Auxinic herbicide residue impact on soybean [Glycine max (L.) merr.] growth and yield

The commercialization of 2,4-D- and dicamba-tolerant trait seed technologies will alter how producers utilize auxinic herbicides. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the current recommended pesticide cleanout procedures for removing auxinic herbicides from two types of spray tanks, identify if increased incubation time of auxinic herbicides in spray tanks increases residue amounts after cleanout, and how soybean growth and yield is impacted by reduced rates of auxinic herbicides similar to those that might occur with ineffective tank clean-out procedures. High-density polyethylene pesticide tanks retained higher amounts of auxinic herbicide residues when compared to stainless steel tanks. Increasing the number of times a pesticide tank is cleaned reduced residues of both 2,4-D choline and dicamba. When current manufacturer-recommended spray tank cleanout procedures were utilized, 2,4-D choline residue amounts were lower than dicamba amounts regardless of tank material type. Analytical laboratory data from the auxinic herbicide incubation experiment showed 2,4-D choline residue amounts in high-density polyethylene decreased over time while residue levels in stainless steel tanks remained steady over all incubation time periods. Retained dicamba residues increased over time in high-density polyethylene tanks while dicamba residue amount remained steady over time in stainless steel tanks. Overall, 2,4-D choline residue levels were lower than dicamba residues in both tank material types. Soybean had a higher tolerance to 2,4-D than dicamba across all soybean injury evaluation timings. Mature soybean height was impacted more by dicamba than 2,4-D. Soybean yield loss was greater for soybeans treated with dicamba than 2,4-D, and much lower rates of dicamba caused soybean yield loss when compared to 2,4-D. Proper cleanout procedures after the use of auxinic herbicide minimized herbicide residue retention in pesticide application tanks. Extended incubation of auxinic herbicides in spray tanks should not increase auxinic herbicide residue levels when proper cleanout procedures are used. Due to higher sensitivity of soybeans to dicamba than 2,4-D, low amounts of dicamba residues remaining in pesticide application tanks could lead to soybean injury, height reduction and yield los

The Economic Impact of Changes in Alcohol Consumption in the UK

The alcohol industry (both manufacturing and sales) is important to the UK Economy as it supports thousands of jobs (IAS, 2017a; Oxford Economics, 2016). However, there are many well documented adverse effects of high alcohol consumption, most notably on public health. With the UK having one of the highest alcohol consumption rates in the world, recent Government policy has sought to address some of this harm. Changes in policy and social attitudes may result in changes in UK alcohol consumption. The focus of this report is to examine the potential macroeconomic impact from changes in UK alcohol consumption. Previous studies (WTSA, 2013) have investigated the gross impacts resulting from changes in consumption – that is, the impact of the alcohol sector without considering reallocation of spending to other goods and services. This report extends the literature and investigates the net impacts by including the redistribution of both household and government income

Could a reduction in alcohol consumption be good news for the UK economy?

The UK has one of the highest alcohol consumption rates per capita in the world being ranked 25th according to the latest global World Health Organisation report on alcohol (WHO, 2014). While there are several well documented detrimental effects of alcohol consumption on health, crime and productivity (e.g. Holmes et al, 2016), the sector also contributes positively to the economy through its production and sales activities

Myth in the Early Collaborations of Benjamin Britten and William Plomer

Although the most well-known collaborations of William Plomer and Benjamin Britten are the three church parables (or church operas) - Curlew River, The Burning Fiery Furnace, and The Prodigal Son - by the time of the completion of Curlew River in 1964, the librettist and composer had been working together for well over a decade. During that time, they had completed the opera Gloriana and had considered collaborating on three other projects: one a children's opera on Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Mr. Tod, one on an original story of Plomer's called "Tyco the Vegan," and one on a Greek myth (possibly Arion, Daedalus and Icarus, or Phaëthon). Far from being footnotes to the parables, these early collaborations established Plomer and Britten's working relationship and brought to light their common interests as well as their independent ones. Their successive early collaborations, therefore, can be thought of as a conversation through creative expression. This metaphor of conversation can be applied both to successive collaborations and to the completed Gloriana, in that the libretto and the music can be seen as representing different interpretations of both major and minor characters in the opera, including Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. In Gloriana, Britten employed at least three specifically musical methods of challenging the meaning of the libretto: instrumental commentary, textural density, and dramatically significant referential pitches. Plomer and Britten's conversation, carried out through these early collaborations, touches on the function of art, activism, and modern morality, but it is best circumscribed by the concept of myth. Two divergent and very influential interpretations of myth - Matthew Arnold's "sweetness and light" and primal liberation (deduced from Nietzsche) - can be usefully applied to Plomer and Britten's unfolding conversation. The implications of Plomer and Britten's adoption of myth as the topic and language of their collaborative conversation are vast and must be considered in order to understand more fully their work together

