POLICIES FOR NONCOMMERCIAL FARMS

Agricultural and Food Policy,

FISCAL POLICY AND INFLATION

Financial Economics,

NONFARM INVESTORS AND BEEF BREEDING HERDS -- INCENTIVES AND CONSEQUENCES

Livestock Production/Industries,

Metabolic Effects of Bariatric Surgery in Mouse Models of Circadian Disruption

Background/Objectives: Mounting evidence supports a link between circadian disruption and metabolic disease. Humans with circadian disruption (for example, night-shift workers) have an increased risk of obesity and cardiometabolic diseases compared with the non-disrupted population. However, it is unclear whether the obesity and obesity-related disorders associated with circadian disruption respond to therapeutic treatments as well as individuals with other types of obesity. Subjects/Methods: Here, we test the effectiveness of the commonly used bariatric surgical procedure, Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (VSG), in mouse models of genetic and environmental circadian disruption. Results: VSG led to a reduction in body weight and fat mass in both ClockΔ19 mutant and constant-light mouse models (PP\u3e0.05). Within circadian-disrupted models, VSG also led to improved glucose tolerance and lipid handling (P\u3c0.05). Conclusions: Together these data demonstrate that VSG is an effective treatment for the obesity associated with circadian disruption, and that the potent effects of bariatric surgery are orthogonal to circadian biology. However, as the effects of bariatric surgery are independent of circadian disruption, VSG cannot be considered a cure for circadian disruption. These data have important implications for circadian-disrupted obese patients. Moreover, these results reveal new information about the metabolic pathways governing the effects of bariatric surgery as well as of circadian disruption

Amount and Distribution of Isozyme Variation in Ponderosa pine from Eastern Montana

Pinus ponderosa seeds from 50 trees in each of six small isolated stands located within a nine kilometer radius of Colstrip, Montana, were examined at 23 isozyme loci. Megagametophyte and embryo tissue from each seed were screened separately. Measures of genetic diversity showed no significant differences between male and female components within or between stands. The average proportion of heterozygous loci per embryo (He) was not significantly different between stands. For all stands combined, He was 0.012. Genotype proportions did not deviate from expected Hardy-Weinberg proportions. Nearly 99 % of the genetic diversity resided within individual stands, with a significant 1.5 % due to differences between stands. Genetic distance between stands is not correlated with geographic distance. Considering the natural fire history of the stands, it is suggested that there is a great deal of gene flow into a stand during its early stage of development

A Study of Total and Reduced Glutathione with Oxygen Content and Capacity in the Blood of Pregnant and Non-Pregnant Women

Much speculation has been offered as to the exact nature and function of glutathione in circulating blood. It has often been considered as playing some part in cell respiration. A study has been made on total and reduced glutathione content of blood in the non-pregnant, in the pregnant during the labor and the parturition including cord blood, during the postpartum four-ten days, and in the toxemias of pregnancy. This offered an opportunity to study the relation between total and reduced glutathione in blood under conditions of varying oxygen content and capacity of systemic blood. The study also included a group of experiments in which blood (with and without fluorides) kept at -3°, 23°, and 38°C. for periods as long as seventy-two hours was analyzed at given intervals for total and reduced glutathione. Oxygen content of the blood was also determined simultaneously with glutathione on the specimen kept at 38°C

1966: Abilene Christian College Bible Lectures - Full Text

THE BIBLE TODAY Being the Abilene Christian College Annual Bible Lectures 1966 Price: $3.95 Published by ABILENE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE STUDENTS EXCHANGE ACC Station Abilene, Texa

Optimizing Preprocessing and Analysis Pipelines for Single-Subject fMRI: 2. Interactions with ICA, PCA, Task Contrast and Inter-Subject Heterogeneity

A variety of preprocessing techniques are available to correct subject-dependant artifacts in fMRI, caused by head motion and physiological noise. Although it has been established that the chosen preprocessing steps (or “pipeline”) may significantly affect fMRI results, it is not well understood how preprocessing choices interact with other parts of the fMRI experimental design. In this study, we examine how two experimental factors interact with preprocessing: between-subject heterogeneity, and strength of task contrast. Two levels of cognitive contrast were examined in an fMRI adaptation of the Trail-Making Test, with data from young, healthy adults. The importance of standard preprocessing with motion correction, physiological noise correction, motion parameter regression and temporal detrending were examined for the two task contrasts. We also tested subspace estimation using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Independent Component Analysis (ICA). Results were obtained for Penalized Discriminant Analysis, and model performance quantified with reproducibility (R) and prediction metrics (P). Simulation methods were also used to test for potential biases from individual-subject optimization. Our results demonstrate that (1) individual pipeline optimization is not significantly more biased than fixed preprocessing. In addition, (2) when applying a fixed pipeline across all subjects, the task contrast significantly affects pipeline performance; in particular, the effects of PCA and ICA models vary with contrast, and are not by themselves optimal preprocessing steps. Also, (3) selecting the optimal pipeline for each subject improves within-subject (P,R) and between-subject overlap, with the weaker cognitive contrast being more sensitive to pipeline optimization. These results demonstrate that sensitivity of fMRI results is influenced not only by preprocessing choices, but also by interactions with other experimental design factors. This paper outlines a quantitative procedure to denoise data that would otherwise be discarded due to artifact; this is particularly relevant for weak signal contrasts in single-subject, small-sample and clinical datasets

Empirical Legal Studies Before 1940: A Bibliographic Essay

The modern empirical legal studies movement has well-known antecedents in the law and society and law and economics traditions of the latter half of the 20th century. Less well known is the body of empirical research on legal phenomena from the period prior to World War II. This paper is an extensive bibliographic essay that surveys the English language empirical legal research from approximately 1940 and earlier. The essay is arranged around the themes in the research: criminal justice, civil justice (general studies of civil litigation, auto accident litigation and compensation, divorce, small claims, jurisdiction and procedure, civil juries), debt and bankruptcy, banking, appellate courts, legal needs, legal profession (including legal education), and judicial staffing and selection. Accompanying the essay is an extensive bibliography of research articles, books, and reports

The Fifteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Surveys: First Release of MaNGA-derived Quantities, Data Visualization Tools, and Stellar Library

Twenty years have passed since first light for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Here, we release data taken by the fourth phase of SDSS (SDSS-IV) across its first three years of operation (2014 July–2017 July). This is the third data release for SDSS-IV, and the 15th from SDSS (Data Release Fifteen; DR15). New data come from MaNGA—we release 4824 data cubes, as well as the first stellar spectra in the MaNGA Stellar Library (MaStar), the first set of survey-supported analysis products (e.g., stellar and gas kinematics, emission-line and other maps) from the MaNGA Data Analysis Pipeline, and a new data visualization and access tool we call "Marvin." The next data release, DR16, will include new data from both APOGEE-2 and eBOSS; those surveys release no new data here, but we document updates and corrections to their data processing pipelines. The release is cumulative; it also includes the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since first light. In this paper, we describe the location and format of the data and tools and cite technical references describing how it was obtained and processed. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has also been updated, providing links to data downloads, tutorials, and examples of data use. Although SDSS-IV will continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V (2020–2025), we end this paper by describing plans to ensure the sustainability of the SDSS data archive for many years beyond the collection of data