CNPC Beefs up Cooperative Development for Onshore Oil and Gas Fields

ＣＮＰＣＢｅｅｆｓｕｐＣｏｏｐｅｒａｔｉｖｅＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎｔｆｏｒＯｎｓｈｏｒｅＯｉｌａｎｄＧａｓＦｉｅｌｄｓＣｕｉＹａｏｎａｎ，（ＶｉｃｅＣｈｉｅｆＥｎｇｉｎｅｅｒｏｆＩｎｔｅｒｎａｔｉｏｎａｌＥｘｐｌｏｒａｔｉｏｎａｎｄＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｍｅｎ...

Korea Beefs Up Disinfection Against Foot And Mouth

欧洲的疯牛病还没有从人们的记忆淡出,今年三月底以来。韩国又发生了可怕的牲畜口蹄疫(foot-and-mouth disease)。所谓“口蹄疫”,即偶蹄兽(牛,羊,猪等)的一种急性、接触性传染病。病原为病毒。通过病畜和被污染的饲料、褥草、用具和护理人员的衣物传播,经消化道,呼吸道等多种途径感染,传染性极强。病畜体温升高,口腔、面、蹄叉、蹄冠和乳房上发生水疱和烂斑,口流泡沫、时作喷嚏声、坡行、能够影响使役和泌乳。从下面这句可见“口蹄疫”的危害之烈:…which hit Taiwan in 1997, which forced the slaughter of a quarter of the island's 14 million pigs and decimated(本义:大批杀害)its pork export industry.此外,本文标题中的beef up是一个常用的口语用语,意思是“加强,增强”。另如:The President has beefed up his staff.总统加强了他的工作班子。】

Re-identifying beef cattle using improved AlignedReID++

Accurate and continuous identification of individual cattle is crucial to precision farming in recent years.It is also the prerequisite to monitor the individual feed intake and feeding time of beef cattle at medium to long distances over different cameras.However,beef cattle can tend to frequently move and change their feeding position during feeding.Furthermore,the great variations in their head direction and complex environments(light,occlusion,and background)can also lead to some difficulties in the recognition,particularly for the bio-similarities among individual cattle.Among them,AlignedReID++model is characterized by both global and local information for image matching.In particular,the dynamically matching local information(DMLI)algorithm has been introduced into the local branch to automatically align the horizontal local information.In this research,the AlignedReID++model was utilized and improved to achieve the better performance in cattle re-identification(ReID).Initially,triplet attention(TA)modules were integrated into the BottleNecks of ResNet50 Backbone.The feature extraction was then enhanced through cross-dimensional interactions with the minimal computational overhead.Since the TA modules in AlignedReID++baseline model increased the model size and floating point operations(FLOPs)by 0.005 M and 0.05 G,the rank-1 accuracy and mean average precision(mAP)were improved by 1.0 percentage points and 2.94 percentage points,respectively.Specifically,the rank-1 accuracies were outperformed by 0.86 percentage points and 0.12 percentage points,respectively,compared with the convolution block attention module(CBAM)and efficient channel attention(ECA)modules,although 0.94 percentage points were lower than that of squeeze-and-excitation(SE)modules.The mAP metric values were exceeded by 0.22,0.86 and 0.12 percentage points,respectively,compared with the SE,CBAM,and ECA modules.Additionally,the Cross-Entropy Loss function was replaced with the CosFace Loss function in the global branch of baseline model.CosFace Loss and Hard Triplet Loss were jointly employed to train the baseline model for the better identification on the similar individuals.AlignedReID++with CosFace Loss was outperformed the baseline model by 0.24 and 0.92 percentage points in the rank-1 accuracy and mAP,respectively,whereas,AlignedReID++with ArcFace Loss was exceeded by 0.36 and 0.56 percentage points,respectively.The improved model with the TA modules and CosFace Loss was achieved in a rank-1 accuracy of 94.42%,rank-5 accuracy of 98.78%,rank-10 accuracy of 99.34%,mAP of 63.90%,FLOPs of 5.45 G,frames per second(FPS)of 5.64,and model size of 23.78 M.The rank-1 accuracies were exceeded by 1.84,4.72,0.76 and 5.36 percentage points,respectively,compared with the baseline model,part-based convolutional baseline(PCB),multiple granularity network(MGN),and relation-aware global attention(RGA),while the mAP metrics were surpassed 6.42,5.86,4.30 and 7.38 percentage points,respectively.Meanwhile,the rank-1 accuracy was 0.98 percentage points lower than TransReID,but the mAP metric was exceeded by 3.90 percentage points.Moreover,the FLOPs of improved model were only 0.05 G larger than that of baseline model,while smaller than those of PCB,MGN,RGA,and TransReID by 0.68,6.51,25.4,and 16.55 G,respectively.The model size of improved model was 23.78 M,which was smaller than those of the baseline model,PCB,MGN,RGA,and TransReID by 0.03,2.33,45.06,14.53 and 62.85 M,respectively.The inference speed of improved model on a CPU was lower than those of PCB,MGN,and baseline model,but higher than TransReID and RGA.The t-SNE feature embedding visualization demonstrated that the global and local features were achieve in the better intra-class compactness and inter-class variability.Therefore,the improved model can be expected to effectively re-identify the beef cattle in natural environments of breeding farm,in order to monitor the individual feed intake and feeding time.

