Market Integration: Case Studies of Structural Change

The grain/oilseed industry is undergoing considerable structural change through mergers and new value-added businesses, which raises price-related questions. We analyze the level of price integration prior to and following a merger between two grain firms and the start-up of a producer-owned ethanol facility. This research utilizes error correction vector autoregression analysis to compute market integration structural change effects. We find evidence that market integration initially increases with the merger, but deteriorates with time following the merger. We find no significant localized change in the level of price integration for the case of a new value-added business.consolidation, structural change, price integration, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

SM and MSSM Higgs Boson Production: Spectra at large transverse Momentum

Strategies for Higgs boson searches require the knowledge of the total production cross section and the transverse momentum spectrum. The large transverse momentum spectrum of the Higgs boson produced in gluon fusion can be quite different in the Standard Model and the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. In this paper we present a comparison of the Higgs transverse momentum spectrum obtained using the PYTHIA event generator and the HIGLU program as well as the program HQT, which includes NLO corrections and a soft gluon resummation for the region of small transverse momenta. While the shapes of the spectra are similar for the Standard Model, significant differences are observed in the spectra of Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model benchmark scenarios with large tan(beta).Comment: 8 pages, 13 figure

Cow-Calf Producer Interest in Retained Ownership

The beef industry’s share of domestic meat demand continues to decline, as increasing vertical coordination in pork and poultry contribute to these industries’ ability to offer convenient, consistent, and less expensive products. For such vertical coordination to be effective, incentives must be properly aligned so that those responsible for making the most important investments for system profitability are appropriately compensated. This study demonstrates that cow-calf producers who invest in quality registered cattle and those who are interested in incorporating feedlot and carcass data into herd management decisions are also more interested in retained ownership.beef cattle, property rights theory, retained ownership, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing, Q13,

Microbiological assessment of microphones used in churches in Calabar, Nigeria

Background: Bacteria can survive on the surface of the microscopic grooves and cracks and will go unnoticed, hence the presence of pathogenic microorganisms on the user interface of handheld microphone poses a potential public health risk. Aim: The aim of this study was to isolate and identify potential pathogenic micro-organisms associated with used microphones, between April to August, 2021 in Calabar, Nigeria. Methodology: One hundred and fifty samples were collected (75 each) from the mouthpiece (head) and handles of the various microphones from different churches in Calabar using sterile cotton wool swab moistened with sterile peptone water. Samples were inoculated on Blood agar, Cysteine Lactose Electrolyte Deficient agar and incubated at 37oC for 24 - 48 hours and also on Sabouraud’s Dextrose agar at room temperature for 2 - 7 days. Isolates were characterized macroscopically, microscopically and biochemically. Results: Overall, 96(64.0%) of the 150 samples from microphones studied yielded growth of microbes with the mouthpiece being more significantly contaminated 57(76.0%) than the handles 39(52.0%) (X2=9.375, p=0.0022). The number of microphones colonized with bacteria were significantly more 62(41.3%) than those carrying fungi 34(22.7%) (X2=7.45, p=0.0063). Staphylococcus aureus ranked highest (53.2%) among the bacterial isolates followed by Bacillus species (29.0%) and Escherichia coli (17.7%) while in the case of those colonized by fungi, Candida species ranked higher (91.2%) than Aspergillus flavus (8.8%). The distribution of microbes by church group was statistically insignificant (X2=0.508, p=0.1969). Conclusion: This study has shown that used microphones carry various microbes including potential bacterial and fungal pathogens, hence can play reservoir role in microbial infection transmission. Frequent cleaning and creation of awareness on the health hazards associated with improper use and maintenance of microphones is recommended

The antioxidant action of tamoxifen and its metabolites Inhibition of lipid peroxidation

AbstractThe anti-oestrogen drug tamoxifen is an inhibitor of lipid peroxidation in rat liver microsomes and in phospholipid liposomes. Its cis isomer and N-desmethyl form are weaker inhibitors, but 4-hydroxytamoxifen is much more powerful. It is possible that the antioxidant property of tamoxifen might contribute to its biological actions

MSSM Higgs Boson Production via Gluon Fusion: The Large Gluino Mass Limit

Scalar MSSM Higgs boson production via gluon fusion gg -> h,H is mediated by heavy quark and squark loops. The higher order QCD corrections to these processes turn out to be large. The full supersymmetric QCD corrections have been calculated recently. In the limit of large SUSY masses a conceptual problem appears, i.e. the proper treatment of the large gluino mass limit. In this work we will describe the consistent decoupling of heavy gluino effects and derive the effective Lagrangian for decoupled gluinos.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, latex, references added, slight rewording, version accepted by JHE

Linking the chiral and deconfinement phase transitions

We show that the electric glueball becomes critical at the end-point of the deconfinement phase transition in finite temperature QCD. Based on this observation and existing lattice data, we argue that the chiral phase transition at a zero quark mass and the deconfinement phase transition at an infinite quark mass are continuously connected by the glueball-sigma mixing.Comment: 4 pages, terminology corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Dietary xylanase and live yeast supplementation influence intestinal bacterial populations and growth performance of piglets fed a sorghum-based diet

This study was to evaluate the effect of xylanase supplementation and the addition of live yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, on growth performance and intestinal microbiota in piglets. One hundred and eighty commercial crossbred 23-d-old piglets (PIC 417) were sorted by initial BW and allocated to 3 treatments: control (CTR) diet, CTR diet supplemented with xylanase at 16,000 birch xylan units/kg (XYL) and XYL diet supplemented with live yeast (2 × 10 10 CFU/g) at 1 kg/t (XYL + LY). Each treatment had 10 replicates, with 6 animals each. A sorghum-based diet and water were available ad libitum for 42 d of the study. Average daily gain (ADG) and average daily feed intake (ADFI) were measured from 0 to 42 d (23- to 65-d-old) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) calculated. At the end of the study, bacterial identification through 16S rRNA (V3 to V4) sequencing of the ileal and caecal digesta from one piglet per replicate was performed. No treatment effects were observed on ADFI. Pigs offered the live yeast in addition to the xylanase had increased ADG compared with those supplemented with xylanase alone (XYL + LY vs. XYL; P = 0.655). FCR was improved with XYL and XYL + LY compared with CTR (P = 0.018). Clostridiaceae counts in the ileum tended to reduce by 10% with XYL and 14% with XYL + LY compared to CTR (P = 0.07). XYL and XYL + LY increased the counts of Lactobacillaceae in the caecum compared with CTR (P < 0.0001). Dietary supplementation of live yeast combined with xylanase improved growth performance and microbial balance of piglets during the nursery phase

Investigating fusion plasma instabilities in the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak using mega electron volt proton emissions (invited)a)

The proton detector (PD) measures 3 MeV proton yield distributions from deuterium-deuterium fusion reactions within the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak (MAST). The PD's compact four-channel system of collimated and individually oriented silicon detectors probes different regions of the plasma, detecting protons (with gyro radii large enough to be unconfined) leaving the plasma on curved trajectories during neutral beam injection. From first PD data obtained during plasma operation in 2013, proton production rates (up to several hundred kHz and 1 ms time resolution) during sawtooth events were compared to the corresponding MAST neutron camera data. Fitted proton emission profiles in the poloidal plane demonstrate the capabilities of this new system