A Comparison of Risk Exposure in Aquaculture and Agricultural Businesses

Agriculture and aquaculture have common features associated with their biological nature affecting risk exposure of the businesses. The aim of this paper is to compare risk exposure in salmon farming and agricultural enterprises in Norway by using an implicit error component model to examine the risk structure of yields, prices and economic returns at the farm level. Results indicate a higher farm-level year-to-year variability in yields, prices and economic returns in salmon farming than in agricultural enterprises. The variability in livestock enterprises was generally lower than for crop enterprises. Return on assets was highest in salmon farming with an average annual return of 9.2%. All of the agricultural farm types exhibited a negative average return on assets on average. Stochastic dominance tests of the distribution of economic returns from aquaculture and agricultural farm types showed salmon farming to be the most risk efficient alternative and salmon farming was most attractive from an investor’s perspective.Risk analysis, variability, Norway, Risk and Uncertainty,

A search for solar neutrons on a long duration balloon flight

The EOSCOR 3 detector, designed to measure the flux of solar neutrons, was flown on a long duration RACOON balloon flight from Australia during Jan. through Feb, 1983. The Circum-global flight lasted 22 days. No major solar activity occurred during the flight and thus only an upper limit to the solar flare neutrons flux is given. The atmospheric neutron response is compared with that obtained on earlier flights from Palestine, Texas

Heavy rain effects on airplane performance

The objective is to determine if the aerodynamic characteristics of an airplane are altered while flying in the rain. Wind-tunnel tests conducted at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) have shown losses in maximum lift, reduction in stall angle, and increases in drag when a wing is placed in a simulated rain spray. For these tests the water spray concentration used represented a very heavy rainfall. A lack of definition of the scaling laws for aerodynamic testing in a two-phase, two-component flow makes interpolation of the wind-tunnel test uncertain. Tests of a large-scale wing are to be conducted at the LaRC. The large-scale wing is mounted on top of the Aircraft Landing Dynamics Facility (ALDF) carriage. This carriage (which is 70-foot long, 30-foot wide, and 30-foot high) is propelled with the wing model attached down a 3000-foot long test track by a water jet at speeds of up to 170 knots. A simulated rain spray system has been installed along 500 feet of the test track and can simulate rain falls from 2 to 40 inches/hour. Operational checks are underway and the initial tests should be completed by the Fall of 1989

Improving the reliability of establishing legumes into grass pastures in the sub-tropics

Poor establishment is the most common reason for failure of pasture legumes sown into existing grass pastures on commercial farms in the sub-tropics. Although good establishment is recognised as critical to the long term productivity and persistence of legumes, most producers use low-cost and low-reliability establishment techniques such as broadcasting after either no or minimal pasture disturbance; one-pass cultivation with seed spread at the same time; or severe soil disturbance and a rough seed bed behind a blade plough. This paper reports the results of a study designed to test the impact of different fallow periods (medium – 4 months; short – 2 months; disturb at sowing and no disturbance); seedbed preparation cultivation or zero tillage); drilling or broadcasting seed and post emergence herbicides when establishing legumes into existing grass pastures. The most common, commercially used establishment techniques of sowing legume seed into grass pastures with no disturbance or single pass cultivation treatments at sowing all resulted in establishment failure. Spraying at sowing resulted in adequate numbers of legumes. Short or medium fallows resulted in similar densities of legumes between all treatments, however treatments with greater control of the grass and post emergence weed control grew better which resulted in more seedling recruitment in the subsequent year. At 25 months after sowing only fallowed treatments with Spinnaker® post-emergence weed control achieved legume numbers above benchmark figures for establishment success. The study demonstrates that agronomic practices commonly used for grain cropping (such as fallowing to store soil moisture) can improve the reliability of establishing legumes into existing grass pastures

