Changes in landownership patterns in West Tennessee

Factors such as age and occupation of the owner, the kind and size of land held, mortgaged indebtedness, credit availability and future land plans affect the use of rural land. An evaluation of these factors was undertaken to explain the direction and quality of changes occurring in agriculture in West Tennessee. The purpose of this study was to: (1) obtain information concerning the characteristics of the land and the landowners, (2) clearly delineate the nature and significance of changing land use patterns, and (3) determine the process involved with land acquisition and the demographic characteris-tics of owners who have expanded their base and those who have not expanded their base. Data were obtained from a sample of 141 landowners in five counties of West Tennessee. The landowners were randomly selected from computer tapes of the county tax rolls and personally interviewed, using a questionnaire specifically designed for this study. The average sample of landowners was 57 years old and owned an average of 247 acres in 1975 as compared to an average size of 81 acres in 1960. The average gross farm income was approximately 26,000 dollars. The owners in 1975 valued their land at an average of 519 dollars per acre compared to 112 dollars per acre in 1960. Forty-one percent of the owners held units of less than 100 acres. Approximately 10 percent of the owners held 50 percent of the land and more than 70 percent of the owners held less than the average size ownership unit. Over 75 percent of all owners purchased their land, but only 7 percent of the owners plan to sell their land on the open market. Eighty-five percent of the owners plan to transfer their land through gift or inheritance. Cash payments were the most widely used means for financing the purchase of the land. Thirty-three percent of all land transferred was purchased through cash payment. Commercial banks financed 31 percent of all land purchases. Loans from governmental agencies accounted for less than 11 percent of the financing for land purchases. Forty-one percent of the land owners were full time farmers, approximately 21 percent were retired workers, and approximately 11 percent were business and professional workers. These three occupations all increased since 1960, when the percentages were 36, 14, and 4 respectively. The gross farm income and the size of the ownership unit were significantly higher for those owners who have not expanded. In 1974, average gross farm income was $54,975 for the expansion group and$6,025 for the nonexpansion group. The former group owned 410 acres while the latter owned 137 acres. As in most farm areas of the United States, the process of land acquisition has led to increases in the average farm size in West Tennessee. The study concludes that specific steps may have to be taken to insure the availability of farmland for young owners. The recent move to reduce inheritance taxes for those who desire to farm the land they inherit is one example of public policy to facilitate farmland preservation

Balancing of the Shaking Force, Shaking Moment, Input Torque and Bearing Forces in Planar Four Bar Linkages

The theory, development and application of a computer program to balance the combined effects of the shaking force, shaking moment, input torque and individual bearing forces in four bar linkages is presented. The theory assumes the linkage to consist of rigid bodies, and is limited to balancing planar four bar linkages other than sliders. Balancing is accomplished using circular counterweights which are tangentially attached to the bearing joints. Counterweight sizes and locations are determined using nonlinear programming techniques where an objective function, dependent upon all the kinetic parameters, is minimized. The balancing program is capable of performing diverse functions. The number of added counterweights, type and degree of numerical quadrature and regional constraints on all important balancing parameters can be varied. In addition, the program is capable of balancing linkages with offline mass distributions, and to some extent, emphasis can be placed on individual terms such as the input torque. A major limitation of the theory is the assumption of rigid links. This may not always be valid and makes the program insensitive to natural frequencies, where the amount of vibration would be excessiveExample problems are presented to show the capabilities and application of the balancing program. The first example shows the effect of varying the degree and type of numerical integration used. The Gaussian quadrature method is shown to be most efficient, with the optimum number of sampling points determined to be 10. In example two, an inline four bar linkage operating at a constant input speed of 5000 rpm is balanced so that all kinetic quantities are reduced from 75% to 92% over the unbalanced case. Similar results are shown in example three for balancing a four bar linkage with an offline coupler mass distribution. The effect of adding from one to three counterweights is also investigated, with the results indicating that additional counterweights do not always improve the balancing situation. With just one counterweight added, the important kinetic terms are reduced an average of 87%, while the addition of three counterweights only reduces these same quantities an additional 5%. Due to the apparent success of the developed program, the author recommends that it be extended to sliders, six bars and other practical linkages. In addition, the validity of the rigid body assumption should be experimentally and theoretically investigated

A STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE ANALYSIS OF CONTRACT GRAZING FEEDER CATTLE

Contract grazing feeder cattle is an arrangement where cattle owned by one party graze forage produced on land owned by another party. The forage producer is paid a fixed price per pound gained. Stochastic dominance analysis is used to compare contract grazing and the more traditional system in which the same individual owns both the cattle and land.Livestock Production/Industries,

Coco-Power: Exploring Copra-Derived Biodiesel for Grid Connected Electricity in Vanuatu

This research assesses the financial feasibility of a large scale copra-based biodiesel refinery in Vanuatu and whether any carbon finance could be sought to improve the viability of the project. The research cannot be perfectly predictive of the next fifteen years of financial situation, however, the research can quite accurately replicate the feasibility assessment that potential investors would make. The research finds that the project is not financially viable under current projections without carbon finance. The research also shows that carbon finance could be sought from a number of sources in order to make the project feasible. Under current projections the research finds that utilising the clean development mechanism would add approximately 2.9 million United States Dollars (USD) to the present value of the project. The conclusion from these results is that the proposed biodiesel project is sufficiently profitable to attract investors. The primary recommendation resulting from the research is that the stakeholders to the proposed biodiesel project begin an open discourse to work through any issues in order to develop a sustainable copra-based biodiesel refinery in Vanuatu to produce a substitute for the import of fossil diesel used for electricity generation in Port Vila. The secondary recommendation is that international climate change policy negotiators should keep in mind the full set of barriers when addressing the uptake of clean technology in developing countries; often it may not only be the financial feasibility that is preventing climate change mitigation activities

VALIDATION OF A PORTABLE FORCE PLATE TO ASSESSING JUMPING AND LANDING PERFORMANCE

Jumping and landing tasks are commonly used! to examine various parameters regarding performance (Arampatziz et al. 2001) and injury (Hewitt et al. 2005). Traditionally jumping tasks have been used to measure a variety of neuromuscular factors regarding performance. Landings have been studied extensively with r~$pect to factors related to injury. It is commonly accepted that the standard force platform is the most commonly used and considered the 'gold standard' for measuring ground reaction force during jumping and landing tasks. One potential aspect which limits the use of a force platform is that they are typically mounted to the ground to prevent any unrelated vibrations from affecting the force measurement. The portability of these devices is difficult and measurements are normally restricted to a laboratory setting. Another possible factor that could affect the data collected by a portable force plate is the difference in surface height between the ground and the force plate. Therefore, the dimensions of a portable force platform should be large enough to accommodate the given maneuver without changes in performance. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to validate the force measurements of a new portable force platform during two jumping/landing tasks by comparing the measurements to a traditional laboratory mounted force platform. A secondary purpose was to establish the reliability of the portable force platform. If the validity and reliability of the portable force platform are confirmed, this will provide a device that can assess a variety of measurements in field (non laboratory) situations. We hypothesize that the force and temporal measurements between the two instruments would not be different

Acute coronary syndrome in Australia

BackgroundAcute coronary syndrome (ACS) is a significant contributor to both morbidity and mortality in Australia. Generally speaking, sufferers of ACS who live in rural areas and are treated at rural hospitals have poorer outcomes than those living in metropolitan areas.AimsTo characterise the differences in the management and outcomes of rural and metropolitan populations in the context of ACS, as well as identify factors responsible for these differences and suggest how they may be addressed.MethodA review of the current literature surrounding ACS in Australia was undertaken. Through the MEDLINE/PubMed database a thorough search using the terms “acute coronary syndrome” and “Australia” identified 460 papers for review, excluding abstracts and adding “rural”, “metropolitan”, “reperfusion”, and “outcomes” to this search narrowed the results to 149 papers for review. Data was also extracted from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and other Australian government publications. The review draws on insights from both local and international resources and seeks to provide an understanding of the contemporary landscape of ACS in both rural and metropolitan Australia. The review is broken down into three key sections:1. An outline of the 2011 National Heart Foundation of Australia/Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (NHF/CSANZ) guidelines and adjuvant tools used in the assessment and treatment of ACS, and to what extent these guidelines have been implemented clinically.2. An exploration of the current landscape of ACS in Australia and identification of the disparities facing rural populations compared to those in metropolitan areas.3. Discussion of the factors that are resulting in poorer outcomes for ACS sufferers and suggestions of novel approaches towards addressing these factors.ConclusionDisparities exist between the management and outcomes of rural and metropolitan populations experiencing ACS. While the causes of these discrepancies are multifactorial, the onus is on the healthcare system to effectively reduce associated morbidity and mortality. Improvements in the management of ACS may be achieved through a continued reduction in call-to-needles time via the use of remote and mobile thrombolysis services as well as improvements in in-hospital risk assessment in order to flag and investigate those at risk of ACS

