Analysis for Western Hemisphere Integration

International Relations/Trade,

Consumer Acceptance of Biotechnology: Lessons From the rbST Experience

The controversial introduction of rbST, a laboratory version of bST, a growth hormone that stimulates milk production in cows, may provide hopeful lessons for other foods produced by biotechnology. Milk sales remained steady after rbST became available to dairy farmers, even though a multitude of public opinion surveys documented widespread concern about food safety and biotechnology, and some analysts predicted a drop in milk consumption of up to 20 percent. The undiminished consumer demand for milk may indicate that consumers will also accept other animal food products from biotechnology. The rbST experience suggests that, while scientific evidence of food safety will not prevent controversy over biotech foods, controversy will not necessarily inhibit consumer demand for the food.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

The Random Walk of High Frequency Trading

This paper builds a model of high-frequency equity returns by separately modeling the dynamics of trade-time returns and trade arrivals. Our main contributions are threefold. First, we characterize the distributional behavior of high-frequency asset returns both in ordinary clock time and in trade time. We show that when controlling for pre-scheduled market news events, trade-time returns of the highly liquid near-month E-mini S&P 500 futures contract are well characterized by a Gaussian distribution at very fine time scales. Second, we develop a structured and parsimonious model of clock-time returns by subordinating a trade-time Gaussian distribution with a trade arrival process that is associated with a modified Markov-Switching Multifractal Duration (MSMD) model. This model provides an excellent characterization of high-frequency inter-trade durations. Over-dispersion in this distribution of inter-trade durations leads to leptokurtosis and volatility clustering in clock-time returns, even when trade-time returns are Gaussian. Finally, we use our model to extrapolate the empirical relationship between trade rate and volatility in an effort to understand conditions of market failure. Our model suggests that the 1,200 km physical separation of financial markets in Chicago and New York/New Jersey provides a natural ceiling on systemic volatility and may contribute to market stability during periods of extremely heavy trading

Energy and Macronutrient Intake of First-Year Football Players: A Pilot Study

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the energy intake and macronutrient breakdown of first-year football players at a Division III school. A secondary purpose was to examine the relationship of dietary intake to clinical measures. Methods: Seventeen first-year football players completed a 24-Hour Diet Recall interview. Players had their height, weight, body composition, fasting blood glucose and cholesterol measured. Researchers provided measuring devices to help participants recall their food and liquid intake for the previous 24 hours. Independent T-tests were performed to examine the differences between skilled and lineman football players. Results: The athletes consumed an average of 4,103 kcals (range 1,283.4 kcals – 8,347.3 kcals) with the following macronutrient breakdown: 48% Carbohydrate, 35% Fat and 17% protein. Lineman were heavier, had higher Body Mass Index (BMI), larger waist circumferences (WC), higher percent body fat (BF), and higher fasting blood glucoses (p \u3e 0.05) than the skilled players. There were no differences in total kcals consumed, macronutrient composition, or water intake between two groups. Conclusion: Skilled and lineman football players had similar energy intakes; lineman had higher BMIs, WC, and BF. This would suggest that lineman expend lower amounts of energy than skilled players. This information combined with the higher blood glucose levels can be an indicator for a football player’s future health

Predicting operator workload during system design

A workload prediction methodology was developed in response to the need to measure workloads associated with operation of advanced aircraft. The application of the methodology will involve: (1) conducting mission/task analyses of critical mission segments and assigning estimates of workload for the sensory, cognitive, and psychomotor workload components of each task identified; (2) developing computer-based workload prediction models using the task analysis data; and (3) exercising the computer models to produce predictions of crew workload under varying automation and/or crew configurations. Critical issues include reliability and validity of workload predictors and selection of appropriate criterion measures

Why Trade Associations Matter: Exploring Function, Meaning, and Influence

We explore the organizational characteristics of trade associations (TAs) and suggest theoretical approaches for undertaking research into or involving TAs in management and organization studies. Through emphasizing the role of TAs within and between industries and at the interface of business and society, we consider how TAs generate meaning and influence

