Production Circumstances Research Articles

Goats under household conditions

Goats account for about 30% of Africa’s ruminant livestock and produce about 17 and 12% of its meat and milk, respectively. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) accounts for over 60% of the total goat population in Africa, with an estimated 147 million goats representing about 80 indigenous breeds or strains distributed across all agro-ecological zones and ruminant livestock production systems. Goats are particularly important in marginal agricultural land areas, especially in arid and semi-arid areas, which together hold 64% of the goat population. At the rural community level, goats play a significant role in the food chain and overall livelihoods of the poor rural households where they are also largely the property of resource poor women and their children. Indigenous goat breeds/strains are adapted to the diverse local production circumstances and are able to thrive with minimum inputs. Goats still remain largely marginalized, even at the household level. This paper attempts to look at the challenges and opportunities of goat keeping at the household level for the improved welfare of the keepers, using SSA as a representative of other developing sub-regions.

2.6-Million-year-old stone tools and associated bones from OGS-6 and OGS-7, Gona, Afar, Ethiopia.

When and how human ancestors first used tools remains unknown, despite intense research into the origins of technology. It has been hypothesized that the evolutionary roots of stone flake technology has its origin in percussive behavior. Before intentional stone flaking, hominins potentially engaged in various percussive behaviors resulting in accidental flake detachments. We refer to this scenario as the ‘by-product hypothesis.’ In this scenario, repeated detachments of sharp stone fragments eventually resulted in intentional flake production. Here, we tested the circumstances of accidental flake production as a by-product of percussive foraging in wild capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) from Brazil, the only nonhuman primate known to habitually produce sharp-edged flakes through a percussive behavior. We conducted field experiments where we tested the potential for accidental flake production during nut cracking. We provided three different types of stone with varied material properties as anvils to assess the circumstances in which accidental production of sharp-edged flakes occurs during nut cracking. A further freehand knapping experiment, with the raw material that exhibited accidental flake detachments, allows a direct comparison of flakes that have been intentionally produced by an experienced knapper and flakes produced during nut cracking by capuchin monkeys. Our results show that raw material quality and morphology significantly affect the rate of sharp-edged flake production as well as the resulting lithic signature of this behavior. In addition, accidental flakes produced during capuchin nut cracking on highly isotropic raw material are similar in many respects to intentionally produced flakes by a human knapper. Our field experiments highlight the fact that nut-cracking behavior can lead to the unintentional production of substantial quantities of sharp-edged flakes and therefore supports the ‘by-product hypothesis’ as a potential mechanism for the emergence of hominin flake technology.

Error budget calculations in laboratory medicine: linking the concepts of biological variation and allowable medical errors

Background: Random, systematic and sporadic errors, which unfortunately are not uncommon in laboratory medicine, can have a considerable impact on the well being of patients. Although somewhat difficult to attain, our main goal should be to prevent all possible errors. A good insight on error-prone steps in the laboratory process is essential to achieving a structured system for error reduction. Methods: Here, the process of laboratory medicine is divided into phases, and for each phase, an error frequency is presented. While error frequencies in the laboratory (pre-analytical to post-analytical) have been reported elsewhere, we also include them in the present paper. In order to investigate error frequencies in the pre-pre- and post-post-analytical phases, clinicians were asked to carefully answer questions concerning their ordering strategies for laboratory investigation and their interpretation of results. Results: In the present study, the overall error rate in laboratory medicine was found to be 20.0%. The error percentages in the pre-pre- and post-post-analytical phase were about 12.0% and 5.0%, respectively. This indicates that, also on the clinical side, error reduction is desirable, especially in the requesting of laboratory investigation. Error reduction can be achieved through process redesigning by, for example, applying the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points approach. The error budget that clinicians might spend, based upon critical differences, is 26.9%. For the same test set and production circumstances, the overall biological variation is 7.9%. Clinicians thus take the error rates into account in their practical, daily use, and the ultimate achievable in laboratory medicine is biological variation. Conclusions: Several currently available software applications can aid error reduction in clinical chemistry. Both laboratory consultants and the use of information and communication technology are essential tools in optimizing the efficiency of laboratory medicine.

