Population scale data reveals the antidepressant effects of ketamine and other therapeutics approved for non-psychiatric indications.

Current therapeutic approaches to depression fail for millions of patients due to lag in clinical response and non-adherence. Here we provide new support for the antidepressant effect of an anesthetic drug, ketamine, by Inverse-Frequency Analysis of eight million reports from the FDA Adverse Effect Reporting System. The results of the examination of population scale data revealed that patients who received ketamine had significantly lower frequency of reports of depression than patients who took any other combination of drugs for pain. The analysis also revealed that patients who took ketamine had significantly lower frequency of reports of pain and opioid induced side effects, implying ketamine's potential to act as a beneficial adjunct agent in pain management pharmacotherapy. Further, the Inverse-Frequency Analysis methodology provides robust statistical support for the antidepressant action of other currently approved therapeutics including diclofenac and minocycline

“Supply and demand trends for fertilizer in Zimbabwe: 1930 to date”: Key drivers and lessons learnt

The fertilizer sector in Zimbabwe has evolved over the years in response to different policy changes based on the government’s priorities on agricultural development. The industry grew from the 1930s that targeted primarily large scale commercial farmers, through the liberalization period of the mid 1990s, and recent changes that have introduced controls on the marketing system. Since 2000, following the fast track land reform program, Zimbabwe has faced food insecurity challenges that have been exacerbated by the political and economic crises. This prompted the government to adopt policies that have reduced private sector interests in fertilizer supply. In this situation where explicit fertilizer markets have been absent, relief programs have been leading in facilitating deliveries of fertilizers to poorer smallholder farmers located even in remote areas. The supply of fertilizers in Zimbabwe has been driven by government policy, finance and infrastructure while the demand has primarily been a function of farmer’s capacity to acquire fertilizers, availability of water and farmers knowledge of fertilizer use. There is need for a policy shift that promotes a competitive fertilizer marketing to support a broader range of farmers in Zimbabwe leading to agricultural productivity growth. Investment in infrastructure is critical to reduce marketing costs and to boost fertilizer demand; policies that strengthen farmer’s capacity to acquire fertilizers and increase their knowledge on fertilizer use complemented by technologies that promote water use efficiencies are needed.Fertilizer, supply and demand, policy reform, consumption trends, Crop Production/Industries,

A Methodology for Afterburner Evaluation

A preliminary investigation of the performance of an afterburner module proposed by the Gas Turbine Research Establishment, Bangalore for the Kaveri engine has been carried out. The investigation, which was both theoretical and experimental, evaluated the af-terburner configuration on the basis of flame stability, combustion efficiency and total pressure loss. An evaluation methodology, which was formulated, has been employed to arrive at design modifications for improved performance

Universal Baxterization for Z\mathbb{Z}-graded Hopf algebras

We present a method for Baxterizing solutions of the constant Yang-Baxter equation associated with $\mathbb{Z}$-graded Hopf algebras. To demonstrate the approach, we provide examples for the Taft algebras and the quantum group $U_q[sl(2)]$.Comment: 8 page

Conservation Agriculture Practices and Adoption by Smallholder Farmers in Zimbabwe

This study is based on a panel survey interviewing 416 farmers practising conservation agriculture for at least five cropping seasons. Farmers obtained higher yields on conservation agriculture plots than on nonconservation agriculture ones. The mean maize yield on conservation agriculture was 1546 kg/ha compared to 970 kg/ha for non-conventional draft tillage plots across all 15 districts. However, the contribution of conservation agriculture to total household food security requirements was limited due to small plot sizes. Labor and land still remains a major challenge that limits the expansion of conservation agriculture area. Winter weeding remains a challenge, with 63% of farmers practicing it. Application of residues is still limited (56% of farmers practising it). Fertilizer application is largely dependent on access to free fertilizer. The survey results show that the 78 % of the respondent farmers were initially selected by the NGOs and were provided with inputs such as seed and fertilizer. The other 22% of the farmers in the sample were selected as spontaneous adopters, who did not initially receive any NGO support to implement conservation agriculture practices. Eleven percent of the interviewed farmers had stopped conservation agriculture practices by the 2008/09 cropping season due to withdrawal of input support by NGOs. Research should continue to explore different recommendations for different areas as farmers face dynamic agro-ecological and soil environments. Conservation agriculture should not be introduced as a blanket technology for all areas, but should be flexible and adaptable to local conditions.conservation agriculture, planting basins, yield gains, adoption labor, and fertilizer, Farm Management, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Asphericity, Interaction, and Dust in the Type II-P/II-L Supernova 2013ej in Messier 74

SN 2013ej is a well-studied core-collapse supernova (SN) that stemmed from a directly identified red supergiant (RSG) progenitor in galaxy M74. The source exhibits signs of substantial geometric asphericity, X-rays from persistent interaction with circumstellar material (CSM), thermal emission from warm dust, and a light curve that appears intermediate between supernovae of Types II-P and II-L. The proximity of this source motivates a close inspection of these physical characteristics and their potential interconnection. We present multi-epoch spectropolarimetry of SN 2013ej during the first 107 days, and deep optical spectroscopy and ultraviolet through infrared photometry past ~800 days. SN 2013ej exhibits the strongest and most persistent continuum and line polarization ever observed for a SN of its class during the recombination phase. Modeling indicates that the data are consistent with an oblate ellipsoidal photosphere, viewed nearly edge-on, and probably augmented by optical scattering from circumstellar dust. We suggest that interaction with an equatorial distribution of CSM, perhaps the result of binary evolution, is responsible for generating the photospheric asphericity. Relatedly, our late-time optical imaging and spectroscopy shows that asymmetric CSM interaction is ongoing, and the morphology of broad H-alpha emission from shock-excited ejecta provides additional evidence that the geometry of the interaction region is ellipsoidal. Alternatively, a prolate ellipsoidal geometry from an intrinsically bipolar explosion is also a plausible interpretation of the data, but would probably require a ballistic jet of radioactive material capable of penetrating the hydrogen envelope early in the recombination phase (abridged).Comment: Post-proof edit. Accepted to ApJ on Nov. 23 2016; 21 pages, 16 figure

ArCo: the Italian Cultural Heritage Knowledge Graph

ArCo is the Italian Cultural Heritage knowledge graph, consisting of a network of seven vocabularies and 169 million triples about 820 thousand cultural entities. It is distributed jointly with a SPARQL endpoint, a software for converting catalogue records to RDF, and a rich suite of documentation material (testing, evaluation, how-to, examples, etc.). ArCo is based on the official General Catalogue of the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities (MiBAC) - and its associated encoding regulations - which collects and validates the catalogue records of (ideally) all Italian Cultural Heritage properties (excluding libraries and archives), contributed by CH administrators from all over Italy. We present its structure, design methods and tools, its growing community, and delineate its importance, quality, and impact