IMPACTS OF EPA DAIRY WASTE REGULATIONS ON FARM PROFITABILITY

Agricultural and Food Policy,

The Worldwide Accountability Deficit for Prosecutors

In democratic governments committed to the rule of Law, prosecutors should be accountable to the public, just like other powerful government agents who make important decisions. The theoretical need for prosecutor accountability, however, meets practical shortcomings in criminal justice systems everywhere. Individual prosecutors everywhere express allegiance to the rule of Law through the wise decisions made by each prosecutor and across offices as a whole. But the claim trust us does not in fact generate the level of public trust that one should expect in a government of Laws. Institutional strategies to guarantee prosecutor accountability all fall short of the mark Call it the accountability deficit. Speaking broadly, the answers to this problem in the United States and elsewhere in the world appear at first to be quite different. Prosecutor accountability in the United States builds on electoral accountability. This external check is designed to compensate for the shortcomings of weak judicial review and overbroad criminal codes. By contrast, most European and indeed most criminal justice systems around the world rely on internal bureaucratic accountability to keep prosecutors in line with rule of Law norms. Prosecutors join a centralized bureaucracy and then follow explicit articulated guidance in crucial areas of the ]ob, enforced by regular internal review. The two forms of accountability, however, have more in common than casual observation suggests. Systems in the United States, driven by longterm growth in prosecutors\u27 offices and the arrival of information technology, rely more heavily all the time on internal bureaucratic controls. Likewise, systems elsewhere in the world rely on public oversight and respond to public input. Systems with a blend of internal and external controls on criminal prosecutors are now the norm around the world. This convergence of the two main mechanisms for achieving prosecutorial accountability, however, does not mean that the accountability gap is about to disappear. The scale of the responses that will close the accountability gap must combine boldness and practicality, as modeled in the Law of sentencing in the 1980s

Utilizing Human Patient Simulators (HPS) To Meet Learning Objectives Across Concurrent Core Nursing Courses: A Pilot Study

Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) faculty are challenged by the monumental responsibility of preparing students to function as safe, professional nurses in a two year course of study.   Advances in computer technology and emphasis on integrating technology and active learning strategies into existing course structures have prompted many nurse educators to explore the use of Human Patient Simulation (HPS) utilizing high-fidelity human patient simulators.  This pilot study was designed to assist ADN faculty to determine students’ perceptions regarding the use of HPS scenarios as a teaching strategy to meet course objectives across multiple core ADN nursing courses in a single quarter

The impact of devegetated dune fields on North American climate during the late Medieval Climate Anomaly

During the Medieval Climate Anomaly, North America experienced severe droughts and widespread mobilization of dune fields that persisted for decades. We use an atmosphere general circulation model, forced by a tropical Pacific sea surface temperature reconstruction and changes in the land surface consistent with estimates of dune mobilization (conceptualized as partial devegetation), to investigate whether the devegetation could have exacerbated the medieval droughts. Presence of devegetated dunes in the model significantly increases surface temperatures, but has little impact on precipitation or drought severity, as defined by either the Palmer Drought Severity Index or the ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration. Results are similar to recent studies of the 1930s Dust Bowl drought, suggesting bare soil associated with the dunes, in and of itself, is not sufficient to amplify droughts over North America

Atmospheric circulation anomalies during two persistent north american droughts: 1932-1939 and 1948-1957

We use an early twentieth century (1908-1958) atmospheric reanalysis, based on assimilation of surface and sea level pressure observations, to contrast atmospheric circulation during two periods of persistent drought in North America: 1932-1939 (the 'Dust Bowl') and 1948-1957. Primary forcing for both droughts is believed to come from anomalous sea surface temperatures (SSTs): a warm Atlantic and a cool eastern tropical Pacific. For boreal winter (October-March) in the 1950s, a stationary wave pattern originating from the tropical Pacific is present, with positive centers over the north Pacific and north Atlantic ocean basins and a negative center positioned over northwest North America and the tropical/subtropical Pacific. This wave train is largely absent for the 1930s drought; boreal winter height anomalies are organized much more zonally, with positive heights extending across northern North America. For boreal summer (April-September) during the 1930s, a strong upper level ridge is centered over the Great Plains; this feature is absent during the 1950s and appears to be linked to a weakening of the Great Plains low-level jet (GPLLJ). Subsidence anomalies are co-located over the centers of each drought: in the central Great Plains for the 1930s and in a band extending from the southwest to the southeastern United States for the 1950s. The location and intensity of this subsidence during the 1948-1957 drought is a typical response to a cold eastern tropical Pacific, but for 1932-1939 deviates in terms of the expected intensity, location, and spatial extent. Overall, circulation anomalies during the 1950s drought appear consistent with the expected response to the observed SST forcing. This is not the case for the 1930s, implying some other causal factor may be needed to explain the Dust Bowl drought anomalies. In addition to SST forcing, the 1930s were also characterized by massive alterations to the land surface, including regional-scale devegetation from crop failures and intensive wind erosion and dust storms. Incorporation of these land surface factors into a general circulation model greatly improves the simulation of precipitation and subsidence anomalies during this drought, relative to simulations with SST forcing alone. Even with additional forcing from the land surface, however, the model still has difficulty reproducing some of the other circulation anomalies, including weakening of the GPLLJ and strengthening of the upper level ridge during AMJJAS. This may be due to either weaknesses in the model or uncertainties in the boundary condition estimates. Still, analysis of the circulation anomalies supports the conclusion of an earlier paper (Cook et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 106:4997, 2009), demonstrating that land degradation factors are consistent with the anomalous nature of the Dust Bowl drought

Pharmacokinetics of Trazodone and Its Major Metabolite M-Chlorophenylpiperazine in Plasma and Brain of Rats

Sprague–Dawley rats were used as models for single trazodone administration (males), continuous administration and dose proportionality experiments (males, females, pregnant females). Plasma and brain tissue were analysed for trazodone and its active metabolite, m-chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP). Fetal exposure to trazodone and m-CPP was assessed and differences in their steady-state plasma concentration were sought between adult males and females. Both trazodone and m-CPP rapidly appeared in plasma and brain tissue following a single intraperitoneal trazodone dose with brain concentrations exceeding those in plasma. Plasma concentrations of m-CPP were lower than those of trazodone but exceeded them in brain tissue. Chronic administration using osmotic mini-pumps revealed a significant linear relationship between trazodone concentration in plasma and brain at steady-state (r=0.96, p\u3c0.0001). No simple relationship was found between plasma and brain tissue concentration for m-CPP. In contrast to observations following single trazodone administration, m-CPP concentrations at steady-state were lower than trazodone concentrations in brain tissue, suggesting a lack of stationarity in the disposition of trazodone over time. No significant differences in plasma or brain tissue drug concentrations relative to administered trazodone dose were observed between male and female rats, nor between pregnant and non-pregnant females. Trazodone and mCPP were both detected in fetal and placental tissues, with placenta having the highest concentrations. The data suggest that neuropharmacological studies of trazodone could yield different results depending upon the route and schedule of drug administration. Maternally administered trazodone, like many other antidepressants, is distributed to fetal tissues in rodents, reaffirming the need for caution in treating pregnant women with psychoactive drugs

Experimental Studies of Markets with Buyers Ignorant of Quality Before Purchase: When do "Lemons" Drive out High Quality Products? A Report to the Federal Trade Commission

Experiments indicated that if sellers could not develop reputations for poor quality, then the market would consist entirely of poor quality products. The need to attract re-purchase is not sufficient incentive to have the seller build a reputation for supplying good quality, while the imposition of a requirement for truthful advertising or labelling is sufficient