Multi-year Water Allocation: A Policy Analysis for Groundwater Management and Conservation for Irrigated Agriculture

Heavy withdrawals from the most dependable source of groundwater in the Texas Panhandle, the Ogallala Aquifer, create an impending need for implementing water conservation policies. This study evaluates the policy option of multi-year water allocation coupled with water use restriction in four water deficit counties of Castro, Deafsmith, Parmer and Swisher over a sixty year planning horizon. Results indicate that the water use in the study area declines with progressive restriction rates accompanied by a substantial decrease in the net present value of net returns over sixty years and therefore it is important to analyze the socio-economic effects of implementing such a policy alternative.Multi-year allocation, Ogallala Aquifer, Texas Panhandle, Water conservation, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Production Profitability of Ethanol from Alternative Feedstocks in the Texas Panhandle

The potential of three feedstocks: grain sorghum, sweet sorghum, and switchgrass for ethanol production in the top 26 counties of the Texas Panhandle Region is analyzed using yield and production costs of feedstock, processing cost of feedstock, final demand for ethanol, farm to wholesale marketing margin, and the derived demand price of feedstock. The calculated economic returns per acre of grain sorghum, sweet sorghum, and switchgrass are -$45.37, -$410.19, and -$150.17 respectively under irrigated condition and -$38.25, -$145.09, and -$29.04 respectively under dryland condition. The evaluation in this study demonstrates that ethanol production from grain sorghum, sweet sorghum, and switchgrass in the Texas Panhandle Region is not economically feasible given the current price for ethanol in Texas. This is consistent with the status of the ethanol industry in the Texas Panhandle.Ethanol production, Texas Panhandle, Grain sorghum, Sweet sorghum, and Switchgrass, Feedstock, Crop Production/Industries, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q16, Q25, Q27, and Q42,

Evaluating Dryland Crop/Livestock System Alternatives for Risk Management under Declining Irrigation in the Texas Panhandle

Production budgets for dryland crop and crop/livestock systems are developed to estimate yields, costs and returns for dryland wheat and sorghum and for alternative dryland crop/livestock systems. A crop simulation model aids yield estimation. The yield and return distributions are used to estimate risk and relative risk for included alternatives.Relative Risk, Ogallala Aquifer, Crop-Livestock Systems, Wheat, Sorghum, Crop Production/Industries, Farm Management, Livestock Production/Industries, Production Economics, Productivity Analysis,

Plasma Relaxation and Topological Aspects in Hall Magnetohydrodynamics

Parker's formulation of isotopological plasma relaxation process in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) is extended to Hall MHD. The torsion coefficient alpha in the Hall MHD Beltrami condition turns out now to be proportional to the "potential vorticity." The Hall MHD Beltrami condition becomes equivalent to the "potential vorticity" conservation equation in two-dimensional (2D) hydrodynamics if the Hall MHD Lagrange multiplier beta is taken to be proportional to the "potential vorticity" as well. The winding pattern of the magnetic field lines in Hall MHD then appears to evolve in the same way as "potential vorticity" lines in 2D hydrodynamics

Experiences of women with cardiac disease in pregnancy: A systematic review and metasynthesis

© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2018. Objective Cardiac disease in pregnancy is a leading cause of maternal death in high-income countries. Evidence-based guidelines to assist in planning and managing the healthcare of affected women is lacking. The objective of this research was to produce the first qualitative metasynthesis of the experiences of pregnant women with existing or acquired cardiac disease to inform improved healthcare services. Method We conducted a systematic search of peerreviewed publications in five databases to investigate the decision-making processes, supportive strategies and healthcare experiences of pregnant women with existing or acquired cardiac disease, or of affected women contemplating pregnancy. Identified publications were screened for duplication and eligibility against selection criteria, following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. We then undertook a thematic analysis of the data relating to women's experiences extracted from each publication to inform new healthcare practices and communication. Results Eleven studies from six countries were included in our meta-synthesis. Four themes were revealed. Women with congenital and acquired heart disease identified situations where they had either taken charge of decision-making, lacked control or experienced emotional uncertainty when making decisions. Some women were risk aware and determined to take care of themselves in pregnancy while others downplayed the risks. Women with heart disease acknowledged the importance of specific social support measures during pregnancy and after child birth, and reported a spectrum of healthcare experiences. Conclusions There is a lack of integrated and tailored healthcare services and information for women with cardiac disease in pregnancy. The experiences of women synthesised in this research has the potential to inform new evidencebased guidelines to support the decision-making needs of women with cardiac disease in pregnancy. Shared decisionmaking must consider communication across the clinical team. However, coordinated care is challenging due to the different specialists involved and the limited clinical evidence concerning effective approaches to managing such complex care

Local Optimal Sets and Bounded Archiving on Multi-objective NK-Landscapes with Correlated Objectives

The properties of local optimal solutions in multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems are crucial for the effectiveness of local search algorithms, particularly when these algorithms are based on Pareto dominance. Such local search algorithms typically return a set of mutually nondominated Pareto local optimal (PLO) solutions, that is, a PLO-set. This paper investigates two aspects of PLO-sets by means of experiments with Pareto local search (PLS). First, we examine the impact of several problem characteristics on the properties of PLO-sets for multi-objective NK-landscapes with correlated objectives. In particular, we report that either increasing the number of objectives or decreasing the correlation between objectives leads to an exponential increment on the size of PLO-sets, whereas the variable correlation has only a minor effect. Second, we study the running time and the quality reached when using bounding archiving methods to limit the size of the archive handled by PLS, and thus, the maximum size of the PLO-set found. We argue that there is a clear relationship between the running time of PLS and the difficulty of a problem instance.Comment: appears in Parallel Problem Solving from Nature - PPSN XIII, Ljubljana : Slovenia (2014

Evaluation of therapeutic enoxaparin in a pregnant population at a tertiary hospital

Therapeutic anticoagulation with enoxaparin in pregnancy is complex due to varying pharmacokinetics and the increasing prevalence of obesity. There is limited evidence to support current dosing and monitoring strategies of enoxaparin in this population.To describe the current practice in therapeutic anticoagulation in the pregnant population at a tertiary institution.A retrospective study of pregnant women on therapeutic enoxaparin between January 2007 and December 2011.Forty-four pregnant women requiring therapeutic anticoagulation were identified and divided into two groups, monitored with anti-factor Xa (AXA) concentrations and unmonitored. Fifty-five percent of monitored women were initiated on the recommended 1 mg/kg twice a day (bd) enoxaparin dose-strategy. Eighty-two percent of women were monitored; however, there was variability regarding the timing, frequency and subsequent dose adjustments from monitoring. Overall, as pregnancies progressed, there was both increasing dose adjustments and increasing frequency of monitoring. Fourteen women had a BMI over 30 kg/m(2) , and 13 of these women were monitored. Nine monitored obese women required doses less than 1 mg/kg/bd to maintain a therapeutic AXA level. Management appeared to be individualised. There were small numbers of toxicity events.Variation exists in dosing and monitoring practices for therapeutic enoxaparin in the pregnant population. Dosing obese patients using 1 mg/kg twice daily can lead to toxic AXA concentrations, and dose reductions are required to maintain a therapeutic range. A larger prospective study reviewing dose, AXA concentrations and outcome data is necessary to make dosing recommendations in this group