A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS OF FACTORS INFLUENCING FARM MACHINERY PURCHASE DECISIONS

This paper presents a model of the farm management process. The model suggests that certain socioeconomic characteristics of farm managers will influence their decision-making process. Several characteristics are hypothesized an tested using multivariate techniques (multivariate analysis of variance, range tests, and multiple comparisons). The analysis indicates that the soil zone, value of machinery inventory, operator's age, and operator's education influence the importance placed on each of 20 factors. On the basis of the analysis it was concluded that such a model of the farm management process can contribute to an understanding of farm management decisions. In addition, it was concluded that farm managers, farm machinery dealers, and extension agents had significantly different perceptions of the importance of these factors to farm managers. This latter conclusion suggests that more research related to the actual process of decision making is warranted.Farm Management,

Spatio-Temporal Patterning in Primary Motor Cortex at Movement Onset

Voluntary movement initiation involves the engagement of large populations of motor cortical neurons around movement onset. Despite knowledge of the temporal dynamics that lead to movement, the spatial structure of these dynamics across the cortical surface remains unknown. In data from 4 rhesus macaques, we show that the timing of attenuation of beta frequency local field potential oscillations, a correlate of locally activated cortex, forms a spatial gradient across primary motor cortex (MI). We show that these spatio-temporal dynamics are recapitulated in the engagement order of ensembles of MI neurons. We demonstrate that these patterns are unique to movement onset and suggest that movement initiation requires a precise spatio-temporal sequential activation of neurons in MI

Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of the Nation\u27s Black Law Students: An Analysis of Data from the LSSSE Survey

This article proceeds in three substantive parts. In Part I, we discuss the changing racial and ethnic ancestries of Black people in the United States since affirmative action began. In Part II, we discuss the LSSSE data set that we use along with our weighting procedure based on the ABA data. Also in Part II, we discuss the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS), a subset of the American Community Survey (ACS). We use the ACS PUMS to provide comparative national data to analyze the relative representation of each group of Blacks among law students. In Part III, we present the primary results of this study. It is the heart of the article and deserves further exposition. In the first section of Part III, we present socioeconomic data on each of the examined groups to explain why we have separated them for analysis. Our primary assumptions are that Ascendant Blacks have more experience with the history of racial discrimination in the US and that this history has impacted them more. We point to differences in a number of socioeconomic factors that provide some support for these assumptions. In the second section of Part III, we use the LSSSE and ACS PUMS data to examine the relative representation of Ascendant and each group of Successive Blacks among law students and compare that with the relative representation of non-Hispanic, non-immigrant, non-multiracial White people, who we will refer to as “Whites.” We find that, save for Black Immigrants, Ascendant and Successive Blacks are underrepresented in law schools in comparison to their percentage in the population and that this underrepresentation is the most pronounced for Ascendant Blacks. Similarly, we examine the proportionate representation of Ascendant and Successive Blacks among students at top 50 law schools in the LSSSE survey and find that all of these groups are more underrepresented in top 50 law schools than in law schools in general and that once again this underrepresentation is greatest for Ascendant Blacks. We then discuss various “pipeline” issues that may contribute to this underrepresentation, including completion of a college degree, undergraduate grades and LSAT scores. In the third section of Part III, we use the LSSSE and ACS PUMS data to examine each group’s representation by gender. Given that for the past 30 years, over 60% of undergraduate degrees earned by Black people have gone to women,6 we document the gross underrepresentation of men for all groups of Black people in law school when compared to their percentage in the general population. Indeed, we find that all of the underrepresentation suffered by Black people in law schools is suffered by Black men and Ascendant Black women. Again, we examine attendance in top 50 law schools and consider potential pipeline issues, this time with an eye toward differences associated with gender. We find that Black men suffer greater underrepresentation among top 50 law school students and suffer greater pipeline issues, except that Black men score higher on the LSAT. Finally, in the fourth section of Part III, we examine the impact of class on Ascendant and Successive Blacks by examining the distribution of parental educational achievement for each group and estimating the payoff for each group in the percent of law students achieved for the parent’s generation that attains a given level of educational accomplishment. Corresponding numbers are calculated for Whites for purposes of comparison. We find that both Ascendant and Successive Blacks suffer relative to Whites due to a comparative lack of parental educational achievement, and a lower payoff in percent of law students for parental educational achievement, but that Ascendant Blacks suffer the most. Interestingly, with respect to the payoff in law students for parental educational achievement, we find that both Black people and Whites with low parental educational achievement attend law school at approximately the same (very low) rate. However, among those who enjoy the advantage of high parental educational achievement, Whites enjoy a significantly higher payoff than Black people in terms of the percent of law students resulting from a percent of the parents’ generation who achieve graduate degrees, although both Black people and Whites are much more likely to go to law school than the progeny of parents with low educational achievement. Apparently, at least with respect to attending law school, the advantages enjoyed by Whites accrue to the children of the higher educated to a significantly greater extent than they do to Black people

