Business Commons^™

The Welfare Of Animals In The Duck Industry

Agribusiness Reports

Duck production in the United States shares many of the same intensive husbandry practices found in the chicken and turkey industries, despite being much smaller in scale. The vast majority of farmed ducks are reared in dimly lit sheds with high stocking densities and without access to water for swimming, a significant welfare concern for these aquatic animals. Lameness, feather pecking, respiratory problems, and eye infections are common, and most birds are subjected to bill-trimming, a physical mutilation known to cause pain. The stress and physical trauma of catching and crating for transport, as well as the journeys themselves, further …

The Welfare Of Animals In The Egg Industry

Agribusiness Reports

Hundreds of millions of chickens in the egg industry suffer from poor welfare throughout their lives. Male chicks, considered a byproduct of commercial hatcheries, are killed soon after they hatch. The females are typically beak-trimmed, usually with a hot blade, to prevent them from developing the abnormal pecking behaviors that manifest in substandard environments. The overwhelming majority of hens are then confined in barren battery cages, enclosures so small that the birds are unable even to spread their wings without touching the cage sides or other hens. Battery cages prevent nearly all normal behavior, including nesting, perching, and dustbathing, all …

The Welfare Of Crustaceans At Slaughter, Stephanie Yue

Agribusiness Reports

The most common methods of slaughtering crustaceans include splitting, spiking, chilling, boiling, gassing, “drowning,” and using chemicals or electricity. As crustaceans do not have a centralized nervous system, unlike vertebrates, they do not die immediately upon destruction of one discrete area, such as the brain. New technologies, including the Crustastun electrical stunning and killing system, may improve the welfare of crustaceans during slaughter, which is critically important as most if not all current techniques are inhumane.

The Welfare Of Animals In The Aquaculture Industry

Agribusiness Reports

In the United States, approximately 1.3 billion fish are raised in off-shore and land-based aquaculture systems each year for food, making them the second-most commonly farmed animal domestically, following broiler chickens. The majority of farmed fish are subject to overcrowded and restrictive conditions, which, if unchecked, can quickly deteriorate water quality, cause severe stress, and result in increased mortality. Aquaculture practices and production—including handling, grading, transport, genetic manipulation, aggression from conspecifics, predation, physiological stress, and inhumane slaughter—compromise the welfare of these animals.

The Welfare Of Animals In The Turkey Industry

Agribusiness Reports

The natural behavior and habitat of wild turkeys stand in sharp contrast to the life of turkeys commercially raised for meat. Overcrowded in automated, barren “grow-out” houses, turkeys are offered little opportunity to display their full range of complex social, foraging, and exploratory behavior. Today’s commercial breeds grow at an unnaturally rapid pace to unprecedented weights. This forced rapid growth further compromises their health and welfare, and causes them to suffer from skeletal, muscular, and other health problems, as well as painful and often crippling leg disorders. Breeding birds, unable to mate naturally due to genetic selection for fast growth …

Welfare Issues With Caponizing Chickens

Agribusiness Reports

No U.S. state or federal regulations prohibit the practice of caponizing cockerels—castrating male chickens under one year of age. Crude instructions and surgical implements are readily available to provide any amateur “hobbyist” with the means to perform this procedure, typically on fully conscious, unanesthetized birds. Caponizing has been banned in the United Kingdom due to animal welfare concerns and should be disallowed in the United States.

Welfare Issues With Transport Of Day-Old Chicks

Agribusiness Reports

In the United States, more than 9 billion chickens and 250 million turkeys are raised and slaughtered annually for food. Virtually all broiler chickens (those raised for meat) and turkeys come from strains produced by four and three primary breeding companies, respectively. Within several hours after hatching, the chicks are typically relocated from the hatchery or breeder farm to the commercial grow-out facility via ground and air transportation. Small hatcheries also send chicks to backyard “hobbyists” via U.S. Postal Service delivery. Unless carefully controlled and properly managed, transport—whether by truck or plane and regardless of scale, commercial or specialty—can subject …

The Impact Of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On Rural Communities

Agribusiness Reports

Industrialized animal agriculture production practices and systems not only jeopardize the welfare of farm animals and the environment, but also negatively impact public health, independent family farmers, and quality of life in rural communities. The tolls exacted on rural communities necessitate dramatic and immediate changes in animal agriculture.

