Farm Team Research Articles

Physical training and external load management for young athletes

Football today is more intense and demanding than ever before and these increasing physical demands have a direct impact on grassroots players, leading to ever greater interest in determining the external load variables using GPS in lower categories. The objective of this study is to observe and analyse the mean figures for the variables Distance(m), High Acc(m) and High Dec(m), HSR Abs(m), HMLD(m) and MAX Speed (km·h-1) per player aged 15, 16 and 17 based on their position in a competitive match. We also aim to determine if U16 players are able to compete in a U17 and U18 category team. A total of 57 male players, between 15 and 17 years old, participated in the study, divided by team corresponding to their age, and members of farm teams of a professional football club in the Community of Madrid. The results obtained for the mentioned variables show that some players could play at a higher category, specifically U16 Centre-Backs and Forwards and U17 Wing-Backs, Midfielders and Wingers. However, it must be noted that these results may be influenced by factors such as biological age of the players, the minutes of play, the style of play, the rival in the match, the pitch conditions and weather. Keywords: Grassroots Football, External Load, GPS, Distance(m), High Acc(m)/Dec(m), HSR Abs(m), HMLD(m), MAX Speed(km·h-1)

The case for expanding the range of subject specialists used in farm planning.

We explored the merit of expanding the range of subject specialists used in farm planning. We document the outcomes for sheep and beef farmers to improve water quality and promote climate change awareness as part of the wider planning process in two community catchment groups (Hurunui District Landcare Group and King Country River Care group). We found that subject specialists added value. A land resource specialist contributed to greater precision and a more detailed description of the farms natural and built capital. This contributed to a more robust analysis and better targeting of the actions in the work programme. The terrestrial ecologist activated the link between the management of indigenous biodiversity and stream health, with resilience to future climate events. The carbon specialist created the link between tree planting and water quality outcomes because of where tree plantings were located on most farms. The carbon specialist also highlighted the option to register existing soil conservation plantings under the emissionstrading scheme, adding a revenue stream. With the subject specialist(s) as part of the wider farm team, environmental concerns are more likely to be integrated into the business plan with mitigation actions better tailored and targeted in the work programme.

Sleep disorders and their relation to injuries among young elite soccer players

Aim: to study the quality of sleep and the relationship between sleep disorders and injury among young elite soccer players.Methods: the study summarizes data from relevant questionnaires obtained through anonymous cohort testing of 236 male football players from leading football academies, two farm teams of leading Russian Premier League clubs and three national youth teams.Results: the average sleep duration in the study participants was 9 hours. The prevalence of sleep disorders was 7 % (PSQI, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index) and 10 % (ASBQ, Athlete Sleep Behavior Questionnaire) and among the youngest soccer players, this prevalence of violations was the lowest. Significant or moderate daytime sleepiness was found in 59 % of participants. The risk of serious disorders increased with age. Sleep disorders significantly affected injuries according to the results of the PSQI questionnaire and retrospective collection of information about injuries.Conclusion: the confirmed relationship between injuries and sleep disorders allows us to consider sleep quality improvement as an important component of injury and morbidity prevention among athletes of team sports.

Holistic approach to bovine tuberculosis – there is more to control than just testing

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) is an infectious disease just like Johne's disease, bovine viral diarrhoea and leptospirosis. Yet unlike these other infections, which vets and farmers manage well together, the private vet rarely gets involved in the management of bTB. This is perhaps because we have never been given any opportunity to be more than just the tester and when we find reactors we have to ‘shut down’ our clients' businesses. Many of us have lost confidence in the bTB test and the policies in place to manage this disease and some of us are unsure as to why bTB is still notifiable. Indeed, many practices are no longer carrying out bTB testing for their clients so vets need to re‐engage with bTB as an infectious disease. They need to understand what they are able to do on farm to support farmers and ensure that they are doing everything they can to reduce the chance, and length of a bTB breakdown. There are positive things vets and farmers can do to take back some control over bTB. The aim of this article is to encourage farm teams to see bTB as an infectious disease, to understand what risks can lead to a bTB breakdown and know how to reduce, if not eliminate, those risks. Moreover, I hope this article helps you to appreciate the role vets have in ensuring that farmers engage in on‐farm measures to control this devastating disease.