Economic values for traits of meat sheep in medium to high production potential areas of the tropics

Breeding objectives were developed for meat sheep in smallholder production circumstances in the tropics. The traits considered were litter size, lambing frequency, pre-weaning, and post-weaning lamb survival to 12 months, ewe survival, lamb live weight at 12-month, mature ewe live weight, consumable meat, kg of manure DM sold per ewe per year and residual DM feed intake. Three evaluation situations were considered: (i) base with constant number of ewes, (ii) fixed feed resource and (iii) setting feed costs to zero. Sensitivity analysis of economic values to price levels of inputs and meat production was carried out. The fixed feed resource situation appropriately describes smallholder production circumstances. In the base situation, meat production accounted for about 88% of revenue and manure the remaining 12%. Variable costs represented about 95% of the total cost. For the fixed feed resource situation, economic values (US$ per ewe per year) were 12.94 for litter size, 10.18 for lambing frequency, 0.19 for pre-weaning lamb survival, 0.24 for post-weaning lamb survival, 0.36 for ewe survival, 1.02 for 12-month lamb live weight, 0.14 for mature ewe live weight, 0.51 for consumable meat, 0.08 for kg of manure DM sold (per ewe per year) and −0.04 for residual DM feed intake. Litter size and lambing frequency were the most important traits in a breeding objective for smallholder production. Relative to the base situation, setting feed costs to zero had similar results as the situation with restricted feed resource but resulted in larger differences. Sensitivity analysis of economic weights to changes in prices and production circumstances indicated that future economic values for traits might change dependent on levels of output and prices. The exceptions, with regard to changes in meat price are kg of manure DM sold per ewe per year and residual DM feed intake, and with regard to feed costs are consumable meat and kg of manure DM sold per ewe per year. Economic values for 12-month lamb live weight, mature ewe live weight, consumable meat, kg of manure DM sold per ewe per year and residual DM feed intake were not sensitive to changes in management and marketing circumstances. Caution is recommended when the breeding objectives presented here are applied not to disadvantage smallholders in poor climatic years, when farmers are at their most vulnerable situation.

Study on the Work Organization at Dairy Farms

Joining the European Union Hungarian producers have advantages but they need to solve some problems too. Only those producers can compete who will be able to produce extra quality milk. However the circumstances of milk production are not up to the task.The author examined the work organization of 7 dairy farms in Hajdú-Bihar County. Data were collected about the situation of farms, equipment of barns, objets of production, work force, qualification of workers, and productivity of work. He examined the applied motivation methods at farms. He concluded that as the number of cows per farm increases work productivity increases too. From the examination it appeared that family farms applied different motivation system from bigger producer organizations. The author put forward proposals for motivation possibilities to improve milk quality, atmosphere, and general feeling of workers.

1105 自律分散型生産進行における競合制御の研究

In Distributed Autonomous Production System (DAPS). It is difficult to realize the production progress suitable for the object of production system, because each system elements (e. g. Job, work-cell) are autonomous and selfish. Moreover, the object of the system is not stable by frequent changes of production circumstances. We develop the new production control method for the suitable production progress. The idea of this method is to harmonize system elements in order to reduce conflicts among system elements. The concrete method is that when an autonomous Job decides to dispatch an operation to the work-cell, a job considers the object function of work-cell as the constraint.

Molière: A Theatrical Life by Virginia Scott (review)

