Recent rising public concerns about climate change and increasing energy costs have led to the need to re-evaluate forest biomass as an alternative energy feedstock. Biomass harvesting could potentially impact ecosystems in various ways, including site productivity and forest stand dynamics. Since these issues influence decision-making, the effects of biomass utilization are primary issues not ...

What, another paper on the new economy? When financial markets are raking through the debris of $8 trillion in lost equity value, and “.com” is a reviled four-symbol word, a paper on the impact of the new economy on productivity would seem as welcome as an analysis of the role of whales in the lighting revolution. In fact, the new economy (or, more precisely, information technologies) continues...

Over the past decade, studies have shown that devices called microbial fuel cells (MFCs) can harness electricity from microbially mediated degradation of organic carbon, in both lab cultures and natural environments. Other studies have shown that MFCs can harness power from coastal and deep ocean sediments, as well as from plankton, without any fuel supplementation or microbial inoculation. The...

It was hypothesized that a lack of acetogenic biomass (biocatalyst) at the cathode of a microbial electrosynthesis system, due to electron and nutrient limitations, has prevented further improvement in acetate productivity and efficiency. In order to increase the biomass at the cathode and thereby performance, a bioelectrochemical system with this acetogenic community was operated under galvano...

Current proposals to improve photosynthesis to meet our energy and food needs include the following: (1) improving the performance of Rubisco; (2) decreasing photorespiration by turning C3 plants into C4 plants, installing algal or cyanobacterial carbonconcentrating mechanisms into higher plant chloroplasts, or redesigning photorespiratory metabolism; and (3) adding new biosynthetic pathways to...

oxygen minimum zone dynamic coastal and shelf fronts thermocline tidal mixing runoff high energy turbidity daily–seasonal fluctuations in temperature & salinity ± high productivity halocline shelf break

the purpose of this study was to determine used energy input and output analysis in commercial and traditional potato (solanum tuberosum l.) production, in kurdistans, iran. for this purpose, the data were collected from 50 commercial and 50 traditional potato farms. farms were selected based on random sampling methods and inquiries were conducted in a face-to-face interviewing from may 2008 up...

Nutrition of hill cattle and sheep '97 the hill sheep industry the transfer of hill land to other uses or the restriction of sheep farming is frequently advocated. Rarely does this take into account the opportunities for improvement which exist at the biological level or whether modifications to or changes in systems could make sheep production economically viable. Subsequent papers will presen...

In response to recent discussions regarding the ability of hospitals to achieve gains in productivity, we present two methodologies that attempt to measure multifactor productivity (MFP) in the hospital sector. We analyze each method and conclude that the inconsistencies in their outcomes make it difficult to estimate a precise level of MFP that hospitals have historically achieved. Our goal in...