Hearing injury due to exposure to excessive noise during common farming activities is a significant problem for farmers. The aim of this study was to investigate factors that affect the level of risk to hearing caused by common farming activities. Noise levels on farms were measured across a range of activities and producer groups, and situational factors that effect noise levels were also inve...

Relatively low nitrogen (N) efficiency and heavy environmental costs caused by excessive N fertilizer applications with outdated fertilization techniques are current cultivation production problems with maize among smallholders in North China Plain. Although many studies have examined agronomical strategies for improving yields and N use, the integrated effects of these measures and the associa...

We conduct a benefit-cost analysis of a relicensing agreement for two hydroelectric dams in Michigan. The agreement changed daily conditions from peaking to run-of-river flows. We consider three categories of costs and benefits: producer costs of adapting electricity production to the new time profile of hydroelectric output; benefits of reductions in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions;...

Special form of finite fields (FFs), called vector FFs (VFFs), is defined in the vector spaces over the ground finite field GF (p) using particular types of the multiplication operation over vectors. Implementation of the cryptographic algorisms based on elliptic curves (ECs) over VFFs provides significantly higher performance than the implementation of the EC-based algorithms, in which the ECs...

Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for non-commercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies. Game-based bargaining theory is presented to evaluate the potential of and stability of cooperative coalition among producers for enhancing producer returns and managing market price and income risk. Results clarify that collective bargainin...

Mechanization in agriculture has greatly improved the efficiency of field operations, but also resulted heavier agricultural vehicles, which led to increased risks soil compaction. Hence, farmers benefit from machinery with higher capacity may suffer decreased yields caused by Compaction result further environmental costs society. We present a framework that relates compaction and its impacts o...

Cocoa and coffee are the most important crops in Cote d'Ivoire. Until recently, the difference between world and administered producer prices provided an important source of government revenue. As a result of a continued decline of world prices of both crops, however, the Ivoirien government was forced to cut producer prices in half. Because 40 percent of Ivoirien households grow either cocoa o...