An Economic Performance Analysis of the Beef Cow-herd Enterprise Using a Stochastic Frontier Function

Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA) data from Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico were used to examine the economic performance of beef cow herd operations in the Southern Plains region by measuring their technical efficiency index. Factors that make significant impacts on the production are herd size, machinery investment per breeding cow, and rainfall. Little technical inefficiency among the Southern beef cattle operations that participated in the SPA data was found.beef, cattle, cost, cow-calf, production, stochastic production function., Farm Management, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics,

Development of an Integrated Evaluation System for a Stretchable Strain Sensor

Recently, much research has been focused on stretchable or flexible electronic sensors for the measurement of strain or deformation on movable and variably shaped objects. In this research, to evaluate the performance of stretchable strain sensors, we have designed an integrated evaluation system capable of simultaneously measuring the change in stress and conductance of a strain sensor. Using the designed system, we have successfully evaluated the deformation characteristics, sensing range and sensing sensitivity of a stretchable strain sensor. We believe that the developed integrated evaluation system could be a useful tool for performance evaluation of stretchable strain sensors.1143Ysciescopu

Some Grüss' Type Inequalities in 2-Inner Product Spaces and Applications for Determinantal Integral Inequalities

Some new Grüss type inequalities in 2-inner product spaces are given. Using this framework, some determinantal integral inequalities for synchronous functions are also derived

Dryland Wheat variety selection in the Texas High Plain

Selecting the best wheat varieties affects producers’ profit and financial risk. This study identifies the optimal wheat variety selection using the portfolio approach at various risk aversion levels. Results showed that the optimal wheat variety selection was significantly affected by changes in levels of risk aversion of decision makersDryland, Portfolio, risk, wheat Variety, Farm Management,

An underwater superoleophobic nanofibrous cellulosic membrane for oil/water separation with high separation flux and high chemical stability

Oil spills and an increasing demand for the treatment of industrial oily wastewater are driving the need for continuous large-scale oil/water separation processes. Herein, we report a nanofibrous cellulosic membrane (NFC membrane) for the continuous high-flux separation of large amounts of oil/water mixtures. The NFC membrane was fabricated using wet electrospinning, a facile yet effective method for stacking nanofibrous membranes with uniform porous structures on a substrate. Owing to its cellulosic nature, the membrane showed excellent underwater superoleophobicity along with robust chemical stability and was able to separate oil/water mixtures at efficiencies exceeding 99%. Repetitive oil/water separations could be performed using a single membrane, during which the oil content in the filtrate remained extremely low (30 kPa) that allowed not only gravity-driven but also pressure-driven separation of oil/water mixtures. The separation flux reached 120 000 L m−2 h−1 during pressure-driven separations, which is a very promising feature for actual applications such as the large-scale treatment of industrial oily wastewater.116Ysciescopu

Synthesis and Micellar Characterization of CBABC Type PLGA-PEO-PPO-PEO-PLGA Pentablock Copolymers

Poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) were grafted to both ends of Pluronic (R) F68 ((EO)(75)(PO)(30)(EO)(75)) triblock copolymer to produce poly {(lactic acid)(m)-co-(glycolic acid)(n)}-b-poly(ethylene oxide)(75)-b-poly(propylene oxide)(30)-b-poly(ethylene oxide)(75)-b-poly{(lactic acid)(m)-co-(glycolic acid)(n)} (PLGA-F68-PLGA) pentablock copolymers. Molecular weights of PLGA blocks were controlled and five kinds of pentablock copolymers with different PLGA block lengths were synthesized using in-situ ring-opening polymerization of D,L-lactide and glycolide with tin(II) 2-ethylhexanoate (Sn(Oct)(2)) catalyst. PLGA-F68-PLGA pentablock copolymers were characterized by H-1- and C-13-NMR, GPC, and TGA. The numbers (2m, 2n) of repeating units for lactic acid and glycolic acid inside PLGA segments were obtained as (48, 17), (90, 23), (125, 40), (180, 59), and (246, 64), with H-1-NMR measurement. From NMR data, the resultant molecular weights were determined in the range of 12,700-29,700, which were similar to those obtained from GPC. Polydispersity index was increased in the range of 1.32-1.91 as the content of PLGA blocks increased. TG and DTG thermograms showed discrete degradation traces for PLGA and F68 blocks, which indicate the weight fractions of PLGA blocks in pentablock copolymers can be calculated by TO profile and it is possible to remove PLGA block selectively. Hydrodynamic radius and radius of gyration of pentablock copolymer micelle were obtained in the range of 46-68 nm and 31-49 nm, respectively, in very dilute (i.e. 0.005 wt %) aqueous solution of THF:H2O = 10:90 by volume at 25 degrees C.X1121Ysciescopu

