scholarly journals Global Sustainability through Closed-Loop Precision Animal Agriculture

2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (06) ◽  
pp. S19-S23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mythra Vsm Balakuntala ◽  
Mustafa Ayad ◽  
Richard M. Voyles ◽  
Robin White ◽  
Robert Nawrocki ◽  
...  

The Earth is at a sociotechnical crossroads with humanity hanging in the balance – and high-tech agriculture can help bail us out. Human population growth, increasing urbanization and rising incomes is likely to drastically increase demand for animal agriculture in the coming decades. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) predicts the need to double global food production by 2050 as the global population increases from 7.3 billion in 2015 to 9.7 billion in 2050 as shown in Fig 1. Much of this growth will be concentrated in the world’s poorest countries where standards of living are set to rise rapidly, increasing the demand for resource-intensive meat and dairy products which has been the historical trend. At the same time, agriculture in the 21st century faces multiple challenges: it must produce more food and fiber to feed a growing population with a smaller rural labor force, produce additional feedstocks for a potentially huge bioenergy market, contribute to overall development in the many agriculture-dependent developing countries, adopt more efficient and sustainable production methods, and adapt to climate change. Additionally, the world’s arable land is already fully employed and shrinking -- the world has lost a third of its arable land due to erosion or pollution in the past 40 years. All these factors put enormous pressure on improving the production efficiency of the world’s supply of food to meet the demand.

This volume addresses the relationship between archaeologists and the dead, through the many dimensions of their relationships: in the field (through practical and legal issues), in the lab (through their analysis and interpretation), and in their written, visual and exhibitionary practice--disseminated to a variety of academic and public audiences. Written from a variety of perspectives, its authors address the experience, effect, ethical considerations, and cultural politics of working with mortuary archaeology. Whilst some papers reflect institutional or organizational approaches, others are more personal in their view: creating exciting and frank insights into contemporary issues that have hitherto often remained "unspoken" among the discipline. Reframing funerary archaeologists as "death-workers" of a kind, the contributors reflect on their own experience to provide both guidance and inspiration to future practitioners, arguing strongly that we have a central role to play in engaging the public with themes of mortality and commemoration, through the lens of the past. Spurred by the recent debates in the UK, papers from Scandinavia, Austria, Italy, the US, and the mid-Atlantic, frame these issues within a much wider international context that highlights the importance of cultural and historical context in which this work takes place.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 1455
Author(s):  
David T. Bird ◽  
Nuggehalli M. Ravindra

The US Department of Defense (DoD) realizes the many uses of additive manufacturing (AM) as it has become a common fabrication technique for an extensive range of engineering components in several industrial sectors. 3D Printed (3DP) sensor technology offers high-performance features as a way to track individual warfighters on the battlefield, offering protection from threats such as weaponized toxins, bacteria or virus, with real-time monitoring of physiological events, advanced diagnostics, and connected feedback. Maximum protection of the warfighter gives a distinct advantage over adversaries by providing an enhanced awareness of situational threats on the battle field. There is a need to further explore aspects of AM such as higher printing resolution and efficiency, with faster print times and higher performance, sensitivity and optimized fabrication to ensure that soldiers are more safe and lethal to win our nation’s wars and come home safely. A review and comparison of various 3DP techniques for sensor fabrication is presented.


2016 ◽  
Vol 32 (9) ◽  
pp. 32-35
Author(s):  
Mark Thomas

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze Lenovo’s successful acquisition of IBM’s PC division using Ghemawat’s (2001) CAGE framework. It was an acquisition that was so full of symbols that it is difficult to know where to begin. Lenovo’s purchase of IBM in 2005 was first seen as a sign of the rapid growth and expansion of the Chinese economy and its transformation away from the traditional manufacturing base to more high-tech areas. For doomsday merchants in the land of Uncle Sam, it foretold the end of the world domination of the US economy. Despite a considerable number of skeptics at the time, Lenovo was clearly up to the task. Such was the success of the acquisition that by 2015, Lenovo could claim to have grown into the world’s number 1 PC maker, number 3 smartphone manufacturer and number 3 in the production of tablet computers. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a case study. Findings Despite a considerable number of skeptics at the time, Lenovo was clearly up to the task. Such was the success of the acquisition that by 2015, Lenovo could claim to have grown into the world’s number 1 PC maker, number 3 smartphone manufacturer and number 3 in the production of tablet computers. Indeed, by 2014, the firm had enough confidence to add the IBM server business to its portfolio. Originality/value The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.


