An examination of the use of standard operating procedures on family-operated farms.

Standard operating procedures (SOPs) can improve farm work organization by ensuring processes are standardized among the different people completing the same task. In this study, we examined the use of SOPs on family-operated farms and determined the influence of the number of people working on a farm on SOP use. A survey of 315 Irish dairy farms was completed examining the human resource and workload management practices; this study used a subset of questions from that survey.

Eliminating osmotic stress during cryoprotectant loading: A mathematical investigation of solute-solvent transport.

Osmotic stresses during cryoprotectant loading induce changes in cellular volume, leading to membrane damage or even cell death. Appropriate model-guided mitigation of these osmotic gradients during cryoprotectant loading is currently lacking, but would be highly beneficial in reducing viability loss during the loading process. To address this need, we reformulate the two-parameter formalism described by Jacobs and Stewart for cryoprotectant loading under the constraint of constant cell volume.

Perspectives and needs of assistive technology advisors and suppliers in Queensland, Australia.

Purpose: An assistive technology ecosystem requires co-ordinated collaboration between policy, products, provision processes, and personnel. A needs assessment was conducted of the assistive technology sector in Queensland to examine these components from the perspective of all key stakeholders. This paper reports the findings of the expressed needs of the assistive technology sector as experienced by the AT advisors and suppliers.

Molecular-based laboratory testing confer accuracy over microscopical testing for tick identification.

As per published literature, the tick is the primary Lyme disease vector in British Columbia (BC), while the tick species is the dominant vector on the East Coast of Canada, with no . presence seen in BC. However, a recent publication reported presence of in BC which initiated this study to determine the accuracy of the microscopic identification of ticks received in the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) Public Health Laboratory and compare morphologic methods to molecular methods.