Smaller Saami Herding Groups Cooperate More in a Public Goods Experiment

Group living often entails a balance between individual self-interest and benefits to the group as a whole. Situations in which an individual’s vested interests conflict with collective interests are known as social dilemmas (Kollock 1998). More formally, a theoretical game becomes a social dilemma when an equilibrium of dominant strategies leads to worse outcomes for all players compared to a more cooperative but non-equilibrium strategy (Zelmer 2003; Cardenas and Carpenter 2008). For example, arms races, climate change, the Cold War, credit markets, eBay, exploitation of fisheries, irrigation scheduling, overpopulation, pollution, price wars, voting, water supply and welfare states all give rise to social dilemmas (Kollock 1998; Wydick 2008). Researchers have identified various mutually inclusive routes to solving social dilemmas, including interacting with kin and/or cooperative individuals, communication, coordination, exclusion, institutions, leadership, legislation, mobility, monitoring, parcelling out cooperation or access to resources, partner choice, partner control, policing, punishment, repeated reciprocal interactions, rewards, sanctions, and social norms (Trivers 2005; West et al.2007; Levin 2014; Raihani and Bshary 2015). Social dilemmas pervade the pastoralist way of life. Individual herders must balance their interests (e.g., generating income and managing the inherent risks of pastoralism) with the interests of their herding group and the wider community facing similar challenges (Næss et al.2012; Næss and Bårdsen 2015). Pastoralists such as Saami reindeer herders in Norway face social dilemmas across a range of scales and have a variety of individual and collective strategies for solving them

ATHENA: A Phase 3, Open-Label Study Of The Safety And Effectiveness Of Oliceridine (TRV130), A G-Protein Selective Agonist At The µ-Opioid Receptor, In Patients With Moderate To Severe Acute Pain Requiring Parenteral Opioid Therapy.

Background:Pain management with conventional opioids can be challenging due to dose-limiting adverse events (AEs), some of which may be related to the simultaneous activation of β-arrestin (a signaling pathway associated with opioid-related AEs) and G-protein pathways. The investigational analgesic oliceridine is a G-protein-selective agonist at the µ-opioid receptor with less recruitment of β-arrestin. The objective of this phase 3, open-label, multi-center study was to evaluate the safety and tolerability, of IV oliceridine for moderate to severe acute pain in a broad, real-world patient population, including postoperative surgical patients and non-surgical patients with painful medical conditions. Methods:Adult patients with a score ≥4 on 11-point NRS for pain intensity received IV oliceridine either by bolus or PCA; multimodal analgesia was permitted. Safety was assessed using AE reports, study discontinuations, clinical laboratory and vital sign measures. Results:A total of 768 patients received oliceridine. The mean age (SD) was 54.1 (16.1) years, with 32% ≥65 years of age. Most patients were female (65%) and Caucasian (78%). Surgical patients comprised the majority of the study population (94%), most common being orthopedic (30%), colorectal (15%) or gynecologic (15%) procedures. Multimodal analgesia was administered to 84% of patients. Oliceridine provided a rapid reduction in NRS pain score by 2.2 ± 2.3 at 30 mins from a score of 6.3 ± 2.1 (at baseline) which was maintained to the end of treatment. No deaths or significant cardiorespiratory events were reported. The incidence of AEs leading to early discontinuation and serious AEs were 2% and 3%, respectively. Nausea (31%), constipation (11%), and vomiting (10%) were the most common AEs. AEs were mostly of mild (37%) or moderate (25%) severity and considered possibly or probably related to oliceridine in 33% of patients. Conclusion:Oliceridine IV for the management of moderate to severe acute pain was generally safe and well tolerated in the patients studied. ClinicalTrialsgov identifier:NCT02656875

Magnetic moment non-conservation in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence models

The fundamental assumptions of the adiabatic theory do not apply in presence of sharp field gradients as well as in presence of well developed magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. For this reason in such conditions the magnetic moment $\mu$ is no longer expected to be constant. This can influence particle acceleration and have considerable implications in many astrophysical problems. Starting with the resonant interaction between ions and a single parallel propagating electromagnetic wave, we derive expressions for the magnetic moment trapping width $\Delta \mu$ (defined as the half peak-to-peak difference in the particle magnetic moment) and the bounce frequency $\omega_b$. We perform test-particle simulations to investigate magnetic moment behavior when resonances overlapping occurs and during the interaction of a ring-beam particle distribution with a broad-band slab spectrum. We find that magnetic moment dynamics is strictly related to pitch angle $\alpha$ for a low level of magnetic fluctuation, $\delta B/B_0 = (10^{-3}, \, 10^{-2})$, where $B_0$ is the constant and uniform background magnetic field. Stochasticity arises for intermediate fluctuation values and its effect on pitch angle is the isotropization of the distribution function $f(\alpha)$. This is a transient regime during which magnetic moment distribution $f(\mu)$ exhibits a characteristic one-sided long tail and starts to be influenced by the onset of spatial parallel diffusion, i.e., the variance $$ grows linearly in time as in normal diffusion. With strong fluctuations $f(\alpha)$ isotropizes completely, spatial diffusion sets in and $f(\mu)$ behavior is closely related to the sampling of the varying magnetic field associated with that spatial diffusion.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figures, submitted to PR