The supply response of U.S. rice: how decoupled are income payments?

This study examines the decoupled nature of direct payments and counter-cyclical payments to determine if they have an impact on U.S. rice area harvested. A naïve expectations model was specified, with the results indicating that direct payments are decoupled; however, counter-cyclical are not. Overall, the results indicate that a change in the expected gross margin or counter-cyclical payments would stimulate a supply response in rice production. The lack of a significant amount of time-series data renders results of this analysis as preliminary.Agricultural and Food Policy,

The Determinants of On-Farm Renewable Energy Adoption

Agribusiness, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Dean MacKay Takes Well Earned Vacation

There will be a vacant chair at the council table of the Home Economics Division of Iowa State College this coming year. Dean Catherine J. MacKay will be away

The Kinematics of the Ionized and Molecular Hydrogen in the Starburst Galaxy NGC 253

Near-infrared H_2 1-0 S(1) and Br_gamma velocity curves along the major axis of NGC 253 have revealed a central velocity gradient that is seven times steeper than that shown by the optical velocity curve. This is interpreted as an optical depth effect due to dust. Approximately 35 mag of visual extinction in the center is required to match the SW side of the optical velocity curve. The spatial variation of the ratio of these lines to the CO (J=1-0) line is compared among starburst galaxies NGC 253, M82, and NGC 4945 to investigate the excitation mechanism responsible for the H_2 1-0 S(1) line.Comment: Uuencoded postscript file, 10 pages (4 tables included), 8 figures available on request to [email protected], Ap.J. (in press

Active primate simulator Final report

Systems engineering data and design specifications for Biosatellite active primate simulato

The extinction by dust in the outer parts of spiral galaxies

To investigate the distribution of dust in Sb and Sc galaxies we have analyzed near-infrared and optical surface photometry for an unbiased sample of 37 galaxies. Since light in the $K$-band is very little affected by extinction by dust, the $B-K$ colour is a good indicator of the amount of extinction, and using the colour-inclination relation we can statistically determine the extinction for an average Sb/Sc galaxy. We find in general a considerable amount of extinction in spiral galaxies in the central regions, all the way out to their effective radii. In the outer parts, at D$_{K,21}$, or at 3 times the typical exponential scale lengths of the stellar distribution , we find a maximum optical depth of 0.5 in $B$ for a face-on galaxy. If we impose the condition that the dust is distributed in the same way as the stars, this upper limit would go down to 0.1.Comment: 4 pages, postscript, gzip-compressed, uuencoded, includes 2 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Letter

Observations of the J = 2→1 transitions of ¹²C¹⁶O and ¹²C¹⁸O towards galactic H II regions

Observations are reported of the J = 2→1 transitions of CO and 12C18O at 230 and 219 GHz respectively from a number of galactic sources. A map of the central 1/2° × 1/2° of the Orion A molecular cloud is presented. The spectra are interpreted to derive molecular densities and abundance ratios in the molecular clouds observed