Structural Change in the U.S. Dairy Industry: Growth in Scale, Regional Shifts in Milk Production and Processing, and Internationalism

Structural changes in the U.S. dairy industry from the early 1980s to the late 1990s included familiar increases in concentration, industry adjustments to serve large supermarkets, the emergence of two national fluid milk firms (Suiza Foods and Dean Foods), and the emergence of two national dairy cooperatives (Dairy Farmers of America and Land O'Lakes, Inc.). Shifts in the location of milk production in the U.S. to the Western states have caused new dairy product manufacturing plants to locate in those states. This development promises to intensify battles over market share in the expanding U.S. cheese market between Western firms and Upper Midwestern firms. Foreign direct investment in the U.S. dairy industry--especially by European Union firms and a large Canadian firm--increased during the 1980s and 1990s. Facing challenges to expand dairy exports or shrink, the U.S. dairy industry probably will gravitate toward the latter unless government price support and trade policies change to increase price incentives for U.S. firms to export dairy products.

QCDSP: The first 64 nodes

We present a summary of the progress on QCDSP in the last year. QCDSP, Quantum Chromodynamics on Digital Signal Processors, is an inexpensive computer being built at Columbia that can achieve 0.8 teraflops for three million dollars.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Injectable versus Inhalational Anesthesia in Veterinary Medicine

Is the better, safer choice in small animal surgery injectible or inhalational anesthsesia? This poster outlines the advantages and disadvantages of the two, with a focus on two widely-used anesthetics, Ketamine and Isoflurane. This project is from the Natural Science Poster Session at Parkland Colleg

Unexpected Spin-Off from Quantum Gravity

We propose a novel way of investigating the universal properties of spin systems by coupling them to an ensemble of causal dynamically triangulated lattices, instead of studying them on a fixed regular or random lattice. Somewhat surprisingly, graph-counting methods to extract high- or low-temperature series expansions can be adapted to this case. For the two-dimensional Ising model, we present evidence that this ameliorates the singularity structure of thermodynamic functions in the complex plane, and improves the convergence of the power series.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; final, slightly amended version, to appear in Physica

The G protein-gated potassium current I(K,ACh) is constitutively active in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation

Background— The molecular mechanism of increased background inward rectifier current (IK1) in atrial fibrillation (AF) is not fully understood. We tested whether constitutively active acetylcholine (ACh)-activated IK,ACh contributes to enhanced basal conductance in chronic AF (cAF). Methods and Results— Whole-cell and single-channel currents were measured with standard voltage-clamp techniques in atrial myocytes from patients with sinus rhythm (SR) and cAF. The selective IK,ACh blocker tertiapin was used for inhibition of IK,ACh. Whole-cell basal current was larger in cAF than in SR, whereas carbachol (CCh)-activated IK,ACh was lower in cAF than in SR. Tertiapin (0.1 to 100 nmol/L) reduced IK,ACh in a concentration-dependent manner with greater potency in cAF than in SR (−logIC50: 9.1 versus 8.2; P<0.05). Basal current contained a tertiapin-sensitive component that was larger in cAF than in SR (tertiapin [10 nmol/L]-sensitive current at −100 mV: cAF, −6.7±1.2 pA/pF, n=16/5 [myocytes/patients] versus SR, −1.7±0.5 pA/pF, n=24/8), suggesting contribution of constitutively active IK,ACh to basal current. In single-channel recordings, constitutively active IK,ACh was prominent in cAF but not in SR (channel open probability: cAF, 5.4±0.7%, n=19/9 versus SR, 0.1±0.05%, n=16/9; P<0.05). Moreover, IK1 channel open probability was higher in cAF than in SR (13.4±0.4%, n=19/9 versus 11.4±0.7%, n=16/9; P<0.05) without changes in other channel characteristics. Conclusions— Our results demonstrate that larger basal inward rectifier K+ current in cAF consists of increased IK1 activity and constitutively active IK,ACh. Blockade of IK,ACh may represent a new therapeutic target in AF

Flavanols in grapevine: In vitro accumulation and defence reactions in shoots

Callus of two grapevine cultivars was cultivated for 4 weeks on MS-medium, half strength, which was additionally supplemented with abscisic acid (ABA), (+)-catechin or a combination of both. (+)-Catechin did not elevate the pool size of the callus flavanols. Application of 3 % sucrose caused a significant increase of the callus flavanols, whereas the response to ABA was quite variable. Leaves and shoots of cv. Spatburgunder (Pinot noir) were examined histologically on the mode of flavanol deposition. The flavanols of the leaf mesophyll were spread evenly throughout the central vacuole whereas those of the outer shoot cortex were confined to special intravacuolar globules. The amorphous leaf flavanols were converted into globdar ones in the vicinity of fungal infections. Apparently, the central vacuole acquires special adjustment under the influence of infection stress. When paraquat was applied to the shoots, amorphous material was attached towards the cell walls. Additionally, the globular flavanols disappeared which could be reversed by addition of (+)-catechin. Thus, (+)-catechin diminished the oxidative damage caused by the oxygen radical producing herbicide. (+)-Catechin and epicatechin are the dominant flavanols of the leaves, whereas the dimeric proanthocyanidins B3 and B1 (PAs) predominate in the callus

The K→(ππ)I=2K\to(\pi\pi)_{I=2} Decay Amplitude from Lattice QCD

We report on the first realistic \emph{ab initio} calculation of a hadronic weak decay, that of the amplitude $A_2$ for a kaon to decay into two \pi-mesons with isospin 2. We find Re$A_2=(1.436\pm 0.063_{\textrm{stat}}\pm 0.258_{\textrm{syst}})\,10^{-8}\,\textrm{GeV}$ in good agreement with the experimental result and for the hitherto unknown imaginary part we find {Im}$\,A_2=-(6.83 \pm 0.51_{\textrm{stat}} \pm 1.30_{\textrm{syst}})\,10^{-13}\,{\rm GeV}$. Moreover combining our result for Im\,$A_2$ with experimental values of Re\,$A_2$, Re\,$A_0$ and $\epsilon^\prime/\epsilon$, we obtain the following value for the unknown ratio Im\,$A_0$/Re\,$A_0$ within the Standard Model: $\mathrm{Im}\,A_0/\mathrm{Re}\,A_0=-1.63(19)_{\mathrm{stat}}(20)_{\mathrm{syst}}\times10^{-4}$. One consequence of these results is that the contribution from Im\,$A_2$ to the direct CP violation parameter $\epsilon^{\prime}$ (the so-called Electroweak Penguin, EWP, contribution) is Re$(\epsilon^\prime/\epsilon)_{\mathrm{EWP}} = -(6.52 \pm 0.49_{\textrm{stat}} \pm 1.24_{\textrm{syst}}) \times 10^{-4}$. We explain why this calculation of $A_2$ represents a major milestone for lattice QCD and discuss the exciting prospects for a full quantitative understanding of CP-violation in kaon decays.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Statistical analysis of adaptive maximum-likelihood signal estimator

Thesis (Elec. E.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-57).by Christ D. Richmond.Elec.E