September 23, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
In both body and spirit, water is the thing that sustains us all. It is through water all living things connect to the earth. The ocean, lakes, rivers, and strams, we are drawn to water in all its forms. I am drawn, most especially, to rivers. Rivers are on the move. Rivers speak of distant origons, distant destinations, and the endless cycle of life. Rivers carve the landscape leaving behind a window into the Earths history.
The river that calls me back, again and again, rises on the high plains of southeastern Wyoming. The Niobrara river takes its name from the county of its origin. The name is of Omaha and Ponca Indian origin and means running (or spreading) water. The Niobrara has a more uniform flow than do most plains streams, owing to steady contributions from groundwater and tributaries in the Nebraska Sand Hills. As it nears the Missouri, in its lower course, the river becomes wide and shallow. Over the ages, the Niobrara has carved out a geological and biological treasure. Draining small portions of both Wyoming and South Dakota, the Niobraras five hundred thirty-five miles primarily drain over twelve thousand square miles of the Nebraska Sandhills, one of the largest stabalized dune fields on earth. The Niobrara valley supports an exceptional biological diversity. At least six different ecosystems intermix in the river corridor including Rocky Mountain pine forest, northern (boreal) forest, eastern deciduous forest, tall grass prairie, mixed grass prairie, and Sand Hills prairie. The valleys fauna is equally diverse. Visitors to the Niobrara valley will find deer, bison, elk, beaver, mink, herons, eagles, vultures, and on rare occasion, mountain lions. The valley floor is also home to a number of threatened and endangered species, including the piping plover, least tern, and the occasional whooping crane.
Approximately one hundred sixty of the plant and animal species found in the Niobrara Valley are at the edge of their ranges. In addition to biologically significant vertebrate species unique to the valley, invertebrates also occupy a special niche. Some ninety-two species of butterflies have been recorded along the Niobrara, sixteen of which are at the edge of their range. Hybridization of three species, Red-spotted purple, Weidemeyeri’s admiral, and Eastern viceroy are noted as evolutionary and genetically significant. Often referred to as the “biological crossroads of the Great Plains,” the thirty-mile stretch of the Niobrara east of Valentine is of great biological importance. The ranges of closely related species of eastern and western woodland birds overlap. In the deciduous forests, an isolated subspecies of eastern wood rat is found four hundred miles from its nearest relatives in eastern Kansas.
Notable geographic fearures along the rivers course include the Pine Ridge and the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument in the northwest Nebraska panhandle and Smith Falls State Park below Valentine Nebraska. Thirteen miles southwest of Valentine, the Niobrara is joined by the Snake River. The Snake river is a treasure in itself. About six miles west of the village of Butte, the Keya Paha river enters the Niobrara having come down from south central South Dakota. The Niobrara cuts through several rock formations including the Ash Hollow, Valentine, Rosebud, and Pierre. These unique geological formations include fossils of many mammalian species including beaver, horse, rhinoceros, and mastodons; as well as fossils of fish, alligators, and turtles. Most of the Niobrara valley consists of pine covered canyons with many tall sandstone cliffs along the waters edge. The Niobrara National Scenic River protects seventy-six miles of waterway from Valentine east to the Fort Spencer Dam. It is an outstanding example of a prairie river left practically unchanged despite two hundred years of exploration and development.
In 1879, Fort Niobrara was constructed just east of Valentine. The posts mission was keeping the peace between white settlers and Sioux Indians living on the nearby Rosebud Reservation. Life at Fort Niobrara was peaceful and during the twenty-seven years it operated not a single military action was conducted. The fort was abandoned in 1906. Today, the only thing that remains is a single barn and some foundations. By 1912, the status of wildlife on the prairie had become grim. Wolves and grizzly bears were gone. The black footed ferret would disappear within three decades, and there were fewer than one thousand bison left in the wild. A concerned resident of Nebraska offered half a dozen bison, seventeen elk and a few deer to the federal government if land could be found for them. The lands that were once part of Fort Niobrara were pressed into service, and the wildlife refuge was born. Today the refuge exists primarily to protect bison, elk, prairie dogs, prairie chickens, white-tailed and mule deer, burrowing owls, grouse, quail, sand pipers, and the sandhill crane.