The Impact Of Animal Agriculture On Global Warming And Climate Change

Agribusiness Reports

The farm animal production sector is the single largest anthropogenic user of land, contributing to soil degradation, dwindling water supplies, and air pollution. The breadth of this sector‘s impacts has been largely underappreciated. Meat, egg, and milk production are not narrowly focused on the rearing and slaughtering of farm animals. The animal agriculture sector also encompasses feed grain production which requires substantial water, energy, and chemical inputs, as well as energy expenditures to transport feed, live animals, and animal products. All of this comes at a substantial cost to the environment.

One of animal agriculture‘s greatest environmental impacts is its …

The Impact Of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On The Environment

Agribusiness Reports

The continuous confinement of chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, and other animals raised in industrialized agricultural systems jeopardizes the animals’ welfare and degrades the environment. Factory farms produce immense quantities of animal waste and byproducts, which threaten water and air quality and contribute to climate change.

Human Health Implications Of Non-Therapeutic Antibiotic Use In Animal Agriculture

Agribusiness Reports

For decades, the U.S. meat industry has fed medically important antibiotics to chickens, pigs, and cattle to accelerate their weight gain and prevent disease in the stressful and unhygienic conditions that typify industrialized animal agriculture production facilities. A strong scientific consensus exists, asserting that this practice fosters antibiotic resistance in bacteria to the detriment of human health. In response to this public health threat, the European Union has banned the non-therapeutic feeding of a number of antibiotics of human importance to farm animals. Given these serious concerns as well as recent data that suggest an overall lack of financial benefit, …

Factory Farming In America

Agribusiness Reports

The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness for Rural Communities, Public Health, Families, Farmers, the Environment, and Animals

Food Safety Concerns With The Slaughter Of Downed Cattle

Agribusiness Reports

Nonambulatory cattle may be at higher risk of harboring foodborne pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and, very rarely, the infectious agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, colloquially known as “mad cow disease.” The exclusion of nonambulatory cattle from slaughter for human consumption may strengthen the safety of the food supply and is a prudent measure already in place throughout the European Union.

Human Health Implications Of Live Hang Of Chickens And Turkeys On Slaughterhouse Workers

Agribusiness Reports

Nonambulatory cattle may be at higher risk of harboring foodborne pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and, very rarely, the infectious agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, colloquially known as “mad cow disease.” The exclusion of nonambulatory cattle from slaughter for human consumption may strengthen the safety of the food supply and is a prudent measure already in place throughout the European Union.

Economic Literacy At The University Of Arkansas, Amanda Otto

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

In this study, the researchers developed a survey asking students what topics were most desired, what the ideal format of the program would be, and what would motivate students to participate. Each of these questions allowed participants to rank options within topics, formats and motivators. The survey also collected demographic information concerning age, gender, university classification, and specific college so that the researchers could analyze the needs of different groups on campus. A total of 397 students participated. To analyze the data, the rankings were summed to create an aggregate ranking for each question. The demographic information was used in …

Mullewa Research Annexe Spring Field Day Future Farming Systems For North-Eastern Districts 21 August 2008, Department Of Agriculture, Western Australia

Grain and other field crops research reports

Papers:

• Mullewa Research Annexe activities 2008

• Wheat for today and the future

• Consequences of strongly acidic and alkaline soils

• Break crop influence on low rainfall heavy soil

• Chemical fallow options for the north-east agricultural region

• Herbicide tolerance of new wheat varieties

• Lowrainfall oilseed crops for food and biofuel

• Utilising stock to reduce business risk in Binnu! A case study

Assuring Quality At The Source With Varying Worker Skills: Economic Justification Of The Online Repair Policy, Dooyoung Shin, Hokey Min

