INVESTMENT BEHAVIOR AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

Binary logit and bivariate probit models were used to investigate the investment behavior of farmers relative to two energy-conserving assets, heat-recovery systems and precoolers. The bivariate probit procedure was useful in correcting for self-selectivity bias. Holdout samples and cross-validation procedures were used to develop true model statistics. Farm size, educational level of the operator, and the type of milking system in use were the important factors influencing investment behavior.Farm Management,

‘If you press this, I’ll pay’: MrBeast, YouTube, and the mobilisation of the audience commodity in the name of charity

This paper examines a new form of philanthropic fundraising as pioneered by the YouTuber MrBeast. We argue that MrBeast, by harnessing the advertising revenue sharing model of YouTube’s Partner Program, has created an innovative model of philanthropic giving funded by mobilising what Marxist communication theorists refer to as the ‘audience’ or ‘prosumer commodity’. Through this method, MrBeast has been able to use the algorithmically managed, revenue sharing model of YouTube, and the spectacle of philanthropy, to draw in ever larger audiences and thus create large amounts of advertising and sponsorship revenue to fund philanthropic activities. This revenue in turn funds even larger philanthropic acts in subsequent videos, drawing more audiences and revenue. Unlike previous media-based fundraising, which would ask audience members to contribute their own money or time to a cause, MrBeast positions his audiences as a knowing audience commodity whose viewership funds direct contributions of other people’s money to good causes, merely by watching and being entertained. We assess the implications of this both for current debates around the ‘work’, labour’, and ‘exploitation’ of audience and prosumer commodities, and their monetisation for philanthropic giving

Rebuilding a realistic corticostriatal “social network” from dissociated cells

Many of the methods available for the study of cortical influences on striatal neurons have serious problems. In vivo the connectivity is so complex that the study of input from an individual cortical neuron to a single striatal cell is nearly impossible. Mixed corticostriatal cultures develop many connections from striatal cells to cortical cells, in striking contrast to the fact that only connections from cortical cells to striatal cells are present in vivo. Furthermore, interneuron populations are over-represented in organotypic cultures. For these reasons, we have developed a method for growing cortical and striatal neurons in separated compartments that allows cortical neurons to innervate striatal cells in culture. The method works equally well for acutely dissociated or cryopreserved neurons and allows a number of manipulations that are not otherwise possible. Either cortical or striatal compartments can be transfected with channel rhodopsins. The activity of both areas can be recorded in multielectrode arrays or individual patch recordings from pairs of cells. Finally, corticostriatal connections can be severed acutely. This procedure enables determination of the importance of corticostriatal interaction in the resting pattern of activity. These cultures also facilitate development of sensitive analytical network methods to track connectivity

Stratigraphy, age, and provenance of the Eocene Chumstick basin, Washington Cascades; implications for paleogeography, regional tectonics, and development of strike-slip basins: Reply

We welcome the comment by Evans (2022) and the opportunity to further discuss our study of the Chumstick Formation. The correlation of fault-bound nonmarine sedimentary units in central and western Washington has been a topic of interest, and debate, for many years (Frizzell, 1979; Taylor et al., 1988; Gresens et al., 1981; Gresens, 1983; Evans and Johnson, 1989; Evans, 1994; Cheney and Hayman, 2009). However, many questions about the regional correlation of these units were resolved with the publication of a suite of internally consistent high-precision 206Pb/238U zircon dates from volcanic interbeds throughout the early to middle Eocene stratigraphy (Eddy et al., 2016). This data set confirmed the timing of sediment deposition of the different members within the Chumstick Formation. Donaghy et al. (2021) provides a detailed study of the Chumstick Formation, which builds on earlier research by Gresens et al. (1981, 1983), McClincy (1986), and Evans (1994) by incorporating new geochronologic information and additional clast counts, detrital zircon geochronology, and facies mapping. We interpret large parts of the Chumstick Formation to represent a spatially and temporally distinct sedimentary system between the Leavenworth and Entiat fault zones that likely formed as a pull-apart basin. Evans (2022) objects to several of the interpretations presented in Donaghy et al. (2021) regarding the relationship between different members of the Chumstick Formation and surrounding sedimentary units, the timing of strike-slip faulting, and the regional tectonic setting of these rocks. We discuss each of these points in the following sections

Conformational states of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase for nucleotide incorporation vs. pyrophosphorolysis – binding of foscarnet

HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT) catalytically incorporates individual nucleotides into a viral DNA strand complementing an RNA or DNA template strand; the polymerase active site of RT adopts multiple conformational and structural states while performing this task. The states associated are dNTP binding at the N site, catalytic incorporation of a nucleotide, release of a pyrophosphate, and translocation of the primer 3′-end to the P site. Structural characterization of each of these states may help in understanding the molecular mechanisms of drug activity and resistance and in developing new RT inhibitors. Using a 38-mer DNA template-primer aptamer as the substrate mimic, we crystallized an RT/dsDNA complex that is catalytically active, yet translocation-incompetent in crystals. The ability of RT to perform dNTP binding and incorporation in crystals permitted obtaining a series of structures: (I) RT/DNA (P-site), (II) RT/DNA/AZTTP ternary, (III) RT/AZT-terminated DNA (N-site), and (IV) RT/AZT-terminated DNA (N-site)/foscarnet complexes. The stable N-site complex permitted the binding of foscarnet as a pyrophosphate mimic. The Mg2+ ions dissociated after catalytic addition of AZTMP in the pretranslocated structure III, whereas ions A and B had re-entered the active site to bind foscarnet in structure IV. The binding of foscarnet involves chelation with the Mg2+ (B) ion and interactions with K65 and R72. The analysis of interactions of foscarnet and the recently discovered nucleotide-competing RT inhibitor (NcRTI) α-T-CNP in two different conformational states of the enzyme provides insights for developing new classes of polymerase active site RT inhibitors

