RATES OF RETURN TO PUBLIC AGRICULTURAL RESEARCH IN THE PRESENCE OF RESEARCH SPILLOVERS

This study uses new state data to examine the contributions of public agricultural research, extension, and infrastructure to agricultural productivity. The estimated social rates of return (which take into account spillover effects) are high and imply a need for federal or regional institutions to coordinate public agricultural research funding.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

The Metadata Education and Research Information Commons (MERIC): A Collaborative Teaching and Research Initiative

The networked environment forced a sea change in Library and Information Science (LIS) education. Most LIS programs offer a mixed-mode of instruction that integrates online learning materials with more traditional classroom pedagogical methods and faculty are now responsible for developing content and digital learning objects. The teaching commons in a networked environment is one way to share, modify and repurpose learning objects while reducing the costs to educational institutions of developing course materials totally inhouse. It also provides a venue for sharing ideas, practices, and expertise in order to provide the best learning experience for students. Because metadata education has been impacted by rapid changes and metadata research is interdisciplinary and diffuse, the Metadata Education and Research Information Commons (MERIC) initiative aims to provide a virtual environment for sharing and collaboration within the extensive metadata community. This paper describes the development of MERIC from its origin as a simple clearinghouse proof-of-concept project to a service-oriented teaching and research commons prototype. The problems of enablers and barriers to participation and collaboration are discussed and the need for specific community building research is cited as critical for the success of MERIC within a broad metadata community

A Posterior Probability Approach for Gene Regulatory Network Inference in Genetic Perturbation Data

Inferring gene regulatory networks is an important problem in systems biology. However, these networks can be hard to infer from experimental data because of the inherent variability in biological data as well as the large number of genes involved. We propose a fast, simple method for inferring regulatory relationships between genes from knockdown experiments in the NIH LINCS dataset by calculating posterior probabilities, incorporating prior information. We show that the method is able to find previously identified edges from TRANSFAC and JASPAR and discuss the merits and limitations of this approach

"Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields": an overview

This is an introduction to the volume of Lecture Notes in Physics on "Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields". The volume combines contributions written by a number of experts on different aspects of the problem. The response of QCD matter to intense magnetic fields has attracted a lot of interest recently. On the theoretical side, this interest stems from the possibility to explore the plethora of novel phenomena arising from the interplay of magnetic field with QCD dynamics. On the experimental side, the interest is motivated by the recent results on the behavior of quark-gluon plasma in a strong magnetic field created in relativistic heavy ion collisions at RHIC and LHC. The purpose of this introduction is to provide a brief overview and a guide to the individual contributions where these topics are covered in detail.Comment: 12 pages, introduction to "Strongly interacting matter in magnetic fields", Lect. Notes Phys. 871, 1 (2013), edited by D. Kharzeev, K. Landsteiner, A. Schmitt, H.-U. Yee; v2: references update

Long-term human hematopoiesis in the SCID-hu mouse.

Coimplantation of small fragments of human fetal thymus and fetal liver into immunodeficient SCID mice resulted in the formation of a unique structure (Thy/Liv). Thereafter, the SCID-hu mice showed reproducible and long-term reconstitution of human hematopoietic activity. For periods lasting 5-11 mo after transplantation, active T lymphopoiesis was observed inside the grafts and cells that were negative for T cell markers were found to have colony-forming units for granulocyte/macrophage (CFU-GM) and erythroid burst-forming unit (BFU-E) activity in the methylcellulose colony assay. In addition, structures similar to normal human bone marrow were observed inside the Thy/Liv grafts, consisting of blast cells, mature and immature forms of myelomonocytic cells, and megakaryocytes. These data indicate long-term maintenance, in vivo, of human progenitor cells for the T lymphoid, myelomonocytic, erythroid, and megakaryocytic lineages. The role of the implanted fetal liver fragments was analyzed using HLA-mismatched Thy/Liv implants. The HLA type of the liver donor was found on T cells and macrophages in the graft. In addition, cells grown in the methylcellulose colony assay and cells in a bone marrow-like structure, the thymic isle, expressed the HLA type of the liver donor. Thus, the Thy/Liv implants provided a microenvironment in which to follow human hematopoietic progenitor cells for multiple lineages. The formation of the Thy/Liv structures also results in a continuous source of human T cells in the peripheral circulation of the SCID-hu mouse. Though present for 5-11 mo, these cells did not engage in a xenograft (graft-versus-host) reaction. This animal model, the first in which multilineage human hematopoietic activity is maintained for long periods of time, should be useful for the analysis of human hematopoiesis in vivo

From the chiral magnetic wave to the charge dependence of elliptic flow

The quark-gluon plasma formed in heavy ion collisions contains charged chiral fermions evolving in an external magnetic field. At finite density of electric charge or baryon number (resulting either from nuclear stopping or from fluctuations), the triangle anomaly induces in the plasma the Chiral Magnetic Wave (CMW). The CMW first induces a separation of the right and left chiral charges along the magnetic field; the resulting dipolar axial charge density in turn induces the oppositely directed vector charge currents leading to an electric quadrupole moment of the quark-gluon plasma. Boosted by the strong collective flow, the electric quadrupole moment translates into the charge dependence of the elliptic flow coefficients, so that $v_2(\pi^+) < v_2(\pi^-)$ (at positive net charge). Using the latest quantitative simulations of the produced magnetic field and solving the CMW equation, we make further quantitative estimates of the produced $v_2$ splitting and its centrality dependence. We compare the results with the available experimental data.Comment: Contains 12 pages, 6 figures, written as a proceeding for the talk of Y. Burnier at the conference "P and CP-odd Effects in Hot and Dense Matter 2012" held in BN

THE IMPACT OF GOVERNMENT POLICIES ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY AND STRUCTURE: PRELIMINARY RESULTS

Our paper begins with a consideration of the causal relationships among productivity, farm structure, government farm payments and public investments in research and extension. We then empirically test key relationships for a relatively recent period (1960-96) in the history of agricultural structural adjustment using a simultaneous equations econometric model. Future work will expand and refine the measurement of variables thought to explain the relationship between productivity and structure.Agricultural and Food Policy, Productivity Analysis,