Under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act of 1967 the Health Care Financing Administration's proficiency-testing requirement applies to approximately 12,000 hospital, reference, and large-clinic laboratories in the United States. The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene is approved by the Health Care Financing Administration to provide proficiency testing in all specialties and subspecialt...

Traditional quality-control methods are effective for detecting systematic error caused by deterioration of reagents or instruments, but ineffective for detecting sporadic error, which is more likely to occur in low-volume testing environments. Decentralized testing performed by individuals without formal laboratory training has a high potential for sporadic errors. New methods for validating t...

Drastic genetic changes have occurred in many commercial broiler lines during the last years with regard to performance. This genetic improvement needs a corresponding adjustment of our knowledge about amino acid nutrition in broilers. Additionally, today broiler feed formulators are not only focused on minimising the costs. They also have to take into consideration environmental issues and the...

Nitrogen (N) is an essential plant nutrient, therefore, N-deficient soils affect growth and development. The excessive unwise application of N fertilizers result in nutrient losses lower use efficiency that leads to the low crop productivity. Ammonia volatilization causes a major loss after fertilization environmental pollution. This experiment was conducted evaluate effectiveness coating uncoa...

We evaluate copper tolerance and accumulation in Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris in populations from a copper contaminated site and an uncontaminated site, and in the grapevine rootstock "41B", investigating the effects of copper (0-23 mM) on growth, photosynthetic performance and mineral nutrient content. The highest Cu treatment induced nutrient imbalances and inhibited photosynthetic function...

Ecosystem services provided by forests (e.g., nutrient cycling) are critical in midwestern landscapes. We conducted collaborative workshops with forest landowners and management professionals using specific strategies to provide information about nutrient dynamics in forests and learn about goals/obstacles for forest management in Iowa. Preparticipation surveys assessed knowledge and goals and ...

Simulation of crop systems has evolved from a neophyte science into a robust and increasingly accepted discipline. Our vision is that crop systems simulation can serve important roles in agriculture and environment. Important roles and uses of crop systems simulation are in five primary areas: (1) basic research synthesis and integration, where simulation is used to synthesize our understanding...

Public concern over increasing health-care costs plus dramatized testing errors, has resulted in CLIA '88 with its more stringent rules governing laboratory performance. The purpose of the 1990 U.S. Health Care Financing Administration Final Rules for Proficiency Tests is to separate the quality laboratory from the poorly performing one. From the perspective of total quality management, the cus...

We show genetic improvement of programs (GIP) can scale by evolving increased performance in a widely-used and highly complex 50 000 line system. GISMOE found code that is 70 times faster (on average) and yet is at least as good functionally. Indeed it even gives a small semantic gain.