Incorporating Environmental Impacts in the Measurement of Agricultural Productivity Growth

Agricultural production is known to have environmental impacts, both adverse and beneficial, and it is desirable to incorporate at least some of these impacts in an environmentally sensitive productivity index. In this paper, we construct indicators of water contamination from the use of agricultural chemicals. These environmental indicators are merged with data on marketed outputs and purchased inputs to form a state-by-year panel of relative levels of outputs and inputs, including environmental impacts. We do not have prices for these undesirable by products, since they are not marketed. Consequently, we calculate a series of Malmquist productivity indexes, which do not require price information. Our benchmark scenario is a conventional Malmquist productivity index based on marketed outputs and purchased inputs only. Our comparison scenarios consist of environmentally sensitive Malmquist productivity indexes that include indicators of risk to human health and to aquatic life from chronic exposure to pesticides. In addition, we derive a set of virtual prices of the undesirable by-products that can be used to calculate an environmentally sensitive Fisher index of productivity change.environmental impacts, productivity growth, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Semi-supervised Convolutional Neural Networks for Flood Mapping using Multi-modal Remote Sensing Data

When floods hit populated areas, quick detection of flooded areas is crucial for initial response by local government, residents, and volunteers. Space-borne polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) is an authoritative data sources for flood mapping since it can be acquired immediately after a disaster even at night time or cloudy weather. Conventionally, a lot of domain-specific heuristic knowledge has been applied for PolSAR flood mapping, but their performance still suffers from confusing pixels caused by irregular reflections of radar waves. Optical images are another data source that can be used to detect flooded areas due to their high spectral correlation with the open water surface. However, they are often affected by day, night, or severe weather conditions (i.e., cloud). This paper presents a convolution neural network (CNN) based multimodal approach utilizing the advantages of both PolSAR and optical images for flood mapping. First, reference training data is retrieved from optical images by manual annotation. Since clouds may appear in the optical image, only areas with a clear view of flooded or non-flooded are annotated. Then, a semisupervised polarimetric-features-aided CNN is utilized for flood mapping using PolSAR data. The proposed model not only can handle the issue of learning with incomplete ground truth but also can leverage a large portion of unlabelled pixels for learning. Moreover, our model takes the advantages of expert knowledge on scattering interpretation to incorporate polarimetric-features as the input. Experiments results are given for the flood event that occurred in Sendai, Japan, on 12th March 2011. The experiments show that our framework can map flooded area with high accuracy (F1 = 96:12) and outperform conventional flood mapping methods

Slow magnetization dynamics of small permalloy islands

The conditions that lead to specific domain configurations and the associated switching characteristics of small permalloy islands were studied by using magnetic force microscopy. By measuring a large number of particles, it was established that islands that have nonzero remanent moments ~nonsolenoidal! exist in one of three distinct configurations, namely: ~a! true single domain, ~b! quasisingle domain with edge closure patterns, and ~c! multidomain with nonuniform internal magnetization. The configuration depended upon the island width as well as the aspect ratio. Islands that are 310 nm wide or less are true single domain particles at low aspect ratios (;1.87) and higher, while islands wider than 500 nm always exhibited edge closure domains even for very large aspect ratios. In the range between 310 and 500 nm, the onset of single domain behavior was a function of the aspect ratio and thickness. Our studies involving in situ applied field similarly revealed the mechanisms of the reversal processes for each of the configurations, which correlated quite well with the values of the switching fields

Horn-Coupled, Commercially-Fabricated Aluminum Lumped-Element Kinetic Inductance Detectors for Millimeter Wavelengths

We discuss the design, fabrication, and testing of prototype horn-coupled, lumped-element kinetic inductance detectors (LEKIDs) designed for cosmic microwave background (CMB) studies. The LEKIDs are made from a thin aluminum film deposited on a silicon wafer and patterned using standard photolithographic techniques at STAR Cryoelectronics, a commercial device foundry. We fabricated twenty-element arrays, optimized for a spectral band centered on 150 GHz, to test the sensitivity and yield of the devices as well as the multiplexing scheme. We characterized the detectors in two configurations. First, the detectors were tested in a dark environment with the horn apertures covered, and second, the horn apertures were pointed towards a beam-filling cryogenic blackbody load. These tests show that the multiplexing scheme is robust and scalable, the yield across multiple LEKID arrays is 91%, and the noise-equivalent temperatures (NET) for a 4 K optical load are in the range 26\thinspace\pm6 \thinspace \mu \mbox{K} \sqrt{\mbox{s}}

Bit-Vector Model Counting using Statistical Estimation

Approximate model counting for bit-vector SMT formulas (generalizing \#SAT) has many applications such as probabilistic inference and quantitative information-flow security, but it is computationally difficult. Adding random parity constraints (XOR streamlining) and then checking satisfiability is an effective approximation technique, but it requires a prior hypothesis about the model count to produce useful results. We propose an approach inspired by statistical estimation to continually refine a probabilistic estimate of the model count for a formula, so that each XOR-streamlined query yields as much information as possible. We implement this approach, with an approximate probability model, as a wrapper around an off-the-shelf SMT solver or SAT solver. Experimental results show that the implementation is faster than the most similar previous approaches which used simpler refinement strategies. The technique also lets us model count formulas over floating-point constraints, which we demonstrate with an application to a vulnerability in differential privacy mechanisms

