Evaluation of the East Bay Municipal Utility District's Pilot of WaterSmart Home Water Reports

This report presents the results of an independent evaluation of the East Bay Municipal Utility District's (EBMUD) year-long pilot project (Pilot) of WaterSmart Software's Home Water Reports (HWRs) service.The Pilot was intended to address three primary questions:First, would an SNB efficiency program like WaterSmart result in measurable reductionsin household water use?Second, would it increase rates of participation in other EBMUD conservation programs? Third, would it increase household knowledge and awareness of water consumption andways to use water more efficiently

The properties of nerve cell precursors in hydra

Two signals, the head activator and an injury stimulus, control differentiation of nerve cells from uncommitted stem cells in hydra [Th. Holstein, H. C. Schaller, and C. N. David, (1986) Dev. Biol. 115, 9–17]. The time of action of these signals in the precursor cell cycle was determined. Methanol extracts of hydra containing 10−13 M head activator cause nerve cell commitment in S phase of the precursor cell cycle. Committed precursors complete the cell cycle, divide, and arrest in G1. Injury relieves the G1 block and precursors differentiate nerve cells. Under these conditions the time from commitment to nerve differentiation is 12 hr, the time from the end of S phase to nerve differentiation is 9 hr, and the time from the G1 block to nerve differentiation is 4 hr. Committed precursors blocked in G1 are unstable, decaying with a half-life of 12 hr if not stimulated to differentiate by an injury stimulus

Tentacle morphogenesis in hydra

Stimulation of tentacle-specific cell differentiation by the neuropeptide head activator was investigated in Hydra magnipapillata. Tentacle-specific sensory nerve cells were identified by a monoclonal antibody, NV1. Treatment of hydra with 1pM head activator for 18h stimulated differentiation of NV1+ nerve cells and tentacle epithelial cells in tissue from the distal gastric region. Head tissue and tissue from the proximal gastric region did not respond to head activator treatment with increased NV1+ differentiation. Hence the distal gastric region appears to be the site of tentacle formation in hydra. Tentacle precursors in head tissue seem to be committed since they fail to respond to head activator or to changes in tissue size with altered amounts of tentacle formation. We suggest that NV1 precursors form a complex with tentacle epithelial cell precursors, which then moves distally through the head region into the tentacles. The signal for NV1+ differentiation appears to be formation of this complex

A visual programming environment for the Navier-Stokes computer

The Navier-Stokes computer is a high-performance, reconfigurable, pipelined machine designed to solve large computational fluid dynamics problems. Due to the complexity of the architecture, development of effective, high-level language compilers for the system appears to be a very difficult task. Consequently, a visual programming methodology has been developed which allows users to program the system at an architectural level by constructing diagrams of the pipeline configuration. These schematic program representations can then be checked for validity and automatically translated into machine code. The visual environment is illustrated by using a prototype graphical editor to program an example problem

Unionization and Wage Inequality: A Comparative Study of the U.S, the U.K., and Canada

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the link between unionization and wage inequality in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. Our main motivation is to see whether unionization can account for differences and trends in wage inequality in industrialized countries. We focus on the U.S., the U.K., and Canada because the institutional arrangements governing unionization and collective bargaining are relatively similar in these three countries. The three countries also share large non-union sectors that can be used as a comparison group for the union sector. Using comparable micro data for the last two decades, we find that unions have remarkably similar qualitative impacts in all three countries. In particular, unions tend to systematically reduce wage inequality among men, but have little impact on wage inequality for women. We conclude that unionization helps explain a sizable share of cross-country differences in male wage inequality among the three countries. We also conclude that de-unionization explains a substantial part of the growth in male wage inequality in the U.K. and the U.S. since the early 1980s.

Constraints on UED KK-neutrino dark matter from magnetic dipole moments

Generically, universal extra dimension (UED) extensions of the standard model predict the stability of the lightest Kaluza-Klein (KK) particle and hence provide a dark matter candidate. For UED scenarios with one extra dimension, we model-independently determine the size of the induced dimension-five magnetic dipole moment of the KK-neutrino, $\nu^{(1)}$. We show that current observational bounds on the interactions of dipole dark matter place constraints on UED models with KK-neutrino dark matter.Comment: References added, figures altered, discussion of results revised and expande

Smallholder Farming Under Increasingly Difficult Circumstances: Policy and Public Investment Priorities for Africa

Agricultural and Food Policy,

The Economics of Nested Insurance: The Case of SURE

Traditionally, disaster assistance was available on an ad hoc basis, but the 2008 Farm Act provides a standing disaster assistance program known as Supplemental Revenue Assistance (SURE). This paper introduces a theory of nested insurance to evaluate the impact on of SURE on intensification, acreage and adoption. The results suggest that parameters of a government program like SURE may enhance the adoption and value of crop insurance to the farm sector. A quantitative understanding of the interdependencies between programs like SURE and crop insurance, taking into account the nature of the ad hoc alternative, is important in assessing the welfare impacts on farmers, as well as insurance companies. Both our theory and simulation exercise suggest that insurance increases the volume of production and/or leads to increased intensification (substitution into higher value crops). On the other hand, the gains from insurance and from programs like SURE may be lessened by the presence and probability of ad hoc disaster assistance.Nested insurance, SURE, crops, adoption, ad hoc, disaster assistance, Crop Production/Industries, Risk and Uncertainty,