Policy Dilemmas in India - The Impact of Changes in Agricultural Prices on Rural and Urban Poverty

Trade policy reforms which lead to changes in world prices of agricultural commodities or domestic policies aimed at affecting agricultural prices are often seen as causing a policy dilemma : a fall in agricultural prices benefits poor urban consumers but hurts poor rural producers, while a rise yields the converse. Poor countries have argued that they need to be able to use import protection and/or price support policies to protect themselves against volatility in world agricultural prices in order to dampen these effects. In this paper, we explore this dilemma in a CGE model of India that uses a new social accounting matrix (SAM) developed at the Indira Ghandi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) in Mumbai. The SAM includes extensive disaggregation of agricultural activities, commodity markets, labor markets, and rural and urban households. This SAM includes 115 commodities, 48 labor types and 352 types of households, (classified by social group, income class, region, and urban/rural). The CGE model based on this SAM can be used to explore the linkages between changes in world prices of agriculture and the incomes of poor rural and urban households, capturing rural-urban linkages in both commodity and factor markets. The results indicate that the inclusion of linkages between rural and urban labor markets is necessary to fully explore, and potentially eliminate, the dilemma. A fall in agricultural prices hurts agricultural producers, lowers wages and/or employment of rural labor, and in some cases spills over into urban labor markets, depressing wages and incomes of poor urban households as well. In these cases both rural and urban poverty increases. The paper explores the strength of these commodity and factor market linkages, and the potential spillover effects of policies affecting agricultural prices.Doha negotiations, India trade policy, World prices, Labour Market, CGE model

Children exposed to intimate partner violence: Identifying differential effects of family environment on children\u27s trauma and psychopathology symptoms through regression mixture models

The majority of analytic approaches aimed at understanding the influence of environmental context on children\u27s socioemotional adjustment assume comparable effects of contextual risk and protective factors for all children. Using self-reported data from 289 maternal caregiver-child dyads, we examined the degree to which there are differential effects of severity of intimate partner violence (IPV) exposure, yearly household income, and number of children in the family on posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTS) and psychopathology symptoms (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems) among school-age children between the ages of 7–12 years. A regression mixture model identified three latent classes that were primarily distinguished by differential effects of IPV exposure severity on PTS and psychopathology symptoms: (1) asymptomatic with low sensitivity to environmental factors (66% of children), (2) maladjusted with moderate sensitivity (24%), and (3) highly maladjusted with high sensitivity (10%). Children with mothers who had higher levels of education were more likely to be in the maladjusted with moderate sensitivity group than the asymptomatic with low sensitivity group. Latino children were less likely to be in both maladjusted groups compared to the asymptomatic group. Overall, the findings suggest differential effects of family environmental factors on PTS and psychopathology symptoms among children exposed to IPV. Implications for research and practice are discussed

Automated web-based request mechanism for workflow enhancement in an academic customer-focused biorepository

Informatics systems, particularly those that provide capabilities for data storage, specimen tracking, retrieval, and order fulfillment, are critical to the success of biorepositories and other laboratories engaged in translational medical research. A crucial item—one easily overlooked—is an efficient way to receive and process investigator-initiated requests. A successful electronic ordering system should allow request processing in a maximally efficient manner, while also allowing streamlined tracking and mining of request data such as turnaround times and numerical categorizations (user groups, funding sources, protocols, and so on). Ideally, an electronic ordering system also facilitates the initial contact between the laboratory and customers, while still allowing for downstream communications and other steps toward scientific partnerships. We describe here the recently established Web-based ordering system for the biorepository at Washington University Medical Center, along with its benefits for workflow, tracking, and customer service. Because of the system's numerous value-added impacts, we think our experience can serve as a good model for other customer-focused biorepositories, especially those currently using manual or non-Web–based request systems. Our lessons learned also apply to the informatics developers who serve such biobanks

Fee-for-service as a business model of growing importance: the academic biobank experience

Biorepositories offer tremendous scientific value to a wide variety of customer groups (academic, commercial, industrial) in their ability to deliver a centralized, standardized service model, encompassing both biospecimen storage and related laboratory services. Generally, the scientific expertise and economies of scale that are offered in centralized, properly resourced research biobanks has yielded value that has been well-recognized by universities, pharmaceutical companies, and other sponsoring institutions. However, like many facets of the economy, biobanks have been under increasing cost pressure in recent years. This has been a particular problem in the academic arena, where direct support from grant sources (both governmental and philanthropic) typically now is more difficult to secure, or provides reduced financial support, relative to previous years. One way to address this challenge is to establish or enhance a well-defined fee-for-service model which is properly calibrated to cover operational costs while still offering competitive value to users. In this model, customers are never charged for the biospecimens themselves, but rather for the laboratory services associated with them. Good communication practices, proper assessment of value, implementation of best practices, and a sound business plan are all needed for this initiative to succeed. Here we summarize our experiences at Washington University School of Medicine in the expectation they will be useful to others

