Engines of Growth: Farm Tractors and Twentieth-Century U.S. Economic Welfare

The role of twentieth-century agricultural mechanization in changing the productivity, employment opportunities, and appearance of rural America has long been appreciated. Less attention has been paid to the impact made by farm tractors, combines, and associated equipment on the standard of living of the U.S. population as a whole. This paper demonstrates, through use of a detailed counterfactual analysis, that mechanization in the production of farm products increased GDP by more than 8.0 percent, using 1954 as a base year. This result suggests that studying individual innovations can significantly increase our understanding of the nature of economic growth.

High and Inside

Mike Barsen squirmed uneasily in his seat in the press box and peered over onto the playing field, now nearly completely shrouded by the shadows of the west grandstand and bleachers. The game had gone into extra innings, and there was apparently little hope for an immediat~ break in .the one-to-one .deadlock. Al Rosar was pitching for the GIants, startmg the game with a won-lost record of eight and thirteen for the 1948 season. But Mike Barsen, covering the game for the Gazette, knew, perhaps better than anyone else in the stands, how bitterly Al Rosar needed to win the game, for Mike had been in the Giant dressing-room not over a week ago when Al Rosar had lost his game with the Phils, and Mike had heard the conversation between Al Rosar and the young New York catcher, Tex Radcliffe. Mike had been standing in one corner of the locker room talking to the old man when Al and Tex had come down the ramp and in the door from the field. Mike wasn\u27t able to see the men as they talked, but he was close enough to hear the soft-spoken Texan

Analysis of QuickBooks internal control utilization

The QuickBooks software created and sold by Intuit, Inc. is the most predominantly used accounting software among small businesses. According to a June 19, 2008 press release issued by Intuit, more than 3.7 million businesses use QuickBooks, and it held a 94.2 percent market share for retail units in the business accounting category as of March 2008 (Intuit, 2008). As such, large amounts of financial data and information are created, edited, and stored using QuickBooks. A large majority of these companies will rarely, if ever, have their financial statements or internal control structures audited. However, the accuracy and security of this information is still vitally important

Calculation and measurement of the influence of flow parameters on rotordynamic coefficients in labyrinth seals

First experimental investigations performed on a new test rig are presented. For a staggered labyrinth seal with fourteen cavities the stiffness coefficient and the leakage flow are measured. The experimental results are compared to calculated results which are obtained by a one-volume bulk-flow theory. A perturbation analysis is made for seven terms. It is found out that the friction factors have great impact on the dynamic coefficients. They are obtained by turbulent flow computation by a finite-volume model with the Reynolds equations used as basic equations

Spin dynamics and magnetic interactions of Mn dopants in the topological insulator Bi2_2Te3_3

The magnetic and electronic properties of the magnetically doped topological insulator Bi$_{\rm 2-x}$Mn$_{\rm x}$Te$_3$ were studied using electron spin resonance (ESR) and measurements of static magnetization and electrical transport. The investigated high quality single crystals of Bi$_{\rm 2-x}$Mn$_{\rm x}$Te$_3$ show a ferromagnetic phase transition for $x\geq 0.04$ at $T_{C}\approx 12$ K. The Hall measurements reveal a p-type finite charge-carrier density. Measurements of the temperature dependence of the ESR signal of Mn dopants for different orientations of the external magnetic field give evidence that the localized Mn moments interact with the mobile charge carriers leading to a Ruderman-Kittel-Kasuya-Yosida-type ferromagnetic coupling between the Mn spins of order 2-3 meV. Furthermore, ESR reveals a low-dimensional character of magnetic correlations that persist far above the ferromagnetic ordering temperature

Rapid recurrence and radiographic progression of sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma

© 2017 Sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma (sRCC) is an aggressive variant of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) that has a significantly lower overall survival. Even after prompt surgical extirpation, this histologic variant progresses rapidly. We present a case of an early recurrence and rapid progression of sRCC despite successful radical resection

Testing for Trademark Dilution in Court and the Lab

Federal courts are currently split, even within particular districts, on the basic question of what a plaintiff must show to establish that a defendant’s conduct constitutes trademark dilution by blurring. Federal trademark law defines “dilution by blurring” as “association arising from the similarity between a mark or trade name and a famous mark that impairs the distinctiveness of the famous mark.” In construing this statutory language, a majority of courts have held that to establish blurring, a plaintiff need only show that consumers associate the defendant’s mark with the plaintiff’s famous mark. These courts appear to assume that to the extent that there is consumer association, this association alone will “impair[ ] the distinctiveness” of the famous mark. A minority of courts have held that the plaintiff must show both consumer association and that the consumer association “impairs the distinctiveness” of the famous mark. In this Article, we make three contributions to the current debate over what must be shown to establish dilution by blurring. First, we report the results of a set of experiments that reveal that the majority approach is fundamentally deficient. These experiments demonstrate that even when consumers associate a junior mark with a famous senior mark, this association does not necessarily result in any impairment of the ability of the senior mark to identify its source and associations. Second, we set forth a new method for determining when association is likely to lead to impairment. This method, which we term the “association strength test,” evaluates changes in how strongly survey respondents associate a mark with its source or attributes upon exposure to a diluting stimulus. Third, we evaluate the current state of the art in trademark dilution survey methodology: response time surveys. These surveys purportedly show both consumer association and impairment. Through a set of experiments, we demonstrate that these surveys currently use the wrong control and are invalid. In light of our findings, we reflect more generally on the question of whether dilution by blurring ever occurs and on how the blurring cause of action may be reconfigured to better comport with courts’ intuitions about the true nature of the harm that the cause of action seeks to address

Development Without Energy? Assessing Future Scenarios of Energy Consumption in Developing Countries

We analyze the relationship between economic development and energy consumption in the context of greenhouse gas mitigation. The main contribution of this work is to compare estimates of energy thresholds in the form of minimum energy requirements to reach high levels of development with output projections of per capita final energy supply from a group of integrated assessment models (IAMs). Scenarios project that reductions of carbon emissions in developing countries will be achieved not only by means of decreasing the carbon intensity, but also by making a significant break with the historically observed relationship between energy use and economic growth. We discuss the feasibility of achieving, on time scales acceptable for developing countries, both decarbonization and the needed structural changes or efficiency improvements, concluding that the decreases in energy consumption implied in numerous mitigation scenarios are unlikely to be achieved without endangering sustainable development objectives. To underscore the importance of basic energy needs also in the future, the role of infrastructure is highlighted, using steel and cement as examples

Carbon supported CdSe nanocrystals

Insights to the mechanism of CdSe nanoparticle attachment to carbon nanotubes following the hot injection method are discussed. It was observed that the presence of water improves the nanotube coverage while Cl containing media are responsible for the shape transformation of the nanoparticles and further attachment to the carbon lattice. The experiments also show that the mechanism taking place involves the right balance of several factors, namely, low passivated nanoparticle surface, particles with well-defined crystallographic facets, and interaction with an organics-free sp2 carbon lattice. Furthermore, this procedure can be extended to cover graphene by quantum dots.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure