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Program Highlights:


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The Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation (ANC) fosters the study of adaptive processes in both artificial and biological systems.
The Institute encourages interdisciplinary and collaborative work bringing together the traditional disciplines of neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, mathematics and statistics. Combined study of the adaptive nature of artificial and biological systems facilitates the many benefits accruing from treating essentially the same problem from different perspectives.
Most of our research falls within the following broad areas:
Computational Neuroscience
and Neuroinformatics
Machine Learning
Computational Biology
and Bioinformatics
We are a research institute in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh.

subset: commoncrawl


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South African Journal of Science
On-line version ISSN 1996-7489
Print version ISSN 0038-2353
S. Afr. j. sci. vol.104 n.7-8 Pretoria Sep./Aug. 2008
A role for barcoding in the study of African fish diversity and conservation
Ernst R. SwartzI, *; Monica MwaleI; Robert HannerII
ISouth African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity, Private Bag 1018, Grahamstown 6140, South Africa
IICanadian Centre for DNA Barcoding, Biodiversity Institute of Ontario, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada
Africa has a rich diversity of marine and freshwater fishes, but very little taxonomic expertise or funding to describe it. New approaches to using modern technology, such as DNA barcoding, can facilitate collaboration between field biologists, reference collections and sequencing facilities to speed up the process of species identification and diversity assessments, provided specimen vouchers, tissues, photographs of the specimen and DNA sequences (barcodes) are clearly linked. The FISH-BOL project in Africa aims to establish a collaborative Pan-African regional working group to facilitate barcoding of fish across the continent and the surrounding FAO marine regions. This is being established through existing African biodiversity networks and global biodiversity programmes that are already in place. Barcoding is expected to inform African fisheries management and conservation through more accurate identification of species and their different life-history stages, by speeding up biodiversity assessments. Barcoding is an important development, contributing towards an evolutionary history perspective on which to base Africa's conservation strategies.
Biodiversity assessments and implementation of conservation actions worldwide are hampered by slow progress in taxonomic research, termed the Taxonomic Impediment.1 The existing workforce of taxonomists cannot cope with the overwhelming need for basic field surveys, species descriptions and systematic revisions to provide basic information for conservation planning. In addition, Costa and Carvalho2 suggested that few taxonomists are able to distinguish critically between more than 1000 taxa. The reality facing taxonomy is that there may be more species that remain to be discovered on Earth than those that have already been described.3 It is estimated that 1.41.8 million species have been described46 out of a possible total of approximately 715 million.6 Species and populations are going extinct at an alarming but poorly understood rate.7,8 Many species may be going extinct before they can be identified or described. This presents a problem for conservation planning and prioritization, obviously because species that have not been identified cannot be protected effectively.
This problem is especially evident in Africa, whose rich biodiversity is poorly known. Taxonomic expertise is lacking even for major and commercially important groups. The few taxonomists who are working in developing countries, home to more than 95% of globally described species, find it difficult to access basic taxonomic information such as species descriptions.9 Where taxonomic keys are available, they are rarely revised and often inadequate to identify specimens unambiguously to the species level.10 A further problem in Africa is that funding for taxonomic research and the museums or facilities that host biodiversity collections has been poor or non-existent, few new taxonomists are being trained, retirees are often not replaced and salaries are not competitive, such that the overall taxonomic expertise is declining.11,12
There have been strident calls on the taxonomy community to embrace new technologies and to form networks to speed up the description of biodiversity13,14 and to improve our ability to identify species.2,1518 How this could be achieved without compromising rigorous taxonomic research principles is, however, questioned.19 There is legitimate concern that too little money is being spent on morphological taxonomy compared to molecular studies.20 A purely DNA taxonomy approach (e.g. Blaxter21), not to be confused with DNA barcoding,22 is too simplistic in our view. DNA taxonomy can, however, provide additional characters for discrimination, especially in cases where other characters vary among species and are thus difficult to interpret. Therefore we do not agree with de Carvalho et al.19 that a molecular approach will do little to address the real problems in taxonomy. In our experience, most traditional taxonomists welcome the opportunity to refer to molecular data, but DNA taxonomy should not replace taxonomic research that can be based on multiple character data sets.
Nucleotide sequence divergence in short, standardized gene regions (DNA barcodes) can be used to identify known species and facilitate the discovery of new ones.15,23 Mitochondrial DNA is a valuable marker in population genetic or phylogeographic studies because it is maternally inherited, evolves rapidly and recombination is rare or absent.24 Therefore, a part of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) has been chosen as a standard gene region for barcoding animals. Although there was no a priori reason for choosing COI among the 13 protein-coding mitochondrial genes,15 it has the advantage of having robust universal primers that can recover the 5' end of COI of most animal species. Barcoding of species has become cheaper through the technological advances made by other molecular programmes, especially the human genome project.25 Rapid barcoding and comparison with the growing database of COI sequences26 will increase the speed of identification of newly collected or unknown specimens. This may focus taxonomists' attention on unidentified lineages, and with the addition of morphological and other taxonomically relevant data, could lead to a faster rate of species description.
The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) was established as a growing coalition of biodiversity organizations interested in developing barcoding as a global standard for DNA-based species identification. CBOL promotes FISH-BOL as an international campaign to barcode all marine and freshwater fish. FISH-BOL consists of ten regional working groups representing Africa, Australia, Oceania/Antarctica, the Americas (North, Central and South America), Europe and Asia (India, North East Asia, and South East Asia). Each of these regional working groups is charged with the task of organizing support and participation to barcode the ichthyofauna within their region, based on expert-identified voucher specimens.
The main purpose of barcoding is to identify species reliably, increase the rate of species discovery and raise the profile of taxonomic research.27 The vision for the African FISH-BOL programme is to co-ordinate a Pan-African coalition generating taxonomic reference data in a common format to fulfil the common goal of barcoding all Africa's fishes. The aim is eventually to establish a coherent information framework for revisionary fish taxonomy and diversity studies. This can only be achieved through the production of a dynamic catalogue of African fishes, complete with monitoring tools (such as barcodes) that can facilitate a greater understanding of natural history through molecular ecology studies.
In this review, we illustrate the role of FISH-BOL (www. fishbol.org) in taxonomic and diversity studies in Africa, with applications in conservation, fisheries management, identification of alien invasive fishes, law enforcement and resource management. We show that FISH-BOL will lead to greater access to African fish diversity information through a global alignment of resources and linkages to other global networks. We summarize the functioning and aims of the African FISH-BOL programme and draw conclusions about its potential role in African fish diversity assessments and conservation.
Why barcode fish in Africa?
Barcoding has an important role to play in phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies,28 especially in terms of generating hypotheses. With barcoding being applied broadly to African fishes, we anticipate it will focus attention on a plethora of species identification problems, which can then be resolved with specific morphological, phylogeographic and phylogenetic studies. Several fish genetic studies in Africa have already employed mitochondrial DNA sequence data.2931 These studies are, however, not comparable for the purposes of species identification as different regions of the mitochondrial genome were used. The African projects proposed by FISH-BOL are also on a larger scale than previous molecular studies.
These projects are designed to identify species through a composite database based on the mitochondrial COI region of as many species as possible, to provide a hitherto unavailable 'horizontal genomics' perspective.28 This COI database can form the foundation for more detailed phylogeographic studies. In their planning phases, preliminary analyses of phylogenetic studies will be able to benefit from this species-rich COI database in important ways. One such benefit will be in selecting in- or outgroups suitable for molecular phylogenetic analyses in a particular study.
