Smarter Pest Control Moves through the Orchards

Smarter Pest Control Moves through the Orchards Smarter Pest Control Moves through the Orchards Smarter Pest Control Moves Through the OrchardsSensors and computer analytics have penetrated agriculture and farming, transforming the common tractor and other equipment into high-tech machines that offer precision and predictability in sowing seeds and reaping crops. But one segment has remained largely untouched. Farmers mostly apply pesticides the old-fashioned way, spraying fields and orchards with equipment that hasnt much changed in decades.That is poised to change with the development of what U.S. Department of Agriculture and Ohio State University researchers claim is the first intelligent sprayer, driven by high-speed sensors and algorithms that compute the optimum level of pesticides to apply through each of a standard sprayers 40 nozzles. That could greatly reduce the amount of chemicals used and help alleviate runoff, one of the largest surces of nonpoint source pollution in t he U.S.In most cases, fields are oversprayed, says Heping Zhu, a USDA agricultural engineer and Ohio State University adjunct professor. Current technology is constrained in the rate of application. For instance, in a 100-gallon acre of spray volume, you spray without thinking of crop size, density rate, or other parameters.For You Drones Take Farming to a Whole New LevelZhu, along with OSU agricultural engineering professor Erdal Ozkan and collaborators at Oregon State University and the University of Tennessee, designed a spray ordnungsprinzip using laser sensors to refine the practice. We use the laser sensors like an eye to detect a tree, its size and shape, and plant density to decide spray volume, Zhu says. It only sprays to targets.The intelligent sprayer testing and design team. Image Ohio State UniversityUsing conventional sprayers, growers turn the sprayer on at the beginning of a row of trees and simply stop spraying at the other end. The sprayers are fitted to the front of a tractor that moves up and down rows of plants or trees, but it does not recognize any variations in plant height, density, or terrain. The new system works the same way, but the amount of chemicals used is dramatically reduced, results confirmed by testing in commercial fields over the past four years. It is not a robotic system, some of which are being developed for weed control.Compared to conventional sprayers, the intelligent system reduced pesticide use by mora than half, reduced spray drift by up to 87% and lowered spray loss on the ground by up to 93%. The same level of pest control was reported as from a conventional sprayer.That can mean big savings for growers as well a big boost for the environment. Growers used more than 1 billion pounds of chemicals on crops in 2017, according to statistics from USDA. Much of that excess finds itself polluting rivers and streams. Lake Eries persistent summer algae bloom is tied to agricultural runoff, as is the giant dead zone in t he Gulf of Mexico.Overuse of pesticides may also be linked to the die off of pollinators critical to agriculture. There is a pollinator crisis, Zhu says. The population of bees has decreased due to heavy use of pesticides.Testing began in 2009, initially on nurseries with a wide variety of crops. It was then expanded to orchards and vineyards. Growers who used the intelligent sprayer reported chemical savings reaching $230 per acre annually, says Zhu. That means a grower with a 100-acre field would recoup the capital cost within one year.The sprayer itself has 40 nozzles fitted to an attachment, 20 on top and 20 on the bottom. As the tractor moves along the row, the sensors detect the height, width and density of individual trees or plants. Working from algorithms written for the project, the analytics program computes exactly where to targetand where not to spray. For instance, it ignores gaps between trees, spraying directly on target, and can reach heights of 60 feet, a measure c ommon for pecan trees.We wrote our own program for tree structures, for the system to make the decision where to spray, Zhu says, crediting postdoctoral researchers with the task. The sensors put out 43,200 points per second to read the targets, bouncing the data back to the system.The system is so accurate that it can differentiate seasonal tree cover, for instance. There will be fewer leaves earlier in the year, compared to later in the growing season. It accommodates for the discrepancy, doling out the appropriate volume of chemicals. Zhu says it works with the same efficiencies at any speed. You dont have to worry about how fast you drive, he says. The system takes over.Zhu and other project researchers claim the system, built with off-the-shelf equipment and customized analytics, is unique, and they anticipate commercial commitment soon. No one else has done this, Zhu says.Researchers at Clemson University and Texas AM University joined the project in 2015, expanding the testin g to orchards. The concept has been proven over five to six years of testing in the field, Zhu says.Zhu and his team now are devising a method to retrofit the system to existing sprayers, a development that would further reduce the expense. The system has already won awards from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers and 2018 Innovator of the Year Award from OSUs College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences.Read MoreA New Solution to Water Purification in Rural AreasLow-Tech Solutions Fight HungerSelf-Powered Soft Bot Fuels New ApplicationsCurrent technology is constrained in the rate of application. We use the laser sensors like an eye to detect a tree, its size and shape, and plant density to decide spray volume. It only sprays to targets.Heping Zhu, USDA engineer

