The role of the social worker in a Veterans Administration: a study of the dynamics of the intake process in cases of veterans presenting psychosomatic symptoms.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston Universit

Chaos-assisted depletion and quantum irreversibility for quasistatic protocols

In quantum mechanics, a driving process is expected to be reversible in the quasistatic limit, aka adiabatic theorem. This statement stands in opposition to classical mechanics, where mixed chaotic dynamics implies irreversibility. A paradigm for demonstrating the signatures of chaos in quantum irreversibility, is a sweep process whose objective is to transfer condensed bosons from a source orbital. Such protocol is dominated by an interplay of adiabatic-shuttling and chaos-assisted depletion processes. The latter is implied by interaction-terms that spoil the Bogolyubov integrability of the Hamiltonian. As the sweep rate is lowered, a crossover to a regime that is dominated by quantum fluctuations is encountered, featuring a breakdown of quantum-to-classical correspondence. The major aspects of this picture are not captured by the common two-orbital approximation, which implies failure of the familiar manybody Landau-Zener paradigm.Comment: 19 pages, 13 figure

A PROFITABILITY ANALYSIS OF DAIRY FEEDING SYSTEMS IN THE NORTHEAST

This study analyzes the use and profitability of three distinct feeding systems; confinement feeding, traditional grazing, and management-intensive grazing from a randomly selected sample of northeastern dairy farms. The confinement feeding farms were significantly larger and produced more milk per cow, while the farms using management-intensive grazing incurred the lowest production costs. Both confinement feeding and management-intensive grazing generated significantly higher rates of return to farm assets relative to farms using a mixed system. Multiple regression analysis confirms the critical importance of herd size, milk production per cow, debt level and veterinary expenses to farm profitability in all production systems.Livestock Production/Industries,

Cross compliance and competitiveness of the European beef and pig sector

Beef and pig production are important sectors affected by the cross-compliance policy. Full compliance with SMRs and GAECs generates costs and benefits which may have an impact on the competitiveness of these sectors on the world market. Compliance with the Nitrate Directive, animal identification and registration requirements and animal welfare standards can give rise to non-negligible cost of production increases at individual farm level and at sector level. Additional costs can be relevant either due to a low degree of compliance or by significant adjustments costs at farm level. Full compliance generates a level playing field between Member States of the EU, as some countries have to face higher additional costs than others, which are be attributed to differences in degree of compliance. This paper first presents evidence of additional costs at individual farm level due to full compliance. Then for beef and pork a methodology has been developed in order to calculate sector cost impacts following an upcsaling procedure for each of the analysed directives. Simulations with the GTAP model have enabled an assessment of the trade effect of compliance with standards and the impact on the external competitiveness of the EU beef and pork production. In some policy fields covered by cross-compliance important trade partners such as Canada, USA and New Zealand have implemented policies similar to the EU. In these three countries comparable standards to those in the EU were identified and the level and cost of compliance have been assessed. The pig sector will be affected most by a unilateral compliance with standards in the EU, in particular as the Nitrate Directive is concerned. Within the EU pig production costs will rise by 0.545 %. Imports may increase by 4% and exports may fall by 3%. However full application of the Clean Water Act in the US, which contains similar obligations to the Nitrate Directive, generates a significant sector cost increase (1,08%) which may counterbalance the loss of competitiveness of EU pork production towards the US. Compliance with the mandatory animal welfare standards has only minor cost implications and has negligible effects on external competitiveness of the EU both because of a high degree of compliance and relatively low adjustment costs at farm level. Finally, in many EU member states the degree of compliance of beef farms with the animal registration and identification directives is below 100%. Additional costs for full compliance within the EU have been estimated at 0.455%, which may cause an increase of beef imports of 2.21% and a decline of exports of ¿2.12%. This loss in competitiveness of the EU will further favour the position of Brazil on the world beef market. At the other hand significant benefits are obtained in food security of EU beef

CROSS COMPLIANCE AND COMPETITIVENESS OF THE EUROPEAN BEEF AND PIG SECTOR

Beef and pig production are important sectors affected by the cross-compliance policy. Full compliance with SMRs and GAECs generates costs and benefits which may have an impact on the competitiveness of these sectors on the world market. Compliance with the Nitrate Directive, animal identification and registration requirements and animal welfare standards can give rise to non-negligible cost of production increases at individual farm level and at sector level. Additional costs can be relevant either due to a low degree of compliance or by significant adjustments costs at farm level. Full compliance generates a level playing field between Member States of the EU, as some countries have to face higher additional costs than others, which are be attributed to differences in degree of compliance. This paper first presents evidence of additional costs at individual farm level due to full compliance. Then for beef and pork a methodology has been developed in order to calculate sector cost impacts following an upcsaling procedure for each of the analysed directives. Simulations with the GTAP model have enabled an assessment of the trade effect of compliance with standards and the impact on the external competitiveness of the EU beef and pork production. In some policy fields covered by cross-compliance important trade partners such as Canada, USA and New Zealand have implemented policies similar to the EU. In these three countries comparable standards to those in the EU were identified and the level and cost of compliance have been assessed. The pig sector will be affected most by a unilateral compliance with standards in the EU, in particular as the Nitrate Directive is concerned. Within the EU pig production costs will rise by 0.545 %. Imports may increase by 4% and exports may fall by 3%. However full application of the Clean Water Act in the US, which contains similar obligations to the Nitrate Directive, generates a significant sector cost increase (1,08%) which may counterbalance the loss of competitiveness of EU pork production towards the US. Compliance with the mandatory animal welfare standards has only minor cost implications and has negligible effects on external competitiveness of the EU both because of a high degree of compliance and relatively low adjustment costs at farm level. Finally, in many EU member states the degree of compliance of beef farms with the animal registration and identification directives is below 100%. Additional costs for full compliance within the EU have been estimated at 0.455%, which may cause an increase of beef imports of 2.21% and a decline of exports of –2.12%. This loss in competitiveness of the EU will further favour the position of Brazil on the world beef market. At the other hand significant benefits are obtained in food security of EU beef.Cross compliance, beef sector, pork sector, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q10, Q18,

