Do I Need Crop Insurance? Self Evaluating Crop Insurance as a Risk Management Tool in New York State

Crop insurance, Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries,

Conference Summary: AGN Physics with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

The ``AGN Physics with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey'' conference was held at Princeton University in July 2003 to bring together groups working inside and outside of the SDSS collaboration at radio through X-ray wavelengths to discuss the common goal of better understanding the physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Although we still do not have a full understanding of AGN, much progress has been made in recent years. In this conference summary, we concentrate on those topics discussed at the meeting where we believe that there has been significant change or where there is a new standard of comparison, as well as on important new trends in AGN research.Comment: 4 pages, no figures; text now fully matches published versio

Mean and Extreme Radio Properties of Quasars and the Origin of Radio Emission

We investigate the evolution of both the radio-loud fraction (RLF) and (using stacking analysis) the mean radio-loudness of quasars. We consider how these values evolve as a function of redshift and luminosity, black hole (BH) mass and accretion rate, and parameters related to the dominance of a wind in the broad emission line region. We match the FIRST source catalog to samples of luminous quasars (both spectroscopic and photometric), primarily from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. After accounting for catastrophic errors in BH mass estimates at high-redshift, we find that both the RLF and the mean radio luminosity increase for increasing BH mass and decreasing accretion rate. Similarly both the RLF and mean radio loudness increase for quasars which are argued to have weaker radiation line driven wind components of the broad emission line region. In agreement with past work, we find that the RLF increases with increasing luminosity and decreasing redshift while the mean radio-loudness evolves in the exact opposite manner. This difference in behavior between the mean radio-loudness and the RLF in L-z may indicate selection effects that bias our understanding of the evolution of the RLF; deeper surveys in the optical and radio are needed to resolve this discrepancy. Finally, we argue that radio-loud (RL) and radio-quiet (RQ) quasars may be parallel sequences but where only RQ quasars at one extreme of the distribution are likely to become RL, possibly through slight differences in spin and/or merger history.Comment: 55 pages, 28 figures, accepted to A

ST2 in Stable and Unstable Ischemic Heart Diseases

Circulating suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (ST2) predicts cardiovascular outcomes and mortality in ischemic heart disease (IHD). ST2 does not correlate with traditional risk indicators as closely as N-terminal pro–brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and is only weakly correlated with other biomarkers, indicating distinct pathways for stimulus and release. Although of little diagnostic utility in IHD, ST2 does offer prognostic information. In ST elevation myocardial infarction, ST2 levels increase to peak above the normal reference range (within 6 to 18 hours of symptom onset) in about half of patients. Levels in the upper quartile observed in IHD independently predict cardiovascular death and heart failure with an approximate doubling of risk. Similar but weaker associations have been reported in non–ST elevation myocardial infarction, in which ST2 predicts short-term (30-day) and long-term (>1-year) death and heart failure independent of clinical indicators, but these relations are lost if Global Registry of Acute Coronary Events (GRACE) score and NT-proBNP are added to multivariate models. Early postinfarction levels of ST2 (i.e., <24 hours after admission) have the greatest prognostic utility. Early postinfarction ST2 levels and change over 24 weeks are related to infarct extent and remodeling to a similar extent as NT-proBNP and aldosterone, and ST2 may have a significant pathophysiological role in these postinfarction processes. In long-term follow-up of stable IHD, ST2 is predictive of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality independent of accepted clinical indicators and other biomarkers, including NT-proBNP, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, interleukin-6, high-sensitivitiy cardiac troponin T, and galectin-3. In conclusion, ST2 in combination with NT-proBNP consistently improves risk stratification compared with either marker alone

Interpreting the Distance Correlation Results for the COMBO-17 Survey

The accurate classification of galaxies in large-sample astrophysical databases of galaxy clusters depends sensitively on the ability to distinguish between morphological types, especially at higher redshifts. This capability can be enhanced through a new statistical measure of association and correlation, called the {\it distance correlation coefficient}, which has more statistical power to detect associations than does the classical Pearson measure of linear relationships between two variables. The distance correlation measure offers a more precise alternative to the classical measure since it is capable of detecting nonlinear relationships that may appear in astrophysical applications. We showed recently that the comparison between the distance and Pearson correlation coefficients can be used effectively to isolate potential outliers in various galaxy datasets, and this comparison has the ability to confirm the level of accuracy associated with the data. In this work, we elucidate the advantages of distance correlation when applied to large databases. We illustrate how the distance correlation measure can be used effectively as a tool to confirm nonlinear relationships between various variables in the COMBO-17 database, including the lengths of the major and minor axes, and the alternative redshift distribution. For these outlier pairs, the distance correlation coefficient is routinely higher than the Pearson coefficient since it is easier to detect nonlinear relationships with distance correlation. The V-shaped scatterplots of Pearson versus distance correlation coefficients also reveal the patterns with increasing redshift and the contributions of different galaxy types within each redshift range.Comment: 5 pages, 2 tables, 3 figures; published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, 784, L34 (2014