Working-Land Conservation Structures: Evidence on Program and Non-Program Participants

In recent years, the Federal government has placed more emphasis on working-land conservation programs. Farmers can be reimbursed for adopting certain conservation practices, such as the installation of in-field or perimeter conservation structures, to enhance water quality and soil productivity. In an effort to better understand the relationships between operator motivations, program incentives, and the environmental benefits of conservation programs, a multi-agency survey, the Conservation Effects Assessment Project-Agricultural Resources Management Survey (CEAP-ARMS), was conducted in 2004 across 16 states representing more than one-million farmers growing wheat. The nationally representative survey integrates Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) data on field-level physical characteristics, program information, farm-level costs of production, and farm household information. This objective of this paper is twofold. First, using the CEAP-ARMS, farm structure, household, and operator characteristics of farmers participating in one or more conservation programs are compared with farmers not participating in a conservation program. Second, an impact model is specified to test whether program participants allocated more acres to in-field or perimeter conservation structures than nonparticipants, holding other factors constant. Evidence suggests that program participants allocate more field acres to vegetative conservation structures than nonparticipants with in-field or perimeter conservation structures.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Precision of the determination of focal depth from the spectral ratio of Love/Rayleigh surface waves

The precision with which the focal depth may be determined using Love/Rayleigh-wave spectral ratios depends on the accuracy of the models for Earth structure and for source mechanism used in the focal depth calculations. Estimates of the precision of the focal depth determination are obtained using the partial derivatives of Love/Rayleigh spectral ratios with respect to the parameters: focal depth, shear velocity, dip angle, and slip angle. We find that errors caused by imprecise knowledge of any of these parameters can be important in practice

Tumor necrosis factor inhibitor therapy but not standard therapy is associated with resolution of erosion in the sacroiliac joints of patients with axial spondyloarthritis

INTRODUCTION: Radiography is an unreliable and insensitive tool for the assessment of structural lesions in the sacroiliac joints (SIJ). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) detects a wider spectrum of structural lesions but has undergone minimal validation in prospective studies. The Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) MRI Sacroiliac Joint (SIJ) Structural Score (SSS) assesses a spectrum of structural lesions (erosion, fat metaplasia, backfill, ankylosis) and its potential to discriminate between therapies requires evaluation. METHODS: The SSS score assesses five consecutive coronal slices through the cartilaginous portion of the joint on T1-weighted sequences starting from the transitional slice between cartilaginous and ligamentous portions of the joint. Lesions are scored dichotomously (present/absent) in SIJ quadrants (fat metaplasia, erosion) or halves (backfill, ankylosis). Two readers independently scored 147 pairs (baseline, 2 years) of scans from a prospective cohort of patients with SpA who received either standard (n = 69) or tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) inhibitor (n = 78) therapy. Smallest detectable change (SDC) was calculated using analysis of variance (ANOVA), discrimination was assessed using Guyatt’s effect size, and treatment group differences were assessed using t-tests and the Mann–Whitney test. We identified baseline demographic and structural damage variables associated with change in SSS score by univariate analysis and analyzed the effect of treatment by multivariate stepwise regression adjusted for severity of baseline structural damage and demographic variables. RESULTS: A significant increase in mean SSS score for fat metaplasia (P = 0.017) and decrease in mean SSS score for erosion (P = 0.017) was noted in anti-TNFα treated patients compared to those on standard therapy. Effect size for this change in SSS fat metaplasia and erosion score was moderate (0.5 and 0.6, respectively). Treatment and baseline SSS score for erosion were independently associated with change in SSS erosion score (β = 1.75, P = 0.003 and β = 0.40, P < 0.0001, respectively). Change in ASDAS (β = −0.46, P = 0.006), SPARCC MRI SIJ inflammation (β = −0.077, P = 0.019), and baseline SSS score for fat metaplasia (β = 0.085, P = 0.034) were independently associated with new fat metaplasia. CONCLUSION: The SPARCC SSS method for assessment of structural lesions has discriminative capacity in demonstrating significantly greater reduction in erosion and new fat metaplasia in patients receiving anti-TNFα therapy

Chiasma

Newspaper reporting on events at the Boston University School of Medicine in the 1960s

LocalControl: An R Package for Comparative Safety and Effectiveness Research

The LocalControl R package implements novel approaches to address biases and confounding when comparing treatments or exposures in observational studies of outcomes. While designed and appropriate for use in comparative safety and effectiveness research involving medicine and the life sciences, the package can be used in other situations involving outcomes with multiple confounders. LocalControl is an open-source tool for researchers whose aim is to generate high quality evidence using observational data. The package implements a family of methods for non-parametric bias correction when comparing treatments in observational studies, including survival analysis settings, where competing risks and/or censoring may be present. The approach extends to bias-corrected personalized predictions of treatment outcome differences, and analysis of heterogeneity of treatment effect-sizes across patient subgroups

Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) Metabolic Profiling to Distinguish Herds of Bighorn Sheep

The objective of this study was to determine if nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) metabolic profiling has the potential to serve as a management tool for evaluating herds of bighorn (Ovis canadensis) sheep. Two-hundred and forty bighorn sheep serum samples from 13 herds located in Montana and Wyoming were processed for NMR spectra, profiled for small molecule metabolites using Chenomx®, and then analyzed with MetaboAnalyst (v3.0). Fifty-six small molecule metabolites were identified in ungulate serum.  To determine if NMR metabolic profiles can distinguish herds that are geographically distinct with access to different nutritional resources, herds collected in December were compared to herds collected in March. Partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) indicated a clear, majority separation of metabolic shifts with minor overlaps. Biomarker analysis identified 15 potential biomarkers from the compounds with variables of importance (VIP) scores greater than 1.0. These molecules enabled us to identify ‘significantly’ important metabolic pathways that discriminate herds sampled in December and herds sampled in March. Key biomarkers resulting from the pathway analysis, included: 2-oxoisocaproate, choline, tyrosine, creatinine, and trimethylamine n-oxide. To determine if metabolic profiling can distinguish individual herds within a month, herds in December, January and March were compared to a domestic, Rambouillet ewes (control) sampled during the sample months.  PLS-DA of all herds showed clear metabolic shifts and complete separation between each individual herd and the control ewes for each month. Potential biomarkers for herds within a season that were found to be good discriminants for the December herds included: trimethylamine n-oxide and sarcosine; for January herds included: creatinine and asparagine; and, for March herd included, creatinine. Through identification of small molecule metabolites, it is possible to discriminate herds from each other within and between seasons. These biomarkers represent a potential panel of metabolites that may be used for assessing nutritional status, environmental stress, and herd health through the identification of significantly important metabolic pathways related to energy and protein balance

Professional Decisions and Ethical Values in Medical and Law Students

The purpose of this project is to evaluate and compare the values used by medical and law students when dealing with ethical dilemmas in the professional practice of law and medicine. It is assumed that conflict between doctors and lawyers often arises out of the different values that members of each profession apply to similar dilemmas

State of Vermont Health Care Financing Plan Beginning Calendar Year 2017 Analysis

This report, prepared for the Vermont Agency of Administration, details the costs and coverage of a single-payer system in Vermont, and explained that the state must develop new financing mechanisms that raise $1.6 billion to fund single-payer. It was produced in partnership with Wakely Consulting Group Inc. However, on December 17, 2014, Gov. Peter Shumlin announced that now is not the right time to overhaul health care financing and delivery in Vermont

Oxygen Abundances in Two Metal-Poor Subgiants from the Analysis of the 6300 A Forbidden O I Line

Recent LTE analyses (Israelian et al. 1998 and Bosegaard et al. 1999) of the OH bands in the optical-ultraviolet spectra of nearby metal-poor subdwarfs indicate that oxygen abundances are generally higher than those previously determined. The difference increases with decreasing metallicity and reaches delta([O/Fe]) ~ +0.6 dex as [Fe/H] approaches -3.0. Employing high resolution (R = 50000), high S/N (~ 250) echelle spectra of the two stars found by Israelian et al. (1998) to have the highest [O/Fe]-ratios, viz, BD +23 3130 and BD +37 1458, we conducted abundance analyses based on about 60 Fe I and 7-9 Fe II lines. We determined from Kurucz LTE models the values of the stellar parameters, as well as abundances of Na, Ni, and the traditional alpha-elements, independent of the calibration of color vs $T_{eff}$ scales. We determined oxygen abundances from spectral synthesis of the stronger line (6300 A) of the [O I] doublet. The syntheses of the [O I] line lead to smaller values of [O/Fe], consistent with those found earlier among halo field and globular cluster giants. We obtain [O/Fe] = +0.35 +/- 0.2 for BD +23 3130 and +0.50 +/- 0.2 for BD +37 1458. In the former, the [O I] line is very weak (~ 1 mA), so that the quoted [O/Fe] value may in reality be an upper limit. Therefore in these two stars a discrepancy exists between the [O/Fe]- ratios derived from [O I] and the OH feature, and the origin of this difference remains unclear. Until the matter is clarified, we suggest it is premature to conclude that the ab initio oxygen abundances of old, metal-poor stars need to be revised drastically upward.Comment: 38 pages, 5 tables, 14 figures To appear in July 1999 AJ Updated April 16, 1999. Fixed typo

Solving Four Dimensional Field Theories with the Dirichlet Fivebrane

The realization of ${\cal N}=2$ four dimensional super Yang-Mills theories in terms of a single Dirichlet fivebrane in type IIB string theory is considered. A classical brane computation reproduces the full quantum low energy effective action. This result has a simple explanation in terms of mirror symmetry.Comment: Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.