Costs of compliance with EU regulations and competitiveness of the EU dairy sector

The introduction of cross-compliance mechanism in the European Union with its 2003 CAPreform might affect the costs of production and thus competitiveness of the EU. Little evidence is available to asses the costs of compliance with regulations and it implication for trade. In this study a farm level competitiveness analysis of the impacts of the Nitrate Directive and the Identification & registration Directive focuses on the dairy sector in Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and UK (within EU), and the US and New Zealand (outside EU). The findings from this study are integrated into a trade analysis which assesses the impact of compliance costs on competitiveness of the various trading nations in global trade. Representative farm studies were used as a basis for the cost increase calculations. Best-estimates of compliance are used from the existing literature and expert judgements. The negative impact of these measures (for nitrates, and animal identification and registration) on EU imports and exports are less than 3 percent. If a smaller increase in compliance takes place, these already relatively small trade impacts will be further diminished. When the standards for nitrate pollution taken by the US and New Zealand are taken into account along with full compliance assumption in all countries analysed, this would only slightly improve the EU exports. The trade impacts obtained when no changes are assumed to happen in key competitor countries can thus be argued as providing the upper bound of the likely trade impacts

Variation in carbon footprint of milk due to management differences between Swedish dairy farms

To identify mitigation options to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from milk production (i.e. the carbon footprint (CF) of milk), this study examined the variation in GHG emissions among dairy farms using data from previous CF studies on Swedish milk. Variation between farms in these production data, which were found to have a strong influence on milk CF were obtained from existing databases of e.g. 1051 dairy farms in Sweden in 2005. Monte Carlo analysis was used to analyse the impact of variations in seven important parameters on milk CF concerning milk yield (energy corrected milk (ECM) produced and delivered), feed dry matter intake (DMI), enteric methane emissions, N content in feed DMI, N-fertiliser rate and diesel used on farm. The largest between farm variation among the analysed production data were N-fertiliser rate (kg/ha) and diesel used (l/ha) on farm (coefficient of variation (CV) 31-38%). For the parameters concerning milk yield and feed DMI the CV was approx. 11 and 8%, respectively. The smallest variation in production data was found for N content in feed DMI. According to the Monte Carlo analysis, these variations in production data led to a variation in milk CF of between 0.94 and 1.33 kg CO2 equivalents (CO2e) per kg ECM, with an average value of 1.13 kg/CO2e kg ECM. We consider that this variation of ±17% that was found based on the used farm data would be even greater if all Swedish dairy farms were included, as the sample of farms in this study was not totally unbiased. The variation identified in milk CF indicates that a potential exists to reduce GHG emissions from milk production on both national and farm level through changes in management. As milk yield and feed DMI are two of the most influential parameters for milk CF, feed conversion efficiency (i.e. units ECM produced per unit DMI) can be used as a rough key performance indicator for predicting CF reductions. However, it must be borne in mind that feeds have different CF due to where and how they are produced

LTE1 promotes exit from mitosis by multiple mechanisms

In budding yeast, alignment of the anaphase spindle along the mother–bud axis is crucial for maintaining genome integrity. If the anaphase spindle becomes misaligned in the mother cell compartment, cells arrest in anaphase because the mitotic exit network (MEN), an essential Ras-like GTPase signaling cascade, is inhibited by the spindle position checkpoint (SPoC). Distinct localization patterns of MEN and SPoC components mediate MEN inhibition. Most components of the MEN localize to spindle pole bodies. If the spindle becomes mispositioned in the mother cell compartment, cells arrest in anaphase due to inhibition of the MEN by the mother cell–restricted SPoC kinase Kin4. Here we show that a bud-localized activating signal is necessary for full MEN activation. We identify Lte1 as this signal and show that Lte1 activates the MEN in at least two ways. It inhibits small amounts of Kin4 that are present in the bud via its central domain. An additional MEN-activating function of Lte1 is mediated by its N- and C-terminal GEF domains, which, we propose, directly activate the MEN GTPase Tem1. We conclude that control of the MEN by spindle position is exerted by both negative and positive regulatory elements that control the pathway’s GTPase activity.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant HD085866)National Cancer Institute (U.S.)David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. Support (Core) (Grant P30-CA14051