The Behavior of Soluble Salt in Sharkey Clay

Soluble salt problems do exist and are significant in Arkansas. Studies have been conducted on Crowley silt loam (Typic Albaqualfs) which have established the behavior of soluble salt in that soil. The major objective of this study was to quantify the behavior of soluble salt in a second important Mississippi River Delta soil - the Sharkey (Vertic Haplaquepts). To this end, estimation of the downward redistribution of salt and the estimation of various components of the water balance for this soil served as specific objectives. Field studies were designed to monitor the movement of salt in the Sharkey soil and to characterize selected components of the water balance. In total, three tentative conclusions may be drawn from the data. First, the infiltration for the Sharkey soil was approximately three times that of the Crowley silt loam. The average value was 29 cm for the rice season. Second, levee seepage, while significant for small plots, was shown to be small for production-sized fields. Levee seepage remained relatively constant throughout the season and averaged 0.025 nvfym/d. And third, downward redistribution of salt was large and appeared to follow a pattern where a peak occurred at the surface and, possibly, at the lower soil depths

Benefit Plan Design and Prescription Drug Utilization Among Asthmatics: Do Patient Copayments Matter?

Objective: The ratio of controller to reliever medication use has been proposed as a measure of treatment quality for asthma patients. In this study we examine the effects of plan level mean out-of-pocket asthma medication patient copayments and other features of benefit plan design on the use of controller medications alone, controller and reliever medications (combination therapy), and reliever medications alone. Methods: 1995-2000 MarketScan claims data were used to construct plan-level out-of-pocket copayment and physician/practice prescriber preference variables for asthma medications. Separate multinomial logit models were estimated for patients in fee-for-service (FFS) and non-FFS plans relating benefit plan design features, physician/practice prescribing preferences, patient demographics, patient comorbidities and county-level income variables to patient-level asthma treatment patterns. Results: We find that the controller reliever ratio rose steadily over 1995-2000, along with out-of-pocket payments for asthma medications, which rose more for controllers than for relievers. However, after controlling for other variables, plan level mean out-of-pocket copayments were not found to have a statistically significant influence upon patient-level asthma treatment patterns. On the other hand, physician practice prescribing patterns strongly influenced patient level treatment patterns. Conclusions: There is no strong statistical evidence that higher levels of out-of-pocket copayments for prescription drugs influence asthma treatment patterns. However, physician/practice prescribing preferences influence patient treatment.

A Survey of Soils Irrigated with Arkansas River Water

Interest in the use of Arkansas River water for irrigation has increased recently as land adjacent to the river is converted to crop production and river water is considered as an alternative to depleted underground supplies. Since the Arkansas River can contain elevated concentrations of sodium chloride, this study was designed to determine if soil conditions adverse to crop growth were developing where river water has been used. The impact of river water on sites where river water was used as either the sole source for up to 3 years or as a supplement to another surface source for up to 20 years was evaluated. The mean surface and profile ESPs were both 3.7%, while parallel ECs for 1:2 soil:, water extract were 183 and 163 umhos/cm, respectively. Mean surface and profile chloride concentrations were 32 and 50 ug/g, respectively. Mean saturated hydraulic conductivities were 0.015 cm/hr for the surface soil. No data were obtained which suggested that the use of the Arkansas River under the conditions described above was detrimental to soil physical or chemical properties. Periodic reevaluation of this conclusion is suggested at sites where direct use of Arkansas River water continues for an extended period of time

Effect of a dietary essential oil mixture on performance of laying hens in the summer season

The experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary supplements of either an essential oil mixture (EOM) or a mannan oligosaccharide (MOS) as alternatives to an antibiotic feed additive (avilamycin) for layers kept under hot summer conditions. Four hundred and eighty 54-week old Nick-Brown hens were assigned to four dietary treatments. Each treatment consisted of four replications of 10 cages (three hens per cage). The treatment groups were: 1) Control: Basal diet without additive; 2) Basal diet plus antibiotic (10 mg avilamycin/kg feed); 3) Basal diet plus 1 g MOS/kg feed; 4) Basal diet plus 24 mg EOM/kg feed. Performance of laying hens was affected by dietary treatments. Dietary supplementation of EOM and MOS significantly increased egg production compared with control and antibiotic groups. There were no significant differences in feed consumption between treatments. The EOM significantly improved feed conversion ratio above that of the control group. Egg weights were significantly different between treatments. Laying hens consuming MOS produced significantly lower egg weights than the other groups, while egg weights in the EOM, antibiotic and control groups did not differ significantly. Cracked-broken egg rate was decreased by dietary addition of EOM, MOS and antibiotic compared with the control. Number of deaths among hens was significantly affected by dietary treatments with the number of deaths in the MOS treatment being significantly lower than in the other treatments. The performance of laying hens during the summer season could be maintained with inclusions of EOM and MOS in the diet. Keywords: Essential oils, mannan oligosaccharide, antibiotic, egg production, laying hen, summer seasonSouth African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 36 (4) 2006: pp. 215-22

The Behavior of Soluble Salt in Sharkey Clay- II

Soluble salts have been shown to accumulate in Arkansas soils in sufficient quantities to impair crop plant growth. The major objective of this study was to describe the behavior of soluble chloride salt over long time periods in Sharkey clay - a major Mississippi Delta soil. Prior to flooding rice, leaching of chloride in response to rainfall was observed. The inclusion of a sandy subsoil layer reduced this effect presumably by limiting downward movement of water under unsaturated conditions. No lateral movement of the chloride salt was found during the period prior to flooding. Removal of soluble chloride salts from the top 100 cm of Sharkey soil was complete in a 1-2 year period depending on weather conditions. In a year where the rice cropping season was followed by a wet winter, losses were smaller than in a year where the rice cropping season was followed by a drier winter. These results suggested that removal of soluble salts via leaching in this soil was more efficient under less saturated soil conditions

Healthcare Costs of Acute and Chronic Pain Associated with a Diagnosis of Herpes Zoster

To determine the healthcare costs of acute and chronic pain associated with herpes zoster. DESIGN : Retrospective cohort analysis. SETTING : Inpatient and outpatient care. PARTICIPANTS : Patients were selected from Medicare, commercial insurance, and Medicaid claims databases if they had a diagnosis of herpes zoster or postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) or were prescribed analgesics after a diagnosis of herpes zoster (possible PHN) and were matched to controls for demographic and clinical factors using propensity scores. MEASUREMENTS : One-year excess healthcare expenditures attributable to herpes zoster pain or PHN were calculated for inpatient, outpatient, and prescription drug services. RESULTS : For the Medicare cohort, the average excess cost per patient was $1,300 in the year after a diagnosis of herpes zoster with 30 days or fewer of analgesic use and ranged from$2,200 to $2,300 per patient with PHN or possible PHN. Patients with possible PHN were 53% more prevalent than patients with PHN in the Medicare cohort and accounted for half of all excess expenditures. Findings were similar in the younger cohorts with commercial insurance and Medicaid except that costs attributable to PHN and possible PHN were higher, and patients with possible PHN were three to five times as prevalent as patients with PHN. CONCLUSION : Healthcare costs associated with PHN were substantially greater than those associated with herpes zoster pain that resolved within 30 days. The data suggest that as many as 80% of patients with PHN may not be diagnosed with PHN and that these patients account for at least half of PHN expenditures.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66349/1/j.1532-5415.2007.01231.x.pd

Painlev\'e Transcendent Describes Quantum Correlation Function of the XXZ Antiferromagnet away from the free-fermion point

We consider quantum correlation functions of the antiferromagnetic spin-$\frac{1}{2}$ Heisenberg XXZ spin chain in a magnetic field. We show that for a magnetic field close to the critical field $h_c$ (for the critical magnetic field the ground state is ferromagnetic) certain correlation functions can be expressed in terms of the solution of the Painlev\'e V transcendent. This establishes a relation between solutions of Painlev\'e differential equations and quantum correlation functions in models of {\sl interacting} fermions. Painlev\'e transcendents were known to describe correlation functions in models with free fermionic spectra.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX2