Master of Agribusiness / Department of Agricultural Economics / Allen M. Featherstone / Best Maid is a middle-sized regionally orientated company, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. It is currently owned and operated by the fourth generation of the Dalton family. The company specializes in the production of pickles and condiment products and currently holds the title of #1 retail brand of pickles in the state of Texas. In addition to the Best Maid label, products are also produced under the Del-Dixie label. The objective of this thesis is to analyze a potential capital project: a bucket line replacement. The analysis will be completed by using net present value to determine the cost and benefits of the project. The focus of the project will be the food service bucket line. The current line was designed and installed over 20 years ago. Currently, this line and supporting resources require a staff of 17 employees to operate. The process is looking to be improved through advances in technology including vibratory conveyors, more complex PLC programming, and increased accuracy of scaling equipment. Implementing these advancements has the potential to reduce the employee labor cost as well as decrease over-scaling. The goal of this project is to inform the Best Maid owners of the investment costs, labor savings, benefits, and the financial viability of the proposed capital investment. Best Maid has consistently grown at a high single digit to low double digit rate each year. Businesses must continually identify and react to the needs of tomorrow, today. Formal processes within the business will be established to evaluate and prioritize future potential projects. The conclusion of the analysis resulted in a positive NPV of about $567 thousand and a favorable IRR. The recommendation is to adopt the new technology.

The United States has over 26 million students in primary and secondary schools nationwide. The result of such a large school-aged population, in combination with an increasingly environmentally conscious culture, has been a national effort towards green and sustainable school design. In theory, high performance school design utilizes a combination of key technologies in order to improve the learning environment while saving money, resources, and energy. An abundance of literature supports the lofty promises of this design strategy, but in an industry that has only recently begun to gain widespread support, very little substantive research of case studies has been documented. This report explores the history and characteristics of green schools, followed by a case study of Pickle Elementary School, located in Austin, Texas. Through the use of quantitative, qualitative and anecdotal research, this report begins to unveil the reality of this ever-growing movement towards greening America’s schools. / text

Submitted by (edna.saturno@ufrpe.br) on 2017-02-15T15:47:29Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Lucemario Xavier Batista.pdf: 867177 bytes, checksum: 59d595abec17942d4019ca3a0abf3b56 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-02-15T15:47:29Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Lucemario Xavier Batista.pdf: 867177 bytes, checksum: 59d595abec17942d4019ca3a0abf3b56 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005-06-02 / The canning industry in Brazil has been facing serious problems of supply, since the extractive fishery of the main prime-materia that is the fishing doesn’t supply the demand of the seccion, which has done a high degree of idleness and/or the necessity to import fish from other countries, which suggests the search of new products. The aim was to develop the kept by canning tilapia, using tilapias with medium weight of 100,02 ±19,89 g which, the kept, were called as “charuto” (trunk without head, paddles, gutteds and flakes). The “charutos” were put into brine, pre-boiled and then added sauce of covering. Cans were closed in semiautomatic and autoclaved “recravadeira”, three termic treatments of 15, 20 and 30 minutes, using constant temperature of 121° C. The choice of the best portion of pickle was done by sensorial analysis by color, aroma, flavor, texture and general quality. To qualify e classifying the pickles were carried out nutritional, phisical-chemical analyses, test of esterility and test of paired preference. At the acceptability analysis of the pickle of tilapia, all the termics treatments were approved in the test, but there was not diference between the treatments (P < 0,05). Nevertheless, the treatments of 15 and 20 minutes showed inferior grade to 7 for flavor, what made possible the choice of the 30 minute-treatment as the best, being chosen to be valuated in the test of preference, with commercial conservation. The phisical-chemical traits of the pickles showed the following results: 74,72% humidity, 18,31% proteins, 4,78% ashes, 2,31% lipids, 94,03 Kcal total caloric value, 726,32 mg calcium, 0,90 mg ferro and 333,75 mg sodium. The nutricional information for one portion of 60g of the product was: caloric value 60 Kcal, carbohidrats 0 g, proteins 11 g, total fat 1,5 g, satured fat 0,5 g, cholesterol 36 mg, feed fiber 0 g, calcium 435,8 mg, ferro 0,54 mg and sodium 200 mg. The incubation test accused no contamination of the product and in the paired preference test there was no diference (P < 0,05) between the tilapia conservation and the conservation of commercial fish. Conclude that the consevation of tilapia shows phisical-chemicals, nutricional e sensorial compatibility with the similar commercial products, which confirm the viability of the product for the market of pickles. / A indústria de conserva no Brasil vem passando por problemas graves de abastecimento, visto que a pesca extrativa da sua principal matéria-prima que é a sardinha, não atende a demanda do setor, o que tem provocado um alto grau de ociosidade e/ou a necessidade de importar pescado de outros países, o que sugere a busca de novos produtos. Objetivou-se desenvolver uma conserva mediante o enlatamento de tilápia, utilizando exemplares com peso médio de 100,0 ±19,8 g que, após tratadas, foram denominadas de “charuto” (tronco sem cabeça, sem nadadeiras, evisceradas e escamadas). Os “charutos” foram colocados em salmoura, na lata, pré-cozido e em seguida adicionado o molho de cobertura. As latas foram fechadas em recravadeira semi-automática e autoclavadas em três tratamentos térmicos de 15, 20 e 30 minutos, utilizando temperatura constante de 121° C. A escolha do melhor lote de conserva foi feita pelo teste de aceitabilidade em relação aos atributos: cor, aroma, sabor, textura e qualidade geral. Para qualificar e classificar a conserva foram realizadas análises físico-químicas, nutricional e teste de esterilidade. Foi ainda realizado teste de preferência entre a conserva em estudo e uma já existente no comércio com outro tipo de peixe. Todos os tratamentos térmicos foram aprovados não havendo diferença entre os tratamentos (P < 0,05). No entanto, os tratamentos de 15 e 20 minutos apresentaram nota inferior a 7 no atributo sabor, o que possibilitou a eleição do tratamento de 30 minutos como o melhor, sendo a escolhida para ser avaliada no teste de preferência. A composição físico-química da conserva apresentou os seguintes resultados: 74,72% de umidade, 18,31% de proteínas, 4,78% de cinzas, 2,31% de lipídeos, 94,03 Kcal de valor calórico total, 726,32 mg de cálcio, 0,90 mg de ferro e 333,75 mg de sódio. A informação nutricional para uma porção de 60g do produto foi: valor calórico 60 Kcal, carboidratos 0 g, proteínas 11 g, gordura total 1,5 g, gordura saturada 0,5 g, colesterol 36 mg, fibra alimentar 0 g, cálcio 435,8 mg, ferro 0,54 mg e sódio 200 mg. No teste de esterilidade não foi constatada nenhuma alteração do produto e no teste de preferência pareada não houve diferença (P < 0,05) entre a conserva de tilápia e a conserva de peixe comercial. Concluiu-se que a conserva de tilápia apresenta condições físico-químicas, nutricionais e sensoriais compatíveis com os produtos comerciais similares, o que confirma a viabilidade do produto para o mercado de conservas.

