THE U.S. FERTILIZER INDUSTRY: DEMAND TRENDS AND MARKET STRUCTURE

Agribusiness,

THE U.S. PESTICIDE INDUSTRY: USAGE TRENDS AND MARKET DEVELOPMENT

Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries,

Does Depression Co-Occur Within Households? The Moderating Effects of Financial Resources and Job Insecurity on Psychological Contagion

The empirically related psychopathologies of stress and depression exact an enormous economic toll and have many physical and behavioral health effects. Most studies of the effects of stress and depression focus on their causes and consequences for a single, focal individual. We examine the extent to which depression, as indicated by filling antidepressant prescriptions (SSRI and Benzodiazepines), co-occurs across spouses, constituting a negative spillover effect. To better understand the conditions that affect within-household contagion of depression, we examine whether the stress and uncertainty occasioned by job change and financial stress (net worth) increases spillover effects among spouses. We use panel data from various Danish administrative registers from the year 2001–2015 with more than 4.5 million observations on more than 900,000 unique individuals and their spouses from Danish health registers. Spouses in a household with their partner using antidepressants have a 62.1% higher chance of using antidepressants themselves, with the one year lagged effect being 29.3% and a two-year lagged effect of 15.1%. The effects become larger by 14.8% contemporaneously and 20% in the two-year lagged model if the focal individual changed employers. There was also a substantively unimportant effect of lower financial wealth to increase inter-spousal contagion

The mirn23a and mirn23b microrna clusters are necessary for proper hematopoietic progenitor cell production and differentiation

Mice deficient for microRNA (miRNA) cluster mirn23a exhibit increased B lymphopoiesis at the expense of myelopoiesis, whereas hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell (HSPC) populations are unchanged. Mammals possess a paralogous mirn23b gene that can give rise to three mature miRNAs (miR-23b, miR-24-1, and miR-27b) that have identical seed/mRNA-targeting sequences to their mirn23a counterparts. To assess whether compound deletion of mirn23a and mirn23b exacerbates the hematopoietic phenotype observed in mirn23a−/− mice, we generated a compound mirn23a−/−mirn23bfl/fl:Mx1-Cre conditional knockout mouse and assayed hematopoietic development after excision of mirn23b. Loss of both genes in adult bone marrow further skewed HSPC differentiation toward B cells at the expense of myeloid cells, demonstrating a dosage-dependent effect on regulating cell differentiation. Strikingly, double-knockout (DKO) mice had decreased bone marrow cellularity with significantly decreased hematopoietic stem cell and HSPC populations, a phenotype not observed in mice deficient for mirn23a alone. Competitive transplantation assays showed decreased contribution of mirn23a−/−mirn23b−/− HSPCs to hematopoietic lineages at 6 and 12 weeks after transplantation. Defects in the proliferation of mirn23a−/−b−/− HSPCs was not observed; however, DKO cells were more apoptotic compared with both wild-type and mirn23a−/− cells. Together, our data show that complete loss of mirn23a/mirn23b miRNAs results in decreased blood production and affects lineage output in a concentration-dependent manner

Arid3b Is Critical for B Lymphocyte Development

Arid3a and Arid3b belong to a subfamily of ARID (AT-rich interaction domain) transcription factors. The Arid family is involved in regulating chromatin accessibility, proliferation, and differentiation. Arid3a and Arid3b are closely related and share a unique REKLES domain that mediates their homo- and hetero-multimerization. Arid3a was originally isolated as a B cell transcription factor binding to the AT rich matrix attachment regions (MARS) of the immunoglobulin heavy chain intronic enhancer. Deletion of Arid3a results in a highly penetrant embryonic lethality with severe defects in erythropoiesis and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). The few surviving Arid3a-/- (<1%) animals have decreased HSCs and early progenitors in the bone marrow, but all mature lineages are normally represented in the bone marrow and periphery except for B cells. Arid3b-/- animals die around E7.5 precluding examination of hematopoietic development. So it is unclear whether the phenotype of Arid3a loss on hematopoiesis is dependent or independent of Arid3b. In this study we circumvented this limitation by also examining hematopoiesis in mice with a conditional allele of Arid3b. Bone marrow lacking Arid3b shows decreased common lymphoid progenitors (CLPs) and downstream B cell populations while the T cell and myeloid lineages are unchanged, reminiscent of the adult hematopoietic defect in Arid3a mice. Unlike Arid3a-/- mice, HSC populations are unperturbed in Arid3b-/- mice. This study demonstrates that HSC development is independent of Arid3b, whereas B cell development requires both Arid3a and Arid3b transcription factors

Hybrid Lattice-Boltzmann-Potential Flow Simulations of Turbulent Flow around Submerged Structures