The identification of species remains, however, the main objective of barcoding. Owing to maternal inheritance, mtDNA reflects only a portion of the ancestry of a species. Additional information is necessary to test whether divergent mtDNA lineages constitute separate species.3234 We therefore view provisional species assignments (that is, not formal descriptions) based only on mtDNA as working hypotheses. As new collections are made, individuals suspected of being unique (especially of equivocal taxonomic status) can be barcoded. If they are divergent or form part of a unique lineage, they can then be flagged for further taxonomic investigation.
The identification process using COI sequence data for fish is looking promising, as supported by recent examples of its application. Hubert et al.35 were able to distinguish 93% of 190 Canadian freshwater fishes using DNA barcodes. The inability of COI barcodes to distinguish the remaining 7% (13 species) was attributed to recent speciation, introgressive hybridization (only two species) or the possibility that some of these taxa may not be different species. Ward et al.36 found that all the 207 marine species that they sequenced from Australia could be discriminated using the mitochondrial DNA COI gene, with 98% of these being amplified using only one primer set. They found that only two sequences out of 754 tested appeared in the 'wrong' species identification because of hybridization or incorrect original identification. No transfers of mitochondrial COI sequences into the nuclear genome were observed. Pseudogenes or NUMTs may not be a serious problem in fish, as Venkatesh et al.37 did not find any mitochondrial pseudogenes in the Fugu nuclear genome, but Waters and Wallis38 did find pseudogenes in Galaxias from New Zealand. Pseudogenes did not significantly affect the barcoding of birds.39 The study of Ward et al.36 adds empirical evidence to expanding documentation, which shows that barcoding can discriminate between species, for example North Atlantic sharks,40 North American birds,41 neotropical butterflies,42 Arctic springtails,43 marine bryozoans,23 and Indo-Pacific coral reef stomatopods.44
The potential contributions of barcoding in African fisheries management should not be underestimated. Global capture fisheries yielded 95 million tonnes in 2004 with an estimated first-sale value of US$84.9 billion.45 Marine and freshwater ecosystems are under threat globally because of over-exploitation, alien invasion, habitat destruction, pollution and climate change.46,47 Accurate identification is essential in assessing the distribution, utilization and spread of fish species, therefore, prioritizing fish biodiversity assessments using barcoding is not only a global but also an African necessity.
In 2006, a CBOL meeting in Cape Town (South Africa) identified barcoding in fish stock management in African countries as a priority. Barcoding has an application in forensics for African fisheries departments to prosecute illegal fishing, even after processing has already occurred, because only a small part of the fish is needed for DNA analysis. An example is the illegal shark-fin trade, which is a major problem in most coastal African countries. Barcoding can identify different shark species,40 suggesting a potential role in law enforcement once a reference database has been established. An improved species identification system will contribute to better and more accurate statistics on stock trends, requested by the FAO since the 1960s.48
Barcoding may help link life-history stages, since little taxonomic information and few descriptions are available for fish larvae and eggs (e.g. refs 4951). Incorrect identification of larvae will mislead understanding of speciation, diversity, niche partitioning and other ecosystem features.51 Barcoding can also be used in feeding biology to identify gut contents of fishes, especially organisms that are partially digested.52 It may also help prevent the spread of alien fish species, because even eggs that are being translocated can be barcoded, and alien parasites can be identified in a similar manner to the study of Siddall and Budinoff53 on alien leeches in North America. This is important for freshwater systems globally, since the continuous introduction of alien fish species has been identified as the most critical threat to freshwater biodiversity.46
Molecular studies have improved our understanding of aquatic biodiversity; for example, 15 historically isolated lineages were identified within the seven described Pseudobarbus species that occur in Lesotho and in the Cape Floristic Region in South Africa.54 Although this knowledge alone does not solve the taxonomic problems in the group, it makes a critical contribution to our understanding of the underlying taxonomic diversity. This genetic information has provided especially valuable insights into the formative processes that shaped the evolutionary history of these lineages.31 Ultimately, such studies may contribute to biodiversity conservation planning before formal taxonomic descriptions are completed or even before formal publication of results. Such a precautionary approach is justified, especially for freshwater aquatic organisms that seem to have higher levels of population differentiation than most marine and terrestrial species. In addition, taxonomic groups with the highest proportion of IUCN assessed threatened species (www.redlist.org), are those that rely on freshwater habitats.47 With more than half the accessible surface freshwater being used for humanity and about 60% of humanity living within 100 km of the productive coastlines,55 the conservation of freshwater and marine fishes is a priority.
One of the most important applications of a comprehensive, Pan-African barcoding study of fish will be more robust estimates of the phylogenetic diversity of different biogeographic regions. Phylogenetic diversity is a critical factor in conservation planning.56 A sufficient accumulation of barcodes will help conservation managers identify interim priority areas for conservation in the absence of good species data.
As PCR and sequencing technology advancessuch as nanolitre-scale sequencing technology developments57the evolution of a hand-held barcoder becomes more feasible. Fisheries managers, conservationists, legal authorities, ecologists, animal health professionals, agricultural practitioners, amateur naturalists and even the general angling public can collect molecular-based biodiversity data if such a 'barcoder' becomes widely available.58 This will markedly increase our capacity to identify species and understand the distribution of indigenous and alien fish species and their unique genetic lineages, especially in Africa where there are few trained taxonomists and sequencing facilities. It may also spark more interest in biodiversity, taxonomy and conservation issues if the general public have easier access to species information through rapid species identification.2,59
The FISH-BOL programme provides a platform for students trained in molecular systematics to collaborate with taxonomic experts to increase the transfer of knowledge and help train new taxonomists. Barcoding will not only provide a new avenue for researchers from different disciplines to collaborate more closely, but will also accelerate the process of species identification and discovery. These developments will be facilitated by a large online and publicly available reference database of DNA barcode information (Barcode of Life Data System, or BOLD26) for DNA sequence analyses and rapid species identification. BOLD may also help to link the user to taxonomic expertise and give the country of origin easier access to biodiversity information. The link between the barcode sequence, voucher specimen, image of the specimen and all the associated collecting and geographical information for future verification of species identity will add value to museum collections. Large-scale barcoding will also allow biomaterial banks to evaluate the effectiveness of their biomaterial curation techniques, as there is concern about the integrity of the nucleic acids of tissue samples stored in 98% ethanol or frozen at 20°C for more than five years.60 With so many fishes that remain to be investigated, FISH-BOL will not only increase the profile of museum collections, but will also expand existing scientific networks and collaborations throughout the continent.
A global network linked to the African FISH-BOL project
The FISH-BOL campaign will build on the success of sister projects that focus on other taxa, namely the All Birds Barcoding Initiative (ABBI) and the All Leps (Lepidoptera) Barcode of Life campaign. The FISH-BOL project will be more challenging than the All Birds project, not only because fish are far more diverse, but also because there is much less taxonomic information and expertise available. FISH-BOL, under the auspices of the Consortium for the Barcode of Life, has already assisted in driving a coherent approach within the taxonomic community. CBOL has built up an impressive network of collaborating organizations (for more information on CBOL and barcoding in general, see Savolainen et al.61 or visit www.barcoding.si.edu). One of these, the Census of Marine Life (CoML), has joined forces with CBOL and FISH-BOL to speed up the description of marine biodiversity.62 CoML will be a particularly valuable collaborator for FISH-BOL in Africa, because the programme has been productive in increasing exploration to assess diversity, distribution and abundance of marine life in African regions where little work had been done previously.
FISHBASE, the California Academy of Sciences' Catalog of Fishes and the Integrated Taxonomic Information System (ITIS) are other major depositories for updated taxonomic and biological information on fish species globally. FISH-BOL is currently using FISHBASE as its global taxonomic authority, but is also collaborating with Catalog of Fishes, ITIS and FISHBASE to incorporate their information into a resolved checklist for all fishes. FISH-BOL also supports the efforts of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN) to establish a common registry of animal names. Some authors are already including barcodes of the holotype in their species descriptions,63,64 and this is expected to help reconcile and resolve ambiguities in the application of taxonomic names going forward.
