FARM PRICE SUPPORTS AND ECONOMIC STABILITY

Agricultural Finance,

Do We Have Depressions Licked?

We\u27ve had three economic recessions during the past 11 years, but our built-in stabilizers and buffers have worked rather well. Though we can\u27t be certain, it looks as though another catastrophic depression such as that of the 1930\u27s is unlikely to re-occur in the years ahead

Plasticization and antiplasticization of polymer melts diluted by low molar mass species

An analysis of glass formation for polymer melts that are diluted by structured molecular additives is derived by using the generalized entropy theory, which involves a combination of the Adam-Gibbs model and the direct computation of the configurational entropy based on a lattice model of polymer melts that includes monomer structural effects. Antiplasticization is accompanied by a "toughening" of the glass mixture relative to the pure polymer, and this effect is found to occur when the diluents are small species with strongly attractive interactions with the polymer matrix. Plasticization leads to a decreased glass transition temperature T_g and a "softening" of the fragile host polymer in the glass state. Plasticization is prompted by small additives with weakly attractive interactions with the polymer matrix. The shifts in T_g of polystyrene diluted by fully flexible short oligomers are evaluated from the computations, along with the relative changes in the isothermal compressibility at T_g to characterize the extent to which the additives act as antiplasticizers or plasticizers. The theory predicts that a decreased fragility can accompany both antiplasticization and plasticization of the glass by molecular additives. The general reduction in the T_g and fragility of polymers by these molecular additives is rationalized by analyzing the influence of the diluent's properties (cohesive energy, chain length, and stiffness) on glass formation in diluted polymer melts. The description of glass formation at fixed temperature that is induced upon change the fluid composition directly implies the Angell equation for the structural relaxation time as function of the polymer concentration, and the computed "zero mobility concentration" scales linearly with the inverse polymerization index N.Comment: 12 pages, 15 figure

Bringing high-grade arteriovenous malformations under control: clinical outcomes following multimodality treatment in children.

OBJECTIVE:Brain arteriovenous malformations (AVMs) consist of dysplastic blood vessels with direct arteriovenous shunts that can hemorrhage spontaneously. In children, a higher lifetime hemorrhage risk must be balanced with treatment-related morbidity. The authors describe a collaborative, multimodal strategy resulting in effective and safe treatment of pediatric AVMs. METHODS:A retrospective analysis of a prospectively maintained database was performed in children with treated and nontreated pediatric AVMs at the University of California, San Francisco, from 1998 to 2017. Inclusion criteria were age ≤ 18 years at time of diagnosis and an AVM confirmed by a catheter angiogram. RESULTS:The authors evaluated 189 pediatric patients with AVMs over the study period, including 119 ruptured (63%) and 70 unruptured (37%) AVMs. The mean age at diagnosis was 11.6 ± 4.3 years. With respect to Spetzler-Martin (SM) grade, there were 38 (20.1%) grade I, 40 (21.2%) grade II, 62 (32.8%) grade III, 40 (21.2%) grade IV, and 9 (4.8%) grade V lesions. Six patients were managed conservatively, and 183 patients underwent treatment, including 120 resections, 82 stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), and 37 endovascular embolizations. Forty-four of 49 (89.8%) high-grade AVMs (SM grade IV or V) were treated. Multiple treatment modalities were used in 29.5% of low-grade and 27.3% of high-grade AVMs. Complete angiographic obliteration was obtained in 73.4% of low-grade lesions (SM grade I-III) and in 45.2% of high-grade lesions. A periprocedural stroke occurred in a single patient (0.5%), and there was 1 treatment-related death. The mean clinical follow-up for the cohort was 4.1 ± 4.6 years, and 96.6% and 84.3% of patients neurologically improved or remained unchanged in the ruptured and unruptured AVM groups following treatment, respectively. There were 16 bleeding events following initiation of AVM treatment (annual rate: 0.02 events per person-year). CONCLUSIONS:Coordinated multidisciplinary evaluation and individualized planning can result in safe and effective treatment of children with AVMs. In particular, it is possible to treat the majority of high-grade AVMs with an acceptable safety profile. Judicious use of multimodality therapy should be limited to appropriately selected patients after thorough team-based discussions to avoid additive morbidity. Future multicenter studies are required to better design predictive models to aid with patient selection for multimodal pediatric care, especially with high-grade AVMs

Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 11 (2018) (2018)

Contents ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS xvii SUMMARY 1 1 INTRODUCTION 17 Previous Veterans and Agent Orange Reports, 18 Charge to the Committee, 19 Information Gathering, 20 Organization of the Report, 21 2 BACKGROUND 25 The Current Population of Vietnam Veterans,25 Military Use of Herbicides in Vietnam, 27 Exposure of Different Groups of Vietnam Veterans, 30 Characterizing Exposure, 38 Determining Increased Risk in Vietnam Veterans, 4