When to Make a Decision for Your Boss - The Muse

When to Make a Decision for Your Boss - The MuseWhen to Make a Decision for Your Boss Your boss is on vacation and something comes up at the office- an executive decision needs to be made. Do you step in? Its a situation that plenty of employees will face at some point in their careers. I know almost everyone on my gruppe has had to deal with it before. Depending on the company you work for, its culture, your role, and a variety of other factors, some employees may encounter this scenario more often than others. When it happens, how do you decide whether you have the right to make that executive decision or not? Here are a few things to consider.1. What Is the Company Culture Like?At some businesses, innovation, ideas, and self-starters are prized, and at others, traditional layers of management are the norm. If you work for a company at which the boss tends to takes a laissez-faire approach, you can feel a more confident in making high-level decisions, even if youre not the boss. Co nsider my company for example For a long time, ShortStack operated on a flat management system, so I relied on almost every employee to be his or her own boss. My public relations manager often wrote and distributed press releases without approval. This process worked for us, because she knew what I wanted to convey to the media, and I trusted her to do her job without needing to be micromanaged. However, if youve never been given the freedom to make important decisions without input from your manager or executives, youll have to tread lightly. For example, if youre a graphic designer and you dont like the colors of your companys web page, you should probably ask a few higher-ups before unveiling a new palette. If its a smaller issue- like you notice a small typo on the site- you have a much better chance of being able to fix it without getting reprimanded. 2. Do You Know All of the Details?The best way to determine whether you should make an executive decision or not is to think li ke an executive. As a CEO, my thought process for nearly every decision begins with the same few questions Do our customers need this? Will it make them happy? Will it help the business grow? And perhaps most importantly, Do I have all the information necessary to make this decision?I recently had an employee make what she thought was a great decision- to switch the companys phone contract to a new provider. On the face of it, it looked like it was going to save the company a ton of money. What she didnt know was that we were two months away from the end of the contract with our current provider and were going to get a leistungspunkt that would have gotten us a free year of phone services. Bottom line You have to make sure you know all the details- otherwise, your do-gooding could blow up in your face. Taking a moment to ask yourself the questions that your boss would ask can give you some insight about whether you should be making a particular decision. This will also help you remo ve your ego from the equation- because you should never make a decision just to win decisions should be made based on data and company goals.3. Have You Talked Through Your Idea With Anyone Else?Before you make an executive decision, its wise to consult with other people in the company, even if they arent executives, either.This is especially valuable if youre at a company thats a little more strict about the decision-making process. When multiple team members rally for a cause, its more convincing than when one person makes a decision single-handedly.Consulting with another team member can also provide a different view on the situation. Lets go back to the web page colors You may think they need to be changed, but by conversing with another designer, you may learn more about why the current colors were selected. There could be a strategy in place that you didnt know about until you communicated with that other team member. Above all else, the best thing you can do to prepare for th ese decision-making situations is to speak with your executives and learn your boundaries. Determine when its acceptable for you to make decisions and when its not. But in the meantime, if youre faced with a decision to be made, ask yourself these three questions, and youll be on your way to making the best decision possible. Photo of banging gavel courtesy of Shutterstock

This 45-year-old study reveals why its so hard to break addictions

