Alpacas in Poland: health, welfare, and anti-parasitic prophylaxis

Alpacas’ population in Poland has attained 5000 individuals. From 2020 alpacas are recognized as farm animals in Poland. This ruminant is increasingly popular, but still poorly known compared to other farm animals (cattle, sheep, goats). The aim of this review is to present the specificity of alpacas in terms of adequate welfare of these animals. To provide an appropriate welfare level, the knowledge about the species’ biology and typical behaviour is needed. The basis for assessment of the animal's health status is the knowledge of basic physiological indicators, whose divergence from reference values is often the first symptom of many diseases. The health and welfare of virtually all animal species are influenced by infestations by endo- and exoparasites, which can cause many disorders and serious diseases. The growing alpaca population size necessitates investigation of this species, which will help future and current owners to breed these animals and prompt veterinarians to apply appropriate treatment of alpacas bred in Poland.

An analytic model of the CSI

A mathematical model of the current source inverter (CSI) operating in uncharacteristic states has been created in order to support research experiments. It permits to define general features of the CSI thanks to analytic expressions of voltage and current waveforms. The model describes the inverter in digital control time domain. It is useful in analysis of the inverter typical behaviour and transients and in designing of control algorithms.

The secrets of Arto Tapio Paasilinna’s stylistics

The article gives an overview of the literary legacy of Arto Tapio Paasilinna — one of the few Finnish authors of the second half of the 20th c. to enjoy international renown. Paasilinna’s 35 novels have been translated into 40 different languages; many of the books have been adapted to films. Russian audiences have yet to discover all of Paasilinna’s works. His books offer perfect material to study Finnish culture, humour, and enigmatic female characters. The present essay dwells on the critic’s impression of several unique stylistic features of Paasilinna’s prose. Finnish humour, attention to detail, and unexpected metaphors, along with other devices used by Paasilinna, allow for a study of Finnish culture that is shown not only through examples of typical behaviour of its remarkable representatives, but also as a mystery behind a façade of what seems like indifference and emotional inadequacy. Finland can boast hundreds of literary professionals, yet Paasilinna holds a special place in the vibrant stylistic diversity of the contemporary Finnish literary process.

Strong Crystallographic Influence on Spin Hall Mechanism in PLD-Grown IrO2 Thin Films

Spin-to-charge conversion is a central process in the emerging field of spintronics. One of its main applications is the electrical detection of spin currents, and for this, the inverse spin Hall effect (ISHE) has become one of the preferred methods. We studied the thickness dependence of the ISHE in iridium oxide (IrO2) thin films, producing spin currents by means of the spin Seebeck effect in γ−Fe2O3/IrO2 bilayers prepared by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The observed ISHE charge current density, which features a maximum as a consequence of the spin diffusion length scale, follows the typical behaviour of spin-Hall-related phenomena. By fitting to the theory developed by Castel et al., we find that the spin Hall angle θSH scales proportionally to the thin film resistivity, θSH∝ρc, and obtains a value for the spin diffusion length λIrO2 of λIrO2=3.3(7) nm. In addition, we observe a negative θSH for every studied thickness and temperature, unlike previously reported works, which brings the possibility of tuning the desired functionality of high-resistance spin-Hall-based devices. We attribute this behaviour to the textured growth of the sample in the context of a highly anisotropic value of the spin Hall conductivity in this material.

Food wastage and implications for food safety with special reference to marriage ceremonies

This study estimates the quantity of food waste and its causes in the marriage ceremonies in district Sargodha, Pakistan. A questionnaire was prepared for the collection of data on food waste. Before final data collection, a pilot survey was conducted and some changes have been made as per suggestions of the stakeholders. Every marquee and marriage hall were visited several times for data collection and data about 255 events of marriage ceremonies was collected. Along with empirical data, the focus group discussions and interviews were organized with managers and the staff of the marriage halls and marquees. Their experience and views were also recorded for the theoretical understanding of the science of food waste and its causes. The study concludes that, on average, every individual waste 183 grams of food in a marriage ceremony in district Sargodha. From theoretical side, it is concluded that guest’s unawareness about food waste and the typical behaviour of the guests are the major reasons of food waste in marriage ceremonies. While on the empirical side, the major reason of food waste is the buffet serving that causes to increase the quantity of food waste very significantly.