The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) has given scientists, conservationists and policy-makers access to geo-referenced, species databases across the world. Information relating to the South African National Fish Collection at the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB), for example, has been linked through the South African Biodiversity Information Facility (SABIF) node to GBIF. FISH-BOL, through CBOL, is an associate participant in GBIF. Together, these initiatives aim to develop standards and protocols that will link voucher specimen data with barcode data. The U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is also working with GBIF and CBOL to make this happen and is the final depository (GenBank) for barcode sequences mainly administered through BOLD.26 This illustrates FISH-BOL and CBOL's commitment to work with established global programmes, networks and with the taxonomic community to increase the efficiency of describing biodiversity.
Several other global programmes and campaigns have attempted to inject new life into taxonomy over the years, and some have benefited African taxonomic research and inventories. For freshwater fish, the Cypriniformes Tree of Life (CToL) programme focused mainly on a phylogeny of cypriniform fishes, which includes the largest family of fishes, the Cyprinidae, with many species in Africa. In addition, the All Species Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), is attempting to describe all species on Earth in one human generation (25 years). They support the All Catfish Species Inventory programme that has been successful in increasing the number of species descriptions for fishes, in this case siluriform catfishes. These global initiatives, like many others, have been less successful in Africa, mainly because of a lack of taxonomic expertise in African countries to participate effectively. FISH-BOL will rely on its network of experts to identify fish and to train current African museum staff and field biologists in collecting data for barcoding.
The FISH-BOL programme will also explore other existing biodiversity networks in Africa to expand its operations. BioNET is attempting to promote taxonomy through the North African (NAFRINET), West African (WAFRINET), East African (EAFRINET) and the Southern African (SAFRINET) partnerships for taxonomy, the last becoming an official project of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). BioNET through EAFRINET has already held a regional meeting in Kenya and established the East African Barcoding Initiative (EABI). This group has recognized the need to barcode fish diversity and arranged a barcoding workshop to develop a proposal for a regional project on barcoding cyprinids. In South Africa, the South African Biosystematics Initiative (SABI) has stimulated research in taxonomy by providing dedicated government funding for taxonomic research. Nevertheless, there has been limited increase in the capacity of fish taxonomic research. The likely reasons for this deficiency include a lack of employment opportunities in museums or research institutions, and declining taxonomic expertise to train students. Only three fish taxonomic experts are formally employed in exclusively taxonomic positions in southern Africa, two at SAIAB in Grahamstown and one at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town. Although most new appointees in biodiversity-related posts have multidisciplinary skills (often including experience in molecular genetics and systematics), they lack the taxonomic expertise that is usually acquired only through years of research on a specific taxonomic group. This situation is a global problem, but especially exacerbates the Taxonomic Impediment in East, West and North Africa. It is therefore vital to increase collaboration by sharing the limited expertise and to encourage capacity building amongst African countries. If this is not addressed, Africa's fish diversity will not be managed in a sustainable manner.
SAIAB has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding (CCDB) at the University of Guelph, and a Memorandum of Cooperation with CBOL to stimulate an African fish barcoding programme through the global FISH-BOL initiative. These developments act on the call by Klopper et al.65 to strengthen southsouth and northsouth collaboration to improve the capacity of taxonomic research in Africa. FISH-BOL will attempt to barcode all fish on Earth. This is indeed an ambitious task but it will be realistic to barcode all the available samples currently in collections within a relatively short period of time. Researchers from South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Benin, Ghana, Seychelles, Belgium and the United Kingdom have already expressed their interest in FISH-BOL through participation in African Regional Working Group activities.
Aims and challenges of the African FISH-BOL programme
The African FISH-BOL campaign will focus on all the fishes of the continent and the surrounding FAO marine regions 1, 34, 47 and 51 (see www.fishbol.org). The current FISH-BOL target for Africa of 8720 species that is based on FISHBASE is probably a major underestimate of the number of species that will eventually need to be investigated to make the campaign a success. The African Regional Working Group has been charged with editing the global checklist against African regional checklists. This review has already started with IUCN freshwater biodiversity projects in eastern and southern Africa, which suggest not only that many more fish species exist, but also that many of them remain undescribed.
May66 suggested that the rate-limiting factor in describing biodiversity will remain the collection of new species in the field. This is especially true for Africa, where routine and geographically representative collection of species in the field remains problematic due to national conflicts, inaccessibility and a lack of capacity and logistical support. Of particular concern are those countries with the highest freshwater fish diversity and levels of endemism (Figs 1 and 2) based on data from FISHBASE (www.fishbase.org), without which the FISH-BOL programme will not achieve its goal of barcoding most of Africa's fish species. A successful programme in Africa will also make a major contribution to the barcoding of all the marine fish species in the world. For example, only about 5% of the southern African marine fish fauna has a worldwide distribution, whereas 16% is endemic to this region67 (Fig. 3).
The biggest challenge for the FISH-BOL project in Africa will be to collect, curate and accurately capture information in databases and deliver vouchers and samples of the species that are not already represented in natural history collections, to sequencing facilities. Field biologists interested in biodiversity, taxonomy and/or species identification can make an important contribution to this programme. Taxonomists will have a critical role in preparing and identifying vouchers for museum collections. BOLD has been designed specifically to link barcoding information to museum-registered specimens, so that taxonomic experts can go back to specimens to re-check identifications if necessary.26 This is crucial for new records or even conflicting results for known species. It will also be possible to submit sequences to GenBank (NCBI) directly from this database, where they will hold the status of 'Barcode' to signify their quality and direct linkage of DNA sequences to museum collection data. Barcoding therefore holds the promise to increase the usage of collections, and raise the profile of collections at a time when many museums suffer from budgetary constraints due to inappropriate governance and reduced government funding11,68,69 and will, we hope, also encourage better biomaterial banking practices.70,71 In the absence of other preferred facilities, SAIAB is currently the depository for tissues or extractions thereof (biomaterial bank), voucher specimens (main collection), images and associated locality and collection information (information system) that can be referred to once samples have been barcoded. All this information will be freely available to through SAIAB's web pages.
Many fish species remain to be discovered across the African continent and in its surrounding marine margins. We argue that barcoding holds a central role in the discovery and characterization of this diversity, and will also help democratize access to quality biodiversity information. Only time will tell how widely barcoding information will be used in fish species identification and aquatic biodiversity assessments in Africa. Preliminary results from the North American birds and Lepidoptera, North Atlantic shark and Australian marine fish projects have been positive. Although there are funding concerns, we envisage that FISH-BOL will provide previously inaccessible avenues of funding for taxonomic research in Africa. 'Barcoding' as a term immediately interests the public and therefore potential funders. The key challenge is for fish taxonomists, and the taxonomic community in general, to find ways in which this interest can be translated into greater support for taxonomic research, which will underpin the more efficient description of biodiversity.
The Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL) is thanked for support to attend meetings where many of the aspects of barcoding referred to in this paper were discussed. Denis Tweddle (SAIAB) and three anonymous reviewers are thanked for comments on the manuscript. Our research is supported through the Ontario Genomics Institute within the Canadian Barcode of Life Network by Genome Canada, NSERC and other sponsors listed at www.bolnet.ca
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Received 10 April. Accepted 5 August 2008.
* Author for correspondence. E-mail: email@example.com


