Drones on the horizon: Transforming Africa’s agriculture

This report provides a contextualized review of drones as a vital precision agriculture-enabling technology and its range of relevant uses for providing detailed and on-demand data in order to enhance decision-making by farmers and hence facilitate much needed support

Assurance Services Executive Committee. Emerging Assurance Technologies Task Force Audit Data Standard, July 18, 2012, Comments Requested by September 17, 2012; Exposure Draft (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants), 2012, July 18

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/aicpa_sop/1945/thumbnail.jp

Technology assessment and resource allocation for predictive genetic testing: A study of the perspectives of Canadian genetic health care providers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>With a growing number of genetic tests becoming available to the health and consumer markets, genetic health care providers in Canada are faced with the challenge of developing robust decision rules or guidelines to allocate a finite number of public resources. The objective of this study was to gain Canadian genetic health providers' perspectives on factors and criteria that influence and shape resource allocation decisions for publically funded predictive genetic testing in Canada.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 16 senior lab directors and clinicians at publically funded Canadian predictive genetic testing facilities. Participants were drawn from British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia. Given the community sampled was identified as being relatively small and challenging to access, purposive sampling coupled with snowball sampling methodologies were utilized.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Surveyed lab directors and clinicians indicated that predictive genetic tests were funded provincially by one of two predominant funding models, but they themselves played a significant role in how these funds were allocated for specific tests and services. They also rated and identified several factors that influenced allocation decisions and patients' decisions regarding testing. Lastly, participants provided recommendations regarding changes to existing allocation models and showed support for a national evaluation process for predictive testing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings suggest that largely local and relatively ad hoc decision making processes are being made in relation to resource allocations for predictive genetic tests and that a more coordinated and, potentially, national approach to allocation decisions in this context may be appropriate.</p

From Committees of RUSA: Best Free Reference Websites Seventeenth Annual List

Welcome to the seventeenth annual “Best Free Reference Websites” list. It is hard to believe that this project has been around since the late 1990’s. In 1998, the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of RUSA (now ETS, the Emerging Technologies Section) appointed an ad hoc task force to develop a method of recognizing outstanding reference websites. The task force became a formal committee at the 2001 ALA Annual Conference, and is appropriately named the ETS Best Free Reference Websites Committee.</jats:p

From Committees of RUSA: Best Free Reference Websites: Eighteenth Annual List

Welcome to the eighteenth annual “Best Free Reference Websites” list. It is hard to believe that this project has been around since the late 1990s. In 1998, the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of RUSA appointed an ad hoc task force to develop a method of recognizing outstanding reference websites. The task force became a formal committee at the 2001 ALA Annual Conference, and is now named the ETS Best Free Reference Websites Committee.</jats:p