Economic and Management Tool for Assessing Wild Blueberry Production Costs and Financial Feasibility

2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 687-696
Author(s):  
Travis J. Esau ◽  
Qamar U. Zaman ◽  
Craig MacEachern ◽  
Emmanuel K. Yiridoe ◽  
Aitazaz A. Farooque
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Production Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Production Cycle ◽  
Wild Blueberries ◽  
Key Phrases ◽  
Marketing Costs ◽  
Wild Blueberry

Abstract. The wild blueberry industry is facing record low berry prices that has resulted in major concerns for growers, especially in Atlantic Canada and the United States. Farm input and other costs to produce wild blueberries continue to increase, while farmers face record low blueberry prices (in 2016 and 2017). The cost-price squeeze has prompted growers to look for innovative methods to remain financially viable and sustainable. To ensure profitable farm operations, farmers should keep detailed production, management, and financial records that can be used to estimate production, harvest, and marketing costs, but such data and records are not typically compiled by wild blueberry farmers. Spreadsheet-based enterprise budgeting tools have been developed for specific crops by provincial and state extension specialists in Canada and the United States. However, currently there is no such decision tool that accounts for the unique two-year production cycle of wild blueberries, which farmers can use to compile and evaluate input use and rates, and assess production costs and farm economic performance. Keywords: Click here to enter keywords and key phrases, separated by commas, with a period at the end

The Washington Consensus, liberal ideas and terms of the military-technological policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 2103-2123
Author(s):  
V.L. Gladyshevskii ◽  
E.V. Gorgola ◽  
D.V. Khudyakov
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Internal Quality ◽  
Industrial Complex ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
Military Industrial Complex ◽  
Industrial Complexes ◽  
The Military

Subject. In the twentieth century, the most developed countries formed a permanent military economy represented by military-industrial complexes, which began to perform almost a system-forming role in national economies, acting as the basis for ensuring national security, and being an independent military and political force. The United States is pursuing a pronounced militaristic policy, has almost begun to unleash a new "cold war" against Russia and to unwind the arms race, on the one hand, trying to exhaust the enemy's economy, on the other hand, to reindustrialize its own economy, relying on the military-industrial complex. Objectives. We examine the evolution, main features and operational distinctions of the military-industrial complex of the United States and that of the Russian Federation, revealing sources of their military-technological and military-economic advancement in comparison with other countries. Methods. The study uses military-economic analysis, scientific and methodological apparatus of modern institutionalism. Results. Regulating the national economy and constant monitoring of budget financing contribute to the rise of military production, especially in the context of austerity and crisis phenomena, which, in particular, justifies the irrelevance of institutionalists' conclusions about increasing transaction costs and intensifying centralization in the industrial production management with respect to to the military-industrial complex. Conclusions. Proving to be much more efficient, the domestic military-industrial complex, without having such access to finance as the U.S. military monopolies, should certainly evolve and progress, strengthening the coordination, manageability, planning, maximum cost reduction, increasing labor productivity, and implementing an internal quality system with the active involvement of the State and its resources.

Understanding Characteristics Of Users With Signs Of Opioid Misuse On Twitter (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haya Jarad ◽  
Junhua Yang ◽  
Abeed Sarker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Pain Management ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Opioid Abuse ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Opioid Misuse ◽  
Major Health Problem ◽  
Personal Traits ◽  
And Behaviors