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text:
Hello experts,
I would like to start to involve in backhaul/fronthaul area, i have been working so far 5 years in RAN and lately i am interested in expand my competencies toward transmission.
I have been looking in the forum for info about it for start from 0 but i have not found useful information considering my current background in the area.
Please if you have documents that might help me to start to develop this new competence please share them.
Thanks in advanced.


text:
Court of Appeals
Appointed Aug. 15, 2012, by Governor Mark Dayton. Retired on Nov. 2, 2018. Appointed and assigned to serve on the Court of Appeals as a Senior Judge from Dec. 7, 2018, to June 30, 2019.
District Court
Appointed December 1, 1989, by Governor Rudy Perpich.
Elected 1992, 1998, 2004, 2010.
Assistant Chief Judge, Seventh Judicial District, 2000 to 2005.
Chief Judge, Seventh Judicial District, 2005 to 2009.
J.D., cum laude, University of Minnesota Law School, 1975B.A. in Economics, University of Minnesota, 1972
Otter Tail County Attorney, 1978-1989Williams and Nitz Law Firm, Fergus Falls, Minnesota, 1975-1978
Minnesota Supreme Court Committee on Rules of Criminal ProcedureClay County Bar Association
Minnesota Judicial CouncilMinnesota County Attorney's Association (Director)Otter Tail County Bar Association (President, 1978)Minnesota Supreme Court Committee on Rules of EvidenceMinnesota Supreme Court Committee on Child Protection Procedures
Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure, Northland Community College
Business Law, Minnesota State University Moorhead
Bemidji Trial School, sponsored by the Minnesota Attorney General's Office, County Attorneys' Association, and State Board of Public Defense (1986-2002)
New Judges Orientation, Criminal Trial issues, presented twice a year
Numerous CLEs and other presentations


text:
By John Chacona
copy writer, Gannon University Marketing Office
This article appears on page 17 of the Summer, 2012 issue of Gannon Magazine. You can read the magazine in its entirety here.
Passion and accounting are terms that coexist uneasily, but Jiangxia "Renee" Liu, Ph.D., assistant professor of accounting in Gannon University's Dahlkemper School of Business Administration, easily reconciles the two.
"Teaching is where my passion lies," she readily admits, adding that, "What I enjoy most is the journey and experience of exploring effective methods to deliver course materials and motivate student learning."
The journey is an apt metaphor for Liu. That journey is more than one of distance, though; as a native of China, Liu came halfway around the world to find her passion.
It is also the journey of her native land, which during her lifetime, has become an economic dynamo, a fate she could scarcely have imagined in the China of her birth. Accountancy was, like all aspects of the Chinese command economy, strictly controlled by the Communist Party of China, and the profession in China had little contact with—or application to—the rest of the world.
All that changed in 1992, when a new accounting framework was needed for China's exploding socialist economy. Six years later, Liu received a bachelor of science degree from Chongqing University in Chongqing, China. Located in the far inland province of Sichuan, Chongqing is perhaps the least-known large city (29 million people) on the globe.
The Chinese economic miracle was founded on world trade, and often that trade is in minds as well as goods. Liu came to another inland city, Dallas, where she earned master's and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas at Dallas. She was a teaching assistant there, the beginning of her academic career, and after a stop at Western Carolina University, Liu's journey led her to Erie and to Gannon University.
Accounting is not usually thought of as a "high-touch" profession, but Liu uses tactile imagery to describe her classroom approach. "There are some students who are not very comfortable or interested in accounting," she says. "My aim is to help these students see, feel and learn accounting."
Like any esoteric discipline, the mysteries – and the beauties – of the orderliness represented by the notion of balancing books don't come easily to all students. But, when the moment of understanding arrives, Liu can sense it, too.
"I feel great satisfaction when they say things like, 'Aha! I got it.' These moments are really my
'Aha' moments also. I tell myself, 'Aha! I got you interested and made you understand accounting,'" she says, adding, "Their smiles and the feelings of achievement are my best gifts."
Liu's classes encompass a spectrum of complexity, with introductory and advanced classes in financial accounting and managerial accounting.
In 2009, a paper Liu wrote with three colleagues received the KPMG Best Paper Award at the annual meeting of the American Accounting Association in New York. The title of the paper was "The Gender Pay Gap in the Boardroom: Are Women Executives Underpaid?" It's a topic that would have been unthinkable in the China of Liu's childhood.
A long journey, indeed, and one that would have been impossible without a certain amount of passion. Inspiring that sort of passion is Liu's goal, and when she achieves it, she finds that it is returned, though in unusual ways and in unusual places.
"Among other places, while shopping for groceries, strolling around downtown and at a ball game. When I'm in places like this, I find my students and they tell me, 'Renee, you are the best.' That is just the best thing a teacher could hear."
Gannon University announces the launch of the Institute for Health and Cyber Knowledge (I-HACK).


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For the mechanically minded ,I discovered this rather fascinating insight into the operation of a Voith transmission.
Click on the items in the list to the left and prepare to be enlightened.
http://www.voithturbo.de/vt_en_paa_road ... _diwa3.htm
I finally know why they feel "different" when you take off from a stop.
The torque converter doubles as the retarder as well!!