We report on the development and validation of a 3D hybrid Lattice Boltzmann Model (LBM), with Large Eddy Simulation (LES), to simulate the interactions of incompressible turbulent flows with ocean structures. The LBM is based on a perturbation method, in which the velocity and pressure are expressed as the sum of an inviscid flow and a viscous perturbation. The far- to near-field flow is assumed to be inviscid and represented by potential flow theory, which can be efficiently modeled with a Boundary Element Method (BEM). The near-field perturbation flow around structures is modeled by the Navier–Stokes (NS) equations, based on a Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) with a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of the turbulence. In the paper, we present the hybrid model formulation, in which a modified LBM collision operator is introduced to simulate the viscous perturbation flow, resulting in a novel perturbation LBM (pLBM) approach. The pLBM is then extended for the simulation of turbulence using the LES and a wall model to represent the viscous/turbulent sub-layer near solid boundaries. The hybrid model is first validated by simulating turbulent flows over a flat plate, for moderate to large Reynolds number values, Re ∈ [3.7×104;1.2×106]; the plate friction coefficient and near-field turbulence properties computed with the model are found to agree well with both experiments and direct NS simulations. We then simulate the flow past a NACA-0012 foil using a regular LBM-LES and the new hybrid pLBM-LES models with the wall model, for Re = 1.44 x 106. A good agreement is found for the computed lift and drag forces, and pressure distribution on the foil, with experiments and results of other numerical methods. Results obtained with the pLBM model are either nearly identical or slightly improved, relative to those of the standard LBM, but are obtained in a significantly smaller computational domain and hence at a much reduced computational cost, thus demonstrating the benefits of the new hybrid approach

Linguistic Structures and Economic Outcomes

Linguistic structures have recently started to attract attention from economists as determinants of economic phenomena. This paper provides the first comprehensive review of this nascent literature and its achievements so far. First, we explore the complex connections between language, culture, thought and behaviour. Then, we summarize the empirical evidence on the relationship between linguistic structures and economic and social outcomes. We follow up with a discussion of data, empirical design and identification. The paper concludes by discussing implications for future research and policy

Overview of results from the Asian Seas International Acoustics Experiment in the East China Sea

Author Posting. © IEEE, 2004. This article is posted here by permission of IEEE for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering 29 (2004): 920-928, doi:10.1109/JOE.2005.843159.The Asian Seas International Acoustics Experiment (ASIAEX) included two major field programs, one in the South China Sea and the other in the East China Sea (ECS). This paper presents an overview of research results from ASIAEX ECS conducted between May 28 and June 9, 2001. The primary emphasis of the field program was shallow-water acoustic propagation, focused on boundary interaction and geoacoustic inversion. The study area's central point was located at 29/spl deg/ 40.67'N, 126/spl deg/ 49.39'E, which is situated 500 km east of the Chinese coastline off Shanghai. The acoustic and supporting environmental measurements are summarized, along with research results to date, and references to papers addressing specific issues in more detail are given.This work was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research under Code 321 OA and by sponsoring agencies within China. Primary guidance and sponsorship for ASIAEX East China Sea came from the U.S. Office of Naval Research and significant financial support was also received from sponsoring agencies within China

An 83 000-year-old ice core from Roosevelt Island, Ross Sea, Antarctica

In 2013 an ice core was recovered from Roosevelt Island, an ice dome between two submarine troughs carved by paleo-ice-streams in the Ross Sea, Antarctica. The ice core is part of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution (RICE) project and provides new information about the past configuration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and its retreat during the last deglaciation. In this work we present the RICE17 chronology, which establishes the depth–age relationship for the top 754 m of the 763 m core. RICE17 is a composite chronology combining annual layer interpretations for 0–343 m (Winstrup et al., 2019) with new estimates for gas and ice ages based on synchronization of CH4 and δ18Oatm records to corresponding records from the WAIS Divide ice core and by modeling of the gas age–ice age difference. Novel aspects of this work include the following: (1) an automated algorithm for multiproxy stratigraphic synchronization of high-resolution gas records; (2) synchronization using centennial-scale variations in methane for pre-anthropogenic time periods (60–720 m, 1971 CE to 30 ka), a strategy applicable for future ice cores; and (3) the observation of a continuous climate record back to ∼65 ka providing evidence that the Roosevelt Island Ice Dome was a constant feature throughout the last glacial period

Evaluation Research and Institutional Pressures: Challenges in Public-Nonprofit Contracting

This article examines the connection between program evaluation research and decision-making by public managers. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, a framework is presented for diagnosing the pressures and conditions that lead alternatively toward or away the rational use of evaluation research. Three cases of public-nonprofit contracting for the delivery of major programs are presented to clarify the way coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures interfere with a sound connection being made between research and implementation. The article concludes by considering how public managers can respond to the isomorphic pressures in their environment that make it hard to act on data relating to program performance.This publication is Hauser Center Working Paper No. 23. The Hauser Center Working Paper Series was launched during the summer of 2000. The Series enables the Hauser Center to share with a broad audience important works-in-progress written by Hauser Center scholars and researchers