Comparing the cost-effectiveness of water conservation policies in a depleting aquifer: a dynamic analysis of the Kansas High Plains

This research analyzes two groundwater conservation policies in the Kansas High Plains located within the Ogallala aquifer: 1) cost-share assistance to increase irrigation efficiency; and 2) incentive payments to convert irrigated crop production to dryland crop production. To compare the cost-effectiveness of these two policies, a dynamic model simulated a representative irrigator’s optimal technology choice, crop selection, and irrigation water use over time. The results suggest that the overall water-saving effectiveness can be improved when different policy tools are considered under different conditions. High prevailing crop prices greatly reduce irrigators’ incentive to give up irrigation and therefore cause low enrollment and ineffectiveness of the incentive payment program. In areas with low aquifer-saturated thickness, the incentive payment program is more effective, whereas in areas with relatively higher water availability, the cost-share program could be a better choice

The Impact of Weather Extremes on Agricultural Production Methods: Does Drought Increase Adoption of Conservation Tillage Practices?

The adoption of conservation tillage practices such as ridge till, mulch till, or no-till has been shown to reduce soil erosion. An additional benefit of these conservation practices is that they also increase soil moisture. Therefore, these practices appear to be a method that agricultural producers can use to reduce their risk associated with abnormally dry or wet conditions (i.e., drought or flood). Given the large amount of money spent by the USDA on crop insurance indemnity and ad-hoc disaster relief payments, practices that reduce the risk of drought to the farmer should be strongly encouraged. Using SUR estimation with random effects, the paper uses panel data to measure the impact of extreme weather events on the adoption of conservation tillage. Panel data allows the identification of differences in adoption rates as a function of the severity of the drought or flood event. The adoption of no-till, alternative conservation tillage, and reduced till are estimated relative to conventional tillage. Both extremely dry and extremely wet conditions are found to increase the adoption of conservation tillage; while extremely wet conditions increase the adoption of both no-till and other conservation tillage practices.Farm Management,

Experimental demonstration of the robust end state in a split-ring-resonator chain

One of the fascinating topological phenomena is the end state in one dimensional system. In this work, the topological photonics in the dimer chains composed by the split ring resonators are revealed based on the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model. The topologically protected photonic end state is observed directly with the in situ measurements of the local density of states in the topological nontrivial chain. Moreover, we experimentally demonstrate that the end state localized at both ends is robust against a varied of perturbations, such as loss and disorder. Our results not only provide a versatile platform to study the topological physics in photonics but also may have potential applications in the robust communication and power transfer

_In vivo_ photoacoustic molecular imaging with simultaneous multiple selective targeting using antibody-conjugated gold nanorods

The use of gold nanorods for photoacoustic molecular imaging in vivo with simultaneous multiple selective targeting is reported. The extravasation of multiple molecular probes is demonstrated, and used to probe molecular information of cancer cells. This technique allows molecular profiles representing tumor characteristics to be obtained and a heterogeneous population of cancer cells in a lesion to be determined. The results also show that the image contrast can be enhanced by using a mixture of different molecular probes. In this study, HER2, EGFR, and CXCR4 were chosen as the primary target molecules for examining two types of cancer cells, OECM1 and Cal27. OECM1 cells overexpressed HER2 but exhibited a low expression of EGFR, while Cal27 cells showed the opposite expression profile. Single and double targeting resulted in signal enhancements of up to 3 dB and up to 5 dB, respectively, and hence has potential in improving cancer diagnoses

Electromagnetic properties of the Tcc+T^+_{cc} molecular states

In this work, we discuss the electromagnetic properties of the $S$-wave and $D$-wave $T^+_{cc}$ molecular states, which include the magnetic moments, transition magnetic moments and radiative decay widths. According to our results, the magnetic moment of $T^+_{cc}$ state observed experimentally is $-0.09\mu_N$. Meanwhile, we also discuss the relations between the transition magnetic moments of the $S$-wave $T^+_{cc}$ molecular states and the radiative decay widths, and we analyze the proportionality between the magnetic moments of the $T^+_{cc}$ molecular states. These results provide further information on the inner structure of $T^+_{cc}$ molecular states and deepen the understanding of electromagnetic properties of doubly charmed tetraquarks