Analysis of Fruit Consumption in the U.S. with a Quadratic AIDS Model

The Quadratic AIDS model was estimated to analyze the U.S. fruit consumption using annual per capita consumption data and prices for a demand system consisting of fresh fruit, fruit juice and other processed fruit. All Marshallian own price elasticities are found to be negative and the demand system is dominated by complementarity relationships. Both own and cross price Marshallian elasticities are less than one. Fruit juices are found to be expenditure elastic conditional on the total expenditure on fruits while fresh fruits and other processed fruits are found to be expenditure inelastic. However, fresh fruit is close to being unitary expenditure elastic. After allowing for curvature in the Engel function, U.S. fresh fruit demand is found to be more responsive to changes in income than in previous studies.Demand estimation, U.S fruit consumption, Quadratic AIDS, AIDS, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Marketing,

Fusion Welding of Refractory Metals and ZrB2-SiC-ZrC Ceramics

Molybdenum and a molybdenum alloy were fusion welded to ZrB2-based ceramics to determine if the electrical and thermal properties of the metals and ceramics affected their weldability. Commercial ceramic powders were hot pressed, machined into coupons, and preheated to 1600 °C before joining the ceramics to commercial metals using plasma arc welding. Weldability varied as indicated by the range of porosity observed within the fusion zones. Measured thermal and electrical properties appeared to have little to no effect on the weldability of metal-ceramic welds despite the large range of values measured across each property. Differences in melting temperatures between metal and ceramic coupons did affect weldability by changing the weld penetration depth into ceramic coupons. Future studies on metal-ceramic welds are suggested to investigate the effect that work function, melt viscosity, wetting, or other properties have on weldability

γδ T cells affect IL-4 production and B-cell tolerance

γδ T cells can influence specific antibody responses. Here, we report that mice deficient in individual γδ T-cell subsets have altered levels of serum antibodies, including all major subclasses, sometimes regardless of the presence of αβ T cells. One strain with a partial γδ deficiency that increases IgE antibodies also displayed increases in IL-4–producing T cells (both residual γδ T cells and αβ T cells) and in systemic IL-4 levels. Its B cells expressed IL-4–regulated inhibitory receptors (CD5, CD22, and CD32) at diminished levels, whereas IL-4–inducible IL-4 receptor α and MHCII were increased. They also showed signs of activation and spontaneously formed germinal centers. These mice displayed IgE-dependent features found in hyper-IgE syndrome and developed antichromatin, antinuclear, and anticytoplasmic autoantibodies. In contrast, mice deficient in all γδ T cells had nearly unchanged Ig levels and did not develop autoantibodies. Removing IL-4 abrogated the increases in IgE, antichromatin antibodies, and autoantibodies in the partially γδ-deficient mice. Our data suggest that γδ T cells, controlled by their own cross-talk, affect IL-4 production, B-cell activation, and B-cell tolerance

Precise Mass Determination of SPT-CL J2106-5844, the Most Massive Cluster at z \u3e 1

We present a detailed high-resolution weak-lensing study of SPT-CL J2106-5844 at z = 1.132, claimed to be the most massive system discovered at z \u3e 1 in the South Pole Telescope Sunyaev–Zel\u27dovich survey. Based on the deep imaging data from the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 on board the Hubble Space Telescope, we find that the cluster mass distribution is asymmetric, composed of a main clump and a subclump ~640 kpc west thereof. The central clump is further resolved into two smaller northwestern and southeastern substructures separated by ~150 kpc. We show that this rather complex mass distribution is more consistent with the cluster galaxy distribution than a unimodal distribution as previously presented. The northwestern substructure coincides with the brightest cluster galaxy and the X-ray peak while the southeastern one agrees with the location of the peak in number density. These morphological features and the comparison with the X-ray emission suggest that the cluster might be a merging system. We estimate the virial mass of the cluster to be , where the second error bar is the systematic uncertainty. Our result confirms that the cluster SPT-CL J2106-5844 is indeed the most massive cluster at z \u3e 1 known to date. We demonstrate the robustness of this mass estimate by performing a number of tests with different assumptions on the centroids, mass–concentration relations, and sample variance