Identific tion of quantitative trait loci and associated candidate genes for pregnancy success in Angus–Brahman crossbred heifers

Background In beef cattle, more than 50% of the energy input to produce a unit of beef is consumed by the female that produced the calf. Development of genomic tools to identify females with high genetic merit for reproductive function could increase the profitability and sustainability of beef production.Results Genome-wide association studies(GWAS) were performed using a single-step genomic best linear unbiased prediction approach on pregnancy outcome traits from a population of Angus–Brahman crossbred heifers. Furthermore, a validation GWAS was performed using data from another farm. Heifers were genotyped with the Bovine GGP F250 array that contains 221,077 SNPs. In the discovery population, heifers were bred in winter breeding seasons involving a single round of timed artificial insemination(AI) followed by natural mating for 3 months. Two phenotypes were analyzed: pregnancy outcome to first-service AI(PAI;n = 1,481) and pregnancy status at the end of the breeding season(PEBS;n = 1,725). The heritability was estimated as 0.149 and 0.122 for PAI and PEBS, respectively. In the PAI model, one quantitative trait locus(QTL), located between 52.3 and 52.5 Mb on BTA7, explained about 3% of the genetic variation, in a region containing a cluster of γ-protocadherin genes and SLC25A2. Other QTLs explaining between 0.5% and 1% of the genetic variation were found on BTA12 and 25. In the PEBS model, a large QTL on BTA7 was synonymous with the QTL for PAI, with minor QTLs located on BTA5, 9, 10, 11, 19, and 20. The validation population for pregnancy status at the end of the breeding season were Angus–Brahman crossbred heifers bred by natural mating. In concordance with the discovery population, the large QTL on BTA7 and QTLs on BTA10 and 12 were identified.Conclusions In summary, QTLs and candidate SNPs identified were associated with pregnancy outcomes in beef heifers, including a large QTL associated with a group of protocadherin genes. Confirmation of these associations with larger populations could lead to the development of genomic predictions of reproductive function in beef cattle. Moreover, additional research is warranted to study the function of candidate genes associated with QTLs.

Diet and monensin influence the temporal dynamics of the rumen microbiome in stocker and finishing cattle

Background Stocker cattle diet and management influence beef cattle performance during the finishing stage,but knowledge of the dynamics of the rumen microbiome associated with the host are lacking.A longitudinal study was conducted to determine how the feeding strategy from the stocker to the finishing stages of production affects the temporal dynamics of rumen microbiota.During the stocker phase,either dry hay or wheat pasture were provided,and three levels of monensin were administrated.All calves were then transported to a feedlot and received similar finishing diets with or without monensin.Rumen microbial samples were collected on d 0,28,85 during the stocker stage(S0,S28 and S85)and d 0,14,28,56,30 d before slaughter and the end of the trial during the finishing stage(F0,F14,F28,F56,Pre-Ba,and Final).The V4 region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene of 263 rumen samples was sequenced.Results Higher alpha diversity,including the number of observed bacterial features and the Shannon index,was observed in the stocker phase compared to the finishing phase.The bacterial amplicon sequence variants(ASVs)differentiating different sampling time points were identified.Dietary treatments during the stocker stage temporally impact the dynamics of rumen microbiota.For example,shared bacteria,including Bacteroidales(ASV19)and Streptococcus infantarius(ASV94),were significantly higher in hay rumen on S28,S85,and F0,while Bacteroidaceae(ASV11)and Limivicinus(ASV15)were more abundant in wheat.Monensin affected rumen microbial composition at a specific time.Transportation to feedlot significantly influenced microbiome structure and diversity in hay-fed calves.Bacterial taxa associated with body weight were classified,and core microbiotas interacted with each other during the trial.Conclusions In summary,the temporal dynamics of the rumen microbiome in cattle at the stocker and finishing stage are influenced by multiple factors of the feeding strategy.Diet at the stocker phase may temporarily affect the microbial composition during this stage.Modulating the rumen microbiome in the steers at the stocker stage affects the microbial interactions and performance in the finishing stage.

Mitigation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons(PAHs)in roasted beef patties by cold plasma treatment and products quality evaluation

The cold plasma(CP)technique was applied to alleviate the contamination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon(PAH)in this investigation.Two different CP treatments methods were implemented in the production of beef patties,to investigate their inhibition and degradation capacity on PAHs.With 5 different cooking oils and fats addition,the inhibition mechanism of in-package cold plasma(ICP)pretreatment was explored from the aspect of raw patties fatty acids composition variation.The results of principal component analysis showed that the first two principal components accounted for more than 80%of the total variation in the original data,indicating that the content of saturated fatty acids was significantly positively correlated with the formation of PAHs.ICP pretreatment inhibited the formation of PAHs by changing the composition of fatty acids,which showed that the total amount of polyunsaturated fatty acids decreased and the total amount of monounsaturated fatty acids increased.Sensory discrimination tests demonstrated there were discernable differences between 2 CP treated samples and the controls,utilization of the ICP pretreatment in meat products processing was expected to achieve satisfying eating quality.In conclusion,CP treatment degraded PAHs through stepwise ring-opening oxidation in 2 reported pathways,the toxicity of PAHs contaminated products was alleviated after CP treatment.

Assessing the Environmental Impact of Extensive Beef Production in Grazing Lands of Argentina

Because of environmental constraints,beef cattle was for more than a century the only viable farming option in the extensive semiarid and subhumid lands of Argentina and the main source of nutrients for humans as well.However,a growing concern and criticism have risen today about its possible negative impact on the climate and the environment.These worries tend to affect current public opinions,national policies,and international trade.Based on 40 beef cattle farms scattered across different semiarid and subhumid regions of Argentina,here we evaluated the impact of extensive cattle production on carbon,water,and nutrient pollution.Life-Cycle Assessment(LCA)and Land-Based Assessment(LBA)were the two approaches we used here to compare the environmental impact of beef production.While the environmental footprint(EF)resulting from LCA expresses the impact per unit of food,the environmental balance(EB),derived from LBA,aims at quantifying the impact per unit of land.As such,the EB considers both negative and positive impacts on the farm as an integrated system.Following standardized procedures,we evaluated EF and EB up to the farm gate,leaving aside delocalized post-farm impacts such as those of processing,packaging,and transportation that occur beyond the farm gate.In agreement with previous evidence,our results show that the EF tends to decrease as per-head production increases.Correlation coefficients and statistical significance were the following for carbon(R=−0.574;p<0.01),water(R=−0.561;p<0.01),and N(R=−0.704;p<0.01)and Phosphorus(P)pollution(R=−0.802;p<0.01)footprints.On the contrary,the EB seems to be highly sensitive,and as per-hectare beef production increases.Correlations were the following for carbon emissions(CE:R=0.955;p<0.01),water consumption(WC:R=0.822;p<0.01),nitrogen excretion(NE:R=0.948;p<0.01)and phosphorus excretion(PE:R=0.945;p<0.01).What our results suggest is that the notion of EF is useful to evaluate the environmental impact in intensive beef production systems,and the EB is suitable to assess the impact of the extensive ones.In practice,both approaches provide different perspectives on the environmental-impact problem and they should be complementary used.We concluded that the methodological rigidity of EF does not allow proper discrimination among farms in the extensive systems.On the contrary,the EB approach tended to be highly sensitive to detecting differences between individual farms and farmers,thus allowing the identification of successful options for extensive beef production in terms of public image,policy-making,and commercial opportunities.

