The Influence of Resource Quality on Technological Persistence: Charcoal Iron in Quebec

Technological advances in the steel industry during the nineteenth century led to the dis-placement of charcoal, a vegetable fuel, by coke, a mineral fuel. Aspects of the technology developed to utilize coke, however, were also applicable to charcoal blast furnaces. The province of Quebec was the centre of the Canadian iron-making industry during the nineteenth century, but the technological advances introduced into processes for smelting iron with charcoal were not accepted in that province as they were elsewhere. The author looks to characteristics of the ore used in Quebec and the type of charcoal available locally to explain the persistence of old charcoal technology in Quebec iron smelters. The retention of old technology by Quebec iron-makers was a sensible response to local conditions. Moreover the small Canadian domestic market provided little incentive to adopt large-scale technologies during most of the nineteenth century. The Quebec experience with charcoal iron manufacture illustrates the subtle blend of factors that are involved in the assessment of technological change by potential beneficiaries. Résumé Les progrès techniques survenus dans l'indus-trie de l'acier au cours du XIXe siècle ont mené au remplacement du charbon de bois, com-bustible végétal, par le coke, combustible minéral. Les aspects de la technologie mise au point pour utiliser le coke, cependant, étaient aussi applicables aux fourneaux à charbon de bois. Le Québec était le centre de l'industrie canadienne de la sidérurgie au XIXe siècle mais les progrès techniques introduits dans le processus de fonte du fer par le charbon de bois n'y étaient pas acceptés comme ils l'étaient ailleurs. L'auteur voit dans les caractéristiques du minerai utilisé au Québec et dans le type de charbon de bois disponible localement l'explication de la persistance de la vieille technique au charbon de bois dans les fonderies du Québec. Cette conservation de la vieille technique constituait une réponse raisonnable des maîtres des forges aux conditions locales. En outre, au Canada, pendant la plus grande partie du XIXe siècle, l'étroitesse du marché national n 'incitait guère à adopter des technologies à grande échelle. L'expérience québécoise touchant l'utilisation du charbon de bois pour produire de la fonte illustre la subtile combinaison de facteurs qui intervient dans l'évaluation des changements techniques par leurs éventuels bénéficiaires

State of apps targeting management for sustainability of agricultural landscapes. A review

International audienceAbstractThe triple-bottom-line approach to sustainability in agriculture requires multi- and inter-disciplinary expertise and remains a major design and implementation challenge. Tools are needed to link extension agents, development workers, farmers, and other agriculture decision-makers to information related to practices that improve sustainability across agricultural landscapes. The digital age has brought many new cloud-based and mobile device–accessible software applications (apps) targeted at farmers and others in the agriculture sector; however, the effectiveness of these tools for advancing sustainability goals is unknown. Here, we review apps for agriculture in order to identify gaps in information provisioning and sharing for tools that connect decision-makers to knowledge in support of sustainable agricultural landscapes. The major findings are (1) Agricultural apps can be categorized as supporting regulatory compliance, equipment optimization, farming simulator games, information management, agronomic reference information, product tracking, pest identification, emissions accounting, or benchmarks for marketing claims. (2) Many apps are developed to link specific products for single solutions, such as GPS-guided crop implementation or sensors within Internet-of-things connectivity. (3) While pilots, prototypes, and case studies are available in both Apple and Android digital markets, public mobile apps to improve multidirectional agriculture knowledge exchange are limited and poorly documented. (4) There remains a need for apps emphasizing knowledge exchange and resource discovery, rather than simply information delivery, to help farmers identify evidence-based practices that improve indicators of sustainability. (5) Development of a digital decision support tool requires early and ongoing interactions with targeted end users to clarify app performance objectives and social networking preferences, ensure reliability of scientific input and business management plans, and optimize the user experience

Local Control, Resources and the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company

Financial market activity indicates that Maritime interests lost control of the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company in 1915 and 1916. Production and financial records of the firm suggest that poor profitability contributed to the change of ownership. The firm's weakness is traced to its resource base and the resulting high costs of production. The causation implicit in conventional accounts is reversed: control and ownership changes were a result of, rather than a cause of, production difficulties and weak profitability.L'examen de l'activité boursière indique que les financiers des Maritimes ont perdu le contrôle de la compagnie Nova Scotia Steel and Coal pendant les années 1915 et 1916. Les états de comptes de la compagnie démontrent que les petits profits ont contribué à ce changement de contrôle. L'auteur suggère que la faiblesse économique de la compagnie était le résultat des ressources principales et de l'augmentation des coûts de la production du fer. L'explication traditionnelle est mise en doute : les changements de propriétaires étaient le résultat, et non la cause, des difficultés de production et des petits profits

