Category Archives: Agriculture

The experiment was carried out in three blocks  with the history of different management

In the upper Amazon River , Brazil, it was observed in the large family farm variability pumpkin landraces, which is widely used in food. Local cultivars are grown in small areas, for consumption in agricultural production and marketing unit in regional markets. The varieties of family agriculture are important sources of variability of germplasm characterization and require for their best knowledge. They still represent a featured action for the knowledge of genetic variability in conservation programs, use and breeding of the species.The Cucurbita descriptors list elaborates on vegetation data  and reproductivity, environmental development characteristics,health, origin, geographic distribution, domestication, uses and importance of food and nutrition,hydroponic dutch buckets conservation, breeding, among others .The aim of this study was to estimate the current level of genetic variability of local cultivars by means of estimation techniques of genetic parameters.

The areas of collection of local cultivars samples were family agriculture production units located in high floodplain ecosystems and low characterized by wetlands with white water , in the Benjamin Constant, Upper Solimoes River and Iranduba, the Lower Solimoes River, Amazon, Brazil .In sampling there were adopted the procedures for out crossing species, such as the case of pumpkin land races, to collect material in field conditions with gametic control. In general, farmers adopt the system of pumpkin perform cultivation for simultaneous production of fruit for consumption, sale and to obtain seeds for the next cropcycle, crop lands were stratified.The experimental test was conducted at the Horticultural Experimental Station, located at Agricultural Park State Government in the Afi climate Koppen . The soil is classified as Red-Yellow Argisol Alic, sandy texture and low natural fertility. The experimental area is located on land with slope in the east-west direction and is divided into six terraces distributed in south-north direction. On the terraces located in the upper part of the thickness of the surface layer of sandy soil is thinner compared to the terraces located in the lower part.

The test took the first three terraces of the Experimental Station and each block held a terrace where were evaluated six local cultivars and a witness and six families of half sib progeny . The subplot was composed of six plants, a spacing of 3.0 × 3.0 m  evaluated in three repetitions , totaling 756 plants in the experiment. From the field test it was possible to estimate the variability between and within local varieties and families of half sib.For the experiment was adopted the randomized block design with split plots where treatments were local cultivars sampled in five areas of family farming in the state and a commercial cultivar bato bucket. The results of chemical analysis showed that the three areas of soil collection showed organic matter carbon content considered good and an acidity ranging from low to more low. With respect to particle size, the results indicated sandy soil in Block 3, located on the terrace 3.For the soil analysis data of particle size distribution and the degree of compression given to the sand content was higher in block three of the assay. Given this fact, some factors must be considered to understand the performance and development of local cultivars and witness.

The major composition of the sand ground is strong contributor to higher water stress, low humidity for retention in macropores greater loss of nutrients and increased heating of the root system.Moreover, observations obtained from experiments with vegetable showed that these differences in thickness of the surface sandy soil layer between terraces may, in addition to causing differences in the availability of water and nutrients to plants, may interfere with higher or lower incidence of disease.The occurrence of disease may also be related to the loss of plant health. Plants with yellow leaf for environmental stress are susceptible to pathogen attack.The records were collected for the period from 6/6/2013 to 16/9/2013, for the transplanting period for final location and stage of harvest of ripe fruit. The rains were more frequent in the range of 27 June to 11 July and the end of last month until the first half of August. The rainfall increased again in the first half of September. The mean rainfall for the period was 3.6 mm/day.

Participants underlined that there is limited government support to facilitate local adaptation

In our study, it is possible that the practice of moving herd onto congested remote areas during drought periods may provide relief in the short term but may be maladaptive in the medium to long terms. Participants emphasised that concentration of mobile herds in a given remote fall back region during severe droughts caused resource overexploitation. The high stocking density results in degradation of resources which may be acceptable adaptation option in the short-term but may increase vulnerability to future droughts as these fall back areas become degraded undermining future local adaptive capacity. Our study shows that there is an urgent need for policy makers to consider maladaptation and subsequent negative externalities that may be the outcome of the current resilient approach to climate change adaptation in the Borana. Although traditional pastoralism has been a preferred and major livelihood source, grow table the study has shown that smallholders have demonstrated the tendency to increasingly get involved in non-pastoral livelihoods as means of livelihood diversification.

