Making Bank irrigation investments more sustainable

This paper is about sustainability of irrigation investments in both the financial and physical senses. Finance provides the claim on resources necessary to accomplish physical operations in an economic system, while physical operations provide a flow of services for which beneficiaries are willing to pay in terms of claims on resources. This paper discusses two polar models of irrigation finance, followed by a discussion of quality control in irrigation and reviews of World Bank irrigation pricing policy, irrigation cost recovery and operations and maintenance funding conditionality experience. It includes a discussion of reasons for noncompliance with Bank irrigation lending conditionality. A framework for the design of sustainable irrigation investments is presented and a summary of results and recommendations is given.Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Research,Drylands&Desertification,Agricultural Irrigation and Drainage,Banks&Banking Reform

Analyzing the effects of U.S. agricultural policy on Mexican agricultural markets using the MEXAGMKTS model

This paper uses results from simulations of the FAIRMODEL, USAGMKTS, and MEXAGMKTS models to analyze the effects of changes in U.S. agricultural policy on Mexican agricultural markets. The author concludes that under a scenario of trade liberalization for Mexico, Mexican agricultural production, prices, and trade are quite sensitive to agricultural policy changes in the U.S. The genesis of the research project was the perception that agricultural policies in Mexico (and many other countries) are often second best responses to the negative side effects of broad economic policies aimed primarily at macroeconomic and international trade objectives. The paper also discusses the role of agriculture in Mexican economic policy, and MEXAGMKTS, FAIR and USAGMKTS models. The paper includes an analysis of the sensitivity of Mexican agricultural markets to U.S. agricultural policy and a brief summary of the implications of the results.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Agricultural Research,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access

MEXAGMKTS : a model of crop and livestock markets in Mexico

The genesis of the model MEXAGMKTS was the perception that agricultural policies in Mexico (and many other countries) are often second-best responses to the negative side effects of broad macroeconomic and international trade policies. MEXAGMKTS was designed to allow analysis of the relationship between such agricultural policies and different macroeconomic and international trade regimes. MEXAGMKTS is part of a set of interlinked macroeconomic and sectoral models of Mexico and the United States (with enough specifications for the rest of the world to close the system). The authors discuss the historical context in which MEXAGMKTS was developed as well as its economic structure, estimates, and validation. They present a stand-alone, counterfactural application of a trade liberalization scenario for Mexico.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Agricultural Research,Access to Markets,Markets and Market Access

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Identification of seven new prostate cancer susceptibility loci through a genome-wide association study

Prostate cancer (PrCa) is the most frequently diagnosed male cancer in developed countries. To identify common PrCa susceptibility alleles, we have previously conducted a genome-wide association study in which 541, 129 SNPs were genotyped in 1,854 PrCa cases with clinically detected disease and 1,894 controls. We have now evaluated promising associations in a second stage, in which we genotyped 43,671 SNPs in 3,650 PrCa cases and 3,940 controls, and a third stage, involving an additional 16,229 cases and 14,821 controls from 21 studies. In addition to previously identified loci, we identified a further seven new prostate cancer susceptibility loci on chromosomes 2, 4, 8, 11, and 22 (P=1.6×10−8 to P=2.7×10−33)