First Record of Soft Tissue Preservation in the Upper Devonian of Poland

Soft tissue preservation is reported from Upper Devonian deposits of the Holy Cross Mountains, central Poland, for the first time. The preserved soft tissues are muscles associated with arthropod cuticle fragments. The muscles are phosphatized with variable states of preservation. Well-preserved specimens display the typical banding of striated muscles. Other muscle fragments are highly degraded and/or recrystallized such that their microstructure is barely visible. The phosphatized muscles and associated cuticle are fragmented, occur in patches and some are scattered on the bedding plane. Due to the state of preservation and the lack of diagnostic features, the cuticle identification is problematic; however, it may have belonged to a phyllocarid crustacean. Taphonomic features of the remains indicate that they do not represent fossilized fecal matter (coprolite) but may represent a regurgitate, but the hypothesis is difficult to test. Most probably they represent the leftover remains after arthropod or fish scavenging. The present study shows that soft tissues, which even earlier were manipulated by scavenger, may be preserved if only special microenvironmental conditions within and around the animal remains are established

Market structure and the link between migration and trade

Migration, International trade, Market structure, Gravity, F10, F22,

US and Canadian livestock prices: market integration and trade dependence

Cointegration of Canadian and US livestock prices points to the existence of market integration in the period January 1996 to December 2004. Trade flows of livestock and beef products were nonexistent between Canada and the United States for many months in 2003 and 2004 suggesting market segmentation. This lack of trade in beef and livestock was due to livestock/beef import bans by both countries due to bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It was also determined that Canada's trade dependence in livestock and beef is cointegrated with Canadian and US livestock prices. However, as the trade dependence variable is shocked, the effects on Canadian and US prices are opposite although one would expect that in an integrated market the price responses to an exogenous shock would be similar or statistically identical. This result reinforces the case against the use of price cointegration analysis in determining presence (or absence) of market integration. Empirical results in this article raise some very difficult questions. Gains from trade are well documented. Yet, once a country becomes very trade dependent, the prices in it become much more vulnerable to exogenous shocks that reduce the trade flows.

EXPERIMENTS USING THE ARGONNE FRAGMENT MASS ANALYZER

The Fragment Mass Analyzer (FMA) at the ATLAS accelerator has been operational for about one year. During that period a number of test runs and experiments have been carried out. The test runs have verified that the ion optics of the FMA are essentially as calculated. A brief facility description is followed by recent experimental result