The reliability and feasibility of 10 animal-based measures of ewe welfare were examined for use in extensive sheep production systems. Measures were: Body condition score (BCS), rumen fill, fleece cleanliness, fleece condition, skin lesions, tail length, dag score, foot-wall integrity, hoof overgrowth and lameness, and all were examined on 100 Merino ewes (aged 2–4 years) during mid-pregnancy, mid-lactation and weaning by a pool of nine trained observers. The measures of BCS, fleece condition, skin lesions, tail length, dag score and lameness were deemed to be reliable and feasible. All had good observer agreement, as determined by the percentage of agreement, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W) and Kappa (k) values. When combined, these nutritional and health measures provide a snapshot of the current welfare status of ewes, as well as evidencing previous or potential welfare issues.

The reliability and feasibility of 10 animal-based measures of ewe welfare were examined for use in extensive sheep production systems. Measures were: Body condition score (BCS), rumen fill, fleece cleanliness, fleece condition, skin lesions, tail length, dag score, foot-wall integrity, hoof overgrowth and lameness, and all were examined on 100 Merino ewes (aged 2–4 years) during mid-pregnancy, mid-lactation and weaning by a pool of nine trained observers. The measures of BCS, fleece condition, skin lesions, tail length, dag score and lameness were deemed to be reliable and feasible. All had good observer agreement, as determined by the percentage of agreement, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (W) and Kappa (k) values. When combined, these nutritional and health measures provide a snapshot of the current welfare status of ewes, as well as evidencing previous or potential welfare issues.

The paper deals with inconsistencies of composite sustainability indicators and their different subsets (economic, environmental, social, and corporate governance). Corporate sustainability performance is usually highly nonlinear, vague, partially inconsistent and multidimensional. The resulting models are often oversimplified. The key reason is an information shortage which eliminates the unsophisticated applications of classical statistical methods. Numbers are accurate and information intensive. Verbal quantifications are less accurate and therefore not that information intensive. Fuzzy sets and fuzzy reasoning are used to make verbal quantifiers suitable for computer applications. A fuzzy similarity graph is defined. A team of experts identified 17 relevant variables (e.g. Environmental costs, Occupational diseases, Number of complaints received from stakeholders) and 12 company data sets are available. Each company is presented as a fuzzy conditional statement. A set of fuzzy pairwise similarities is generated and used to evaluate five similarity graphs: a Total Graph (based on all 17 variables) and graphs based on relevant specific subsets of variables, Economic, Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance graphs. The topologies of these graphs are significantly different. No prior knowledge of fuzzy reasoning is required.

The article presents the research of qualitative indicators of curd products with different nutritional ingredients based on protein-herbal clots. The effect of the number of Rumex juice and the duration of thermoacid processing on the process of precipitation of milk proteins was determined. It was established that the introduction of vegetative coagulant in the amount (9 ± 0.5)% at a temperature (93 ... 95) °C and endurance (3 ... 5) min - provides the optimal yield of protein-herbal clot taking into account restrictions according to organoleptic parameters. The effect of white sugar and apple pectin in fiber on the organoleptic, physico-chemical and rheological indicators curd products was investigated. The dietary fibers increase moisture-proof ability and effective viscosity of samples, and white sugar reduces these indexes due to dehydrating properties. The optimal option is to add to the protein-herbal bunch at the same time two components when mixing - white sugar and apple pectin in fiber in quantities of 15% and 2% respectively. Taking into account the influence of individual non-dairy ingredients - Rumex juice of white sugar and apple pectin in fiber on curd products, the performance of the finished product can purposefully be affected.

When making comprehensive evaluation on economy of an area, it is always hard to choose evaluation indicator system and composite indicators reasonably. This article uses parallel analysis to choose the number of principal component and classify indicators by R clustering and load rotation matrix to assess the economy of various cities in the economic zone and analyze economic status of each city, to provide a scientific basis for the government functional department to make correct decisions.

Under the background of the new urbanization, this paper performs an empirical analysis of requisition-compensation balance indicators in Chuzhou City, and points out the problems in the land transaction. At the national level, it is necessary to introduce the measures to regulate the market transactions of requisition-compensation balance indicators as soon as possible, put safeguarding the interests of the majority of farmers in the first place during market transactions, and establish the a unified market platform for the transaction of land-related indicators, so as to boost the urban construction, promote the integration of urban and rural areas, and speed up the new urbanization process.