BACKGROUND Opioid misuse is a major health problem in the United States, and can lead to addiction and fatal overdose. The United States is in the midst of an opioid epidemic; in 2018, an average of approximately 130 Americans died daily from an opioid overdose and 2.1 million have an opioid use disorder (OUD). In addition to electronic health records (EHRs), social media have also been harnessed for studying and predicting physical and behavioral outcomes of OUD. Specifically, it has been shown that on Twitter the use of certain language patterns and their frequencies in subjects’ tweets are indicative of significant healthcare outcomes such as opioid misuse/use and suicide ideation. We sought to understand personal traits and behaviors of Twitter chatters relative to the motive of opioid misuse; pain or recreational. OBJECTIVE . METHODS We collected tweets using the Twitter public developer application programming interface (API) between April 13, 2018 – and May 21, 2018. A list of opioid-related keywords were searched for such as methadone, codeine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, vicodin, heroin and oxycodone. We manually annotated tweets into three classes: no-opioid misuse, pain-misuse and recreational-misuse, the latter two representing misuse for pain or recreation/addiction. We computed the coding agreement between the two annotators using the Cohen’s Kappa statistic. We applied the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) tool on historical tweets, with at least 500 words, of users in the dataset to analyze their language use and learn about their personality raits and behaviors. LIWC is a text processing software that analyzes text narratives and produces approximately 90 variables scored based on word use that pertain to phsycological, emotional, behavioral, and linguistic processes. A multiclass logistic regression model with backward selection based on the BIC criterion was used to identify variables associated with pain and recreational opioid misuse compared to the base class; no-opioid misuse.. The goal was to understand whether personal traits or behaviors differ across different classes. We reported the odd ratios of different variables in both pain and recreational related opioid misuse classes with respect to the no-opioid misuse class. RESULTS The manual annotation resulted in a total of 1,164 opioid related tweets. 229 tweets were assigned to the pain-related class, 769 were in the recreational class, and 166 tweets were tagged with no opioid misuse class. The overall inter-annotator agreement (IAA) was 0.79. Running LIWC on the tweets resulted in 55 variables. We selected the best model based on BIC. We examined the variables with the highest odd ratios to determine those associated with both pain and recreational opioid misuse as compared to the base class. Certain traits such as depression, stress, and melancholy are established in the literature as commonplace amongst opiod abuse indiviuals. In our analysis, these same characteristics, amongst others, were identified as significantly positively associated with both the Pain and Recreational groups compared to the no-opioid misuse group. Despite the different motivaions for opiod abuse, both groups present the same core personality traits. Interestingly, individuals who misuse opioids as a pain management tool exhibited higher odds ratios for psychological processees and personal traits based on their tweet language. These include a strong focus on discipline, as demonstrated by the variables “disciplined”, “cautious” and “work_oriented”. Their tweet language is also indicative of cheerfulness, a variable absent in the recreational misuse group. Variables associated with the reacreational misuse group revolve around external factors. They are generous and motivated by reward, while maintaining a religious orientation. Based on their tweet language, this group is also characterized as “active”; we understand that these individuals are more social and community focused . CONCLUSIONS To our best knowledge, this is the first study to investigate motivations of opioid abuse as it relates to tweet language. Previous studies utilizing Twitter data were limited to simply detecting opiod abuse likelihood through tweets. By delving deeper into the classes of opioid abuse and its motivation, we offer greater insight into opioid abuse behavior. This insight extends beyond simple identification, and explores patterns in motivation. We conclude that user language on Twitter is indicative of significant differences in personal traits and behaviors depending on abuse motivation: pain management or recreation.

Failure to Accelerate

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Scott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Perspective ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Car Ownership ◽  
Success Story ◽  
Car Industry ◽  
Fundamental Reason ◽  
European Standards ◽  
Market Diffusion

From an international perspective, the inter-war car industry was a British success story. Britain ranked only second to the United States as the world’s leading producer of, and market for, automobiles, owing to a relatively strong domestic market by European standards. However, while consumers’ expenditure was high, it was not deep—car ownership per capita in 1938 being around a third of US levels. This chapter examines why the British automobile sector failed to take off into mass market diffusion. A number of important factors are highlighted, including lower British wages relative to the United States; punitive vehicle and petrol taxation; and the high unit production costs incurred in serving a market too small to justify Fordist mass production. However, a more fundamental reason was the low priority given to car ownership in a relatively small, densely populated, and highly urbanized island nation with well-developed public transport networks.

scholarly journals Fungicide Resistance Management Guidelines for the Control of Tomato Diseases in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Regions of the United States

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian A. Wyenandt ◽  
Steven L. Rideout ◽  
Beth K. Gugino ◽  
Margaret T. McGrath ◽  
Kathryne L. Everts ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Fungicide Resistance ◽  
Resistance Management ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Fresh Market ◽  
Management Guidelines ◽  
Control Programs ◽  
Action Committee ◽  
Tomato Diseases

Foliar diseases and fruit rots occur routinely on tomato, an important crop grown throughout the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the United States where it is produced for both fresh-market and processing. To enable these tomato growers to more effectively manage economically important diseases, a fungicide resistance management table has been developed which promotes the importance of understanding FRAC (Fungicide Resistance Action Committee) codes and provides an integrated pest management tool for tomato growers which will allow them to develop season-long disease control programs with an emphasis on fungicide resistance management. Accepted for publication 19 July 2010. Published 27 August 2010.

