Changing Farm Structure and the Distribution of Farm Payments and Federal Crop Insurance

The distribution of commodity-related payments and Federal crop insurance indemnities to U.S. farmers has shifted to larger farms as more and more U.S. agricultural production is done on those farms. Since the operators of larger farms tend to have higher household incomes than other farm operators, commodity-related program payments and Federal crop insurance indemnities also have shifted to higher income households. By 2009, half of commodity-related program payments went to farms operated by households earning over $89,540, a quarter went to farms operated by households with incomes greater than$209,000 and 10 percent went to farms operated by households with incomes of at least $425,000. Current income eligibility caps and payment limits affect few farm households because most of them have incomes below the income caps or receive payments less than the payment limits. Based on 2009 Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) data, recent proposals to lower those income caps and payment limits would still affect only a small percentage of U.S. farm households, because their incomes would still fall below the proposed income caps and payment limits. Total Government program payments to U.S. farms were$12.3 billion in 2009. Total Federal crop insurance indemnity payments were $5.2 billion in 2009.farm program payments, Federal crop insurance, Agricultural Resource Management Survey, structural change, income caps, payment limits., Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Industrial Organization, Public Economics,

Who Gentrifies Low-income Neighborhoods?

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long-Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990’s. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level with a narrower definition of gentrification and more narrowly defined comparison neighborhoods. The analysis is also richly disaggregated by demographic characteristic, uncovering differential patterns by race, education, age and family structure that would not have emerged in the more aggregate analysis in previous studies. The results provide little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods. The bulk of the income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods are attributed to white college graduates and black high school graduates. It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of gentrification.gentrification, neighborhood change, migration

Plant-level Productivity and Imputation of Missing Data in U.S. Census Manufacturing Data

Within-industry differences in measured plant-level productivity are large. A large literature has been devoted to explaining the causes and consequences of these differences. In the U.S. Census Bureau's manufacturing data, the Bureau imputes for missing values using methods known to result in underestimation of variability and potential bias in multivariate inferences. We present an alternative strategy for handling the missing data based on multiple imputation via sequences of classification and regression trees. We use our imputations and the Bureau's imputations to estimate within-industry productivity dispersions. The results suggest that there is more within-industry productivity dispersion than previous research has indicated. We also estimate relationships between productivity and market structure and between output prices, capital, and the probability of plant exit (controlling for productivity) based on the improved imputations. For some estimands, we find substantially different results than those based on the Census Bureau's imputations.

Targeting Mr Average: Participation, gender equity and school sport partnerships

The School Sport Partnership Programme (SSPP) is one strand of the national strategy for physical education and school sport in England, the physical education and school sport Club Links Strategy (PESSCL). The SSPP aims to make links between school physical education (PE) and out of school sports participation, and has a particular remit to raise the participation levels of several identified under-represented groups, of which girls and young women are one. National evaluations of the SSPP show that it is beginning to have positive impacts on young people's activity levels by increasing the range and provision of extra curricular activities (Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), 2003, 2004, 2005; Loughborough Partnership, 2005, 2006). This paper contributes to the developing picture of the phased implementation of the programme by providing qualitative insights into the work of one school sport partnership with a particular focus on gender equity. The paper explores the ways in which gender equity issues have been explicitly addressed within the 'official texts' of the SSPP; how these have shifted over time and how teachers are responding to and making sense of these in their daily practice. Using participation observation, interview and questionnaire data, the paper explores how the coordinators are addressing the challenge of increasing the participation of girls and young women. The paper draws on Walby's (2000) conceptualisation of different kinds of feminist praxis to highlight the limitations of the coordinators' work. Two key themes from the data and their implications are addressed: the dominance of competitive sport practices and the PE professionals' views of targeting as a strategy for increasing the participation of under-represented groups. The paper concludes that coordinators work within an equality or difference discourse with little evidence of the transformative praxis needed for the programme to be truly inclusive. © 2008 Taylor & Francis

Who Gentrifies Low-income Neighborhoods?

This paper uses confidential Census data, specifically the 1990 and 2000 Census Long-Form data, to study the demographic processes underlying the gentrification of low income urban neighborhoods during the 1990’s. In contrast to previous studies, the analysis is conducted at the more refined census-tract level with a narrower definition of gentrification and more narrowly defined comparison neighborhoods. The analysis is also richly disaggregated by demographic characteristic, uncovering differential patterns by race, education, age and family structure that would not have emerged in the more aggregate analysis in previous studies. The results provide little evidence of displacement of low-income non-white households in gentrifying neighborhoods. The bulk of the income gains in gentrifying neighborhoods are attributed to white college graduates and black high school graduates. It is the disproportionate in-migration of the former and the disproportionate retention and income gains of the latter that appear to be the main engines of gentrification

Keck Hires Observations of the QSO First J104459.6+365605: Evidence for a Large Scale Outflow

