Transitions in the morphological features, habitat use, and diet of young-of-the-year goosefish (Lophius americanus)

This study was designed to improve our understanding of transitions in the early life history and the distribution, habitat use, and diets for young-of-the-year (YOY) goosefish (Lophius americanus) and, as a result, their role in northeastern U.S. continental shelf ecosystems. Pelagic juveniles (>12 to ca. 50 mm total length [TL]) were distributed over most portions of the continental shelf in the Middle Atlantic Bight, Georges Bank, and into the Gulf of Maine. Most individuals settled by 50−85 mm TL and reached approximately 60−120 mm TL by one year of age. Pelagic YOY fed on chaetognaths, hyperiid amphipods, calanoid copepods, and ostracods, and benthic YOY had a varied diet of fishes and benthic crustaceans. Goosefish are widely scattered on the continental shelf in the Middle Atlantic Bight during their early life history and once settled, are habitat generalists, and thus play a role in many continental shelf habi

Food Industry Mergers and Acquisitions Lead to Higher Labor Productivity

Processing plants in eight major food industries were highly productive before being acquired and they significantly improved their labor productivity afterward, Economic Research Service and U.S. Census Bureau researchers found in their analysis of Census data. The plant-level data on production inputs and costs provided a detailed picture of food-production facilities involved in mergers and acquisitions. The industries are meatpacking, meat processing, poultry slaughtering and processing, cheese making, fluid milk processing, flour milling, feed processing, and oilseed crushing. The analysis suggests that mergers and acquisitions contributed to the general improvement in labor productivity, echoing an earlier ERS study. Labor productivity is defined as output per worker.Mergers, acquisitions, labor productivity, consolidation, structural change, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization, Productivity Analysis,

Structural Change in the Meat, Poultry, Dairy and Grain Processing Industries

Consolidation and structural changes in the food industry have had profound impacts on firms, employees, and communities in many parts of the United States. Over 1972-92, eight important food industries underwent a structural transformation in which the number of plants declined by about one-third and the number of employees needed to staff the remaining plants dropped by more than 100,000 (20 percent). The number of plants in one other industry also dropped, but that industry added jobs. Economists generally attribute structural changes such as these to rising or falling demand and shifts in technology. This report examines consolidation and structural change in meatpacking, meat processing, poultry slaughter and processing, cheese products, fluid milk, flour milling, corn milling, feed, and soybean processing. Plant size and output per employee rose sharply in all industries, and even industries with rapidly growing demand—such as soybean processing and poultry slaughter/processing—used fewer plants. These findings suggest that technological change was the major force driving structural change.structural change, food processing, consolidation, grain processing, meat slaughter, dairy processing, Industrial Organization,

Effect of Food Industry Mergers and Acquisitions on Employment and Wages

Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight important food industries suggests that workers in acquired plants realized modest increases in employment and wages relative to other workers. Results also show that mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while high relative labor costs encouraged plant shutdowns. These results differ from commonly held views that mergers and acquisitions lead to fewer jobs, wage cuts, and plant shutdowns.Food product industries, mergers and acquisitions, plant closures, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Vision outcomes in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies demonstrated that children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) are more likely to have vision impairments. However, existing human clinical and epidemiological investigations are few and include limited sample sizes. This study aimed to explore the association between ophthalmologic abnormalities and FASD in a sample of 5-7 year old children in the general population. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study nested in a larger study intended to estimate the prevalence of FASD in San Diego, California, conducted between 2012 and 2014. Prenatal exposure to alcohol, dysmorphology examinations, and a neurobehavioral testing battery were collected for each child and an FASD diagnosis was assigned. Parents of participating children were asked to release their childs vision screening or diagnostic records. RESULTS: Vision records were obtained for 424 participants in the larger prevalence study. Of these, 53 children were classified as having FASD. A statistically significant association was found between FASD and a diagnosis of strabismus; 5/42 (11.9%) of children who were classified as having FASD had strabismus compared to 6/290 (2.1%) of children who were not classified as having FASD (p = .01). All five cases of strabismus in the FASD group occurred in 19 children classified as having partial fetal alcohol syndrome (pFAS). No association was found between FASD and vision impairment (p = .23), refractive errors (p = .66), glasses/contact lens prescription (p = .30), or having one or more ophthalmological abnormalities (p = .97). CONCLUSIONS: An association between strabismus and FASD, specifically partial FAS, suggests that the effect of alcohol exposure on risk of strabismus must be severe enough to result in facial features consistent with FASD. This emphasizes the importance of vision screening in children with FASD

Causal Effects of Prenatal Drug Exposure on Birth Defects with Missing by Terathanasia

We investigate the causal effects of drug exposure on birth defects, motivated by a recent cohort study of birth outcomes in pregnancies of women treated with a given medication, that revealed a higher rate of major structural birth defects in infants born to exposed versus unexposed women. An outstanding problem in this study was the missing birth defect outcomes among pregnancy losses resulting from spontaneous abortion. This led to missing not at random because, according to the theory of "terathanasia", a defected fetus is more likely to be spontaneously aborted. In addition, the previous analysis stratified on live birth against spontaneous abortion, which was itself a post-exposure variable and hence did not lead to causal interpretation of the stratified results. In this paper we aimed to estimate and provide inference for the causal parameters of scientific interest, including the principal effects, making use of the missing data mechanism informed by terathanasia. During this process we also dealt with complications in the data including left truncation, observational nature, and rare events. We report our findings which shed light on how studies on causal effects of medication or other exposures during pregnancy may be analyzed

Virtual Reality: Authentic and Immersive Learning in the Science Classroom

The diversity of learners within education is neither linear nor constant. Educators are challenged to be responsive and understanding when encouraging learners to construct meaning while adhering to stringent standards. The objective of this study is to integrate science standards into authentic learning experiences, created in both a traditional teaching method and virtual reality (VR) platform, for 8th grade middle school students in Lafayette, Louisiana. The authentic experiences were based on oral histories of the residents of Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana, who have lost 98% of their ancestral homeland since 1955. These experiences were then tied to the National Science Standards (8-MS-ESS1-4, 8-MS-ESS2-2, and 8-MS-ESS3-1). The students were split into two groups and given either a PowerPoint or VR experience, both having the same content. The researchers tracked engagement, focus, interest, and how important the students thought the content was. Using an experimental approach, the researchers also gave a pre- and posttest to determine if the VR experience resulted in better academic learning than a regular, PowerPoint-based lecture. The students were also asked to comment on their experience of the PowerPoint versus the VR and describe what their experience