Management Faculty Publications

Traditionally, quality control on an assembly line has been conducted by quality inspectors at the end of the assembly line. Defective or incomplete parts identified during the production cycle are typically transferred to a separate repair shop where such parts are reworked, retested, re-inspected or replaced. In contrast, today’s repetitive manufacturing companies have begun to delegate the power and responsibility of quality inspection and control to assembly workers on the line. This so-called online (line-stop) repair policy has been receiving increased attention from many manufacturing companies. Through a series of computational experiments, this paper examines the effectiveness of the online …

Volume And Cost Implications Of Product Portfolio Complexity, Mark A. Jacobs

MIS/OM/DS Faculty Publications

Business leaders are concerned about the impacts of increasing levels of product portfolio complexity since many sense that complexity related costs such as order management, procurement, and inventory threaten to undermine operational efficiencies and consume profits. Even so, managers do not fully understand the extent and breadth of the impacts of product portfolio complexity. A more complete understanding of the operational effects of product portfolio complexity is lacking partially because researchers have not yet offered a robust theoretical perspective or studied it in a focused controlled way; until now. Herein, measures of product portfolio complexity are developed and related to …

Stages In Adoption Of Rfid Innovations By Organizations: Identifying Facilitaors And Inhibitors, Anand Jeyaraj, Arijit Sengupta, Vikram Sethi

Management Information Systems Faculty Publications

Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) innovations have gained considerable attention in the last several years and attracted the attention of organizations across different industries. RFID technologies have found applications in diverse areas such as package tracking, inventory management, baggage handling, school attendance, and logistics. Prior literature on RFID innovations offers insights into the major benefits and challenges of RFID; the technological, organizational, and environmental factors that influence organizational adoption of RFID; and the experiences of specific companies. However, there is a lack of understanding of the processes by which organizations actually adopt and implement RFID technologies over time. We develop a …

Virtual Business With Real Money, Shu Z. Schiller

Management Information Systems Faculty Publications

Second Life is a virtual society environment on the Internet where individuals engage in various real-life activities, such as attending classes and shopping at stores, as avatars. Second Life was released as a commercial service by Linden Lab in June 2003. Since then, Second Life has rapidly gained a total of 11.5 million residents by December 2007.

Maximizing Correlation In The Presence Of Missing Data, Xinfang Wang

Logistics & Supply Chain Management: Faculty Publications

In this paper we address the problem of maximizing the correlation between two vectors of time series data, when one of the vectors has missing data and the timing of the missing data is unknown. The motivation for this work comes from environmental monitoring where because of monitoring malfunction, some data are lost. We study the use of integer programming and a genetic algorithm (GA) for this problem.

Measuring Agility Of Organizations - A Comprehensive Agility Measurement Tool (Camt), Ameya S. Erande, Alok K. Verma

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Since "Agility" is ability to respond to unpredictable changes with quick response and profitability, it is not industry specific. This "not industry specific" nature of agility makes it hard to assess and measure it on a fixed scale. Measurement of agility of an enterprise has been a major topic of research since inception of agility in 1991. Though some methods have been developed to measure agility, they mainly remain tied to manufacturing industry. As agility is present in all the industries, comprehensive tool to measure it is a necessity in order to determine responsiveness of an enterprise to external turbulences. …

Multi-Echelon Repairable Item Inventory System With Limited Repair Capacity Under Nonstationary Demands, Hoong Chuin Lau, Huawei Song

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Classical multi-echelon repairable item inventory models are based either on steady-state analysis or infinite repair capacity, which may not work well in situations when the demand is nonstationary, or repair capacity is limited. In this paper, we propose an analytical model for evaluating system performance that works well under limited repair capacity and nonstationary demands. Following the METRIC methodology, we then develop an optimisation algorithm to solve the corrective maintenance problem in military logistics. Experimental results show that our approach yields good solutions efficiently. This work has also resulted in a software that has been field-tested by a military organisation.

