Estimation of Capital Matrices for Multisectoral Models: An Application to Italy and Tuscany

This paper refers to the Tuscany case study which constitutes a systems analysis of integrated regional development in the Tuscany region. A core of this study is the development of applied models and methods undertaken by the Regional Development Group at IIASA, in collaboration with the Regional Institute for Economic Planning of Tuscany (IRPET). A bi-regional input-output model has a central part in the system of model development. In order to capture the dynamic process of capacity creation and removal, the capital formation has to be included into the input-output framework in a systematic way. This presupposes an estimation of capacity change and of capital coefficient matrices. This paper presents a systematic approach to obtain these estimates, also in the case where only a limited set of data is available. In summary, the method combines a vintage type production theory and an estimation technique based on information theory

Agricultural Research at the Central Substation, Highmore, South Dakota: A Progress Report

Central Substation has been serving central South Dakota for over 50 years. It was established in 1901 on land deeded to the state by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Drew in 1899. There are 117.15 acres, and the location is immediately northwest of Highmore on Highway 14. For many years the research was conducted under the watchful eye of the late Steve Sussex. He served as superintendent from 1908 to 1948. After Mr. Sussex retired, he and Mrs. Sussex continued to live at the substation. I became superintendent in 1950 and found his counsel very helpful in carrying on the research activities. Gerald Keehn had served as superintendent from 1948 to 1950. Much has been accomplished at the station since the original one-tenth-acre plots were laid out permanently in 1908. In July 1932, crop yields over a 19-year period were summarized in Experiment Station bulletin 272. Four types of crop rotations were started in 1912 and have been continued ever since. The fruits of these trials are perhaps just being realized. That is the great value of your experiment stations. They formulate recommendations from results obtained over 5 or 10 or even 40 years or more of research-not just a year or two. Extreme care must be taken to avoid errors in our results. That is why we use long-time research results and repeat each trial a number of times and at various locations. Highly trained scientists of the State Experiment Station staff help us conduct the research. We find that people of this area have a friendly feeling toward the substation and its activities. Results of the research have been brought to their attention through field days and reports in newspapers and publications. When Mr. Drew donated the Janel for the substation he said that knowledge secured from this land would serve as a basis for farming. We should keep his foresight in mind

Soils of South Dakota

Soil maps fill an important function in the agricultural program of South Dakota. They are the means of taking stock of the State\u27s most important natural resource- the soil. Besides furnishing this inventory, these maps assist the people of the state in applying the research of laboratories and green houses. Fertilizer responses, crop adaptabilities, and management techniques are by no means the same on all soils. This is because soils have different levels of natural fertility, different water storage capacities, etc. Consequently, it is necessary to inventory the soil resources and to use this as a basis for satisfactory soil management and fertility practices. The map in this folder is based on data obtained from the following sources: unpublished Reconnaissance Soil Map of South Dakota (1935) by J. G. Hutton, South Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, and W. I. Watkins, U.S.D.A.; information supplied by the U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service Soil Surveyors; and maps and reports of the writers and the Bureau of Plant Industry, Soils and Agricultural Engineering, U.S.D.A

Estimation and Application of 2-D Scattering Matrices for Sparse Array Imaging of Impact Damage in Composite Panels

Reliable detection of hidden damage in composites is important for failure prevention in the aerospace industry since these materials are being more frequently used in high stress applications. Structural health monitoring (SHM) via guided wave sensors mounted on or embedded within a composite structure can help detect and localize damage in real-time while also reducing overall maintenance costs. One approach to guided wave SHM is sparse array imaging via the minimum variance algorithm, and it has been shown in prior work that incorporating estimated scattering from expected defects can improve the quality of damage localization and characterization [1]. For this study, impacts were applied to induce delaminations within a composite panel. Wavefield data were recorded on a circle centered at the damage location from multiple incident directions before and after the impacts. Baseline subtraction [2] is used to estimate scattering patterns for each incident direction, and these patterns are combined and interpolated to form a full 2-D scattering matrix. This matrix is then incorporated into the minimum variance imaging algorithm, and imaging efficacy is evaluated for both these impacts and impact damage in other similar composite plates. Results are compared to images generated using simpler scattering assumptions

The presence of elafin, SLPI, IL1-RA and STNFalpha RI in head and neck squamous cell carcinomas and their relation to the degree of tumour differentiation.

