Implications of Neuroscience Developments in Understanding Human Behavior for Teaching Agricultural Economics/Agribusiness

neuroscience, behavioral economics, teaching, Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

State’s Net Farm Income Levels Tell Quite A Story

Nebraska’s 1999 net farm income levels document what people in the industry already knew – 1999 was not a good year for the agricultural economy. According to the recently released 1999 USDA net farm income statistics, Nebraska’s 1999 aggregate net farm income was estimated at $1.66 billion. This total falls 10 percent below the 1998 figure and nearly 18 percent below the annual average of the 1990’s (Table 1)

The interplay between a galactic bar and a supermassive black hole: nuclear fueling in a sub-parsec resolution galaxy simulation

We study the connection between the large-scale dynamics and the gas fueling toward a central black hole via the analysis of a Milky Way-like simulation at sub-parsec resolution. This allows us to follow a set of processes at various scales (e.g., the triggering of inward gas motion towards inner resonances via the large-scale bar, the connection to the central black hole via mini spirals) in a self-consistent manner. This simulation provides further insights on the role of shear for the inhibition of star formation within the bar in regions with significant amount of gas. We also witness the decoupling of the central gas and nuclear cluster from the large-scale disc, via interactions with the black hole. This break of symmetry in the mass distribution triggers the formation of gas clumps organised in a time-varying 250 pc ring-like structure, the black hole being offset by about 70 pc from its centre. Some clumps form stars, while most get disrupted or merge. Supernovae feedback further creates bubbles and filaments, some of the gas being expelled to 100 pc or higher above the galaxy plane. This helps remove angular momentum from the gas, which gets closer to the central dark mass. Part of the gas raining down is being accreted, forming a 10~pc polar disc-like structure around the black hole, leading to an episode of star formation. This gives rise to multiple stellar populations with significantly different angular momentum vectors, and may lead to a natural intermittence in the fueling of the black hole.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS, 15 pages, 13 figure

Thermal emittance measurements of a cesium potassium antimonide photocathode

Thermal emittance measurements of a CsK2Sb photocathode at several laser wavelengths are presented. The emittance is obtained with a solenoid scan technique using a high voltage dc photoemission gun. The thermal emittance is 0.56+/-0.03 mm-mrad/mm(rms) at 532 nm wavelength. The results are compared with a simple photoemission model and found to be in a good agreement.Comment: APL 201

Irreversibility at macromolecular scales in the flake graphite of the lithium-ion battery anode.

Charging a commercial lithium-ion battery intercalates lithium into the graphite-based anode, creating various lithium carbide structures. Despite their economic importance, these structures and the dynamics of their charging-discharging transitions are not well-understood. We have videoed single microcrystals of high-quality, natural graphite undergoing multiple lithiation-delithiation cycles. Because the equilibrium lithium-carbide compounds corresponding to full, half, and one-third charge are gold, red, and blue respectively, video observations give direct insight into both the macromolecular structures and the kinematics of charging and discharging. We find that the transport during the first lithiation is slow and orderly, and follows the core-shell or shrinking annuli model with phase boundaries moving at constant velocities (i.e. non-diffusively). Subsequent lithiations are markedly different, showing transport that is both faster and disorderly, which indicates that the initially pristine graphite is irreversibly and considerably altered during the first cycle. In all cases deintercalation is not the time-reverse of intercalation. These findings both illustrate how lithium enters nearly defect-free host material, and highlight the differences between the idealized case and an actual, cycling graphite anode

Total Value of Phosphorus Recovery

Phosphorus (P) is a critical, geographically concentrated, nonrenewable resource necessary to support global food production. In excess (e.g., due to runoff or wastewater discharges), P is also a primary cause of eutrophication. To reconcile the simultaneous shortage and overabundance of P, lost P flows must be recovered and reused, alongside improvements in P-use efficiency. While this motivation is increasingly being recognized, little P recovery is practiced today, as recovered P generally cannot compete with the relatively low cost of mined P. Therefore, P is often captured to prevent its release into the environment without beneficial recovery and reuse. However, additional incentives for P recovery emerge when accounting for the total value of P recovery. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the range of benefits of recovering P from waste streams, i.e., the total value of recovering P. This approach accounts for P products, as well as other assets that are associated with P and can be recovered in parallel, such as energy, nitrogen, metals and minerals, and water. Additionally, P recovery provides valuable services to society and the environment by protecting and improving environmental quality, enhancing efficiency of waste treatment facilities, and improving food security and social equity. The needs to make P recovery a reality are also discussed, including business models, bottlenecks, and policy and education strategies

