An evaluation of a subjective pasture scoring system based on animal performance

Pastures supply a major portion of the total feed used in producing beef in the Southeast. The importance of productive and nutritious pastures to the beef cattle industry for many years to come is inevitable. Therefore, economical and profitable production of beef will be greatly dependent on the type of pasture used* Because of this dependence the beef producer needs to know which pastures will produce the greatest returns for his labors. In Tennessee there is a critical need for the evaluation of the established pastures more commonly used for beef production, such as orchardgrass-Ladino clover pastures. If accurate evaluations are to be made, information is needed regarding the relative importance of the various characteristics included in pasture analysis such as species percentage, height of the various species, stage of maturity, color and carrying capacity. Evaluating or scoring pastures accurately has been one of the most difficult problems confronting researchers. Members of the University of Tennessee Animal Husbandry-Veterinary Science Department developed a pasture scoring system whereby important pasture information could be systematically recorded. The system was used to score the pastures on all of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Stations where pasture work was conducted! namely, Highland Rim Experiment Station, Springfield; Middle Tennessee Experiment Station, Spring Hill; Tobacco Experiment Station, Greeneville; and the Main Experiment Station, Knoxville, Tennessee. This thesis will be a report of the findings obtained when correlations were made between the various factors used in scoring orchardgrass-Ladino clover pastures and average daily gain, total grazing days per acre and total beef gain per acre. The data used were obtained at the experiment stations located at Springfield, Greeneville and Knoxville and were collected from the period 1953-1959 with the following objectives: 1. To evaluate the relationships of the various items scored to the animals’ performance. 2. To determine which pasture characteristics are most closely related to the performance of the animals

One More Good Reason for In-Car Videotaping of Traffic Stops: An Accurate Assessment of Consent

There are a number of reasons why legislative reform mandating the use of in-car cameras in police cruisers would benefit the criminal justice system in Illinois. In-car cameras provide evidence for cases involving traffic violations or intoxicated motorists. They produce instantly available training materials. They also assist victims of police misconduct, as well as officers defending themselves against misconduct claims. This Comment looks to add to this list of benefits the role in-car cameras can play in assessing the validity of consents to search that officers obtain during traffic stops

One More Good Reason for In-Car Videotaping of Traffic Stops: An Accurate Assessment of Consent

There are a number of reasons why legislative reform mandating the use of in-car cameras in police cruisers would benefit the criminal justice system in Illinois. In-car cameras provide evidence for cases involving traffic violations or intoxicated motorists. They produce instantly available training materials. They also assist victims of police misconduct, as well as officers defending themselves against misconduct claims. This Comment looks to add to this list of benefits the role in-car cameras can play in assessing the validity of consents to search that officers obtain during traffic stops

Small dynamical heights for quadratic polynomials and rational functions

Let $f \in Q(z)$ be a polynomial or rational function of degree 2. A special case of Morton and Silverman's Dynamical Uniform Boundedness Conjecture states that the number of rational preperiodic points of $f$ is bounded above by an absolute constant. A related conjecture of Silverman states that the canonical height $\hat{h}_f(x)$ of a non-preperiodic rational point $x$ is bounded below by a uniform multiple of the height of $f$ itself. We provide support for these conjectures by computing the set of preperiodic and small height rational points for a set of degree 2 maps far beyond the range of previous searches.Comment: 19 page

Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys Observations of the z=6.42 Quasar SDSS 1148+5251: A Leak in the Gunn-Peterson Trough

The Hubble Advanced Camera for Surveys has been used to obtain a narrow-band image of the weak emission peak seen at lambda=7205 A in the Gunn-Peterson Ly beta absorption trough of the highest redshift quasar, SDSS J1148+5251. The emission looks perfectly point-like; there is no evidence for the intervening galaxy that we previously suggested might be contaminating the quasar spectrum. We derive a more accurate astrometric position for the quasar in the two filters and see no indication of gravitational lensing. We conclude that the light in the Ly beta trough is leaking through two unusually transparent, overlapping windows in the IGM absorption, one in the Ly beta forest at z ~ 6 and one in the Ly alpha forest at z ~ 5. If there are significant optical depth variations on velocity scales small compared with our spectral resolution (~150 km/s), the Ly alpha trough becomes more transparent for a given Ly beta optical depth. Such variations can only strengthen our conclusion that the fraction of neutral hydrogen in the IGM increases dramatically at z>6. We argue that the transmission in the Ly beta trough is not only a more sensitive measure of the neutral fraction than is Ly alpha, it also provides a less biased estimator of the neutral hydrogen fraction than does the Ly alpha transmission.Comment: Submitted to the Astronomical Journa