Future research priorities

Future research needs include development and evaluation of  

1 affordable no-till equipment (particularly roller-crimpers and other residue management implements, and no-till planting aids) for small-scale organic farmers  

2 cost-effective practices and strategies to prevent production of weed seeds and reduce weed growth during the minimum weed-free period (4-6 weeks after planting cash crops)  

3 techniques and strategies to improve efficient nutrient use, especially synchrony of nitrogen supply and crop demand  

4 spatial interseeding of grass and legume cover crops on controlled-traffic raised beds to optimise both nitrogen efficiency and weed suppression and 

This chapter has shown the importance of indoor contamination with POPs and demonstrated clearly that it is a fertile area of research. While good progress has been made with furthering our knowledge of many aspects, there are a number of areas that the author believes will form the focus of research efforts over the next few years. Specifically, these include studies to  

Elucidate dust ingestion rates better, including how they vary with the dust loading in a microenvironment. 

Characterise, in more depth, the extent and causes of within-room spatial and temporal variability in dust contamination. 

Characterise better the extent and causes of withm-building spatial variability. 

Determine the bioavailability to humans of pollutants other than PBDEs in dust. 

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There is currently a substantial global research effort into the effects of phytoestrogens. However, there are still a number of gaps in knowledge with respect to the health implications of dietary phytoestrogens for humans. These gaps will form the basis of future research priorities. 

How do we take a future-oriented approach to research on energy and metals What criteria do we use to set research priorities Short-term projections of prices and availability of resources are poor guides to a national policy for research. It is virtually impossible to predict the course that energy prices will take over the next few years or to prognosticate political events that might affect the snpply of key minerals to the United States. The most anyone can say is that oil prices will rise and that a real threat exists to the stability of onr snpply of several key minerals. 

The Advanced Seminars have been crucial for evaluating the utility and validity of existing methods and results, discussing potential improvements in methods, and setting priorities for future research. A brief summary of the advances made in previous seminars and future directions of research on chemical and isotopic techniques of diet reconstruction follows. 

XI. Looking Ahead Some Suggested Priorities for Future Research... 

The intention of this chapter is to provide an overview of the research performed on silica membranes and membrane materials during the project. Due to the fact that subjects like the preparation of tubular supports and a hydrothermally stable intermediate layer were given a higher priority, most of the results are preliminary and much more research will be needed to get a clear picture of the behaviour of (doped) silica membranes under SASRA conditions. Therefore the results provided should be seen as the result of preliminary work and might serve as a basis for future research. 

No doubt we still have a great deal to learn about alchemical laboratories in early modern Europe. This chapter has drawn attention to the particular issues surrounding princely alchemical laboratories, but this is only one type of laboratory that must rest alongside studies of many others chymists private laboratories, imaginary laboratories in paintings and engravings, and others we do not yet know about. Perhaps future research will uncover a private urban laboratory, where an alchemist s molten product shared the hearth with his wife s soup. Certainly any number of other types of alchemical workspaces are left to discover. This, in the end, is the answer to the question, What did an alchemist s laboratory look like Beyond practical issues, alchemical laboratories were no doubt as diverse as alchemy and its practitioners in early modern Europe. Each individual laboratory was the result of a unique set of decisions that reflected the constellation of priorities and practical realities that shaped the desire to practice alchemy and devote space and resources to it. Each laboratory, in the end, embodied all the tensions of alchemy itself. 

In addition, electrolyzer system efficiencies may rise from the current 63.5 percent to 75 percent (lower heating value) in the future. Among research priorities that can improve the efficiency and/or reduce the cost of future electrolysis fueling devices and could become part of the DOE s electrolysis program are the following ... 

Among the research priorities that can improve the efficiency and/or reduce the cost of future electrolysis fueling devices are the following ... 

Competitive mineral-mineral interactions involving chemically similar elements are widespread in nature. Interactions between zinc and iron, and zinc and tin reduce zinc absorption in humans, and pose potential nutritional consequences. Dietary zinc levels may also be of Importance in human copper absorption. Natural foods, alone or in combination, tend to have a balance among minerals, but in the formulation of proprietary vitamin-mineral supplements or Infant foods, there is the potential for creating nutrltionally-signlflcant Imbalances. Little is known about the role of other food components in conditioning these interactions. This question should be a priority for future research. 

The accuracy of isotopic chronometry depends, in part, on an exact knowledge of decay constants. While most of the constants shown in Table 1 are reasonably well constrained, the need to resolve small segments of time when studying orogenic processes and the need to compare the results of different mineral-isotopic systems demand that we minimize the uncertainties in decay constants even more. Relatively little attention has been paid over the past two decades to the need to know these values better, and recent comparative geochronology studies suggest that their refinement must be a priority for future research. Especially problematic in this regard are (i) the —> " °Ca decay... 

A very good review article based on a panel study of status, future research needs, and opportunities for porous sorbent materials was published several years ago. It was pointed out that very significant advances have been made in tailoring the porosity of porous sorbent materials in terms of size and shape selectivity. Relatively little progress has been achieved in terms of chemoselectivity of sorbents based on specific interactions between adsorbate molecules and functional groups in the sorbents. Incorporation of active sites into sorbents is of high priority in the development of sorbents. 

Western, K. (1992). NIAID tropical disease research priorities and future directions. Trop. Med. 34,157-163. 

The earliest research in a field builds on past work and this always makes it difficult to ascribe priority to important discoveries that lead to new directions or paradigms for future research. Certainly, there were many early investigations that used computer simulation of Newton s equations of motion to tackle important open problems. For instance, Hirschfelder et al. [2] studied the dynamics of the gas phase H + H2 reaction on a model potential surface to determine the reaction rate. In later years this investigation spawned the field of gas phase molecular dynamics. The paper by Fermi et al. [3] on the simulation of the dynamics of a model one-dimensional solid was influential in the field of non-linear dynamics. Neither these papers nor the body of work they stimulated had an immediate important impact on statistical mechanics [4]. 

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