A current research project at the Technical University Munich-Weihenstephan evaluates an integral on-farm welfare assessment system for horse husbandries. It is based on national animal welfare standard and does take sustainability into - system includes animal-based indicators as well as resource-based indicators. It is stipulated that indicators are valid, reliable and feasible. Potential indicators were selected by study of literature and two field tests (30 horse husbandries, 1572 horses) in order to examine reliability and feasibility. The welfare assessment system aims at objective and scientific-founded indicators that are both applicable for conventional and ecological horse husbandries.

Sheep are managed under a variety of different environments (continually outdoors, partially outdoors with seasonal or diurnal variation, continuously indoors) and for different purposes, which makes assessing welfare challenging. This diversity means that resource-based indicators are not particularly useful and, thus, a welfare assessment scheme for sheep, focusing on animal-based indicators, was developed. We focus specifically on ewes, as the most numerous group of sheep present on farm, although many of the indicators may also have relevance to adult male sheep. Using the Welfare Quality® framework of four Principles and 12 Criteria, we considered the validity, reliability, and feasibility of 46 putative animal-based indicators derived from the literature for these criteria. Where animal-based indicators were potentially unreliably or were not considered feasible, we also considered the resource-based indicators of access to water, stocking density, and floor slipperiness. With the exception of the criteria “Absence of prolonged thirst,” we suggest at least one animal-based indicator for each welfare criterion. As a minimum, face validity was available for all indicators; however, for many, we found evidence of convergent validity and discriminant validity (e.g., lameness as measured by gait score, body condition score). The reliability of most of the physical and health measures has been tested in the field and found to be appropriate for use in welfare assessment. However, for the majority of the proposed behavioral indicators (lying synchrony, social withdrawal, postures associated with pain, vocalizations, stereotypy, vigilance, response to surprise, and human approach test), this still needs to be tested. In conclusion, the comprehensive assessment of sheep welfare through largely animal-based measures is supported by the literature through the use of indicators focusing on specific aspects of sheep biology. Further work is required for some indicators to ensure that measures are reliable when used in commercial settings.

On-package dual sensors label has been constructed based on two pH indicators, and it has been applied to monitor the beef freshness. The two pH indicators used are methyl red (MR) and bromo cresol purple (BCP). The beef decay could be detected clearly and easily by the dual color indicators, where the MR change from red to yellow, while the BCP change from yellow to purple. The label responses accurately to the beef freshness, in term of its pH change due to the deterioration as shown by both color change at room and chiller temperatures. Similarly with the other parameters, such as the total volatile basic amine (TVBN), total viable count (TVC) and sensory evaluation. These levels were reached at 8 h and 7 days as the threshold of spoilage at room and chiller temperature respectively. Therefore, the label can be used as a simple and practical indicator for freshness monitoring of packaged beef.

Trophic level (TL)-based indicators are commonly used to track the ecosystem effects of fishing as the selective removal of organisms from the food web may result in changes to the trophic structure of marine ecosystems. The use of a fixed TL per species in the calculation of TL-based indicators has been questioned, given that species' TLs vary with ontogeny, as well as over time and space. We conducted a model-based assessment of the performance of fixed TL-based indicators vs. variable TL-based indicators for tracking the effects of fishing pressure. This assessment considered three TL-based indicators (the trophic level of the landed catch (TLc), the marine trophic index (MTI) and the trophic level of the surveyed community (TLsc)), three fishing scenarios that targeted specific model groups (the low TL scenario (LTL), the high TL scenario (HTL) and a scenario encompassing broad-scale exploitation (ALL)) and ten contrasting marine ecosystems with four types of ecosystem modelling approaches that differ in their structure and assumptions. Results showed that, overall, variable TL-based indicators have a greater capacity for detecting the effects of fishing pressure than fixed TL-based indicators. Across TL-based indicators, TLsc displayed the most consistent response to fishing whether fixed or variable species' TLs were used, as well as the highest capacity for detecting fishing effects. This result supports previous studies that promote the use of survey-based indicators over catch-based indicators to explore the impacts of fishing on the structure of marine ecosystems. Across fishing scenarios, the low trophic level fishing scenario (LTL) resulted in the lowest consistency between fixed and variable TL-based indicator responses and the lowest capacity of TL-based indicators for detecting fishing effects. Overall, our results speak to the need for caution when interpreting TL-based indicator trends, and knowledge of the broader context, such as fishing strategies and exploitation history.