MLR, 97.4, 2002 965 Patricia Cholakian's study joins a number of recent publications examining the role ofwomen in seventeenth-century French literature with the avowed aim of 'bridgfing] the gap between early modern scholarship and feminist theory' (p. 10). Unlike studies dealing with male writers' perceptions of women, this book looks at autobiographical narratives by women and the way they are used to resist repressive ideologies ofgender. It raises issues concerning the genre and women writers' strategies and innovations, as well as offering direct testimonies of the frustrations experienced by women in seventeenth-century society. Those frustrations concern the place of women in the political sphere (Marguerite de Valois and Mademoiselle de Montpensier's thwarted ambitions), but are also the product of the dependence on men imposed by marriage. Cholakian uses analyses of autobiography as a genre to highlight the specific difficulties encountered by women trying to create an independent self in a patriarchal, and most importantly, patrilineal society. The chapter on Mademoiselle de Montpensier and her attempts to create a 'house' descended from her maternal ancestors might have benefited from a mention of Irigaray's theory on the importance of female genealogies in the formation of the 'gendered self. The author does insist, however, on the 'desexualization' operated by the female autobiographers as a response to the focus on sexual exploits and physical appearance used by men both to demonize and to idealize them (Marguerite's case is especially enlightening in presenting and showing the negative impact of both tendencies). The chapter on Jeanne Guyon is particularly interesting in its presentation of re? ligious practice and writing as an act of resistance. Fascinating in its ambiguity (is religion the true motive or a means to denounce women's oppression under cover of one of the few forms of written expression considered suitable for women?), the religious autobiography enables the writer to reveal details of her private life which would normally be regarded as unsuitable forpublication. Ironically, the chapter on the transvestite Abbe de Choisy offers some of the most interesting insights into both the construction of womanhood as spectacle and the acceptance of gender roles: Choisy acknowledges the obstacles that his transvestism put in the way of his per? sonal advancement at court but does not seem to challenge the 'rightfulness' of such discrimination. None the less, the author rightlypoints out that Choisy's experiences cannot be construed as female and that they obliterate, to a large extent, the biological aspects of la conditionfeminine. Finally, Cholakian insists on the role of the editors, which seems at times to blur the boundaries between biography and autobiography. By doing so, not only does she deal with issues of authenticity but she also draws attention to the question of the education of women, which was, together with the suitability of women for political power, at the heart of the ongoing debate on la condition feminine for most of the century. University of Edinburgh Veronique Desnain Moliere: A Theatrical Life. By Virginia Scott. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2000. 333 PP- ?35All lives of Moliere are to a greater or lesser extent histories of his plays, their enormous success, the controversy surrounding some, and the features common to most. They offersecondary criticism of his theatre by another route. Following the pub? lication of Grimarest's much-criticized Vie de M. de Moliere in the early eighteenth century, a succession of biographers down to the on-line Moliere 'fanzine' editors of today have superimposed one on another their accounts of the incontrovertible facts of the curriculum vitae of this son of a tapissier du roi who was to become the 966 Reviews most complete man ofthe theatre in seventeenth-century France. In additionto use? ful insights into the circumstances of production and performance of his work, the majority of Moliere's biographers offera wealth of apparently unnecessary, but often irresistible, information about the milieu and make-up of this master of disguise, who left so little in the way of personal data. In this new biographical study for the twenty-firstcentury, the firstfull-length life to be published in English for seventy years?replacing J.J.Palmer's Moliere (1930), last reprinted in...

Cereal Production in Africa with the Focus on South Africa

Abstract Cereal production in Africa, compared to the rest of the world, is very low and the wheat crop being grown is less then 2 percent of all wheat being grown in the developing world. About 80 percent of the wheat crop is produced by the Republic of South Africa and Ethiopia. Wheat and barley are grown in South Africa as grain crops but most of the other cereal crops are pasture crops. The South African production environment is very variable and wheat is grown as a spring as well as a winter crop under dryland and irrigation. Wheat production has dropped during the past few years mostly because of the effect of market deregulation but focus on new varieties and better production circumstances have improved yield per hectare. The seed trade in South Africa is highly commercialized, regulated and protected by law. Success can mainly be attributed to cultivar releases, the introgression of marketable traits into new varieties and the existence of a market structure for the seed business. South Africa c...

Chaucer's English Lesson

Pound was right. Chaucer basically took over his art from the and, of course, the Italians.2 Having spoken French at the court, having written (possibly) his first poems in that language, and having traveled to such places as Navarre, Rhethel, Florence, and Milan, he imbibed European culture and learned a truly international lesson about vernacular writing.3 But does Chaucer the prose translator display the same lesson? Take the case of Boece. That Chaucer chose to use Jean de Meun's Livres de confort de Philosophie as a trot for his own version means that he understood the relevance of French translation to English practice. But he departed from his source in an important and surprising way: he omitted a translator's prologue.4 Unlike most translators, who in prologues explain the circumstances of production and reception, Chaucer forgoes detailing what some critics see as the clearly perceived need to make Boece available to his contemporaries. ' He would not even adapt Jean's prologue, despite a sufficient precedent to do so: Jean himself had translated portions of a prologue by William of Ara-

Responding ability in dynamic production circumstances

The information flow in production environments mainly depends on the structure of a production database. A connection between the database and the production process is established using an interface based on the idea of a process matrix. The interface equipped with the genetic algorithms search technique gathers functions of process planning and scheduling into a common decision-making environment. Decisions usually consist of production scenario changes caused by disturbances of the production process. The reactions are mainly influenced by costs caused by momentary decisions. To keep these costs under the profitable border a condition criterion named the point of no return is introduced.