For example, many pastoralists who previously specialized in livestock keeping are now combining cultivation of crops into agricultural practice which is also the case for many African dryland systems. But cultivation of crops involves annexation of the communal land as there is no so called private land which also competes with livestock production causing frag-mentation and reduction of the grazing land. This transition into more diversified production systems allows livelihood risk to be distributed over a number of enterprises. The transition into agropastoralism marks the growing need to spread risk through diversifying household income and livelihood sources in the face of rapid socioeconomic, biophysical and policy changes. Moreover, pastoralists in the study area were increasingly involved in non-farm income generating activities such as off-farm employment and Productive Safety Net Programs, joint initiative involving the Ethiopian Government, World Food Program, the World Bank and development partners. Consistent with similar findings from other pastoral systems across East Africa, pastoralists in the Borana who practiced pastoralism for generations while increasingly involved in non-farm in-come generating activities are not completely detaching themselves from the culturally preferred transhumant lifestyle. The other smallholders consider that there is no compelling reason that prevents adaptation.

The impediments cited by the majority of farmers are extremely diverse, including natural, economic, social and institutional factors. Adaptation barriers were in descending order of the percentages of respondents that identified each barrier; limited finance, ebb flow table expertise and weather/climate in-formation, shortage of labour and land, poor government support, access to market and irrigation and finally conflict among neighbours . The three key barriers identified to limit adaptive capacity and successful adaptation were limited finance, expertise and access to weather/climate information. These barriers in general either stop, delay or divert the adaptation strategies and processes shown in Figure 4.

A range of socio-cultural, institutional, financial, technological and natural factors play restricting roles that may limit adaptive capacity, prescribe adaptation pathways and may lead to undesired outcomes. The range of barriers to adaptation in Borana is no different, and that partly explains why the Borana smallholders envisage resilience rather than transformational adaptation. The coexistence and interaction of different types of barriers brings additive negative effects and further erodes the ability to adapt in the future. Among the different group of barriers, financial and institutional barriers were identified by the Borana as significant and interrelated challenges to adapt confounding the effects of one another.For instance, there have been divergent views between state and indigenous institutions on land tenure systems. The state promotes the privatization of user rights, a stance which contravenes the traditional rules of collective resource governance in the study area.

Perception of climate change and its associated impact is an important first step to adaptation

The resistance of isolated Escherichia coli strains in our study, to ampicillin which is also used in the treatment of various bacterial infections in humans raises public health issue because many of these strains infect humans via avian products including chicken meat and eggs.These differences observed between our results and those of these authors could be explained by the fact that in our study, the investigated strains were multi resistants strains. In contrast to these authors, we determined the resistance profile of these strains and it is after the results obtained that we tested the action of this essential oil on these different strains. In addition, the essential oil of Aeollanthus pubescens showed a bactericidal effect on the various strains investigated, which is in accordance with the results obtained by Sessou et al. .The action of this essential oil of A. pubescens is due to its high concentration of thymol, α-terpinene, carvacrol and borneol. Indeed,grow lights these compounds are already recognized for their antibacterial activity,particularly thymol and carvacrol, which are the most bactericidal .

Accordingto Zayyad et al.  reported by Yovo , borneol is a compound with high antimicrobial potency due to its high solubility in water, which gives it a high ability to cross bacterial cell membranes. This study showed, on the one hand,the importance of the antimicrobial resistance of Salmonella and Escherichia coli strains in our laying hens farming and, on the other hand, the effectiveness of the oil of Aeollanthus pubescens which deserves to be valued. Regarding the high antimicrobial activity of this oil, it is necessary to develop some strategies that will immensely boost Aellonthus pubescens plant production and therefore a large scale production of its essential oil in order to overcome this important bacterial problem which is a big regulator of economy in several countries. Agriculture in Ethiopia is an important economic sector upon which the majority of Ethiopians depend for food, feed and income. The sector is dominated by smallholder agriculture responsible for 80% of the employment, 90% of the total agricultural output and 95% of the total area under agricultural land use. The smallholder sub-sector is predominantly comprised of subsistence and traditional rainfed systems which exhibit vulnerability to various internal and external pressures. Vulnerability within these agricultural systems can be broadly attributed to a variety of climate and non-climate factors which include bio-physical, socio-economic and political elements.

