What if the Doha Round Fails? Implications for Canadian Agriculture

Many commentators assume that the WTO Doha Round negotiations have already failed and that this failure will not matter for Canadian agriculture. Neither view is correct. Most countries appear willing to make the effort needed to bring the negotiations to a make or break point in early 2008. If the Doha Round does eventually fail, an important opportunity to make the agricultural trading system significantly less distorted, more open and fair will have been lost. For Canadian agriculture, the failure to move the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) forward has more serious consequences than just missing the chance to improve the rules governing agricultural trade; it could signal a return to increased protectionism, more managed trade, a return to competitive subsidization, and an escalation in the number of trade disputes.International Relations/Trade,

What if the Doha Round Fails? Implications for Canadian Agriculture

Many commentators assume that the WTO Doha Round negotiations have already failed and that this failure will not matter for Canadian agriculture. Neither view is correct. Most countries appear willing to make the effort needed to bring the negotiations to a make or break point in early 2008. If the Doha Round does eventually fail, an important opportunity to make the agricultural trading system significantly less distorted, more open and fair will have been lost. For Canadian agriculture, the failure to move the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) forward has more serious consequences than just missing the chance to improve the rules governing agricultural trade; it could signal a return to increased protectionism, more managed trade, a return to competitive subsidization, and an escalation in the number of trade disputes.International Relations/Trade,

What is Being Done for Black Children in Reading?

That there are concerns for reading problems in general is evident by the profusion of studies that have been, are being, and will be reported. However, the history of research reports regarding the reading ability of speakers of Black English is rather brief. Only in recent years have there been published reports on the high frequency of failures of Black children in reading (Smith, 1975), the urgent situation of language differences of Blacks (Knapp, 1975), and the disparity between the reading achievement levels of Black children and White children (Rupley and Robeck, 1978). This report is intended to review the literature regarding some of the practices or approaches used in teaching primary reading to Black children

A Preliminary Quantification of the Impacts of Aspen to Conifer Succession on Water Yield Within the Colorado River Basin (A Process Aggravating the Salt Pollution Problem)

Heat pulse velocity techniques were developed for effectively monitoring water movement in aspen (Populus ttremuloides), subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), and Englemann spruce (Picea engelmannii). Once the techniques were perfected, transpiration was monitored in replicated trees of each species for one year. This data was used to modify the plant activity index and the crop coefficient for each species within the model ASPCON, a deterministic, lumped-parameter model describing the hydrology of aspen to conifer succession. Results of the modeling indicate 18.5 cm(7.3 in) net loss of moisture available for stream flow when spruce replace aspen, and a loss of 7.1 cm (2.8 in) when fir forests cover the watershed. The aspen to conifer successional trend is therefore significantly reducing water yields within the Colorado River Basin, water that could be used to dilute salt downstream from the high water-yielding watersheds

Urokinase does not upregulate the vascular endothelial cell–mediated inflammatory response

AbstractPurpose: Urokinase is used clinically for thrombolysis, but little is known of its direct effect on vascular endothelial cells. The following experiments were preformed to assess the in vitro effects of urokinase on vascular endothelial cell growth, adhesion molecule expression, and interaction with lymphocytes, polymorphonuclear leukocytes, and platelets.Methods: Commercially available human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) were cultured with varying concentrations of urokinase (0 to 10,000 IU/ml) (clinical dosage, ≤500 IU/ml). HUVEC viability was determined from 1 to 4 days. HUVECs were incubated with urokinase (0 to 2000 IU/ml) from 4 to 72 hours. Adherence of 51-chromium-labeled polymorphonuclear leukocytes, platelets, or lymphocytes was then quantitated. In separate experiments HUVEC adhesion molecule expression (intercellular adhesion molecule-1, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, or endothelial leukocyte adhesion molecule-1) was determined by flow cytometry.Results: There was a decrease of HUVEC viability at suprapharmacologic urokinase concentrations of ≥2000 IU/ml compared with nontreated control samples (0 IU/ml, 73% ± 2%, 2000 IU/ml, 60.5% ± 1.9%, p < 0.05) presumably because of drug toxicity. There was no significantly increased polymorphonuclear leukocyte, lymphocyte, or platelet adhesion to urokinase-treated HUVEC monolayers at any time point. This was also true for each adhesion molecule tested.Conclusions: Urokinase at clinically relevant concentrations (≤500 IU/ml) did not affect endothelial cell viability or growth, nor did it upregulate adhesion molecule expression or cellular adhesion associated with the local vascular inflammatory response. It is therefore implied that the use of urokinase in vivo similarly would not initiate the vascular inflammatory response. (J Vasc Surg 1997;25:471-80.

Approximate Annual Water Budgets of Two Chained Pinyon-Juniper Sites

Approximate annual water budgets for various pinyon-juniper treatments (chaining-with-windrowing, chaining-with-debris-in-place, and natural woodland) have been compiled for a 3-year period near Milford, Utah, and for a 2-year period near Blanding, Utah. Results of the analysis indicate that most of the annual precipitation falling on each treatment is lost through evapotranspiration, with much of the balance being lost through interception. When runoff did occur, it was greatest from windrowed treatments and least from debris-in-place treatments.This material was digitized as part of a cooperative project between the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries.The Journal of Range Management archives are made available by the Society for Range Management and the University of Arizona Libraries. Contact [email protected] for further information.Migrated from OJS platform August 202

Correlations between quantitative fat–water magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography in human subcutaneous white adipose tissue

Beyond estimation of depot volumes, quantitative analysis of adipose tissue properties could improve understanding of how adipose tissue correlates with metabolic risk factors. We investigated whether the fat signal fraction (FSF) derived from quantitative fat–water magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at 3.0 T correlates to CT Hounsfield units (HU) of the same tissue. These measures were acquired in the subcutaneous white adipose tissue (WAT) at the umbilical level of 21 healthy adult subjects. A moderate correlation exists between MRI- and CT-derived WAT values for all subjects, R2=0.54, p\u3c0.0001, with a slope of −2.6, (95% CI [−3.3,−1.8]), indicating that a decrease of 1 HU equals a mean increase of 0.38% FSF. We demonstrate that FSF estimates obtained using quantitative fat–water MRI techniques correlate with CT HU values in subcutaneous WAT, and therefore, MRI-based FSF could be used as an alternative to CT HU for assessing metabolic risk factors