Study on Effects of Curing Process on Characteristics of Marinated Beef Products

[Objectives]This study was conducted to compare the effects of different curing processes on the characteristics of marinated beef.[Methods]Marinated beef was obtained by two curing processes:static curing and injection and vacuum tumbling curing.The effects of the two curing processes on the production rate,curing absorption rate,water content,soluble protein content,amino acid nitrogen content,texture characteristics and microstructure of the product were compared.[Results]Compared with static curing,the production rate of marinated beef increased by 10%,the curing absorption rate increased by 28%,the texture and microstructure were improved,and the water content increased,while the soluble protein content decreased.As a result,the sensory score was higher.There was no significant difference in the content of amino acid nitrogen,but it decreased compared with raw meat.To sum up,injection and vacuum tumbling curing is more conducive to the processing of marinated beef.[Conclusions]This study provides a theoretical basis for the industrial production of marinated beef,and lays a foundation for in-depth exploration of injection and vacuum tumbling curing technique of marinated beef.

气相色谱-质谱法对牛肉中溴虫腈残留的测定

In this paper,a GC-MS method for the determination of chlorfenapyr in beef was described.The residue was extracted with acetonitrile,purified by alumina oxide neutral column,and cleaned up with auto solid phase.The chlorfenapyr residue was determined by GC-MS.The results indicated that the detection limit was 0.005 mg/kg,recoveries and RSDs of the method were 93%-100% and 3.4%-7.2%,respectively.The method showed high efficiency and sensitivity,as well as good stability and veracity.

Improvement Effect of Beef Cattle Frozen Semen of Different Varieties for Local Yellow Cattle

In the improvement process of local yellow cattle with frozen semen of beef cattle, the cows were grouped according to different cross combinations. Then, the conception rate, dystocia rate and reproductive survival rate of the cows in each group, as well as the body size and body weight of new-born calves, were ana- lyzed. The results showed that no significant differences were found in conception rate among different groups （P〉0.05）; there was no significant difference in dystocia rate between the A and C groups （P〉0.05）, but the dystocia rate in the B group was significantly different from those in the A and C groups （P〈0.05）. There were positive correlations between calf forehead width, chest circumference and the dys- tocia rate.

经典美国口语荟萃

人们常说美国是一个车轮子上的国家(a country On the wheel)，也就是说，美国的各个领域、各个方面都不停地发生着变化，有的变好，有的变坏，新的东西层出不穷，旧的东西惨遭淘汰，但总有一些东西是一成不变的，这是事物发展的规律。美国人的语言也在时时经受着时间的磨练，被迫经常“变脸”，

Vitamin A administration at birth promotes calf growth and intramuscular fat development in Angus beef cattle

Background: Marbling, or intramuscular fat, is an important factor contributing to the palatability of beef. Vitamin A, through its active metabolite, retinoic acid, promotes the formation of new fat cells(adipogenesis). As intramuscular adipogenesis is active during the neonatal stage, we hypothesized that vitamin A administration during the neonatal stage would enhance intramuscular adipogenesis and marbling.Methods: Angus steer calves(n = 30), in a completely randomized design, were randomly allotted to three treatment groups at birth, receiving 0, 150,000, or 300,000 IU of vitamin A at both birth and one month of age.A biopsy of the biceps femoris muscle was collected at two months of age. After weaning at 210 d of age, steers were fed a backgrounding diet in a feedlot until 308 d of age, when they were transitioned to a high concentrate finishing diet and implanted with trenbolone/estradiol/tylosin mixture. Steers were harvested at an average of 438 d of age. All diets were formulated to meet nutrient requirements.Results: Weaning weight and weight during the backgrounding phase were linearly increased(P < 0.05) by vitamin A level, though no difference in body weight was observed at harvest. Intramuscular fat of steers at 308 d of age, measured by ultrasound, quadratically increased(P < 0.05) with vitamin A level from 4.0±0.26 % to 4.9±0.26 %.Similarly, carcass marbling score in the ribeye quadratically increased(P < 0.05).Conclusion: Administration of vitamin A at birth increased weaning weight and enhanced marbling fat development.Thus, vitamin A administration provides a practical method for increasing marbling and early growth of beef cattle.