Multi-agent task allocation for harvest management.

Multi-agent task allocation methods seek to distribute a set of tasks fairly amongst a set of agents. In real-world settings, such as soft fruit farms, human labourers undertake harvesting tasks. The harvesting workforce is typically organised by farm manager(s) who assign workers to the fields that are ready to be harvested and team leaders who manage the workers in the fields. Creating these assignments is a dynamic and complex problem, as the skill of the workforce and the yield (quantity of ripe fruit picked) are variable and not entirely predictable. The work presented here posits that multi-agent task allocation methods can assist farm managers and team leaders to manage the harvesting workforce effectively and efficiently. There are three key challenges faced when adapting multi-agent approaches to this problem: (i) staff time (and thus cost) should be minimised; (ii) tasks must be distributed fairly to keep staff motivated; and (iii) the approach must be able to handle incremental (incomplete) data as the season progresses. An adapted variation of Round Robin (RR) is proposed for the problem of assigning workers to fields, and market-based task allocation mechanisms are applied to the challenge of assigning tasks to workers within the fields. To evaluate the approach introduced here, experiments are performed based on data that was supplied by a large commercial soft fruit farm for the past two harvesting seasons. The results demonstrate that our approach produces appropriate worker-to-field allocations. Moreover, simulated experiments demonstrate that there is a "sweet spot" with respect to the ratio between two types of in-field workers.

Where to “Play Ball!”? A Case of a Minor League Baseball Team’s Future

After 30 years as a minor league baseball team affiliated with various Major League Baseball (MLB) teams, the Campton Hills Crushers were left without a league to play in when MLB removed the affiliations of 42 former minor league farm teams in the winter of 2020-21. Team management believed that they had four options for playing baseball in the 2021 season, including joining a well-established independent professional minor league, joining a well-established amateur summer collegiate league, starting their own in-house independent professional minor league with all teams playing out of Crusher Stadium, or starting their own in-house amateur summer collegiate league with all teams playing out of Crusher Stadium. Participants are asked to recommend one of the four scenarios to team management, based on utilizing a decision-making model that incorporates a pro/con analysis.

Clubbie: A Minor League Baseball Memoir by Greg Larson

Reviewed by: Clubbie: A Minor League Baseball Memoir by Greg Larson Roberta J. Newman Greg Larson. Clubbie: A Minor League Baseball Memoir. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021. 247 pp. Cloth, $27.95. Clubbie: A Minor League Memoir is Greg Larson's breezy account of his two-season tenure as clubhouse manager for the Aberdeen IronBirds, the shortseason A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles in the now-defunct New York Penn League. Self-admittedly not talented enough to play professional baseball at any level, Larson chronicles his attempts to keep the team's players fed and equipped, coaches happy, all the while trying to convince himself that he is a participant in the game. At times, he succeeds, though his attitude toward his job and his performance varies. Larson enters the clubhouse with more than a soupcon of fanboy naivete. His lack of sophistication is apparent in his choice to bring a Minnesota Twins blanket with him to his new job, expressing his concern that he will not be accepted by members of an Orioles' farm team. The players do not care. More striking is his lack of knowledge about the conditions under which the players he serves labor. One look at the Orioles' development guide disabuses him of the notion that A level baseball is a lucrative undertaking. Of his reaction to discovering that none of Aberdeen's players are paid more than $1,300 per month during the season, he writes, "Look, I didn't think Minor leaguers made Alex Rodriguez money (30 million a year), but I had no understanding of the astronomical difference between Major League and Minor League salaries," (30). Once they have paid him their seven-dollar dues and remitted rent to their landlords, if they have them, he realizes that IronBird players barely earn enough to survive. In return for their seven dollars—one more than they pay other single-A equipment managers—Larson does their laundry, dispenses balls, bats, and uniforms, and provides meals, often amounting to little more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and leftovers from the luxury suite spreads. In fact, he initially resists spending anything on food until he is admonished by a coach. But he learns, and serving enough food for [End Page 271] the least possible outlay becomes a source of personal pride. He leaves at the end of each of his two seasons with more money than the players. This is only a minor source of guilt. Throughout his memoir, Larson, who is a stand-up comedian, among other pursuits, attempts to tell his story with humor. He peppers the narrative with anecdotes from inside the clubhouse. One of his favorite sources and targets is pitching coach Alan Mills, whose self-professed claim to fame is his temper. Above all, Mills seems to be proudest of the fact that he once punched Daryl Strawberry during a 1998 benches-clearing brawl between the Orioles and the New York Yankees—a story Mills tells repeatedly whether or not anyone asks. Larson's fondness for Mills is apparent throughout, perhaps because, as the coach also never tires of reminding the author, he was also a clubbie before making it big. Larson is generally amused by Mills's explosive temper until he is the brunt of it halfway through the author's second season. Chastised by Mills for giving lousy tickets to the family of a pitching prospect, Larson describes the encounter in this way: "The whites of his eyes expanded and he leaned in toward me. 'You'll know when I'm in your face, meat, and this aint it.' He let his look linger for a second before walking out. In that moment I'd seen a single fierce glimpse—one movie frame—of the man who'd punched Darryl Strawberry, Brian Graham, and damn near half of the 1993 Seattle Mariners" (185). However, his opinion of Mills remains unchanged. While Larson's memoir is written with humor, it tends to trade in baseball cliches. Among the oldest of his chestnuts is "Baseball taught me how to love"(9), followed shortly thereafter by "Baseball taught me how to have my heart broken" (10) without as much as...

