Search Results (34)

The hierarchical perspective on senses has relegated smell to the lowest rank in Western culture while granting vision superiority. Studies show that olfactory impairments, like vision and hearing impairments, reduce quality of life. Our study examines the perceived value of smell in a student population in comparison to hearing and vision, hypothesizing differences based on previous loss of smell (≥2 weeks) and gender. University students were enlisted in a survey comparing smell to vision, hearing, and forfeiting the senses for various commodities (phone, EUR 10,000, hair, and social media). A total of 200 participants completed the survey, with 52 reporting previous loss of smell and 148 reporting no history of smell loss. Overall, smell was the most frequently forfeited sense. While the sacrifice of hearing and vision remained consistent across various commodities, smell was notably forfeited more for certain items. When comparing groups with and without previous loss of smell, no significant differences were observed in forfeiting the senses across various commodities, except for hair. However, it is noteworthy that smell was forfeited more often for all commodities when considering percentages. Furthermore, females exhibited a greater willingness to sacrifice their sense of smell for USD 10,000 and hair. Smell is valued the lowest among the three senses when asked directly and compared to various commodities. There were no significant differences in its perceived value between those with and without previous loss of smell. Furthermore, females tend to value their sense of smell less than males, according to the surveyed commodities. Full article

Artifacts pertaining to Buddhist culture are often studied in relation to their circulation from India throughout the rest of Asia; however, many traveled to Europe during the last few centuries as trade commodities and pieces for the art market, losing any devotional purpose in favor of a specific aesthetic sensitivity that was typically adapted to Western taste to appeal to collectors. This article presents a technical study of seven polychrome wooden sculptures from the Museo d’Arte Orientale (MAO) in Turin, Italy. Originally from China, these objects are generally attributed to the late Ming–early Qing dynasties (16th–18th centuries) based merely on stylistic and iconographic considerations. Scientific analysis sought to expand the available knowledge on their constituting materials and fabrication techniques, to address questions on their authenticity, to assess their state of preservation, and to trace the history of transformations they have undergone while transitioning from devotional objects to private collection and museum artwork. By delving into the sculptures’ intricate paint stratigraphy, the results were also key to guiding treatment choices. The outcomes of this study were featured in the MAO exhibition “Buddha10. A Fragmented Display on Buddhist Visual Evolution” (October 2022–September 2023). Full article

A farm management information system (MIS) entails record keeping based on a database management system, typically using a client-server architecture, i.e., an information system, IS, coupled with a variety of tools/methods/models for the support of operational management. The current review adopts a multivocal approach to consider academic and commercial developments in MISs for orchard management, based primarily on the refereed literature but extending to grey literature and interviews of Australian mango orchard managers. Drivers for orchard MIS development include increasing the orchard size and management complexity, including regulatory requirements around labour, chemical spray use and fertilisation. The enablers include improvements in within-orchard communications, distributed (web) delivery systems using desktop and mobile devices, and sensor systems and predictive models, e.g., for pest management. Most orchard MIS-related publications target the commodities of apple, grape, mango and olive in the context of management of plant health (pest and disease), plant development, irrigation and labour management. Harvest forecast and MIS modules are only now beginning to emerge, in contrast to a long history of use in grain production. The commercial systems trend towards an incorporation of financial information, an integration of data from multiple sources and a provision of dashboards that are tailored to the user. Requirements for industry adoption of a MIS are discussed in terms of technical and design features, with a focus on usability and scalability. Full article

Understanding changes to soil organic carbon storage (SOC) requires knowledge of detailed land use history. Many satellite-based analyses of land use change have been conducted over short periods (typically 5 to 10 years) to investigate causality to a demand increase in an agricultural commodity. However, statistically significant changes in SOC are not readily observable during this time and typically require decades for meaningful differences to accrue. This study aimed to determine land use and soil organic carbon stocks on land parcels over 36 years (1985–2021) located in areas where historical land use transitions between cropland and non-cropland are prevalent. Aerial and satellite imagery were analyzed across 25,992 hectares in ten counties across the Corn Belt. Grower interviews were conducted to solicit feedback on the drivers of land use change. Finally, SOC analyses associated with land use changes were determined using two process-based models. Analysis showed that 371 of the parcels had remained in cropland, 611 parcels transitioned into non-cropland, and 18 parcels were identified as non-cropland. The grower surveys indicated that the most common reasons for returning land to crop was the difficulty getting land re-enrolled in the CRP and reduced cattle prices. Both the SALUS and GREET-CCLUB models were parameterized to assess soil carbon changes for the respective land use history, and both models returned consistent SOC increases at the county level over time. Full article

