Economics of Homeland Security: Carcass Disposal and the Design of Animal Disease Defense

In an effort to bolster confidence and protect the nation the U.S. government through agencies like the Department of Homeland Security is identifying vulnerabilities and evolving strategies for protection. Agricultural food supply is one identified vulnerable area, and animal disease defense is one of the major concerns there under. Should an outbreak of animal disease occur, it is likely to have a mass slaughter and disposal of animal carcasses. The current existing policy, mainly including slaughter policy and strict movement bans, may be not sufficient to control disease spread at reasonable cost. We address the issue modeling vaccination as a supporting strategy with later slaughter of animals and argue that vaccination can decrease slaughter and disposal cost in the case of emergency. Our results show that (a) Vaccination gains time to slow down the flow of slaughter, thereafter the disposal operation of animal carcasses. By smoothing slaughter/disposal flow, vaccination likely decreases slaughter and disposal cost; (b) Vaccination likely reduce the total amount of slaughter and disposal of animals mainly because vaccinated animals shed less and disease spread slower; and (c) Vaccination becomes more valuable in reducing slaughter and disposal costs when the marginal cost of vaccination falls, the even size of disease outbreak is larger, the disease is more contagious and spreads faster, and/or vaccines are more effective in controlling disease spread.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Poisson Algebras and 3D Superintegrable Hamiltonian Systems

Using a Poisson bracket representation, in 3D, of the Lie algebra sl (2), we first use highest weight representations to embed this into larger Lie algebras. These are then interpreted as symmetry and conformal symmetry algebras of the “kinetic energy”, related to the quadratic Casimir function. We then consider the potentials which can be added, whilst remaining integrable, leading to families of separable systems, depending upon arbitrary functions of a single variable. Adding further integrals, in the superintegrable case, restricts these functions to specific forms, depending upon a finite number of arbitrary parameters. The Poisson algebras of these superintegrable systems are studied. The automorphisms of the symmetry algebra of the kinetic energy are extended to the full Poisson algebra, enabling us to build the full set of Poisson relations

The Impact of Disclosure Reform on the NZX's Financial Information Environment

This study investigates the impact of amendments to the New Zealand Exchange's listing rules and the Securities Markets Act 1988 enacted in December 2002. These reforms provided statutory backing for a continuous disclosure listing rule requiring companies to immediately release all price-sensitive information to investors. We follow the methodology employed by Helfin et al. (2003) to test the impact of Regulation FD in the US. Our results show that under New Zealand's continuous disclosure regime analysts' earnings forecast errors did not decline but that analysts' forecasts showed less dispersion in the post-reform period. In respect of informational efficiency we find a smaller abnormal return around the annual earnings announcement date in the post-reform period for small companies. Our results suggest that the reforms have improved the flow of information to investors consistent with the intent of the reform

Dihydropteroate synthase gene mutations in Pneumocystis and sulfa resistance

Pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) remains a major cause of illness and death in HIV-infected persons. Sulfa drugs, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole (TMP-SMX) and dapsone are mainstays of PCP treatment and prophylaxis. While prophylaxis has reduced the incidence of PCP, its use has raised concerns about development of resistant organisms. The inability to culture human Pneumocystis, Pneumocystis jirovecii, in a standardized culture system prevents routine susceptibility testing and detection of drug resistance. In other microorganisms, sulfa drug resistance has resulted from specific point mutations in the dihydropteroate synthase (DHPS) gene. Similar mutations have been observed in P. jirovecii. Studies have consistently demonstrated a significant association between the use of sulfa drugs for PCP prophylaxis and DHPS gene mutations. Whether these mutations confer resistance to TMP-SMX or dapsone plus trimethoprim for PCP treatment remains unclear. We review studies of DHPS mutations in P. jirovecii and summarize the evidence for resistance to sulfamethoxazole and dapsone

Equilibrium and kinetics of copper extraction from ammoniacal solutions by hydroxoximes with particular emphasis on transport phenomena

Journal ArticleThe chemistry of copper extraction from ammoniacal solutions by hydroxyoxime extractants was studied. Equilibrium measurements were made by shakeout experiments with subsequent analyasis of the aqueous and/or organic phases. The kinetic experiments were carried out in a single drop reaction cell in order to establish the details of the intrinsic reaction kinetics for this system

Plasma Damage on Low-k Dielectric Materials

Low dielectric constant (low-k) materials as an interconnecting insulator in integrated circuits are essential for resistance-capacitance (RC) time delay reduction. Plasma technology is widely used for the fabrication of the interconnects, such as dielectric etching, resisting ashing or stripping, barrier metal deposition, and surface treatment. During these processes, low-k dielectric materials may be exposed to the plasma environments. The generated reactive species from the plasma react with the low-k dielectric materials. The reaction involves physical and chemical effects, causing degradations for low-k dielectric materials. This is called “plasma damage” on low-k dielectric materials. Therefore, this chapter is an attempt to provide an overview of plasma damage on the low-k dielectric materials

Sistem Pakar Diagnosa Analisa Kerusakan Pada Sepeda Motor di SMK NU Ma’arif Kudus Menggunakan Forward Chaining”.

Thesis report entitled " Analysis Diagnosis Expert System Damage Motorcycles in SMK Maarif NU Holy Method Using Forward Chaining " was held on February 24, 2013 until March 24, 2013 . Motorcycle Damage Analysis System which has not been going pretty well , there are few problems that have problems in terms of speed and accuracy. By doing because it's in the design of a computerized system that analyzes Diagnosis Expert System Damage On this motor bike stol is a computer application to facilitate the process of consulting services on a motorcycle damage done online . This application is designed using modeling UML ( Unified Modeling Language ) . While the programming language used is PHP and using MySQL database . The results of the design of this system is to provide information to members about damage to the motorcycle and solutions

Regulation of Pyridine Nucleotide Metabolism in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

The levels of total nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP), and their redox states were determined as the function of growth in S. cerevisiae. Cells growing in a medium containing 0.8% glucose exhibit two phases of exponential growth, utilizing glucose and ethanol, respectively. The NAD pool is 50% reduced during both stages of growth while the NADP pool is 67% reduced in glucose growth and 48% reduced in ethanol growth. The NAD/NADP ratio is constant during growth on glucose and a two-fold increase in the NAD/NADP ratio occurs upon exhaustion of glucose. The increased ratio is maintained during growth on ethanol. This alteration in the regulation of the relative levels of NAD and NADP may be due to a change in the regulation of NAD kinase and/or NADP phosphatase activities. These changes may be related to the redox state of the NADP pool