Consumer Purchasing Behaviors and Attitudes toward Shopping at Public Markets

This paper identifies and empirically evaluates factors that explain the variations in consumers’ attitudes toward shopping at farmers markets in general and public markets in particular. The analysis draws on data from a telephone survey conducted in Jefferson County, Alabama. Logit model results point to several factors that seem to be strongly correlated with consumer purchasing behaviors and attitudes toward shopping at public markets, including income, education, age of household head, household size, and price and quality of produce. The insights gained from the study should help farmers increase the profitability of their operations and improve the likelihood that they will continue farming.Consumer/Household Economics,

Fourth Annual Report: Agricultural Sector Analysis in Thailand

This Fourth Annual Report summarizes accomplishments of the Agricultural Sector Analysis Project in Thailand during fiscal year 1977 and relates these accomplishments to past work progress as well as to projected work for fiscal year 1978. Accomplishments described in this report are a result of the cooperative research effort being carried out by the Division of Agricultural Economics (DAE) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Royal Thai Government, and the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development of Iowa State University. The cooperative research effort is funded by the United States Agency for International Development and the Royal Thai Government. This summary describes one phase of a sector analysis project being undertaken to provide models and empirical analysis which can aid development and policies for agriculture in Thailand.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/dae-card_sectoranalysis/1011/thumbnail.jp

Can gravitational infall energy lead to the observed velocity dispersion in DLAs?

The median observed velocity width v_90 of low-ionization species in damped Ly-alpha systems is close to 90 km/s, with approximately 10% of all systems showing v_90 > 210 km/s at z=3. We show that a relative shortage of such high-velocity neutral gas absorbers in state-of-the-art galaxy formation models is a fundamental problem, present both in grid-based and particle-based numerical simulations. Using a series of numerical simulations of varying resolution and box size to cover a wide range of halo masses, we demonstrate that energy from gravitational infall alone is insufficient to produce the velocity dispersion observed in damped Ly-alpha systems, nor does this dispersion arise from an implementation of star formation and feedback in our highest resolution (~ 45 pc) models, if we do not put any galactic winds into our models by hand. We argue that these numerical experiments highlight the need to separate dynamics of different components of the multiphase interstellar medium at z=3.Comment: 12 Pages, 9 Figures, accepted to ApJ, printing in colour recommende

Long-Term Renal Function following Exposure to Petroleum Environmental Pollutants in the population of Ogoni Women,Niger Delta: A possible cellular mechanisms of Environmental Pollutants-induced Nephrotoxicity

Environmental toxic pollutants are of environmentalconcern because of its diversity of toxic effects in human body. In this study, randomly selected 184 female volunteers,94  from  Ogoni, Rivers State, Niger Delta and 90 from Ogoja Cross River State,consistently living in the petroleum exploration or gas and oil flaring region and non-petroleum production environments respectively, Nigeria, were used to estimate the contents of renal function indices  using standard procedures. Volunteers’ age ranged from 18 to 50 years. When compared to control, this study indicated significant high level of urea, creatinine, sodium and potassium with the ratio of urea to creatinine of 3:1 for the population of Ogoni women. Correlation coefficient analysis revealed significant positive relationship between heavy metals (lead, cadmium and vanadium) and renal function indices (urea and creatinine). An indication that environmental toxic pollutants cancause direct damage to the kidneysplausibly mediated by the combination of the high content of the exposed environmental pollutants and the induced high level of the renal toxins, specifically urea, which possibly fragmented blood cells without heat leading to nephrotoxicity.Additionally, the inference is that the population in the petroleum exploitation and exploration or oil and gas flaring environments are predisposed to renal dysfunction and are unaware

Release of cAMP gating by the alpha6beta4 integrin stimulates lamellae formation and the chemotactic migration of invasive carcinoma cells

