Factors Affecting the Adoption of Genetically Modified Crops by Young and Beginning U.S. Farmers and Ranchers

The comprehensive set of programs in the 2008 Farm Bill designed to support Young and Beginning Farmers and Ranchers (YBFR), combined with a substantial amount of resources allocated to each of these programs, can be viewed as an investment in ensuring the future sustainability of the U.S. agriculture system. Understanding the factors that influence YBFR to adopt technology will become increasingly important if YBFR are to succeed. Of particular interest is why YBFR adopt Bt corn, Bt cotton, and HT soybeans. Results conform to a majority of our a priori expectations; YBFRs are more likely to adopt GM crops if they are not a full owner of the farm operation, as sales of the farm operation grow, if the crop is important to their region, and as they become more risk averse.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Ready-to-use post-Newtonian gravitational waveforms for binary black holes with non-precessing spins: An update

For black-hole binaries whose spins are (anti-) aligned with respect to the orbital angular momentum of the binary, we compute the frequency domain phasing coefficients including the quadratic-in-spin terms up to the third post-Newtonian (3PN) order, the cubic-in-spin terms at the leading order, 3.5PN, and the spin-orbit effects up to the 4PN order. In addition, we obtain the 2PN spin contributions to the amplitude of the frequency-domain gravitational waveforms for non-precessing binaries, using recently derived expressions for the time-domain polarization amplitudes of binaries with generic spins, complete at that accuracy level. These two results are updates to Arun et al. (2009) [1] for amplitude and Wade et al. (2013) [2] for phasing. They should be useful to construct banks of templates that model accurately non-precessing inspiraling binaries, for parameter estimation studies, and or constructing analytical template families that accounts for the inspiral-merger-ringdown phases of the binary.Comment: 8 pages, an additional file (readable in MATHEMATICA) containing all the key results included in the sourc

Gravitational-wave phasing for low-eccentricity inspiralling compact binaries to 3PN order

[abridged] Although gravitational radiation causes inspiralling compact binaries to circularize, a variety of astrophysical scenarios suggest that binaries might have small but nonnegligible orbital eccentricities when they enter the low-frequency bands of ground and space-based gravitational-wave detectors. If not accounted for, even a small orbital eccentricity can cause a potentially significant systematic error in the mass parameters of an inspiralling binary. Gravitational-wave search templates typically rely on the quasi-circular approximation, which provides relatively simple expressions for the gravitational-wave phase to 3.5 post-Newtonian (PN) order. The quasi-Keplerian formalism provides an elegant but complex description of the post-Newtonian corrections to the orbits and waveforms of inspiralling binaries with any eccentricity. Here we specialize the quasi-Keplerian formalism to binaries with low eccentricity. In this limit the non-periodic contribution to the gravitational-wave phasing can be expressed explicitly as simple functions of frequency or time, with little additional complexity beyond the well-known formulas for circular binaries. These eccentric phase corrections are computed to 3PN order and to leading order in the eccentricity for the standard PN approximants. For a variety of systems these eccentricity corrections cause significant corrections to the number of gravitational wave cycles that sweep through a detector's frequency band. This is evaluated using several measures, including a modification of the useful cycles. We also evaluate the role of periodic terms that enter the phasing and discuss how they can be incorporated into some of the PN approximants. While the eccentric extension of the PN approximants is our main objective, this work collects a variety of results that may be of interest to others modeling eccentric relativistic binaries.Comment: 49 pages, 4 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. D. Supplementary materials available at http://link.aps.org/supplemental/10.1103/PhysRevD.93.124061. V2: minor updates to match published versio

Cefuroxime axetil induced glossitis: a case report

Cefuroxime axetil is a semi synthetic cephalosporin antibiotic, which is prescribed for different types of infections such as lung, ear, throat, urinary tract, and skin. This is the drug of choice in the treatment and prevention of streptococcal infections. In this case, the patient was prescribed cefuroxime axetil, diclofenac, and paracetamol for pharyngitis. The patient developed glossitis 3 hrs after ingestion of above drugs which improved after withdrawing the offending drug. Glossitis is an uncommon, but serious adverse drug effect of cefuroxime axetil. It is important to recognize and manage it to prevent fatality. The case has been reported to the Pharmacovigilance Center Uttar Pradesh Rural Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Saifai, Etawah

Bridging the Gap of Skilled Surgeons in Low and Middle Income Countries Using ICT Based Tools : A Case Study in Super-Speciality Training

Introduction: Over the last two decades, advancement of super specialised surgical disciplines has shown improved health outcome, in particular quality and safety. Although medical technology has developed to meet diagnostics and therapeutic needs, there is a scarcity of trained human resources in advanced specialities in low and middle income countries (LMICs). Innovative methods are needed to educate and train people at their workplaces using collaborative technologies and networks. Methods: Over the last 15 years, two general surgeons in Cuttack have been telementored from Lucknow 1,163 km away, using collaborative technologies to develop Endocrine Surgery. This study reviews the last 11 years of the service which includes a clinical decision support system and treatment planning advice using real time videoconferencing. Results: Over the last 11 years, 199 endocrine surgeries per annum were performed with most being thyroid cases as compared with 119 surgeries per annum during the previous five years. Parathyroid and adrenal cases increased significantly during this period (p <0.001). Rates of temporary and permanent vocal cord palsy (1.7% and 0%), hypocalcaemia (5.9% and 1.1%) were comparable with high volume centres. Based on the quantum, safety and quality outcome of endocrine surgery the provincial government has approved creation of a super-speciality department of endocrine surgery in Cuttack. Conclusion: Sustained engagement using telementoring can transfer surgical skills to needy surgeons and enable them to match the expertise of mentors. This model can be replicated in other specialities in a cost effective way to develop specialised human resources for healthcare, in particular in LMICs