Strategies for success – contrasting approaches to organic dairy farming

This report was presented at the UK Organic Research 2002 Conference. Financial and some physical aspects of ten commercial dairy farms with different management approaches and at different stages of organic conversion were monitored, alongside two herds at a research farm. One herd at the research farm was managed to maximize profit, the other aimed for self-sufficiency to maximize sustainability. Dairy enterprise gross margins per forage hectare varied from £824 to £1,851/ha and overhead costs ranged from £606 to £1,022/ha on the commercial farms, illustrating the necessity for control of overhead costs as well as enterprise performance in achieving profitability on organic farms

THE CURRENT STATUS AND IMPACT OF FENCING IN THE COMMUNAL-TENURE AREAS OF NORTHERN NAMIBIA

Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Strategic HR: Outsource Yourself?

[Excerpt] Human Resources has undergone a major transformation over the past three decades. Instead of solely pursuing a functional approach of delivering services, HR professionals now seek to develop and support the critical firm capabilities that drive business strategy. This shift indicates an important change in the way HR contributes to the achievement of an organization’s objectives. And yet responsibility for the older, functional aspects of HR still resides within the field, intertwining two components with considerable differences

Bibliography of Sequential Sampling Plans in Insect Pest Management Based on Wald\u27s Sequential Probability Ratio Test

This paper contains 65 references dealing with the development of sequential sampling plans in insect pest management based on Wald\u27s Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT), 25 in forest entomology and 40 in agriculture entomology. The insect(s) sampled, whether the decision procedure was based on one or two SPRTs, and the mathematical distribution and probabilities of Type I and Type II errors used to develop the SPRTs are also given for each sequential sampling plan

Challenges in nucleosynthesis of trans-iron elements

© 2014 Author(s).. All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.Nucleosynthesis beyond Fe poses additional challenges not encountered when studying astrophysical processes involving light nuclei. Astrophysical sites and conditions are not well known for some of the processes involved. On the nuclear physics side, different approaches are required, both in theory and experiment. The main differences and most important considerations are presented for a selection of nucleosynthesis processes and reactions, specifically the s-, r-, γ-, and νp-processes. Among the discussed issues are uncertainties in sites and production conditions, the difference between laboratory and stellar rates, reaction mechanisms, important transitions, thermal population of excited states, and uncertainty estimates for stellar rates. The utility and limitations of indirect experimental approaches are also addressed. The presentation should not be viewed as confining the discussed problems to the specific processes. The intention is to generally introduce the concepts and possible pitfalls along with some examples. Similar problems may apply to further astrophysical processes involving nuclei from the Fe region upward and/or at high plasma temperatures. The framework and strategies presented here are intended to aid the conception of future experimental and theoretical approaches.Peer reviewe

Four-dimensional worldwide atmospheric models: ANYPT and ANYRG

Computer programs read magnetic-tape data bases and computer meteorological profiles for any position, time, and height (from zero to 25 km). System assists in analyses of distortion of information obtained from aircraft-mounted or spacecraft-mounted electromagnetic sensors

A joint model for vehicle type and fuel type choice: evidence from a cross-nested logit study

In the face of growing concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, there is increasing interest in forecasting the likely demand for alternative fuel vehicles. This paper presents an analysis carried out on stated preference survey data on California consumer responses to a joint vehicle type choice and fuel type choice experiment. Our study recognises the fact that this choice process potentially involves high correlations that an analyst may not be able to adequately represent in the modelled utility components. We further hypothesise that a cross-nested logit structure can capture more of the correlation patterns than the standard nested logit model structure in such a multi-dimensional choice process. Our empirical analysis and a brief forecasting exercise produce evidence to support these assertions. The implications of these findings extend beyond the context of the demand for alternative fuel vehicles to the analysis of multi-dimensional choice processes in general. Finally, an extension verifies that further gains can be made by using mixed GEV structures, allowing for random heterogeneity in addition to the flexible correlation structures

Refactoring Legacy JavaScript Code to Use Classes: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

JavaScript systems are becoming increasingly complex and large. To tackle the challenges involved in implementing these systems, the language is evolving to include several constructions for programming- in-the-large. For example, although the language is prototype-based, the latest JavaScript standard, named ECMAScript 6 (ES6), provides native support for implementing classes. Even though most modern web browsers support ES6, only a very few applications use the class syntax. In this paper, we analyze the process of migrating structures that emulate classes in legacy JavaScript code to adopt the new syntax for classes introduced by ES6. We apply a set of migration rules on eight legacy JavaScript systems. In our study, we document: (a) cases that are straightforward to migrate (the good parts); (b) cases that require manual and ad-hoc migration (the bad parts); and (c) cases that cannot be migrated due to limitations and restrictions of ES6 (the ugly parts). Six out of eight systems (75%) contain instances of bad and/or ugly cases. We also collect the perceptions of JavaScript developers about migrating their code to use the new syntax for classes.Comment: Paper accepted at 16th International Conference on Software Reuse (ICSR), 2017; 16 page