Food Industry Mergers and Acquisitions Lead to Higher Labor Productivity

Processing plants in eight major food industries were highly productive before being acquired and they significantly improved their labor productivity afterward, Economic Research Service and U.S. Census Bureau researchers found in their analysis of Census data. The plant-level data on production inputs and costs provided a detailed picture of food-production facilities involved in mergers and acquisitions. The industries are meatpacking, meat processing, poultry slaughtering and processing, cheese making, fluid milk processing, flour milling, feed processing, and oilseed crushing. The analysis suggests that mergers and acquisitions contributed to the general improvement in labor productivity, echoing an earlier ERS study. Labor productivity is defined as output per worker.Mergers, acquisitions, labor productivity, consolidation, structural change, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization, Productivity Analysis,

Structural Change in the Meat, Poultry, Dairy and Grain Processing Industries

Consolidation and structural changes in the food industry have had profound impacts on firms, employees, and communities in many parts of the United States. Over 1972-92, eight important food industries underwent a structural transformation in which the number of plants declined by about one-third and the number of employees needed to staff the remaining plants dropped by more than 100,000 (20 percent). The number of plants in one other industry also dropped, but that industry added jobs. Economists generally attribute structural changes such as these to rising or falling demand and shifts in technology. This report examines consolidation and structural change in meatpacking, meat processing, poultry slaughter and processing, cheese products, fluid milk, flour milling, corn milling, feed, and soybean processing. Plant size and output per employee rose sharply in all industries, and even industries with rapidly growing demand—such as soybean processing and poultry slaughter/processing—used fewer plants. These findings suggest that technological change was the major force driving structural change.structural change, food processing, consolidation, grain processing, meat slaughter, dairy processing, Industrial Organization,

Effect of Food Industry Mergers and Acquisitions on Employment and Wages

Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight important food industries suggests that workers in acquired plants realized modest increases in employment and wages relative to other workers. Results also show that mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while high relative labor costs encouraged plant shutdowns. These results differ from commonly held views that mergers and acquisitions lead to fewer jobs, wage cuts, and plant shutdowns.Food product industries, mergers and acquisitions, plant closures, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Spinning Down a Black Hole With Scalar Fields

We study the evolution of a Kerr black hole emitting scalar radiation via the Hawking process. We show that the rate at which mass and angular momentum are lost by the black hole leads to a final evolutionary state with nonzero angular momentum, namely $a/M \approx 0.555$.Comment: 4 pages (including 3 postscript figures), Revtex, uses epsf.tex, twocolumn.sty and header.sty (included). Submitted to Physical Review Letter

Branding and a child’s brain: an fMRI study of neural responses to logos

Branding and advertising have a powerful effect on both familiarity and preference for products, yet no neuroimaging studies have examined neural response to logos in children. Food advertising is particularly pervasive and effective in manipulating choices in children. The purpose of this study was to examine how healthy children’s brains respond to common food and other logos. A pilot validation study was first conducted with 32 children to select the most culturally familiar logos, and to match food and non-food logos on valence and intensity. A new sample of 17 healthy weight children were then scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Food logos compared to baseline were associated with increased activation in orbitofrontal cortex and inferior prefrontal cortex. Compared to non-food logos, food logos elicited increased activation in posterior cingulate cortex. Results confirmed that food logos activate some brain regions in children known to be associated with motivation. This marks the first study in children to examine brain responses to culturally familiar logos. Considering the pervasiveness of advertising, research should further investigate how children respond at the neural level to marketing

S100A8 & S100A9: alarmin mediated inflammation in tendinopathy

Alarmins S100A8 and S100A9 are endogenous molecules released in response to environmental triggers and cellular damage. They are constitutively expressed in immune cells such as monocytes and neutrophils and their expression is upregulated under inflammatory conditions. The molecular mechanisms that regulate inflammatory pathways in tendinopathy are largely unknown therefore identifying early immune effectors is essential to understanding the pathology. Based on our previous investigations highlighting tendinopathy as an alarmin mediated pathology we sought evidence of S100A8 & A9 expression in a human model of tendinopathy and thereafter, to explore mechanisms whereby S100 proteins may regulate release of inflammatory mediators and matrix synthesis in human tenocytes. Immunohistochemistry and quantitative RT-PCR showed S100A8 & A9 expression was significantly upregulated in tendinopathic tissue compared with control. Furthermore, treating primary human tenocytes with exogenous S100A8 & A9 significantly increased protein release of IL-6, IL-8, CCL2, CCL20 and CXCL10; however, no alterations in genes associated with matrix remodelling were observed at a transcript level. We propose S100A8 & A9 participate in early pathology by modulating the stromal microenvironment and influencing the inflammatory profile observed in tendinopathy. S100A8 and S100A9 may participate in a positive feedback mechanism involving enhanced leukocyte recruitment and release of pro-inflammatory cytokines from tenocytes that perpetuates the inflammatory response within the tendon in the early stages of disease

Accretion of Planetary Material onto Host Stars

Accretion of planetary material onto host stars may occur throughout a star's life. Especially prone to accretion, extrasolar planets in short-period orbits, while relatively rare, constitute a significant fraction of the known population, and these planets are subject to dynamical and atmospheric influences that can drive significant mass loss. Theoretical models frame expectations regarding the rates and extent of this planetary accretion. For instance, tidal interactions between planets and stars may drive complete orbital decay during the main sequence. Many planets that survive their stars' main sequence lifetime will still be engulfed when the host stars become red giant stars. There is some observational evidence supporting these predictions, such as a dearth of close-in planets around fast stellar rotators, which is consistent with tidal spin-up and planet accretion. There remains no clear chemical evidence for pollution of the atmospheres of main sequence or red giant stars by planetary materials, but a wealth of evidence points to active accretion by white dwarfs. In this article, we review the current understanding of accretion of planetary material, from the pre- to the post-main sequence and beyond. The review begins with the astrophysical framework for that process and then considers accretion during various phases of a host star's life, during which the details of accretion vary, and the observational evidence for accretion during these phases.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures (with some redacted), invited revie