Glenn Killinger, All American: Penn State's World War I Sports Hero

Glenn Killinger, All American: Penn State's World War I Sports Hero

Expert-based development of a generic HACCP-based risk management system to prevent critical negative energy balance in dairy herds

The objective of this study was to develop a generic risk management system based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) principles for the prevention of critical negative energy balance (NEB) in dairy herds using an expert panel approach. In addition, we discuss the advantages and limitations of the system in terms of implementation in the individual dairy herd. For the expert panel, we invited 30 researchers and advisors with expertise in the field of dairy cow feeding and/or health management from eight European regions. They were invited to a Delphi-based set-up that included three inter-correlated questionnaires in which they were asked to suggest risk factors for critical NEB and to score these based on ‘effect’ and ‘probability’. Finally, the experts were asked to suggest critical control points (CCPs) specified by alarm values, monitoring frequency and corrective actions related to the most relevant risk factors in an operational farm setting. A total of 12 experts (40 %) completed all three questionnaires. Of these 12 experts, seven were researchers and five were advisors and in total they represented seven out of the eight European regions addressed in the questionnaire study. When asking for suggestions on risk factors and CCPs, these were formulated as ‘open questions’, and the experts’ suggestions were numerous and overlapping. The suggestions were merged via a process of linguistic editing in order to eliminate doublets. The editing process revealed that the experts provided a total of 34 CCPs for the 11 risk factors they scored as most important. The consensus among experts was relatively high when scoring the most important risk factors, while there were more diverse suggestions of CCPs with specification of alarm values and corrective actions. We therefore concluded that the expert panel approach only partly succeeded in developing a generic HACCP for critical NEB in dairy cows. We recommend that the output of this paper is used to inform key areas for implementation on the individual dairy farm by local farm teams including farmers and their advisors, who together can conduct herd-specific risk factor profiling, organise the ongoing monitoring of herd-specific CCPs, as well as implement corrective actions when CCP alarm values are exceeded.

Geographic information systems visualization of wind farm operational data to inform maintenance and planning discussions

As utility scale wind farms age, maintenance and contingency planning become increasingly important. Decisions about when and how to repair or replace major turbine components can critically influence profitability. Condition monitoring and prognostic reliability modelling are sometimes used to support these decision-making processes. These often resource intensive, sophisticated techniques are frequently administered by third parties and can be black boxes to wind farm stakeholders. Early experience from the YR21 Investment Decision Support Program has highlighted the importance of broad engagement across wind farm teams in maintenance and planning discussions. The utilization of geographic information systems to illustrate data trends across wind farms proved to be a valuable tool in fostering fundamental understanding of an operation’s signature performance characteristics. This graphical representation of the farm provides a useful visualization of the operation’s best and worst performers in terms of power produced, wind speeds experienced, total revolutions, or highest gear box temperature. These transparent representations of the data represent valuable starting points for discussion of performance or potential maintenance issues across farms. In some cases, it can reveal unexpected trends that may raise bigger questions about how the farm is operating in general. Finally, these simple figures can serve as complementary inputs to larger, more complex data-driven decision systems. Geographic information system plots are presented for three wind farms to demonstrate the potential utility in simple, transparent, and accessible data visualization.