The Economic Impact of Projected Affordable Housing Developments : Does the Supply Side Matter?

A key current objective of Scottish policymakers is to increase the availability of affordable and social housing, with an expectation that this will have both societal and economic impacts. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the potential economic impacts of meeting the projections of affordable housing needed in Scotland to combat homelessness. Typical economic impact assessments of social housing investment have focused exclusively on the effect of expenditures on demand, using input-output models (IO). However, recently some have argued that housing, like transport, should be treated as a type of infrastructure investment that is likely also to have potential supply side impacts – such as an increase in both labour supply and productivity. In this paper, we use both IO and Computable Generable Equilibrium (CGE) models to evaluate the economic impact of social housing investment, with a particular emphasis on the supply side impacts

The Macroeconomic Impacts of a Universal Basic Income : An Application to Scotland

UBI is defined as a payment made to all citizens in a region/ nation that is unconditional, permanent and substantial. We explore the macroeconomic consequences of such a UBI proposal for a regional economy, introduced on a fiscally neutral basis. We use Scotland, a country where the First Minister has indicated her support for the principle behind the idea, to illustrate the application of our analytical approach. The implementation of such a UBI at scale represents a major societal shift that involves substantial rises in taxation as well as in payments. Much of the existing empirical evidence relates to schemes that are small and in which the beneficiaries bear none of the costs, so its applicability here is questionable. Our approach combines microsimulation, to identify the immediate impact of the UBI on the tax/benefit system and distribution of income, with macroeconomic modelling to identify and analyse the wider economic impact of potential behavioural responses. The macroeconomic impact of the UBI depends critically on workers’ and potential migrants’ behavioural responses to the increase in taxation as well as to increased benefits. However, it seems clear that any positive stimulus to productivity as a consequence, for example, of reduced precarity and increased training would need to be substantial to offset any adverse impact on the scale of economic activity, unless policymakers succeed in securing a social contract that dampens or eliminates workers’ pressure for higher wages in response to a reduction in take home pay

Incorporating natural capital into a computable general equilibrium model for Scotland

Research Question: Natural capital encompasses those assets which are provided by nature and which are valued by economic actors. As such, there is a clear analogy between natural and other assets, such as labour and capital, which are routinely included in models of national economies. However, the valuation of natural assets, to the extent that they are included in such models, is typically wrapped up in physical capital along with land values or not valued at all. This could be simply a measurement problem – natural capital might be difficult to appropriately disaggregate from other capital – or because they provide non-market goods which are not included within traditional measures of economic output. The purpose of this paper is to set out – both conceptually and practically – how natural capital can be added to a computable general equilibrium model. Method/Data: We focus on the conceptual differences that should reflect such an extension and we explore the empirical implementation of our approach through the addition of an agriculture biomass ecosystem services flow to a CGE model of the Scottish economy. This paper specifies the CGE model development as well as including some illustrative simulations. Novelty: The natural capital extended CGE model allows us to track the impact of disturbances, including policy changes, on the economy and environment and therefore on sustainable development. In the longer term comprehensive coverage of natural capital stocks and ecosystem services will allow us to track the impact of disturbances, including policy interventions, on Green GDP and Genuine Savings, as well as on aggregate and sectoral economic activity

