DIVERSIFYING AGRICULTURAL SYSTEMS: AN EXTERNAL ANALYSIS OF STATE VALUE-ADDED PROGRAMS

An increasing number of farmers in the United States are finding more opportunity to participate in value-added activities beyond their commodity production. Issues' such as low farm income, increasing marketing margins, and a desire to enhance demand for local commodities-generate more interest in identifying suitable value-added activities. Many states are providing programs to help promote and support farmers interested in leading the development of new food products. This paper examines the objectives and development strategies of several value-added state programs. Special attention is paid to the extent to which the programs create opportunities for farmers in different income groups. Programs profiled in this research include Iowa's Rural Economic Value-Added Mentoring Program (REVAMP), North Dakota's Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI), Minnesota's Agricultural Products Utilization Commission (APUC), and other centers and programs in Colorado, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Oklahoma. A survey is conducted of the center directors to provide a profile of each program's scope and state's objectives, development strategy, and performance measures. This paper assesses the effectiveness of variously structured value-added programs as stated by the survey; it also summarizes recommended strategies for improvement. Cost considerations and long-term justification of these value-added centers is also considered. Institutional design, recommendations, central policy issues, and program performance measures are discussed. States considering the implementation or expansion of such programs will want to evaluate their design based on these findings.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Solid state, CCD-buried channel, television camera study and design

An investigation of an all solid state television camera design, which uses a buried channel charge-coupled device (CCD) as the image sensor, was undertaken. A 380 x 488 element CCD array was utilized to ensure compatibility with 525 line transmission and display monitor equipment. Specific camera design approaches selected for study and analysis included (a) optional clocking modes for either fast (1/60 second) or normal (1/30 second) frame readout, (b) techniques for the elimination or suppression of CCD blemish effects, and (c) automatic light control and video gain control techniques to eliminate or minimize sensor overload due to bright objects in the scene. Preferred approaches were determined and integrated into a design which addresses the program requirements for a deliverable solid state TV camera

Security Policy Specification Using a Graphical Approach

A security policy states the acceptable actions of an information system, as the actions bear on security. There is a pressing need for organizations to declare their security policies, even informal statements would be better than the current practice. But, formal policy statements are preferable to support (1) reasoning about policies, e.g., for consistency and completeness, (2) automated enforcement of the policy, e.g., using wrappers around legacy systems or after the fact with an intrusion detection system, and (3) other formal manipulation of policies, e.g., the composition of policies. We present LaSCO, the Language for Security Constraints on Objects, in which a policy consists of two parts: the domain (assumptions about the system) and the requirement (what is allowed assuming the domain is satisfied). Thus policies defined in LaSCO have the appearance of conditional access control statements. LaSCO policies are specified as expressions in logic and as directed graphs, giving a visual view of policy. LaSCO has a simple semantics in first order logic (which we provide), thus permitting policies we write, even for complex policies, to be very perspicuous. LaSCO has syntax to express many of the situations we have found to be useful on policies or, more interesting, the composition of policies. LaSCO has an object-oriented structure, permitting it to be useful to describe policies on the objects and methods of an application written in an object-oriented language, in addition to the traditional policies on operating system objects. A LaSCO specification can be automatically translated into executable code that checks an invocation of a program with respect to a policy. The implementation of LaSCO is in Java, and generates wrappers to check Java programs with respect to a policy.Comment: 28 pages, 22 figures, in color (but color is not essential for viewing); UC Davis CS department technical report (July 22, 1998

Feeling Green: The Benefits of Green Space on Urbanites\u27 Mental Health

This investigation intends to determine the best methods for incorporating public green space into dense urban areas, for the betterment of residents\u27 mental health. Data from studies showing differences in the prevalence of anxiety and depression in urban and rural areas are discussed alongside data from studies looking at the effect that certain types of green space might have on mental health. While there is no exact consensus on the extent to which nature has positive effects on mental health there is enough of a correlation to argue for the implementation of public green spaces in urban design, in order to potentially curb and prevent anxiety and depression in an increasingly urbanized society. Urban parks and street trees have long been components of city design and, as this discussion suggests, may be beneficial not only for ecological and environmental health, but for public mental health as well. Data from a localized survey study is included, looking at the correlation between rates of depression and proximity to local parks in San Luis Obispo County. No correlation was found between the two factors for this data set, however a small sample size likely affected the validity of that conclusion

Federal Minimums: Insufficient to Save the Bay

In this era of deregulation, streamlining, and government reform, the voices of state government often ring out the philosophy of no stricter than federal law when discussing environmental initiatives. The argument that federal minimums can serve as a minimalistic, one-size-fits-all framework for environmental protection not only contradicts the same voices\u27 arguments for flexibility and site-specific solutions, but also ignores the reality that federal minimums alone simply cannot and will not restore our waters, conserve our land, or protect our air