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fellow americans, it's going to be okay. we're going to fight and defend our rights. you're strong, brave, and we're powerful together. ❤
This Christmas, give your family the gift of LEGO
The Wendy's social media manager gets a living wage and health insurance. Their store workers deserve the same.
I Really, Really, Really Like This Image
🌹🌹🌹may day is a great day to join the dsa🌹🌹🌹
Chelsea Manning is out of prison and eating pizza
We raised $4,495 for Direct Relief!
extremely important retrospective from the ex-social media manager of wendy's, who ran the twitter account when it went viral
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (fan art source)
$.69 in 1970 has the same buying power as $4.20 in 2014
polar bear on the run from the law
We have a filter that removes all posts from users with over 100k karma. A sub this easy to post to is maybe best for folks new at this game, and if you have this much karma maybe you should try doing something new? If you still want to post here, contact the moderators and we'll approve you!


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Determining peanut maturity or the optimum time for digging is always an important consideration for producers at harvest time, but it's receiving more attention than usual in Alabama this year.
"This is probably the most non-uniform peanut crop we've seen," said Kris Balkcom, Auburn University Extension peanut specialist, during a hull-scrape clinic held in mid-September in east Alabama.
With the hull-scrape method, a pod maturity profile board is used to determine if peanuts are ready for harvest. It is based on color changes in the middle layer of the peanut hull as the nut matures. The colors begin with white when kernels are watery and poorly defined. They change to light yellow, dark yellow, orange, brown and then to black when the kernels are completely developed.
"We had a lot of dry weather in Alabama this year, and peanuts have not been on a normal schedule," says Balkcom. "Generally, when peanuts come out of the ground, they start fruiting at 35 to 40 days old. This year, they may have laid there for 60 to 70 days before they started fruiting, so it's a challenge to determine the optimum time for digging."
A grower can determine the best time for digging by knocking off the hull and looking at the color, he says. "But in a year like this, when it has been dry for so long after fruiting, you still need to shell them out."
One of the growers who brought peanuts to the clinic was Robert Walters, who farms in east Alabama. In mid-September, he was about 10 to 15 days away from digging his crop. "Our irrigated peanuts look good, but our dryland crop is mediocre at best. We hope to get 2 tons from our irrigated crop, but you never know until you're finished," he says.
Dry weather had caused a slight delay in maturity, even for irrigated peanuts, says Walters.
This is Walters' third year for growing peanuts, in an area of Alabama that is fairly new to the business of peanut production. "I'll keep growing peanuts and keep them in the rotation. We made good crops in our first two years, and it has improved our cotton crops as far as reducing nematode pressure," he says.
Another area grower, George Holt, said his peanuts had good vine growth, and that a portion of the crop was ready to dig. Others were about two weeks away.
"All our peanuts were planted at the same time, but when they received showers determined the digging time. All our peanuts are dryland, and we were fortunate to get a few showers. All in all, our peanuts won't be as good as last year," says Holt.
Area Extension Agent Leonard Kuykendall says determining optimum maturity is one of the most important aspects of peanut production. "It's very important for final yields and grades. It can mean a difference in 500 pounds per acre. It also may save growers a fungicide treatment on the back end of the season. Every dollar is important, especially this year," he says.
Area Contract Extension Agent Jeff Clary adds that if growers dig too early, they could lose as much as $50 per acre per day. "And if they dig too late, it can cost them that much or more. Because of the dry weather this year, digging dates can be erratic, and each field is different because of rainfall at different times during the year," he says.
The entire state of Alabama has been extremely dry this year, with most counties falling into the "exceptional" category as rated by the U.S. Drought Monitor. "Southwest Alabama has fared better than anywhere else in the state," says Balkcom. "It depends to a large degree on which field you're in because of the spotty nature of rainfall this year. Last year was dry in Alabama, but his year has been different. In 2006, we established a stand and then went through a dry period during early summer. Then, it started raining into fall and continued raining through about harvest time. This year, we didn't establish a stand in every location. We haven't had consistent rainfall throughout the state this year — everything has been scattered showers."
Some growers, he says, will need late-season showers to finish maturing their peanut crops. "Those peanuts that were planted in May and came up at the end of June are still a long ways from being ready to harvest," said Balkcom in mid-September. "A big percentage of this year's crop is at that stage. The first frost could determine how late we'll go. Typically, we get a frost at the end of October. If we don't this year, our harvest could go through Thanksgiving.
"In southwest Alabama, it's not so unusual for growers to be digging peanuts into November. But southwest Alabama growers are further ahead this year than normal. Those growers usually don't get a frost until November."