Global trends in population, energy use and climate: implications for policy development, rangeland management and rangeland users

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry L. Holechek
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Interest Rates ◽  
Fresh Water ◽  
Human Population ◽  
Agricultural Land ◽  
Land Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Livestock Production ◽  
Production Costs

Increasing world human population, declining reserves of cheaply extracted fossil fuels, scarcity of supplies of fresh water and climatic instability will put tremendous pressure on world rangelands as the 21st century progresses. It is expected that the human population of the world will increase by 40% by 2050 but fossil fuel and reserves of fresh water will be drastically reduced. Avoiding food shortages and famine could be a major world challenge within the next 10 years. Under these conditions, major changes in policies relating to economic growth and use of natural resources seem essential. Stabilisation of the human population, development of clean and renewable energy, enhanced supplies of water and its quality, increased livestock production, and changed land-use policies, that minimise agricultural land losses to development and fragmentation, will all be needed to avoid declining living conditions at the global level. The health and productivity of rangelands will need to receive much more emphasis as they are a primary source of vital ecosystem services and products essential to human life. Changes in tax policies by developed, affluent countries, such as the United States, Australia and Canada, are needed that emphasise saving and conservation as opposed to excessive material consumption and land development. Extreme levels of debt and chronic deficits in trade by the United States and European Union countries need to be moderated to avoid a devastating collision of debt, depletion of natural resources, and environmental degradation. Over the next 10 years, livestock producers of the rangelands will benefit from a major increase in demand and prices for meat. Rapidly increasing demand for meat in China and other Asian countries is driving this trend. Rangeland managers, however, will also likely encounter greater climatic, financial, biological and political risks. Higher interest rates, higher production costs and higher annual variability in forage resources are major challenges that will confront rangeland managers in the years ahead. Under these conditions, a low risk approach to livestock production from rangelands is recommended that involves conservative stocking, use of highly adapted livestock, and application of behavioural knowledge of livestock to efficiently use forage resources.

The United States in the Global Economy

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-34
Author(s):  
Douglas A. Irwin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Trade ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
World Trade ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Basic Facts ◽  
Fragmentation Of Production ◽  
The U.S

This chapter sets out basic facts about international trade and the U.S. economy. It describes how world trade has expanded rapidly in the recent decades and explains how the development provides the context in which to consider trade policy. The chapter discusses the reasons for the increase in trade and how trade has changed with the fragmentation of production and the increase in trade of intermediate goods. It talks about the state of public opinion on the question of globalization. It also analyzes protectionist policies that directly harm employment in domestic industries by raising production costs in addition to forcing consumers to pay higher price for the products they buy.

scholarly journals Regulation and Practice of Forest-Management Fires on Private Lands in the Southeast United States: Legal Open Burns versus Certified Prescribed Burns

2020 ◽  
Vol 118 (4) ◽  
pp. 385-402
Author(s):  
Xue Han ◽  
Gregory E Frey ◽  
Changyou Sun
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Standard Of Care ◽  
Past Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Private Lands ◽  
Prescribed Burns ◽  
Southeast United States

Abstract Abstract Forest-management burns have been widely acknowledged as a useful land-management tool in the United States. Nevertheless, fire is inherently risky and may lead to severe damages or create smoke that affects public health. Past research has not explored the difference in policy and practice between open burns, which meet minimum legal criteria, and certified prescribed burns, which follow a higher standard of care. This study seeks to understand the distinction between legal open burns and certified prescribed burns, and, furthermore, to identify trends by type of burn in the Southeast United States. To that end, we compared statutes, regulations, incentives, and notifications of fire as a forest-management tool among nine states in the US Southeast. We found no steady time trends in number or area of burns among the states for the past decade. A nontrivial proportion of legal open burns, which tend to be smaller burns, are noncertified burns, meaning they meet minimum legal requirements, but not the higher standard required for certified prescribed burns.