This 45-year-old study reveals why it’s so hard to break addictions This 45-year-old study reveals why it’s so hard to break addictions On June 17, 1971, the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, stood in front of a lectern during a press conference and declared drug abuse, “public enemy number one,” and continued to say that “in order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.” [1]7 months prior to this date, two U.S. congressmen, Robert Steele from Connecticut and Morgan Murphy from Illinois, traveled to Vietnam for an official visit and returned home with horrific news that stunned the public: over 15 percent of U.S. soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war were heroin addicts. [2]In response to these reports, President Nixon created a new executive agency - the Special Action Of?ce for Drug Abuse Prevention - to promote prevention of “public enemy number one” and rehabilitation of Vietnam war veterans.But Nixon wasn’t done waging this “new, all-out offensive.”Nixon wanted to figure out what happened to the Heroin-addicted servicemen once they returne d to the U.S. And so, he commissioned this task to Jerome Jaffe- the head of the new drug abuse office- who in turn recruited a researcher named Lee Robins to conduct an extensive study into the addicted servicemen.The popular belief at the time was that Heroin is the most addictive substance and once you got addicted to it, you were hooked for life.But when Robins reported her findings from years of research into Vietnam war veterans, something didn’t quite add up.Robins discovered that the number of Vietnam servicemen who took Heroin one year after returning home to the U.S. was shockingly low: only 5 percent. And after three years only 12 percent relapsed. [3]Considering the relapse rates of drug addicts at the time hovered around 90 percent, Robins’ findings shook the foundation of everything the clinical world believed about addictions.A puzzling question then is: why is it so hard to break addictions? And how did so many heroin-addicted Vietnam war veterans, break their ad dictions in such a short period of time?Everything we know about addiction is wrongIn the early 20th century, a series of rat experiments were conducted to uncover the effects of drug addiction in humans, and some were displayed in the form of anti-drug television advertisements across the U.S.One famous 1980s advertisement said: “Only one drug is so addictive, nine out of ten laboratory rats will use it. And use it. And use it. Until dead…. It’s called cocaine. And it can do the same thing to you.” [4]The experiment was simple: you take a rat and put it in a cage with two water bottles attached to it. One bottle is filled with only water. The other contains water laced with heroin or cocaine. Nine times out of ten, the rat will become addicted to the drug laced water, and keep coming back for more of it until it kills itself. [5]It was from these experiments that the widespread belief that drugs caused addiction emerged.But in the 1970s, Bruce Alexander, a researcher at Sim on Fraser University, conducted “Rat Park” experiments to challenge these ideas. [6]To do this, Alexander placed rats in two separate housing spaces. In one housing space, rats were isolated from other rats and lived in small metal cages. In the other, 16 to 20 rats of both sexes lived together in “Rat Park”- a large housing colony with climbing poles, balls, wheels, open-topped cages, and an abundance of food and sex- in short, heaven on earth for rats.In both housing spaces, there were two separate liquids presented to the rats: one contained morphine (an opioid class of drug) and the other,  only water.The results from the experiments were astonishing.Alexander discovered that the isolated rats consumed significantly more morphine solution than the social rats in the “Rat Park.” In fact, during one phase of the experiment where water and morphine were presented in alternative days, the “Rat Park” rats consumed even less morphine than they had done so in previous phases of the experiment.Coincidentally, Alexander had stumbled into the same conclusions about addiction, that Robins had also discovered a few years earlier during the Vietnam war veterans heroin study.This conclusion, which flies in the face of everything we think we know about addiction, was best summarized by Bruce Alexander himself:“Addiction is an adaptation. It’s not you- it’s the cage you live in.” (Source:  Chasing the Scream  (audiobook):  The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs). [7]The hidden force behind addictionAfter Robins presented the study that delivered a heavy blow to widely held beliefs that heroin addiction was unbreakable, a puzzling question still remained: why did so many Heroin-addicted Vietnam war veterans break their addiction, almost overnight?To solve this head-scratching puzzle, Robins interviewed the war veterans and asked them to explain why they had stopped the use of heroin after returning back to the U.S. from Vietnam.  