Physical invariant measures and tipping probabilities for chaotic attractors of asymptotically autonomous systems

Physical measures are invariant measures that characterise “typical” behaviour of trajectories started in the basin of chaotic attractors for autonomous dynamical systems. In this paper, we make some steps towards extending this notion to more general nonautonomous (time-dependent) dynamical systems. There are barriers to doing this in general in a physically meaningful way, but for systems that have autonomous limits, one can define a physical measure in relation to the physical measure in the past limit. We use this to understand cases where rate-dependent tipping between chaotic attractors can be quantified in terms of “tipping probabilities”. We demonstrate this for two examples of perturbed systems with multiple attractors undergoing a parameter shift. The first is a double-scroll system of Chua et al., and the second is a Stommel model forced by Lorenz chaos.

Comparison of Rheological Behaviour of Bio-Based and Synthetic Epoxy Resins for Making Ecocomposites

In this paper, the rheological behaviour of a petroleum-based epoxy (EL2 laminating epoxy) was compared with the Super Sap CLR clear bio-resin epoxy. The focus of the work was on the viscous and viscoelastic performance of these epoxy resins. Rheological tests were carried out at 15, 30, and 60 min after the mixing of the pure epoxies and the hardeners at a constant temperature of 25 °C. The results obtained from the rheometer tests showed that the viscosity of both epoxy systems decreased with increasing shear rate, which is typical behaviour of a shear thinning fluid. Regarding the oscillatory rheology tests, the viscoelastic properties of both epoxy resins were studied within their linear viscoelastic region (LVER) by amplitude sweep test, which was also carried out 15, 30, and 60 min after mixing the epoxies with the hardeners. It was noticed that the petroleum-based epoxy possessed a more significant LVER relative to the bio-based resin. Finally, the storage modulus (G′), the loss modulus (G″), and the phase angle were extracted, and these parameters were investigated over low and high frequencies. From the test results, we observed that both epoxy resins showed a liquid-like viscoelastic behaviour due to their phase angle values, which were always between 45° and 90°, and by the general tendency of the G″ predominance over G′ at low and high frequencies.

Generic Component-Based Mission-Centric Energy Model for Micro-Scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The trend towards the usage of battery-electric unmanned aerial vehicles needs new strategies in mission planning and in the design of the systems themselves. To create an optimal mission plan and take appropriate decisions during the mission, a reliable, accurate and adaptive energy model is of utmost importance. However, most existing approaches either use very generic models or ones that are especially tailored towards a specific UAV. We present a generic energy model that is based on decomposing a robotic system into multiple observable components. The generic model is applied to a swarm of quadcopters and evaluated in multiple flights with different manoeuvres. We additionally use the data from practical experiments to learn and generate a mission-agnostic energy model which can match the typical behaviour of our quadcopters such as hovering; movement in x, y and z directions; landing; communication; and illumination. The learned energy model concurs with the overall energy consumption with an accuracy over 95% compared to the training flights for the indoor use case. An extended model reduces the error to less than 1.4%. Consequently, the proposed model enables an estimation of the energy used in flight and on the ground, which can be easily incorporated in autonomous systems and enhance decision-making with reliable input. The used learning mechanism allows to deploy the approach with minimal effort to new platforms needing only some representative test missions, which was shown using additional outdoor validation flights with a different quadcopter of the same build and the originally trained models. This set-up increased the prediction error of our model to 4.46%.

Development of Unidirectional Cellular Structure with Multiple Pipe Layers and Characterisation of Its Mechanical Properties

This study is concerned with the development of a new unidirectional cellular (UniPore) copper structure with multiple concentric pipe layers. The investigated UniPore structures were grouped into three main types, each having a different number of pipes (3, 4, and 5 pipes per transversal cross-section) and different pore arrangements. The specimens were fabricated by explosive compaction to achieve tightly compacted structures with a quasi-constant cross-section along the length of the specimens. The bonding between copper pipes was observed by a metallographic investigation, which showed that the pipes and bars were compressed tightly without voids. However, they were not welded together. The mechanical properties were determined by quasi-static compressive testing, where the typical behaviour for cellular materials was noted. The study showed that porosity significantly influences the mechanical properties, even more so than the arrangement of the pipes.