Food shortages are increasing in many areas of the world. In this paper, we consider the problem of understanding the causal relationships between socioeconomic factors in a developing-world household and their risk of experiencing famine. We analyse the extent to which it is possible to predict famine in a household based on these factors, looking at a data collected from 5404 households in Ug...

Pesticides have played very important roles against food shortages and plant diseases, and our modern life would be vastly different without their use. Weed infestation adversely affects crop production by reducing yields and decreasing market prices of the crop. For cost-effective land use, crop yield and price must be maximized, and the cost of weed control minimized. Herbicides substantially...

Food subsidies have the potential to modify ecosystems and affect the provision of goods and services. Predictable Anthropogenic Food Subsidies (PAFS) modify ecosystems by altering ecological processes and food webs. The global concern over the effects of PAFS in ecosystems has led to development of environmental policies aimed at curbing the production or ultimately banning of PAFS. However, t...

Eighty percent of (commercial) genetically engineered seeds (GES) are designed only to resist herbicides. Letting farmers use more chemicals, they cut labor costs. But developing nations say GES cause food shortages, unemployment, resistant weeds, and extinction of native cultivars when "volunteers" drift nearby. While GES patents are reasonable, this paper argues many patent policies are not. ...

BACKGROUND Previous studies have described drug shortages; however, there has been no comprehensive evaluation focusing on US antibacterial shortages. METHODS Drug shortage data from the University of Utah Drug Information Service database were analyzed, with a focus on antibacterial agents from 2001 to 2013. We used descriptive statistics to describe trends in drug shortages, analyze drug cl...

BACKGROUND Drug shortages have become all too common and affect all aspects of the health care delivery system. The increased number of drug shortages has had a negative impact on patient care as well as costly financial implications. OBJECTIVES This article identifies the current problems and negative outcomes drug shortages have caused and provides a framework for how to best prepare for an...

Armed conflicts often constitute ‘complex emergencies’, defined as situations affecting large civilian populations which combine war or civil strife with food shortages and population displacement [1,2]. Wars can increase the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STI) and facilitate HIV transmission through sexual routes, injection drug use (IDU), contaminated blood transfusions and occupa...

Several hospitals face nurse staffi ng shortages for surgeries. This research focuses on building a system with a Baxter robot capable of identifying surgical tools using computer vision and delivering them to the surgeon on demand. This would deal with the issue of nurse unavailability during simple surgical procedures. The key aspects of the project were testing the accuracies of various arti...

12 A generation of malnourished North Korean children is at risk of sustaining lifelong physical impairment as disease and years of starvation take their toll, according to international relief workers in North Korea. The scale of the impending disaster was revealed in a study conducted by international aid agencies, which details the devastation wrought by more than five years of severe food s...

The biggest challenges mankind ever faces are falling energy sources and food shortages. If controlled nuclear fusion were achieved with net energy yield, the energy source problem would be solved. If natural photosynthesis were reproduced, food shortage concern would be addressed. Though both nuclear fusion and photosynthesis are universal, the difficulties to achieve them are disproportionall...