An Agricultural Time Series-Cross Section Data Set

The Agricultural Time Series-Cross Section (ATICS) dataset described in this Working Paper is based on the annual crop and livestock statistics collected by the United States Department of Agriculture. These statistics, scattered through a wide assortment of published and unpublished USDA bulletins and circulars, are extensive in their coverage of the agricultural sector, are highly disaggregated, and span a time period over one hundred years in length. Yet these rich sources have never been unified into a single compilation of data which is accessible, uniform, and machine readable. The ATICS dataset is an attempt to fill this gap.

Why citizens don’t like paying for public goods with their taxes– and how institutions can change that

Why are Americans so against paying taxes to fund basic government functions such as roads and education? In new research, Alan M. Jacobs and J. Scott Matthews find that many citizens object to paying for public investment because they do not trust politicians to spend new revenues as promised. Using online experiments with voting-age US citizens, they find that support for using taxation to pay for investment was dependent on how much voters trusted the institution charged with carrying out the work. Local governments and the military were trusted to a much greater degree than Congress, especially among conservatives. Citizens were also more willing to pay more for public goods when they were told that the new taxes would be set aside in a dedicated trust fund account

The News Media and the Politics of Inequality in Advanced Democracies

What has allowed inequalities in material resources to mount in advanced democracies? This chapter considers the role of media reporting on the economy in weakening accountability mechanisms that might otherwise have incentivized governments to pursue more equal outcomes. Building on prior work on the United States, we investigate how journalistic depictions of the economy relate to real distributional developments across OECD countries. Using sentiment analysis of economic news content, we demonstrate that the evaluative content of the economic news strongly and disproportionately tracks the fortunes of the very rich and that good (bad) economic news is more common in periods of rising (falling) income shares at the top. We then propose and test an explanation in which pro-rich biases in news tone arise from a journalistic focus on the performance of the economy in the aggregate, while aggregate growth is itself positively correlated with relative gains for the rich. The chapter’s findings suggest that the democratic politics of inequality may be shaped in important ways by the skewed nature of the informational environment within which citizens form economic evaluations

Report of the Irish RN4CAST Studey 2009-2011: a nursing workforce under strain.

Foreword: The RN4CAST consortium research study, funded by the European Commission, has provided a unique opportunity to gain insight into both organisational and nurse staffing issues across the acute hospital sector in Ireland. As part of the RN4CAST (Ireland) study, for the first time, both hospitals and medical and surgical units within thirty out of a possible thirty-one acute hospitals (with over one hundred beds) have been surveyed. Data were collected in 2009-2010. The work of the international consortium also enables comparisons of Irish findings with key findings internationally. For example it has proved possible to compare such issues as patient – to - nurse ratios and patient - to health care-staff ratios across the 12 partner countries of the consortium. This is also the case, for example, for nurse burnout levels, job satisfaction and nurse perceptions of safety and quality of care. RN4CAST (Ireland) provides a portrayal of the Irish acute hospital sector as operating in a context of dynamic challenge and change from both internal and external drivers. There is considerable evidence of significant strain on the nursing staff working in the sector. Nursing staff indicate concern regarding aspects of the quality and safety of patient care and the availability of sufficient staff and resources to do their job properly. We are of the view that unless these and a number of other issues raised in this report are managed effectively, there will be detrimental impacts on patient care, patient safety and retention and recruitment of high quality nursing staff for our health service

Optimization of quantitative susceptibility mapping for regional estimation of oxygen extraction fraction in the brain

Purpose: We sought to determine the degree to which oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) estimated using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) depends on two critical acquisition parameters that have a significant impact on acquisition time: voxel size and final echo time. Methods: Four healthy volunteers were imaged using a range of isotropic voxel sizes and final echo times. The 0.7 mm data were downsampled at different stages of QSM processing by a factor of 2 (to 1.4 mm), 3 (2.1 mm), or 4 (2.8 mm) to determine the impact of voxel size on each analysis step. OEF was estimated from 11 veins of varying diameter. Inter- and intra- session repeatability were estimated for the opti-mal protocol by repeat scanning in 10 participants. Results: Final echo time was found to have no significant effect on OEF. The effect of voxel size was significant, with larger voxel sizes underestimating OEF, depending on the proximity of the vein to the superficial surface of the brain and on vein diameter. The last analysis step of estimating vein OEF values from susceptibility images had the largest dependency on voxel size. Inter- session coefficients of variation on OEF estimates of between 5.2% and 8.7% are reported, depending on the vein. Conclusion: QSM acquisition times can be minimized by reducing the final echo time but an isotropic voxel size no larger than 1 mm is needed to accurately estimate OEF in most medium/large veins in the brain. Such acquisitions can be achieved in under 4 mi

Teacher Showcase Video

This video is a group of STEM Teacher Leaders sharing their implementation of STEM integration in their early childhood classrooms. Their presentations include their lessons learned and student data.https://digitalcommons.unf.edu/stem_practice/1002/thumbnail.jp

Proteomic Analysis of a Noninvasive Human Model of Acute Inflammation and Its Resolution: The Twenty-one Day Gingivitis Model

The 21-day experimental gingivitis model, an established noninvasive model of inflammation in response to increasing bacterial accumulation in humans, is designed to enable the study of both the induction and resolution of inflammation. Here, we have analyzed gingival crevicular fluid, an oral fluid comprising a serum transudate and tissue exudates, by LC−MS/MS using Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry and iTRAQ isobaric mass tags, to establish meta-proteomic profiles of inflammation-induced changes in proteins in healthy young volunteers. Across the course of experimentally induced gingivitis, we identified 16 bacterial and 186 human proteins. Although abundances of the bacterial proteins identified did not vary temporally, Fusobacterium outer membrane proteins were detected. Fusobacterium species have previously been associated with periodontal health or disease. The human proteins identified spanned a wide range of compartments (both extracellular and intracellular) and functions, including serum proteins, proteins displaying antibacterial properties, and proteins with functions associated with cellular transcription, DNA binding, the cytoskeleton, cell adhesion, and cilia. PolySNAP3 clustering software was used in a multilayered analytical approach. Clusters of proteins that associated with changes to the clinical parameters included neuronal and synapse associated proteins

Graphics mini manual

The computer graphics capabilities available at the Center are introduced and their use is explained. More specifically, the manual identifies and describes the various graphics software and hardware components, details the interfaces between these components, and provides information concerning the use of these components at LaRC

Potential Human Health Implications of Swine Health

Thrs study measured the relationship between subclinical pig health at slaughter and carcass contamination. 280 randomly selected carcasses were swabbed at three points during slaughter: skin pre-scald; pelvic cavity following removal of the distal colon and rectum, and pleural cavity, immediately before the final carcass rinse. Swabs were cultured quantitatively for Campylobacter spp. and Enterococcus spp. Campylobacter spp. were recovered from the pleural cavity in 58.9% (33/56) and 44 .6% (25/56) of pools from the bung cavity Enterococcus spp. were recovered from 66.1% (37/56) and 38.7% (22/56) of pleural and bung samples, respectively. The most common lesion cdentified was pleuritis/adhesions, with a total of 7.1% (186/2,625 total head). Linear regress1on showed that for every percentage point increase in lesions, there was a significant 4.4% increase in Enterococcus spp. and 5.1% increase 1n Campylobacter spp. contamination. Additionally, significant relationships were identified between pleuritis and the quantity (log CFU) of Enterococcus spp. present in the bung cavity or Campylobacter spp. in the pleural cavity

Conflicting Loyalties Facing In-House Counsel: Ethical Care and Feeding of the Ravenous Multi-Headed Client The Fifth Annual Symposium on Legal Malpractice and Professional Responsibility.

Because of corporate scandals that shook the business world, legislative, corporate, and public fingers immediately pointed at corporate attorneys for allowing such egregious conduct to occur. In 1983, the American Bar Association (ABA) passed Model Rule 1.13, which promoted the entity theory. Under the entity theory, the organization is the in-house counsel’s only client; and the in-house counsel’s primary duty is to act in the best interest of the organization. Whether the issue is deciding to make an executive compensation disclosure in a proxy statement, taking on a dual role within the organization, acting in compliance with heightened professional responsibility requirements under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), or preparing witnesses for corporate investigations, in-house counsel will avoid ethical hot water if they consistently act in the best interest of the organization. In an effort to protect stakeholders, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) passed Rule 205. Rule 205 is designed to increase confidence in public companies by ensuring that attorneys who represent issuers report up the corporate ladder evidence of material violations by their officers and employees. The result is that Rule 205 has made corporate attorneys into “gatekeepers.” Rule 205’s permissive disclosure provision acts essentially as a whistleblower license for attorneys to use in a last-ditch effort to protect third parties when the highest authorities within the organization fail to take appropriate remedial measures. Thus, in-house counsel is expected to be the first line of defense against corporate irresponsibility and is expected to take a stand against impropriety