A MIXED-INTEGER PROGRAMMING ANALYSIS OF THE STRUCTURE OF A FLORIDA-BASED CATTLE FEEDING INDUSTRY

Florida is typical of many southeastern states in that it exports feeder cattle and imports carcass and boxed beef. The objective of this paper is to estimate the cost of retaining feeder cattle in Florida, feeding these cattle to slaughter weights, slaughtering them, and distributing the meat to retail outlets. A mixed integer programming model is developed. The optimal number and location of feedlots and slaughter plants are determined. The results indicate that at production levels exceeding 600,000 head, the cost of producing carcass beef in the State is comparable to the average for the United States.Livestock Production/Industries,

Public attitudes towards social media field experiments

The growing use of social media field experiments demands a rethink of current research ethics in computational social science and psychological research. Here, we provide an exploratory empirical account of key user concerns and outline a number of critical discussions that need to take place to protect participants and help researchers to make use of the novel opportunities of digital data collection and field studies. Our primary contention is that we need to elicit public perceptions to devise more up-to-date guidelines for review boards whilst also allowing and encouraging researchers to arrive at more ethical individual study design choices themselves. To ground our discussion in real-world examples of online experiments, we focus on recent social media studies in the field of misinformation, polarization, and hate speech research. We conclude by discussing how we can better strike a balance between meeting ethical guidelines and the concerns of social media users alongside maximizing scientific impact and credibility

Monitoring Arctic Sea Ice During One Year: Linearly Polarized GNSSReflectometry at the MOSAiC Campaign

Ponencia expuesta online en el 41st annual IGARSS (2021) celebrado en Bruselas del 12-16 de juli

Effect of multivitamin and multimineral supplementation on cognitive function in men and women aged 65 years and over : a randomised controlled trial

Background: Observational studies have frequently reported an association between cognitive function and nutrition in later life but randomised trials of B vitamins and antioxidant supplements have mostly found no beneficial effect. We examined the effect of daily supplementation with 11 vitamins and 5 minerals on cognitive function in older adults to assess the possibility that this could help to prevent cognitive decline. Methods: The study was carried out as part of a randomised double blind placebo controlled trial of micronutrient supplementation based in six primary care health centres in North East Scotland. 910 men and women aged 65 years and over living in the community were recruited and randomised: 456 to active treatment and 454 to placebo. The active treatment consisted of a single tablet containing eleven vitamins and five minerals in amounts ranging from 50–210 % of the UK Reference Nutrient Intake or matching placebo tablet taken daily for 12 months. Digit span forward and verbal fluency tests, which assess immediate memory and executive functioning respectively, were conducted at the start and end of the intervention period. Risk of micronutrient deficiency at baseline was assessed by a simple risk questionnaire. Results: For digit span forward there was no evidence of an effect of supplements in all participants or in sub-groups defined by age or risk of deficiency. For verbal fluency there was no evidence of a beneficial effect in the whole study population but there was weak evidence for a beneficial effect of supplementation in the two pre-specified subgroups: in those aged 75 years and over (n 290; mean difference between supplemented and placebo groups 2.8 (95% CI -0.6, 6.2) units) and in those at increased risk of micronutrient deficiency assessed by the risk questionnaire (n 260; mean difference between supplemented and placebo groups 2.5 (95% CI -1.0, 6.1) units). Conclusion: The results provide no evidence for a beneficial effect of daily multivitamin and multimineral supplements on these domains of cognitive function in community-living people over 65 years. However, the possibility of beneficial effects in older people and those at greater risk of nutritional deficiency deserves further attention.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Going to great lengths in the pursuit of luxury:how longer brand names can enhance the luxury perception of a brand

Brand names are a crucial part of the brand equity and marketing strategy of any company. Research suggests that companies spend considerable time and money to create suitable names for their brands and products. This paper uses the Zipf's law (or Principle of Least Effort) to analyze the perceived luxuriousness of brand names. One of the most robust laws in linguistics, Zipf's law describes the inverse relationship between a word's length and its frequency i.e., the more frequently a word is used in language, the shorter it tends to be. Zipf's law has been applied to many fields of science and in this paper, we provide evidence for the idea that because polysyllabic words (and brand names) are rare in everyday conversation, they are considered as more complex, distant, and abstract and that the use of longer brand names can enhance the perception of how luxurious a brand is (compared with shorter brand names, which are considered to be close, frequent, and concrete to consumers). Our results suggest that shorter names (mono‐syllabic) are better suited to basic brands whereas longer names (tri‐syllabic or more) are more appropriate for luxury brands

Patient-Reported Outcomes in ATLAS and FLAIR Participants on Long-Acting Regimens of Cabotegravir and Rilpivirine Over 48 Weeks

