THE 2002 US FARM BILL AND INTERNATIONAL AGRI-FOOD TRADE: DUSTING OFF THE PREBISCH THESIS; SPECIAL REPORT

Recent developments in American agricultural and trade policy suggest that the US is backing away from its position as a staunch supporter of freer trade. In the long run, this action will weaken the competitive position of US agriculture and the other protected sectors of the US economy, as was the case when the US did this in the 1920's. It will also clearly harm US trading partners, such as Canada. We'll discuss the direct impacts of the Farm Bill on Canada in another, forthcoming special report. However, for our purposes in this report, the more immediate impact is to deter developing countries from pursuing freer trade as a means of increasing economic growth and improving standards of living. Support for freer trade from developing countries is essential if the current round of WTO is to achieve meaningful gains in trade liberalization. In turn, trade liberalization is absolutely required if low cost/resource rich countries such as the US and Canada are to have prosperous agri-food sectors. Current US policy initiatives give developing countries every incentive to retreat from liberalized trade to highly protectionist policies, just as outlined by Raoul Prebisch nearly 40 years ago. The impact of current US agricultural policy initiatives is to weaken the Doha agenda by forcing developing countries to unilaterally liberalize trade without any significant concessions from the US. This places developing countries in a very difficult position, and dramatically reduces the prospects for future gains through freer trade. In this special report, we outline the following issues that will impact the world agri-food trade context in the coming years: * International trade in primary commodities from the developing country perspective * The US Farm Bill and recent US trade policy initiatives * The agenda for the Doha Round of WTO * Impact of US policy initiatives on the success of WTOAgricultural and Food Policy,

Advanced Concepts in Desalination

The Advanced Concepts Desalination program at Sandia National Laboratories aims to increase the availability of fresh water through cost-effective developments in desalination technology, particularly for treatment of brackish ground water. The major obstacles to widespread implementation of desalination are the high energy consumption of current reverse osmosis (RO) technology, low recovery due to concentration of low solubility salts, and the limited options for concentrate disposal. In this talk we review a number of efforts initiated by Sandia to address these problems. Near-term projects focus on increasing fresh water recovery and concentrate management. An innovative hybrid RO-electrodialysis system isolates and removes sparingly soluble calcium salts from an RO concentrate stream, allowing recycling of the concentrate and additional water recovery. A similar concept uses an inter-stage precipitator to remove slightly soluble salts prior to additional RO treatment. Where deep well injection is the preferred method of concentrate disposal, geochemical modeling is being used to evaluate the compatibility and chemical stability of the concentrate with the disposal reservoir. Long-range R&D programs include development of high-efficiency nanostructured membranes for RO and electrodialysis that may substantially decrease the energy requirements for production of fresh water. New concepts in membrane module construction are being examined to make the best use of high efficiency membranes. New treatments for preventing and controlling membrane biofouling will increase the efficiency and lower the cost of operation of membrane processes

PRICE DISCOVERY MECHANISMS AND ALTERNATIVES FOR CANADIAN AGRICULTURE; Part I: A Review of Pricing Mechanisms in Agriculture

The purpose of this section is to review pricing mechanisms in agriculture and food. We started by constructing a taxonomy and system of classification for pricing mechanisms that is rooted in economic theory. This framework was applied to 26 pricing mechanisms observed from the following product categories: · Beef · Hogs · Grains and oilseeds · Dairy · Poultry and Eggs · Processed Food and HorticultureDemand and Price Analysis,

Relationships between emotional intelligence and sales performance in Kuwait

This study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and Total Sales Performance (TSP), and whether EI contributes to predicting the performance of sales professionals in Kuwait. The sample was 218 sales professionals working for 24 different car dealerships. An ability model of EI was measured using the Assessing Emotions Scale (AES) developed by Schutte et al. (1998) and its Arabic version. The trait model of EI was assessed using the Effective Intelligence Scale (EIS). The findings showed a negative but weak correlation between TSP and the AES and all its subscales. No correlation was found between TSP and the EIS. A weak positive correlation existed between Objective Sales Performance and each of total EIS, Accuracy, and Patience subscales

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on chronic disease management and patient reported outcomes in patients with pulmonary hypertension: The Pulmonary Hypertension Association Registry

To better understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the care of patients with pulmonary hypertension, we conducted a retrospective cohort study evaluating health insurance status, healthcare access, disease severity, and patient reported outcomes in this population. Using the Pulmonary Hypertension Association Registry (PHAR), we defined and extracted a longitudinal cohort of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients from the PHAR\u27s inception in 2015 until March 2022. We used generalized estimating equations to model the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patient outcomes, adjusting for demographic confounders. We assessed whether insurance status modified these effects via covariate interactions. PAH patients were more likely to be on publicly-sponsored insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic compared with prior, and did not experience statistically significant delays in access to medications, increased emergency room visits or nights in the hospital, or worsening of mental health metrics. Patients on publicly-sponsored insurance had higher healthcare utilization and worse objective measures of disease severity compared with privately insured individuals irrespective of the COVID-19 pandemic. The relatively small impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pulmonary hypertension-related outcomes was unexpected but may be due to pre-established access to high quality care at pulmonary hypertension comprehensive care centers. Irrespective of the COVID-19 pandemic, patients who were on publicly-sponsored insurance seemed to do worse, consistent with prior studies highlighting outcomes in this population. We speculate that previously established care relationships may lessen the impact of an acute event, such as a pandemic, on patients with chronic illness

