Estimating technical efficiency of Australian dairy farms using alternative frontier methodologies

Technical efficiency is estimated and examined for a cross-section of Australian dairy farms using various frontier methodologies; Bayesian and Classical stochastic frontiers, and Data Envelopment Analysis. The results indicate technical inefficiency is present in the sample data. Also identified are statistical differences between the point estimates of technical efficiency generated by the various methodologies. However, the rank of farm level technical efficiency is statistically invariant to the estimation technique employed. Finally, when confidence/credible intervals of technical efficiency are compared significant overlap is found for many of the farms' intervals for all frontier methods employed. The results indicate that the choice of estimation methodology may matter, but the explanatory power of all frontier methods is significantly weaker when interval estimate of technical efficiency is examined.

Alternative methodologies - stretching the in vitro box

Current gas-based in vitro evaluation systems are extremely powerful research techniques. However they have the potential to generate a great deal more than simple fermentation dynamics. Details from four experiments are presented in which adaptation, and novel application, of an in vitro system allowed widely differing objectives to be examined. In the first two studies, complement methodologies were utilised. In such assays, an activity or outcome is inferred through the occurrence of a secondary event rather than by direct observation. Using an N-deficient incubation medium, the increase in starch fermentation, when supplemented with individual amino acids (i.e., known level of N) relative to that of urea (i.e., known quantity and N availability), provided an estimate of their microbial utilisation. Due to the low level of response observed with some arnino acids (notably methionine and lysine), it was concluded, that they may not need to be offered in a rumen-inert form to escape rumen microbial degradation. In another experiment, the extent to which degradation of plant cell wall components was inhibited by lipid supplementation was evaluated using fermentation gas release profiles of washed hay. The different responses due to lipid source and level of inclusion suggested that the degree of rumen protection required to ameliorate this depression was supplement dependent. That in vitro inocula differ in their microbial composition is of little interest per se, as long as the outcome is the same (i.e., that similar substrates are degraded at comparable rates and end-product release is equivalent). However where a microbial population is deficient in a particular activity, increasing the level of inoculation will have no benefit. Estimates of hydrolytic activity were obtained by examining fermentation kinetics of specific substrates. A number of studies identified a fundamental difference between rumen fluid and faecal inocula, with the latter having a lower fibrolytic activity, which could not be completely attributed to microbial numbers. The majority of forage maize is offered as an ensiled feed, however most of the information on which decisions such as choice of variety, crop management and harvesting date are made is based on fresh crop measurements. As such, an attempt was made to estimate ensiled maize quality from an in vitro analysis of the fresh crop. Fermentation profiles and chemical analysis confirmed changes in crop composition over the growing season, and loss of labile carbohydrates during ensiling. In addition, examination of degradation residues allowed metabolizable energy (ME) contents to be estimated. Due to difficulties associated with starch analysis, the observation that this parameter could be predicted by difference (together with an assumed degradability), allowed an estimate of ensiled maize ME to be developed from fresh material. In addition, the contribution of the main carbohydrates towards ME showed the importance of delaying harvest until maximum starch content has been achieved. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Acute Care Undergraduate TEaching (ACUTE) initiative: consensus development of core competencies in acute care for undergraduates in the United Kingdom

Background: The care of the acutely ill patient in hospital is often sub-optimal. Poor recognition of critical illness combined with a lack of knowledge, failure to appreciate the clinical urgency of a situation, a lack of supervision, failure to seek advice and poor communication have been identified as contributory factors. At present the training of medical students in these important skills is fragmented. The aim of this study was to use consensus techniques to identify the core competencies in the care of acutely ill or arrested adult patients that medical students should possess at the point of graduation. Design: Healthcare professionals were invited to contribute suggestions for competencies to a website as part of a modified Delphi survey. The competency proposals were grouped into themes and rated by a nominal group comprised of physicians, nurses and students from the UK. The nominal group rated the importance of each competency using a 5-point Likert scale. Results: A total of 359 healthcare professionals contributed 2,629 competency suggestions during the Delphi survey. These were reduced to 88 representative themes covering: airway and oxygenation; breathing and ventilation; circulation; confusion and coma; drugs, therapeutics and protocols; clinical examination; monitoring and investigations; team-working, organisation and communication; patient and societal needs; trauma; equipment; pre-hospital care; infection and inflammation. The nominal group identified 71 essential and 16 optional competencies which students should possess at the point of graduation. Conclusions: We propose these competencies form a core set for undergraduate training in resuscitation and acute care.

Truth - the essential dimension of ethics in scholarship, teaching, learning and research

The introduction of metrics, league tables, performance targets, research assessment exercises and a range of other pressures placed by society, funding bodies and employers on scholars, teachers and students have resulted in diminished value being placed on the essential ethical criterion of truth. The impact of reduced valuation for truth has a huge impact on the standing of science and not least horticultural science in the eyes of the general public at a time when this should be a primary concern. This contribution discusses examples of the impact of diminished valuation of truth, the causes of this phenomenon, the results that come from this situation and remedies that are needed.

Purpose built teaching equipment for a laboratory based course in three phase machines and drives

The hazards associated with high voltage three phase inverters ond the rotating sha@s of large electrical machines have resulted in most of the engineering courses covering these topics to be predominantly theoretical. This paper describes a set of purpose built, low voltage and low cost teaching equipment which allows the “hands on I’ instruction of three phase inverters and rotating machines. By using low voltages, the student can experiment freely with the motors and inverter and can access all of the current and voltage waveforms, which until now could only be studied in text books or observed as part of laboratory demonstrations. Both the motor and the inverter designs are optimized for teaching purposes, cost around $25 and can be made with minimal effort.

Inspecting the teaching of singing in the teacher training colleges of England, Wales and Scotland 1883-1899

This paper investigates the links between the teaching of singing, training and inspection during the late Victorian era. It utilises as a primary source the annual inspection reports of the music inspector, Sir John Stainer. More specifically it focuses upon the musical background of the students in the training colleges of England, Wales and Scotland, the methods employed to teach sight singing and voice production, the vocal repertoire and preparation for the teaching of singing in schools. Finally, some comparison is made with the present day and the relationship between the teaching of singing, training and inspection.

Creating teaching and learning in Europe: promoting a new paradigm

The tides of globalization and the unsteady surges and distortions in the evolution of the European Union are causing identities and cultures to be in a state of flux. Education is used by politicians as a major lever for political and social change through micro-management, but it is a crude tool. There can, however, be opportunities within educational experience for individual learners to gain strong, reflexive, multiple identities and multiple citizenship through the engagement of their creative energies. It has been argued that the twenty-first century needs a new kind of creativity characterized by unselfishness, caring and compassion—still involving monetary wealth, but resulting in a healthy planet and healthy people. Creativity and its economically derived relation, innovation, have become `buzz words' of our times. They are often misconstrued, misunderstood and plainly misused within educational conversations. The small-scale pan-European research study upon which this article is founded discovered that more emphasis needs to be placed on creative leadership, empowering teachers and learners, reducing pupils' fear of school, balancing teaching approaches, and ensuring that the curriculum and assessment are responsive to the needs of individual learners. These factors are key to building strong educational provision that harnesses the creative potential of learners, teachers and other stakeholders, values what it is to be human and creates a foundation upon which to build strong, morally based, consistent, participative democracies.