Lincoln, Yvonna, and Egon Guba, "Postpositivism and the Naturalist Paradigm," pp. 14-46 in Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba, Naturalistic Inquiry . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1985.*

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provides access to information on a variety of topics related to the environment and strives to inform citizens of health risks. The EPA also has an extensive library network that consists of 26 libraries throughout the United States, which provide access to a plethora of information to EPA employees, scientists, and researchers. The EPA implemented a reorganization project to digitize their materials so they would be more accessible to a wider range of users, but this plan was drastically accelerated when the EPA was threatened with a budget cut. It chose to close and reduce the hours and services of some of their libraries. As a result, the agency was accused of denying users the “right to know” by making information unavailable, not providing an adequate strategic plan, and discarding vital materials. This case study explores the background of the digitization project, the practices implemented, and the critiques of the project.

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The Environmental Protection Agency

Thermophysical Properties Research Literature Retrieval Guide Edited by Y. S. Touloukian, J. K. Gerritsen and N. Y. Moore Second edition, revised and expanded. Book 1: Pp. xxi + 819. Book 2: Pp.621. Book 3: Pp. ix + 1315. (New York: Plenum Press, 1967.) n.p.

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Heat and Mass Transfer

With a growing world population and increasingly demanding consumers, the production of sufficient protein from livestock, poultry, and fish represents a serious challenge for the future. Approximately 1,900 insect species are eaten worldwide, mainly in developing countries. They constitute quality food and feed, have high feed conversion ratios, and emit low levels of greenhouse gases. Some insect species can be grown on organic side streams, reducing environmental contamination and transforming waste into high-protein feed that can replace increasingly more expensive compound feed ingredients, such as fish meal. This requires the development of costeffective, automated mass-rearing facilities that provide a reliable, stable, and safe product. In the tropics, sustainable harvesting needs to be assured and rearing practices promoted, and in general, the food resource needs to be revalorized. In the Western world, consumer acceptability will relate to pricing, perceived environmental benefits, and the development of tasty insect-derived protein products.

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Potential of Insects as Food and Feed in Assuring Food Security

State-of-the-art on use of insects as animal feed.

A user friendly computer program has been developed to estimate the packing of whole grains in flat storage structures and round temporary piles of variable dimensions. The program utilizes the concept of geostatic stresses to predict the variation in bulk density of the stored material. The capacity of the storage structure is estimated in standard bushels based on the dimensions of the grain mass and the variation in bulk density of the stored material. It was determined that variations exist in the predicted packing factors for variations in the type of grain, moisture content of the stored material, angle of repose, grain height, and pile dimensions.

Computer Model for Predicting the Packing Factors of Whole Grains in Flat Storage Structures

. Grain and oilseed crops stored in bins undergo compaction due to overbearing pressure of the grain inside the structure. Thus, volume measurements of grain in bins need to be combined with the amount of packing (usually called pack factor) in addition to the initial density so that the mass in the structure can be calculated. Multiple pack factor prediction methods are in use in the grain industry, but they have only been validated in the literature and compared with field data for corn and hard red winter wheat. Predictions from WPACKING, the program in ASABE Standard EP413.2, and two standard USDA methods, the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA) and USDA Farm Service Agency-Warehouse Licensing and Examination Division (FSA-W) methods, were compared to field measurements of 92 bins containing soybeans, grain sorghum, oats, barley, or soft white or durum wheat. The WPACKING predictions had the lowest absolute average error of predicted mass for soybeans, grain sorghum, barley, and wheat, while the FSA-W method had the lowest error for oats. The RMA method gave the largest prediction errors for all five crops and struggled especially with the low-density, high-compaction crops oats and barley, giving average percent absolute errors near or above 10% in both cases. Overall, WPACKING, the RMA method, and the FSA-W method had average percent absolute errors of 2.09%, 5.65%, and 3.62%, respectively, for the 92 bins. These results can be used to improve pack factor predictions for the grain industry.

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Stored Grain Pack Factor Measurements for Soybeans, Grain Sorghum, Oats, Barley, and Wheat

Citation: Bhadra, R., Casada, M. E., Boac, J. M., Turner, A. P., Thompson, S. A., Montross, M. D.,...McNeill, S. G. (2016) Correlating Bulk Density (With Dockage) And Test Weight (Without Dockage) For Wheat Samples. Applied Engineering in Agriculture. 32(6). 925-930. 10.13031/aea.32.11692

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Correlating Bulk Density (With Dockage) And Test Weight (Without Dockage) For Wheat Samples

Poultry litter is a mixture of broiler (chicken, Gallus gallus domesticus) excreta and bedding material. The broiler industry may produce more litter than can be locally land-applied without causing environmental degradation. Passing whole litter through 0.83- and 3.33-mm sieves separates a fine fraction that can be land-applied as fertilizer and a coarse fraction that can be mixed with bedding and re-utilized in broiler houses. A study was conducted to determine whether the coarse litter fraction could be re-utilized as a supplement for bedding in broiler houses without significant accumulation of heavy metals and other elements. Wood shavings supplemented with either stored or fresh coarse litter and a treatment of unsupplemented wood shavings were used as bedding material during a 40-day broiler growth period. Initial and final litter samples were collected and analyzed for Al, As, B, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, N, Na, Ni, P, Pb, Si, Sr, and Zn. Results indicated that element concentrations in wood shavings bedding supplemented with litter did not increase significantly during the final 30 days of a 40-day growth period. However, significant accumulation of several litter elements in unsupplemented wood shavings bedding during the entire 40-day growth period indicated that repeated recycling of litter as a bedding supplement may lead to significant accumulation of elements in litter.

Accumulation of Elements in Fractionated Broiler Litter during Re-Utilization

A series of tests involving eccentric discharge from a model bin were conducted using bin wall surfaces of smooth galvanized steel, corrugated galvanized steel, and abrasive paper simulating a concrete bin wall. Bin load asymmetry resulting from eccentric discharge was found to decrease with increasing value of friction coefficient of the bin wall.

Sidney A. Thompson

Papers

Computer Model for Predicting the Packing Factors of Whole Grains in Flat Storage Structures

Stored Grain Pack Factor Measurements for Soybeans, Grain Sorghum, Oats, Barley, and Wheat

Correlating Bulk Density (With Dockage) And Test Weight (Without Dockage) For Wheat Samples

Accumulation of Elements in Fractionated Broiler Litter during Re-Utilization

Asymmetry of Bin Loads Induced by Eccentric Discharge