scholarly journals Contemporary Fire Regimes Provide a Critical Perspective on Restoration Needs in the Mexico-United States Borderlands

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 117862212096919
Author(s):  
Miguel L Villarreal ◽  
José M Iniguez ◽  
Aaron D Flesch ◽  
Jamie S Sanderlin ◽  
Citlali Cortés Montaño ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Vegetation Types ◽  
Private Lands ◽  
United States Mexico

The relationship between people and wildfire has always been paradoxical: fire is an essential ecological process and management tool, but can also be detrimental to life and property. Consequently, fire regimes have been modified throughout history through both intentional burning to promote benefits and active suppression to reduce risks. Reintroducing fire and its benefits back into the Sky Island mountains of the United States-Mexico borderlands has the potential to reduce adverse effects of altered fire regimes and build resilient ecosystems and human communities. To help guide regional fire restoration, we describe the frequency and severity of recent fires over a 32-year period (1985-2017) across a vast binational region in the United States-Mexico borderlands and assess variation in fire frequency and severity across climate gradients and in relation to vegetation and land tenure classes. We synthesize relevant literature on historical fire regimes within 9 major vegetation types and assess how observed contemporary fire characteristics vary from expectations based on historical patterns. Less than 28% of the study area burned during the observation period, excluding vegetation types in warmer climates that are not adapted to fire (eg, Desertscrub and Thornscrub). Average severity of recent fires was low despite some extreme outliers in cooler, wetter environments. Midway along regional temperature and precipitation gradients, approximately 64% of Pine-Oak Forests burned at least once, with fire frequencies that mainly corresponded to historical expectations on private lands in Mexico but less so on communal lands, suggesting the influence of land management. Fire frequency was higher than historical expectations in extremely cool and wet environments that support forest types such as Spruce-Fir, indicating threats to these systems possibly attributable to drought and other factors. In contrast, fires were absent or infrequent across large areas of Woodlands (~73% unburned) and Grasslands (~88% unburned) due possibly to overgrazing, which reduces abundance and continuity of fine fuels needed to carry fire. Our findings provide a new depiction of fire regimes in the Sky Islands that can help inform fire management, restoration, and regional conservation planning, fostered by local and traditional knowledge and collaboration among landowners and managers.

Wartime Rationing and Governmental Organization

1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1089-1106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. O'Leary
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Production Management ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
The United States ◽  
Price Control ◽  
Pearl Harbor ◽  
Governmental Organization ◽  
Control Distribution ◽  
The Impact

Prior to Pearl Harbor, few Americans had given any serious and sustained thought to rationing as a form of wartime economic control. The United States was felt to be a land of chronic surplus in which rationing had no place. To be sure, certain industrial raw materials had become scarce under the impact of the defense program early in 1941, and had been subjected to priorities control by the Office of Production Management. But rationing of consumers' goods was not taken very seriously. Mr. Ickes' East Coast gasoline “shortage” of the late summer and early fall of 1941 had evaporated quickly. There were, of course, a few bright young men in the back rooms of Leon Henderson's O.P.A. who knew that strict wartime price control of consumers' goods would eventually necessitate rationing, price increases not being permitted to control distribution of relatively scarce goods. But even in the O.P.A. the immediate pressure of other duties, principally the control of prices of basic raw materials and the preparation of a price control act then being considered by Congress, prevented the creation of any real rationing organization. Pearl Harbor found the United States with no rationing plans, no rationing organization, and no real appreciation of the indispensability of rationing in a genuine all-out war effort.

Deciphering the true life cycle environmental impacts and costs of the mega-scale shale gas-to-olefins projects in the United States

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 820-840 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chang He ◽  
Fengqi You
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Shale Gas ◽  
The United States ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Environmental Models ◽  
The U.S

Using detailed techno-economic-environmental models, we investigate the environmental impacts and production costs of the mega-scale shale gas-to-olefins projects in the U.S.

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