Are Consumers as Constrained as Hens are Confined? Brain Activations and Behavioral Choices after Informational Influence

In 2008, California passed Proposition 2, specifying confinement space for certain farm animals. Proposition 2 went into full effect January 2015 and has significant implications for egg production in California and possibly even interstate commerce. We examined the influence of promotional videos aired during the campaign on consumers’ willingness-to-pay for eggs produced in a more open production system (i.e., cage-free, free range) and corresponding neurofunctional activations during decisions. Forty-six participants (24 females), aged 18–55 years (M=29.65), were enrolled and performed a food decision-making task during fMRI scanning. In each decision, two options of identical one dozen cartons of eggs were presented simultaneously. Below each option were two attributes, describing price and production method. Cage free and free-range eggs were more expensive, at varying degrees. Participants were randomized to one of three 30-second video groups: pro-Proposition 2, anti-Proposition 2, and a Neutral flowing stream. Based on a whole brain analysis, participants in the pro-Proposition 2 video group (N=16) demonstrated significantly greater activations post-video compared to pre-video in left insular cortex and right occipital cortex. This change in insula activity may be indicative of increased social risk involved with the purchase of closed production method eggs, driving participants to increase their percentage of decisions to purchase the higher priced, open-method eggs. It is possible that the insula activation indicates that consumers are constrained to choosing the eggs produced under open-cage production methods, after viewing advertisements advocating for Proposition 2

Neurofunctional Correlates of Ethical, Food-Related Decision-Making

A grant from the One-University Open Access Fund at the University of Kansas was used to defray the author’s publication fees in this Open Access journal. The Open Access Fund, administered by librarians from the KU, KU Law, and KUMC libraries, is made possible by contributions from the offices of KU Provost, KU Vice Chancellor for Research & Graduate Studies, and KUMC Vice Chancellor for Research. For more information about the Open Access Fund, please see http://library.kumc.edu/authors-fund.xml.For consumers today, the perceived ethicality of a food’s production method can be as important a purchasing consideration as its price. Still, few studies have examined how, neurofunctionally, consumers are making ethical, food-related decisions. We examined how consumers’ ethical concern about a food’s production method may relate to how, neurofunctionally, they make decisions whether to purchase that food. Forty-six participants completed a measure of the extent to which they took ethical concern into consideration when making food-related decisions. They then underwent a series of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans while performing a food-related decision-making (FRDM) task. During this task, they made 56 decisions whether to purchase a food based on either its price (i.e., high or low, the “price condition”) or production method (i.e., with or without the use of cages, the “production method condition”), but not both. For 23 randomly selected participants, we performed an exploratory, whole-brain correlation between ethical concern and differential neurofunctional activity in the price and production method conditions. Ethical concern correlated negatively and significantly with differential neurofunctional activity in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). For the remaining 23 participants, we performed a confirmatory, region-of-interest (ROI) correlation between the same variables, using an 8-mm3 volume situated in the left dlPFC. Again, the variables correlated negatively and significantly. This suggests, when making ethical, food-related decisions, the more consumers take ethical concern into consideration, the less they may rely on neurofunctional activity in the left dlPFC, possibly because making these decisions is more routine for them, and therefore a more perfunctory process requiring fewer cognitive resources

Federal Disaster Assistance after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Wilma, Gustav, and Ike

Report that provides information on federal financial assistance provided to the Gulf States after major disasters were declared in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas in response to the widespread destruction that resulted from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma in 2005 and Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008. This includes a brief summary of each hurricane and a discussion concerning federal to state cost-shares

Launch Environment Water Flow Simulations Using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

This paper describes the use of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) to simulate the water flow from the rainbird nozzle system used in the sound suppression system during pad abort and nominal launch. The simulations help determine if water from rainbird nozzles will impinge on the rocket nozzles and other sensitive ground support elements