If farmers have a better understanding of the cows reproductive anatomy, then it becomes easier for them to understand the factors that come into play when it comes to getting her pregnant, according to UK veterinarian Roger Blowey.

For example, at a very practical level, the tip of an insemination gun should always be placed at the entrance to the cervix during the AI process. If it is pushed up beyond this point, damage to the uterus can result, which will diminish the cows chance of becoming pregnant.

Blowey confirmed that 90% of eggs will be fertilised if the cow is inseminated at the right time.

But problems can follow, when it comes to the new embryo implanting itself onto the wall of the uterus, he said.

This is because the cow does not pick up the signals coming from the fertilised egg and, as a result, does not respond in the ways required to allow implantation.

Blowey said that both external and internal factors can come into play, when determining whether or not implantation can take place.

Extraneous stimuli include lameness, mastitis, over-crowding, poor handling and other management related issues, he added.

Internal factors include endometritis and the physical condition of the uterus. For example, if full involution has not taken place, then the cow will not become pregnant.

This issue raises its head if a cow is inseminated too soon after having her previous calf.

Blowey also highlighted the implications of twin calves a heifer and a bull being born while attached to the same placenta during pregnancy.

Invariably the heifer will be a freemartin.This is because male hormones from the growing bull will be circulating prior to the heifer producing her own compliment of female hormones. As a consequence, the heifer will be born with both male and female sex organs.

Sometimes, the bull calf will be re-absorbed by the mother. However, the resulting single heifer calf will still be a freemartin.

Read more:
'Dairy farmers should check out their cows' anatomy' - Agriland

The neck

In terms of extreme forces they endure, this season we anticipate a greater mechanical grip and faster cornering speeds so we would expect a possible increase in the lateral and longitudinal g-forces which will increase the load on the neck. The neck has to endure a 30-35% increase in load, so the equivalent of about an extra 30-40kg.

Technogym is a partner of ours and they have provided a specific machine known as the F1 Training Machine which enables the drivers to sit in a very specific position and build the right strength. The steering wheel is plate-loaded so you can adjust the position and the load. The drivers can also wear a helmet with attachments of bungee cords which help provide some elastic resistance to simulate the loads they experience in the car.

The drivers also need neuromuscular capabilities so their nervous system needs to be able to react quickly to stimulus on the track, whether that be a move by a fellow competitor, debris on the track, or information or instructions from the pit. They have to make quick decisions in seconds. Driving at such high speeds requires instant decision-making while controlling a million pound machine which is very valuable to the team.

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The anatomy of F1 drivers: from lightning reactions to superstrength necks - Telegraph.co.uk

Employees at Ford's Bridgend Engine Plant, UK, building the 1.6-litre EcoBoost engine

A confluence of factors, many of them rooted in history, are behind theexpected decline in output at Ford's Bridgend plant which will lead to the loss of 1,100 jobs over the next five years.

Firstly, the much-talked about megatrend of engine downsizing has had a marked effect on the addressable market of Bridgend's bread and butter engine of recent years, the Sigma or Zetec-SE, and its proposed successor the Dragon engine (understood to be a 1.2 and 1.5L petrol engine family). The Sigma engine family was introduced in 1995 and produced at both the Bridgend and Valencia, Spain engine plants initially (latterly it's been built further afield). The petrol engine spanned 1.25-1.6L capacity (with a special 1.7L variant developed for the Ford Puma by Yamaha) and its performance was sufficient to make some parts of the bigger capacity Zetec engine 1.6-2.0L petrol engine redundant. They do say what goes around comes around and this became apparent in 2011 when the three-cylinder Fox engine, built in Cologne, Germany and Craiova, Romania was introduced. The Fox engine, necessary to support the required reduction in fleet CO2 emissions under European rules, epitomises downsizing and eroded much of the Sigma's addressable market.

The second major factor is the programme consolidation, known as One Ford, that Ford embarked upon as its signature strategy under Alan Mullaly. While singular global vehicles and platforms may be the visible front for One Ford, it's also a back-office operation for significant components like powertrains. Therefore, whereas in the past, Ford might have been happy to let legacy and older engine programmes continue manufacturing past their European or US market sell-by date in developing markets it is no longer the case. Also, it's the case that regulatory standards in emerging markets are rapidly converging on those in Europe thus enabling a consolidated global approach like One Ford. Thus, the Dragon engine will not only be built in Bridgend but also in India (the lead plant), Brazil, China, Russia and Mexico.

One Ford has had, and will have, other ramifications for Bridgend. It prompted Ford to disband PAG (Premier Automobiles Group) comprising Volvo, JLR and Aston Martin with the first two providing Bridgend with incremental volumes through Volvo's SI6 engine and also JLR's AJ126 and AJ133 engine. The dissolution of PAG saw that the newly independent Volvo and JLR had to develop their own engine programmes. This first saw Bridgend stop building the SI6 engine for both Volvo and JLR. While volumes for the JLR engines have climbed in recent years it is now reported that the JLR contract ends in 2019. At around that time it is thought that JLR will replace the AJ126 V6 with an inline six engine derived from its Ingenium engine programme. Whether the V8 AJ133 will continue manufacture somewhere else is unknown but it's not hard to conceive that boosted versions of the Ingenium inline six could supersede it.