These, among others, include changing climate , conflicts between formal and informal land tenure systems , led grow lights ecological degradation  and poor agricultural market conditions . These various climate and non-climate risk factors have contributed to abject poverty and food insecurity problems in the country including the study area . Subsequently, adaptation becomes an increasingly important aspect of agricultural development narratives that broadly aim to transform the sector from traditional to a “modern” market-based resilient one.It helps to define climate change both as a problem and context for decision to adapt in the face of complex interaction between societies and their environment. Perception to varying extents is shaped by various socioeconomic, cultural, political and environmental factors .

Changes in local climate appear relatively easy to see as compared to the global climate because of heuristic experiences and more attachment to the local cli-mate. More precisely, experienced impacts or anticipated risks of local climate change help to acknowledge climate change, vulnerability and associated adaptation deficit that trigger an adaptation need and decision to adapt . Stemming from adaptation deficit and subsequent needs, different actors decide to respond whereby responses can take different visions, forms and scales. These responses are generally driven by vulnerability and livelihood risk in the face of biophysical and socioeconomic uncertainties mainly climate change. Adaptations can be planned or unplanned, local or regional and involve adjustments through a variety of processes, practices and structures to actual or anticipated changes in climate.Adaptation responses may be structured around one of the following goals-resilience , transition and transformation.

The harvesting of microalgae can be an expensive part of the algae biomass production

The gas transfer efficiency can be improved by using smaller bubbles through the use of sintered porous stones or pipes, resulting in larger gas-liquid interface area compared to larger bubbles . As shown in Figure 13.Continuing research is underway to determine the optimum CO2 to water ratio for efficient algae growth. However, initial values for values for saturation region sharply vary from author to author–from 0.1% to 10% . The pump size and number of pits for a open raceway pond is very dependent on many factors and should also take into account energy consumption.The device supplying the CO2 optimizes the purification of the gas used as sources of CO2, adjusting its flow and design system to achieve high gas purification and therefore, nft hydroponic system a greater utilization of the CO2 supplied, with minimum energy consumption.Harvesting cost may contribute 20% – 30% to the total cost of algaebiomass . Determining the most suitable harvesting system requires consideration of many different conditions. The harvesting method depends on the species, on the cell density, and often also the cultural conditions.

The most suitable harvesting system should also take into considering the energy use and availability for the particular conditions. Algae can be harvested by centrifugation, flocculation or froth floatation .Flocculation is a chemical process relying on the interaction of negatively charged particles resulting in larger particles that can be collected much more easily. Flocculation involves the aggregation of destabilized particles and the precipitation products formed by one or more coagulants into larger particles known as flocculant particles or, more commonly, “flocs” . This process may also assist in the dewatering stage of algaebiomass production.Centrifugation is an effective way of harvesting algae but can result in high energy use due to the need to use electrically operated mechanical devises known as decanters. Centrifugal processes rely on the generation of a centrifugal force which acts radially and accelerates the movement and separation of particles based on density difference between the particle and the surrounding medium.Froth Flotation is often used in waste water treatment as a separation method of unwanted contaminates, but now offers a method for removing desired algae particles. Flotation is a separation process based on air or gas bubbles adhering to the particles, which are then carried to the liquid surface where they can be separated, usually skimming . This process also requires the use of electrical aerators which can be energy use extensive.

Many other forms of algae harvesting have been trialed with some success,some of which are used in combination with flocculation, centrifugation or froth flotation. In this case a combination of flocculation and centrifugation shall be proposed as the most reliable method of harvesting. The harvesting elements of ten used in large-scale production first include natural settling of the culture followed by a primary harvesting step using flocculation while secondary harvesting uses a centrifuge . Chemical flocculation is a method of reducing harvesting cost by minimizing the energy required in the centrifugation process due to the flocs being more dense and responding more readily to centrifugal forces. The resultant flocs are generally easier to recover by the traditional solid –liquid separation techniques. Different species of algae react differently to the chemicals used for flocculation requiring the some alterations in chemical types and ratios. All algae strains do not respond the same to a particular chemical,hydroponic nft system so tailoring will be required to fit the organism being harvested . Care must be taken when choosing chemical for flocculation as negative effects may occur as a result of remaining residue.

Negative impacts have been countered in a number of ways,including the use of degradable biopolymers as flocculants  and electro flocculation where no flocculant is directly added.Inorganic and organic flocculants have been trialed in the microalgae harvesting process with indications that organic flocculants have less negative effects. It is reported that these biodegradable polymers do not contaminate the biomass as much as inorganic coagulants and that cationic polymers are superior to anionic and neutralones. Centrifugation combined with some flocculation is currently the most common and reliable form of microalgae harvesting but requires a lot of energy and expensive equipment. It is flexible and can run continuously to handle huge volumes to scale .Decanter type centrifugation devices are proving to be efficient and effective.The decanter or scroll centrifuge is one of the most promising centrifugal devices for the recovery of microalgae as they can operate continuously, have high capacity and lower maintenance requirements .

