Physical and financial characteristics of high input and low input dairy farms in New Zealand : research project for thesis, to be presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science (M.Sc.) in Animal Science, Institute of Veterinary Animal and Biomedical Sciences, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand

In recent years the use of supplements in New Zealand dairy farms has increased, but there is little information about the way in which this extra feed has influenced the dairy system. This research work aimed at analysing the effect of extra feed input on the physical and financial performance of dairy farms. ProfitWatch data corresponding to 915 owner -operated dairy farms were analysed. The data was classified according to dairy season (1998/99, 1999/00, 2000/01, 2001/02), extra feed offered per cow (low input systems: 500kg DM extra feed/cow) and quartiles according to EFS/ha. The definition of extra feed comprised supplements imported, winter grazing and maize grown in the farm. The statistical analysis comprised analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis done in SAS. In all 4 dairy seasons, high input systems had higher stocking rates (2.7-2.8 vs 2.4-2.5 cows/ha), lower comparative stocking rate (83-86 vs 92-83 kg LWT/t DM), higher milksolids production per cow (293-341 vs 249-295 kg MS/cow) and per hectare (826-921 vs 616-744 kg MS/ha), and higher use of nitrogen fertiliser per hectare (85-116 vs 53-67 kg N/ha/year) than low input systems. During the period of study, milksolids payout increased from $3.58/kg MS in 1998/99 to$5.30/kg MS in 2001/02. High input systems had higher Gross Farm Income per hectare ($3287/ha vs$2374/ha in 1998/99; and $5377/ha vs$4362/ha in 2001/02) and higher Farm Working Expenses per hectare ($2519/ha vs$1760/ha in 1998/99, and $3259/ha vs$2187/ha in 2001/02) than low input systems. There were not significant differences in EFS/ha, Return on Assets (%) and Return on Equity (%) between farms in the 3 feed input systems. Within each feed input system, farms in the top quartile for EFS/ha had higher stocking rates and higher estimated pasture consumed per hectare than their corresponding farm system in the bottom quartile. Regression analysis of all the farms (915 farms) showed that across all farms, the marginal (average of 4 years) response to the extra feed used was 50g MS/cow/kg DM extra feed per cow. But the marginal response per hectare to extra feed was higher (96g MS/ha/kg DM extra feed per hectare) due to associated increases in stocking rate and other inputs. The operating cash surplus per hectare increased by approximately $0.07 to$0.12/kg DM of extra feed used per hectare, but EFS/ha was not significantly affected by these differences in cash operating surplus. Keywords: low, intermediate and high input systems: extra feed

A Community-Driven Validation Service for Standard Medical Imaging Objects

Digital medical imaging laboratories contain many distinct types of equipment provided by different manufacturers. Interoperability is a critical issue and the DICOM protocol is a de facto standard in those environments. However, manufacturers' implementation of the standard may have non-conformities at several levels, which will hinder systems' integration. Moreover, medical staff may be responsible for data inconsistencies when entering data. Those situations severely affect the quality of healthcare services since they can disrupt system operations. The existence of software able to confirm data quality and compliance with the DICOM standard is important for programmers, IT staff and healthcare technicians. Although there are a few solutions that try to accomplish this goal, they are unable to deal with certain situations that require user input. Furthermore, these cases usually require the setup of a working environment, which makes the sharing of validation information more difficult. This article proposes and describes the development of a Web DICOM validation service for the community. This solution requires no configuration by the user, promotes validation results share-ability in the community and preserves patient data privacy since files are de-identified on the client side.Comment: Computer Standards & Interfaces, 201

Seishin Habitus: Spiritual Capital and Japanese Rowing

Sport occupies an important place in educational curriculum, such as club activities in Japanese schools and universities; is it also imbued with what Bourdieu suggests are guaranteed capital properties? That is, can physical education help to accrue capital and can such capital become cultural and economic capital? Further, is this capital similar to that resulting from academic education? Although Western culture recognizes Cartesian differentiation, mind and body are seen as one in the Japanese understanding of the individual, unified by the concept of spirit (this is different to the concept of soul). Recognizing this concept of the body is crucial in addressing the question of transferring educational (in this case physical) capital into forms of cultural capital. This paper investigates the responses of members of a Japanese University Rowing club when addressing questions dealing with various uses of the body in rowing and perceived opportunities for future employment

Spectral representation of lattice gluon and ghost propagators at zero temperature

We consider the analytic continuation of Euclidean propagator data obtained from 4D simulations to Minkowski space. In order to perform this continuation, the common approach is to first extract the K\"all\'en-Lehmann spectral density of the field. Once this is known, it can be extended to Minkowski space to yield the Minkowski propagator. However, obtaining the K\"all\'en-Lehmann spectral density from propagator data is a well known ill-posed numerical problem. To regularize this problem we implement an appropriate version of Tikhonov regularization supplemented with the Morozov discrepancy principle. We will then apply this to various toy model data to demonstrate the conditions of validity for this method, and finally to zero temperature gluon and ghost lattice QCD data. We carefully explain how to deal with the IR singularity of the massless ghost propagator. We also uncover the numerically different performance when using two ---mathematically equivalent--- versions of the K\"all\'en-Lehmann spectral integral.Comment: 33 pages, 18 figure

Median inverse problem and approximating the number of kk-median inverses of a permutation

We introduce the "Median Inverse Problem" for metric spaces. In particular, having a permutation $\pi$ in the symmetric group $S_n$ (endowed with the breakpoint distance), we study the set of all $k$-subsets $\{x_1,...,x_k\}\subset S_n$ for which $\pi$ is a breakpoint median. The set of all $k$-tuples $(x_1,...,x_k)$ with this property is called the $k$-median inverse of $\pi$. Finding an upper bound for the cardinality of this set, we provide an asymptotic upper bound for the probability that $\pi$ is a breakpoint median of $k$ permutations $\xi_1^{(n)},...,\xi_k^{(n)}$ chosen uniformly and independently at random from $S_n$

Finite temperature gluon propagator in Landau gauge: non-zero Matsubara frequencies and spectral densities

We report on the lattice computation of the Landau gauge gluon propagator at finite temperature, including the non-zero Matsubara frequencies. Moreover, the corresponding K\"all\'en-Lehmann spectral density is computed, using a Tikhonov regularisation together with the Morozov discrepancy principle. Implications for gluon confinement are also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Lattice 2017 proceeding