Electronic Nose with an Air Sensor Matrix for Detecting Beef Freshness

China is one of the largest meat producing countries in the wodd. With the growing concern for food safety more attention has been paid to meat quality. The application of conventional test methods for meat quality is limited by many factors, and subjectiveness, such as longer time to prepare samples and to test. A sensor matrix was constructed with several separate air sensors, and tests were conducted to detect the freshness of the beef. The results show that the air sensors TGS2610, TGS2600, TGS2611, TGS2620 and TGS2602 made by Tianjin Figaro Electronic Co, Ltd could be used to determine the degree of freshness but TGS2442 is not suitable. This study provides a foundation for designing and making an economical and practical detector for beef freshness.

Residual feed intake in beef cattle and its association with carcass traits, ruminal solid-fraction bacteria, and epithelium gene expression

Background: Residual feed intake(RFI) describes an animal’s feed efficiency independent of growth performance.The objective of this study was to determine differences in growth performance, carcass traits, major bacteria attached to ruminal solids-fraction, and ruminal epithelium gene expression between the most-efficient and the least-efficient beef cattle. One-hundred and forty-nine Red Angus cattle were allocated to three contemporary groups according to sex and herd origin. Animals were fed a finishing diet in confinement for 70 d to determine the RFI category for each. Within each group, the two most-efficient(n = 6; RFI coefficient =-2.69 ± 0.58 kg dry matter intake(DMI)/d) and the two least-efficient animals(n = 6; RFI coefficient = 3.08 ± 0.55 kg DMI/d) were selected. Immediately after slaughter, ruminal solids-fraction and ruminal epithelium were collected for bacteria relative abundance and epithelial gene expression analyses, respectively, using real-time PCR.Results: The most-efficient animals consumed less feed(P = 0.01; 5.03 kg less DMI/d) compared with the leastefficient animals. No differences(P > 0.10) in initial body weight(BW), final BW, and average daily gain(ADG) were observed between the two RFI classes. There were no significant RFI × sex effects(P > 0.10) on growth performance.Compared with the least-efficient group, hot carcass weight(HCW), ribeye area(REA), and kidney, pelvic, and heart fat(KPH) were greater(P ≤ 0.05) in the most-efficient cattle. No RFI × sex effect(P > 0.10) for carcass traits was detected between RFI groups. Of the 10 bacterial species evaluated, the most-efficient compared with least efficient cattle had greater(P ≤ 0.05) relative abundance of Eubacterium ruminantium, Fibrobacter succinogenes, and Megasphaera elsdenii, and lower(P ≤ 0.05) Succinimonas amylolytica and total bacterial density. No RFI × sex effect on ruminal bacteria was detected between RFI groups. Of the 34 genes evaluated in ruminal epithelium, the mostefficient cattle had greater(P ≤ 0.05) abundance of genes involved in VFA absorption, metabolism, ketogenesis, and immune/inflammation-response. The RFI × sex interactions indicated that responses in gene expression between RFI groups were due to differences in sex. Steers in the most-efficient compared with least-efficient group had greater(P ≤ 0.05) expression of SLC9 A1, HIF1 A, and ACO2. The most-efficient compared with least-efficient heifers had greater(P ≤ 0.05) m RNA expression of BDH1 and lower expression(P ≤ 0.05) of SLC9 A2 and PDHA1.Conclusions: The present study revealed that greater feed efficiency in beef cattle is associated with differences in bacterial species and transcriptional adaptations in the ruminal epithelium that might enhance nutrient delivery and utilization by tissues. The lack of RFI × sex interaction for growth performance and carcass traits indicates that sex may not play a major role in improving these phenotypes in superior RFI beef cattle. However, it is important to note that this result should not be considered a solid biomarker of efficient beef cattle prior to further examination due to the limited number of heifers compared with steers used in the study.