Renewable energy production from microalgae is not a new concept and has been carried out since the last century

To increase efficiency and environmental sustainability of the plant every effort should be taken to maximize available re-newable energy supplies including solar and wind resources. An extensive hydraulic design is essential to maintain adequate water supplies whilst a complex control system is needed to ensure optimum growth conditions at all times. Depending on the location of the plant and the surrounding infrastructure the possibility of using re-cycled water may also bean option. As part of this paper in depth design drawings and specifications shall be undertaken including the construction, hydraulic, electrical, civil, control system and energy supplies. It is the intention of this paper to produce preliminary drawings specifications including costs to help determine the viability of such a project. In order to locate and build a microalgae plant it is important to understand the biology and lifecycle of different microalgae species to ensure that ideal conditions are maintained and a premium yield is achieved.Microalgae are one of the oldest life forms on the planet existing for billions of years made up of simple but very effective structure.

Microalgae are primitive organisms with a simple cellular structure and a large surface-to-volume-body ratio,rolling benches which gives them the ability to uptake large amounts of nutrients . Microalgae are very efficient are converting light energy into mass energy and due to their high content of lipids they make an ideal candidate for biofuels. Microalgae are autotrophic micro-oraganisms having extremely high photosynthetic efficiency and are valued as a rich source of lipids,hydrocarbons, and other complex oils for biodiesel besides being an invaluable source of boiethanol, biomethane and biochydrogen . Microalgae have many advantages over other types of algae as they are a very efficient form of converting solar energy into chemical energy and they also have a very high content of lipids  which is a high source of energy.Many algae accumulate substantial amount of non-polar lipids, mostly in the form of TAG or hydrocarbons, and these levels mat reach up to 20% – 50% of dry cell weight . Algae are a diverse group of organisms known as eukaryotes that have been broken down into two main groups consisting of macoralgae including seaweeds that can grow up to 60 meters in length and microalgae that can be microscopicin size.

There are many different genera which are all fast growing, diverse and occur in aquatic areas of both salt and fresh water throughout all parts of the world. Microalgae are everywhere! They occupy virtually every habitat including those with extreme conditions .The microalgae group is believed to contain several thousands of species that have been broken down into main groups based on pigment, life cycle and basic cellular structure. The three most important classes of microalgae in terms of abundance are the diatoms , the green algae , ebb and flow bench and the golden algae.Most species of micro algae can be described as autotrophic meaning that they produce food from substances available in their surroundings using light or chemical energy. Autotrophic microalgae can utilize carbon dioxide as the carbon sources and sunlight as the energy source for oil accumulation under special conditions.Some microalgae species can be considered hetertrophic organisms which survive by taking in autotrophic organisms to carry out functions for life often resulting in high oil yields. Some autotrophic micro algae can be converted to hete roprophic ones through changing cultivating conditions or using genetic engineering .

Many different species of microalgae have been both trialed and utilized in the product of biofuels with new species currently emerging also offering potential.The selection of species is often determined by the existing local conditions and the viable modifications that can be made to the location. Successful microalgae cultivation requires specific environmental conditions, which vary from species to species . To date only a small number of microalgae species are in regular cultivation for biofuel use, compared with the thousands of species that exist that may have potential. Currently there are probably no more than about 30 species and genera from no more than 11 taxonomic classes of autotrophic microalgae in use . Growing micro algae for biofuels or any other type of energy supply has been occurring for a long time throughout many parts of the world.The ability of microalgae to efficiently convert energy from the sun combined with its fast growth rate and minimal requirement of land area is well recognized. Microalgae are known to make far more efficient use of solar energy than conventional agriculture and therefore, there has a large potential for biomass production with comparatively less land requirements .Cultivating Microalgae is still open to extensive research with trials continuing in many corners of the world.