Finally, the uncertainty that Brexit brings over future tariff and trade arrangements will not have helped. In a single European market this is not such a problem. Sure, there is some ForEx risk being outside the Eurozone but the uncertainty brings an added complication that Ford could do without on top of the issues outlined above. Of course, this factor is amplified for Ford in the UK as it no longer manufactures vehicles in the country after shuttering the Dagenham vehicle plant in 2001 and the Southampton Transit plant in 2013. While Dagenham continues to be Ford's centre of excellence for diesel engine manufacture the mounting opposition to diesel in European cities, together with the pressures of manufacturing in a global environment, do start to raise some questions about its longevity after the disclosure of phased job losses at Bridgend.

Ford to lose more jobs at UK engine plant - report

See more here:
Ford's Bridgend engine plant the anatomy of its decline - just-auto.com (subscription)

Restricting housing construction does not just hurt developersit makes housing less affordable for everyone. But to overcome neighborhood resistance, you need to understand what drives it.

Birds sit on a telephone line near Skid Row Housing Trust's 102 pre-fabricated modular apartments under construction in Los Angeles.

Next week, Los Angeles will vote on Measure S, a ballot initiative that proposes a two-year moratorium on developments that required changes to land use.

The law could potentially limit both new developments and affordable housing. Even with an exception for affordable housing developments written into the law, critics say it could still further restrict affordability in the region.

For a growing chorus of urbanists, NIMBYism and land use restrictions are the culprit behind everything from growing income inequality to shrinking affordable housing, productivity, and innovation. A 2015 study estimated that land use restrictions costs the United States upwards of $1.5 trillion in lost productivity. The 2016 Economic Report of the President called for sweeping reform of zoning and land use restrictions to overcome these costly economic rents, build more housing, and stimulate the U.S. economy.

A recent white paper by Paavo Monkkonen sheds interesting new light on the connection between NIMBYism and housing affordability. It takes a deep dive into, on the one hand, neighborhood opposition and land use restrictions, as well as housing supply and housing costs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Californias other expensive housing markets. (The research was partially supported by an unrestricted grant from the Center for California Real Estate to the University of California Center Sacramento Center Housing, Land Use, and Development Public Leadership and White Paper Award.)

California offers an ideal case study in the effects of NIMBYism on housing prices. Its major metrosLos Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, San Diego, Santa Barbaraare some of the most expensive in the nation. They combine high levels of productivity and high levels of amenitytwo factors which create the high demand which puts pressure on housing prices, and have fallen victim to harsh land use restrictions.

San Francisco Is So Expensive Even Renters Can Be NIMBYs

My own research finds that knowledge and professional workers are able to pay Californias higher housing costs. The burden falls largely on less advantaged blue-collar and service workers who have very little money left over after paying for housing. San Francisco has the highest housing costs in the country, while L.A. has the highest share of rent-burdened households. Across the state as a whole, renters need to make almost four times the state minimum wage to afford an average rent.

The crux of the California problem, the Monkkonen paper argues, is not the states restrictions on uber-high density building in and around urban centers, but the broader dependence on lower-density zoning across the board. Los Angeles may be a relatively dense city and metro (indeed, according to some basic measures, it is the densest metro in the country), but three-quarters of its residential land is devoted to relatively low-density single-family housing that only shelters half the citys population.

But adding new supply in the form of high-rise towers in and around the core will do little to solve the overall housing affordability problem. For one, those towers are usually built for the wealthy, and luxury buildings often boost the price of housing in neighborhoods in and around where theyre built (prompting calls like this one for a luxury housing tax to fund affordable units). They can also displace people from their neighborhoods and change the character of those neighborhoodsthings residents very much care about and will understandably seek to block.

Understanding NIMBYs

To get beyond NIMBYism, we first must understand it. Neighborhood resistance isnt just triggered by residents trying to prop up their home values or protect their neighborhoods from things they dont likeits the product of policies that provide incentives toward homeownership and a regulatory system that encourages and prompts opposition.

Even if the economic arguments about the costs and negative consequences of NIMBYism reflect sound economic logic, they amount to little if they fail to address the very real concerns of neighborhood groups. Most regular citizens and neighborhood residents dont think like dispassionate economists. According to a 2016 Building Industry Association poll, some two-thirds of San Franciscans surveyed do not think increasing housing supply improves affordability. Rather, they believe that land use regulations help to protect their neighborhoods.

Monkkonen goes on to parse four different strains of NIMBYism and their underlying motivations:

To fend off the four flavors of NIMBYism, the paper suggests several strategies:

There are other ways to combat NIMBYism. Yale Law School professor David Schleicher suggests using local tax policy to essentially co-opt NIMBY opposition to new development. The basic idea, referred to as tax increment local transfers, is to allow the residents of neighborhoods to share in the tax revenues that come from new developmentfor example, by rebating and reducing their own property taxes over a period of time. Others suggest that shifting from the current property tax to a land-value tax, which taxes property owners on the underlying value of the land itself, will create better incentives for more intensive land use.

But regardless of the precise mechanism employed, finding better ways to understand and counteract NIMBYism and create more vibrant and affordable cities is one of the most pressing policy issues facing urban America. The need to build more housing without removing community input is, as Monkkonen puts it, "a challenge we can no longer ignore."

Read the original here:
Anatomy of a NIMBY - CityLab