Macroeconomic Impacts of Water Use in Agriculture

The recent/current recession provides the opportunity to study the effects of the macroeconomic changes on the agricultural production systems in the Great Plains and trace some of its impacts through the system to changes in primary inputs such water resource use. Therefore, the objective of the study reported here was to determine the effects of the changes in macroeconomic conditions driven by the 2008 recession on irrigated crop production in a portion of the Southern Great Plains and its impacts on water use. The approach for the study was to: (1) use the 10-year baseline FAPRI projections, based on changes in macroeconomic conditions, of agricultural commodity prices and input costs between the beginning of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, and (2) apply these different conditions within the Southern High Plains Ogallala Model (OM) in three counties representing different water situations and cropping patterns in the region. Overall results indicate that the 2008 recession likely had a relatively small impact on water use in the Southern Great Plains. Water use within the region is responsive to economic forces only when increased pumping flexibility exists; when water withdrawals are already at or near capacity, macroeconomic changes and changes in pumping costs and commodity prices are not likely to change water use.Ogallala Aquifer, recession, macroeconomic, Crop Production/Industries, Demand and Price Analysis, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Production Economics, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, E00, Q15, Q30, Q31,

The Impact of Spatial Variation in Land Use Patterns and Aquifer Characteristics on the Agricultural Cost of Groundwater Conservation for the Southern Ogallala Aquifer

Land Economics/Use,

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

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Macroeconomic Impacts of Water Use in Agriculture

The recent/current recession provides the opportunity to study the effects of the macroeconomic changes on the agricultural production systems in the Great Plains and trace some of its impacts through the system to changes in primary inputs such water resource use. Therefore, the objective of the study reported here was to determine the effects of the changes in macroeconomic conditions driven by the 2008 recession on irrigated crop production in a portion of the Southern Great Plains and its impacts on water use. The approach for the study was to: (1) use the 10-year baseline FAPRI projections, based on changes in macroeconomic conditions, of agricultural commodity prices and input costs between the beginning of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, and (2) apply these different conditions within the Southern High Plains Ogallala Model (OM) in three counties representing different water situations and cropping patterns in the region. Overall results indicate that the 2008 recession likely had a relatively small impact on water use in the Southern Great Plains. Water use within the region is responsive to economic forces only when increased pumping flexibility exists; when water withdrawals are already at or near capacity, macroeconomic changes and changes in pumping costs and commodity prices are not likely to change water use

Groundwater Policy Research: Collaboration with Groundwater Conservation Districts in Texas

The unique nature of the Ogallala Aquifer presents interesting and confounding problems for water policymakers who are coping with changing groundwater rules in Texas. The purpose of this article is to link previous efforts in water policy research for the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas with current collaborations that are ongoing with regional water planners. A chronological progression of economic water modeling efforts for the region is reviewed. The results of two recent collaborative studies are presented that provide estimates of impacts of alternative policies on groundwater saturated thickness, water use, net farm income, and regional economic activities

Groundwater Policy Research: Collaboration with Groundwater Conservation Districts in Texas

The unique nature of the Ogallala Aquifer presents interesting and confounding problems for water policymakers who are coping with changing groundwater rules in Texas. The purpose of this article is to link previous efforts in water policy research for the Ogallala Aquifer in Texas with current collaborations that are ongoing with regional water planners. A chronological progression of economic water modeling efforts for the region is reviewed. The results of two recent collaborative studies are presented that provide estimates of impacts of alternative policies on groundwater saturated thickness, water use, net farm income, and regional economic activities.groundwater economics, Ogallala Aquifer, Environmental Economics and Policy, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q30, Q32, Q38,

Mapping the proteo-genomic convergence of human diseases.

Characterization of the genetic regulation of proteins is essential for understanding disease etiology and developing therapies. We identified 10,674 genetic associations for 3892 plasma proteins to create a cis-anchored gene-protein-disease map of 1859 connections that highlights strong cross-disease biological convergence. This proteo-genomic map provides a framework to connect etiologically related diseases, to provide biological context for new or emerging disorders, and to integrate different biological domains to establish mechanisms for known gene-disease links. Our results identify proteo-genomic connections within and between diseases and establish the value of cis-protein variants for annotation of likely causal disease genes at loci identified in genome-wide association studies, thereby addressing a major barrier to experimental validation and clinical translation of genetic discoveries.The Fenland Study (10.22025/2017.10.101.00001) is funded by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12015/1). We further acknowledge support for genomics from the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_13046). ERG is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Awards R35HG010718, R01HG011138, R01GM140287, and NIH/NIA AG068026. MAW, MA, and GK are supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging (NIA): U01 AG061359, RF1 AG057452, and RF1 AG059093). JCZ is supported by a 4-year Wellcome Trust PhD Studentship and the Cambridge Trust; MK is supported by a Gates Fellowship; CL, EW, MP, JL, EO, IS, NK, and NJW are funded by the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00006/1 - Aetiology and Mechanisms). This work was supported in part by the UKRI/NIHR Strategic Priorities Award in Multimorbidity Research for the Multimorbidity Mechanism and Therapeutics Research Collaborative (MR/V033867/1)