Today the Niobrara River is one of Nebraskas biggest tourist attractions. Sadly, the river is in danger of losing its lifeblood — water. A Wild and Scenic River that attracts tens of thousands of paddlers and outdoor enthusiasts, the Niobrara valley also supports irrigation of more than six hundred thousand acres of farmland. Additional irrigation applications flows that also support fish, wildlife, and recreation. currently pending with Nebraskas Department of Natural Resources could, if granted, seriously endanger the rivers future. In the first six months of 2007, five times more water was requested for additional irrigation purposes from the river than in all of the nineteen eighties The 2006 level of the river was the fifth lowest since 1946. In 2007, some irrigators had their pumping restricted because of low water. Kayakers and canoeists today notice more exposed sandbars and rock ledges that make it harder to float this naturally shallow river, which was named one of the best paddling rivers in America by Backpacker magazine.
The Niobrara River ecosystem is also being threatened by an influx of massive animal factories, called concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. Sierra Club activists have been successful in keeping some CAFOs out of the Niobrara watershed, especially where it is joined by Verdigre Creek, a tributary of the Niobrara and a part of the Wild and Scenic River. A partial solution to the problems facing the Niobrara lies with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. By summer or fall 2009, the agency is expected to submit its application for an instream flow water right that would include the seventy-six mile Wild and Scenic section of the river. If granted, this right would ensure an adequate flow of water remains in the river to support the many benefits and services a healthy Niobrara can provide.
On the legislative front, the Natural Resources Committee of the Nebraska Legislature held a public hearing in mid-August 2008 regarding the possibility of changing instream flow regulations. American Rivers and its partners called on the 2009 Legislature to simplify, not hinder or prevent, the instream flow application process. A healthy Niobrara River demands that Nebraskans continue to carefully balance the needs of communities, wildlife, recreation and agriculture, said Rebecca Wodder, President of American Rivers. The question for Nebraskans is really very simple: Do we want to take all the water out of the river, or do we want to leave enough water in the river to protect current irrigation, fish, wildlife, and recreation?
September 22, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
To get hired in the field of agriculture, there is no special education required. However, some jobs in that field do require some training in order for you to work more effectively. Agriculture isn’t just working with plants. It includes farmers who grow produce or who breed animals in order to earn their living. These farmers need skilled workers to operate their large operations.
People tend to overlook how many people it took to get the meal to their table. Farmers have to care for cows, growing feed, there are people who take milk from farms to be processed so we can drink it or eat it as cheese, butter and other dairy products. Agriculture isn’t just about livestock, soybeans, or corn. Workers are also needed for fish farming, sugar and fruit production and processing, ecology and various other things that have been modernized by agriculture.
Agriculture is a complex business and there are many positions in agriculture for those who are interested. Payment for these positions depends upon a worker’s skill, the size of the operation and the job requirements. Also, if it’s outdoor work, it may be seasonal. This work may be more flexible for the worker’s schedule. When getting started on your agricultural career, you’ll need to create a resume with a list of your experience in agriculture. It’s not typical for agricultural worker to be educated, but your level of education might equal a better job for you. Apply for a job according to your education level.
If you have a technical certification for equipment operation or other credentials that farmers may find useful, be sure to mention that. There are also many jobs that don’t require outdoor work. You can find these by looking online. You can find careers in agriculture by going to Agriculture Jobs org for a variety of agricultural listings. Here, you’ll find a database just for those who want an agricultural career.
If you can’t find what you want on that site, you can always check with the American Farmers Association. They provide a state-by-state guide to helping you find careers in agriculture. When you are finally matched up with an employer, the interview process can begin, and then you’ll be considered for the agricultural position. Pretty soon, you may just be working in the agricultural field.
