Sheep CRC Renewal Proposal: Economic Evaluation of the Proposed Scientific Themes

The Australian sheep industry and its associated research and development agencies have developed a proposal for the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation. “Top-down” and “bottomup” procedures were used to assess the expected economic benefits from this proposal. Formal “with-CRC” and “without-CRC” scenarios were defined for each product and each research theme. Relevant costs were similarly defined. The requested investment by the Commonwealth and the Australian sheep industry in the CRC is assessed relative to a scenario where an alternative, lower cost research program into this industry is implemented. These extra resources have a discounted value of about $34 million over the 25-year period of this evaluation. These resources are sufficient to allow some new research components to be added to the portfolio, some existing components to produce better outcomes, and a more targeted approach to development and extension that speeds up and increases the adoption of the new technologies that are generated by the research program. The benefit from this extra investment and consequent research effort is estimated to be worth about$518 million in present value terms, which is far in excess of the marginal investment. Thus every $1 of these extra resources brought into the Australian sheep industry through funding the proposed CRC is expected to return around$15.30 to the industry in present value terms.wool, sheep meat, research and development, economic, evaluation, Australia, Agribusiness, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Q160,

Economic benefits of public investment in weed management: the case of vulpia in south-eastern Australia’s temperate pasture areas

The present paper reports an economic evaluation of the long-term benefits to Australia of research by the Cooperative Research Centre for Weed Management Systems (CRC) into the improved management of vulpia , the major annual grass weed of temperate pastures in New South Wales and Victoria. Vulpia reduces livestock production by competition with more desirable pasture species, by the production of low quality feed at critical times of the grazing cycle, and by injury to animals. A 20-year stochastic benefit-cost analysis indicated that reducing the impacts of vulpia in these pastures produced a mean net present value of # A58.3 million and a mean benefit-cost ratio of 33:1. Temperate pasture zone wool producers would capture the largest shares of these benefits, Australian consumers would gain, but wool producers in the rest of Australia would suffer welfare losses from vulpia reductions in the temperate pasture zones.Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management,

Dynamic general equilibrium analysis of improved weed management in Australia's winter cropping systems

A recent analysis indicated that the direct financial cost of weeds to Australia’s winter grain sectorwas approximately $A1.2bn in 1998–1999. Costs of thismagnitude represent a large recurring productivity loss in an agricultural sector that is sufficient to impact significantly on regional economies.Using amulti-regional dynamic computable general equilibrium model, we simulate the general equilibrium effects of a hypothetical successful campaign to reduce the economic costs of weeds. We assume that an additional$50m of R&D spread over five years is targeted at reducing the additional costs and reduced yields arising from weeds in various broadacre crops. Following this R&D effort, one-tenth of the losses arising from weeds is temporarily eliminated, with a diminishing benefit in succeeding years. At the national level, there is a welfare increase of $700m in discounted net present value terms. The regions with relatively high concentrations of winter crops experience small temporary macroeconomic gains.CGE modelling, dynamics, weed management, Crop Production/Industries,

The Philippine Foreign Debt Problem: A Search For Alternative Policies

This paper was written with assistance from the Forum for Debt and Development (FONDAD)

Implementation, impact and costs of policies for safe staffing in acute NHS trusts

The aim of this research has been to describe the implementation of safe staffing policies in NHS general acute Trusts in England looking at costs and consequences, and examining the factors that have influenced implementation. A mix of qualitative and quantitative methods were used (national survey, analysis of national data, four case studies, realist evaluation) to examine the impact of policies nationally, and explore commonality and variation in local responses to safe staffing policies. The report is based on independent research commissioned and funded by the NIHR Policy Research Programme (“Implementation, Impact and Costs of Policies for Safe Staffing in Acute NHS Trusts”, PR-ST-1115-10017). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR, the Department of Health and Social Care, ‘arm’s length bodies’ or other government departments

Using a lamb's early-life liveweight as a predictor of carcass quality

The commercial value of lamb carcasses is primarily determined by their weight and quality, with the latter commonly quantified according to muscle coverage and fat depth. The ability to predict these quality scores early in the season could be of substantial value to sheep producers, as this would enable tailored flock management strategies for different groups of animals. Existing methods of carcass quality prediction, however, require either expensive equipment or information immediately before slaughter, leaving them unsuitable as a decision support tool for small to medium-scale enterprises. Using seven-year high-resolution data from the North Wyke Farm Platform, a system-scale grazing trial in Devon, UK, this paper investigates the feasibility of using a lamb's early-life liveweight to predict the carcass quality realised when the animal reaches the target weight. The results of multinomial regression models showed that lambs which were heavier at weaning, at 13 weeks of age, were significantly more likely to have leaner and more muscular carcasses. An economic analysis confirmed that these animals produced significantly more valuable carcasses at slaughter, even after accounting for seasonal variation in lamb price that often favours early finishers. As the majority of heavier-weaned lambs leave the flock before lighter-weaned lambs, an increase in the average weaning weight could also lead to greater pasture availability for ewes in the latter stage of the current season, and thus an enhanced ewe condition and fertility for the next season. All information combined, therefore, a stronger focus on ewes' nutrition before and during lactation was identified as a key to increase system-wide profitability

