Dynamic Economic Relationships Among U.S. Soy Product Markets: Using a Cointegrated Vector Autoregression Approach with Directed Acyclic Graphs

This paper applies a combined methodology of a recently developed directed acyclic graph (DAG) analysis with Johansen and Juselius' methods of the cointegrated vector autoregression (VAR) model to a monthly U.S. system of markets for soybeans, soy meal, and soy oil. Primarily a methods paper, Johansen and Juselius' procedures are applied, with a special focus on statistically addressing information inherent in well-known sources of non-normal data behavior to illustrate the effectiveness of modeling the system as a cointegrated multi-market system. Perhaps for the first time, methods of the cointegrated VAR model are combined with DAG analysis to account for contemporaneously correlated residuals, and are applied to this U.S. soy-based system. Analysis of the error correction or cointegration space illuminates the empirical nature of policy-relevant market elasticities, price transmission parameters, and effects of important policy and institutional changes/events on U.S. soy-related markets at long-run horizons beyond a single crop cycle. A statistically strong U.S. demand for soybeans emerged as the primary cointegrating relation in the error-correction space. Analysis of the DAG-adjusted cointegrated VAR model's forecast error variance decomposition illuminates how the soy-related variables and the three U.S. soy product markets dynamically interact at alternative time horizons extending up to two-years.directed acyclic graphs, cointegration, vector error correction and vector autoregression models, monthly U.S. soy-based markets., Industrial Organization, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Reinforced concrete two-span continuous deep beams

Ye

Social prescribing and behaviour change : proposal of a new behaviour change technique concerning the ‘connection’ step

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THE CRISPR/CAS9 EDITING OF A WRKY GENE AND THE OVEREXPRESSION OF A LIPOXYGENASE GENE FOR IMPROVING PATHOGEN RESISTANCE IN MAIZE

Fusarium verticillioides (Fv) is a major cereal pathogen causing stalk rot and ear rot in maize, negatively affecting crop productivity, and compromising food safety by producing the secondary metabolites fumonisins. Several studies were conducted to identify maize genes associated with host plant resistance to Fv infection and fumonisin accumulation. The maize WRKY transcription factors and the lipoxygenases (ZmLOXs) are well recognized as important players in plant defense against pathogens, and it is known that the host-pathogen lipid cross-talk influences the pathogenesis. In this regard, previous RNA-seq experiments reported the enhanced expression of ZmLOX genes in maize resistant genotypes and GWAS resulted in one SNP significantly associated with ZmWRKY125. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat/associated Cas9 (CRISPR/Cas9) editing of ZmWRKY125 and the transgenic overexpression of ZmLOX4 genes were carried out to investigate the possible implication of these two genes in the resistance mechanisms against Fv. Before cloning experiments, protein domain conservation and different splicing products have been analyzed comparing homologues and orthologues for both genes. As regards ZmWRKY125, the CRISPR cloning was based on a double cloning using two different guides (sgRNA) for one gene target. Agrobacterium tumefaciens mediated transformation was used for introducing the construct under the maize promoter ZmpUBI in the binary vector p1609 in maize A188 line. Mutants from three different transformation events were obtained. For each event, T2 plants will be genotyped to find homozygous for the mutation that in turn will be phenotyped for Fv resistance and fumonisin content. As regards ZmLOX4, the gene was cloned under an overexpressed promoter involved in kernel development in the vector L1781, and the same transformation conditions adopted for the CRISPR/Cas9 editing of ZmWRKY125 were used. Mutants from two different transformation events were obtained. For each event, T2 plants were genotyped in order to find homozygous for the mutation. Homozygous plants will be further evaluated for Fv resistance, fumonisin accumulation, oxylipin content as well as for the expression analysis of the main genes involved in the jasmonic acid pathway