Poverty has traditionally been seen as lacking income

At present, the four big industries of Qixing farm are at the growth and development stage, and industrial organization structure is not yet ready for it. On the one hand, due to small-scaled emerging farm industry, they lacks effective support system of modern enterprise management in the production and operation aspects, therefore their comprehensive competitiveness is weak and can hardly gain a foothold in the fierce competition. On the other hand, because of lack of coordination between each industry development mechanism, professional cooperative organization, materialized and specialized new industrial organization,they still face higher management risk and low organizational efficiency.Currently, the agricultural product regional differentiation and division of labor pattern in our country are preliminarily shaped, forming distinctive agricultural brand images. Compared with other regions, the regional agricultural product brand image of Qixing farm is not yet outstanding, with not many main featured famous brand-products, and its influence is really limited. This being the case, blueberry grow pot the farm needs make definite the industry orientation, strengthen the consciousness of brand development and make effort to create distinctive regional brand of agricultural products.

Through decades of development, Qixing farm has become one of the most influential farms in provincial agricultural reclamation system of Heilongjiang. By taking brand development strategy, Qixing farm hopes to set up its own brand stores, build “Qixing” brand, and form a certain influence across the country. But currently, the farms implement a relatively extensive overall development strategy,and its strategic implementation steps are not clear. The key solution is finding a way of decomposing existing strategic target scientifically to covert the original extensive development strategy into intensive development strategy and consequently complete the strategic development goal of the farm step by step. In order to change the simple planting “single pole” of economic mode and adjust the industrial structure, the leaders of Qixing farm put forward the creative project of “four major brands”, making every effort to realize the change of economic growth pattern. But when considering the current development situation of the four big industries, the overall bargaining power and influence in other industries have not yet arrive at an expected degree, this is due to lack of overall planning of industrial development, farm industries struggling alone, failing to form a cooperative producing mode, and the core competitiveness of industry not outstanding.

In short, the key problem the farm is facing now lies in how to establish an overall planning of farm industry development, making the whole industry developing in a coordinated way, and then improve product competitiveness. From the perspective of the development situation of domestic and foreign large-scaled agricultural enterprises, the majority of agricultural enterprises have a variety of products and develop their product lines in a profound way. Among the present products of Qixing, rice, ecological pigs and green fruits and vegetables and other products are all at beginning stage, products have not yet well extended,and this leads to weak competitiveness,hydroponic bucket low added value, not strong enough bargaining power, As a result, both the selling channels and cooperative brand force mode are wanting. What is more is that most of Qixing’s business don’t have a mutual and general image of their products as well as common products selling channels, resulting in a relatively high product channel cost.The challenge in this respect lies in how to enlarge industrial scale and strengthen brand influence by giving full play to the resource advantage of the farm,further processing agricultural products, developing new products and effectively extending the industry chain.

The Brand of a certain product is the basic channel for consumers to get to know the product, and it is the way the channel opens that tells consumers the value of the product. At present, the four major industries of Qixing are in an independent operating state, producing and selling in their own way without establishing a perfect and unified brand system, leading to severely restrict influence of each brand. In this area, the key obstacle the farm need to get over lies in how to establish an effective and unified product system integration, and implement unified management and publicity of the product brand so as to strength the product influence. Qixing has not yet formed a clear chain operation orientation and feasible chain business development mode. As for chain business, the most important is to enhance the overall brand and capacity through scaled operation. At present, Qixing has not yet formed a clear chain business positioning or explored a suitable business model from a variety of franchising chain for itself, not developed its own service and management system, thus has no way to guarantee the effectiveness and sustainability of management.

Default models are applied more to larger credits

Treacy and Carey  explain the internal rating systems presently in use at the 50 largest US banking organizations. The authors use the diversity of current practice to illuminate the relationships between uses of ratings, different options for rating system design, and the effectiveness of internal rating systems and show that growing stresses on rating systems make an understanding of such relationships important for both banks and regulators. Medema et al. propose and implement a simple validation methodology that can be used by banks to validate their credit risk modelling exercise. Credit scoring systems can be found in virtually all kinds of credit analysis,ranging from individual consumer credit to giant commercial loans. The idea across different categories is literally the same: Pre-define certain key factors that determine probability of default ,hydroponic nft and combine or weight them into a quantitative score. Beaver  first utilises several financial ratios to investigate corporate default. The cut-off point of default companies and nondefault companies is derived out of the historic sample.