Determining the WIMP mass using the complementarity between direct and indirect searches and the ILC

We study the possibility of identifying dark matter properties from XENON-like 100 kg experiments and the GLAST satellite mission. We show that whereas direct detection experiments will probe efficiently light WIMPs, given a positive detection (at the 10% level for $m_{\chi} \lesssim 50$ GeV), GLAST will be able to confirm and even increase the precision in the case of a NFW profile, for a WIMP-nucleon cross-section $\sigma_{\chi-p} \lesssim 10^{-8}$ pb. We also predict the rate of production of a WIMP in the next generation of colliders (ILC), and compare their sensitivity to the WIMP mass with the XENON and GLAST projects.Comment: 32 pages, new figures and a more detailed statistical analysis. Final version to appear in JCA

Impact of providing patients access to electronic health records on quality and safety of care: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To evaluate the impact of sharing electronic health records (EHRs) with patients and map it across six domains of quality of care (ie, patient-centredness, effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness, equity and safety). Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. Data sources CINAHL, Cochrane, Embase, HMIC, Medline/PubMed and PsycINFO, from 1997 to 2017. Eligibility criteria Randomised trials focusing on adult subjects, testing an intervention consisting of sharing EHRs with patients, and with an outcome in one of the six domains of quality of care. Data analysis The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines were followed. Title and abstract screening were performed by two pairs of investigators and assessed using the Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool. For each domain, a narrative synthesis of the results was performed, and significant differences in results between low risk and high/unclear risk of bias studies were tested (t-test, p<0.05). Continuous outcomes evaluated in four studies or more (glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP)) were pooled as weighted mean difference (WMD) using random effects meta-analysis. Sensitivity analyses were performed for low risk of bias studies, and long-term interventions only (lasting more than 12 months). Results Twenty studies were included (17 387 participants). The domain most frequently assessed was effectiveness (n=14), and the least were timeliness and equity (n=0). Inconsistent results were found for patient-centredness outcomes (ie, satisfaction, activation, self-efficacy, empowerment or health literacy), with 54.5% of the studies (n=6) demonstrating a beneficial effect. Meta-analyses showed a beneficial effect in effectiveness by reducing absolute values of HbA1c (unit: %; WMD=−0.316; 95% CI −0.540 to −0.093, p=0.005, I2=0%), which remained significant in the sensitivity analyses for low risk of bias studies (WMD= −0.405; 95% CI −0.711 to −0.099), and long-term interventions only (WMD=−0.272; 95% CI −0.482 to −0.062). A significant reduction of absolute values of SBP (unit: mm Hg) was found but lost in sensitivity analysis for studies with low risk of bias (WMD= −1.375; 95% CI −2.791 to 0.041). No significant effect was found for DBP (unit: mm Hg; WMD=−0.918; 95% CI −2.078 to 0.242, p=0.121, I2=0%). Concerning efficiency, most studies (80%, n=4) found either a reduction of healthcare usage or no change. A beneficial effect was observed in a range of safety outcomes (ie, general adherence, medication safety), but not in medication adherence. The proportion of studies reporting a beneficial effect did not differ between low risk and high/unclear risk studies, for the domains evaluated. Discussion Our analysis supports that sharing EHRs with patients is effective in reducing HbA1c levels, a major predictor of mortality in type 2 diabetes (mean decrease of −0.405, unit: %) and could improve patient safety. More studies are necessary to enhance meta-analytical power and assess the impact in other domains of care. Protocol registration http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO (CRD42017070092)

Using Argumentation Logic for Firewall Policy Specification and Analysis

Firewalls are important perimeter security mechanisms that imple-ment an organisation's network security requirements and can be notoriously difficult to configure correctly. Given their widespread use, it is crucial that network administrators have tools to translate their security requirements into firewall configuration rules and ensure that these rules are consistent with each other. In this paper we propose an approach to firewall policy specification and analysis that uses a formal framework for argumentation based preference reasoning. By allowing administrators to define network abstractions (e.g. subnets, protocols etc) security requirements can be specified in a declarative manner using high-level terms. Also it is possible to specify preferences to express the importance of one requirement over another. The use of a formal framework means that the security requirements defined can be automatically analysed for inconsistencies and firewall configurations can be automatically generated. We demonstrate that the technique allows any inconsistency property, including those identified in previous research, to be specified and automatically checked and the use of an argumentation reasoning framework provides administrators with information regarding the causes of the inconsistency