Being a famous hometown of vegetables in China, Shouguang City has a long history of vegetable cultivation and is a comprehensive national commodity base for vegetables and fruits. In recent decades, with the expansion of agricultural production, the use of pesticides is increasing. Although organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) have been banned, there are still some residues in soil, groundwater and other media. The study on the migration of the OCPs in soil and groundwater is of great importance for the maintenance of food security. Using methods of hydrogeological survey, laboratory testing and numerical simulation, the spatial distribution characteristics, sources and pollution degree of OCPs in soil and groundwater were analyzed, and the migration and transformation of OCPs in soil–groundwater was dynamically simulated and predicted. The study showed that there were many kinds of OCPs residual in the soil environment. The hexachlorocyclohexane (HCHs) in the topsoil of the study area were mainly due to the use of lindane, and the main source of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDTs) in soil was the use of DDTs in history. The contents of HCHs, DDTs and hexachlorobenzene in the topsoil of the study area were at a low level, while the content of endosulfan metabolite endosulfan sulfate was comparatively higher. In recent years, the content of organochlorine pesticides in soil has generally decreased. The indexes of OCPs in groundwater can meet the Standards for Drinking Water quality of China. It was predicted that the HCH pollutants would mainly be distributed in Gucheng Street, Shangkou Town, and its south area where the concentration exceeds 3 ng/L exceeds that of 240 km². DDT pollutants would mainly be distributed in the east and north of Shouguang City, where the concentration beyond 0.6 ng/L exceeds that of 200 km². Endosulfan sulfate pollutants would mainly be distributed in the Gucheng Street Office, Shangkou Town, and its south area where the concentration exceeds 1.5 ng/L will exceed that of 150 km². Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) pollutants would mainly be distributed in Fengcheng in the west of Shouguang City and Nancha River in the northeast, where the concentration exceeds 0.2 ng/L will exceed that of 200 km². The study enriched the monitoring data of OCPs in agricultural planting areas and provided reference for source analysis, migration prediction, and pollution prevention of OCPs. Full article

This article provides a comprehensive and chronological account of the technological advancements in alluvial gold mining. Gold has been a highly prized commodity throughout history and has played a significant role in humanity’s economic and cultural progress. The primitive methods of extracting gold from riverbeds were carried out in Ancient Anatolia and Ancient Greece. The earliest references to the extraction of gold from riverbeds can be traced back to the Argonautic expedition and the myth of the “Golden Fleece”. In this myth, fine gold particles were believed to be trapped within the skin of the fleece, thus alluding to the early practices of gold recovery from rivers. Since then, gold extraction and processing technologies have evolved. During the Roman Empire period, Emperor Augustus made significant advancements in hydraulic gold mining. He developed the “ground sluicing” method, which used water to wash away the overlying soil and expose the bedrock where gold deposits were located. Subsequently, the revolutionary pumps described by Georgius Bauer (Agricola) gained significant popularity during the Renaissance. Additionally, Spanish colonialists in America enhanced their techniques by observing the efficient methods employed by the indigenous populations. Finally, the “gold rush” era was perhaps the most crucial period in alluvial gold mining and took place in the rivers of America during the 19th–20th centuries. Today, technologies have evolved significantly, and exploring the evolution of primitive methods to the present is considered essential. Full article

The purposes of the research have evidenced the spillover effects of oil-related factors in the oil market and the leading indexes of petrochemical commodities and the bulk shipping markets. The research gap was fitted and explored the effects associated with leading indexes for the shipping and petrochemical markets on the oil market during the US-China trade war, which is seldom bridged with significant relations in the history of oil. The scope of data for the period from 4 January 2016, through 31 August 2022, were analyzed using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic mixed data sampling model as methodology of mix frequency to examine volatility spillover of four research hypotheses from the bulk shipping and petrochemical markets to the oil market. Main contributions revealed that spillover from the bulk shipping and petrochemical commodity markets transmitted significant volatility to West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil returns after the US-China trade war began, a trend that has continued throughout the COVID-19 era until Ukraine–Russia war. These rare events indicate that the realized volatility derived from these market variables can be used to track the more significant contagions on WTI futures volatility in this empirical research than the weak relation in past studies. Full article

