A Farmer Friendly Feed Budget Calculator for Grazing Management Decisions in Winter and Spring

The Western Australian (WA) environment is Mediterranean with annual legume/grass pastures and a 6 month growing season. In autumn where over grazing can impact pasture establishment and in spring, prior to senescence, when under grazing can mean significant losses of efficiency are crucial times for grazing management. Pasture utilisation is typically low (25-35%) due to conservative stocking regimes; key to increasing productivity is increasing pasture utilisation (Grimm, 1998). Increased levels of productivity require farmer sophistication in the way they feed budget. To this end, satellite technology is being used to provide farmers in southern Australia with weekly estimates of pasture growth rate (PGR; kg DM/ha/d) and monthly estimates of Feed on Offer (FOO; kg DM/ha) (Kelly et al., 2003). In addition the Green Feed Budget Paddock Calculator (GFBC) was developed to provide a simple and accessible electronic calculator, which utilises this new information to assist farmers to feed budget and to make more accurate and timely stocking rate decisions

Generative Models for Low-Dimensional Video Representation and Reconstruction

Finding compact representation of videos is an essential component in almost every problem related to video processing or understanding. In this paper, we propose a generative model to learn compact latent codes that can efficiently represent and reconstruct a video sequence from its missing or under-sampled measurements. We use a generative network that is trained to map a compact code into an image. We first demonstrate that if a video sequence belongs to the range of the pretrained generative network, then we can recover it by estimating the underlying compact latent codes. Then we demonstrate that even if the video sequence does not belong to the range of a pretrained network, we can still recover the true video sequence by jointly updating the latent codes and the weights of the generative network. To avoid overfitting in our model, we regularize the recovery problem by imposing low-rank and similarity constraints on the latent codes of the neighboring frames in the video sequence. We use our methods to recover a variety of videos from compressive measurements at different compression rates. We also demonstrate that we can generate missing frames in a video sequence by interpolating the latent codes of the observed frames in the low-dimensional space

Compressive Sensing with Tensorized Autoencoder

Deep networks can be trained to map images into a low-dimensional latent space. In many cases, different images in a collection are articulated versions of one another; for example, same object with different lighting, background, or pose. Furthermore, in many cases, parts of images can be corrupted by noise or missing entries. In this paper, our goal is to recover images without access to the ground-truth (clean) images using the articulations as structural prior of the data. Such recovery problems fall under the domain of compressive sensing. We propose to learn autoencoder with tensor ring factorization on the the embedding space to impose structural constraints on the data. In particular, we use a tensor ring structure in the bottleneck layer of the autoencoder that utilizes the soft labels of the structured dataset. We empirically demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for inpainting and denoising applications. The resulting method achieves better reconstruction quality compared to other generative prior-based self-supervised recovery approaches for compressive sensing

Efficacy of Different Oocytes Harvesting Methods on Retrieval and Quality of Oocyte from Ovaries of Local Cows

        هدفت الدراسة الحالية لبحث تأثير ثلاث طرائق لجمع البويضات في إستحصال ونوعية البويضة من مبايض الابقار المحلية .جُمع 600 مبيض من 300 بقرة بعمر 3-10  سنوات غير حامل ذُبحت في مجازر محافظة بابل للمدة من أيلول  2017لغاية أذار 2018. جُمعت البويضات بوساطة طريقة تشريح المبيض (Slicing) وطريقة ثقب المبيض (Puncture) وطريقة سحب الجريبة (Aspiriation of follicle) , وقُسمت طبقاً لعدد طبقات الخلايا الركمية المبيضية (Cumulus cells) وتجانس الهيولي (Cytoplasm) على ثلاثة مجاميع, الاولى: بويضات جيدة محاطة بأكثر من ثلاث طبقات من الخلايا الركمية المبيضية وتجانس الهيولي, والثانية: بويضات متوسطة محاطة بأقل من ثلاث طبقات من الخلايا الركمية المبيضية وتجانس الهيولي , والثالثة : بويضات رديئة خالية من الخلايا الركمية المبيضية مع عدم تجانس الهيولي . بيّنت النتائج أرتفاعاً معنوياً (P<0.05) للعدد الكلي للبويضات المستحصلة ومعدل عدد البويضات لكل المبيض بأستعمال طريقة تشريح المبيض وبلغت 1639 و 8.195 ± 1.03 بالتتابع مقارنة مع طريقة ثقب المبيض وبلغت 923 و 4.610 ±  0.86 بالتتابع وطريقة سحب الجريبة وبلغت 776 و3.880 ± 0.34 بالتتابع. أشارت نتائج الدراسة ايضاً أرتفاعاً معنوياً (P<0.05) للعدد الكلي للبويضات ومعدل عدد البويضات لكل مبيض ونسبة البويضات الجيدة المستحصلة بطريقة تشريح المبيض وبلغت 751 و 3.750 ± 0.95 و 45.90 % بالتتابع, والمستحصلة بطريقة ثقب المبيض وبلغت 399 و 1.99 ± 0.03 و 43.30 % بالتتابع , مقارنة مع طريقة سحب الجريبة وبلغت 299 و 1.14 ± 0.01 و 29.60 % بالتتابع. يستنتج من هذه الدراسة أن طريقة تشريح المبيض هي الطريقة المناسبة والجيدة لأستحصال البويضات وبأعداد كثيرة وذات شكل ونوعية جيدة.The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of different oocytes harvesting  methods on retrieval and quality of oocyte from ovarian of local cows.  The ovaries (n = 600) were collected from 300 non-pregnant cows their ages ranged between (3-10 years old), slaughtered at the abattoir of Babylon province during the period between September 2017 to March 2018. The oocytes were collected by slicing method, puncture method and aspiration of follicle method and classified according to layers of cumulus cells and the homogenous of cytoplasm into three groups , first group : good quality oocytes with more than 3 layers of cumulus cells and homogeneous of cytoplasm, second group : fair quality oocytes with less than 3 layers of cumulus cells and homogeneous of cytoplasm , third group : poor quality oocytes , denuded oocyte from cumulus cells with heterogeneous cytoplasm . The results showed that the total number of oocytes recovered and the number of oocytes recovered  per ovary was significantly higher (P<0.05) by using slicing method (1639 and 8.195 ± 1.03 respectively) compared with the Puncture (923 and 4.610 ± 0.86 respectively ) and aspiration of follicle method (776 and 3.880 ± 0.34 respectively). The results of study also indicated that the total number of oocytes recovered , the average number of oocyte per ovary and the percentage of well recovered by slicing method (751,3.750 ± 0.95 and 45.90 % respectively) and puncture technique (399,1.99 ± 0.03 and 43.30 % respectively) were significantly higher ( P<0.05) compared with aspiration of follicle (299 , 1.14 ± 0.01 and 29.60 % respectively). We conclude from this study that slicing method is the appropriate and good method for oocyte recovering with ideal morphological aspect and quality

Modeling the cost effectiveness of injury interventions in lower and middle income countries: opportunities and challenges

BACKGROUND: This paper estimates the cost-effectiveness of five interventions that could counter injuries in lower and middle income countries(LMICs): better traffic enforcement, erecting speed bumps, promoting helmets for bicycles, promoting helmets for motorcycles, and storing kerosene in child proof containers. METHODS: We adopt an ingredients based approach to form models of what each intervention would cost in 6 world regions over a 10 year period discounted at both 3% and 6% from both the governmental and societal perspectives. Costs are expressed in local currency converted into US $2001. Each of these interventions has been assessed for effectiveness in a LMIC in limited region, these effectiveness estimates have been used to form models of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) averted for various regions, taking account of regional differences in the baseline burden of injury. RESULTS: The interventions modeled in this paper have cost effectiveness ratios ranging from US$5 to $556 per DALY averted depending on region. Depending on local acceptability thresholds many of them could be judged cost-effective relative to interventions that are already adopted. Enhanced enforcement of traffic regulations is the most cost-effective interventions with an average cost per DALY of$64 CONCLUSION: Injury counter measures appear to be cost-effective based on models. More evaluations of real interventions will help to strengthen the evidence basis

Acute phase reactants and lipid profile in acute chest pain presentations: a multimarker approach

Background: Cardiovascular diseases cause more deaths and disability and incur greater economic cost than any other illness in the world. Our objective is to study the biological activity and evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic values of acute phase reactants, high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and ferritin in association with traditional lipid profile, in screening subjects who developed chest pain due to cardiac event as indicated by a positive cardiac troponin I (cTnI) test.Methods: In this hospital-based prospective study, a total of 150 cases (n=150), presented consecutively to the emergency department with symptoms of cardiac ischemia and tested positive for troponin I (enzyme-linked flourescent assay), were compared with an equal number of age and gender matched healthy controls (n=150) for hsCRP (immunoturbidimetric assay), ferritin (immunoturbidimetric assay) and lipid profile (enzymatic colorimetric assay).Results: Median serum hsCRP levels were 2.12 mg/L)±1.79 mg/L) than controls (2.82±significantly elevated in cases (3.57 (p0.05) different between the two groups.Conclusions: hsCRP and ferritin are independent novel predictors for cardiovascular risks and events. Lipid profile demonstrates low specificity in such cases.

Validation of FOAM near-surface ocean current forecasts using Lagrangian drifting buoys

In this study, the quality of near-surface current forecasts from the FOAM ocean forecasting system is assessed using the trajectories of Lagrangian drifting buoys. A method is presented for deriving pseudo-Eulerian estimates of ocean currents from the positions of Surface Velocity Program drifters and the resulting data are compared to velocities observed by the global tropical moored buoy array. A quantitative analysis of the global FOAM velocities is performed for the period 2007 and 2008 using currents derived from over 3000 unique drifters (providing an average of 650 velocity observations per day). A potential bias is identified in the Southern Ocean which appears to be caused by wind-slip in the drifter dataset as a result of drogue loss. The drifter-derived currents are also used to show how the data assimilation scheme and a recent system upgrade impact upon the quality of FOAM current forecasts

Climatic conditions : conventional and nanotechnology-based methods for the control of mosquito vectors causing human health issues

Climate variability is highly impacting on mosquito-borne diseases causing malaria and dengue fever across the globe. Seasonal variability change in temperature and rainfall patterns are impacting on human health. Mosquitoes cause diseases like dengue fever, yellow fever, malaria, Chikungunya, West Nile and Japanese encephalitis. According to estimations by health organizations, annually one million human deaths are caused by vector-borne diseases, and dengue fever has increased about 30-fold over the past 50 years. Similarly, over 200 million cases of malaria are being reported annually. Mosquito-borne diseases are sensitive to temperature, humidity and seasonal variability. Both conventional (environmental, chemical, mechanical, biological etc.) and nanotechnology-based (Liposomes, nano-suspensions and polymer-based nanoparticles) approaches are used for the eradication of Malaria and dengue fever. Now green approaches are used to eradicate mosquitoes to save human health without harming the environment. In this review, the impact of climatic conditions on mosquito-borne diseases along with conventional and nanotechnology-based approaches used for controlling malaria and dengue fever have been discussed. Important recommendations have been made for people to stay healthy