Identifying current challenges and research priorities to guide the design of more attractive dairy-farm workplaces in New Zealand

Globally, dairy farmers face issues with attracting and retaining high-quality staff. In the present study, a qualitative research method was used to explore the current challenges in relation to people on farm, the approaches currently used by farmers to make dairying more attractive and productive for people, and perspectives on the challenges for attracting and retaining people on future farms. Current challenges were in the areas of recruitment, productivity, skills and learning, farm and industry structural issues, and impact of farm profitability on ability to implement new people practices. Participants’ vision of the future dairy workplace was one that is highly dynamic, more open to consumers and the community, and largely data-driven. We suggest that dairy workplace research priorities focus on the design and testing of new systems to provide people with meaningful work and a good lifestyle, without compromising profit. Specific priorities include using new ways of connecting and communicating to create engaged and effective teams, developing flexible farm teams who deeply understand their role in the value chain and the consumer connection, defining the opportunity for technology to make the job easier and more enjoyable, developing farm systems that are safe, innovative, and provide a good career, and helping farming businesses demonstrate their people performance to consumers.

Borders and Crossings

Borders and Crossings Douglas Silver (bio) The switchboard lamps flash to life every hour on the hour, coinciding with the radio newscast. Americans are calling to speak to President Truman, to Vice President Barkley, to Secretary of War Patterson. Instead they get Operator #9, Genevieve Higgins, who answers with a sprightly "White House, how may I direct your call?" and then incurs a litany of grievances. They are angry about rocketing inflation, about Soviet rockets, the price of eggs, the cost of war. A man from Biloxi fumes over a Negro baseball player debuting for the Brooklyn Dodgers' farm team in Montreal. One surly woman, convinced The Postman Always Rings Twice harbingers a Communist invasion, is aghast when Genevieve tactfully declines to patch her through to the leader of the free world. "Next time you see Harry Truman," she says, "tell him Betsy Mare from Knoxville thinks he's just rotten." The woman's outrage is comical, much like her delusion that Genevieve and the president are acquaintances, that perhaps the message will be relayed during lunch-hour chitchat or hallway pleasantries. The dirty truth about the White House operators is that they don't work in the White House. They—Genevieve and eight other women, all her senior in both age and rank—are installed next door, seated at a wall-length console in an otherwise cramped subbasement of the Executive Office Building. This remove from the Oval Office has in no way discouraged her mother from crowing to the housewives at church group—specifically those whose sons are single and gainfully employed—embellishing her daughter's function of screening calls and plugging jacks to an appointment behooving Senate confirmation. One such housewife, a Mrs. Coleman, new to the church, takes the bait. Her son is a police officer. Prior to that, he was an Army private first class who assailed the beaches of Normandy. His name is Walter and, Genevieve's mother informs her, he will pick her up on Saturday evening. ________ Walter Coleman is husky, with an overbite like a ship's prow and, fittingly, a sodden voice that gurgles as if a lozenge were perpetually dissolving on his tongue. He opens the car door for her, the soda fountain door, waits for her to sit first, insists on paying for their ice cream before she has the chance to offer. His manners are mannered, as if he were adhering to a primer on dating etiquette. To Genevieve's amazement, she finds this endearing. Less so that he prefaces most statements with My mother told me . . . : "My mother told me you [End Page 68] sing like Billie Holiday"; "My mother told me you have a secret recipe for the best apple cobbler in the world"; "My mother told me you talk to the president all the time." Of course, Genevieve doesn't know Walter's mother from a sack of potatoes. He is merely reiterating the extravagant biography her mother fed his mother, an approach Genevieve reciprocates, their conversation more like decryption, translating the puffery of their mothers into the brass tacks of each other. As such, Genevieve clarifies that she sings along to Billie Holiday, that the secret behind her apple cobbler is that she lifted the recipe from a Betty Crocker cookbook, that only Mrs. Burston (Operator #1) and Mrs. Reynolds (Operator #2) deal directly with the president. None of this deters him. He, too, likes Billie Holiday. He, too, likes Betty Crocker. He voted for Harry Truman but hoped the president would've accomplished more by now. "I'll pass along your disappointment," she says. "No need. I haven't given up on him yet." Genevieve isn't sure if he is mirroring her sarcasm or oblivious to it. Either way, she is grateful when Walter slurps the last fudgy puddle of his sundae and they reverse course to her house. He escorts her to the door. In the dark his features seem less pronounced, the shadow chiseling his jawline. She thanks him for the wonderful night. "Maybe next time we'll go to a movie," he says. "My mother told me you have a real thing for Cary Grant." "He's...

