PROFITABILITY OF ALFALFA HAY STORAGE USING PROBABILITIES: AN EXTENSION APPROACH

Film managers are usually faced with making decisions involving risk and uncertainty. A common source of risk and uncertainty is related to price variability. It is possible to attach probabilities to price variability based on historical data, thus providing the manager with additional information to base decisions. The purpose of this study is to develop and present extension information in a form that assists a producer to choose a marketing strategy based on the producerÂ’s own risk preference. This was done by developing profitability of percentage rates of return based on historical data. Alfalfa hay is used as the commodity example.Crop Production/Industries,

Social epidemiology

Social epidemiology is the branch of epidemiology concerned with understanding how social and economic characteristics influence states of health in populations. There has been a resurgence recently in interest among epidemiologists about the roles that social and economic factors play in determining health, leading to valuable synergies with the social sciences. The determinants of health commonly studied in social epidemiology include absolute poverty, income inequality, as well as race and discrimination. Recently, social epidemiologists have been at the forefront of conceptual developments within the discipline that view the determinants of health at different levels of social organization. © 2008 Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

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Assessment of the perceptions of principals about school performance in West Virginia

This study compares the perceptions of two groups of West Virginia school principals about the performance of their schools. Six hundred principals were sent an online, 70-item survey instrument aligned with the seven domains of the state\u27s Framework for High-Performing Schools. Of the total 600 principals in the study, half had attended the West Virginia Institute for 21st-Century Leadership, and the other half had not. Both the parametric t-test and the non-parametric Mann-Whitney U were used to determine if there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the two groups of principals. The results show a noteworthy influence by the Institute on school improvement efforts in West Virginia as perceived by 67 percent of its principals

Medical inpatient mortality at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, 2002 - 2009

Background. Despite the challenges facing healthcare in South Africa, empirical insights into the performance of healthcare services overtime are scarce.Methods. We analysed first admissions of adult medical inpatients to Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, from January 2002 to July 2009.Data included age, sex, medical specialty, and date of admission and discharge. We used population group and hospital billing codes asproxy measures for socio-economic status (SES). We calculated the duration of stay in days from the date of admission to discharge, andinpatient mortality rates per 1 000 patient days. Poisson regression was used to estimate mortality rate ratios (MRR) in unadjusted analysisand after adjusting for potential confounders.Results. There were 42 582 first admissions. Patient demographics shifted towards a lower SES. Median age decreased from 52 years in 2002to 49 years in 2009, while patients aged 20 - 39 years increased in proportion from 26% to 31%. The unadjusted proportion of admissionswhich resulted in in-hospital deaths increased from 12% in 2002 to 17% in 2009. Corresponding mortality rates per 1 000 patient days were 17.0 (95% confidence interval (CI) 15.9 - 18.3) and 23.4 (95% CI 21.6 - 25.4), respectively (unadjusted MRR 1.37; 95% CI 1.23 - 1.53). Annual increases in mortality rates were highest during the first 2 days following admission (increasing from 30.1 to 50.3 deaths per 1 000), and were associated with increasing age, non-paying patient status, black population group and male sex, and were greatest in the emergency ward (adjusted MRR 1.73, comparing 2009 with 2002; 95% CI 1.49 - 2.01).Discussion. Increasing medical inpatient mortality rates at a large South African academic hospital were most marked during the first 2 days after admission and appeared greatest among emergency medical inpatients

Geophysical Methods: an Overview

Geophysics is expected to have a major role in lunar resource assessment when manned systems return to the Moon. Geophysical measurements made from a lunar rover will contribute to a number of key studies: estimating regolith thickness, detection of possible large-diameter lava tubes within maria basalts, detection of possible subsurface ice in polar regions, detection of conductive minerals that formed directly from a melt (orthomagmatic sulfides of Cu, Ni, Co), and mapping lunar geology beneath the regolith. The techniques that can be used are dictated both by objectives and by our abilities to adapt current technology to lunar conditions. Instrument size, weight, power requirements, and freedom from orientation errors are factors we have considered. Among the geophysical methods we believe to be appropriate for a lunar resource assessment are magnetics, including gradiometry, time-domain magnetic induction, ground-penetrating radar, seismic reflection, and gravimetry

Frio Brine Pilot: lessons learned and questions restated

Bureau of Economic Geolog

Trends in admissions, morbidity and outcomes at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town, 2004 - 2013

Background. Routinely collected patient information has the potential to yield valuable information about health systems and population health, but there have been few comprehensive analyses of paediatric admissions at South African (SA) hospitals.Objectives. To investigate trends in hospitalisation and outcomes at Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital (RCWMCH), a major referral hospital for children in the Western Cape and SA.Methods. Using routinely collected observational health data from the hospital informatics system, we investigated admissions between 2004 and 2013. Clinical classification software was used to group International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 10th Revision (ICD-10) codes to rank causes during 2008 - 2013, when ICD-10 codes were widely available. Analyses examined trends in medical and surgical admissions over time.Results. There were 215 536 admissions over 10 years of 129 733 patients. Admissions increased by 9.3%, with increases in the general medical wards (5%), medical specialty wards (74%), the burns unit (73%), and the intensive care unit (16%). In contrast, admissions decreased in the trauma unit (21%) and short-stay medical wards (1%). In-hospital mortality decreased by 54% (p-trend <0.001) over 10 years. Diarrhoea and lower-respiratory tract illness were the most common causes for medical admissions, although admissions and deaths due to these conditions decreased between 2008 and 2013, which coincided with the national introduction of related vaccines. Similarly, tuberculosis admissions and deaths decreased over this period. These trends could be owing to a concurrent decrease in HIV comorbidity (p-trend <0.001). Trauma was the most common reason for surgical admission.Conclusion. Paediatric in-hospital mortality decreased consistently over a decade, despite an overall increase in admissions. Pneumonia and diarrhoea admissions decreased markedly over a 6-year period, but remain the most important causes of hospitalisation

Visual Feedback is Not Important for Bimanual Human Interval Timing

The clock variance of intervals produced by one finger is reduced when that finger taps along with another finger (termed the bimanual advantage). The multiple-timekeeper model proposes a coupling of internal clocks, leading to reduced clock variance for bimanual timing. Alternatively, reduced variance for bimanual timing could result from additional sensory feedback from two fingers as opposed to one. We aimed to test the role of visual feedback in reducing temporal variability. Participants tapped unimanually and bimanually (with no table contact) in three conditions: full vision, blindfolded, and with additional visual feedback provided via a mirror reflecting the right hand. We predicted that temporal variability would be reduced for tapping with vision versus no vision, and when the left hand was represented by a mirror but did not actually tap. Additional, redundant visual information did not reduce temporal variability for any condition, suggesting that visual feedback is not crucial for bimanual advantage. These findings support the role of sensory feedback (namely, tactile, auditory, and proprioceptive) in reducing timekeeper variability during bimanual timing and argue against a strictly multiple-timekeeper model