September 20, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
The history of human progress is a testimonial to the strong desire that man has always had to make his life more comfortable. Every invention ever conceived has been designed to make life just a little bit better. Tools have been made for every activity from agriculture, hunting, construction, transportation and even entertainment. The desire for an easier existence for a few has also led to a few bad ideas such as slavery, military conquest, corruption and other manners of exploiting people.
While many tools and machines have been invented throughout history, they have mostly been of use in extending or enhancing the capabilities of the person using them. The ultimate desire of having artificial helpers and companions and the attempts to create them have a long history. We now have many machines and mechanical devices that operate automatically with humanlike skill for a wide range of routine tasks on command,
But the making of a fully autonomous machine that resembles a human has yet to be realized although it may be closer than most people imagine.
Man started out by inventing tools, from tools evolved machinery and most recently in human history do we have programmable functioning machinery. The next step is self-adjusting, self-adaptive and reprogrammable machinery to realize robotics ultimate goal: to create a machine which has equivalent capacity of a human. The refinements in technology that are necessary to create a fully functional robot are not so much founded in the physical design but rather in the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
Whether people realize it or not, we are surrounded by examples of artificial intelligence. Voice activated customer services, the GPS system in your car, the airport scheduling system that chooses the gate where your will disembark when your plane lands, most video games and even the software to write this article contains some form of Artificial Intelligence.
Right now, we are well into the period of Narrow AI which refers to artificial intelligence that performs a useful and specialized function that once required human intelligence to perform and executes those functions at human levels or better. Often Narrow AI systems greatly exceed the speed of humans as well as provide the ability to manage and take into account thousands of variables simultaneously.
The market for Narrow AI applications in 2007 was estimated to be over 21 billion dollars. A small list of areas where Narrow AI is currently being used includes
Defense and Intelligence
Space Exploration
Medicine
Science and Math
Business
Finance
Manufacturing
Language and Speech
Entertainment and Sports
While Narrow AI gives machines the ability to perform specific tasks, what is needed to develop and construct a fully functioning robot is Strong AI. Although there is no total agreement on what defines Strong AI, most researchers in the area of artificial intelligence agree that the properties of Strong AI should include the following:
“Ability to reason, strategize and make judgments under uncertain conditions
“Ability to represent knowledge including knowledge that is categorized as common sense
“Ability to plan and learn
“Ability to communicate in a natural language
“Ability to integrate all the above skills
Development in the area of Strong AI draws upon tools from three main areas: first, on what is currently known about the brain; second, based on the decades of research in Narrow AI; third, reverse engineering of the brain. Many tools have been developed and are emerging that provides the spatial and temporal resolution necessary to produce adequate data from extremely accurate scanning and sensing of neurons and neural components.
For a human being, the learning process required to master the knowledge necessary to function in any scientific area is decades. For a robot with artificial intelligence, learning will be just a matter of the time required to download the information from one machine to another. Once a human level of artificial intelligence is reached then technological advances in all areas will accelerated at an incredible exponential rate.
From the physical aspect, the development of a human like robot is much closer to being realized. In many depictions of robots in science fiction they are metallic and awkward but current technology already exists that can create an almost human appearing robot. In Japan, a new artificial outer covering gives the feel of real human skin by covering a 1-cm thick “dermis” of elastic silicone with a 0.2-mm thick “epidermis” of firm urethane. Countless tiny hexagonal indentations etched into the urethane epidermis provide it with a very realistic texture.
On the other hand, advances in medical technology are creating many artificial parts to replace some of our worn out or broken biological parts. Today, knee, hip and shoulder replacements are common. Artificial limbs are used by many who have lost their original ones. Advances will continue at a rapid pace so that in the near future we may be able to replace any organ or limb with a new and improved one. Some scientists hypothesize that all the information and memories in our brain may one day be downloadable. It seems possible that one day we may reach a point where the distinction between human and robot becomes too close to distinguish.
Robots have long been dreamed of as helpers and companions to enhance the lives of humans. Could it also be possible that the inadvertent direction of robotics will be, not to replace humans, but perhaps the next step in human evolution?