The phase 3 ATLAS and FLAIR studies demonstrated that maintenance with Long-Acting (LA) intramuscular cabotegravir and rilpivirine is non-inferior in efficacy to current antiretroviral (CAR) oral therapy. Both studies utilized Patient-Reported Outcome instruments to measure treatment satisfaction (HIVTSQ) and acceptance (ACCEPT general domain), health status (SF-12), injection tolerability/acceptance (PIN), and treatment preference. In pooled analyses, LA-treated patients (n = 591) demonstrated greater mean improvements from baseline than the CAR group (n = 591) in treatment satisfaction (Week 44, + 3.9 vs. +0.5 HIVTSQs-points; p /= 97% of LA group participants with recorded data preferred LA treatment compared with prior oral therapy. These results further support the potential of a monthly injectable option for people living with HIV seeking an alternative to daily oral treatment

Observations and modeling of areal surface albedo and surface types in the Arctic

An accurate representation of the annual evolution of surface albedo of the Arctic Ocean, especially during the melting period, is crucial to obtain reliable climate model predictions in the Arctic. Therefore, the output of the surface albedo scheme of a coupled regional climate model (HIRHAM–NAOSIM) was evaluated against airborne and ground-based measurements. The observations were conducted during five aircraft campaigns in the European Arctic at different times of the year between 2017 and 2022; one of them was part of the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition in 2020. We applied two approaches for the evaluation: (a) relying on measured input parameters of surface type fraction and surface skin temperature (offline) and (b) using HIRHAM–NAOSIM simulations independently of observational data (online). From the offline method we found a seasonally dependent bias between measured and modeled surface albedo. In spring, the cloud effect on surface broadband albedo was overestimated by the surface albedo parametrization (mean albedo bias of 0.06), while the surface albedo scheme for cloudless cases reproduced the measured surface albedo distributions for all seasons. The online evaluation revealed an overestimation of the modeled surface albedo resulting from an overestimation of the modeled cloud cover. Furthermore, it was shown that the surface type parametrization contributes significantly to the bias in albedo, especially in summer (after the drainage of melt ponds) and autumn (onset of refreezing). The lack of an adequate model representation of the surface scattering layer, which usually forms on bare ice in summer, contributed to the underestimation of surface albedo during that period. The difference between modeled and measured net irradiances for selected flights during the five airborne campaigns was derived to estimate the impact of the model bias for the solar radiative energy budget at the surface. We revealed a negative bias between modeled and measured net irradiances (median: −6.4 W m−2) for optically thin clouds, while the median value of only 0.1 W m−2 was determined for optically thicker clouds.</p

Long-Acting Cabotegravir and Rilpivirine after Oral Induction for HIV-1 Infection.

BACKGROUND: Long-acting injectable regimens may simplify therapy for patients with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. METHODS: We conducted a phase 3, randomized, open-label trial in which adults with HIV-1 infection who had not previously received antiretroviral therapy were given 20 weeks of daily oral induction therapy with dolutegravir-abacavir-lamivudine. Participants who had an HIV-1 RNA level of less than 50 copies per milliliter after 16 weeks were randomly assigned (1:1) to continue the current oral therapy or switch to oral cabotegravir plus rilpivirine for 1 month followed by monthly injections of long-acting cabotegravir plus rilpivirine. The primary end point was the percentage of participants who had an HIV-1 RNA level of 50 copies per milliliter or higher at week 48 (Food and Drug Administration snapshot algorithm). RESULTS: At week 48, an HIV-1 RNA level of 50 copies per milliliter or higher was found in 6 of 283 participants (2.1%) who received long-acting therapy and in 7 of 283 (2.5%) who received oral therapy (adjusted difference, -0.4 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -2.8 to 2.1), a result that met the criterion for noninferiority for the primary end point (margin, 6 percentage points). An HIV-1 RNA level of less than 50 copies per milliliter at week 48 was found in 93.6% who received long-acting therapy and in 93.3% who received oral therapy (adjusted difference, 0.4 percentage points; 95% CI, -3.7 to 4.5), a result that met the criterion for noninferiority for this end point (margin, -10 percentage points). Of the participants who received long-acting therapy, 86% reported injection-site reactions (median duration, 3 days; mild or moderate severity, 99% of cases); 4 participants withdrew from the trial for injection-related reasons. Grade 3 or higher adverse events and events that met liver-related stopping criteria occurred in 11% and 2%, respectively, who received long-acting therapy and in 4% and 1% who received oral therapy. Treatment satisfaction increased after participants switched to long-acting therapy; 91% preferred long-acting therapy at week 48. CONCLUSIONS: Therapy with long-acting cabotegravir plus rilpivirine was noninferior to oral therapy with dolutegravir-abacavir-lamivudine with regard to maintaining HIV-1 suppression. Injection-site reactions were common. (Funded by ViiV Healthcare and Janssen; FLAIR ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT02938520.)