Inclined reinforcement around web opening in concrete beams

YesTwelve reinforced-concrete continuous deep beams having web openings within interior shear spans were tested to failure. The main variables investigated were the opening size and the amount of inclined reinforcement around openings. An effective inclined reinforcement factor combining the influence of the amount of inclined web reinforcement and opening size is proposed and used to analyse the structural behaviour of continuous deep beams tested. It was observed that the end support reaction, diagonal crack width and load capacity of beams tested were significantly dependent on the proposed effective inclined reinforcement factor. As this factor increased, the end support reaction and increasing rate of diagonal crack width were closer to those of companion solid deep beams. In addition, a higher load capacity was exhibited by beams having an effective inclined reinforcement factor above 0.077 than the companion solid deep beam. A numerical procedure based on the upper-bound analysis of the plasticity theory was proposed to estimate the load capacity of beams tested. Comparisons between the measured and predicted load capacities showed good agreement

Increasing physical activity levels : designing a referral pathway to a community- and volunteer-based physical activity programme

Funding: Funded by NHS Fife Endowment Fund.Background/Aim: The NICE guideline on exercise referral schemes to promote physical activity suggests that referral to activities based outside of the gym may be linked to improved adherence. We aim to design and pilot a process of referring patients attending primary care to community-based jogscotland groups and to examine the barriers and facilitators of such a process for health professionals and patients. Methods: GPs and nurses from over 20 practices across Fife have expressed interest in the study. Exploratory interviews with health professionals and patients of primary care practices in Fife will be conducted (N=15-25 primary care registered patients with no physical health barriers to engage in physical activity and N=15-25 GPs/Nurses). These interviews will be guided by Theoretical Domains Framework and analysed using thematic analysis. Informed by findings from the interviews, a process of referral to jogscotland will be designed around how community-based programmes can acceptably be introduced through GP/nurse consultations. Lastly, a feasibility study testing this method of offering referral to jogscotland will be conducted. Results: The findings will enable the design of a full trial to test a community-based approach to physical activity participation that would be scalable cross Scotland. Conclusion: This project will link primary care patients to a structured and volunteer-led physical activity programme in their community that is not gym-based. Given these factors, it has the strong potential of being successful in maintaining behaviour change and achieving positive health outcomes for patients. This project additionally provides a unique opportunity to develop a partnership between primary care and community-based physical activity groups.OtherNon peer reviewe

Structure and expression analysis of rice paleo duplications

Having a well-known history of genome duplication, rice is a good model for studying structural and functional evolution of paleo duplications. Improved sequence alignment criteria were used to characterize 10 major chromosome-to-chromosome duplication relationships associated with 1440 paralogous pairs, covering 47.8% of the rice genome, with 12.6% of genes that are conserved within sister blocks. Using a micro-array experiment, a genome-wide expression map has been produced, in which 2382 genes show significant differences of expression in root, leaf and grain. By integrating both structural (1440 paralogous pairs) and functional information (2382 differentially expressed genes), we identified 115 paralogous gene pairs for which at least one copy is differentially expressed in one of the three tissues. A vast majority of the 115 paralogous gene pairs have been neofunctionalized or subfunctionalized as 88%, 89% and 96% of duplicates, respectively, expressed in grain, leaf and root show distinct expression patterns. On the basis of a Gene Ontology analysis, we have identified and characterized the gene families that have been structurally and functionally preferentially retained in the duplication showing that the vast majority (>85%) of duplicated have been either lost or have been subfunctionalized or neofunctionalized during 50–70 million years of evolution

Imaging the early development of seeds

Imaging the early development of seeds

Application of Plasticity Theory to Reinforced Concrete Deep Beams

yesThis paper reviews the application of the plasticity theory to reinforced concrete deep beams. Both the truss analogy and mechanism approach were employed to predict the capacity of reinforced concrete deep beams. In addition, most current codes of practice, for example Eurocode 1992 and ACI 318-05, recommend the strut-and-tie model for designing reinforced concrete deep beams. Compared with methods based on empirical or semi-empirical equations, the strut-and-tie model and mechanism analyses are more rational, adequately accurate and sufficiently simple for estimating the load capacity of reinforced concrete deep beams. However, there is a problem of selecting the effectiveness factor of concrete as reflected in the wide range of values reported in the literature for deep beams