The alpha6beta4 integrin promotes carcinoma in-vasion by its activation of a phosphoinositide 3-OH (PI3-K) signaling pathway (Shaw, L.M., I. Rabinovitz, H.H.-F. Wang, A. Toker, and A.M. Mercurio. Cell. 91: 949-960). We demonstrate here using MDA-MB-435 breast carcinoma cells that alpha6beta4 stimulates chemotactic migration, a key component of invasion, but that it has no influence on haptotaxis. Stimulation of chemotaxis by alpha6beta4 expression was observed in response to either lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) or fibroblast conditioned medium. Moreover, the LPA-dependent formation of lamellae in these cells is dependent upon alpha6beta4 expression. Both lamellae formation and chemotactic migration are inhibited or gated by cAMP and our results reveal that a critical function of alpha6beta4 is to suppress the intracellular cAMP concentration by increasing the activity of a rolipram-sensitive, cAMP-specific phosphodiesterase (PDE). This PDE activity is essential for lamellae formation, chemotactic migration and invasion based on data obtained with PDE inhibitors. Although PI3-K and cAMP-specific PDE activities are both required to promote lamellae formation and chemotactic migration, our data indicate that they are components of distinct signaling pathways. The essence of our findings is that alpha6beta4 stimulates the chemotactic migration of carcinoma cells through its ability to influence key signaling events that underlie this critical component of carcinoma invasion

RhoA function in lamellae formation and migration is regulated by the alpha6beta4 integrin and cAMP metabolism

Clone A colon carcinoma cells develop fan-shaped lamellae and exhibit random migration when plated on laminin, processes that depend on the ligation of the alpha6beta4 integrin. Here, we report that expression of a dominant negative RhoA (N19RhoA) in clone A cells inhibited alpha6beta4-dependent membrane ruffling, lamellae formation, and migration. In contrast, expression of a dominant negative Rac (N17Rac1) had no effect on these processes. Using the Rhotekin binding assay to assess RhoA activation, we observed that engagement of alpha6beta4 by either antibody-mediated clustering or laminin attachment resulted in a two- to threefold increase in RhoA activation, compared with cells maintained in suspension or plated on collagen. Antibody-mediated clustering of beta1 integrins, however, actually suppressed Rho A activation. The alpha6beta4-mediated interaction of clone A cells with laminin promoted the translocation of RhoA from the cytosol to membrane ruffles at the edges of lamellae and promoted its colocalization with beta1 integrins, as assessed by immunofluorescence microscopy. In addition, RhoA translocation was blocked by inhibiting phosphodiesterase activity and enhanced by inhibiting the activity of cAMP-dependent protein kinase. Together, these results establish a specific integrin-mediated pathway of RhoA activation that is regulated by cAMP and that functions in lamellae formation and migration

Polysaccharide Processing and Presentation by the MHCII Pathway

AbstractThe adaptive immune system functions through the combined action of antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and T cells. Specifically, class I major histocompatibility complex antigen presentation to CD8+ T cells is limited to proteosome-generated peptides from intracellular pathogens while the class II (MHCII) endocytic pathway presents only proteolytic peptides from extracellular pathogens to CD4+ T cells. Carbohydrates have been thought to stimulate immune responses independently of T cells; however, zwitterionic polysaccharides (ZPSs) from the capsules of some bacteria can activate CD4+ T cells. Here we show that ZPSs are processed to low molecular weight carbohydrates by a nitric oxide-mediated mechanism and presented to T cells through the MHCII endocytic pathway. Furthermore, these carbohydrates bind to MHCII inside APCs for presentation to T cells. Our observations begin to elucidate the mechanisms by which some carbohydrates induce important immunologic responses through T cell activation, suggesting a fundamental shift in the MHCII presentation paradigm

Consumer Purchasing Behaviors and Attitudes toward Shopping at Public Markets

This paper identifies and empirically evaluates factors that explain the variations in consumers’ attitudes toward shopping at farmers markets in general and public markets in particular. The analysis draws on data from a telephone survey conducted in Jefferson County, Alabama. Logit model results point to several factors that seem to be strongly correlated with consumer purchasing behaviors and attitudes toward shopping at public markets, including income, education, age of household head, household size, and price and quality of produce. The insights gained from the study should help farmers increase the profitability of their operations and improve the likelihood that they will continue farming

COMMUNICATIONS LINK FOR COMPUTERS

A system is disclosed for a computer to communicate with a selected one of a plurality of other computers through two identical communications links associated with the communicating computers. A single channel connects the two links which operate at a clock rate independent of the computers. Binary digits and clock pulses are combined and converted into a three-level signal for serial transmission over the single channel. Both control messages and data words may be transmitted. Each message and word transmitted is checked for error by the receiving link before it is accepted and the receiving computer is interrupted. If error is found, an error message is automatically transmitted to the originating computer