“Fam'd Handel Breathing, tho' Transformed to Stone”: The Composer as Monument

Abstract L. F. Roubiliac carved two full-length statues of Handel, in 1738 and 1762. Although designed for quite different settings—a public pleasure garden and Westminster Abbey—the two sculptures have notable congruencies: both were sited in spaces critical for national self-definition, and both reflected aspects of the composer's public persona. This article explores the delineation of Handel's image in these statues and reproductions of them, and explicates their role in a broader attempt to define the nation through its heroes. Handel's possible involvement in fostering his status as a “British worthy” is suggested both through circumstances of the effigies' production and through his onstage performance, particularly in Alexander's Feast.

Histories of Errancy: Oral Yoruba Abiku Texts and Soyinka's "Abiku"

����� �� English, and among them are canonical texts by Tutuola, Achebe, Soyinka, Clark-Bekederemo, Emecheta, and Okri. These abiku writings constitute a major tradition within Nigerian literature, so it is surprising that no study has been done which reads them together and orders them historically as such. Indeed, existing studies of abiku literature lack any kind of historical perspective. They are limited to thematic and stylistic comparisons of canonical written texts, by-passing the relationship of these texts to oral abiku literature, to nonliterary abiku discourses, and to the concerns and anxieties surrounding their historical circumstances of composition. Symptomatic of these studies’ lack of historical perspective is the reliance of their interpretations upon insufficiently considered accounts of abiku. Such accounts (sometimes they are just hasty definitions) often mix facts about abiku with facts about ogbanje; represent abiku as homogeneous across time and space; fail to distinguish between popular and expert, official and heretical, indigenous and exogenous discourses of abiku; assume that the belief in abiku has a psychological rather than ontological origin; and hastily appropriate abiku to serve as a symbol for present-day, metropolitan concepts and concerns. 2 The upshot of all this has been to establish and encourage a practice of literary exegesis that not only occludes the historicity of abiku—its embeddedness in specific times, localities, discourses, concerns, and circumstances that render it inalienably heterogeneous, politicized, and protean—but also occludes, in turn, the historicity of the literature that takes abiku as its subject. The first aim of this essay is, therefore, to retrieve some sense of abiku’s rich and varied history. To this end, I consider in detail one “traditional” Yoruba theory of abiku offered by a senior Ifa babalawo, demonstrating its politicized nature by situating it in the context of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Yoruba society. The second aim of this essay is to look at some oral Yoruba abiku literature—to look at it as literature, that is, rather than as part of the anthropological catalogue. I thus consider some of the formal and thematic features of abiku names, oriki, and narratives, while also relating these aesthetic features back to the orthodox Ifa discourse and its nexus of historically contingent concerns. The third contribution of this study to existing scholarship is to show that some detailed knowledge of oral abiku representations and their history is indispensable to understanding the dynamics and significance of twentieth-century abiku literature written in English. Taking Soyinka’s well-known poem “Abiku” as my example, I show that the poem is profoundly shaped by what it inherits from the past (oral abiku texts and Yoruba politics), even as it is also shaped by its own historical circumstances of production (Soyinka’s nostalgia for home in

Technical review of the energy and protein requirements of growing pigs: food intake

AbstractFood intake in pigs is highly variable across different production circumstances. This report concludes from a critical review of published observations that it was unrealistic to expect from the scientific literature purporting to express nutrient requirement any reasonable prediction of the particular food intake of groups of pigs. None the less, such knowledge is essential for the practical purposes of their day-to-day nutrition. The literature does however yield general principles from which may be derived: (a) the likely forms (but not the parameter values) of intake functions relating food intake to pig live weight; and (b) the likely factors involved in the modulation of food intake at any given live weight. Using these principles two methods for determining on-farm food intake from the use of simple and available records were proposed. The first requires knowledge only of start and final weight, the time elapsed, and total food intake: it involves two steps, the determination of a suitable growth curve followed by the fitting of a suitable food intake curve. The second method is appropriate in the absence of information on total food intake, and requires a minimum number of spot measurements through the growth period. Different functions were tested for the curve of best fit. As a further benefit it appeared that models could be constructed from the information presented that would speculate for diagnostic purposes upon the likely modulators of food intake. Such models could explore the constraints of gut capacity, the energetic requirements of maintenance and potential growth, the influence of excessive or inadequate environmental temperature, the quality of housing and stocking density.