Atmospheric Pollution, Health and Height in Late Nineteenth Century Britain

Atmospheric pollution was an important side effect of coal-fired industrialisation in the nineteenth century. In Britain emissions of black smoke were on the order of fifty times as high as they were a century later. In this paper we examine the effects of these emissions on child development by analysing the heights on enlistment during the First World War of men born in England and Wales in the 1890s. We use the occupational structure to measure the coal intensity of the districts in which these men were observed as children in the 1901 census. We find strong negative effects of coal intensity on height, which amounts to difference of almost an inch between the most and least polluted localities. These results are robust to a variety of specification tests and they are consistent with the notion that the key channel of influence on height was via respiratory infection. The subsequent reduction of emissions from coal combustion is one factor contributing to the improvement in health (and the increase in height) during the twentieth century

Using Genomic Sequencing for Classical Genetics in E. coli K12

We here develop computational methods to facilitate use of 454 whole genome shotgun sequencing to identify mutations in Escherichia coli K12. We had Roche sequence eight related strains derived as spontaneous mutants in a background without a whole genome sequence. They provided difference tables based on assembling each genome to reference strain E. coli MG1655 (NC_000913). Due to the evolutionary distance to MG1655, these contained a large number of both false negatives and positives. By manual analysis of the dataset, we detected all the known mutations (24 at nine locations) and identified and genetically confirmed new mutations necessary and sufficient for the phenotypes we had selected in four strains. We then had Roche assemble contigs de novo, which we further assembled to full-length pseudomolecules based on synteny with MG1655. This hybrid method facilitated detection of insertion mutations and allowed annotation from MG1655. After removing one genome with less than the optimal 20- to 30-fold sequence coverage, we identified 544 putative polymorphisms that included all of the known and selected mutations apart from insertions. Finally, we detected seven new mutations in a total of only 41 candidates by comparing single genomes to composite data for the remaining six and using a ranking system to penalize homopolymer sequencing and misassembly errors. An additional benefit of the analysis is a table of differences between MG1655 and a physiologically robust E. coli wild-type strain NCM3722. Both projects were greatly facilitated by use of comparative genomics tools in the CoGe software package (http://genomevolution.org/)

ARTIST???S CREATIVE CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

While expectations regarding art???s potential contributions to the interdisciplinary research context continue to grow, the creative endeavors of individual artists remain under-examined, perhaps because of the inter-relational nature of joint research settings. To explore, how artists navigate their contribution to a given research community, this study reviews the art practice of Seung-Hyun Ko, who participated in Science Walden, a Convergent Research Center carrying out an interdis-ciplinary research project that aimed to build an ecologically sustainable community. Drawing on comprehensive views of creativity that emphasize the importance of the social context in which the efforts of individuals emerge and are assessed, the study examines Ko???s recent collaborative practice in Science Walden within the larger context of his long-term practice as a leading artist of Yatoo, a bioregionally conscious artist community. Ko???s responses to the opportunities and challenges of his involvement in these two interrelated contexts disclose the value of the creative dynamics of interdisciplinary research, with implications for the increasingly diverse interdisciplinary research practices emerging within science and technology

Kinds of well-being: A conceptual framework that provides direction for caring

This article offers a conceptual framework by which different kinds and levels of well-being can be named, and as such, provides a foundation for a resource-oriented approach in situations of illness and vulnerability (rather than a deficit-oriented approach). Building on a previous paper that articulated the philosophical foundations of an existential theory of well-being (“Dwelling-mobility”), we show here how the theory can be further developed towards practice-relevant concerns. We introduce 18 kinds of well-being that are intertwined and inter-related, and consider how each emphasis can lead to the formulation of resources that have the potential to give rise to well-being as a felt experience. By focusing on a much wider range of well-being possibilities, practitioners may find new directions for care that are not just literal but also at an existential level