Economic Impacts of Establishing Short Rotation Woody Crops to Support Energy Production in Minnesota

The utilization of short rotation woody crops (SRWC) to produce wood on marginal crop and pasture land could greatly enhance the production of wood for various uses in Minnesota with utilization for energy being of current interest. SRWC involves the more intensive application of inputs on more valuable land than naturally regenerated forests that currently supply the bulk of the forest products industry in Minnesota. Breeding efforts to improve productivity and disease resistance in hybrid poplar species are making the technology of SRWC competitive with agricultural uses of marginal land. This study models the economic impact of a potential shift in use of the land resource by replacing production of hay and pasture that provides feed for cow-calf beef operations in northwest and west central Minnesota with SRWC. Regional economic impacts of such a shift are measured with established input-output techniques, using the software tool IMPLAN. To complete this analysis, the magnitudes and sectors of expenditures needed to produce either beef calves or hybrid poplar plantations were compared using farm records and hybrid poplar budgets. Construction of a $175 million energy conversion facility capable of making 44 million gallons of ethanol and 7.6 million gallons of mixed alcohols by catalytic means following gasification would result in creation of 2,412 jobs during the construction period, with$158 million in value-added (mainly employee compensation and business taxes). Operation of the facility after the end of construction, if supported by 200,000 acres of hybrid poplar production, would not change the number of jobs very much compared with using the land for cow-calf operations. However, the SRWC-related jobs would likely be at higher average salary levels and business tax collections would be higher, for a value-added increase of $80 million annually. In addition to greater wood supplies to support the forest products industry, logging pressures may be reduced on public forest land as a consequence of greater deployment of technology and methods that can result in production per acre that is eight to ten-fold greater than naturally regenerated forests.Hybrid Poplar, SRWC, IMPLAN, economics, energy, ethanol, OSB, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

An east-west asymmetry in the solar wind velocity

East-west asymmetry in solar wind velocit

Deceleration of the solar wind in the Earth foreshock region: ISEE 2 and IMP 8 observations

The deceleration of the solar wind in the region of the interplanetary space filled by ions backstreaming from the Earth bow shock was studied using a two spacecraft technique. This deceleration, which is correlated with the "diffuse" but not with the "reflected" ion population, depends on the solar wind bulk velocity: at low velocities (below 300 km/sec) the velocity decrease is about 5 km/sec, while at higher velocities (above 400 km/sec) the decrease may be as large as 30 km/sec. Along with this deceleration, the solar wind undergoes a deflection of about 1 deg away from the direction of the Earth bow shock. The energy balance shows that the kinetic energy loss far exceeds the thermal energy which is possibly gained by the solar wind, therefore, at least part of this energy must go into waves and/or into the backstreaming ions

Analysis and Interpretation of In-Phase Component of VLF-EM Data using Hilbert Transform and the Amplitude of Analytical Signal

An interpretation of in-phase anomaly of very low frequency electromagnetic (VLF-EM) data was carried out using the analysis of the Hilbert transform of the in-phase component and the amplitude of its analytic signal. The analysis was used to delineate the source and depth to the top of a subsurface conductive body. The amplitude of the analytical signal of the data was observed to mimic the conventional Fraser-filtered operation and was used to locate the exact location of the anomalous body. The in-phase component with the Hilbert transform yields an approximate depth to the top of the conductor which agree with the result of the vertical electrical sounding conducted at the vicinity of the anomalous body. Keywords: VLF-EM method, Hilbert transform, analytical signal, in-phase, Fraser filtering

The influence of emotional reaction on help seeking by victims of school bullying

Research has started to focus on how victims of school bullying cope, but there is still very little understanding if why pupils cope in one way and not another. This paper aimed to examine the effects of gender, school-stage, frequency of victimization and different emotions (anger, vengeance, self-pity, indifference, and helplessness) upon the choice of social support that children report using. Questionnaires were completed by 6282 Maltese schoolchildren aged between 9 and 14 years old. Analyses revealed that specific patterns of emotion and victimization predict whether pupils report using certain sources of social support. Results are discussed in relation to their relevance for possible intervention, future research needs and implications for the theoretical framework used

TB116: Integrated Systems for Managing Potatoes in the Northeast

This technical bulletin presents the results of a research project developed to determine the feasibility of using an integrated pest management (IPM) system to improve economic and environmental benefits for the Northeast region. Research was conducted to develop and evaluate IPM techniques. These techniques were then tested, improved, and implemented in pilot programs on commercial potato farms in Suffolk County and Steuben County, New York, and Aroostook County, Maine.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/aes_techbulletin/1076/thumbnail.jp

MAJOR TRENDS IN LIS RESEARCH: A BIBLIOMETRIC ANALYSIS

This study provides an overview of the Library and Information Science (LIS) research from 1980 through 2017. We employ bibliometric and text mining analyses on a sample of 500 most cited articles to examine the impact of factors such as number of authors, enhanced institutions, document types and keywords on the number of citations that they received. We also investigate major trends in LIS research literature including contribution of different countries, variations across publication years and identifying active research areas and major journal outlets. This study serves as a resource for future studies on LIS trends demonstrating the attributes of the most cited articles in this literature. Specifically our result shows that the most cited articles are from USA, England and China. In Africa, South Africa and Nigeria are among the top 25 countries that are productive in LIS research. The most prolific year in terms of the number of published articles is in 2016 and the total number of citation is 51,589. We also found a positive and statistically significant relationship between the number of publications’ keyword, and the number of citations that they have received. Keywords analysis reveals that LIS research in combination of (academic libraries, information literacy, bibliometric, citation analysis, Open Access) and few others will be future research trends in LIS-related fields. Results obtained from this study can provide valuable information for researchers to better identify future hotspots in LIS-related disciplines