AJAE Appendix: Nonlinear Dynamics and Structural Change in the U.S. Hog-Corn Ratio: A Time-Varying Star Approach

The material contained herein is supplementary to the article named in the title and published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Volume 88, Number 1, February 2006.Agribusiness,

Collaboratively Addressing the Growth of the Port Industry to Ensure Environmnetal Justice

The activities involved in the operation of the U.S. ports industry provide an enormous boost to the local and national economy. At the same time, however, they can have profound adverse impacts on public health and the environment. Moreover, these impacts disproportionately affect local communities, many of which are poor and minority. Due to the Supreme Court’s limitations to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the fact that ports are one of the most poorly regulated sources of pollution in the U.S., the need for new strategies to address this environmental injustice is as important as ever. One of the most promising avenues to address this growth and its’ accompanied adverse impacts is the use of collaborative problem solving. Collaborative problem solving allows for greater investment on the part of the various participants involved in the program and, most importantly, achieves the dual objectives of allowing for both industry growth and improved environmental quality

Atomic-scale compensation phenomena at polar interfaces

The interfacial screening charge that arises to compensate electric fields of dielectric or ferroelectric thin films is now recognized as the most important factor in determining the capacitance or polarization of ultrathin ferroelectrics. Here we investigate using aberration-corrected electron microscopy and density functional theory how interfaces cope with the need to terminate ferroelectric polarization. In one case, we show evidence for ionic screening, which has been predicted by theory but never observed. For a ferroelectric film on an insulating substrate, we found that compensation can be mediated by interfacial charge generated, for example, by oxygen vacancies.Comment: 3 figure

Conductance fluctuations at the integer quantum Hall plateau transition

We study numerically conductance fluctuations near the integer quantum Hall effect plateau transition. The system is presumed to be in a mesoscopic regime, with phase coherence length comparable to the system size. We focus on a two-terminal conductance G for square samples, considering both periodic and open boundary conditions transverse to the current. At the plateau transition, G is broadly distributed, with a distribution function close to uniform on the interval between zero and one in units of e^2/h. Our results are consistent with a recent experiment by Cobden and Kogan on a mesoscopic quantum Hall effect sample.Comment: minor changes, 5 pages LaTex, 7 postscript figures included using epsf; to be published Phys. Rev. B 55 (1997

An examination of early colorectal cancer screening guidelines for African Americans: Hints from the HINTS data

Background: Despite the overall gains in reducing colorectal cancer (CRC) deaths due to the increase in screening, minority racial/ethnic groups who have disparately higher rates of death compared to Whites, also have disproportionately lower screening rates. Patient-provider communication about screening has a strong influence on the uptake of screening. In much the same way that gradual impact was made after the 1996 implementation of guidelines recommending screening starting at age 50 for those at average risk, it may be expected that the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG) guidelines suggesting screening start at 45 for Blacks combined with a recent trend toward increasing incidence of cancer in persons below the age of 50 might influence practitioners to offer screening with greater frequency to those younger minority groups. Methods: This study examines HINTS Cycle 4 data to examine the nationally representative rates at which providers offer patients the option to be screened for CRC, with emphasis on Blacks ages 45-49. We looked for a trend in these rates over time, compared the pooled proportion estimates across racial/ethnic groups aged 45-49, and compared the proportion of Black individuals in this age group to those between ages 50 and 75 who had been told they could choose to have a CRC screening. Results: Approximately 27.14% of Black individuals aged 45-49 had been offered the option of CRC screening by a healthcare provider compared to 32.57% of White individuals of the same age group and 43.53% of Black individuals age 50-75. Discussion: There is not yet any evidence of an increase in adherence to the ACG guidelines for the Black population aged 45-49 and there remains a significant racial disparity in discussion of the CRC screening option. Earlier information regarding the option to be screened may have the potential to reduce disparities CRC screening and mortality, as well as potentially halt a disturbing trend toward early cancers