The Impact of Organic Farming on the Rural Economy in England

This research report seeks to explore the hypothesis that organic farming provides an additional benefit to the rural economy over and above that of conventional agriculture, defined for the purposes of this project as "non-organic". The approach adopted involved tracing the socio-economic footprint of a range of farm business types. The concept of the socio-economic footprint represents a development of earlier research (Errington and Courtney 2000) tracing the economic footprints of small towns. In contrast to conventional economic analysis, the research focused on examining the socio-economic linkages associated with different types of farming such as sales and purchasing patterns but also evidence of social connectivity and embeddedness.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Farm Management,

Credibility and Policy Convergence: Evidence from U.S. House Roll Call Voting Records

Traditional models of politician behavior predict complete or partial policy convergence, whereby electoral competition compels partisan politicians to choose positions more moderate than their most-preferred policies. Alternatively, if politicians cannot overcome the inability to make binding pre-commitments to policies, the expected result is complete policy divergence. By exploiting a regression discontinuity (RD) design inherent in the Congressional electoral system, this paper empirically tests the strong predictions of the complete divergence hypothesis against the alternative of partial convergence within the context of Representatives' roll call voting behavior in the U.S. House (1946-1994). The RD design implies that which party wins a district seat is quasi-randomly assigned among elections that turn out to be 'close'. We use this variation to examine if Representatives' roll call voting patterns do not respond to large exogenous changes in the probability of winning the election, the strong prediction of complete policy divergence. The evidence is more consistent with full divergence and less consistent with partial convergence, suggestive that the difficulty of establishing credible commitments to policies is an important real-world phenomenon.

Whooping crane demographic responses to winter drought focus conservation strategies

AbstractFocusing conservation strategies requires identifying the demographic parameters and environmental conditions affecting the growth of animal populations most. Therefore, we examined relationships between population demographics and winter drought (1950–2011) for endangered whooping cranes (Grus americana) wintering in Texas, USA. We modeled winter loss and its contribution to annual mortality as functions of winter drought, determined recruitment needed to maintain population growth after drought, and identified which demographic parameters underpin this population’s growth. Previous research assumed winter loss (i.e., birds missed in subsequent surveys) represented mortality. We show that loss includes temporary emigration to upland habitats, early migration, and incomplete detection. Despite this, we maintained this assumption to evaluate the relevance of winter mortality to population growth. We found that winter loss (β^=-0.308, SE=0.042) and its contribution to annual mortality (β^=-0.318, SE=0.047) increased with drought severity (Palmer hydrological drought index; PHDI). Given average recruitment (0.145, SD=0.090), this population increases 1.2% (95% CI=−2.9% to 4.2%) after extreme drought (PHDI=−4). No recruitment must occur for 3years with moderate to severe drought (PHDI<−2.5) to delay species’ recovery ≈7years. This scenario has not occurred since population monitoring began in 1938. Of the demographic parameters we examined, winter loss explained population growth least (14.4%; 95% CI=3.6–35.8%), and it was partially compensatory. Breeding–migratory mortality explained 42.2% (95% CI=19.1–61.5%) of population growth and recruitment 49.9% (95% CI=20.6–75.2%). Our results focus conservation on breeding and migratory periods, and deemphasize winter mortality and drought. On the wintering grounds, conservation of whooping cranes should emphasize maintaining coastal, upland, and interior habitats for this population

Physical Characteristics, Hematology, and Serum Chemistry of Freeranging Gray Wolves, Canis lupus, in Southcentral Alaska

Examination of morphometric characteristics and blood parameters has become a widely used tool for assessing the physiological and nutritional status of wild and captive animals. During 1976 through 1984, 155 Gray Wolves (Canis lupus) were chemically immobilized in south-central Alaska. Of those, we obtained physical measurements from 132 and blood samples from 121 individuals. Also, 208 carcasses of harvested and dead radiocollared Wolves were weighed and measured. We obtained blood samples from three of the fresh carcasses. We measured age, body weight, skull length and width, and upper and lower canine length. We analyzed blood serum for Ca, P, Fe, chlorides, creatinine, glucose, lactic dehydrogenase, alkaline phosphatase, glutamic oxalic transaminase, triglyceride, beta globulin, serum urea nitrogen, and uric acid. We obtained packed cell volume and hemoglobin values from whole blood. We classified samples by season, sex, and age. Seasonal differences were observed for physical measurements, packed cell volume, alkaline phosphatase, and serum urea nitrogen. Age differences were observed for physical measurements, hemoglobin, packed cell volume, alkaline phosphatase, P, Ca, creatinine, serum urea nitrogen, and percent femur bone marrow fat. However, differences among sexes were observed for physical measurements only. These data provide a baseline for physical condition, hematology, and serum chemistry for free-ranging Gray Wolves

Motion artefact reduction for reflection-mode photoplethysmography

Photoplethysmography (PPG) is a technique that uses light to measure the local changes in blood-volume in subjects (predominantly humans). Multiple useful statistics can be gained from such a measurement; heart-rate and it's variability, blood-oxygen saturation and even an estimation of blood pressure, to name but a few. Compared to other measurement techniques, photoplethysmography is favourable as it is both non-invasive, since nothing physical penetrates the subjects skin, and safe, as the subject is galvanically isolated from the test equipment (additional benefits also exist). Motion artefacts (errors in the measured signal caused by physical movement) are the largest source of error when photoplethysmographic measurements are made, and with the majority of applications involving some form of movement, a motion-tolerant PPG extraction technique would allow for more precise recordings/research/diagnosis etc. This thesis presents the development of an improved photoplethysmography technique that has increased resilience to motion. The developed technique uses multiple PPG measurements at different locations to reconstruct a single PPG signal. It is shown that despite the signals being taken in close proximity to each other (less than 3 cm separation between the farthest elements), the variation in the signals gives sufficient redundancy to extract the uncorrupted PPG to a much higher accuracy using Independent Component Analysis, achieving in the worst case, a 78% reduction in the calculated artefact presence (using quality calculating functions, also presented). As the vast majority of existing PPG systems use a single sensing element, it is hypothesised that such systems cannot be used to accurately and continuously detect the PPG for most motion types and severities. A working prototype of the developed system is demonstrated and directly compared to a single-channel system, showing its effectiveness

The Cytokine Release Inhibitory Drug CRID3 Targets ASC Oligomerisation in the NLRP3 and AIM2 Inflammasomes

Background: The Inflammasomes are multi-protein complexes that regulate caspase-1 activation and the production of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-1 beta. Previous studies identified a class of diarylsulfonylurea containing compounds called Cytokine Release Inhibitory Drugs (CRIDs) that inhibited the post-translational processing of IL-1 beta. Further work identified Glutathione S-Transferase Omega 1 (GSTO1) as a possible target of these CRIDs. This study aimed to investigate the mechanism of the inhibitory activity of the CRID CP-456,773 (termed CRID3) in light of recent advances in the area of inflammasome activation, and to clarify the potential role of GSTO1 in the regulation of IL-1 beta production