The Good Friday Agreement: An Overview

On 22 May, it received the overwhelming endorsement of the people of Ireland in referendums, North and South. For the first time, a precise mechanism has been defined - and accepted by the British Government - by which a united Ireland can be put in place, by the consent of Irish people and that alone. This involves setting up a new North-South Ministerial Council to develop consultation, co-operation and action within the island of Ireland on matters of mutual interest and establishing, as a start, at least six implementation bodies operating on a cross-border or all-island basis. The people, North and South, have endorsed the Agreement, including its constitutional provisions, in overwhelming numbers; elections to the Assembly in Northern Ireland have taken place and the Assembly has met; arrangements for reviewing prisoners\u27 sentences are in place, the programme of prisoner releases is at an advanced stage; the Commission on Policing has, for some months now, been proceeding with its programme of work and almost all prisoners in Britain have been transferred

Administrator Satisfaction with Long-term Care Foodservice

This study investigated the satisfaction levels of Michigan long-term care administrators to determine whether they are more satisfied with self-operated or contract managed food service at their facility. Using an on-line survey, administrator’s satisfaction levels with various aspects of their foodservice operations as well as demographic information about their facility was collected and analyzed. Data showed that 83% of administrators were satisfied or very satisfied with self-operated foodservice operations compared to 50% of those with contract foodservice. While too few responses were obtained to reliably determine the significance of the results, this preliminary study indicates a need for further investigation. The research findings could enhance long-term care administrator’s understanding of weaknesses and strengths in self-operated and contract managed foodservice and help them make foodservice decisions that will best maintain long-term care resident’s quality of life

OPTIMAL FRESH-PRODUCE PACKAGING: COST/PRODUCTION ANALYSIS OF PACKING STYLES IN THE SALINAS VALLEY

Agribusiness,

Who's in Charge Here? Some Case Studies about Leadership, Management and Control of Food Distribution Channels from a Value-System Perspective

Agribusiness,

Compactness of products of Hankel operators on the polydisk and some product domains in C2\mathbb{C}^2

Let $\mathbb{D}^n$ be the polydisk in $\mathbb{C}^n$ and the symbols $\phi,\psi\in C(\bar{\mathbb{D}^n})$ such that $\phi$ and $\psi$ are pluriharmonic on any $(n-1)$-dimensional polydisk in the boundary of $\mathbb{D}^{n}.$ Then $H^*_{\psi}H_{\phi}$ is compact on $A^2(\mathbb{D}^n)$ if and only if for every $1\leq j,k\leq n$ such that $j\neq k$ and any $(n-1)$-dimensional polydisk $D$, orthogonal to the $z_j$-axis in the boundary of $\mathbb{D}^n,$ either $\phi$ or $\psi$ is holomorphic in $z_k$ on $D.$ Furthermore, we prove a different sufficient condition for compactnes of the products of Hankel operators. In $\mathbb{C}^2,$ our techniques can be used to get a necessary condition on some product domains involving annuli.Comment: 9 pages. Fixed some typos, to appear in J. Math. Anal. App

A MULTIATTRIBUTE UTILITY ANALYSIS OF TECHNOLOGICAL CHOICE IN THE CALIFORNIA WILD RICE INDUSTRY

Technological choice and competitive strategy issues are reviewed and then a framework for choosing between two competing technologies is proposed.The two competing technologies differ in their ability to store and process wild rice over a marketing year. The traditional technologies requires almost immediate processing of the harvested wild rice while the experimental technology allows harvested wild rice to be stored and processed over the course of the marketing year. Technological choice is explored using multiattribute utility analysis and two economic evaluations. The economic evaluations are payback period analysis and internal rate of return analysis given uncertain demand conditions. The experimental technology is shown to be the dominant technological choice under both multiattribute utility analysis and the economic analyses.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

BREEDERS' AWARDS AND THE GAMBLER'S CORNER SOLUTION

Livestock Production/Industries,

CALIFORNIA FARMERS' MARKETS SELLER PRICE PERCEPTIONS: THE NORMATIVE AND THE POSITIVE

Demand and Price Analysis,

Graviton Production in Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collisions

We study the feasibility of producing the graviton of the novel Kaluza-Klein theory in which there are d large compact dimensions in addition to the 4 dimensions of Minkowski spacetime. We calculate the cross section for producing such a graviton in nucleus-nucleus collisions via t-channel photon-photon fusion using the semiclassical Weizsacker-Williams method and show that it can exceed the cross section for graviton production in electron-positron scattering by several orders of magnitude.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Electrostatic Contributions of Aromatic Residues in the Local Anesthetic Receptor of Voltage-Gated Sodium Channels

Antiarrhythmics, anticonvulsants, and local anesthetics target voltage-gated sodium channels, decreasing excitability of nerve and muscle cells. Channel inhibition by members of this family of cationic, hydrophobic drugs relies on the presence of highly conserved aromatic residues in the pore-lining S6 segment of the fourth homologous domain of the channel. We tested whether channel inhibition was facilitated by an electrostatic attraction between lidocaine and {pi} electrons of the aromatic rings of these residues, namely a cation-{pi} interaction. To this end, we used the in vivo nonsense suppression method to incorporate a series of unnatural phenylalanine derivatives designed to systematically reduce the negative electrostatic potential on the face of the aromatic ring. In contrast to standard point mutations at the same sites, these subtly altered amino acids preserve the wild-type voltage dependence of channel activation and inactivation. Although these phenylalanine derivatives have no effect on low-affinity tonic inhibition by lidocaine or its permanently charged derivative QX-314 at any of the substituted sites, high-affinity use-dependent inhibition displays substantial cation-{pi} energetics for 1 residue only: Phe1579 in rNaV1.4. Replacement of the aromatic ring of Phe1579 by cyclohexane, for example, strongly reduces use-dependent inhibition and speeds recovery of lidocaine-engaged channels. Channel block by the neutral local anesthetic benzocaine is unaffected by the distribution of {pi} electrons at Phe1579, indicating that our aromatic manipulations expose electrostatic contributions to channel inhibition. These results fine tune our understanding of local anesthetic inhibition of voltage-gated sodium channels and will help the design of safer and more salutary therapeutic agents