U.S. Cotton Subsidies: Are Brazil's Accusations True?

International Relations/Trade,

Determination of the Joint Confidence Region of Optimal Operating Conditions in Robust Design by Bootstrap Technique

Robust design has been widely recognized as a leading method in reducing variability and improving quality. Most of the engineering statistics literature mainly focuses on finding "point estimates" of the optimum operating conditions for robust design. Various procedures for calculating point estimates of the optimum operating conditions are considered. Although this point estimation procedure is important for continuous quality improvement, the immediate question is "how accurate are these optimum operating conditions?" The answer for this is to consider interval estimation for a single variable or joint confidence regions for multiple variables. In this paper, with the help of the bootstrap technique, we develop procedures for obtaining joint "confidence regions" for the optimum operating conditions. Two different procedures using Bonferroni and multivariate normal approximation are introduced. The proposed methods are illustrated and substantiated using a numerical example.Comment: Two tables, Three figure

Hard white winter wheat response to herbicides

Call number: LD2668 .T4 AGRN 1989 V56Master of ScienceAgronom

If the next president wants to put an ideologue on the Supreme Court, they will have to sacrifice their initial domestic policy goals.

One of the first tasks for the new president this January – whoever they may be – could be to nominate a new justice to the Supreme Court. But how should the next president go about this? In new research, Anthony J. Madonna, James E. Monogan III, and Richard L. Vining, Jr. find that the more a president supports a particular Supreme Court nominee, the lower the chance that they can get a major new policy initiative through the Senate. If the new president wishes to focus on achieving their policy goals in their first 150 days, they argue, they should compromise by appointing a moderate to the Supreme Court, rather than an ideologue

Efficiency in nanostructured thermionic and thermoelectric devices

Advances in solid-state device design now allow the spectrum of transmitted electrons in thermionic and thermoelectric devices to be engineered in ways that were not previously possible. Here we show that the shape of the electron energy spectrum in these devices has a significant impact on their performance. We distinguish between traditional thermionic devices where electron momentum is filtered in the direction of transport only and a second type, in which the electron filtering occurs according to total electron momentum. Such 'total momentum filtered' kr thermionic devices could potentially be implemented in, for example, quantum dot superlattices. It is shown that whilst total momentum filtered thermionic devices may achieve efficiency equal to the Carnot value, traditional thermionic devices are limited to efficiency below this. Our second main result is that the electronic efficiency of a device is not only improved by reducing the width of the transmission filter as has previously been shown, but also strongly depends on whether the transmission probability rises sharply from zero to full transmission. The benefit of increasing efficiency through a sharply rising transmission probability is that it can be achieved without sacrificing device power, in contrast to the use of a narrow transmission filter which can greatly reduce power. We show that devices which have a sharply-rising transmission probability significantly outperform those which do not and it is shown such transmission probabilities may be achieved with practical single and multibarrier devices. Finally, we comment on the implications of the effect the shape of the electron energy spectrum on the efficiency of thermoelectric devices.Comment: 11 pages, 15 figure

Supplementation of porcin in vitro maturation medium with FGF2, LIF, and IGF1 enhances cytoplasmic maturation in prepubertal gilts oocytes and improves embryo quality

In porcine production (IVP) systems, the use of oocytes derived from prepubertal gilts, whilst being commercially attractive, remains challenging due to their poor developmental competence following maturation (IVM). Follicular fluid contains important growth factors and plays a key role during oocyte maturation; therefore, it is a common supplementation for porcine IVM medium. However, follicular fluid contains many poorly characterized components, is batch variable, and its use raises biosecurity concerns. In an effort to design a defined IVM system, growth factors such as cytokines have been previously tested. These include leukaemia inhibitory factor (LIF), fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1), the combination of which is termed 'FLI'. Here, using abattoir-derived oocytes in a well established porcine IVP system, we compared follicular fluid and FLI supplementation during both IVM and embryo culture to test the hypothesis that FLI can substitute for follicular fluid without compromising oocyte nuclear and cytoplasmic maturation. We demonstrate that in oocytes derived from prepubertal gilts, FLI supplementation enhances oocyte meiotic maturation and has a positive effect on the quality and developmental competence of embryos. Moreover, for the first time, we studied the effects of follicular fluid and FLI combined showing no synergistic effects

A comparison of the hypoglycemic effect of insulin with systemic venous and portal venous administration

The hyperglycemic effect of insulin by prolonged intraportal and systemic infusion was measured in unanesthetized dogs with a modified portacaval transposition. There was no significant difference in response with the two routes of administration. The relation of these results to research directed to surgical therapy of diabetes is discussed. © 1963 W. B. Saunders Company