Economic Activity Supported by Offshore Wind : a Hypothetical Extraction Study

Given public investment in renewable energy technologies, it is important to understand the contribution these make to the economy. Various methods have been used to quantify impacts, such as job counts, surveys and measures based on economic statistics. Economic modelling approaches on the other hand appear to offer an ability to both provide metrics of interest to policy makers, and crucially an understanding of the activities which support that contribution. In this paper, we implement a “hypothetical extraction” of UK activities related to renewable electricity generation – specifically focusing on offshore wind – to identify the contribution that they make to economic activity as well as job quality, and emissions. Undertaking the partial extraction of offshore wind from an aggregated IO table, and then subsequently from one in which we have separated out the offshore wind electricity sector, we highlight the value of more disaggregation and technology-specific detail in economic accounts. We find that a significant portion of activity supported by offshore wind is supported by expansions in capacity, in addition to the operation of existing offshore wind activity, giving policymakers important information on the likely path of economic impacts related to renewable energy activities

Modelling the Economic Impact of a Citizen’s Basic Income in Scotland

The report, co-authored by researchers from the Fraser of Allander Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University and IPPR Scotland, looks at the costs and benefits of implementing a citizen’s basic income (CBI) in Scotland and the channels through which it may impact upon the economy

Prevention of atherosclerosis in patients living with HIV

Ferruccio De Lorenzo1, Marta Boffito1, Sophie Collot-Teixeira2, Brian Gazzard1, John L McGregor2,3, Kevin Shotliff2, Han Xiao41General Medicine and Prevention of Vascular Disorders, Beta Cell Diabetes Centre and St Stephen’s AIDS Trust, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK; 2Kings College London, Cardiovascular Division, London, UK; 3INSERM U970, PARC Hôpital Européen George Pompidou, Paris, France; 4Cardiology Department, Homerton University Hospital NHS, London, UKInvestigational product: Rosuvastatin (Crestor®; Astra Zeneca).Active ingredients: Rosuvastatin (5 mg).Study title: Prevention of Atherosclerosis in Patients Living with HIV.Phase of study: Phase III.Aims: Primary aim:• To assess whether rosuvastatin therapy could slow the progression of the carotid intima-media thickness (C-IMT; as measured by the change in the mean IMT of the near and far walls of the distal common carotid arteries) over 2 years in HIV-infected patients (HIV-IP).Secondary aims:• To assess whether rosuvastatin therapy could reduce highly sensitive C reactive protein (hs-CRP) inflammatory marker that is increased in HIV-IP.• To assess the effect of rosuvastatin therapy on serum lipid levels (total cholesterol [TC], low-density lipoprotein [LDL] cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein [HDL] cholesterol and triglycerides [TG]) and apolipoproteins (APO A1, APO B and APO B/A1).• To assess the safety of rosuvastatin in HIV-IP through the evaluation of clinical laboratory analyses (liver function tests and creatine kinase) and adverse events (AEs).Study design: Two-year randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel group study.Planned sample size: 320 HIV-IP.Summary of eligibility criteria: HIV-IP who are aged between 30 and 60 years, with a CD4 count. greater than 200 cells/mm3. Patients must be stable on combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) for at least 12 months and have a 10-year CVD risk of less than 20% (using the Framingham risk score).Number of study centers: One.Duration of treatment: Two years (5 mg rosuvastatin or placebo once daily).Dose and route of administration: Oral rosuvastatin (5 mg) once daily.The incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in HIV-IP is at least three times higher than in the general population and further increases each year with combination anti-retroviral therapy (cART). The carotid atherosclerosis progression rate is 10 times higher in HIV-IP than in uninfected individuals. The aim of this study is to assess whether therapy with 5 mg rosuvastatin could:1) Slow the progression in the mean IMT of the distal common carotid arteries over two years in HIV-IP.2) Change the concentration in the inflammatory marker – hs-CRP, which is increased in HIV-IP.3) Change the concentrations of TC, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, TG, apolipoproteins (APO) B, APO A1 and APO B/A1.4) Be administered safely in the study population.Pharmacological intervention with rosuvastatin will be evaluated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial in HIV-IP treated with cART not matching the published selection criteria for lipid-lowering therapy. For the first time, this study will investigate anti-inflammatory and anti-atherogenic effects of a pharmacological lipid-lowering agent in HIV-IP that may lead to the reduction of CVD.Keywords: rosuvastatin, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, HIV, clinical trial protoco