Biopsy samples of head and neck carcinomas were investigated with regard to elafin, secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI), interleukin 1-receptor antagonist [(IL)1-RA] and soluble tumour necrosis factor alpha receptor antagonist (STNFalpha RI). SLPI and elafin are serine protease inhibitors produced in the serous cells of the upper respiratory airways and in the keratinocytes, respectively. We have now found the presence of elafin and SLPI in squamous cell carcinomas of the upper respiratory tract (tonsillar, hypopharyngeal, tongue, mouth floor, gingival and laryngeal cancer). Significantly higher amounts of SLPI and elafin are present in well-differentiated and moderately differentiated tumours than in poorly differentiated tumours (p < 0.0001 and p < 0.0015). Tumour necrosis factor-alpha and IL-1beta have been shown to stimulate the production of SLPI and elafin. Since these cytokines can both be difficult to detect, we chose to study their inhibitors, STNFalpha RI and IL1-RA, instead. IL1-RA was expressed in highly differentiated tumours as well as in poorly differentiated ones. No significant difference was seen between the groups. STNFalpha RI was only found in very small amounts, sparsely distributed in the tumours, and was not related to the degree of differentiation

Smoking cessation—but not smoking reduction—improves the annual decline in FEV1 in occupationally exposed workers

SummaryIntroductionIndividuals exposed both to cigarette smoke and respiratory pollutants at work incur a greater risk of development of airway hyperresponsiveness (AHR) and accelerated decline in forced expiratory volume in 1s (FEV1) than that incurred by subjects undergoing each exposure separately. We examined whether smoking cessation or smoking reduction improves AHR and thereby slows down the decline in FEV1 in occupationally exposed workers.MethodsWe examined 165 workers (137 males and 28 females) participating in a smoking cessation programme. Nicotine tablets were used for smoking cessation or smoking reduction. Respiratory symptoms were assessed by questionnaire, FEV1 by spirometry and AHR by methacholine challenge test. At 1 year, subjects were classified into quitters, reducers, or continuing smokers.ResultsSixty-seven subjects completed the study (32 quitters; 17 reducers; 18 continuing smokers). Respiratory symptoms improved markedly in quitters (P<0.001 for all comparisons) and less so in reducers (P values between 0.163 and 0.027). At 1 year, FEV1 had slightly but significantly improved in quitters (P=0.006 vs. smokers; P=0.038 vs. reducers) and markedly deteriorated in reducers and continuing smokers. Concurrent, 1-year change in AHR did not differ significantly among the groups.ConclusionIn occupationally exposed workers, stopping smoking markedly improved respiratory symptoms and, in males, slowed the annual decline in FEV1. Smoking reduction resulted in smaller improvements in symptoms but deterioration in FEV1. These findings were independent of AHR. While smoking cessation should remain the ultimate goal in workplace cessation programmes more studies are necessary to better ascertain the benefits of smoking reduction

A Progress Report: Agricultural Research at the Range Field Station, South Dakota State College Experiment Station, Cottonwood, S.D.