Quantifying the value of on-farm measurements to inform the selection of key performance indicators for livestock production systems

The use of key performance indicators (KPIs) to assist on-farm decision making has long been seen as a promising strategy to improve operational efficiency of agriculture. The potential benefit of KPIs, however, is heavily dependent on the economic relevance of the metrics used, and an overabundance of ambiguously defined KPIs in the livestock industry has disincentivised many farmers to collect information beyond a minimum requirement. Using high-resolution sheep production data from the North Wyke Farm Platform, a system-scale grazing trial in southwest United Kingdom, this paper proposes a novel framework to quantify the information values of industry recommended KPIs, with the ultimate aim of compiling a list of variables to measure and not to measure. The results demonstrated a substantial financial benefit associated with a careful selection of metrics, with top-ranked variables exhibiting up to 3.5 times the information value of those randomly chosen. When individual metrics were used in isolation, ewe weight at lambing had the greatest ability to predict the subsequent lamb value at slaughter, surpassing all mid-season measures representing the lamb's own performance. When information from multiple metrics was combined to inform on-farm decisions, the peak benefit was observed under four metrics, with inclusion of variables beyond this point shown to be detrimental to farm profitability regardless of the combination selected. The framework developed herein is readily extendable to other livestock species, and with minimal modifications to arable and mixed agriculture as well

Trace Gas Emissions from Biomass Burning inferred from Aerosol Optical Depth

We have observed strong correlations between simultaneous and co-located measurements of aerosol optical depth and column amounts of carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde and ammonia in bushfire smoke plumes over SE Australia during the Austral summers of 2001/2002 and 2002/2003. We show how satellite-derived aerosol optical depth maps may be used in conjunction with these correlations to determine the total amounts of these gases present in a fire-affected region. This provides the basis of a method for estimating total emissions of trace gases from biomass burning episodes using visible radiances measured by satellite

Text-mining clinically relevant cancer biomarkers for curation into the CIViC database

Background: Precision oncology involves analysis of individual cancer samples to understand the genes and pathways involved in the development and progression of a cancer. To improve patient care, knowledge of diagnostic, prognostic, predisposing, and drug response markers is essential. Several knowledgebases have been created by different groups to collate evidence for these associations. These include the open-access Clinical Interpretation of Variants in Cancer (CIViC) knowledgebase. These databases rely on time-consuming manual curation from skilled experts who read and interpret the relevant biomedical literature. Methods: To aid in this curation and provide the greatest coverage for these databases, particularly CIViC, we propose the use of text mining approaches to extract these clinically relevant biomarkers from all available published literature. To this end, a group of cancer genomics experts annotated sentences that discussed biomarkers with their clinical associations and achieved good inter-annotator agreement. We then used a supervised learning approach to construct the CIViCmine knowledgebase. Results: We extracted 121,589 relevant sentences from PubMed abstracts and PubMed Central Open Access full-text papers. CIViCmine contains over 87,412 biomarkers associated with 8035 genes, 337 drugs, and 572 cancer types, representing 25,818 abstracts and 39,795 full-text publications. Conclusions: Through integration with CIVIC, we provide a prioritized list of curatable clinically relevant cancer biomarkers as well as a resource that is valuable to other knowledgebases and precision cancer analysts in general. All data is publically available and distributed with a Creative Commons Zero license. The CIViCmine knowledgebase is available at http://bionlp.bcgsc.ca/civicmine/

A catalogue of galaxies behind the southern Milky Way. - II. The Crux and Great Attractor regions (l = 289deg - 338deg)

In this second paper of the catalogue series of galaxies behind the southern Milky Way, we report on the deep optical galaxy search in the Crux region (289deg <= l <= 318deg and -10deg <= b <= 10deg) and the Great Attractor region (316deg <= l <= 338deg and -10deg <= b <= 10deg). The galaxy catalogues are presented, a brief description of the galaxy search given, as well as a discussion on the distribution and characteristics of the uncovered galaxies. A total of 8182 galaxies with major diameters D >= 0.2 arcmin were identified in this ~850 square degree area: 3759 galaxies in the Crux region and 4423 galaxies in the Great Attractor region. Of the 8182 galaxies, 229 (2.8%) were catalogued before in the optical (3 in radio) and 251 galaxies have a reliable (159), or likely (92) cross-identification in the IRAS Point Source Catalogue (3.1%). A number of prominent overdensities and filaments of galaxies are identified. They are not correlated with the Galactic foreground extinction and hence indicative of extragalactic large-scale structures. Redshifts obtained at the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) for 518 of the newly catalogued galaxies in the Crux and Great Attractor regions (Fairall et al. 1998; Woudt et al. 1999) confirm distinct voids and clusters in the area here surveyed. With this optical galaxy search, we have reduced the width of the optical `Zone of Avoidance' for galaxies with extinction-corrected diameters larger than 1.3 arcmin from extinction levels A_B >= 1.0 mag to A_B >= 3.0 mag: the remaining optical Zone of Avoidance is now limited by |b| <= 3deg (see Fig. 16).Comment: 19 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in A&A. Tables will shortly be available in electronic version at the CDS. Full resolution (colour) copies of Figures 1, 2, 3 and 16 are available at http://mensa.ast.uct.ac.za/~pwoud