This issue features papers covering a range of bovine dairying topics including the effectiveness of a footbath protocol in preventing digital dermatitis, using the Brix refractometer for assessing colostrum quality, and selecting phenotypes to genetically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Other papers deal with the use of antibiotics for treating mastitis, strategies to gain body condition scor...

This Letter presents a reconfigurable optical diffraction grating using multiphase droplets on a microfluidic chip. The uniform and evenly spaced circular droplets are generated by continuously dispersing two immiscible liquids into a T junction to produce plugs, which are then transformed into a circular shape at a sudden expansion of the microchannel. In experiments, the droplet grating shows...

1. Sugars present in nectar secreted by twelve species were separated on paper chromatograms, and quantitative determinations of the amounts of glucose and fructose were made. The total sugar content of each sample was measured with a refractometer. 2. The proportions of glucose and fructose varied greatly in nectar from different species. 3. For any one species, the proportions of the differen...

High precision measurement of dissolved solids (Brix) in soft drinks and juices is an important element of quality control (QC) and quality assurance (QA). There are in principle many ways to measure dissolved solids, but refractometry and density-based methods are most commonly used for this purpose. Whichever method is selected, there are advantages, disadvantages and limitations. This paper ...

We propose and demonstrate a highly sensitive in-line photonic crystal fiber (PCF) microfluidic refractometer. Ultrathin C-shaped fibers are spliced in-between the PCF and standard single-mode fibers. The C-shaped fibers provide openings for liquid to flow in and out of the PCF. Based on a Sagnac interferometer, the refractive index (RI) response of the device is investigated theoretically and ...

A temperature-insensitive micro Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavity based on simplified hollow-core (SHC) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) is demonstrated. Such a device is fabricated by splicing a section of SHC PCF with single mode fibers at both cleaved ends. An extremely low temperature sensitivity of ~0.273 pm/°C is obtained between room temperature and 900°C. By drilling vertical micro-channels using a f...