Profitability of South Dakota\u27s Commercial Banks

Over the recent seven year business cycle of 1988-94, South Dakota banks have seen their profitability improve significantly. This has contributed to a strengthening of the banks in the state and in their ability to meet the financial needs of their customers and communities. The data in this report show that while bank earnings have been strong, the gains have not been distributed evenly across banks of all sizes. The data also demonstrate the related differences in loan portfolios among the banks of varying size. This report describes the improved profitability, the sources of the improved profits, and the distribution of the improvement across various sizes of banks during these years. The report is intended to describe the banking system in the entire state. However, it omits data on a few of the largest banks. In some cases the omitted bank is a specialized bank not representative of the services available to South Dakota and in all cases the large size of these banks distorts the aggregate bank performance indicators. Therefore, to present a more meaningful description of the set of banks in the state, data for these large banks are omitted. Data omitted are those for Citibank South Dakota, First Bank South Dakota, First City Bank, Norwest Bank South Dakota, and Retailers National Bank. The data are presented for all banks with average assets no greater than $375 million in each year. As shown in Table 1, the total number of such banks ranges from 115 in 1992 to 128 in 1988. Data are also broken down for banks of various sizes as measured by their average assets each year. The asset size ranges were selected arbitrarily with the only criterion being to have approximately an equal number of banks in each size category with the exception of fewer banks in the largest size category

Restructing a Rail System: South Dakota\u27s Experience from 1976-81

This report is a summary of the restructuring of South Dakota’s rail-road system between 1976 and 1981 and of a series of six studies on the feasibility of branchline rail service in South Dakota. Each of the six studies examined the economic feasibility of a specific branchline. The line studied were: 1. Andover to Brampton, ND; 2. Roscoe to Linton, ND; 3. Trent to Elk Point; 4. Napa to Platte; 5. Mitchell to Rapid City; and, 6. Blunt to Gettysburg. The first five lines were abandoned in 1980 by the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad Company (Milwaukee) during bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings. The sixth is a light density branchline of the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company (C&NW)

The South Dakota Grain Marketing System

This paper deals with the production and sale of grain, and analyzes the economic structure and cost relationships of South Dakota’s grain marketing system

South Dakota Grain Production: Yesterday and Tomorrow

This bulletin provides an analysis of past and future grain production in the state of South Dakota, and examines trends between the years of 1963 and 1978

The State Core Rail System: Impacts on Grain Marketing

This report summarizes 1983 grain movement information collected by a mail survey questionnaire sent to the 122 elevators in the region. These are firms in the grain merchandising business; firms exclusively in the seed or feed manufacturing business have been excluded. The data represent all of the grain shippers in the region. Some estimates have been made by extrapolation when information was not received from all shippers. In the first section of this report the region’s crop production and grain handling and transportation facilities are described briefly. The second section describes the 1983 grain shipments and marketing patterns from the region and compares them with 1981 data. The Third section provides a rough estimate of the value to shippers of the improved rail service

Grain transportation in South Dakota

In looking at the grain transportation system, it is useful to examine the system’s historical development. This development has been shaped by both economic forces and the institutional constraints provided by the important role of government regulation in the transportation industry. The effects of these two forces on the historical development of South Dakota’s grain transportation system are considered in the first section of this paper. Some of the economic characteristics of the transportation system are discussed in subsequent sections. Future prospects are presented in the final section

The impact of storage conditions on human stool 16S rRNA microbiome composition and diversity

Background: Multiple factors can influence stool sample integrity upon sample collection. Preservation of faecal samples for microbiome studies is therefore an important step, particularly in tropical regions where resources are limited and high temperatures may significantly influence microbiota profiles. Freezing is the accepted standard to preserve faecal samples however, cold chain methods are often unfeasible in fieldwork scenarios particularly in low and middle-income countries and alternatives are required. This study therefore aimed to address the impact of different preservative methods, time-to-freezing at ambient tropical temperatures, and stool heterogeneity on stool microbiome diversity and composition under real-life physical environments found in resource-limited fieldwork conditions. Methods: Inner and outer stool samples collected from one specimen obtained from three children were stored using different storage preservation methods (raw, ethanol and RNAlater) in a Ugandan field setting. Mixed stool was also stored using these techniques and frozen at different time-to-freezing intervals post-collection from 0–32 h. Metataxonomic profiling was used to profile samples, targeting the V1–V2 regions of 16S rRNA with samples run on a MiSeq platform. Reads were trimmed, combined and aligned to the Greengenes database. Microbial diversity and composition data were generated and analysed using Quantitative Insights Into Microbial Ecology and R software. Results: Child donor was the greatest predictor of microbiome variation between the stool samples, with all samples remaining identifiable to their child of origin despite the stool being stored under a variety of conditions. However, significant differences were observed in composition and diversity between preservation techniques, but intra-preservation technique variation was minimal for all preservation methods, and across the time-to-freezing range (0–32 h) used. Stool heterogeneity yielded no apparent microbiome differences. Conclusions: Stool collected in a fieldwork setting for comparative microbiome analyses should ideally be stored as consistently as possible using the same preservation method throughout

