Possible impact of CAP reform on Florida's citrus pulp industry

Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, International Relations/Trade,

An Overview of the Rotational Behavior of Metal--Poor Stars

The present paper describes the behavior of the rotational velocity in metal--poor stars ([Fe/H]<-0.5 dex) in different evolutionary stages, based on Vsini values from the literature. Our sample is comprised of stars in the field and some Galactic globular clusters, including stars on the main sequence, the red giant branch (RGB), and the horizontal branch (HB). The metal--poor stars are, mainly, slow rotators, and their Vsini distribution along the HR diagram is quite homogeneous. Nevertheless, a few moderate to high values of Vsini are found in stars located on the main sequence and on the HB. We show that the overall distribution of Vsini values is basically independent of metallicity for the stars in our sample. In particular, the fast-rotating main sequence stars in our sample present similar rotation rates as their metal-rich counterparts, suggesting that some of them may actually be fairly young, in spite of their low metallicity, or else that at least some of them would be better classified as blue straggler stars. We do not find significant evidence of evolution in Vsini values as a function of position on the RGB; in particular, we do not confirm previous suggestions that stars close to the RGB tip rotate faster than their less evolved counterparts. While the presence of fast rotators among moderately cool blue HB stars has been suggested to be due to angular momentum transport from a stellar core that has retained significant angular momentum during its prior evolution, we find that any such transport mechanisms must likely operate very fast as the star arrives on the zero-age HB (ZAHB), since we do not find a link between evolution off the ZAHB and Vsini values. We present an extensive tabulation of all quantities discussed in this paper, including rotation velocities, temperatures, gravitieComment: 22 pages, 10 figure

Evaluation of Impact of End-Of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (Elnec) Education On Registered Nurses

Seniors make up the fastest growing population in the United States. This population, with their multiple, chronic, progressive, ultimately terminal health conditions, is driving an urgent need to embed the knowledge and skills required to provide high-quality end-of-life (EOL) or palliative care within the education for nurses (Kelley & Meier, 2010). Although nurses routinely provide most of the care to patients at or near their EOL, studies report they feel unprepared for the challenge (Barrere, & Durkin, 2013). Regulatory and accrediting bodies have designated competencies for palliative care in the undergraduate nursing curriculum (Grant, 2013). Studies suggest that the EOL care receives even less attention in continuing education course work (Gillan, van der Riet, & Jeong, 2014). The recognition of the need for a skilled cadre of nurses committed to providing high-quality care for dying individuals and their families has led to adoption of the End Of Life Education Consortium (ELNEC) course for a volunteer group of nurses at a three hospital acute care system in an urban metropolitan area. ELNEC is international, evidence based, comprehensive program that utilizes mixed educational modalities (Grant et al., 2013). This study validated the findings of earlier work that administration of and ELNEC one day course demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in a volunteer sample of 29 nurses\u27 knowledge of palliative care. A limitation of this project is that it does not address nurses\u27 practice change resulting from knowledge acquisition. The greatest implication of this study is that with administrative support, the course would be expanded through the health care system, and promoted at the state wide level in order to acquire a critical mass of nurses able to practice excellent palliative care nursing

Prescription Drug Control Under the Federal Controlled Substances Act: A Web of Administrative, Civil, and Criminal Law Controls

This system of control seeks to limit the abuse of prescription medication in three ways through administrative, civil, and criminal restraints. First, it limits the quantity of prescription drugs that are produced each year. Annual quotas are established for the manufacture of controlled substances in Schedules I and II. Second, the system defines those situations in which such drugs can be legally prescribed or administered to persons in need. Third, the system attempts to deter individuals from obtaining such drugs from legitimate sources for other than legitimate needs

WDX-Analysis of the New Superconductors RO(1-x)F(x)FeAs and Its Consequences on the Electronic Phase Diagram

Polycrystalline samples of RO1-xFxFeAs (0 < x < 0.25) (R = La, Sm, Gd) were investigated by wavelength-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (WDX) in the electron microscope to determine the composition of the samples, in particular the fluorine content. It was found that the measured fluorine content can deviate considerably from the initial weight. In the lanthanum compound LaO1-xFxFeAs, we found good agreement mainly for x > 0.05, but for x < 0.05 the fluorine hardly goes into the sample. For the samarium compound we measured less than half the fluorine in the sample as initially weighed at all fluorine concentrations. These measured values are taken into account when drawing the electronic phase diagrams of LaO1-xFxFeAs and SmO1-xFxFeAs. This leads to a more consistent picture of both of the diagrams in comparison to the plot of the initial weight.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Journal of Superconductivity and Novel Magnetis

A Comparison of Interpolation Methods for Sparse Data: Application to Wind and Concentration Fields

In order to produce gridded fields of pollutant concentration data and surface wind data for use in an air quality model, a number of techniques for interpolating sparse data values are compared. The techniques are compared using three data sets. One is an idealized concentration distribution to which the exact solution is known, the second is a potential flow field, while the third consists of surface ozone concentrations measured in the Los Angeles Basin on a particular day. The results of the study indicate that fitting a second-degree polynomial to each subregion (triangle) in the plane with each data point weighted according to its distance from the subregion provides a good compromise between accuracy and computational cost