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Nanci Soltani shared a clever way of saving up so she can attend the nail cruise each year — it's the Money Game.
Read more
As an educator for Crystal Culture, I was invited to update my training and become Swarovski authorized.
What education options are appealing to you for this year?
HRTE is a two-day event that incorporates all types of nail education and several different educators into one mix of non-manufacturer-specific education.
CND is giving out $1,000 scholarships to licensed nail professionals for advanced education.
ABS Chicago is offering complimentary classes in conjunction with Chicago Says No More on the subject of domestic violence.
I will be teaching my first official guest of show class at ISSE in Long Beach, January 29 and 30. The topic will be #naileyes and social media.
There are still spaces left on the Nail Talk Radio cruise in January.
Find out if you're using Facebook to promote yourself and your business effectively.
Business building, continuing education, and creating lifelong friendships is what happens at nail camp.
If you're attending Premiere Birmingham, Alabama tradeshow, Holly wants to see you!
Sign up for a free webinar with Doug Schoon as he offers information to help provide better and safer services.
Congrats to the scholarship winners for 2016 and learn how to enter for a shot at it next year!
I learned you can break rules in the name of creativity but first, you must know the rules in order to break them safely.
Do your nails for the coming week as if you were going to the tradeshow and use #myshownails on social media to share your nail looks.
ANP's Tech Talk event during the Best Lil Nail Show in Texas inspired a real conversation about issues that nail techs face today.
The tradeshow will make its debut with a seriously impressive lineup of companies, professionals, and things to do.
Join Holly and the Associated Nail Professionals for an educational webinar.
Tech Talk events are open forums with round table discussions among industry leaders and nail professionals.
This amazing experience is two days of inspirational instruction that is helpful for anyone from a beginner to a veteran.
Planning now while you have a little more to spend can make it easier to afford.
Holly discusses an affordable and convenient way to continue your education.
Companies are planning their 2016 educational classes now. Here's your chance to make your voices heard.
If you didn't attend, you are missing out on one of the industry's most awesome events!
My time there was so profound so I wanted to really put it out there in massive appreciation.
It is by far one of my very favorite industry events and a great time to connect with other nail professionals that inspire you.
My plan is to also be at the Nail Tech Networking event on Saturday night.
Holly shares about all the fun and infomative sessions that took place at the Nail Those Profit cruise.
Get a first hand look at day one of the Nail Those Profits cruise.
Holly looks back at a year of highs and lows acknowledging there's plenty to look forward to.
Holly shares nail photos from her education classes in the Carribbean.
After some serious consideration, Holly decided not to further pursue it into the Medical Nail Tech course.
How have you spotted improvements in your own work? Did you share them with clients or fellow professionals?
Holly is giving away nail goodies collected at nail camp.
Taking a trip to the Caribbean can turn into an educational opportunity.
During the third day at nail camp, Holly took a bootcamp course on IBX.
Day two at Nail Camp consisted of lots of workshop options and a birthday surprise.
To do the weekend at Nail Camp justice, Holly will break it down into a few blogs for you.
If you are not seeing improvement and the work stays the same for several years, it's time to consider a class.
After watching a reality tv show featuring nail techs, Holly was dissapointed to see folks in the industry portrayed as a stereotype.
Holly and industry scientist, Doug Schoon led a class on salon safety, light, gel, and more.
From hands-on segments to tips on business building, The Nail Platform kicked off to a good start in California.
Holly kicks off the Australian leg of her education tour and preps for the Sydney Beauty Expo.
Attendees of The Nail Platform will have the chance to win some big prizes while learning how to step up their technique.
Spots for the 2014 Northwest Nail Tech Retreat are still available.
The Nail Platform is an eight-hour educational session where students will learn from some of the industry's leading talent with no product bias.
Following the U.K. leg of her education tour, Holly heads to Australia in August.
Holly attended CND's Education Ambassador training and came away with some new techniques and a whole lot of fire for the industry!
Back from training in Turks & Caicos, Holly shares her feelings on seeing nail techs expand their knowledge.
Are we going to see each other in Gatlinburg, Tenn. this year? I've been counting down the days until this fun, nails-only show and getting the chance to have a great nail time with some of
What is the strangest medium you've ever used to explain something nail related? I find myself improvising sometimes in class or in the salon when I am trying to help someone visualize what I am talking
This weekend finds me in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm here for the beauty expo and to do a class for the nail distributor that brought me over. I'm excited to work for Aimee (shown in the
If you've met me then you know I'm generally laid back, hard-working, and pretty easy to get along with. If you've gotten to know me then you've found that occasionally I can let my inner mischievous
Holly (seated) presenting at a CND classOccasionally we bring up the subject of balance; it is a key component to surviving a career that you love. Sometimes to achieve balance you have to combine work and
Wow! Premiere Orlando was something else! If you were at the show, what were some of your favorite parts? What classes did you take? Something I enjoyed was participating in the live broadcast of Nail Talk
Thank you to everyone that stopped by the CND booth to say hello at ABS in Chicago! It was wonderful to see some of you again, as well as to meet some of you for the
If you are going to the Premiere Orlando this year, you can't miss the Nail Tech Network Social! It is such a great time for networking and seeing a glimpse of what will be at the
If you would be so kind as to indulge me, I would like to say a very honored and heartfelt thank you to the Cosmetologists and Barbers of Iowa (CBI) as well as the Iowa Cosmetology
The repeated bashing Dr Oz gives nail services is frustrating to say the least. What he continues to fail to mention is that there is a difference in the services from one salon to another. Something
For this week's business building blog we get advice from Paula Knight, nail professional, as well as a bonus — information on an educational event she is hosting! With the great line up she has I
The New Year is approaching fast and it is time to take a look at what is to come! What education are you thinking of for next year? Are you thinking of traveling to a show,
If you will indulge me, I would like to take a blog to thank everyone who took the time to come and see me at one of my UK tour stops. It was so wonderful to
While in the UK working at the Olympia Beauty Show in London, I was honored with my first "TV" interview done by Hollie Wakeham — UK Beauty Blogging, video trending, and industry interviewer. It was pretty
Today I have some good news for you and some bad news. Shall we have the bad news first so that it can be eclipsed by the good news? The bad news is I have a
I enjoyed seeing your ideas for add-ons! The add-on I wanted to share with you is body art. It is so much fun to do a fresh set of rockstar toes and then add a matching
Congrats to Kristine Thiessen, winner from yesterday's blog! You will be receiving an e-mail, please be sure to reply with a mailing address. I have a few things left for giving away, but thought you might
As a new nail professional I had hopes of someday attending a big show. Hopefully everyone has that hope — for the networking, the atmosphere, and the chance to see what's going on outside your own
Sometimes it feels like you will never do a great nail, especially when you are in school and all anyone ever does is tell you to practice — and then practice some more. Getting discouraged can
Let's hop back in time a few weeks to my CND training where I got to learn some new tricks to share and see same fabulous nails. All of the education ambassadors are asked to come
When visiting NAILS a couple weeks ago, I was lucky enough to cross paths with Vicki Peters. I can remember reading advice she would post on BeautyTech when I was a newbie and absorbing her knowledge
Coming off the high of being at ABS has me ready to make plans for Premiere in Orlando. I just bought my ticket to the BeautyTech BBQ! If you ever go to the Orlando show, the
Are any of you headed to the ABS Show in Chicago this weekend? Last year was a lot of fun; I really enjoyed chatting with some of you at the NAILS booth! What are you looking
Sometimes in life there are things that happen that really bring to mind the circle of life. This is evident in every aspect, from watching our babies grow up, seeing our careers evolve, and observing the
The ICE (Iowa Cosmetology Educators) 2012 Design Team has finally presented the 2012 designs and I'm so excited to share some of them with you! I've committed to three exclusive videos ,so I while I will
How is your marketing plan for the year looking? I'm on April/May and trying to decide if I want to go the Mother's day route, do a social media special, or somehow combine the two. What
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How are you feeling about your nail skills? Hopefully not too bad, but we all could use improvement and striving for constant improvement is what keeps us fresh and ever changing. Taking classes is such an
How important is networking? There are so many opportunities to be in involved in the nail community outside the bubble around your table! I was so impressed with the power of industry networking last week in
How much do you love doing nails? I love feeling the energy of other people who love doing nails. Doing demos this past weekend nail after nail, I remembered how the excitement with each crowd of
Do you recall last week's request for advice? I wanted to be sure and thank you all for your words of wisdom and encouragement! It seemed like a good idea to share one of the replies
Are some of you CND techs? If so I wondered if you would be interested in joining me in Hawaii for three days of CND Master Classes with the opportunity to earn your Grand Master. The
Do you ever get nervous? Maybe a job interview or trying something new? I find myself a bit nervous today as I will be trying out something new this weekend. It is kind of a job
Do you recall that I am an Education Ambassador for CND? I know I never mention them so it isn't obvious or anything. LOL. Recently an amazing honor was bestowed on me and I wondered if
How many of you are gearing up for the Premiere show in Orlando this weekend? I hope you made sure to get tickets to the Nail Tech BBQ! What else will you be checking out? Having
Do you ever feel like if you like one product you shouldn't acknowledge other products? Or are you a big fan of closet chemistry mixing-and-matching whatever suits you? Sometimes nail professionals feel pulled in different directions
Wow! This past weekend at ABS was amazing and so much fun! It was a pleasure to meet so many dedicated NAILS readers and an honor to introduce NAILS to new readers. Thanks to those that
I'm getting a little excited about going to America's Beauty Show in Chicago this weekend to the point of drawing a total blank as to what to blog about! I have a fabulous roomie lined up,
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To start in on fulfilling your requests for help with preventing lifting, a good place to begin is the cuticle. Most likely we all go through the steps of cuticle work and everyone uses different tools,
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"Working together we are committed to strengthening the role of Pharmacy in Europe."
Andrew Lane
Former EPF President
The EPF promotes the Pharmacy profession as an essential provider of healthcare across Europe.
The EPF activities provide a high-profile platform for the sharing of ideas and best practices, as well as facilitating constructive dialogue with public authorities and manufacturers.


