A Comparison of Risk Exposure in Aquaculture and Agricultural Businesses

Agriculture and aquaculture have common features associated with their biological nature affecting risk exposure of the businesses. The aim of this paper is to compare risk exposure in salmon farming and agricultural enterprises in Norway by using an implicit error component model to examine the risk structure of yields, prices and economic returns at the farm level. Results indicate a higher farm-level year-to-year variability in yields, prices and economic returns in salmon farming than in agricultural enterprises. The variability in livestock enterprises was generally lower than for crop enterprises. Return on assets was highest in salmon farming with an average annual return of 9.2%. All of the agricultural farm types exhibited a negative average return on assets on average. Stochastic dominance tests of the distribution of economic returns from aquaculture and agricultural farm types showed salmon farming to be the most risk efficient alternative and salmon farming was most attractive from an investor’s perspective.Risk analysis, variability, Norway, Risk and Uncertainty,

Produtividade e valor nutritivo das frações forrageiras da erva-sal (Atriplex nummularia) irrigada com quatro diferentes volumes de efluentes da criação de tilápia em água salobra.

Avaliou-se a produtividade e o valor nutritivo da erva sal cultivada sob irrigação de quatro volumes de efluentes oriundos de viveiros de criação de tilápia (Oreochromis sp.), cuja salinidade média durante o cultivo foi de 8,29 dS m-l. O delíneamento experimental foi de blocos ao acaso com quatrO tratamentos e três repetições. Os tratamentos de 75, 150, 225 e 300 litros de efluente por planta foram aplicados semanalmente. Os diferentes volumes de água influenciaram a produtividade de matéria seca, mas não influenciaram a composição químico-bromatológica e digestibilidade in vitro da matéria seca em qualquer dos componentes da planta. Os teores de minerais (MM) mostraram-se elevados nas folhas, requerendo assim, cuidados com dietas contendo alta proporção de folhas de erva sal, a ponto de não permitir que teores elevados de sais sejam comprometedores do consumo animal. O teor de proteína bruta e digestibilidade ín vítro da matéria seca médio dos tratamentos para as folhas foi de 15,1 e 67,9%, respectivamente. Ramos e Caules apresentaram elevados teores de FDN e FDA e baixos valores de DIVMS. Independente do nível de água aplicado, a erva sal mostrou características forrageiras desejável, que podem ainda ser melhoradas com práticas de manejo voltadas para tal fim

Gap junction reduction in cardiomyocytes following transforming growth factor- beta treatment and Trypanosoma cruzi infection

Gap junction connexin-43 (Cx43) molecules are responsible for electrical impulse conduction in the heart and are affected by transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta). This cytokine increases during Trypanosoma cruzi infection, modulating fibrosis and the parasite cell cycle. We studied Cx43 expression in cardiomyocytes exposed or not to TGF-beta T. cruzi, or SB-431542, an inhibitor of TGF-beta receptor type I (ALK-5). Cx43 expression was also examined in hearts with dilated cardiopathy from chronic Chagas disease patients, in which TGF-beta signalling had been shown previously to be highly activated. We demonstrated that TGF-beta treatment induced disorganised gap junctions in non-infected cardiomyocytes, leading to a punctate, diffuse and non-uniform Cx43 staining. A similar pattern was detected in T. cruzi-infected cardiomyocytes concomitant with high TGF-beta secretion. Both results were reversed if the cells were incubated with SB-431542. Similar tests were performed using human chronic chagasic patients and we confirmed a down-regulation of Cx43 expression, an altered distribution of plaques in the heart and a significant reduction in the number and length of Cx43 plaques, which correlated negatively with cardiomegaly. We conclude that elevated TGF-beta levels during T. cruzi infection promote heart fibrosis and disorganise gap junctions, possibly contributing to abnormal impulse conduction and arrhythmia that characterise severe cardiopathy in Chagas disease

Composição mineral do resíduo salino sólido de tanques aquícolas abastecidos com resíduo da dessalinização.

O objetivo dessa pesquisa foi avaliar a composição mineral do resíduo salino sólido (RSS) proveniente de dez tanques aquícolas, colhendo-se três amostras por tanque. Foram determinados os teores de N, K, Ca, Mg, S, B, Cu, Fe, Mn, Zn, Na, Cl, P, Ni, Pb, Cd, Cr. O RSS apresentou grande diversidade de elementos minerais, baixa concentração dos principais minerais presentes nos suplementos comerciais como o Ca e o P e heterogeneidade em suas composições com relação aos diferentes tanques. Foi ainda observada a presença de metais pesados, em que para o Pb e Cd os valores médios estão acima da faixa considerada normal, porém, em alguns dos tanques amostrados os valores são inferiores a faixa limite

Qualidade das silagens de leucena (Leucaena leucocephala) e gliricídia (Gliricídia sepium) sob diferentes épocas de abertura dos silos.