Breeding objectives for three silvicultural regimes of radiata pine

A generic vertically integrated firm, comprising a production forest, a sawmill, and a pulp mill was modelled under three silvicultural regimes: direct to pulp, intermediate (includes production thinning), and intensive (includes production thinnings and pruning). The harvest age traits included in the breeding objective were total volume (m3/ha) and average wood density (kg/m3). Economic values for each trait were calculated as the difference in discounted profit for a unit marginal increase of volume or density, and expressed as relative weights to facilitate comparisons between the objectives. The methodology was applied to a Chilean case study using representative economic and production circumstances. The breeding objectives so derived were 1vol + 2.4den for pulp, 1vol + 1.1den for intermediate, and 1vol + 1.2den for the intensive regime, where vol and den are the breeding values for volume and density, respectively. The firm was profitable under all regimes. Genetic correlations between the objectives for each regime were higher than 0.9, indicating that a single breeding strategy with objective 1vol + 1.5den could be adopted, with almost no loss of genetic gain relative to selecting for a particular silvicultural regime.

Interactions between optimal replacement policies and feeding strategies in dairy herds

A dynamic performance model was integrated with a model that optimised culling and insemination policies in dairy herds using dynamic programming. The performance model estimated daily feed intake, milk yield and body weight change of dairy cows on the basis of availability and quality of feed and potential milk yield. A set of cow-states was defined by lactation number (1 to 12), calving interval (11 to 16 months), potential milk yield (15 levels) and stage of lactation (months 1 to 16). Actual performance was obtained taking into account potential performance, feed properties, and feed intake constraints. Biological and economical parameters used in the model represented actual production circumstances in Costa Rican herds. Eight feeding strategies combining two forages and four concentrate allocation systems were simulated. Different feeding strategies resulted in maximal changes of 6.8 mo. in optimal average herd-life, US$26.1 in monthly income per cow and 1.9% in replacement rates, while average calving interval was not affected. The main difference was found between feeding strategies based on flat ratios of concentrate compared with feeding strategies based on daily milk yield. Feeding flat ratios of concentrate altered the course of profitability due to restriction of the variation in feeding costs between cows and its effect on animal performance. Average herd-life and monthly income under the optimal feeding strategy were highly sensitive to changes in milk price, but less sensitive to changes in price of concentrates or price of forage. Calving interval was not sensitive to any of the factors. Comparison of optimal policies with actual parameters obtained from field data indicated that cows are being culled close to the optimal herd-life with calving intervals longer than optimal. The model is an efficient tool to study interactions between nutrition, reproduction and breeding at the animal and herd level.

Breeding objectives for three silvicultural regimes of radiata pine

A generic vertically integrated firm, comprising a production forest, a sawmill, and a pulp mill was modelled under three silvicultural regimes: direct to pulp, intermediate (includes production thinning), and intensive (includes production thinnings and pruning). The harvest age traits included in the breeding objective were total volume (m3/ha) and average wood density (kg/m3). Economic values for each trait were calculated as the difference in discounted profit for a unit marginal increase of volume or density, and expressed as relative weights to facilitate comparisons between the objectives. The methodology was applied to a Chilean case study using representative economic and production circumstances. The breeding objectives so derived were 1vol + 2.4den for pulp, 1vol + 1.1den for intermediate, and 1vol + 1.2den for the intensive regime, where vol and den are the breeding values for volume and density, respectively. The firm was profitable under all regimes. Genetic correlations between the objectives for each regime were higher than 0.9, indicating that a single breeding strategy with objective 1vol + 1.5den could be adopted, with almost no loss of genetic gain relative to selecting for a particular silvicultural regime.