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"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." - Henry Ford
"A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The successful person is the individual who forms the habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do." - Donald Riggs
"Do what you say and say what you do." - Anonymous
"The victory of success is half done when one gains the habit of work." - Sarah Knowles Bolton
"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
"Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success." - Henry Ford
"The very first step in any occupation is to become interested in it." - Sir William Osler
"Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible." - Frank Gaines
"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure." - General Colin L. Powell
"Only he who keeps his eyes fixed on the far horizon will find his right road." - Dag Hammarskjold
"Goals are dreams with deadlines." - Diana Scharf Hunt
"Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted." - David Bly
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." - Henry David Thoreau
"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it." - Julia Child
The merit of our organization is based on the success of our clients and vendors. Here are some comments received. Thank
you for thanking us.
"Wow - the service that Graphic Design and Printing Services provided has been great! Thank you."
"We truly appreciate the timely efforts and great customer service provided by the Purchasing Department."
"I want to thank Michael Candelaria for presenting this year's purchasing training to our staff here at Human
Services. I think this is one of the more useful presentations we've ever had."
"Now that's what I call service. Printing Services as always did a great job!"
"Mr. Escarzaga and all of Mail Services went above the call of duty by picking up, packaging and shipping are items all in one day!"
"The posters are absolutely fantastic. Thank you to everyone at Printing Services."
"As always, the Purchasing Department staff was very accommodating. This does not go unnoticed, but unfortunately may not get mentioned enough."
"Just want to say thank you again for the amazing professional service the Purchasing Department staff provided to the Probation Department in selecting a vendor."
"I must again compliment the Mail Services staff. Their not only just helpful, but friendly and professional."
"The staff in Surplus Services was a pleasure to deal with. They always go out their way to provide great customer service."
pounds of
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Nebraska farmers Scott McPheeters and son Clark spent three days at the National Farm Machinery Show looking over the equipment. In a two-part video, they offer some of the unique equipment they found among the 850 exhibitors.
The first product is the Westendorf Freedom Mount 550 loader that a tractor driver can easily attach and detach without leaving the tractor seat. Cost: $14,320. Visit www.loaders.com.
The second piece of equipment that the McPheeters discovered is the Rock Badger, a rock extractor for a skid-steer loader or a wheel loader. It is available from MDS Manufacturing. The Rock Badger for a skid steer sells for $1,925 and the model for a wheel loader is $10,000 to $14,500. Visit www.mdsmfg.com.
A large trencher for placing field tile is the third product the McPheeters found at the show. The DK Precision Chain Trencher will dig a trench instead of plowing a trench to place tile. The trender retails for $105,000. Visit www.dktrenchers.com.
The McPheeters are commercial farmers from Gothenburg, Neb. They led the Farm Industry News seminars at NFMS and have tested products for Farm Industry News for many years. See part II at http://farmindustrynews.com/nfms-2012/mcpheeters-find-virtual-rain-gauge-alert-backing-and-more-nfms-part-2


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How to pass AlphaBetty Saga level 21
AlphaBetty Saga level 21 is a Cheese Falls level. To complete successfully this level you should fall down 5 cheeses. Do words at the bottom of the board to remove tiles and make fall the cheeses.
To complete successfully this level you have 16 moves. ¡Hurry up!
- achieve 1.000 points.
- achieve 5.300 points.
- achieve 7.800 points.
- Try to ignore the level suggestions. In many cases their suggestions is just a word with just 3 letters.
- As far as you can, and depending of the kind of level try to make words at the bottom of the board in order to get new tiles at top.
- Try to make words using tiles at the corner, because they are less accessibles.
Any advice or help to pass AlphaBetty Saga level 21 would be appreciated!
Give us a "Like" please :)
Rating 3.83 / 5 (18 votes)


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FRIENDS OF JUSTICE is BREAKING THE SILENCE—– RECLAIMING the core mission of good news to the poor and liberty to the captive TRANSFORMING the world into a COMMON PEACE COMMUNITY.
Friends of Justice formed in response to the infamous Tulia drug sting of 1999 in which 47 people, 39 of them African Americans, were rounded up based on the false testimony of an undercover agent. Friends of Justice emerged as a coalition of defendant's families and other concerned citizens who believed the defendants were being prosecuted on faulty evidence. Because of the work of Friends of Justice, the Texas Legislature passed the Tulia Corroboration Bill, which has led to the exoneration of dozens of innocent people by raising the evidentiary standards for undercover testimony.
Learning from our experience in Tulia, Friends of Justice launched narrative-based campaigns in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi designed to empower local communities and to hold public officials accountable for equal justice. For more, see our page dedicated to ongoing narrative campaigns.
We are currently focused on the case of Curtis Flowers, an innocent man from Winona, Mississippi, who is the victim of a botched investigation so corrupt it would be funny . . . if Curtis wasn't sitting in a sweltering cell on death row.
Shifting our Focus
Friends of Justice discovered that affected communities, as well as potential support communities, lacked a transformational justice narrative to build a lasting, just community. Friends of Justice identified the faith narrative of God's compassion for and identification with the poorest and most vulnerable, as the source of transformation, resulting in The Common Peace Community Initiative.
Participate with a secure donation to Friends of Justice today!
Become a monthly supporter and receive our thank-you gift: a copy of Taking Out the Trash, the story of the Tulia drug sting scandal that gave birth to our movement for justice.
Taking Out the Trash in Tulia, Texas by Dr. Alan Bean
"Be prepared, as once you start reading Taking Out the Trash, chances are you won't put the book down until you're finished."
–Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice
Also available for purchase on Amazon.com


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Anna Hazare breaks fast and unites India
Anna Hazare has shown us what one man can do. Our government finally agreed to all his demands. I feel jubilant that a group of activists forced the government to pass the bill that was pending for 42 years. What happened in the past four days is nothing short of amazing. People, especially youth, from all parts of the country jumped in to support Mr. Anna Hazare. What motivated the young generation to participate in a campaign led by 72 year old man? Our current young generation is truly motivated by Mr. Abdul Kalam. When I read discussions in our…Read more