The Long Haul: Risks Associated With Livestock Transport, Michael Greger

Agribusiness Collection

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations describes live animal transport as “ideally suited for spreading disease,” given that animals may originate from different herds or flocks and are “confined together for long periods in a poorly ventilated stressful environment.” Given the associated “serious animal and public health problems,” the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe has called for the replacement of the long-distance transportation of live animals for slaughter as much as possible to a “carcass-only trade.”

In the United States, more than 50 million live cattle, sheep, and pigs and an unknown number of the more …

Measuring Organizational Usage Of Information Technology, Anand Jeyaraj

Management Information Systems Faculty Publications

Organizations make considerable investments in information technology to support their internal and external operations. For instance, a recent research report by Gartner Inc. indicates that worldwide spending on information technology will reach United States $3.3 trillion for the year 2008.

Innovation In Logistics Services, Carlos Mena, Martin Christopher, Mark Johnson, Fu Jia

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

The logistics industry manages the flows of products, services and information across customers and suppliers, allowing the integration of supply chains. Innovations in logistics can therefore help improve efficiency and effectiveness across many sectors of the economy. Furthermore, innovation can also have a major impact in reducing the environmental burden of this industry, particularly in terms of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

This overall aim of this report is to understand how the government can encourage and facilitate innovation in the logistics industry. The study focuses mainly on the UK and on the role of third party logistics providers (3PLs). …

Antecedents Of Supply Chain Visibility In Retail Supply Chains: A Resource-Based Theory Perspective, Mark Barratt, Adegoke Oke

Management Faculty Research and Publications

Although visibility has become a popular buzzword in the supply chain literature it remains an ill-defined and poorly understood concept. It is assumed that if companies across supply chains have visibility of demand, inventory levels, processes, etc., that organizational performance improves. This research explores the antecedents of high levels of supply chain visibility from a resource-based theory perspective across five different external supply chain linkages. We find that the level of visibility across these linkages differs considerably based on various contributing factors which are both technology and non-technology based. Using resource-based theory, we identify those factors that can give a …

Product Complexity: A Definition And Impacts On Operations, Mark A. Jacobs

MIS/OM/DS Faculty Publications

The difficulty for organizations arises because neither complexity nor its impacts on performance are well understood (Fisher & Ittner, 1999b). The mechanisms through which it affects cost, quality, delivery, and flexibility need to be explained (Ramdas, 2003). However, this cannot happen until complexity can be explained theoretically. But, to build theory there must first be a common understanding about the construct of interest (Wacker, 2004). Only then can researchers operationalize it and search for meaningful relationships. In light of this, I develop a definition of complexity below. A sampling of the operations management literature is then presented within the context …

Research And Development Project Valuation And Licensing Negotiations At Phytopharm Plc, Pascale Crama, Bert De Reyck, Zeger Degraeve, Wang Chong

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We describe a research and development project-valuation model developed for Phytopharm plc, a pharmaceutical development and functional food company based in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom. Phytopharm uses the model to value the projects in its research and development portfolio, and in licensing negotiations with potential product development and marketing partners. We include different valuation methods, including net present value, decision analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation. We also consider the technological risks of product development, as well as the uncertainty of commercial success. In addition to determining a value for a product in development, the model proposes appropriate licensing contract structures. A …

A Field Study Of Rfid Deployment And Return Expectations, Jonathan W. Whitaker, Sunil Mithas, M. S. Krishnan

Management Faculty Publications

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology promises to transform supply chain management. Building on previous research in information systems and supply chain management, this paper proposes a theoretical framework for RFID adoption and benefits, and tests the framework using data on U.S. firms. Our analysis suggests that there is a positive association between information technology (IT) application deployment and RFID adoption. We find that RFID implementation spending and partner mandate are associated with an expectation of early return on RFID investment, and a perceived lack of industry-wide standards is associated with an expectation of delayed return on RFID investment. These results …