Eocene dike orientations across the Washington Cascades in response to a major strike-slip faulting episode and ridge-trench interaction

The northern Cascade Mountains in Washington (USA) preserve an exceptional shallow to mid-crustal record of Eocene transtension marked by dextral strike-slip faulting, intrusion of dike swarms and plutons, rapid non-marine sedimentation, and ductile flow and rapid cooling in parts of the North Cascades crystalline core. Transtension occurred during ridge-trench interaction with the formation of a slab window, and slab rollback and break-off occurred shortly after collision of the Siletzia oceanic plateau at ca. 50 Ma. Dike swarms intruded a \u3e1250 km2 region between ca. 49.3 Ma and 44.9 Ma, and orientations of more than 1500 measured dikes coupled with geochronologic data provide important snapshots of the regional strain field. The mafic Teanaway dikes are the southernmost and most voluminous of the swarms. They strike NE (mean = 036°) and average ~15 m in thickness. To the north, rhyolitic to basaltic dikes overlap spatially with 49.3-46.5 Ma, mainly granodioritic plutons, but they typically predate the nearby plutons by ca. 500 k.y. The average orientations of five of the six dike domains range from 010° to 058°; W-NW- to NW-striking dikes characterize one domain and are found in lesser amounts in a few other domains. Overall, the mean strike for all Eocene dikes is 035°, and the average extension direction (305°-125°) is oblique to the strike (~320°) of the North Cascades orogen. Extension by diking reached ~45% in one \u3e7-km-long transect through the Teanaway swarm and ranged from ~5% to locally ~79% in shorter transects across other swarms, which corresponds to a minimum of ~12 km of extension. The dominant NE-striking dikes are compatible with the dextral motion on the N- to NW-striking (~355-320°) regional strike-slip faults. Some of the W-NW- to NW-striking dikes were arguably influenced by pre-existing faults, shear fractures, and foliations, and potentially in one swarm where both NE-and lesser W-NW-striking dikes are present, by a switch in principal stress axes induced by dike emplacement. Alternatively, the W-NW- to NW-striking dikes may reflect a younger regional strain field, as ca. 49.3-47.5 Ma U-Pb zircon ages of the NE-striking dikes are older than those of the few dated W-NW- to NW-trending dikes. In one scenario, NE-striking dikes intruded during an interval when strain mainly reflected dextral strike-slip faulting, and the younger dikes record a switch to more arc-normal extension. Diking ended as magmatism migrated into a N-S-trending belt west of the North Cascades core that marks the initiation of the ancestral Cascade arc

CompuTable

Take your average coffee table, add a couple of screens, a CPU, speakers, and lighting, and you would have the CompuTable. And the lights aren’t the only thing green about the CompuTable; it’s built from salvaged and recycled computer components and requires less energy than a typical desktop.Ope

Universal architecture of bacterial chemoreceptor arrays

Chemoreceptors are key components of the high-performance signal transduction system that controls bacterial chemotaxis. Chemoreceptors are typically localized in a cluster at the cell pole, where interactions among the receptors in the cluster are thought to contribute to the high sensitivity, wide dynamic range, and precise adaptation of the signaling system. Previous structural and genomic studies have produced conflicting models, however, for the arrangement of the chemoreceptors in the clusters. Using whole-cell electron cryo-tomography, here we show that chemoreceptors of different classes and in many different species representing several major bacterial phyla are all arranged into a highly conserved, 12-nm hexagonal array consistent with the proposed “trimer of dimers” organization. The various observed lengths of the receptors confirm current models for the methylation, flexible bundle, signaling, and linker sub-domains in vivo. Our results suggest that the basic mechanism and function of receptor clustering is universal among bacterial species and was thus conserved during evolution

The Politics of Commerce : The Congress of Chambers of Commerce of the Empire, 1886-1914

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Quality and methods of developing practice guidelines

BACKGROUND: It is not known whether there are differences in the quality and recommendations between evidence-based (EB) and consensus-based (CB) guidelines. We used breast cancer guidelines as a case study to assess for these differences. METHODS: Five different instruments to evaluate the quality of guidelines were identified by a literature search. We also searched MEDLINE and the Internet to locate 8 breast cancer guidelines. These guidelines were classified in three categories: evidence based, consensus based and consensus based with no explicit consideration of evidence (CB-EB). Each guideline was evaluated by three of the authors using each of the instruments. For each guideline we assessed the agreement among 14 decision points which were selected from the NCCN (National Cancer Comprehensive Network) guidelines algorithm. For each decision point we recorded the level of the quality of the information used to support it. A regression analysis was performed to assess if the percentage of high quality evidence used in the guidelines development was related to the overall quality of the guidelines. RESULTS: Three guidelines were classified as EB, three as CB-EB and two as CB. The EB guidelines scored better than CB, with the CB-EB scoring in the middle among all instruments for guidelines quality assessment. No major disagreement in recommendations was detected among the guidelines regardless of the method used for development, but the EB guidelines had a better agreement with the benchmark guideline for any decision point. When the source of evidence used to support decision were of high quality, we found a higher level of full agreement among the guidelines' recommendations. Up to 94% of variation in the quality score among guidelines could be explained by the quality of evidence used for guidelines development. CONCLUSION: EB guidelines have a better quality than CB guidelines and CB-EB guidelines. Explicit use of high quality evidence can lead to a better agreement among recommendations. However, no major disagreement among guidelines was noted regardless of the method for their development