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Black Lighting Pine Block Table by Sherry Barrow
My husband and I stopped to rest on a fallen log adjacent to the steep path. The forest had become integral to our relationship, It was spring, and the rains had come, and we saw life as good here in the Lincoln National Forest in the Southern mountains of New Mexico. At 9000 feet, the crisp air is pure and sweet, and we listened to the birds and small mammals rustling about their work, and watched a deer sip from the brook. Nonetheless, as we took in its beauty, we knew that our friend, the forest, was in jeopardy, for we had barely escaped another fire season. "Somebody really ought to try and figure out what can be done to improve this." Well, yes, they should. For a while, there on that log next to the brook, our discussion focused outwardly, charging "someone" with responsibilities that screamed for attention. "They'd have to have the best science so they'd know how to improve ecosystem function." "They'd have to recognize the inter-dependence within the forest. The animals all need each other in some way... the birds, squirrels, rabbits, bears, deer, elk, even the big cats." "They'd have to consider the plants, trees and grasses, and the challenges of a forest service program that culls the sick and dying trees, then burns the slash without acknowledging the carbon impact." "What if someone could make something out of the woody biomass so it wasn't burned? Someone could make something that expresses the natural cycle of our forest!" "Wood with a story, done in a sustainable way, with real heart!" Something shifted, and we realized that WE WERE that "someone" who needed to do "something." "It will be a huge commitment" Glen said, smiling. "Yes. It will." I smiled too, and in that moment together, we accepted stewardship of something larger than ourselves. As our southwestern Ponderosa Pine forests tangle into dog-haired thickets, catastrophic wild fires ravage our lands. Yet federal and state land managers at last have begun to recognize the impact of decades of preventing the natural fire regime from doing its work. They now realize the necessity of thinning the forested lands in an effort to restore ecosystem function, much like thinning plants growing too closely in a garden. Yet, the carbon emissions of thinned biomass too often piled and burned, compounding the effects of global warming. This was the environment within which Glen and I formed a forest restoration company. We became the "someone" utilizing the woody biomass for sustainable products rather than sending the CO2 up in smoke. Today, our purpose is to find the best use for each size class and species of wood targeted for removal by the Forest Service.


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Robert J. Graves
John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor for Emerging Technologies, Emeritus
Adjunct Professor Emeritus, Tuck School of Business
Professor Emeritus, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
John H. Krehbiel Sr. Professor for Emerging Technologies, Emeritus
- BSIE, Industrial Engineering, Syracuse University 1967
- MSIE, Industrial Engineering, State University of New York, Buffalo 1969
- PhD, Industrial Engineering, State University of New York, Buffalo 1974
Research Interests
E-engineering information technologies; near real-time scheduling and dispatching; assembly system design; product design; multi-objective optimization; integrated material handling system concepting and design; intelligent control systems
Selected Publications
- Tianin Xu, A. Desrochers, and R.J. Graves, "Discrete Event System Techniques for CIM", International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, to appear, 2008.
- F. Xue, A.C. Sanderson, R.J. Graves, "Multi-objective evolutionary decision support for design-supplier-manufacturing planning", in review, IEEE Trans. of System, Man, Cybernetics, Part A, to appear, 2008.
- R.J. Graves, Shaelynn Hales, Sunderesh S. Heragu, Charles J. Malmborg, and Sybillyn Jennings, "A Multimedia Educational Tool Integrating Materials Handling Technology, Analysis and Design Using Virtual Distribution Center", European Journal of Industrial Engineering, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 93-110, 2007.
- A. Goel, and R.J. Graves, "Electronic System Reliability: Collating Prediction Models", IEEE Transactions on Device and Materials Reliability, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 258-265, 2006.
- Tianin Xu, A.A. Desrochers, and R.J. Graves, "Performance Modeling of Dynamic Network-based Decision Systems for Distributed Manufacturing", International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 18, No. 2-3, pp. 179-198, March-May 2005.
- R.J. Graves, A.C. Sanderson, and R. Subbu, "A scalable e-engineering technology for network-based concurrent engineering in electronics", Special Issue of the International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, Vol. 18, No. 5, 2005.
- Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education, 2014
- Fellow of IIE (Institute of Industrial Engineers), elected 1992
- Fellow of SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineers), elected 1998
- IIE Dr. David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award, 1997
- Reed-Apple Award, Material Handling Industry of America, 2002
- School of Engineering Research Award, Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, 2003
Selected Patents
- System and method for time-efficient distributed search and decision-making using cooperative co-evolutionary algorithms executing in a distributed multi-agent architecture (6,882,988)
- Virtual design module (6,249,714)
- Multi-objective Evolutionary Decision Support (Application #60/633,778)
- Ve-Design, Founder and Chief Technical Officer
Professional Activities
- Associate Editor, J. Manufacturing Systems, 1993-present
- Technical Review Board, CAD/CAM, Robotics and Factories of the Future, Kluwer Publishing
- Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE), 1966-present, elected Fellow, 1992
- Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), 1986-present, elected Fellow, 1995
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2004-present
- INFORMS (formerly The Institute of Management Sciences), 1973-present
- Material Handling Institute and National Science Foundation, "Research Colloquium on Material Handling," Program Planning Committee, General Program Chairman, 1998
- "Conference on Agile, Intelligent and Computer Integrated Manufacturing," Conference Co-Chair, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1998
- Member, Board of Directors, Ve-design, Inc., 1999-present
NAE Presents Nation's Top Prize for Engineering Education to Dartmouth
May 14, 2014
School Notes: A More Creative Approach to Engineering
Valley News
January 14, 2014
Dartmouth Engineering Faculty Awarded National Prize for Educational Innovation
January 6, 2014
Thayer app. numbers increase by 35 percent
The Dartmouth
February 16, 2012
MEMs see high employment rates
The Dartmouth
October 14, 2011
New Opportunities for Those Seeking Graduate Engineering Degrees
U.S. News
June 17, 2011
MIT Joins Master of Engineering Management Programs Consortium
June 14, 2011
The Other MEMs: The Master of Engineering Management Degree
IEEE Spectrum
February 11, 2011
Dartmouth and SMT Unite for Six Sigma Program
Surface Mount Technology
March 16, 2005
Under New Management
ASEE Prism
March 5, 2005
Smart Outsourcing
IndustryWeek: Leadership in Manufacturing
September 22, 2004
Engineering professor to discuss order-fulfillment applications
VOX of Dartmouth
April 5, 2004
In Dartmouth Engineer Magazine
Teams from Top MEM Schools Gain Real-World Lessons in "Business War Games"
Web Extra, April 2016
Mastering Engineering Management
Fall 2014
Educational Innovation: Faculty Awarded National Prize
Spring 2014
Director of Dartmouth's Master of Engineering Management Program Reflects on Retirement
Web Extra, March 2013
Incubating an Eco-Business
Web Extra, December 2012
Dartmouth's M.E.M. Program Teaches Engineers the Business of Technology
Web Extra, September 2012
Complex Systems
Summer 2010
Classroom: Technology Assessment
Winter 2010
Random Walk: MEM Mugging Ceremony
Winter 2009
Minding Their Business
Spring 2005


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Archived David Firth's website (Salad Fingers, Burnt Face Man, Spoilsbury Toast Boy, Jerry Jackson, Devvo & much much more) (fat-pie.com)
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