PERCEIVED SIMILARITY BETWEEN COMPLEX SOUNDS: THE CONTRIBUTION OF ACOUSTIC, DESCRIPTIVE AND CATEGORICAL FEATURES

The thesis identifies some of the most salient acoustic and descriptive features employed in listeners' representations of sounds focussing on similarity judgements. A range of descriptive data (including word pair and imagery/word use) was collected alongside acoustic measures for the sound stimuli employed. The sounds employed were initially all abstract in nature but environmental sounds were included in later experiments. A painwise comparison task and a grouping task were employed to collect (dis)similarity data for multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analyses. These provided visual output that represented the sounds' perceived similarities. Following participants' similarity judgements correlational techniques identified which of the acoustic and descriptive features helped to explain the dimensions identified by the MDS. Results across all nine experiments indicated that both acoustic and descriptive features contributed to listeners' similarity judgements and that the influence of these varied for the different sound sets employed. Familiarity with the sounds was identified as an additional feature that played a key role in the way participants used the available information in their grouping decisions. There was also a clear indication that the category to which a sounds source object belonged was making an important contribution to the similarity judgements for sounds rated as familiar. The work highlights a complex and variable relationship in the use of descriptive and acoustic features. Further the work has investigated the similarities and differences in participants' judgements depending on the data collection technique used i.e. pairwise comparison or grouping task. These findings have implications for the development of future models of auditory cognition. The thesis suggests that the perception of sound with particular reference to similarity is a complex interplay of features that goes far beyond understanding acoustic features alone.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Counci

The Effects of Temperature and Pressure Variation on the Process of Cooking Foods

It is generally known that water has a definite boiling temperature for each pressure to which its surface is subjected and that wet steam generated in a closed vessel maintains a definite temperature-pressure relation. Under each condition of temperature and pressure the steam contains a fixed amount of available energy stored as heat and called, Heat Content the value of which is usually based upon an arbitrary zero fixed a 32 degrees F., the freezing temperature of water under one atmosphere of pressure

Occupational Therapy: A Partner for Justice in Jesuit Higher Education

The commitment to justice spans disciplines across Jesuit higher education, including the health sciences. At least 12 Jesuit colleges and universities offer occupational therapy programs, but the profession has been somewhat overlooked as a partner for justice on those campuses. Through a case example focusing on Saint Louis University’s Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy (SLU-DOSOT), this article aims to illustrate the ways in which occupational therapy can be a partner in the promotion and pursuit of justice. A brief overview of the profession’s perspective on occupational justice precedes the description of SLU-DOSOT, and selected examples illustrate the range of contributions that this perspective can make to university-wide justice-focused efforts

The Andromache of Euripides

There seems now to be widespread agreement in the otherwise disputatious world of letters that literary criticism is one of the most difficult and one of the least generally successful of all undertakings. 1 As a science it is (and has always been) constantly frustrated by the absence of principles and applicable theories. As a service it has been regularly ignored. As an art it has usually found recognition only in disguise. The reasons underlying this undistinguished record are many: ignorance, shortsightedness, bigotry-all such imperfections on the part of the critics have contributed their share; they, with the passage of time and the emergence of new ideas, have often, while rebuking the criticism of the past, choked out life from any new development by mutual bickering and incompatibility. Critics who praise are frequently too flamboyant to be taken seriously; those who condemn are seldom constructive; the critics who guard against either extreme are apt to end up with essays of great caution and little substance. Such pitfalls are apparent, more quickly apparent to the critic himself, if he is at all sensitive, than to the reader, and they are but a sampling. The basic difficulty of literary or artistic criticism can never be overcome: it must try to express in rational terms appreciation or explanation of creativity the full explanation or appreciation of which, to judge from the evidence, cannot be rationally stated. That is to say, the most exhaustive analysis of the content, form, and style of a Theocritean idyll does not begin to explain its immortality. Even after one adds to this analysis a study of the emotional impact of single words and phrases, plus an evaluation of the psychology involved in the poet\u27s motivation, still the endearing quality of the poem is left untouched. The great mass of learned literature ultimately comes no closer to the heart of the idyll than do a few lines of simple and personal poetry which with innocent freedom of critical acumen reflect how the poet sang Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young. It may be argued that Theocritus, Sappho, and all such poets are especially difficult for critics because they appeal almost exclusively to the emotions. It is not, however, the emotional interference in a work of art alone that makes us inarticulate. It is the culmination of all the powers within the work which cast their influence upon every receptive area of our minds and bodies, hitting us in memory, in conscience, in intellect, as well as in any or all of the emotions which underlie our make-up. Rare and wonderful would be that critic who could detect in detail the manner in which a piece of writing affected him. His summary would stand as a masterpiece of criticism, even though he made no effort to rank, challenge, or praise the work in question. Unfortunately a blend of shyness, shame, and lack of understanding stifles most men when they are confronted by art which greatly moves them, so that the masterpiece is seldom attempted and then only imperfectly in memoirs and confessions. But these same men who cannot express their reaction in words still know most keenly when they have been affected, and proceed to relate to each other and to the world, if only by incoherent mumblings, that they have struck upon something great, something important-in a word, art. Thus literature is perpetuated in spite of the critics: it lives to influence, to overpower, to be understood and misunderstood by each new generation