Assessment of the Effectiveness of Ich Tam Khang as a Supportive Therapy for Chronic Heart Failure

Background: Heart failure is a chronic disease needing lifelong management. Despite the advances that have been made in the treatment of the disease, both the longevity and quality of life for those with chronic heart failure remain impaired. A more effective therapeutic approach with less negative side effects is still needed. In this study, we evaluate Ich Tam Khang (ITK), the poly-ingredient herbal and nutritional preparation with multiple physiological actions, as a supportive therapy for patients with chronic heart failure.Aims of Study: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Ich Tam Khang as an adjunctive treatment of chronic heart failure.Methods: A total of 60 patients with chronic congestive heart failure were enrolled in this open label, cross-sectional and prospective study. All patients were treated with a conventional regimen (digoxin, diuretics, angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), beta blockers) for at least 4 weeks before being divided into two equal groups. In the treated patients with ITK, patients received conventional therapy plus 4 tablets ITK per day added in two divided doses. In the control patients, all patients kept the same conventional regimen without ITK. All patients were followed up for 3 months for clinical and para-clinical outcomes.Result: The symptoms of heart failure (dyspnea, palpitation, peripheral edema, neck vein distention, heptojugular reflex) decreased. Heart rate and blood pressure stabilized during treatment in the treated patients with ITK. Additionally, total cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol normalized in the patients treated with ITK. Most of echocardiography parameters in the ITK treated patients were superior to the control patients. ITK is safe and it has no side effects.Conclusion: ITK as a combination of herbal and nutritional preparation is effective in reducing heart failure symptoms, improving patient's quality of life for the patients with decompensated heart failure and reducing total cholesterol and LDL-C

Autophagy Inhibitor Chloroquine Downmodulates Hepatic Stellate Cell Activation and Liver Damage in Bile-Duct-Ligated Mice

Hepatic stellate cell (HSC) activation via the autophagy pathway is a critical factor in liver fibrogenesis. This study tests the hypothesis that chloroquine (CQ) treatment can prevent autophagy and HSC activation in vitro and in vivo in bile-duct-ligated (BDL) mice. Sham-operated and BDL mice were treated with either PBS or CQ in two 60 mg/kg doses the day (D) before and after surgery. On day 2 (2D), HSCs were isolated, and their biological activities were evaluated by measuring intracellular lipid content, alpha-sma/collagen, and expression of autophagy lc3, sqstm1/p62 markers. The treatment efficacy on liver function was evaluated with serum albumin, transaminases (AST/ALT), and hepatic histology. Primary HSCs were treated in vitro for 24 h with CQ at 0, 2.5, 5, 10, 30, and 50 mu M. Autophagy and HSC activation were assessed after 2D of treatment. CQ treatment improved serum AST/ALT, albumin, and bile duct proliferation in 2D BDL mice. This is associated with a suppression of HSC activation, shown by higher HSC lipid content and collagen I staining, along with the blockage of HSC autophagy indicated by an increase in p62 level and reduction in lc3 staining. CQ 5 mu M inhibited autophagy in primary HSCs in vitro by increasing p62 and lc3 accumulation, thereby suppressing their in vitro activation. The autophagy inhibitor CQ reduced HSC activation in vitro and in vivo. CQ improved liver function and reduced liver injury in BDL mice

Assessing unmodified 70-mer oligonucleotide probe performance on glass-slide microarrays

BACKGROUND: Long oligonucleotide microarrays are potentially more cost- and management-efficient than cDNA microarrays, but there is little information on the relative performance of these two probe types. The feasibility of using unmodified oligonucleotides to accurately measure changes in gene expression is also unclear. RESULTS: Unmodified sense and antisense 70-mer oligonucleotides representing 75 known rat genes and 10 Arabidopsis control genes were synthesized, printed and UV cross-linked onto glass slides. Printed alongside were PCR-amplified cDNA clones corresponding to the same genes, enabling us to compare the two probe types simultaneously. Our study was designed to evaluate the mRNA profiles of heart and brain, along with Arabidopsis cRNA spiked into the labeling reaction at different relative copy number. Hybridization signal intensity did not correlate with probe type but depended on the extent of UV irradiation. To determine the effect of oligonucleotide concentration on hybridization signal, 70-mers were serially diluted. No significant change in gene-expression ratio or loss in hybridization signal was detected, even at the lowest concentration tested (6.25 μm). In many instances, signal intensity actually increased with decreasing concentration. The correlation coefficient between oligonucleotide and cDNA probes for identifying differentially expressed genes was 0.80, with an average coefficient of variation of 13.4%. Approximately 8% of the genes showed discordant results with the two probe types, and in each case the cDNA results were more accurate, as determined by real-time PCR. CONCLUSIONS: Microarrays of UV cross-linked unmodified oligonucleotides provided sensitive and specific measurements for most of the genes studied

Ultrasound assisted one-pot synthesis of benzo-fused indole-4, 9-dinones from 1,4-naphthoquinone and α-aminoacetals

A one-pot synthesis of benzo[f]indole-4,9-diones from 1,4-naphthoquinone with α-aminoacetals has been developed. This method provides a straightforward synthesis of benzo[f]indole-4,9-diones via intramolecular nucleophilic attack of aminoquinones to aldehydes under mild reaction conditions. The detailed mechanism was also investigated