Around 1930, the Japanese publishing market was restructured, and as part of this process, the colonial market emerged within the Japanese Empire. In an attempt to expand into the colonial market, publishers such as Kaizō-sha, Chūōkōron-sha, and Senki-sha competed among each other, producing ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ commodities related to socialism. This paper examines the circulation of illegal commodities such as the often-banned magazine Senki (Battle Flag), cross-reading them with internal documents from Senki-sha (Senki’s publisher) and NAPF (All-Japan Federation of Proletarian Arts), as well as with those from the Japanese Home Ministry and the Japanese Government-General in Korea. By doing so, the essay argues that the main actors of the socialist cultural movement around 1930 purposefully planned to capitalize on the ‘illegal’ nature of their commodities, while adopting a public stance of differentiation from commercial capital. Furthermore, by proposing that the publication of illegal commodities was in fact deeply imbricated with the movement of capital in the publishing market, this paper also reveals that Korean-language publications–notably, the magazine Uri tongmu (Our Comrades)–produced by socialists in the Japanese interior around 1930, ended up playing a role in undermining the reconstruction of socialism in Korea. For this reason, it is crucial to reconsider the prevailing narrative about the history of the Japanese socialist movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s, which often essentializes the connection between Japanese and Korean socialists as pure ideological solidarity, paying little attention to the complex movement of capital, legal and illegal, at work in the Japanese Empire around 1930. Full article

An overview of the literature considering committed quantities in demand estimation for various commodities with an emphasis on energy commodities is presented. This overview provides a definition and the history of committed quantities, along with different theoretical modeling methodologies. Committed quantities are quantities that are consumed in the short run with little regard for price. Previous studies suggest that committed quantities for various commodities range from 15 to 98% of consumption. The inclusion of committed quantities appears to improve estimates generally, but it is not clear-cut. Problems arise when estimated committed quantities are negative or larger than the consumption amount. This review concludes with a recommendation that further research is necessary to resolve such issues, provide an improved understanding of the committed quantities in estimation, and fill in knowledge gaps concerning committed quantities ranging from theoretical to practical issues. Full article

Research and development efforts in the field of commercial applications have invested strategic interest in the design of intelligent systems that correctly handle out-of-stock events. An out-of-stock event refers to a scenario in which such customers do not have the availability of the products they want to buy. This scenario generates important economic damage to the producer and to the commercial store. Addressing the out-of-stock problem is currently of great interest in the commercial field as it would allow limiting the economic damages deriving from these events. Furthermore, in the era of online commerce (e-commerce), it would significantly limit out-of-stock events which show a considerable economic impact in the field. For these reasons, the authors proposed a solution based on deep learning for predicting the residual stock amount of a commercial product based on the intelligent analysis of specific visual–commercial data as well as seasonality. By means of a combined deep pipeline embedding convolutional architecture boosted with a self-attention mechanism and a downstream temporal convolutional network, the authors will be able to predict the remaining stock of a particular commodity. By integrating and interpreting climate/seasonal information, customers’ behavior data, and full history data on the dynamics of commercial sales, it will be possible to estimate the residual stock of a certain product and, therefore, define purchase orders efficiently. An accurate prediction of remaining stocks allows an efficient trade order policy which results in a significant reduction in out-of-stock events. The experimental results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed approach with an accuracy (in the prediction of the remaining stock of such products) greater than 90%. Full article

The development of food estates, including peatland ecosystems, is expected to support food security in all regions equally. Technically, the widespread clearing of peatlands for cultivating a specific food crop has multiple environmental effects. The need for more attention to non-technical aspects related to the socioeconomic life of the surrounding community is also an obstacle to the sustainability of the food estate program. In support of food security and sovereignty, this study aimed to develop an implementation framework for sustainably utilizing peat ecosystems as arable land-producing food commodities. A systematic literature review in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines and field observations were used to develop ecosystem concepts by focusing on maintaining an ecosystem’s social, economic, and ecological aspects. This paper describes the history of peat ecosystem utilization, evaluates previous errors in peatland clearing for food, and analyzes the data using the perspective of peat hydrological unit to better understand the livelihood preferences of existing communities. The previous literature’s key findings served as the guidelines for constructing the implementation framework. First, this method identifies people’s natural resource-based livelihoods and describes peatland ecosystems. Second, it evaluates the long-term viability of livelihoods and identifies improvement levers. Finally, it facilitates increasing the scale of food commodities produced from sustainable livelihoods to meet market demand while maintaining ecosystem resilience. Full article

Root and tuber crops (RTCs) are the second-most important carbohydrate commodity after cereals. Many species of the RTCs are vegetatively propagated, making their shoot tips the preferred material to be conserved for future uses. Shoot tip cryopreservation provides an important tool to support the long-term conservation of plant genetic resources. Over the past four decades, significant efforts have been undertaken to move shoot tip cryopreservation of RTCs from research projects to full-scale implementation in cryobanks. This comprehensive review focuses on the history of cryopreservation protocols developed in RTCs. The encapsulation and vitrification solution-based cryopreservation techniques followed by ultra-rapid freezing and thawing have been highly successful. Additionally, different strategies for improving the cryotolerance of shoot tips have been introduced to further increase post-cryopreservation recovery. Finally, the research conducted to explain the mechanism underlying cryoprotection and differential cryotolerance including the use of histological studies are highlighted. Full article