Content: Tannery effluent with high salinity and chromium have a serious environmental impact. The traditional chrome tannage that involved the use of sodium chloride, acid and chromium is one of the main origins of salt and chromium pollution. In this study, a non-pickling, low-chrome tanning technology was developed. The novel Chrome-free agent SL can be directly employed to tan bated cattle pelts and the wet white was obtained. Then the shaved wet white was pre-treated by Poly-carboxylate auxiliary agent and tanned by chrome powder. It was tested that the shrinkage temperature of the wet white, the initial pH of chrome tanning, the consumption of chrome powder, the shrinkage temperature of the chrome-tanned leather, the content of Cr2O3 in effluent, the absorption of chromium and the other properties of the chrome-tanned leather. It was found that the shrinkage temperature of the wet white tanned by SL reached over 80oC, the optimal consumption of Poly-carboxylate auxiliary agent was 2wt% based on the weight of the shaved wet white, the better low-chrome tanning conditions were that the wet white was tanned by 4wt% chromium powder for 150～180min at room temperature when the initial pH value was 3.5. The next processes were same as traditional chrome tannage. Meanwhile, the shrinkage temperature of the leather tanned by the low-chrome tannage reached more than 95oC, the absorption of chromium was 96%, the content of Cr2O3 in the effluent was under 200mg/L. For the low-chrome tanned leather, the absorption of dyestuff, fat-liquor reached 99.5%, 82.5% respectively. Compared with the traditional chrome tanned process, not only the conventional pickling process was eliminated, the process was been shorten and reduce the pollution of sodium chloride, but it can reduce 50% of the consumption of Chrome powder, improve the absorption of chromium and can reduce content of Cr2O3 in effluent. Take-Away: 1. LUO JIAN-XUN, LI JING, LIAO XUE-PIN,etc.Cleaner Chrome Tanning – A Non-Pickling Process Using an Aliphatic Aldehyde as Pre-tanning Agent. J. Soc. Leather. Technol.Chem. 2012,96 (1):21-26. 2.LUO JIAN-XUN,FENG YANJUAN.Cleaner Processing of Bovine Wet-white: Synthesis and Application of a Novel Chrome-free Tanning Agent Based on an Amphoteric Organic Compound. J. Soc. Leather. Technol.Chem. 2015,99 (4):190-195. 3.XU JIA-LI, LUO JIAN-XUN.Synthesis and application of a polycarboxylate auxiliary agent. China Leather.2017,46(3):35-41.

Lavada “Dr. Hepcat” Durst was the first African American popular music disc jockey in Texas. His radio program The Rosewood Ramble was broadcast on Austin station KVET-1300 AM from 1948 until 1963. KVET’s white owners, who included future Texas politicians John Connally and J. J. “Jake” Pickle, were not outspoken advocates for the rights of African Americans under Jim Crow, but they hired Durst in a concentrated effort to expand KVET’s African American listening audience. The Rosewood Ramble became a cultural, economic, and psychological resource for black radio listeners in segregated central Texas while also becoming the region’s most popular radio show among white listeners. This paper uses a mixture of oral history and archival sources to argue that Durst’s fifteen-year career at KVET was only the best-known part of a lifetime spent as an information broker to Austin’s embattled black community. / text