This paper presents an analysis of a Keck HIRES spectrum of the QSO FIRST J104459.6+365605. The line of sight towards the QSO contains two clusters of outflowing clouds that give rise to broad blue shifted absorption lines. The outflow velocities of the clouds range from -200 to -1200 km/s and from -3400 to -5200 km/s, respectively. The width of the individual absorption lines ranges from 50 to more than 1000 km/s. The most prominent absorption lines are those of Mg II, Mg I, and Fe II. The low ionization absorption lines occur at the same velocities as the most saturated Mg II lines, showing that the Fe II, Mg I and Mg II line forming regions must be closely associated. Many absorption lines from excited states of Fe II are present, allowing a determination of the population of several low lying energy levels. From this we determine an electron density in the Fe II line forming regions of 4000 per cubic cm. Modelling the ionization state of the absorbing gas with this value of the electron density as a constraint, we find that the distance between the Fe II and Mg I line forming region and the continuum source is of order 700 parsec. From the correspondence in velocity between the Fe II, Mg I and Mg II lines we infer that the Mg II lines must be formed at the same distance. The Mg II absorption fulfills the criteria for Broad Absorption Lines defined by Weymann et al. (1991). This large distance is surprising, since BALs are generally thought to be formed in outflows at a much smaller distance from the nucleus.Comment: 34 pages, 11 figures. Accepted by The Astrophysical Journa

The Herschel view of the on-going star formation in the Vela-C molecular cloud

As part of the Herschel guaranteed time key program 'HOBYS', we present the photometric survey of the star forming region Vela-C, one of the nearest sites of low-to-high-mass star formation in the Galactic plane. Vela-C has been observed with PACS and SPIRE in parallel mode between 70 um and 500 um over an area of about 3 square degrees. A photometric catalogue has been extracted from the detections in each band, using a threshold of 5 sigma over the local background. Out of this catalogue we have selected a robust sub-sample of 268 sources, of which 75% are cloud clumps and 25% are cores. Their Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) have been fitted with a modified black body function. We classify 48 sources as protostellar and 218 as starless. For two further sources, we do not provide a secure classification, but suggest they are Class 0 protostars. From SED fitting we have derived key physical parameters. Protostellar sources are in general warmer and more compact than starless sources. Both these evidences can be ascribed to the presence of an internal source(s) of moderate heating, which also causes a temperature gradient and hence a more peaked intensity distribution. Moreover, the reduced dimensions of protostellar sources may indicate that they will not fragment further. A virial analysis of the starless sources gives an upper limit of 90% for the sources gravitationally bound and therefore prestellar. We fit a power law N(logM) prop M^-1.1 to the linear portion of the mass distribution of prestellar sources. This is in between that typical of CO clumps and those of cores in nearby star-forming regions. We interpret this as a result of the inhomogeneity of our sample, which is composed of comparable fractions of clumps and cores.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted by A&

Let’s celebrate recovery. Inclusive Cities working together to support social cohesion

Recovery from illicit drug and alcohol use takes place over time and is characterised by a dynamic interaction between internal and external components. An integral part of all recovery journeys is effective community reintegration. After all, recovery is not mainly an issue of personal motivation rather it is about acceptance by family, by friends and by a range of organisations and professionals across the community. Therefore to support pathways to recovery, structural and contextual endeavours are needed to supplement individually-oriented interventions and programmes. One way to do this, is by introducing Inclusive Cities. An Inclusive City promotes participation, inclusion, full and equal citizenship to all her citizens, including those in recovery, based on the idea of community capital. The aim of building recovery capital at a community level through connections and 'linking social capital' to challenge stigmatisation and exclusion, is seen as central to this idea. Inclusive Cities is an initiative to support the creation of Recovery-Oriented Systems of Care at a city level, that starts with but extends beyond substance using populations. This paper describes (and gives examples of) how it is possible to use recovery as a starting point for generating social inclusion, challenging the marginalisation of other excluded populations as well by building community connections

Herschel Observations of a Potential Core Forming Clump: Perseus B1-E

We present continuum observations of the Perseus B1-E region from the Herschel Gould Belt Survey. These Herschel data reveal a loose grouping of substructures at 160 - 500 micron not seen in previous submillimetre observations. We measure temperature and column density from these data and select the nine densest and coolest substructures for follow-up spectral line observations with the Green Bank Telescope. We find that the B1-E clump has a mass of ~ 100 solar masses and appears to be gravitationally bound. Furthermore, of the nine substructures examined here, one substructure (B1-E2) appears to be itself bound. The substructures are typically less than a Jeans length from their nearest neighbour and thus, may interact on a timescale of ~ 1 Myr. We propose that B1-E may be forming a first generation of dense cores, which could provide important constraints on the initial conditions of prestellar core formation. Our results suggest that B1-E may be influenced by a strong, localized magnetic field, but further observations are still required.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, published in A&A: Minor calibration correctio