Avaliou-se silagens de Leucena (Leucaena leucocephala) e Gliricídia (Gliricídia sepium), produzidas em tubos de PVC, com 7, 14, 28 e 56 dias de fermentação, determinando-se os valores de matéria seca (MS), proteína bruta (PB), fibra em de tergente neutro (FDN), fibra em detergente ácido (FDA), extrato etéreo (EE), carboidratos não estruturais (CNE), digestibilidade in vitro da matéria seca (DIVMS) e pH. Os teores médios de MS, PB, FDN, FDA, DIVMS, pH e CNE apresentaram diferenças significativas entre as espécies forrageiras, não diferindo em relação ao teor de EE. Houve diferenças significativas para todos os parâmetros avaliados, exceto a MS, quando avaliados em função do tempo de incubação. As silagens de leucena e gliricídia apresentaram teores médios de MS (28,24 e 28,20%, respectivamente) inferiores a faixa recomendada como requisitos para a confecção de uma boa silagem. As silagens em estudo apresentaram altos níveis de PB, no entanto apresentaram baixa digestibilidade. Os valores de pH para ambas silagens foram elevados em todos os tempos de incubação, o que pode prejudicar o processo fermentativo

A Large-Diameter Hollow-Shaft Cryogenic Motor Based on a Superconducting Magnetic Bearing for Millimeter-Wave Polarimetry

In this paper we present the design and measured performance of a novel cryogenic motor based on a superconducting magnetic bearing (SMB). The motor is tailored for use in millimeter-wave half-wave plate (HWP) polarimeters, where a HWP is rapidly rotated in front of a polarization analyzer or polarization-sensitive detector. This polarimetry technique is commonly used in cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization studies. The SMB we use is composed of fourteen yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) disks and a contiguous neodymium iron boron (NdFeB) ring magnet. The motor is a hollow-shaft motor because the HWP is ultimately installed in the rotor. The motor presented here has a 100 mm diameter rotor aperture. However, the design can be scaled up to rotor aperture diameters of approximately 500 mm. Our motor system is composed of four primary subsystems: (i) the rotor assembly, which includes the NdFeB ring magnet, (ii) the stator assembly, which includes the YBCO disks, (iii) an incremental encoder, and (iv) the drive electronics. While the YBCO is cooling through its superconducting transition, the rotor is held above the stator by a novel hold and release mechanism (HRM). The encoder subsystem consists of a custom-built encoder disk read out by two fiber optic readout sensors. For the demonstration described in this paper, we ran the motor at 50 K and tested rotation frequencies up to approximately 10 Hz. The feedback system was able to stabilize the the rotation speed to approximately 0.4%, and the measured rotor orientation angle uncertainty is less than 0.15 deg. Lower temperature operation will require additional development activities, which we will discuss

Statistical properties of Lorenz like flows, recent developments and perspectives

We comment on mathematical results about the statistical behavior of Lorenz equations an its attractor, and more generally to the class of singular hyperbolic systems. The mathematical theory of such kind of systems turned out to be surprisingly difficult. It is remarkable that a rigorous proof of the existence of the Lorenz attractor was presented only around the year 2000 with a computer assisted proof together with an extension of the hyperbolic theory developed to encompass attractors robustly containing equilibria. We present some of the main results on the statisitcal behavior of such systems. We show that for attractors of three-dimensional flows, robust chaotic behavior is equivalent to the existence of certain hyperbolic structures, known as singular-hyperbolicity. These structures, in turn, are associated to the existence of physical measures: \emph{in low dimensions, robust chaotic behavior for flows ensures the existence of a physical measure}. We then give more details on recent results on the dynamics of singular-hyperbolic (Lorenz-like) attractors.Comment: 40 pages; 10 figures; Keywords: sensitive dependence on initial conditions, physical measure, singular-hyperbolicity, expansiveness, robust attractor, robust chaotic flow, positive Lyapunov exponent, large deviations, hitting and recurrence times. Minor typos corrected and precise acknowledgments of financial support added. To appear in Int J of Bif and Chaos in App Sciences and Engineerin