Then the financial ratios are calculated to compare with the cut-off point in order to differentiate the corporate bankruptcy. Based on previous study, Altman  constructs the classical Z-score model to predict the possibility that a firm will go bank ruptcy.In this study, 22 variables were taken from the financial reports of a matched sample of 66 companies, divided into two groups, 33 each. The 22 variables were categorised into five explanatory indices by multiple discriminant analysis. The model assumes that the sample data are normally distributed and the covariance remains the same. The best fitting scoring model for commercial loans is a linear combination of five usual business ratios, weighted by estimated coefficients. Acritical point was applied to determine the risk level of corporate loan in a certain period of time. The higher the score was, the “healthier” the company was.The option of the best critical might change due to economic conditions. When the economy is expected to go down, the critical point would be raised to compensate.This will reduce the model’s Type 1 Error , but lead to the increases of Type 2 Error.

The above model has been amended and expanded over time and the ZETA model was developed later on. The major evolution of ZETA model from Z-score is that five variables are extended into seven. The ZETA model presents more precise result than its ancestor owing to improvement of the variables chosen and better stability of new variables. The Z-score model is widely adopted in the literature because it is straightforward to operate and simple to accommodate into different economic environments 5. For example, Pille and Paradi  take the Z-score model in predicting the failure of Credit Unions in Ontario, Canada. Altman  revises the Z-score model for emerging market corporate bonds rating in Mexico. Recently,the type of model has performed less well hydroponic channel. Mester reports that 56per cent of the 33 banks that used credit scoring as a way of approving credit card applications failed to predict loan quality problems. Default models include credit metrics, credit risk plus, KMV and credit portfolio models. Default models differ from credit scoring models in two ways: Credits coring is usually applied to smaller credits—individuals or small businesses.Traditional methods of credit risk measurement focus on estimating the probability of default, rather than on the magnitude of potential losses in the event of default.

Moreover, traditional models typically specify “failure” to be bankruptcy filing, default, or liquidation,thereby ignoring consideration of the downgrades and upgrades in credit quality that are measured in mark to market models.Empirical evidence suggests that default severities and recoveries are quitevolatile over time. A recent study by Alessandri and Drehmann  develops an economic capital model integrating credit and interest rate risk and argues that banks often measure credit and interest rate risk in the banking book separately and then add the risk measures to determine economic capital. Breuer et al.  also note such problem in their study, observing that there is a tradition in the banking industry of dividing risk into market risk and credit risk. Both categories are treated independently in the calculation of risk capital. But many financial positions depend simultaneously on both market risk and credit risk factors. In this case,an approximation of the portfolio value function separating value changes into apure market risk plus pure credit risk component can result not only in an overestimation,but also in an underestimation of risk. Building credit risk models as the basis for evaluating default exposures remains a fundamental issue.

Similar observation was made by in the locality of Bafou in western Cameroon

The technical material consisted of a questionnaire structured in several parts,including the identification of the breeder, the personnel of the farm, the infrastructure,the feeding, the motivation and the financing, a camera for pictures and a decameter for measuring the size of the breeding material. The biological material was essentially made up of the sheep found on the farms. They were of different breeds, of various physiological stages and ages.Although the choice of herders was intended to be random in the field, It was not. Face to the mistrust of the breeders, the approach was modified . Only those with more than five animals were considered in the sampling. The languages used during thesurvey were Senoufo, Malinke and French. Through direct observation and the questionnaire, information regarding the characteristics of the farms, hydroponic grow table the feed composition, the sources of water supply, were collected. The size of the farm was measured with a meter. The study employed descriptive statistical methods in order to analyze the data collected. There was cross checking of the questionnaires to ensure that the questions were answered properly.

The data was first divided into themes and subthemes before being analyzed. Percentages were used in the analysis and presented in a tabular form to enhance proper interpretation of the data. The surveys and observations conducted in the city of Korhogo made it possible to identify sheep breeding sites in the neighborhoods and villages of the city of Korhogo, despite the influence of accelerated urbanization. A total of 84 farms were recorded in the districts and villages, with the largest number observed in the Soba district. In the other districts, the number of farms varied from 1 to12 . Among the sheep farmers identified in the city of Korhogo, 86% were men, and the majority of these men were between 31 and 50 years old. This could be explained by the fact that in the city, women are more involved in growing and marketing food products. According to CIRAD , women represent the essential link in the value chain of market gardeners in Cote d’Ivoire. Dagnogo showed that the development of market gardening is an opportunity for women empowerment in the region of poro. However, sheep farming is a man’sbusiness. These results corroborate those of . According to these authors, small ruminant farming is not only a predominantly male activity,but also an activity carried out by older men who are married to more than one woman. Women represent only 11% of the participants in the survey.