Reducing antimicrobial use: a practitioner experience

In late 2015, the farm team at Friars Moor Livestock Health made a decision to improve responsible antimicrobial use on their dairy farms. In this article, Julian Allen and Jenny...

Co-innovation in family-farming livestock systems in Rocha, Uruguay: A 3-year learning process

There are opportunities to improve livestock family farms (LFFs) sustainability in Uruguay by using the co-innovation approach to change management practices and incorporate technologies. To harness these opportunities, between 2012 and 2015, a research project was implemented in Eastern Uruguay, where three simultaneous processes occurred at three levels: farm, region, and research team. At farm level, the work was carried out in seven LFF as case studies following three steps: (i) characterization and diagnosis; (ii) redesign; and (iii) implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. At the regional level, a participatory approach to planning, monitoring, and evaluating the project’s progress with regional stakeholders was adopted. At the team level, a Participatory Action Research approach was used. Consensus on the objectives and methods allowed for combined knowledge to solve practice-oriented problems. The 3-year project demonstrated the effectiveness in improving LFF sustainability, opened a learning space with stakeholders, and utilized a co-innovation model to improve rural development outcomes.

Colostrum quality

Colostrum is often seen as a simple topic to get right on farms, however good colostrum management is rarely achieved. Assessing all of the 5Qs of colostrum is a quick, structured approach to this area. Quantity, Quality, Quickly and sQueaky clean are the four on farm areas followed by Quantifying the results. Regular monitoring mainly using calf serum total protein can be used as a good team building exercise to maintain good farm team motivation. This work can greatly improve calf health, farm economics as well as strengthening the vet, farm team relationship.

Prevalence of Cam-Type Morphology in Elite Ice Hockey Players

Background: Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) has been increasingly recognized as a cause of hip pain in athletes at all levels of competition, specifically ice hockey players. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to define the prevalence of cam and pincer radiographic deformity in elite ice hockey players. The hypothesis was that elite hockey players will have a higher prevalence of radiographic hip abnormalities compared with the general population. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Anteroposterior and frog-leg lateral radiographs on 137 elite ice hockey players were prospectively obtained during the 2014-2015 preseason entrance examinations. Study participants included National Hockey League roster players as well as the respective farm team members. Demographic data were collected, including age, position, shooting side, and any history of hip pain or hip surgery. Patients with a history of hip surgery were excluded from the analysis. A single sports medicine fellowship–trained orthopaedic surgeon used standard radiographic measurements to assess for the radiographic presence of cam or pincer deformity. Radiographs with an alpha angle ≥55° on a frog-leg lateral view were defined as cam-positive. Each participant underwent a preseason physical examination with an assessment of hip range of motion and impingement testing. Results: A total of 130 elite ice hockey players were included in the analysis; 180 (69.4%) hips met radiographic criteria for cam-type deformity. The prevalence in right and left hips was 89 (69.5%) and 91 (70.0%), respectively; 70 (60.8%) players demonstrated bilateral involvement. Hips with cam deformity had a mean alpha angle of 67.7° ± 8.3° on the right and 68.9° ± 9.0° on the left. Of the patients with alpha angles ≥55°, 5.6% (5/89) had a positive anterior impingement test of the right hip, while 11% (10/91) had positive anterior impingement test of the left. Players with radiologic cam deformity had a statistically significant deficit in external rotation of the right hip, as well as in both internal and external rotation of the left hip, compared with those with normal alpha angles. When assessing for crossover sign, 64 of 107 (59.8%) had a positive radiographic finding. Forty-one players (38.3%) had evidence of a crossover sign of the right hip and 42 (39.3%) of the left. When comparing position players, goalies had the highest prevalence of cam-type deformity (93.8%) and the least acetabular coverage. Conclusion: The study data suggest that elite ice hockey players have a significantly higher prevalence of radiographic cam deformity in comparison to what has been reported for the general population.