Quantification of mitral regurgitation by integrated Doppler backscatter power

AbstractObjectives. We attempted to determine whether continuous wave Doppler backscatter power could be used to quantify mitral regurgitation.Background. The power of a Doppler backscatter signal is proportional to the number of scatterers insonated and, hence, to the moving volume of blood. The relative power of the continuous wave Doppler signals from mitral inflow and aortic outflow is therefore proportional to the relative volumes of blood in motion.Methods. Computer postprocessing was used to derive the relative power of the Doppler backscatter signal from the intensity of the pixels within the spectral display of anterograde aortic and mitral flow. The power ratio was used to calculate the regurgitant fraction in 20 patients (mean age 61.4 years) with mitral regurgitation. This Doppler regurgitant fraction was compared with that derived from angiographic left ventricular volume and thermodilution cardiac output. In addition, 12 normal control subjects were studied by the Doppler method.Results. Mean (± SD) catheterization regurgitant fraction was 0.50 ± 0.26, and mean Doppler regurgitant fraction was 0.47 ± 0.25 (r = 0.89). The limits of agreement between the two methods by Bland-Altman analysis were −0.21 to +0.27. In normal control subjects with an expected regurgitant fraction of close to zero, mean Doppler regurgitant fraction was 0.03 ± 0.05.Conclusions. Doppler backscatter power from mitral and aortic inflow provides a new and accurate method for quantifying mitral regurgitation

Procurement of human tissues for research banking in the surgical pathology laboratory: Prioritization practices at Washington University Medical Center

Academic hospitals and medical schools with research tissue repositories often derive many of their internal human specimen acquisitions from their site's surgical pathology service. Typically, such acquisitions come from appropriately consented tissue discards sampled from surgical resections. Because the practice of surgical pathology has patient care as its primary mission, competing needs for tissue inevitably arise, with the requirement to preserve adequate tissue for clinical diagnosis being paramount. A set of best-practice gross pathology guidelines are summarized here, focused on the decision for tissue banking at the time specimens are macroscopically evaluated. These reflect our collective experience at Washington University School of Medicine, and are written from the point of view of our site biorepository. The involvement of trained pathology personnel in such procurements is very important. These guidelines reflect both good surgical pathology practice (including the pathologic features characteristic of various anatomic sites) and the typical objectives of research biorepositories. The guidelines should be helpful to tissue bank directors, and others charged with the procurement of tissues for general research purposes. We believe that appreciation of these principles will facilitate the partnership between surgical pathologists and biorepository directors, and promote both good patient care and strategic, value-added banking procurements

Effect of Exposure to Seminal Plasma Through Natural Mating in Cattle on Conceptus Length and Gene Expression

peer-reviewedA growing body of evidence suggests that paternal factors have an impact on offspring development. These studies have been mainly carried out in mice, where seminal plasma (SP) has been shown to regulate endometrial gene expression and impact embryo development and subsequent offspring health. In cattle, infusion of SP into the uterus also induces changes in endometrial gene expression, however, evidence for an effect of SP on early embryo development is lacking. In addition, during natural mating, the bull ejaculates in the vagina; hence, it is not clear whether any SP reaches the uterus in this species. Thus, the aim of the present study was to determine whether SP exposure leads to improved early embryo survival and developmental rates in cattle. To this end, Day 7 in vitro produced blastocysts were transferred to heifers (12–15 per heifer) previously mated to vasectomized bulls (n = 13 heifers) or left unmated (n = 12 heifers; control). At Day 14, heifers were slaughtered, and conceptuses were recovered to assess size, morphology and expression of candidate genes involved in different developmental pathways. Additionally, CL volume at Day 7, and weight and volume of CL at Day 14 were recorded. No effect of SP on CL volume and weight not on conceptus recovery rate was observed. However, filamentous conceptuses recovered from SP-exposed heifers were longer in comparison to the control group and differed in expression of CALM1, CITED1, DLD, HNRNPDL, PTGS2, and TGFB3. In conclusion, data indicate that female exposure to SP during natural mating can affect conceptus development in cattle. This is probably achieved through modulation of the female reproductive environment at the time of mating. Keywords: seminal plasma, embryo development, corpus luteu

Antimicrobial Drugs and Community–acquired Clostridium difficile–associated Disease, UK

In a population-based case-control study of community-acquired Clostridium difficile–associated disease (CDAD), we matched 1,233 cases to 12,330 controls. CDAD risk increased 3-fold with use of any antimicrobial agent and 6-fold with use of fluoroquinolones. Prior use of antimicrobial agent did not affect risk for CDAD after 6 months