Screening for frailty in older emergency patients and association with outcome

Older people have a high incidence of adverse outcomes after urgent care presentation. Identifying high-risk older patients early is key to targeting interventions at those patients most likely to benefit. This study used the Frailsafe three-point screening questions amongst older Emergency Department (ED) attendees. Consecutive unplanned ED attendances in patients aged ≥75 were assessed for Frailsafe status. The primary outcome was mortality at 180 days. A Frailsafe screen was completed in 356 patients, of whom 194/356 (54.5%) were Frailsafe positive. The mean age was 85.8 for Frailsafe screen positive and 82.2 for Frailsafe screen negative patients (p 28 days (AOR 3.42, 95% CI 1.41–8.31, p = 0.007) and re-attendance within 30 days of discharge after admission (OR = 2.73, 95% CI 1.27–5.88, p = 0.01). Frailsafe screen results independently predict a range of outcomes amongst older ED attendees

Canine tumor cross-species genomics uncovers targets linked to osteosarcoma progression

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pulmonary metastasis continues to be the most common cause of death in osteosarcoma. Indeed, the 5-year survival for newly diagnosed osteosarcoma patients has not significantly changed in over 20 years. Further understanding of the mechanisms of metastasis and resistance for this aggressive pediatric cancer is necessary. Pet dogs naturally develop osteosarcoma providing a novel opportunity to model metastasis development and progression. Given the accelerated biology of canine osteosarcoma, we hypothesized that a direct comparison of canine and pediatric osteosarcoma expression profiles may help identify novel metastasis-associated tumor targets that have been missed through the study of the human cancer alone.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using parallel oligonucleotide array platforms, shared orthologues between species were identified and normalized. The osteosarcoma expression signatures could not distinguish the canine and human diseases by hierarchical clustering. Cross-species target mining identified two genes, interleukin-8 (<it>IL-8</it>) and solute carrier family 1 (glial high affinity glutamate transporter), member 3 (<it>SLC1A3</it>), which were uniformly expressed in dog but not in all pediatric osteosarcoma patient samples. Expression of these genes in an independent population of pediatric osteosarcoma patients was associated with poor outcome (p = 0.020 and p = 0.026, respectively). Validation of <it>IL-8 </it>and <it>SLC1A3 </it>protein expression in pediatric osteosarcoma tissues further supported the potential value of these novel targets. Ongoing evaluation will validate the biological significance of these targets and their associated pathways.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Collectively, these data support the strong similarities between human and canine osteosarcoma and underline the opportunities provided by a comparative oncology approach as a means to improve our understanding of cancer biology and therapies.</p

Amphipathic polymer-mediated uptake of trehalose for dimethyl sulfoxide-free human cell cryopreservation

For stem cell therapy to become a routine reality, one of the major challenges to overcome is their storage and transportation. Currently this is achieved by cryopreserving cells utilising the cryoprotectant dimethyl sulfoxide (MeSO). MeSO is toxic to cells, leads to loss of cell functionality, and can produce severe side effects in patients. Potentially, cells could be frozen using the cryoprotectant trehalose if it could be delivered into the cells at a sufficient concentration. The novel amphipathic membrane permeabilising agent PP-50 has previously been shown to enhance trehalose uptake by erythrocytes, resulting in increased cryosurvival. Here, this work was extended to the nucleated human cell line SAOS-2. Using the optimum PP-50 concentration and media osmolarity, cell viability post-thaw was 60±2%. In addition, the number of metabolically active cells 24h post-thaw, normalised to that before freezing, was found to be between 103±4% and 91±5%. This was found to be comparable to cells frozen using MeSO. Although reduced (by 22±2%, p=0.09), the doubling time was found not to be statistically different to the non-frozen control. This was in contrast to cells frozen using MeSO, where the doubling time was significantly reduced (by 41±4%, p=0.004). PP-50 mediated trehalose delivery into cells could represent an alternative cryopreservation protocol, suitable for research and therapeutic applications. © 2013 The Authors