FEASIBILITY OF OPERATING A LAMB SLAUGHTER PLANT IN NORTH DAKOTA

A group of North Dakota lamb producers who are members of Valley Wool Growers Association identified several niche markets for high quality North Dakota lambs. The potential availability of a closed, but formerly federally inspected, livestock slaughter and meat processing facility in Steele County heightened their interest in determining the feasibility of a cooperatively owned lamb slaughter and processing facility. The cooperative would be patterned after existing and proposed slaughter cooperatives, whereby cooperative members would own shares to supply lambs to the plant on a year-round basis. The analysis was conducted in several sections corresponding to critical factors which affect feasibility of the plant. The critical factors analyzed included federal inspection requirements, the potential of an adequate supply of lambs, the potential for a viable niche market, plant investment and operating costs, expected return, alternative lamb purchase prices, alternative lamb carcass sales prices, and several investment and expense scenarios. The building and equipment investment was projected to be $1,468,000, which was higher than originally expected due to the extensive refurbishing necessary to meet federal inspection and increased capacity requirements. Plant operating expenses at full capacity were projected to be$3,013,877 per year which included $673,877 in operating expenses and$2,340,000 for lamb purchase. Income from lamb meat sales and pelts was estimated at $2,800,000 per year. The assumptions of purchasing 20,000 lambs per year for$0.90 per pound and selling for $2 per carcass pound resulted in an annual negative margin of$213,877 at full capacity. Therefore, other scenarios were investigated which would enable the plant to operate profitably. The maximum price that could be paid for lambs to pay all investment and operating costs, including a 7.5 percent return to member equity, was $0.8004 per pound. A 25 percent increase in projected costs would reduce the purchase price to$0.7358, or a reduction in the lamb carcass sales price to $1.80 per pound would reduce the lamb purchase price to$0.7004. The range in probable prices that could be paid for lambs is $0.70 to$0.80 per pound with a likely price of $0.75. The proposers of the cooperative will need to decide if prices in this range would be sufficient to lure enough member investors to provide the 20,000 lambs necessary to operate the plant.lambs, slaughter, processing, niche market, lamb prices, lamb carcass prices, feasibility, cooperative, federal meat inspection, plant operating expenses, Agribusiness,

An Object Oriented Simulation of the C-17 Wingtip Vortices in the Airdrop Environment

This thesis effort focuses on the development of an object-oriented simulation of C-17 personnel airdrop operations and provides a tool for risk assessment of jumper and wingtip vortex interaction. Using the initial modeling efforts of the Wright Laboratory, this model expands those efforts to include random aircraft, wind and jumper movement within the simulation using MODSIM III as its language. Once the model was built, verified, and calibrated, it helped perform a preliminary analysis of jumper risk with varying element spacing and no crosswind. The results of the simulation provided 15 data points with which linear and logistic regression provided an estimation of the marginal rate of change of jumper/vortex encounter rate. Using the third order model shows that the encounter rate levels off around 24,000 feet spacing between element leaders at 12%, and stays as high as 11% at 32,000 feet before dropping to 0.4% at 34,000 feet. Further research and model improvements may bring the encounter rate down at the more distant spacing but that is left for post thesis analysis efforts

Observations on the Staining of Bacterial Flagella

Influence of the pH of the medium, on the staining of flagella, as shown by several of the more highly recommended methods

A New Reservation Area in Iowa

Adjoining the city of McGregor on the west, an area of about twenty acres, called the Iowa Memorial Arboretum is projected. This is to be restocked, where needed, with native species, and certain hardy exotics are also to be introduced. Other attractions, including a museum, are projected

The Biota of the Cedar River as Related to Odor and Taste Production

This paper presents a brief summary of surveys carried through the past two years, as an aid in the control of odor and taste in city water. So far as the writer is aware, no work of this kind has previously been done at Cedar Rapids, hence comparisons can only be drawn between the years covered, or amongst the months represented

Weeds and Their Control

The aim of this bulletin has been to include only the worst weeds which are more or less general throughout the state, but the writer has also added other facts of interest and value about weeds. The successful man or woman of today must know a great deal more than formerly about his or her occupation and about good living if more profit and enjoyment are to be obtained from life. This bulletin contains more than a mere set of directions, by which one may come to know and destroy some weeds. How weeds destroy the value of labor, of crops, of livestock, of farms, and of human health, are explained by the author who has had many years of experience as a farmer, teacher, and investigator. It is hoped that those having special weed problems which are not included will be led to further study of the books and other sources mentioned at the end of the bulletin, and to further inquiry directed to the Experiment Station specialists

Additions to the Flora of Linn County

A list of unreported species for Linn County, Iowa, together with remarks upon emendations

Helicity amplitudes and electromagnetic decays of strange baryon resonances

We present results for the helicity amplitudes of the lowest-lying hyperon resonances Y*, computed within the framework of the Bonn constituent-quark model, which is based on the Bethe-Salpeter approach. The seven parameters entering the model are fitted against the best known baryon masses. Accordingly, the results for the helicity amplitudes are genuine predictions. Some hyperon resonances are seen to couple more strongly to a virtual photon with finite Q^2 than to a real photon. Other Y*'s, such as the S_{01}(1670) Lambda resonance or the S_{11}(1620) Sigma resonance, have large electromagnetic decay widths and couple very strongly to real photons. The negatively-charged and neutral members of a Sigma* triplet may couple only moderately to the Sigma(1193), while the positively-charged member of the same Sigma* triplet displays a relatively large coupling to the Sigma^+(1193) state. This illustrates the necessity of investigating all isospin channels in order to obtain a complete picture of the hyperon spectrum.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, Proceedings of the Conference "International Workshop on the Physics of Excited Baryons NSTAR 05", Tallahassee, Florida (USA), Oct. 2005, contributed tal

The Economics of Exporting North Dakota Beef to Asian Pacific Markets

International Relations/Trade,

Vibrational States of Glassy and Crystalline Orthotherphenyl

Low-frequency vibrations of glassy and crystalline orthoterphenyl are studied by means of neutron scattering. Phonon dispersions are measured along the main axes of a single crystal, and the corresponding longitudinal and transversal sound velocities are obtained. For glassy and polycrystalline samples, a density of vibrational states is determined and cross-checked against other dynamic observables. In the crystal, low-lying zone-boundary modes lead to an excess over the Debye density of states. In the glass, the boson peak is located at even lower frequencies. With increasing temperature, both glass and crystal show anharmonicity.Comment: 7 pages of LaTeX (svjour), 2 tables, 10 figures accepted in Eur. Phys. J.