This study was to investigate the effects of seasonal change and parity on milk composition and related indices, and to analyze the relationships among milk indices in Chinese Holstein cows from an intensive dairy farm in northern China. The 6,520 sets of complete Dairy Herd Improvement data were obtained and grouped by natural month and parity. The data included daily milk yield (DMY), milk solids percentage (MSP), milk fat percentage (MFP), milk protein percentage (MPP), milk lactose percentage (MLP), somatic cell count (SCC), somatic cell score (SCS), milk production loss (MPL), and fat-to-protein ratio (FPR). Data analysis showed that the above 9 indices were affected by both seasonal change and parity. However, the interaction between parity and seasonal change showed effects on MLP, SCS, MPL, and DMY, but no effects on MFP, MPP, MSP, and FPR. Duncan's multiple comparison on seasonal change showed that DMY (23.58 kg/d), MSP (12.35%), MPP (3.02%), and MFP (3.81%) were the lowest in June, but SCC (288.7 × 10(3)/mL) and MPL (0.69 kg/d) were the lowest in January; FPR (1.32) was the highest in February. Meanwhile, Duncan's multiple comparison on parities showed that MSP, MPP, and MLP were reduced rapidly in the fourth lactation, but SCC and MPL increased with increasing parities. The canonical correlation analysis for indices showed that SCS had high positive correlation with MPL (0.8360). Therefore, a few models were developed to quantify the effects of seasonal change and parity on raw milk composition using the Wood model. The changing patterns of milk composition and related indices in different months and parities could provide scientific evidence for improving feeding management and nutritional supplementation of Chinese Holstein cows.

Anatomical, physiological, and molecular analysis revealed that yield losses in nitrogen-deficient maize were more closely associated with limited capacity of sugar utilization in developing ears than sucrose export from leaves.

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Tremendous efforts have been dedicated to developing cost-effective energy efficiency techniques to lower the energy consumption of buildings. [4,5] The low energy cost of energy efficient buildings can substantially lower their carbon footprint and at the same time provide a more uniform temperature throughout the space and a more comfortable and healthy indoor environment. [6] Traditional structural materials including steels, concretes, alloys, and carbon fibers have been widely used in buildings due to their good mechanical properties. However, most of them fail to meet the simultaneous needs of mechanical and thermal insulation properties for advanced energy-efficient buildings because of their relatively high thermal conductivities. Moreover, these materials are nonrenewable, and have high costs and greenhouse gas emissions during their extraction/synthesis processes, which compromises their efficacy in a sustainable society. Compared with conventional building materials, green building materials can enhance indoor environmental quality and thus bring us a more satisfying workplace for the buildings' occupants, and in turn, improve workforce productivity. Wood is a sustainable and versatile building material that stores, rather than emits, carbon dioxide. A reduction of 2432 metric tons of carbon dioxide can be achieved by using wood. [7,8] Recently, the development of using advanced wooden materials for construction has raised substantial interest. [9] Many recent projects such as the tall wood building in Vancouver and the Timber city have used wood as the main constructional material due to its economic and environmental benefits over current constructional materials like steel and concrete, which are nonrenewable and have high embodied energies. [10] Despite the economic and environmental benefits, the current woodbased panels still face many challenges. Natural wood cannot meet the mechanical performance requirements promoted by the Department of Energy (DOE) programs for energy efficient buildings. The mechanical strength of natural wood prevents its applications to mid-rise and high-rise buildings. [11] Developing strong and thermal insulating structural materials is highly desirable for an energy-efficient world. Nonetheless, most of The development of high-performance structural materials for high-rise building applications is critical in achieving the energy conservation goal mandated by the Department of Energy (DOE). However, there is usually a trade-off between the mechanical strength and thermal insulation properties for these materials. Here, the optimization is demonstrated of natural wood to simultaneously improve the mechanical properties and thermal insulation for energy efficient high-rise wood buildings. The improved wood material (strong white wood) features a complete delignification followed by a partial densification process (pore structure control), which enables substantially enhanced mechanical properties (≈3.4× in tensile strength, ≈3.2× in toughness) and reduced thermal conduct...