Where is the chromospheric response to conductive energy input from a hot pre-flare coronal loop?

Before the onset of a flare is observed in hard X-rays there is often a pro- longed pre-flare or pre-heating phase with no detectable hard X-ray emission but pronounced soft X-ray emission suggesting that energy is being released and deposited into the corona and chromosphere already at this stage. This work analyses the temporal evolution of coronal source heating and the chromospheric response during this pre-heating phase to investigate the origin and nature of early energy release and transport during a solar flare. Simultaneous X-ray, EUV, and microwave observations of a well observed flare with a prolonged pre-heating phase are analysed to study the time evolution of the thermal emission and to determine the onset of particle acceleration. During the 20 minutes duration of the pre-heating phase we find no hint of accelerated electrons, neither in hard X-rays nor in microwave emission. However, the total energy budget during the pre-heating phase suggests that energy must be supplied to the flaring loop to sustain the observed temperature and emission measure. Under the assumption of this energy being transported toward the chromosphere via thermal conduc- tion, significant energy deposition at the chromosphere is expected. However, no detectable increase of the emission in the AIA wavelength channels sensitive to chromospheric temperatures is observed. The observations suggest energy release and deposition in the flaring loop before the onset of particle acceleration, yet a model in which energy is conducted to the chromosphere and subsequent heating of the chromosphere is not supported by the observations

Government Payments: Economic Impact on Southeastern Peanut Farms

Southeastern peanut farms with diversified field crops utilize government payments to supplement market receipts. Production in 2002 represented growing conditions under adverse weather, while 2003 represented optimal conditions. Representative farm analysis provides insight into allocation of market receipts and government payments for meeting variable costs and fixed costs.Crop Production/Industries,

The Balanced Scorecard and Curriculum Integration in an Executive MBA Program

The Executive MBA Program at Loyola College recently undertook a comprehensive revision of its program. The goal of this revision was to develop a program that provided an integrated and systematic view of the enterprise, along with a basic understanding of all management functions and a cross-functional approach to complex organizational issues. To achieve these goals, the Balanced Scorecard became a key, integrating component in the second year curriculum. This paper presents the development of the EMBA program, in general, and demonstrates the use of the Balanced Scorecard as an integrating framework

Barriers to uptake of the hip fracture core outcome set: an international survey of 80 hip fracture trialists.

Background: Core outcome sets are an agreed recommendation to inform the selection of outcome measures in clinical trials. There has been low uptake of the 2014 hip fracture core outcome set. The reasons for this remain unclear. The aim of this study was to understand the reasons for the non-adoption and approaches to increase adoption of the hip fracture core outcome set. Methods: Randomised controlled trials from PubMed (2017–2019) and ClinicalTrials.gov (2015–2019) were identified. Corresponding authors for each identified trial (n = 302) were surveyed using five questions on awareness of the hip fracture core outcome set, reasons for non-adoption and approaches to increase adoption. Data were analysed descriptively using frequencies, mean values and standard deviations. Results: Fifty-four percent of the respondents (n = 43) were aware of the concept of core outcome set. Only 15% (n = 12) based the outcome measure selection on the 2014 hip fracture core outcome set. Key reasons for non-adoption included the following: authors being unaware and perceived inappropriateness to their trial design. Eighty-six percent (n = 69) of respondents agreed to the need for increased awareness of core outcome sets through research training, academic and clinical journal requirements, and funding or publication stipulations. Eighty-eight percent (n = 70) of respondents indicated the current core outcome set required revision to focus on trials investigating people with cognitive impairment, caregivers, rehabilitation, surgical interventions and anaesthetic trial designs. Conclusion: Barriers to the adoption of the hip fracture core outcome set centre on education, awareness of the core outcome sets and applicability to the breath of hip fracture trial designs. Further consideration should be made to address these, to improve the harmonisation of outcome measures across hip fracture trials

Physical and Functional Properties of Intact and Ground Pale Broiler Breast Meat

The functional and physical properties of intact and ground meat were determined during 4 replicate trials on a total of 180 pale [lightness (L*) > 53] and normal (46 < L* < 53) boneless, skinless breast fillets collected from 2 commercial processing plants. At 24 h postmortem, L*, redness (a*), yellowness (b*), and pH were determined on each fillet. The left fillet from each breast was ground and used to determine cook loss (CL) and Allo-Kramer (AK) shear on meat patties as well as moisture uptake (MU) and CL on meat slurries before and after adjustment to the normal meat pH of 5.9. The right fillet from each breast was kept intact and used to determine expressible moisture (EM), CL, and AK shear on the intact meat. Compared with normal fillets, pale fillets exhibited significantly higher L* values, lower ultimate pH (5.67 vs. 5.94), higher AK (3.5 vs. 2.9 kg/g), higher EM, lower MU, and higher CL measured on the intact fillets, ground meat patties, and meat slurries. Adjustment of the pH of the pale meat slurries to normal meat pH (5.9) resulted in a higher MU (11.05 vs. 3.69%), indicating a partial restoration of protein functionality. These results indicate that wide differences in raw broiler breast meat color, mainly due to differences in the muscle pH, are related to important variations in the water-holding and binding capacities of the meat. The effect of low meat pH can be partially ameliorated in ground meat by pH adjustment

Crop Rotations and Dynamic Analysis of Southeastern Peanut Farms

Agricultural policy objectives provide green payment incentives for farmers to initiate practices with environmental benefits. Velvet beans planted as a cover crop offer an alternative for southeastern peanut farmers to control nematodes without chemicals, while increasing soil fertility. Commodity programs provide government payments that are essential to rural economies of the southeast.Environmental Economics and Policy,