Direct Laser Sintering of Borosilicate Glass

Despite the advantages that selective laser sintering (SLS) offers in terms of material availability, many materials have yet to be explored for feasibility and even fewer are available on a commercial basis. This paper presents initial investigations for one such material, borosilicate glass, which could be of particular interest to filter manufacturers because it presents an attractive alternative to the conventional, time-consuming way of producing filters of various porosity classes. Process results are presented including a determination of the optimal parameter window and the effect of processing parameters on the density and surface quality. The effects of thermal post-processing and the inclusion of an additive are also discussed.Mechanical Engineerin

Effects of homeopathic and antibiotic mastitis treatment considering mediumterm parameters in an organic dairy herd

Introduction: Homeopathic treatment is a common method against bovine mastitis in organic herds. In a study conducted in a large biodyn farm in Brandenburg (D) considering 261 cases of acute or chronical mastitis, we used four different combinations of homeopathic remedies depending on clinical state of the mastitis (e.g. general findings, pain, swelling or secretion). The remedies were administrated orally. The control group was treated with antibiotics intracisternally for three days at minimum until the cow was clinically cured or defined as therapy failure. While the cure rate was calculated from clinical and laboratory data (bacterial findings and somatic cell count), the further development of the treated cows during the lactation was confirmed using monthly provided somatic cell counts of cows, mastitis and culling data. Results: We found an overall cure rate (complete healing) after administration of homeopathic remedies (H) of 21.7 % compared to 35.8 % in the antibiotically treated control group (A). Though there was an obviously poor treatment success in the homeopathy group, we found no remarkable depression of general udder health in the herd. So it was fair to assume that there must exist positive mediumterm effects of homeopathic remedies. We compared the parameters "Remain in Lactation (RIL)", "Acceptable Cell Count (ACC; < 200.000/ ml)" and analysed the reasons of culling or leaving production by other reasons. We found that there were no differences in RIL (H: 26 % vs. A: 24 %) and ACC (14 % vs. 10 %) in general six month after treatment. The risk of unsuccessful homeopathic treatment during the observing time only was higher in cases of Staph. aureus mastitis and in cows in second lactation. The most important fact was that treated cows which were classified as- subclinical infected 3 weeks after treatment- (n = 35) showed the best relative mediumterm results in the homeopathatic treatment group (ACC: 10 % vs. 0 %; RIL: 29 % vs. 7 %). We conclude that maybe the time frame of 3 weeks after treatment is not suitable to describe the effects of regulatory (homeopathic) mastitis treatment. The mediumterm effects at least six months after treatment are comparable to those after antibiotic administration. We suppose that it is possible to keep the udder health standard in a herd avoiding antibiotics

Udder health concepts that comply with organic principles - how to reduce therapies?

Both the consumers and the legislators expect products from healthy organic livestock. Consequently, keeping farm animals healthy has the highest priority in veterinary work on organic farms. Different Swiss FiBL projects on bovine mastitis in recent years were aimed at health concepts that comply with organic livestock production principles. This paper summarises some of the work carried out

Handling the dry-off problem in organic dairy herds by teat sealing or homeopathy com-pared to therapy omission

Avoiding antibiotics is one of the crucial goals in organic dairy herd health management. Thus, a trial with 102 cows (408 quarters) was conducted to com-pare 2 common medical dry-off practices in organic dairying, internal teat sealant (Orbeseal®, Pfizer) and herd specific homeopathic remedies, with an untreated control. Regarding the sub-clinical mastitis protection rate (IPR), the results show no significant benefit for the two treatment groups in general. The homeopathic group had an advantage in the treatment of cows at drying off showing less than 200k cells/ml. The protection OR of these cows was 5.80 (95%-CI 1.36-29.87) compared to control. Teat sealants showed the best results in protection against environmental infections. Only 13% (n=10/80) of the primarily healthy quarters were infected by environmental Streptococci, Enterococci or Coliforms after calving compared to 21% (15/70; n.s.) after homeopathic treatment and 28% in the control group. This is a 3-fold protection chance (3.04 - 95%-CI 1.2-9.0) compared to control. The results indicate that in herds with good udder health with few environmental infections, a treatment at drying off can be omitted, while sub-clinically in-fected cows could be treated by homeopathics. Only in case of increased environmental infection risk, a strategic teat sealant usage is recommended

Treatment of bovine sub-clinical mastitis with homeopathic remedies

Considering the positive results of homeopathic therapy of bovine mastitis, the presented study should evaluate the effects of two standardized homeopathic methods in sub-clinical mastitis using a prospective randomized double-blind placebo control study design. A number of 124 dairy cows from 17 herds with increased somatic cell count were selected and randomly associated to 5 treatment groups. Two groups received a peroral therapy with (a) a homeopathic combination over 5 days and (b) a single treatment with a homeopathic nosode (Tuberculinum). To each treatment group a placebo control group was established with the same treatment frequency. A fifth group served as an untreated control. The bacteriological cure rate after 4 and 8 weeks was 28% and the total cure rate additionally regarding a normalized somatic cell count was 14% and 18%, respectively. There was no significant effect by the remedies at all. The cow somatic cell count over three months after treatment showed no significant difference in the five groups. Standardized homeopathic combinations and Tuberculinum nosodes are not able to control sub-clinical mastitis during lactation. If other factors like age and microbial agent are responsible for the success of homeopathy or if more individualized protocols provide better results has to be answered in further investigations