Advances in technology always had an impact on our lives. Several emerging technologies, most notably the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain, present transformative opportunities. The blockchain is a decentralized, transparent ledger for storing transaction data. By effectively establishing trust between nodes, it has the remarkable potential to design unique architectures for most enterprise applications. When it first appeared as a platform for anonymous cryptocurrency trading, such as Bitcoin, on a public network platform, blockchain piqued the interest of researchers. The chain is completed when each block connects to the previous block. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of networked devices that can exchange data and be managed and controlled via unique identifiers. Automation, wireless sensor networks, embedded systems, and control systems are just a few of the well-known technologies that power the IoT. Converging advancements in real-time analytics, machine learning, commodity sensors, and embedded systems demonstrate the rapid expansion of the IoT paradigm. The Internet of Things refers to the global networking of millions of networked smart gadgets that gather and exchange data. Integrating the IoT and blockchain technology would be a significant step toward developing a reliable, secure, and comprehensive method of storing data collected by smart devices. Internet-enabled devices in the IoT can send data to private blockchain networks, creating immutable records of all transaction history. As a result, these networks produce unchangeable logs of all transactions. This research looks at how blockchain technology and the Internet of Things interact to understand better how devices can communicate with one another. The blockchain-enabled Internet of Things architecture proposed in this article is a useful framework for integrating blockchain technology and the Internet of Things using the most cutting-edge tools and methods currently available. This article discusses the principles of blockchain-based IoT, consensus methods, reviews, difficulties, prospects, applications, trends, and communication between IoT nodes in an integrated framework. Full article

In 2019, California accounted for approximately 40% of organic products in the US, and dairy products and milk were the top organic commodity in the state. The objective of this study was to describe organic dairy cattle farmers’ management practices and perceptions of diseases in California. A survey inquiring about farm history and demographics, animal diseases, parasite problems, housing and pasture management, and organic education, was mailed to 160 organic dairy farms, of which 36 (22.5%) responded. Among respondents, the majority (83.9%) were located in Northern California; median farm size was 310 cows, and the dominant breed was Holstein (60.0%). Respondents were more likely to report mastitis in cows (45.2%), pinkeye in heifers (31.3%), and digestive problems in calves (47.0%), as issues affecting their stock “often” or “almost always” in the last 12 months. Although most farmers vaccinated their cattle against Bovine Viral Diarrhea (86.1%) and Escherichia coli mastitis (80.6%), they still described that these diseases frequently impacted their animals. Over half of the farmers did not perceive gastrointestinal parasites or biting flies to be a problem and did not observe signs of lice and mites. According to the results, the management of disease in all age classes is a concern; options and efficacies of alternative therapeutic methods, as well as preventive measures for organic dairies need to be further explored. Full article

Understanding past forest dynamics and human influence is essential for future forest management and ecosystem conservation. This study aims to provide insights into the forest dynamics and agroforestry history in the highlands of Sumatra for the last 1800 years. We carried out palaeoecological multi-proxy analyses of pollen, spores, non-pollen palynomorphs, macro-charcoal, and X-ray fluorescence on a limnic sediment core taken from Danau Kecil in the submontane area of Kerinci Seblat National Park in Sumatra, Indonesia. Our results provide an 1800-year record of forest dynamics under climate change and human influence including the transition from forest opening to shifting cultivation and eventually permanent agroforestry. Indicators for forest openings and secondary forest formation have been present since the beginning of records (AD 200). This is followed by the possible initiation of sugar palm (Arenga) cultivation (AD 400). Since AD 500, potential agroforestry and forest gardening practices have promoted major timber trees such as Lithocarpus/Castanopsis, Bischofia, and Dipterocarpaceae combined with sugar palm (Arenga). Permanent agroforestry systems were possibly established since AD 1760, evinced by an increase in commodity trees such as Dipterocarpaceae for resin production. With the Dutch invasion ca. AD 1900, agroforestry intensified and expanded to the Kerinci Valley. This was followed by land use intensification and potential rice cultivation around Danau Kecil since the 1940s. This study provides the first details on past forest dynamics around Danau Kecil since AD 200, showing among others how appropriate forest management and a closed canopy could reduce fire vulnerability in submontane rainforest. Full article