Weather Risk and the Viability of Weather Insurance In Western China

This paper presents preliminary results on the possible demand for weather insurance in China. Results from 1,564 farm households from Western and Central China between October 2007 and October 2008 suggest that the greater risk for farmers is drought followed by excessive rain. Heat is less critical as a risk but more significant than cool weather. Results suggest a strong interest in precipitation insurance with 50% and 44% of respondents indicating strong interest in the product. Supplementary results indicate that interest is equal between planting, cultivating, and harvesting. Furthermore results suggest that farmers are willing to adopt new ideas, and where possible already take action to self insure through diversification and other means, The results are encouraging. Examples and discussion of how weather insurance can be implemented is included in the text.weather insurance, rainfall insurance, China, Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, International Development, Risk and Uncertainty,

A Comparison of the Depositional Environment of the San Andres Formation in the Palo Duro Basin to Recent Evaporitic Environments

The safe storage of high-level radioactive waste in a geologic repository requires a detailed knowledge of the properties of the host rock and surrounding beds, and the continuity of these properties. One of the serious problems faced in the characterization of the deep formations under consideration is that sufficiently detailed descriptions cannot be obtained from the small number of widely spaced test holes available. The examination of modern analogs to the formation under consideration can provide important insights into geochemical characteristics and their degree of continuity. The first step in identifying a natural analog is to adequately describe the formation of interest and to determine its environment of deposition. The formation under consideration in the Palo Duro Basin, the San Andres Formation, has been described elsewhere (Presley, 1979a & b; 1980a & b, 1981; Presley and Ramondetta, 1981; Ramondetta, 1981; Handford, 1981a & b; Handford and Wiggins, 1981; Bassett and Palmer, 1981; Bassett and Roedder, 1981; Budnik and Smith, 1982; Roedder, 1982). In the Palo Duro Basin, the San Andres Formation is an evaporite sequence containing halite, anhydrite, carbonates, and mudstones. The lithology of the San Andres and the stratigraphic sequence prior to San Andres deposition indicate that the formation was deposited at the end of a long-term shift from fan-delta, marine shelf, and deep-basin environments during the Pennsylvanian to shallow marine, brine pan, and evaporite conditions during Late Permian time. A modern analog environment should be located in a relatively shallow basin that has already been filled by marine sedimentation and is now a broad shelf undergoing long-term oceanic regression and slow subsidence.Bureau of Economic Geolog

Variations in Internet Access Across Kansas

With social distancing, reduced health care services and school building closings during the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increasing need for adequate internet access, which is required for telehealth, education, business and social activities. While information is available on areas with broadband coverage, households still might not have adequate internet access due to technical and infrastructure issues, or prohibitive costs.This brief examines variations in adequate internet access by geography, population characteristics, insurance coverage and other factors to better understand how each one impacts Kansans

Self-reported hearing difficulty and its association with general, cognitive, and psychosocial health in the state of Arizona, 2015

BackgroundHearing loss is among the leading causes of disability in persons 65years and older worldwide and is known to have an impact on quality of life as well as social, cognitive, and physical functioning. Our objective was to assess statewide prevalence of self-reported hearing ability in Arizona adults and its association with general health, cognitive decline, diabetes and poor psychosocial health.MethodsA self-report question on hearing was added to the 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a telephone-based survey among community-dwelling adults aged >18years (n=6462). Logistic and linear regression were used to estimate the associations between self-reported hearing loss and health outcomes.ResultsApproximately 1 in 4 adults reported trouble hearing (23.2, 95% confidence interval: 21.8, 24.5%), with responses ranging from a little trouble hearing to being deaf. Adults reporting any trouble hearing were at nearly four times higher odds of reporting increased confusion and memory loss (OR 3.92, 95% CI: 2.94, 5.24) and decreased odds of reporting good general health (OR=0.50, 95% CI: 0.40, 0.64) as compared to participants reporting no hearing difficulty. Those reporting any trouble hearing also reported an average 2.5 more days of poor psychosocial health per month (beta=2.52, 95% CI: 1.64, 3.41). After adjusting for sex, age, questionnaire language, race/ethnicity, and income category the association between diabetes and hearing loss was no longer significant.ConclusionsSelf-reported hearing difficulty was associated with report of increased confusion and memory lossand poorer general and psychosocial health among Arizona adults. These findings support the feasibility and utility of assessing self-reported hearing ability on the BRFSS. Results highlight the need for greater inclusion of the full range of hearing disability in the planning process for public health surveillance, programs, and services at state and local levels.National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health [R21/R33 DC013681]; James S. and Dyan Pignatelli/UniSource Clinical Chair in Audiologic Rehabilitation for AdultsOpen access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Preference of Small Molecules for Local Minimum Conformations when Binding to Proteins

It is well known that small molecules (ligands) do not necessarily adopt their lowest potential energy conformations when binding to proteins. Analyses of protein-bound ligand crystal structures have reportedly shown that many of them do not even adopt the conformations at local minima of their potential energy surfaces (local minimum conformations). The results of these analyses raise a concern regarding the validity of virtual screening methods that use ligands in local minimum conformations. Here we report a normal-mode-analysis (NMA) study of 100 crystal structures of protein-bound ligands. Our data show that the energy minimization of a ligand alone does not automatically stop at a local minimum conformation if the minimum of the potential energy surface is shallow, thus leading to the folding of the ligand. Furthermore, our data show that all 100 ligand conformations in their protein-bound ligand crystal structures are nearly identical to their local minimum conformations obtained from NMA-monitored energy minimization, suggesting that ligands prefer to adopt local minimum conformations when binding to proteins. These results both support virtual screening methods that use ligands in local minimum conformations and caution about possible adverse effect of excessive energy minimization when generating a database of ligand conformations for virtual screening

Normal-Mode-Analysis–Monitored Energy Minimization Procedure for Generating Small–Molecule Bound Conformations

The energy minimization of a small molecule alone does not automatically stop at a local minimum of the potential energy surface of the molecule if the minimum is shallow, thus leading to folding of the molecule and consequently hampering the generation of the bound conformation of a guest in the absence of its host. This questions the practicality of virtual screening methods that use conformations at local minima of their potential energy surfaces (local minimum conformations) as potential bound conformations. Here we report a normal-mode-analysis–monitored energy minimization (NEM) procedure that generates local minimum conformations as potential bound conformations. Of 22 selected guest–host complex crystal structures with guest structures possessing up to four rotatable bonds, all complexes were reproduced, with guest mass–weighted root mean square deviations of <1.0 Å, through docking with the NEM–generated guest local minimum conformations. An analysis of the potential energies of these local minimum conformations showed that 22 (100%), 18 (82%), 16 (73%), and 12 (55%) of the 22 guest bound conformations in the crystal structures had conformational strain energies of less than or equal to 3.8, 2.0, 0.6, and 0.0 kcal/mol, respectively. These results suggest that (1) the NEM procedure can generate small–molecule bound conformations, and (2) guests adopt low-strain–energy conformations for complexation, thus supporting the virtual screening methods that use local minimum conformations