Land, Labour, Legacies : Long-term Trends in Inequality and Living Standards in Tanzania, c. 1920-2020

Since the beginning of African decolonisation in the mid-twentieth century, many newly independent countries struggled to embark upon a path of sustained economic growth to raise their populations out of poverty. One of these countries is Tanzania. Surrounded by the Great Lakes on the west and bordering the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania is the fifth-most populous country in Africa. It is also one of the poorest.To explain the persistence of poverty across the Global South, two factors have become increasingly prominent: economic inequality and colonial legacies. Tanzania emerged from colonial rule as a country with high economic inequality and low living standards. Since then, it has managed to overcome the legacy of high inequality but struggled to lift most Tanzanians out of poverty. How has the legacy of inequality been overcome? And why does poverty persist? What role does the colonial legacy play for income inequality and living standards? And how are economic inequality and living standards in Tanzania related to one another?This dissertation seeks to answer these questions through a series of papers which employ analytical narratives to trace and explain the evolution of inequality and living standards over the last century. For the British colonial period, these narratives combine new quantitative evidence on wages, agricultural production, and living standards, and analyse them using a combination of economic theory and qualitative historical evidence. The analysis of the post-colonial period is based on a wide range of existing datasets on income inequality and living standards and uses triangulation methods to analyse the interrelationships between growth, inequality, and poverty as well as the many competing narratives concerning Tanzania’s economic development since independence. Together, the papers form the basis for reflection upon broader issues surrounding the complex linkages between economic development, inequality, and living standards in Tanzania and beyond.The dissertation shows that first, the relationship between economic development, income inequality, and living standards in Tanzania is complex. While the inequality-growth relationship does not show a systematic pattern, economic growth was found to be a prerequisite for poverty reduction. Second, both in colonial times and after independence, the main obstacle to raising living standards was not income inequality itself, but the lack of access to diversified economic opportunities like cash crop production and wage labour for most Tanzanians. Third, looking at growth, inequality, and poverty in Tanzania over the span of a century, economic development was found to be slow and often arduous, but attempts to fast track this process were risky and often reversed the hard-won gains made during previous periods of development

Being a victim of bullying reduces child subjective well-being substantively: an international comparison

"Child subjective well-being has gained growing international acknowledgement in the last decade, but there are still open questions. How do we measure child subjective wellbeing, and are the same indicators relevant for children and adults? Is child subjective well-being directly associated with material wealth? Does the subjective well-being of children vary between countries? How does it vary? What explains that variation? In the past the subjective well-being of children has been compared at country level using published data derived from comparable international surveys, most commonly the Health Behaviour of School-aged Children survey. The league tables of child well-being produced in this way are fairly consistent. In seeking to explain these national rankings we tend to explore associations with other national league tables. Thus in the UNICEF (2013) Report Card 11, country rankings on subjective well-being were compared with country rankings on more objective domains of well-being – material, health, education, housing and so on, all at a macro level. In this paper we explore international variations in subjective well-being.1 To explore child subjective well-being and its determinants we use the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Study – World Health Organization Cross-National Survey (HBSC-study) which has been collecting data on adolescents every four years since 1983/84 in a growing number of countries in Europe and North America (Currie et al. 2012; www.hbsc.org). The aim of the HBSC-study is to increase the understanding of health, health-related behaviour and the social contexts of young people aged 11, 13 and 15 years. The study applies cluster-sampling at schools (classroom) and an identical questionnaire is used in all countries." (author's abstract

Toward a definition of moral decorum: Understanding the Pennsylvania Hall Address as an ethical response to the constraints of public expectations through Angelina Grimke’s use of sacred kairos and Biblical allusion

On the 17th of May, 1838, Angelina Grimke addressed a promiscuous audience in the newly-built Pennsylvania Hall. By speaking publicly on abolition and women’s rights, Grimke responded to the exigencies of her space, her audience’s (dis)interest, and the violent protestations of the mob which interrupted her remarks, but broke with the societal decorum. Decorum has been central to rhetorical theory since the classical period, functioning as an element of audience analysis. Although decorum has been traditionally considered as saying what is “right” given societal expectations, sometimes it is impossible for the rhetor to follow decorum when reacting to moral exigencies (such as the horrors of slavery). Some scholars have analyzed why defying the restraints of decorum is sometimes necessary to effect a rhetorical change. For example, Schilb explored “rhetorical refusals” (3) as deliberate violations of conventions. A theory of non-traditional decorum based on higher ideals has been well established by scholars, and I propose to build on these theories by offering a concept of moral decorum as a lens through which to view subversive rhetorics that find justification through the moral exigencies to which they respond. This thesis explicates a theory of moral decorum and uses two of its related components – sensitivity to sacred kairos and the reliance on an ethical framework – to perform a concept-oriented criticism of Angelina Grimke’s 1838 Pennsylvania Hall Address as an example of the theory at work. Through this effort, I hope to expand the understanding of the negotiation between decorum and the rhetor’s ethics, to offer new insights into Grimke’s Pennsylvania Hall Address, and to introduce a new theoretical lens for analyzing the indecorous discourse of protest and change