Informing extension project design: the right tool for the job

Extension successfully creates change when projects are designed to fit the issue, opportunity, or technology to be implemented, the potential users, and the influences external to the farm team. To better understand when and why different approaches to extension succeed this study developed a typology of nine extension approaches. The nine approaches provide a framework to identify the right extension approaches that will drive sustainable productivity improvements for higher onfarm profitability. Factors that need to be understood when deciding which of the extension approaches is best suited to a particular circumstance are: farmers' awareness of the problem, problem complexity, benefits desired by farmers, compatibility of the new technology with existing farm management, and the ability of the farm team to implement the technology. This paper outlines the 9 extension approaches, and the criteria and process for choosing the appropriate approach for the circumstances. Keywords: extension approaches, technology transfer, co-development

Practical Solutions for Pesticide Safety: A Farm and Research Team Participatory Model

ABSTRACTDevelopment of the Practical Solutions for Pesticide Safety guide used participatory research strategies to identify and evaluate solutions that reduce pesticide exposures for workers and their families and to disseminate these solutions. Project principles were (1) workplace chemicals belong in the workplace, and (2) pesticide handlers and farm managers are experts, with direct knowledge of production practices. The project’s participatory methods were grounded in self-determination theory. Practical solutions were identified and evaluated based on five criteria: practicality, adaptability, health and safety, novelty, and regulatory compliance. Research activities that had more personal contact provided better outcomes. The Expert Working Group, composed of farm managers and pesticide handlers, was key to the identification of solutions, as were farm site visits. Audience participation, hands-on testing, and orchard field trials were particularly effective in the evaluation of potential solutions. Small work groups in a Regional Advisory Committee provided the best direction and guidance for a “user-friendly” translational document that provided evidence-based practical solutions. The “farmer to farmer” format of the guide was endorsed by both the Expert Working Group and the Regional Advisory Committee. Managers and pesticide handlers wanted to share their solutions in order to “help others stay safe,” and they appreciated attribution in the guide. The guide is now being used in educational programs across the region. The fundamental concept that farmers and farmworkers are innovators and experts in agricultural production was affirmed by this study. The success of this process demonstrates the value of participatory industrial hygiene in agriculture.

Automated teller machines: their history and authentication protocols

Luther Simjian filed a patent in 1959 for perhaps the first ATM; he convinced the City Bank of New York (now Citibank) to run a 6-month field test of his Bankmatic. The test was, however, not extended due to lack of demand. Simjian suggested that the only customers using the machine were a small number of prostitutes and gamblers who did not want to deal with bank tellers face to face. Nature abhors a vacuum and is also the mother of invention; John Shepherd-Barron (OBE), managing director of London’s De La Rue Instruments succeeded in 1964 with help from Barclay’s Bank. The DACS (De La Rue Automatic Cash System) was installed at their branch in Enfield, North London, on June 27, 1967. Since banks are guardians of your money, it was necessary to institute controls on who could get the moolah or lolly! JSB and his many successors required an ATM user to provide two identifiers: the first, a PAN—proof of the existence of a bank account—though not necessary well funded—and the second, a PIN—proof of identity, the creation of James Goodfellow of Chubb’s Integrated System. The PAN in time would ultimately be recorded magnetically on an ATM bankcard, the PIN entered at the ATM’s keyboard. Goodfellow’s invention was followed by ATM inventions of Geoffrey Constable (also of Chubb) and in the US by Donald C. Wetzel. He was former baseball player (shortstop) for a farm team of the San Francisco (nee New York) Giants, IBM sales person and then vice president of Docutel. Since pickpockets were plentiful in London, a substantial part of the security rested with knowledge of the PIN. But how were the PAN and PIN related and how was this tested during an ATM transaction? These remained to be discovered. The IBM Corporation entered the scene in 1968 with a contact to design an ATM. Horst Feistel working at their Yorktown Research Center developed the first cryptographic algorithm to relate the PIN and PAN. Feistel’s algorithm LUCIFER was modified and affirmed in 1976 as the Data Encryption Standard (DES) in the US by the National Bureau of Standards. It evolved into Triple DES (3DES), currently the guardian of most PINs today. This paper is a summary of the achievements of the inventors, the problems encountered and the necessary technical enhancements needed and introduced.