8During the i nterviews, the Vietnam war veterans highlighted that  heroin was much easier to obtain and use in Vietnam than back home in the U.S.In Vietnam, soldiers could easily purchase heroin for an extremely low price of 6 dollars for a high purity bag (90 percent). Conversely, in the U.S., the price of heroin was much higher at 20 dollars for a street bag of 10 percent purity.  9In addition, in Vietnam, Heroin could be easily smoked and did not need to be injected, unlike heroin use in the United States. This eliminated a major barrier to initiating the use of heroin.All of this combined with a social network of heroin-addicted fellow soldiers, extremely poor living conditions and high levels of stress from warfare, created the perfect environment for heroin addiction.But when the soldiers returned to the U.S. from Vietnam, they were exposed to a completely different environment.They no longer woke up to rattles of gunfire in Vietnam jungles and loud noises of helicopter blades in the middl e of the night. Neither did they live with heroin-addicted servicemen or the high stress of warfare.Back home, the soldiers lived in much better living conditions, and like most American citizens at the time, they’d go to work during the day and spend their evenings with their families.The war veterans also noted that the fear of arrest and imprisonment, and strong disapproval from friends and family were strong deterrents from the use of Heroin in the U.S.In short, the environment in Vietnam made it much easier to get addicted to Heroin and much harder to break the addiction, than in the U.S. And vice versa.The answer to puzzling question was simple:  the main reason why the majority of Vietnam war veterans broke their Heroin addiction was not because of willpower or a change in attitude- it was because of a  radical change in their environment.This conclusion meshes well with studies that show that approximately 45 percent of what we do on a daily basis takes place within the sa me environment.  10For example, the mere sight of the entrance to an office building or a regular smoking area, is a powerful environmental cue to a smoker to go to this location and repeat the habit of smoking.Over time these environmental cues become so ingrained in our psyche that we repeat the bad behaviors on autopilot, even when we don’t want to i.e. eating ice cream in front of the TV, reading emails as soon as we wake up in the morning and browsing on social media during working hours.This is why the hidden force behind addiction is environment, and the best way to  break bad habits  and change our lives for the better, is to radically change our environment.Willpower isn’t enoughThe mass media has sold us on the idea that addictions and bad habits are primarily driven by chemicals in our body, genetics, and lack of willpower and motivation.But as we’ve learned from the studies into the heroin-addicted Vietnam war veterans who returned home and broke their heroin addic tions, the main reason why it’s so hard to break addictions is the environment.The easier your environment makes it to act on a bad behavior, the less self-control you have to resist temptation and the harder it is to break the bad habit. And vice versa.We’d like to think that we control our actions, but in reality, environment is the invisible hand that shapes our behavior and nudges us towards the destiny of our lives.Mayo Oshin writes at  MayoOshin.Com, where he shares the best practical ideas based on proven science and the habits of highly successful people for stress-free productivity and improved mental performance. To get these strategies to stop procrastinating, get more things by doing less and improve your focus,  join his free weekly newsletter.”A version of this  article  originally appeared at  mayooshin.com  as  â€œThis 45-Year-Old Study on Heroin-Addicted Vietnam War Veterans Reveals Why It’s So Hard to Break Addictions.”FOOTNOTES Video excerpt  of the press conference during which President Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one. 2. Kuzmarov J. The myth of the ‘addicted army’: drug use in Vietnam in historical perspective. War Society 2007; 26:121â€"41. 3. Lee N. Robins, Darlene H. Davis, and David N. Nurco, “Robins L. N. The Vietnam drug user returns: ?nal report,September 1973. Lee N. Robins et al., “Vietnam Veterans Three Years after Vietnam: How Our Study Changed Our View of Heroin,” American Journal on Addictions 19, no. 3 (2010), doi:10.1111/j.1521â€"0391.2010.00046.x. 4.  Video footage  of 1980s rat experiment advert 5. Morphine experiment. Nichols, J. R., Headlee, C. P., Coppock, H. W.: Drug addiction. I. Addiction by escape training. J. Am. Pharm. Assoc. 45, 788â€"791 (1956) 6. Alexander, B.K., Coambs, R.B., and Hadaway, P.F. (1978). “The effect of housing and gender on morphine self-administration in rats,” Psychopharmacology, Vol 58, 175â€"179. 7. Johann Hari (2015).  Chasing the Scream  : The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs.  (audiobook). 8. Robins L. N. The Vietnam drug user returns: ?nal report,September 1973. 9. Johnson B. D., Golub A. Generational trends in heroin use and injection in New York City. In: Musto D., editor. One Hundred Years of Heroin. Westport, CT: Auburn House;2002, pp. 91â€"130. 10. Neal, David Wood, Wendy M. Quinn, Jeffrey. (2006).  Habits- A Repeat Performance