Tracing diagnosis trajectories over millions of patients reveal an unexpected risk in schizophrenia.

The identification of novel disease associations using big-data for patient care has had limited success. In this study, we created a longitudinal disease network of traced readmissions (disease trajectories), merging data from over 10.4 million inpatients through the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, which allowed the representation of disease progression mapping over 300 diseases. From these disease trajectories, we discovered an interesting association between schizophrenia and rhabdomyolysis, a rare muscle disease (incidence < 1E-04) (relative risk, 2.21 [1.80-2.71, confidence interval = 0.95], P-value 9.54E-15). We validated this association by using independent electronic medical records from over 830,000 patients at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) medical center. A case review of 29 rhabdomyolysis incidents in schizophrenia patients at UCSF demonstrated that 62% are idiopathic, without the use of any drug known to lead to this adverse event, suggesting a warning to physicians to watch for this unexpected risk of schizophrenia. Large-scale analysis of disease trajectories can help physicians understand potential sequential events in their patients

NRG1 functions downstream of EDS1 to regulate TIR-NLR-mediated plant immunity in Nicotiana benthamiana.

Effector-triggered immunity (ETI) in plants involves a large family of nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) immune receptors, including Toll/IL-1 receptor-NLRs (TNLs) and coiled-coil NLRs (CNLs). Although various NLR immune receptors are known, a mechanistic understanding of NLR function in ETI remains unclear. The TNL Recognition of XopQ 1 (Roq1) recognizes the effectors XopQ and HopQ1 from Xanthomonas and Pseudomonas, respectively, which activates resistance to Xanthomonas euvesicatoria and Xanthomonas gardneri in an Enhanced Disease Susceptibility 1 (EDS1)-dependent way in Nicotiana benthamiana In this study, we found that the N. benthamiana N requirement gene 1 (NRG1), a CNL protein required for the tobacco TNL protein N-mediated resistance to tobacco mosaic virus, is also essential for immune signaling [including hypersensitive response (HR)] triggered by the TNLs Roq1 and Recognition of Peronospora parasitica 1 (RPP1), but not by the CNLs Bs2 and Rps2, suggesting that NRG1 may be a conserved key component in TNL signaling pathways. Besides EDS1, Roq1 and NRG1 are necessary for resistance to Xanthomonas and Pseudomonas in N. benthamiana NRG1 functions downstream of Roq1 and EDS1 and physically associates with EDS1 in mediating XopQ-Roq1-triggered immunity. Moreover, RNA sequencing analysis showed that XopQ-triggered gene-expression profile changes in N. benthamiana were almost entirely mediated by Roq1 and EDS1 and were largely regulated by NRG1. Overall, our study demonstrates that NRG1 is a key component that acts downstream of EDS1 to mediate various TNL signaling pathways, including Roq1 and RPP1-mediated HR, resistance to Xanthomonas and Pseudomonas, and XopQ-regulated transcriptional changes in N. benthamiana

Carbon dioxide gas as a venous contrast agent to guide upper-arm insertion of central venous catheters

Evaluate in a prospective randomized study carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) gas compared to iodinated contrast agent for image-guided placement of peripherally inserted central venous catheters (PICCs).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41321/1/270_2004_Article_BF00204139.pd