning and control algorithms for various robotic systems. Yet, a practical means of finding a flat output for an arbitrary robotic system remains an open question. In this work, we demonstrate surprising new connections between these two domains, for the first time employing symmetry directly to construct a flat output. We provide sufficient conditions for the existence of a trivialization of the bundle in which the group variables themselves are a flat output. We call this a geometric flat output, since it is equivariant (i.e. maintains the symmetry) and is often global or almost-global, properties not typically enjoyed by other flat outputs. In such a trivialization, the motion planning problem is easily solved, since a given trajectory for the group variables will fully determine the trajectory for the shape variables that exactly achieves this motion. We provide a partial catalog of robotic systems with geometric flat outputs and worked examples for the planar rocket, planar aerial manipulator, and quadrotor.Comment: Preprint, to appear in the proceedings of the 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Companion video available at https://youtu.be/oMvF86MXTyY. This version updated with minor expository improvement