ASL Champ!: A Virtual Reality Game with Deep-Learning Driven Sign Recognition

We developed an American Sign Language (ASL) learning platform in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment to facilitate immersive interaction and real-time feedback for ASL learners. We describe the first game to use an interactive teaching style in which users learn from a fluent signing avatar and the first implementation of ASL sign recognition using deep learning within the VR environment. Advanced motion-capture technology powers an expressive ASL teaching avatar within an immersive three-dimensional environment. The teacher demonstrates an ASL sign for an object, prompting the user to copy the sign. Upon the user's signing, a third-party plugin executes the sign recognition process alongside a deep learning model. Depending on the accuracy of a user's sign production, the avatar repeats the sign or introduces a new one. We gathered a 3D VR ASL dataset from fifteen diverse participants to power the sign recognition model. The proposed deep learning model's training, validation, and test accuracy are 90.12%, 89.37%, and 86.66%, respectively. The functional prototype can teach sign language vocabulary and be successfully adapted as an interactive ASL learning platform in VR.Comment: 36 pages, 9 figure

Impacts of host gender on Schistosoma mansoni risk in rural Uganda-A mixed-methods approach

Background The World Health Organization identified Uganda as one of the 10 highly endemic countries for schistosomiasis. Annual mass drug administration (MDA) with praziquantel has led to a decline in intensity of Schistosoma mansoni infections in several areas. However, as hotspots with high (re)infection rates remain, additional research on risk factors and implementing interventions to complement MDA are required to further reduce disease burden in these settings. Through a mixed-methods study we aimed to gain deeper understanding of how gender may impact risk and reinfection in order to inform disease control programmes and ascertain if gender-specific interventions may be beneficial. Methodology/Principal findings In Bugoto, Mayuge District, Eastern Uganda we conducted ethnographic observations (n = 16) and examined epidemiology (n = 55) and parasite population genetics (n = 16) in school-aged children (SAC), alongside a community-wide household survey (n = 130). Water contact was frequent at home, school and in the community and was of domestic, personal care, recreational, religious or commercial nature. Qualitative analysis of type of activity, duration, frequency, level of submersion and water contact sites in children showed only few behavioural differences in water contact between genders. However, survey data revealed that adult women carried out the vast majority of household tasks involving water contact. Reinfection rates (96% overall) and genetic diversity were high in boys (pre-He = 0.66; post-He = 0.67) and girls (pre-He = 0.65; post-He = 0.67), but no differences in reinfection rates (p = 0.62) or genetic diversity by gender before (p = 0.54) or after (p = 0.97) treatment were found. Conclusions/Significance This mixed methods approach showed complementary findings. Frequent water exposure with few differences between boys and girls was mirrored by high reinfection rates and genetic diversity in both genders. Disease control programmes should consider the high reinfection rates among SAC in remaining hotspots of schistosomiasis and the various purposes and settings in which children and adults are exposed to water

Preliminary genetic evidence of two different populations of Opisthorchis viverrini in Lao PDR

Opisthorchis viverrini is a major public health concern in Southeast Asia. Various reports have suggested that this parasite may represent a species complex, with genetic structure in the region perhaps being dictated by geographical factors and different species of intermediate hosts. We used four microsatellite loci to analyze O. viverrini adult worms originating from six species of cyprinid fish in Thailand and Lao PDR. Two distinct O. viverrini populations were observed. In Ban Phai, Thailand, only one subgroup occurred, hosted by two different fish species. Both subgroups occurred in fish from That Luang, Lao PDR, but were represented to very different degrees among the fish hosts there. Our data suggest that, although geographical separation is more important than fish host specificity in influencing genetic structure, it is possible that two species of Opisthorchis, with little interbreeding, are present near Vientiane in Lao PDR