Effects of Age on Quality of Beef from Qinchuan Cattle Carcass

Qinchuan cattle are one of the top breeds in China. In the current study, cattle of different ages were used to investigate the effect of age on beef quality. With increasing age, shear force, protein content, hydroxyproline （Hyp） content, redness （a＊）, and muscle fiber diameter and density significantly increased （P〈0.05）. On the other hand, cooking loss, water content, lightness （L＊）, and muscle fiber gap markedly decreased （P〈0.05）. No significant differences were found in the contents of intramuscular fat, ash, amino acids （AA）, mineral elements, and expression level of leptin and FAS （P〉0.05）. The C16：0 and C18：0 content increased significantly （P〈0.05）, in contrast to that of C18：1 and C18：2 （P〈0.05）. COLA1 mRNA was expressed at low levels at mon 3 and 9 but markedly increased at mon 12 and 15 （P〈0.05）. Taken together, these observations demonstrate excellent nutritional values of beef from cattle of different ages concordant with their chemical properties; on the other hand, their commercial value correlates more closely with their physical and sensory characteristics.

Alternatives for large-scale production of cultured beef: A review

Cultured beef is a method where stem cells from skeletal muscle of cows are cultured in vitro to gain edible muscle tissue. For large-scale production of cultured beef, the culture technique needs to become more efficient than today＇s 2-dimensional（2D） standard technique that was used to make the first cultured hamburger. Options for efficient large-scale production of stem cells are to culture cells on microcarriers, either in suspension or in a packed bed bioreactor, or to culture aggregated cells in suspension. We discuss the pros and cons of these systems as well as the possibilities to use the systems for tissue culture. Either of the production systems needs to be optimized to achieve an efficient production of cultured beef. It is anticipated that the optimization of large-scale cell culture as performed for other stem cells can be translated into successful protocols for bovine satellite cells resulting in resource and cost efficient cultured beef.

Time-dependent categorization of volatile aroma compound formation in stewed Chinese spicy beef using electron nose profile coupled with thermal desorption GC–MS detection

In the present study,flavor profiles of Chinese spiced beef in the cooking process were comparatively analyzed by electronic nose,gas chromatography–mass spectrometry(GC–MS)with a thermal desorption system(TDS),and solid-phase microextraction(SPME).A total of 82 volatile compounds were identified,and 3-methyl-butanal,pentanal,hexanal,-xylene,heptanal,limonene,terpinene,octanal,linalool,4-terpinenol,-terpineol,and(E)-anethole were identified as the characteristic flavor compounds in Chinese spiced beef.Variation in the content of volatile components produced by different cooking processes was observed.In general,a cooking time of 4 h resulted in optimal flavor quality and stability.Results indicated that the electronic nose could profile and rapidly distinguish variation among different cooking time.The volatile profiling by TDS-GC–MS and responses from the electronic nose,in combination with multivariate statistical analysis,are a promising tool for control the cooking process of spiced beef.

Impacts of household income on beef at-home consumption:Evidence from urban China

Beef consumption in China has increased substantially from 5.0 million tons in 2000 to 7.7 million tons in 2019 thanks to rapid income growth,but still remains low compared to pork and poultry consumption.Improving the understanding about the impacts of household income on beef consumption in China is necessary to forecast future beef demand and inform the domestic beef industry,especially in the context of unprecedented expansion of middle income class in China.Based on survey data of 32878 urban households collected by the National Bureau of Statistics of China,we employed the inverse hyperbolic sine(IHS)double-hurdle model to estimate income elasticities of beef demand across different income groups and simulated possible trends of future beef consumption of Chinese urban residents.The empirical results showed that the unconditional income elasticities of beef consumption at home vary between 0.169 for the lowincome group and 0.671 for the high-income group.The simulated results indicated that beef consumption is expected to increase by 12.0 to 38.8%in 10 years and by 18.6 to 70.5%in 15 years under distinct income growth scenarios.Our findings provide practical insights for policy makers and other stakeholders about future beef demand,such as potential opportunities embedded in rising beef demand for domestic producers and world beef exporters as well as the urgency of improving the supply chain resilience of beef in China.