Abstract: Systems and methods for generating and monitoring a plan to reduce poverty include identifying market opportunities exploitable by one or more smallholders; generating an intervention plan to assist the smallholders; establishing a supply chain to deliver supplies to the smallholders and establishing a linkage with an output market; and monitoring and evaluating the intervention plan.

Abstract: A composition capable of supplying ethylene gas to botanical systems is disclosed and includes a microporous solid having a plurality of cells and a quantity of ethylene gas contained within one or more of the plurality of cells. The cells can be either open or closed, and can be either permeable, degradable or both so as to release the ethylene over a period of time. The ethylene gas is released from the cells over a period of time. The release rate of the ethylene gas may be altered by changing the density of the microporous solid. The release rate may also be altered by manipulating the size or shape of the microporous solid.

Abstract: A composition and method for forming a water-impermeable barrier in soil such as for use in closing a waste disposal cell. The composition comprises a water-impermeable sheet to each side of which has been applied an adhesive such as polybutene. The sheet is a substantially nonflammable, water-impermeable, highly stretchable film, preferably a plasticized polyvinyl chloride-based or very low density polyethylene film. The composition is applied to a first layer of soil such as a landfill site and covered with a second layer of soil. When the first layer is sloped, several rows of the composition placed in adjacent, overlapping relationship, starting at the bottom of the slope. The soil particles in the first and second soil layers adhere to the sheet and enable the slope of the first layer to approach the shear angle for that type of soil. Thus, the disposal cell can have steeper sides and hold more waste than otherwise.

Abstract: Outdoor storage piles of a particulate solid commodity are protected from the weather by a novel, open celled, shrinkage controlled, water absorbing sponge blanket applied to the pile in a rainwater protecting thickness, and a method for producing said sponge blanket employing an aminoplast resin prepared from urea formaldehyde or a prepolymer of urea and formaldehyde and modified with 4 to 12% fructose, and a suitable foaming agent containing an acid accelerator, such as phosphoric acid in a ratio of 2% by weight of resin.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for covering and sealing dumped waste is provided wherein hardenable plastic foam is sprayed in a swath as waste is compacted by a roller. The roller is wider than the treads of the tractor vehicle, the spray nozzles are angulated alternately, spraying any projection. The configuration of the wheel and nozzles reduced gaps in the foam layer by a large factor over the prior art using less foam and labor and in less time.

Abstract: Plastic foam is expelled from a slit-shaped nozzle under high enough pressure to break up the plastic foam into generally discrete particles which are propelled toward a surface to be coated with foam at a relatively high velocity. Upon striking the surface, the particles exhibit good adhesion and mechanically key into the substrate upon which they impact. The invention is particularly useful for coating the surface of a landfill for daily sealing of the upper surface thereof.

Abstract: An apparatus for spraying plastic foam includes two containers respectively adapted to hold a solution of a urea-formaldehyde precondensate in a first aqueous medium and a second aqueous medium including a catalyst which causes rapid hardening of the precondensate when the two aqueous media are mixed. A foaming chamber communicates with a source of compressed air and with one of the containers for dispersing the gas in the corresponding medium and for thereby forming a foam. A first conduit connects the foaming chamber to a mixing chamber, and a second conduit connects the other container to the mixing chamber. A third conduit leads outward of the mixing chamber and terminates in a nozzle orifice normally open to the atmosphere. The compressed air is used for conveying the foam and the medium in the other container to the mixing chamber for continuously mixing the contents of the mixing chamber and for conveying the resulting mixture outward through the nozzle orifice when the latter is open.