With regard to the level of literacy, the results of our surveys showed that the proportion of literate herders in the city of Korhogo was 51%. According to their study, 76% of livestock managers went to school.This is certainly an advantage for farmers in terms of setting up health protection and monitoring the feeding of small ruminants. Contrary to herders, flood tray found that 85% of onions producers are illiterate in the region of Poro. The results of this study also showed that a proportion of the farmers are motivated by the love and passion they have for sheep, 45% of the farmers practiced breeding to provide for their needs and 7% practiced by personal choice. This could be justified by the fact that the main objective of sheep breeders is to generate income. However, 1% practiced this activity for ceremonies and sacrifices.

These results corroborate those of Diomande , who states that 60%of the breeders are motivated by generating income. In addition, another 40% practiced this activity to cope with traditional ceremonies, religious sacrifices and baptisms.He states that this can be explained by the high cost of living and the numerous financial burdens of parents . Regarding the age of the farm, the majority of the farmers surveyed have between0 and 10 years of experience. This was followed respectively by 24% of breeders with 11 to 20 years of experience, 10% of 21 to 30 years of experience and 8%of breeders with more than 30 years of experience. In fact, farmers use family labor to manage their farms and that could be justified by the fact that parents initiate their children to livestock farming at an early age. These results corroborate those of , who assert that the role of children is decisive in the raising of small ruminants, and that the labor force is mainly family based.The observations made in each zone have allowed us to show that the herders use huts or pens as shelters for their animals.

Research on social capital has been further extended to examine user’s psychological wellness

Many online gamers play with their real-life family and friends,which is another indication that socialization is a significant component in many online game environments. Sociability creates a culture in which people feel comfortable to communicate and interact with each other in the virtual community, enabling the development of “affective ties” among online group members. Farmville, embedded in the Facebook platform, is also played within players’ social networks and often built more around close relationships. Some players play as a means of seeking social interaction with existing members of their friends network.The bonding mechanisms of Farmville, such as sending gifts, working on cooperative crafting jobs, and trading goods in the farmer’s market, allow these tightly knit groups to feel comfortable sharing their in-game benefits, playing experiences,and even generating mutual interests. The mechanism may also provide an alternative way for strongties to interact in addition to the multiple communication channels such as face-to-face or other computer-mediated conversations.

The aspects of ongoing in-game socialization and reciprocity found in bonding social capital may further provide emotional and substantive support for players.Researchers have discovered positive effects of the Internet use on social ties and aspects of users’ psychological well-being,vertical grow system such as self-esteem and life satisfaction . Benkler pointed out that social connectedness, psychological well-being, gratification, and material gain are found to motivate social media use while others  have suggested that SNS users who actively engage in the site are more likely to perceive connectedness and feel happier.However, mixed results have also been produced when testing whether the association between SNS use and both dimensions of social capital varies depending on the level of the users’ life satisfaction.Further, drawing parallels to the Internet addiction assumption, researchers hypothesized an association between game play and loneliness and found mixed results.In fact, the causal relationship between Internet use and loneliness is complicated. For example, researchers found people who are lonely, shy, or depressed are more likely to use the Internet to escape from daily life .

Lonely people are also more likely to use the Internet to search for new social contacts. Research on game play also found that gamers are motivated to play as a way of coping with loneliness . Recent research demonstrated that loneliness was the cause and consequence of pathological game play . Although the social capital resource of group attachment may relieve loneliness , the causality of game play and loneliness is unclear. In particular, the empirical support of causality of game play and psychological wellness is inconclusive. Using survey data collected from Farmville players in Taiwan, the current study showed a positive relationship between the intensity of Farmville play and both dimensions of social capital. The study extended the popular assumption that using SNSs contributes to the perception of social capital to social game play and accumulation of social capital more specifically. The Facebook intensity scale was successfully adapted and further developed to measure Farmville play.Moreover, mobile grow system whether the relationship between Farmville play and social capital variables was moderated by levels of players’ psychological wellness was explored. Interestingly, players who were more satisfied with life perceived higher sense of bridging and bonding social capital but they may not gain even more with intensive play.