Large-scale Spatiotemporal Spike Patterning Consistent with Wave Propagation in Motor Cortex

Aggregate signals in cortex are known to be spatiotemporally organized as propagating waves across the cortical surface, but it remains unclear whether the same is true for spiking activity in individual neurons. Furthermore, the functional interactions between cortical neurons are well documented but their spatial arrangement on the cortical surface has been largely ignored. Here we use a functional network analysis to demonstrate that a subset of motor cortical neurons in non-human primates spatially coordinate their spiking activity in a manner that closely matches wave propagation measured in the beta oscillatory band of the local field potential. We also demonstrate that sequential spiking of pairs of neuron contains task-relevant information that peaks when the neurons are spatially oriented along the wave axis. We hypothesize that the spatial anisotropy of spike patterning may reflect the underlying organization of motor cortex and may be a general property shared by other cortical areas

Returns to the Jersey Fresh Promotional Program: The Impacts of Promotional Expenditures on Farm Cash Receipts in New Jersey

In 1984, the Jersey Fresh program was implemented by the New Jersey Department of Agriculture and was the first state-funded marketing campaign for agricultural products produced in New Jersey. In an effort to spur demand for New Jersey farm products, this program was designed to increase consumer awareness of the state’s agricultural products as well as to encourage food retailers to promote Jersey Fresh products. With funding from the USDA’s Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program, the New Jersey Department of Agriculture commissioned this study to determine the impact of Jersey Fresh promotion on farmer cash receipts in New Jersey. The econometric analysis was focused on the fruit and vegetable sectors, the primary commodity areas expected to benefit most directly from Jersey Fresh promotion. Study results show that: • For every dollar spent on the Jersey Fresh Promotional Program through 2000, New Jersey’s agricultural fruit and vegetable sector revenues increased by $31.54 (2003 dollars). • The additional economic activity created in the agricultural industry also had impacts on other parts of the economy, namely agricultural suppliers and service providers. In fact, each dollar spent on Jersey Fresh promotion resulted in an additional$22.95 of sales in agricultural support industries and other related industries. • In total, each dollar spent on Jersey Fresh promotion resulted in $54.49 of increased economic output in the State. Adjusting all dollars to 2003 levels, this means that the$1.16 million spent on the Jersey Fresh program in 2000 increased fruit and vegetable cash receipts by $36.6 million and created an additional$26.6 million in economic activity within agricultural support industries. The total statewide economic impact of the Jersey Fresh program was therefore an estimated $63.2 million. The economic activity generated through Jersey Fresh promotion also impacts local, state, and federal taxes. An analysis of these tax impacts shows that New Jersey’s State and local tax revenues increased by$2.2 million in 2000 due to the increased economic activity attributable to Jersey Fresh promotion. Comparing this return to the 2000 program budget of $1.16 million, the Jersey Fresh program appears to be better than revenue-neutral.Agribusiness, Marketing,

Clastic Sinkhole and Pseudokarst Development in East Texas

Pseudokarst development in East Texas is controlled primarily by a combination of suffosion and preferential flow paths, often creating small ephemeral sinkholes but occasionally persistent features develop in more indurated facies. Pseudokarst occurs in Claiborne (Eocene) strata in Angelina, Cherokee, Nacogdoches, Panola, Rusk, San Augustine and Shelby counties. Strata consist of interbedded fine- and coarse-grained clastics with variable cementation and associated permeabilities

Theoretical analysis of quantum random walks with stress-engineered optics

Quantum random walks (QRWs) are random processes in which the resulting probability density of the "walker" state, whose movement is governed by a "coin" state, is described in a non-classical manner. Previously, Q-plates have been used to demonstrate QRWs with polarization and orbital angular momentum playing the role of coin and walker states, respectively. In this theoretical analysis, we show how stress-engineered optics can be used to develop new platforms for complex QRWs through relative simple optical elements. Our work opens up new paths to speed up classical-to-quantum transitions in robust photonic networks

Solving Defender-Attacker-Defender Models for Infrastructure Defense

In Operations Research, Computing, and Homeland Defense, R.K. Wood and R.F. Dell, editors, INFORMS, Hanover, MD, pp. 28-49.The article of record as published may be located at http://dx.doi.org10.1287/ics.2011.0047This paper (a) describes a defender-attacker-defender sequential game model (DAD) to plan defenses for an infrastructure system that will enhance that system's resilience against attacks for an intelligent adversary, (b) describes a realistic formulation of DAD for defending a transportation network, (c) develops a decomposition algorithm for solving this instance of DAD and others, and (d) demonstrates the solution of a small transportation-network example. A DAD model generally evaluates system operation through the solution of an optimization model, and the decomposition algorithm developed here requires only that this system-operation model be continuous and convex. For example, our transportation-network example incorporates a congestion model with a (convex) nonlinear objective function and linear constraints