Christina Welch

This specially curated collection features five reviews of current and key research on crops as livestock feed. The first chapter reviews the impact of feeding ruminants cereal grains on animal physiology and health. The chapter explores the use of starch-containing cereal grains as a feedstuff to improve animal efficiency and performance, as well as to reduce the environmental footprint of ruminant animal production. The second chapter discusses key environmental trade-offs in the use of crops as livestock feed. It reviews key elements in trade-off analysis and explores opportunities for making better use of existing feed resources and producing more feed biomass of higher fodder quality. The third chapter reviews ways of optimising the use of barley for animal feed, from production and breeding through to the application of new technologies such as near infrared spectroscopy and molecular markers. The fourth chapter reviews the use of sorghum as an important source of fodder and forage. It reviews the different types of sorghum used for forage and other applications, and then provides a detailed discussion of the use of forage sorghum as feed for ruminants. The final chapter discusses the use of soybean meal (SBM) as an animal feed. It assesses the nutritional content of SBM, as well dealing with its anti-nutritive compounds in optimising its use.

This specially curated collection features four reviews of current and key research on metabolic disorders in dairy cattle. The first chapter reviews the prevalence, etiology and effects of ruminal acidosis, as well as ways to counteract it through regulation of ruminal pH. The chapter includes a case study on subacute rumen acidosis (SARA) in the post-partum phase of the transition period. The second chapter assesses the main pathways for rumen fermentation which is a major factor in efficient transformation of nutrients. It discusses factors influencing the efficiency of microbial growth as well as the interactions between rumen energy and nitrogen metabolism in ensuring efficient digestion and avoiding metabolic disorders. The third chapter investigates the genetics of improving feed intake efficiency which has significant potential in reducing metabolic disorders. The chapter reviews key challenges in developing genomic selection indices for feed intake, including recording feed intake, pooling genetic data and establishing genomic breeding values for feed efficiency. The fourth chapter discusses how cereal grains impact feed efficiency in cattle. It reviews how cereal grains can be used to improve feed efficiency and the microbiology of cereal grain fermentation. The chapter also discusses ways of avoiding acidosis and other negative feed effects.

This book offers an overview of the material expressions of Caribbean religious expressions, including those that have been imported through the vehicle of colonialism, and which subsequently changed and adapted within the Caribbean Islands and those religious expressions which developed through the contact of African, indigenous and imported world views. This book takes a multi-disciplinary perspective, drawing from subjects as diverse as archaeology, religious studies, history, human geography and anthropology. It introduces current topical debates around the role of colonialism and religion in the Caribbean, and also considers theoretical approaches to the study of Caribbean religions set within a wider global context. This approach introduces the reader to a number of important and topical concepts around the wider study of Caribbean religions, and illuminates the complex cultural history and interplay of these religions in the Caribbean Islands. Richly illustrated and drawing upon a range of different cultural approaches, it offers new and challenging perspectives on the development and cultural history of Caribbean spiritual and religious expression through the lens of the material world. The book is for anyone interested in the Caribbean as a region and the role of religious behaviour in human society. Students of religions, archaeology and anthropology will find a number of thought-provoking and important case studies which relate complex theories to real-world case studies. Any profits from this book will be donated to UNICEF Eastern Caribbean projects supporting vulnerable children in the region (https://www.unicef.org/easterncaribbean/).

This book offers an overview of the material expressions of Caribbean religious expressions, including those that have been imported through the vehicle of colonialism, and which subsequently changed and adapted within the Caribbean Islands and those religious expressions which developed through the contact of African, indigenous and imported world views. This book takes a multi-disciplinary perspective, drawing from subjects as diverse as archaeology, religious studies, history, human geography and anthropology. It introduces current topical debates around the role of colonialism and religion in the Caribbean, and also considers theoretical approaches to the study of Caribbean religions set within a wider global context. This approach introduces the reader to a number of important and topical concepts around the wider study of Caribbean religions, and illuminates the complex cultural history and interplay of these religions in the Caribbean Islands. Richly illustrated and drawing upon a range of different cultural approaches, it offers new and challenging perspectives on the development and cultural history of Caribbean spiritual and religious expression through the lens of the material world. The book is for anyone interested in the Caribbean as a region and the role of religious behaviour in human society. Students of religions, archaeology and anthropology will find a number of thought-provoking and important case studies which relate complex theories to real-world case studies. Any profits from this book will be donated to UNICEF Eastern Caribbean projects supporting vulnerable children in the region (https://www.unicef.org/easterncaribbean/).

As I sit down to write this book, I write specifically to those of you who have found yourselves in a dark hopeless place; a pit where nobody has the ability to pull you out... a hole that just will not fill. I write to you who have no sense of identity or healthy self-esteem, and have been tormented with questions of where you belong, spiritually depleted, and with no perceived security. I speak to those who have felt abandoned and rejected; open to the attacks of negativity, or been victim to word curses, where death and doom has been spoken into your ears, conceived in your heart, and taken space into your spirit. I write to you who feel imprisoned with no way out; exposed to the struggles of life with no guidance; crying out for discipline, crying out for love, crying out for someone to cover you, shield you, and protect you from the storms that come in like waves so high, you've begun to feel that if the waves don't drown me now, I am going to submerge myself, and cut off the breath of life because it's too painful to face the music, too painful to live in the process, and too painful to face any more rejection. I share my story with those of you who have lived through the effects of being abandoned, disappointed, out of control, betrayed, cursed, alone, isolated, and by yourself. ... Those who have decided to slay; in spite of it all.