Although lonelier players tended to perceive more bridging social capital, intensive game play may not be helpful to tackle real-life problems either. One explanation is that given the casual setting of social gaming, the effect of playing in coping with real-life difficulties may not be particularly salient. For people with an inherently higher sense of psychological wellness, casual play may not reinforce their sense of social capital either.The empirical findings of this study suggested a number of important implications for understanding how individuals mobilize their social networks and foster a sense of belonging and psychological wellness in the context of social gaming. First, previous research developed various measures for examining negative consequences of online game play, such as addiction, aggression, and withdrawal symptoms . Other researchers found that social interaction is a factor for playing online videogames in the massive player game setting .

It is of interest if this difference finds expression in a different growth pattern

The results from this study indicated that some crops are less sensitive and can grow where the metal loading rates are higher which confirmed that different plant species have different capacity and capability to accumulate the heavy metals . The levels of copper in sugarcane were significantly different at New Farm and Chilumba . The relatively high levels of copper in sugarcane stalk stem at New Farm in Mufulira can be attributed to domestic wastewater laden with copper from copper processing and higher natural copper back- ground levels in the soils. The findings from this study indicated that there was heavy metal contamination of food crops at the two study sites were similar to the results from other studies in developing countries. The study on wastewater irrigation farming in Varanasi, India which indicated that there were seasonal differences in the heavy metal concentrations in the edible portion of Beta vulgaris . The results from this study confirmed the findings from the study on heavy metals uptake by vegetable crops from metal contamination in Tehran, Iran . It can be argued that there are potential health risks for the urban population who consume these vegetables and other food crops which have high levels of heavy metals that above the maximum recommended values by relevant authorities.

Modeling weight gain or growth of livestock is an important tool for optimizing management decisions and production systems hydroponic nft channel . Amongst considered livestock were cattle, sheep, chicken,ducks or turkeys . Several hundred papers deal with growth curves for fisheries.There exist also studies dealing with the growth patterns of intensive piglet production or a pig breed used as laboratory animal . But organic livestock farming differs from intensive livestock farming in many respects. Animal husbandry, feeding, weaning age and drug administration are the main aspects of that difference. Thus piglets from organic farming are kept under different rearing conditions than piglets in intensive production systems. Therefore, the aim of this study is the analysis of weight gain of piglets from organic farming.There are two types of growth models: models with a rather mathematical motivation, such as data fitting,and models with a biological motivatio.The latter models explain growth e.g. from balancing anabolism and catabolism.Intermediates between these types are unified approaches, which in essence describe the biologically motivated models by differential equations that generalize the logistic growth model.As the models differ by the number of parameters,with more parameters enabling a better fit, the model selection is based on the Akaike Information Criterion AIC , which combines the good fit with a penalty for the number of parameters.

Amongst the considered models, only two fitted the piglet data properly: the initial growth phase with only minimal human influence could best be described by the biologically motivated Bertalanffy model, while the long term growth with different phases of human interaction was best described by the two-linear model. The von Bertalanffy model describes weight gain of piglets in the first weeks of live until weaning best. Considering the whole piglet rearing the most natural nutrition is given during the suckling period. Provided that the piglets remain with the sow the ingested amounts of milk as well as the frequency of suckling are not influenced by the animal owner.The biologist von Bertalanffy developed his model for all animal species under natural living and nutritional conditions. The model concept is based on physiological processes that are responsible for growth. Growth is defined as a consequence of anabolism and catabolism and will take place as long as building processes outweigh degradation processes. In young animals the primary function of the ingested food is rapid growth, thus it can be seen as a natural limitation of growing capabilities. In this sense the model concept is suited to describe growth development in this early period of live. This model is based on the idea of growth as a biological process until achieving a species-specific weight in adult age.

By contrast, during the fattening period the hogs are supplied with much more energy than they would need for natural growth in order to reach as high weight gain as possible in a minimum of time. Thus,nft growing system the results of the paper confirm that this model appears to be optimal for close to natural conditions.Among the thirteen growth models the two-linear model describes the weight gain of piglets from organic farming best. This model aims at two different growth periods which actually are caused by the general conditions of the piglets’ rearing. At the age of about 40 days the piglets are weaned. From this moment on the piglets have no longer the opportunity to suckle milk. This implies that solid feed is the only food source and likewise water is the only source of liquid. Due to the loss of the familiar surroundings the piglets furthermore have to cope with new drinking and feeding troughs, new stable mates, new climate control and also a new germ flora.In addition to the stress attributable to weaning the immune protection of the maternal antibodies that were ingested with the colostrum directly after birth decrease and the piglets’ own immune system is still under development.