South Dakota, west of the Missouri River, may be divided into three distinct regions. The most northerly of these is a series of benches, plateaus, and isolated buttes underlain by both sandstone and shale. These soils range from sandy loams to clays but are predominantly loamy. The most southerly region is a series of plateaus and broad benches underlain by silty, sandy, and clayey strata. These soils range from very sandy on the Nebraska border to silty and clayey at the southern tributaries of the White River. Between the two just described lies the third region. This is the region of the State represented by the Cottonwood Range Field Station. It is called the Pierre hills and is underlain by shaly strata which weather to dark clayey soils that are sticky when wet. These shaly strata do not form benches and plateaus like the younger strata to the north and south. Rather, they are reduced by weathering to a series of smooth grassy hills and ridges with convex tops. In the central region the major rivers, and the other two as well, Bow east. Stream valleys are entrenched several hundred feet and the rivers in them pursue meandering courses. Cottonwood trees flourish in the stream channels. (See more in text

Progress in Agricultural Research at the North Central Substation

Thousands of acres of farm land in the north central part of South Dakota have their productive future tied up with the 240 acres used for experimental research at the Substation at Eureka. Established nearly 50 years ago by the state legislature, which set aside state school lands for agricultural research, the North Central Substation is the proving ground for new agricultural methods and a living record of the accumulative effects of the old. As early as 1908, rotation experiments were started which became the first historical record in the northern plains area of the effects of cropping practices on the soil. At that time, the entire surrounding country was in wheat. There were no crop rotations, since the organic matter of the soil was good and the fertility level high. Also, there was no weed problem then. Later, the Experiment Station was to be accused of scattering weeds in one of the most interesting stories to be uncovered in the development of experimental research in this area. Foreseeing the time when the fertility of the land might become dangerously lowered by the practice of continuous cropping which was being carried on at that time, the Substation set up experimental plots. These included the basic crops of rotation-cultivated crops, small grain and legumes. In this case, the legume was sweet clover. (See more in Text

Sub-lunar Tap-Yielding eXplorer, STYX

To diversify the idea pool that NASA has to draw from for future manned and unmanned missions to the Moon and Mars, a design/build competition has been posed to collegiate teams across the country. The challenge is to reach, extract, and purify underground ice reserves in a setting analogous to mars. Along the way, teams will be collecting telemetry to mimic prospecting objectives on the moon. The Sublunar Tap-Yielding eXplorer, STYX, is the team’s proposed design for the 2020 NASA RASC-AL competition. Some novel design features STYX will use are a rotary tool changer with swappable tools, a sleeve driving mode, and a pivoting heating probe. The STYX drill head will translate on two axes, use a rotary hammer drill to bore holes, sleeve boreholes with pipe to prevent collapse, and deliver water via a peristaltic pump and a two stage filtration system. Several of these design elements are innovative and conceptually proven through preliminary testing. These efforts are expected to net increased performance and differentiate STYX from other prototype submissions

The Homogeneity of Interstellar Oxygen in the Galactic Disk

We present an analysis of high resolution HST Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) observations of O I 1356 and H I Lyman-alpha absorption in 36 sight lines that probe a variety of Galactic disk environments and include paths that range over nearly 4 orders of magnitude in f(H_2), over 2 orders of magnitude in mean sight line density, and that extend up to 6.5 kpc in length. Consequently, we have undertaken the study of gas-phase O/H abundance ratio homogeneity using the current sample and previously published Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph (GHRS) results. Two distinct trends are identified in the 56 sight line sample: an apparent decrease in gas-phase oxygen abundance with increasing mean sight line density and a gap between the mean O/H ratio for sight lines shorter and longer than about 800 pc. The first effect is a smooth transition between two depletion levels associated with large mean density intervals; it is centered near a density of 1.5 cm^-3 and is similar to trends evident in gas-phase abundances of other elements. Paths less dense than the central value exhibit a mean O/H ratio of log_10 (O/H) = -3.41+/-0.01 (or 390+/-10 ppm), which is consistent with averages determined for several long, low-density paths observed by STIS (Andre et al. 2003) and short low-density paths observed by FUSE (Moos et al. 2002). Sight lines of higher mean density exhibit an average O/H value of log_10 (O/H) = -3.55+/-0.02 (284+/-12 ppm). The datapoints for low-density paths are scattered more widely than those for denser sight lines, due to O/H ratios for paths shorter than 800 pc that are generally about 0.10 dex lower than the values for longer ones.Comment: 33 pages, including 8 figures and 4 tables; accepted for publication in ApJ, tentatively in Oct 200