September 19, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
The general census of agriculture was essentially a census of economic nature that is accurate count of the farm and working in Italy today. In the data emerging from the census should be included in a particular manner the various characteristics of each company, the workers employed and agricultural machinery in the possession of the owner of the farm itself.
The census is done through the detection unit which is the agricultural, livestock and forestry. The census also serves to give the key definitions for agriculture because it is within the last census report that you can recall the precise definition of the farm that is “techno-economic unit consisting of land, including parcelsnon-contiguous, which implements the agricultural production, forestry, livestock by a tenant as an individual, company or institution, who bears the risk either alone or in partnership form. “However, this definition is still vague to understand all the realities that exist within the agricultural world. In fact, many times at international level was stressed that there is a need to distinguish between different reality on the land cultivated, technologies such as drills agricultural tractors or other machinery of high technology used, the number of workers and annual turnover.
The census of agriculture had its first implementation in 1961 and held every ten years. That provided in the autumn of 2010 therefore appears to be the sixth edition. Data collection is via the administration of questionnaires, from simple to complex, to the farmers by officers who have passed the invitation of the Region launched by themselves independently. These officials must have the characteristics to be respected both for admission to the competition is good for the completed engagement. They must be experts on agriculture, livestock husbandry and have accumulated expertise in the technologies applied to the primary sector in general. E ‘therefore necessary to have the diploma of secondary school is desirable but in many cases a degree in agriculture or similar.
The questionnaires are designed to be administered may know the reality which is to explore means of general questions that are gradually increasing in particular aimed at understanding the general characteristics of the company (then type of activity, crop farming and other features in general) that are useful for statistics on production and distribution activities. Another focal point on which applications were submitted is that of the organization and division of labor within the company itself that is useful to know how many farm machines are used and how many workers are needed to tend to a certain number of crops or animals to livestock.
And ‘undisputed national and European level not only useful but indeed the indispensability of the census to have a clear situation of the whole primary sector that many times, given the vague regulations and less monitored than those relating to industry,might not be considered as it should.
September 16, 2015 / como / 0 Comments
Agriculture is one of the main activities in almost most of the countries. With such high demand of agriculture, it has become very important to use some of the extra-ordinary kinds of equipment at the same time. People are willing to use some of perfect equipment, which is sure to increase the production as well as reduce down the total effort in the same. Seeds are very important as these are the important product in agriculture. With proper grading of the seed, the quality of the seed is enhanced to a higher level. People from various parts of the world are willing for the latest technology to be used in agriculture. The seed grading equipment are such kinds of equipment, which can easily handle the grading process of the seed.
There are other kinds of products such as the digital moisture meter. This particular meter mainly checks the moisture in the environment. The exact moisture is recorded by the machine. People need to check the moisture level in the agriculture field for one reason or the other. With the help of the new digital moisture meter, it becomes very easy to record the moisture content in the air. This will further help to maintain the conditions as per the demand. With the development of technology, lots of new moisture meters are developed, which can record the moisture content without much problem. There is no much hassle involved while using these meters. They are very handy in nature and any one can easily use it.
The moisture meter as well as seed grading equipment can serve farmers in a very perfect manner for better productivity. There are many other kinds of products in the list, which can easily enhance the production as well as efficiency. The seed grading machine are now coming in automatic modes. Thus, one need not to worry much about the handling process. It is very easy to operate and the size varies as per the demand. Most of the models are very normal and, which are perfect in handling good work loads. This is also a very cost effective method in cleaning various kinds of cereal grains. The seeds are directly fed to the lower part, where it gets sucked by an aspirator. All the dust and other particles are cleaned properly and the waste products get collected in the bins. So, agricultural production can be increased to a great extent with the help of these devices.
A-GRAIN (India) is involved in the development, manufacturing and marketing Post Harvest Test Equipments and Seed Processing Machinery. We also manufacture a host of products like grain moisture testers, seed dividers, seed germinators, seed processing plants etc. To get more details visit us.