Economic values of live weight and feed-intake capacity of dairy cattle under Dutch production circumstances

This study estimated the effect of genetic change of live weight (LW) and dry-matter intake capacity (DMIC) on labour income (economic values) in dairy cattle under different production circumstances. Dutch production circumstances in the years 1998 and 2008 were based on different scenarios and varied with respect to product prices, milk output restrictions and environmental legislation. Linear programming was used to maximise labour income at farm level. Economic values (EV) for LW ranged from −0.29 to −0.17 ▪/kg/cow/year and depended on beef prices and marginal feed costs. Economic values for DMIC ranged from 18 to 40 ▪/kg/cow/year and depended on the difference between marginal costs of roughage and concentrates. Estimated EVs were highly sensitive to levels of dry-matter intake and milk production. At higher DMIC levels, the EV for LW increased, whereas the EV for DMIC decreased. At higher milk production levels, the EV for LW decreased whereas the EV for DMIC increased.

Characteristics of distributed autonomous production control

Four types of intelligence, self-knowing, action-planning, target-setting and scope-limiting are essential for the production progress of distributed autonomous production. The fundamental controlling features that differentiate distributed autonomous production control (DIST) and centralized production control (CENT) are the local/global view and concurrent/sequential processing, respectively, in controlling operations. The ability of production control is characterized by response time, planning scope and progressive accuracy. The characteristics of DIST are short response time, narrow planning scope and high progressive accuracy. The experiment of job shop simulation shows that DIST can meet the due time without any capacity planning in advance, and that the real-time response that DIST can realize is essential to achieve short lead-time production. However, in heavy workload production circumstances, the lead-time of CENT is smaller than DIST, because CENT, which has a wide planning scope as a characteristic, can control a lot of work in process at any one time. As the result, CENT can realize higher production efficiency. On the other hand, when the estimated processing time is not reliable, the lead-time of DIST is smaller than CENT, because DIST can sensitively correspond to the difference between the planned and the actual processing time.

Envisioning Power: Ideologies of Dominance and Crisis

With the originality and energy that have marked his earlier works, Eric Wolf now explores the historical relationship of ideas, power, and culture. Responding to anthropology's long reliance on a concept of culture that takes little account of power, Wolf argues that power is crucial in shaping the circumstances of cultural production. Responding to social-science notions of ideology that incorporate power but disregard the ways ideas respond to cultural promptings, he demonstrates how power and ideas connect through the medium of culture. Wolf advances his argument by examining three very different societies, each remarkable for its flamboyant ideological expressions: the Kwakiutl Indians of the Northwest Pacific Coast, the Aztecs of pre-Hispanic Mexico, and National Socialist Germany. Tracing the history of each case, he shows how these societies faced tensions posed by ecological, social, political, or psychological crises, prompting ideological responses that drew on distinctive, historically rooted cultural understandings. In each case study, Wolf analyzes how the regnant ideology intertwines with power around the pivotal relationships that govern social labor. Anyone interested in the history of anthropology or in how the social sciences make comparisons will want to join Wolf in Envisioning Power.

What drives Herbeck? Schizophrenia, immediacy, and the poetic process

A poem by the Austrian schizophrenic Ernst Herbeck (1920-91) is examined and evaluated in view of his considerable success as a poet. It is argued that the text’s circumstances of production and Herbeck’s cognitive deficiencies leave little room for creativity, let alone genius. The poem ‘Weihnachten 1967’ is characterized by a peculiar line-by-line approach that is explained in terms of the immediacy hypothesis, according to which schizophrenics’ actions are triggered by the immediate environment (Salzinger et al., 1970). Speech acts may be triggered by preceding words or phrases, leading to an appearance of incohesion. In the case discussed here, the poet takes cues for the extension of his text from the preceding lines only. Depending on their success, he either develops or evades the topic found there, or he attempts to repair a mistake by suggesting a re-analysis in the new line. The obscure and partly private connections within the poem are traced and explained in terms of conceptual frames (Fillmore, 1975). The discussion of the poem contributes to debates concerning the aesthetic appreciation of Herbeck’s poetry, the nature of schizophrenic speech in terms of cognitive and/or linguistic deficiencies, the evaluation of art brut in general, and the larger debate concerning the intersection of art and pathology.