Novel ways to use sensor data to improve mastitis management.

Current sensor systems are used to detect cows with clinical mastitis. Although, the systems perform well enough to not negatively affect the adoption of automatic milking systems, the performance is far from perfect. An important advantage of sensor systems is the availability of multiple measurements per day.

Explosive fragmentation of Prince Rupert's drops leads to well-defined fragment sizes.

Anyone who has ever broken a dish or a glass knows that the resulting fragments range from roughly the size of the object all the way down to indiscernibly small pieces: typical fragment size distributions of broken brittle materials follow a power law, and therefore lack a characteristic length scale. The origin of this power-law behavior is still unclear, especially why it is such an universal feature. Here we study the explosive fragmentation of glass Prince Rupert's drops, and uncover a fundamentally different breakup mechanism.

Factors associated with milking-to-milking variability in somatic cell counts from healthy cows in an automatic milking system.

Fully automated on-line analysis equipment is available for analysis of somatic cell count (SCC) at every milking in automatic milking systems. In addition to results from on-line cell counters (OCC), an array of additional cow-level and quarter-level factors considered important for udder health are recorded in these systems. However, the amount of variability in SCC that can be explained by available data is unknown, and so is the proportion of the variability that may be due to physiological or normal variability.

Dynamics of somatic cell count patterns as a proxy for transmission of mastitis pathogens.

Management of udder health is particularly focused on preventing new infections. Data from the DeLaval Online Cell Counter (DeLaval, Tumba, Sweden) may be used in forecasting to improve decision support for improved udder health management. It provides online cell counts (OCC) as a proxy for somatic cell counts from every milking at the cow level.

The detection of intramammary infections using online somatic cell counts.

Timely and accurate identification of cows with intramammary infections is essential for optimal udder health management. Various sensor systems have been developed to provide udder health information that can be used as a decision support tool for the farmer. Among these sensors, the DeLaval Online Cell Counter (DeLaval, Tumba, Sweden) provides somatic cell counts from every milking at cow level.