This paper aims to construct an empirical model for the analysis of two principal simultaneous decisions of farm operators: participation in the off-farm labor market, and the amount of resources to invest in farm capital. We first develop a theoretical model analyzing the effects of exogenous shocks on farmers’ decisions. Then, we estimate jointly a multinomial probit model of farmers’ off-far...

In the spring and summer of 2001, 47 fathers, 48 mothers and 117 children of Iowa farm and non-farm households were recruited to participate in a study investigating take-home pesticide exposure. On two occasions approximately 1 month apart, urine samples from each participant and dust samples from various rooms were collected from each household and were analyzed for atrazine, metolachlor, gly...

In this paper we analytically derive the sojourn time of a user accessing an online IPTV recording service. Basically, the system consists of a server (or server farm) and the bandwidth at which a user can download recorded files depends on the number of other concurrently downloading users. In particular, we consider both cases, one in which the user’s download speed is limited by his own acce...

In order obtain suitable and effective farm machinery performance besides higher crop yield, on time farm machinery field operations are essential. Farm tractors are important machines that used for soil tillage, crop planting and protection. It is even used for harvesting crops in some areas. Thus, any failure in farm tractors influences the series of field operations. Farm managers are usuall...

This paper describes the Brimstone Farm dataset used for the comparison of pesticide leaching model performance. The tasks set to the modellers are then described. The soil of the site is heavy clay, in which cracks have a major effect on the hydrology. Data are presented for the leaching of isoproturon and mecoprop from two contrasting plots. Contrasting soil moisture states, resulting from di...

This study attempt to reveal the opportunities for increasing peasant farmers income through snail production in Ghana. The paper stressed that snail production is a crucial means of increasing peasant farmers income, protein supply and utilization of farm scraps in Ghana. This is because, from putting up structure, obtaining snails and feed, caring to harvesting, snail production is very cheap...

We present the implementation and experiments of a Web switch that transforms a cluster-based Web system (Web cluster) with best-effort management policies into a system that gives guaranteed performance to different classes of users and applications.

Farmers incur proportional and fixed transactions costs in selling their crops on markets. Using data for Peruvian potato farmers, we propose a method to measure these transactions costs. When opportunities exist to sell a crop on alternative markets, the observed choice of market can be used to infer a monetary measure of transactions costs in market participation. The market choice model is f...

Soil loss is not limited to change from forest or woodland to other land uses/covers. It may occur when there is agricultural land-use/cover modification or conversion. Soil loss may influence loss of carbon from the soil, hence implication on greenhouse gas emission. Changing land use could be considered actually or potentially successful in adapting to climate change, or may be considered mal...

The levels and composition of agricultural dusts are influenced by animal species, production strategy, housing type and ventilation efficiency. Agricultural dust within animal houses is complex and consists of feed particles, microbes and their products, dander, fecal matter, gases, metals and other organic and inorganic components. Livestock and poultry production facilities may be categorize...