Jimmy Callahan

list of players who performed for both the Cubs and the White Sox is more extensive than most are aware. roll call ranges from Hall of Famers Clark Griffith, Ron Santo, and Rich Goose Gossage to such obscure footnotes as Vallie Eaves, Lloyd Mer- riman, and Taylor T-Bone Phillips. Not to mention author Jim Brosnan, prankster Jay Johnstone, and broadcaster Steve Stone. But there was only one player who starred for both teams and owned his own semi-pro club as well. His name was Jimmy Callahan.James Joseph was born at Fitchburg, Massachusetts, on March 18, 1874, to Irish immigrants and Margaret (Glynn) Callahan.1 In boyhood, his mother nicknamed him Nixey for reasons long since lost to history. He received his primary education at the local public school, where he pre- sumably practiced baseball in the playground during recess and after class. But at age 14, Jimmy lost his father and had to abandon further schooling to sup- port his mother. He first worked at a cotton mill and was later trained as a plumber's apprentice, neither of which he especially enjoyed.2It was while employed at the cotton mill that Jimmy emerged as a talented pitcher for the company team. His next stop was the semi-professional team of Pepperell, one of the best in Massachusetts. Reportedly, he won 28 games for Pepperell in 1891.3 By 1893, was hurling for an independent professional club in New Bedford, Massachusetts.4 It was here that he caught the eye of the Philadelphia Phillies, who signed him to a contract.Callahan's major league debut on May 12, 1894, was hardly an impressive one, as the Orioles slugged him, 8-3, at Baltimore. right-hander appeared in eight more games that season, going 1-2 with a bloated ERA (compiled retroactively) of 9.89. His lone victory came in relief of Kid Carsey on July 9 at St. Louis, where the Phillies scored three runs in the seventh and again in the eighth to eke out an 11-10 win. Jimmy displayed some offensive skills by slapping two singles and scoring twice. He spent most of the remainder of 1894 with the Philadelphia team of the Pennsylvania State League (basically a farm team for the Phillies), where he went 10-9 and batted .320, seeing limited service in the outfield.The Phillies apparently gave up on Callahan, as he pitched for Springfield of the Eastern League in 1895, posting a powerful 30-9 log. following year he moved up the minor league ladder to Kansas City of the Western League, going 24-14 while playing another 32 games in the outfield, batting .314.5 During the winter of 1896-1897, Jimmy stayed in Kansas City, making his living by doing itinerant plumbing work and (mostly) putting his pocket pool skills to use at local billiard emporiums.6It was also at this time that Callahan's contract was purchased by the Chicago Colts (Cubs), earning him a permanent promotion to the majors. On January 30, 1897, the front page of Sporting Life noted James J. ... has a bright future before him, as he should develop into one of the crack pitchers of the League.... He has excellent speed, good command of the ball, and is cool headed at critical stages of the game. He is also a good batsman and clever base runner.7 words would not be wasted.Upon reporting to the Colts' spring training camp at Hot Springs, Arkansas, in March 1897, Jimmy met the aging superstar first baseman and manager Adrian Cap Anson. Although Anson was generally prejudiced against the Irish, he appears to have made an exception where young was concerned, as they took an immediate lik- ing to each other. With his genial, outgoing personality, Jimmy also became close friends with ace pitcher Clark Griffith and center fielder Bill Lange, the team's best hitter and basestealer.8Callahan hurled his first game for his new team on April 26, 1897, at St. Louis, beating the Brown Stockings (Cardinals), 9-2. Chicago Tribune colorfully observed that The first eight men who faced died natural and easy deaths by curvature of the ball and that from the sixth inning on Callahan had the Browns completely at his mercy. …