The Impact of Farmers Market Ownership on Conduct and Performance

Over the last two decades, farmers markets have gained prominence based on their contributions to local economies, support of small-scale farmers, and ability to reconnect consumers and producers of food. Farmers markets vary substantially both in the goals they set and the outcomes they achieve. This study examines whether and how market ownership influences outcomes by conducting a comparative analysis. The research uses Henry Hansmann’s ownership of enterprise framework and Muhammad Yunus’s social business framework to analyze whether differences in ownership lead to variations in market governance, conduct, and performance. I conducted interviews with managers of Oregon farmers markets representing various ownership structures. Interviews were analyzed using the inductive thematic analysis approach to understand how ownership influences market goals and mission, general operations, and performance outcomes. In doing so, I demonstrate that different forms of ownerships have distinct benefits and challenges associated with them

Farmers' Market or Farmers Market? Examining How Market Ownership Influences Conduct and Performance

Over the last two decades, farmers markets have been widely recognized for their contributions to local economies, support of small-scale farmers, and ability to reconnect consumers and producers of food. Farmers markets vary substantially in both the goals they set and the outcomes they achieve. By conducting a comparative analysis, this study examines whether and how market ownership influences outcomes. Additionally, our study focuses not on determining which ownership type is "best," but on highlighting how markets differ, and more importantly, the limitations that need to be overcome for each type. The research uses Henry Hansmann's (1996) ownership of enterprise framework and Muhammad Yunus's (2010) social business framework to analyze whether differences in ownership lead to variations in market governance, conduct, and performance. Interviews were conducted with managers of Oregon farmers markets representing various ownership structures. Data were analyzed using the inductive thematic analysis approach to understand how ownership influences market goals and mission, general operations, and performance outcomes. The three major market ownership types, vendor-led, community-led, and subentities, have distinct benefits and challenges associated with them. Our findings indicate that vendor-led markets have strong ties back to their vendors but have weaker links to the communities that host the market and are less able to enhance the market by adding activities and pursuing additional fundraising. We found that community-led markets benefit from strong community ties and are often able to draw upon the energy and expertise of board members and volunteers. Their links back to producers depend on vendor representation on the governing body. Finally, markets that function as subentities of broader organizations have the potential for access to greater financial and managerial resources but are often relatively poorly linked to their vendors. These results provide useful insights both for those who are considering starting a market and for those who wish to improve the performance of existing markets. See the press release for this article

Repurposing of drugs for combined treatment of COVID 19 cytokine storm using machine learning

Context: SARS CoV 2 induced cytokine storm is the major cause of COVID 19 related deaths. Patients have been treated with drugs that work by inhibiting a specific protein partly responsible for the cytokines production. This approach provided very limited success, since there are multiple proteins involved in the complex cell signaling disease mechanisms. Objective: To elucidate using machine learning (ML) the set of drugs targeting a group of proteins involved in the mechanism of cytokine storm. Methods: We selected for targeting five proteins: Angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT1R), A disintegrin and metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17), Nuclear Factor Kappa B (NF B), Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) and Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3) that are involved in the SARS CoV 2 induced cytokine storm pathway. We developed ML models for these five proteins, using known active inhibitors. After developing the model for each of these proteins, FDA-approved drugs were screened to find novel therapeutics for COVID 19. Results: We identified twenty drugs that are active for four proteins and eight drugs active for five proteins. Mitomycin C is the most active drug across all five proteins with an average prediction score of 0.886. For further validation of these results, we used the PyRx software to conduct protein–ligand docking experiments and calculated the binding affinity. The docking results support findings by the ML model. Conclusions: It is possible to elucidate the drugs, targeting simultaneously several proteins related to cytokine production to treat the cytokine storm in COVID 19 patients

Farmers' Market or Farmers Market? Examining How Market Ownership Influences Conduct and Performance

Over the last two decades, farmers markets have been widely recognized for their contributions to local economies, support of small-scale farmers, and ability to reconnect consumers and producers of food. Farmers markets vary substantially in both the goals they set and the outcomes they achieve. By conducting a comparative analysis, this study examines whether and how market ownership influences outcomes. Additionally, our study focuses not on determining which ownership type is "best," but on highlighting how markets differ, and more importantly, the limitations that need to be overcome for each type. The research uses Henry Hansmann's (1996) ownership of enterprise framework and Muhammad Yunus's (2010) social business framework to analyze whether differences in ownership lead to variations in market governance, conduct, and performance. Interviews were conducted with managers of Oregon farmers markets representing various ownership structures. Data were analyzed using the inductive thematic analysis approach to understand how ownership influences market goals and mission, general operations, and performance outcomes. The three major market ownership types, vendor-led, community-led, and subentities, have distinct benefits and challenges associated with them. Our findings indicate that vendor-led markets have strong ties back to their vendors but have weaker links to the communities that host the market and are less able to enhance the market by adding activities and pursuing additional fundraising. We found that community-led markets benefit from strong community ties and are often able to draw upon the energy and expertise of board members and volunteers. Their links back to producers depend on vendor representation on the governing body. Finally, markets that function as subentities of broader organizations have the potential for access to greater financial and managerial resources but are often relatively poorly linked to their vendors. These results provide useful insights both for those who are considering starting a market and for those who wish to improve the performance of existing markets

Higuchi fractal dimension as a measure of analgesia

Avoidance of patients' intraoperative awareness and explicit recall of pain during surgery is important. Conventional methods of depth of anesthesia (DoA) monitoring involve physiological monitoring which are influenced by the administered anesthetic drugs. Balanced anesthesia is fusion of its four components analgesia, amnesia, motor blockade and hypnosis. One major component is analgesia which means inability to feel pain during surgery. Pain cannot be estimated any single physio-pathological signal. A proper analgesia index proportional to the degree of pain experienced by the patient is required. Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a reliable means to determine real time DoA. In the present study, EEG of 12 volunteer subjects was recorded during relaxed and during pain. It was found that the Higuchi fractal dimension (HFD) feature of EEG from parietal region of brain reflects the sensation of pain and gives an overall accuracy of 95% in determining the pain experienced by the patient

Repurposing of drugs for combined treatment of COVID-19 cytokine storm using machine learning

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) induced cytokine storm is the major cause of COVID-19 related deaths. Patients have been treated with drugs that work by inhibiting a specific protein partly responsible for the cytokines production. This approach provided very limited success, since there are multiple proteins involved in the complex cell signaling disease mechanisms. We targeted five proteins: Angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT1R), A disintegrin and metalloprotease 17 (ADAM17), Nuclear Factor‑Kappa B (NF‑κB), Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) and Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription 3 (STAT3), which are involved in the SARS‑CoV‑2 induced cytokine storm pathway. We developed machine-learning (ML) models for these five proteins, using known active inhibitors. After developing the model for each of these proteins, FDA-approved drugs were screened to find novel therapeutics for COVID‑19. We identified twenty drugs that are active for four proteins with predicted scores greater than 0.8 and eight drugs active for all five proteins with predicted scores over 0.85. Mitomycin C is the most active drug across all five proteins with an average prediction score of 0.886. For further validation of these results, we used the PyRx software to conduct protein–ligand docking experiments and calculated the binding affinity. The docking results support findings by the ML model. This research study predicted that several drugs can target multiple proteins simultaneously in cytokine storm-related pathway. These may be useful drugs to treat patients because these therapies can fight cytokine storm caused by the virus at multiple points of inhibition, leading to synergistically effective treatments

Perception of Parents of Children suffering from Thalassemia in Karimnagar District of Telangana state in India

Thalassemias are a group of inheritable hemoglobinopathies where abnormal hemoglobin is synthesized leading to decreased hemoglobin levels in the body. Thalassemias are classified according to which chain of the hemoglobin molecule is affected. In α-thalassemias, production of the α-globins chain is affected, while in β-thalassemia, production of the β-globins chain is affected. Thalassemias are a grave menace in the modern world which need to be tackled effectively and quickly to improve the health status of people around the world.</jats:p