A Spatial Analysis of Farm Payment Recipients Using the FSA 1614 Dataset

We report results from preliminary analysis of the recently constructed dataset from the Farm Service Agency, FSA 1614. FSA 1614 provides the location of the farm and the farm payment recipient for all Title I payments. This makes it possible to analyze the spatial dispersion between landowner and farm more precisely than previously possible. A discussion of what research questions could be informed through the use of this data is provided. We find that a significant percentage of payments are sent to individuals that are likely to be absentee landowners, although this value is much smaller when looking at the total value of payments. These national results are compared to four corn belt states.Agricultural Finance,

FACTORS INFLUENCING SUPPORT FOR RURAL LAND USE CONTROL : A COMMENT

Land ownership characteristics such as the quantity of land owned, quality of land parcels, and location of land describe important dimensions of landed wealth. Landed wealth is expected to be an important factor influencing support for rural land use control. This factor was not discussed in the April (1999) article by McLeod, Woirhaye, and Menkhaus (1999). We suggest that this factor contributes to understanding variation in support for rural land use control.Land Economics/Use,

PUBLIC OPINIONS ABOUT FARMLAND AND FARMLAND PRESERVATION: RESULTS FROM A SURVEY IN KENT COUNTY, MICHIGAN

Retention of agricultural land has become a principal goal for Michigan and its local governments. Purchase of Development Rights is one farmland preservation policy option being considered by many local units of government. Maximizing the benefits from such a program requires an understanding of why the public is interested in farmland preservation. The type and magnitude of benefit will differ depending upon which land is targeted for preservation. This paper reports the results of a survey conducted to ask residents of Kent County, Michigan, what characteristics of farmland are important and how farmland preservation programs should be targeted. The survey also asked whether respondents would support farmland preservation. Results indicate that characteristics of farmland do matter and that support of a farmland preservation program is likely driven by program cost.Land Economics/Use,

UNDERSTANDING THE DEMAND FOR FARMLAND PRESERVATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR MICHIGAN POLICIES

The diversity of opinion on farmland preservation suggests that a close look at the issue is warranted as state and local governments consider how best to preserve the state's farmland resource. Public support for farmland preservation programs will be required if those programs are to be successful and will only be forthcoming if there is greater agreement about questions that underlie the policy debate. These questions include whether farmland loss is occurring, whether farmland preservation is needed, how farmland preservation programs should be designed, and what farmland should be preserved. This paper discusses each of these issues, in turn, and describes how current Michigan farmland preservation efforts are or are not addressing them.Land Economics/Use,

Simulated performance of an order statistic threshold strategy for detection of narrowband signals

The application of order statistics to signal detection is becoming an increasingly active area of research. This is due to the inherent robustness of rank estimators in the presence of large outliers that would significantly degrade more conventional mean-level-based detection systems. A detection strategy is presented in which the threshold estimate is obtained using order statistics. The performance of this algorithm in the presence of simulated interference and broadband noise is evaluated. In this way, the robustness of the proposed strategy in the presence of the interference can be fully assessed as a function of the interference, noise, and detector parameters

Computing the merger of black-hole binaries: the IBBH problem

Gravitational radiation arising from the inspiral and merger of binary black holes (BBH's) is a promising candidate for detection by kilometer-scale interferometric gravitational wave observatories. This paper discusses a serious obstacle to searches for such radiation and to the interpretation of any observed waves: the inability of current computational techniques to evolve a BBH through its last ~10 orbits of inspiral (~100 radians of gravitational-wave phase). A new set of numerical-relativity techniques is proposed for solving this ``Intermediate Binary Black Hole'' (IBBH) problem: (i) numerical evolutions performed in coordinates co-rotating with the BBH, in which the metric coefficients evolve on the long timescale of inspiral, and (ii) techniques for mathematically freezing out gravitational degrees of freedom that are not excited by the waves.Comment: 6 pages RevTe

The Loudest Event Statistic: General Formulation, Properties and Applications

The use of the loudest observed event to generate statistical statements about rate and strength has become standard in searches for gravitational waves from compact binaries and pulsars. The Bayesian formulation of the method is generalized in this paper to allow for uncertainties both in the background estimate and in the properties of the population being constrained. The method is also extended to allow rate interval construction. Finally, it is shown how to combine the results from multiple experiments and a comparison is drawn between the upper limit obtained in a single search and the upper limit obtained by combining the results of two experiments each of half the original duration. To illustrate this, we look at an example case, motivated by the search for gravitational waves from binary inspiral.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure