NORTHEAST SOYBEAN ACREAGE RESPONSE USING EXPECTED NET RETURNS

Expected prices and expected net returns from cropping activities are used to estimate soybean acreage response in the Northeast. Futures prices and lagged cash prices constitute proxies for price expectations. Expected net returns appear as good or better than expected prices for estimating acreage response. Short-run and long-run elasticities of soybean acreage with respect to expected net returns from soybeans are estimated as 0.5 and 1.6 for the northeast region. Soybean acreage appears less responsive to changes in expected net returns than to expected changes in prices.Crop Production/Industries,

Inquiry-based learning: Emirati university students choose WhatsApp for collaboration

Considerable research has shown the value of Inquiry-Based Learning (IBL) regarding student engagement and motivation, depth of learning, and cognitive flexibility. Student collaboration is one component of this approach, since students must communicate and work together inside and outside of class time when engaging with an IBL project. Choosing a mobile learning tool can benefit student collaboration in so far as the tool enables anytime/anywhere collaborative learning. This study looked at how 118 Emirati undergraduate students in a government-sponsored university in the United Arab Emirates chose to collaborate in an IBL semester-long assignment. Unlike some approaches that dictate the technology selection to students (Barczyk & Duncan, 2013; Prescott, Wilson & Becket, 2013), in this project course instructors gave the students autonomy to choose the best mobile learning tools for their group. The study used a mixed-methods approach to collect data on which tools students perceived as best for IBL. Participants were surveyed three times about which tool they preferred for university work: a pre-project survey, a mid-project survey, and post-project survey. Results show that students changed their preferred tool to WhatsApp over the course of the semester. A focus group with each course section provided qualitative data as to why students preferred WhatsApp. The students also delivered poster presentations as to how WhatsApp helped them complete their community-based IBL projects. This study will show how WhatsApp can be a successful mobile learning tool for student collaboration in IBL. أكدت العديد من البحوث على Ùوائد التعلم القائم على البحث والاستقصاء من حيث المشاركة وعمق التعلم والمرونة المعرÙية. ويعتبر التعلم القائم على البحث والاستقصاء شاملا لمÙاهيم عدة منها التعلم القائم على المشاريع وعلى حل المشكلات والنماذج الشاملة لطرائق التعلم الأساسية لدى الطالب أهمها التعاون الطلابي لما له أثر جيد ÙÙŠ إنجاز المشاريع سواء أكان ذلك أثناء المحاضرة أو خارجها. كما أن استخدام أدوات التعلم الذكي (mobile learning tool) يعزز التعاون الطلابي إذا ما توÙرت خارج الÙصل ÙˆÙÙŠ أي مكان. وللتأكيد على هذه الÙرضية، قمنا بدراسة أداء 118 طالبة ÙÙŠ المرحلة الجامعية حين طلب منهم اختيار Ø£Ùضل أدوات التعلم الذكي لمجموعاتهم للقيام بمشروع قائم على البحث والاستقصاء. واستخدمت الدراسة منهجا يدمج بين جمع البيانات عن الأدوات التي يعتبرها الطلبة الأÙضل لأدء المشاريع القائمة على البحث والاستقصاء. وخضع الطلبة لثلاث مسوحات قبل البدء بالمشروع ÙˆÙÙŠ منتص٠المشروع وبعد الانتهاء منه حول الأداة المÙضلة لديهم للقيام بالمشارع الجامعية وللتواصل الاجتماعي أيضا. وأظهرت النتائج ان برنامج ال WhatsApp هو الأÙضل على مدار الÙصل الدراسي. كما قامت مجموعة تركيز واحدة ÙÙŠ كل Ùصل دراسي بتقديم بيانات نوعية لأسباب الاعتماد على هذا البرنامج ÙÙŠ أداء المشاريع وإنجازها بنجاح من خلاله. كما قدم الطلبة عروضا باستخدام الملصقات لشرح أسباب نجاح المشاريع القائمة على تقديم الخدمات من خلال استخدام برنامج ال WhatsApp. كما تستعرض الدراسة أسباب كون هذا البرنامج أداة تعليمية ناجحة ومعززة لعملية التعاون الطلابي أثناء القيام بالمشاريع القائمة على البحث والاستقصاء

Forechecking in captivity: Sport in the lives of Canadian prisoners of war at three German camps during the Second World War.

While essentially a detestable circumstance, most Second World War prisoner of war camps in the European theatre exhibited recreational outlets for POWs. Some gardened, attended lectures, or enjoyed theatrical productions; others developed tools, read books, or maintained a diary...still, many played sports. This study is an attempt to determine the sports experience of Canadian POWs at Stalag Lufts I, III, and VI. Conclusions were drawn from contemporary literature, archival documents, published and unpublished prisoners\u27 recollections, and interviews with ex-POWs. The sports environment identified was active, constant, and deliberate. The War Prisoners\u27 Aid of the YMCA provided most of the goods; Canadian prisoners were able to participate in softball, cricket, swimming, golf, volleyball, basketball, boxing, soccer, rugby, football, gymnastics, boxing, fencing, track and field events, badminton, deck tennis, table tennis, ice skating, ice hockey, running, and \u27circuit bashing.\u27 Participation was often highly organized, and served numerous ends. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2006 .D38. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-01, page: 0132. Thesis (M.H.K.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2006

Borders and Catastrophe: lessons from COVID-19 for the European Green Deal

This article considers how the European Union and Member States’ responses to the COVID-19 crisis in the first half of 2020 could inform climate action in Europe, and particularly the resumption of actions on the EGD. It first outlines the EU’s public health and economic responses to COVID-19 and Europe’s role in the global response to the pandemic. We find that, based on the challenges and successes of all these responses, a strong argument can be made for ‘more Europe’ – greater integration, and stronger EU-level institutions – to lead and govern the COVID-19 response. This has direct lessons for the governance and scope of future climate action

High-throughput sequence analysis of variants of human cytomegalovirus strains Towne and AD169

The genomes of commonly used variants of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) strains Towne and AD169 each contain a substantial mutation in which a region (UL/b′) at the right end of the long unique region has been replaced by an inverted duplication of a region from the left end of the genome. Using high-throughput technology, we have sequenced HCMV strain Towne (ATCC VR-977) and confirmed the presence of two variants, one exhibiting the replacement in UL/b′ and the other intact in this region. Both variants are mutated in genes RL13, UL1, UL40, UL130, US1 and US9. We have also sequenced a novel AD169 variant (varUC) that is intact in UL/b′ except for a small deletion that affects genes UL144, UL142, UL141 and UL140. Like other AD169 variants, varUC is mutated in genes RL5A, RL13, UL36 and UL131A. A subpopulation of varUC contains an additional deletion affecting genes IRS1, US1 and US2

Injury prevention strategies at the FIFA 2014 World Cup: perceptions and practices of the physicians from the 32 participating national teams

Purpose The available scientific research regarding injury prevention practices in international football is sparse. The purpose of this study was to quantify current practice with regard to (1) injury prevention of top-level footballers competing in an international tournament, and (2) determine the main challenges and issues faced by practitioners in these national teams. Methods A survey was administered to physicians of the 32 competing national teams at the FIFA 2014 World Cup. The survey included 4 sections regarding perceptions and practices concerning non-contact injuries: (1) risk factors, (2) screening tests and monitoring tools, (3) preventative strategies and (4) reflection on their experience at the World Cup. Results Following responses from all teams (100%), the present study revealed the most important intrinsic (previous injury, accumulated fatigue, agonist:antagonist muscle imbalance) and extrinsic (reduced recovery time, training load prior to and during World Cup, congested fixtures) risk factors during the FIFA 2014 World Cup. The 5 most commonly used tests for risk factors were: flexibility, fitness, joint mobility, balance and strength; monitoring tools commonly used were: medical screen, minutes/matches played, subjective and objective wellness, heart rate and biochemical markers. The 5 most important preventative exercises were: flexibility, core, combined contractions, balance and eccentric. Conclusions The present study showed that many of the National football (soccer) teams’ injury prevention perceptions and practices follow a coherent approach. There remains, however, a lack of consistent research findings to support some of these perceptions and practices

Polynomial Method for PLL Controller Optimization†

The Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) is a key component of modern electronic communication and control systems. PLL is designed to extract signals from transmission channels. It plays an important role in systems where it is required to estimate the phase of a received signal, such as carrier tracking from global positioning system satellites. In order to robustly provide centimeter-level accuracy, it is crucial for the PLL to estimate the instantaneous phase of an incoming signal which is usually buried in random noise or some type of interference. This paper presents an approach that utilizes the recent development in the semi-definite programming and sum-of-squares field. A Lyapunov function will be searched as the certificate of the pull-in range of the PLL system. Moreover, a polynomial design procedure is proposed to further refine the controller parameters for system response away from the equilibrium point. Several simulation results as well as an experiment result are provided to show the effectiveness of this approach

Sequential mutations associated with adaptation of human cytomegalovirus to growth in cell culture

Mutations that occurred during adaptation of human cytomegalovirus to cell culture were monitored by isolating four strains from clinical samples, passaging them in various cell types and sequencing ten complete virus genomes from the final passages. Mutational dynamics were assessed by targeted sequencing of intermediate passages and the original clinical samples. Gene RL13 and the UL128 locus (UL128L, consisting of genes UL128, UL130 and UL131A) mutated in all strains. Mutations in RL13 occurred in fibroblast, epithelial and endothelial cells, whereas those in UL128L were limited to fibroblasts and detected later than those in RL13. In addition, a region containing genes UL145, UL144, UL142, UL141 and UL140 mutated in three strains. All strains exhibited numerous mutations in other regions of the genome, with a preponderance in parts of the inverted repeats. An investigation was carried out on the kinetic growth yields of viruses derived from selected passages that were predominantly non-mutated in RL13 and UL128L (RL13+UL128L+), or that were largely mutated in RL13 (RL13−UL128L+) or both RL13 and UL128L (RL13−UL128L−). RL13−UL128L− viruses produced greater yields of infectious progeny than RL13−UL128L+ viruses, and RL13−UL128L+ viruses produced greater yields than RL13+UL128L+ viruses. These results suggest strongly that RL13 and UL128L exert at least partially independent suppressive effects on growth in fibroblasts. As all isolates proved genetically unstable in all cell types tested, caution is advised in choosing and monitoring strains for experimental studies of vulnerable functions, particularly those involved in cell tropism, immune evasion or growth temperance

Video-based, real-time multi-view stereo

We investigate the problem of obtaining a dense reconstruction in real-time, from a live video stream. In recent years, multi-view stereo (MVS) has received considerable attention and a number of methods have been proposed. However, most methods operate under the assumption of a relatively sparse set of still images as input and unlimited computation time. Video based MVS has received less attention despite the fact that video sequences offer significant benefits in terms of usability of MVS systems. In this paper we propose a novel video based MVS algorithm that is suitable for real-time, interactive 3d modeling with a hand-held camera. The key idea is a per-pixel, probabilistic depth estimation scheme that updates posterior depth distributions with every new frame. The current implementation is capable of updating 15 million distributions/s. We evaluate the proposed method against the state-of-the-art real-time MVS method and show improvement in terms of accuracy