1997 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 185-187
Author(s):  
Shirley Manley ◽  
Norma Harwood

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Graduate School Correspondence Study Program offers two indexing courses. Over 2,600 students have enroled in these courses since their inception.


1998 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-83
Author(s):  
Paul M. Kelley

The author briefly describes what venture funders do and how they do it to illuminate the process of high-tech business formation and development. By way of illumination, he gives two short histories of successful university spin-outs that his company, Zero Stage Capital, has helped launch. He then examines how this firm's knowledge and experience may apply in the context of the Scottish university and financial climate, and bearing in mind the goals of Scotland's Technology Ventures strategy. Finally, he discusses the US government support initiatives for small business, the Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) Program. He suggests an approach for its application in increasing the birth-rate of fast-track technology-based ventures in Scotland or in other countries that have the infrastructure to support and enhance the process.


2018 ◽  
pp. 3-14
Author(s):  
Loka Ashwood

This chapter describes the outcome of for-profit's rule in Burke County, Georgia. Burke County is what the US Department of Agriculture calls a persistent-poverty county, meaning that for the past thirty years, over 20 percent of the population has lived in poverty. The designation is not an easy one to get. Only 11.2 percent of counties nationally register as that poor, for that long. And most of such counties are rural. Poverty has been even worse lately in Burke County: 33.5 percent of the county lives in poverty. The region is part of what W. E. B. Du Bois called the Black Belt, for both its soil and people, where plantations once littered the landscape, providing the template for the later tenant-farm structure.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krisztian Magori

AbstractHaemaphysalis longicornis, the Asian longhorned (or bush) tick has been detected on a sheep in August 2017 in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. By October 26, 2018, this tick has been detected in 44 counties in 9 states along the Atlantic coast of the United States, with the first detection backdated to 2010. Here, I use a simple rule-based climate envelope model, based on a prior analysis in New Zealand, to provide a preliminary analysis of the potential range of this introduced tick species in North America. After validating this model against the counties where the tick has been already detected, I highlight the counties where this tick might cause considerable economic harm. I discuss the many limitations of this simple approach, and potential remedies for these limitations, and more sophisticated approaches. Finally, I conclude that substantial areas of the US, especially along the Gulf and Atlantic coast, are suitable for the establishment of this tick, putting millions of heads of livestock potentially at risk.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 68 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-473
Author(s):  
David B. Nelson ◽  
Renate D. Kimbrough ◽  
Philip S. Landrigan ◽  
A. Wallace Hayes ◽  
George C. Yang ◽  
...  

Dr Wray's comments are, of course, very appropriate and encouraging. Aflatoxin was first detected in food commodities from other parts of the world. As concentrations in other parts of the world have usually been higher, little attention has been paid to the possibility of aflatoxin exposure in humans in the United States except by those who are directly involved in monitoring the human food supply (US Department of Agriculture, the food industry, and the US Food and Drug Administration).


2021 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Jeff Biddle

Statistical inference is the process of drawing conclusions from samples of statistical data about things not fully described or recorded in those samples. During the 1920s, economists in the United States articulated a general approach to statistical inference that downplayed the value of the inferential measures derived from probability theory that later came to be central to the idea of statistical inference in economics. This approach is illustrated by the practices of economists of the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the US Department of Agriculture, who regularly analyzed statistical samples to forecast supplies of various agricultural products. Forecasting represents an interesting case for studying the development of inferential methods, as analysts receive regular feedback on the effectiveness of their inferences when forecasts are compared with actual events.


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