Michigan and Ohio K-12 Educational Financing Systems: Equality and Efficiency

We consider issues of equality and efficiency in two different school funding systems - a state-level system in Michigan and a foundation system in Ohio. Unlike Ohio, the Michigan system restricts districts from generating property or income tax revenue to fund operating expenditures. In both states, districts fund capital expenditures with local tax revenue. Our results indicate that although average revenue and expenditures per pupil in Michigan and Ohio are almost identical, the distributions of the various revenue sources are quite different. Ohio’s funding system has greater equality in terms of total revenue, largely due to Ohio redistributing state funds to the least wealthy districts while Michigan does not. We find that relatively wealthy Michigan districts spend more on capital expenditures while relatively wealthy Ohio districts spend more on labor and materials. This suggests that constraints on raising local revenue to fund operating expenditures in Michigan could create efficiency issues

Effect of Alga Bio 1.0 on Reducing Enteric Methane Emission from Cattle

An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of Alga Bio 1.0 inclusion on methane and carbon dioxide emissions along with diet digestibility. Three treatments were evaluated with 0, 69, and 103 grams per day Alga Bio 1.0 fed as a top dress in a corn-based diet. Indirect calorimetry headboxes were utilized to evaluate gas production with 12 cows in 4 replicated 3x3 Latin squares. There was a 39% reduction in methane per lb of dry matter intake for cattle fed 69 g of Alga Bio 1.0 and 63% reduction when cattle were fed 103 g of Alga Bio 1.0 daily compared to the control treatment. Both dry matter intake and organic matter intake were reduced by 13% with Alga Bio 1.0 inclusion, but the treatments did not affect the digestibility of dry matter or organic matter. Gross and digestible energy were not affected by Alga Bio 1.0 inclusion. Although this strain of algae is not FDA approved for feeding to cattle, the research shows great potential of Alga Bio 1.0 as a methane mitigation strategy

The Dairy Heard Buyout Program: How Much to Bid. A Computer decision aid approach.

This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

The Dairy Heard Buyout Program: How Much to Bid: FINLRB (Financial Long Range budgeting) Approach

This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

The Dairy Heard Buyout Program: Who Should Participate?

This archival publication may not reflect current scientific knowledge or recommendations. Current information available from the University of Minnesota Extension: https://www.extension.umn.edu

Global Monte Carlo Simulation with High Order Polynomial Expansions

The functional expansion technique (FET) was recently developed for Monte Carlo simulation. The basic idea of the FET is to expand a Monte Carlo tally in terms of a high order expansion, the coefficients of which can be estimated via the usual random walk process in a conventional Monte Carlo code. If the expansion basis is chosen carefully, the lowest order coefficient is simply the conventional histogram tally, corresponding to a flat mode. This research project studied the applicability of using the FET to estimate the fission source, from which fission sites can be sampled for the next generation. The idea is that individual fission sites contribute to expansion modes that may span the geometry being considered, possibly increasing the communication across a loosely coupled system and thereby improving convergence over the conventional fission bank approach used in most production Monte Carlo codes. The project examined a number of basis functions, including global Legendre polynomials as well as “local” piecewise polynomials such as finite element hat functions and higher order versions. The global FET showed an improvement in convergence over the conventional fission bank approach. The local FET methods showed some advantages versus global polynomials in handling geometries with discontinuous material properties. The conventional finite element hat functions had the disadvantage that the expansion coefficients could not be estimated directly but had to be obtained by solving a linear system whose matrix elements were estimated. An alternative fission matrix-based response matrix algorithm was formulated. Studies were made of two alternative applications of the FET, one based on the kernel density estimator and one based on Arnoldi’s method of minimized iterations. Preliminary results for both methods indicate improvements in fission source convergence. These developments indicate that the FET has promise for speeding up Monte Carlo fission source convergence

Paediatric meningitis in the conjugate vaccine era and a novel clinical decision model to predict bacterial aetiology

Objectives The aims of this study were to assess aetiology and clinical characteristics in childhood meningitis, and develop clinical decision rules to distinguish bacterial meningitis from other similar clinical syndromes. Methods Children aged <16 years hospitalised with suspected meningitis/encephalitis were included, and prospectively recruited at 31 UK hospitals. Meningitis was defined as identification of bacteria/viruses from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and/or a raised CSF white blood cell count. New clinical decision rules were developed to distinguish bacterial from viral meningitis and those of alternative aetiology. Results The cohort included 3002 children (median age 2·4 months); 1101/3002 (36·7%) had meningitis, including 180 bacterial, 423 viral and 280 with no pathogen identified. Enterovirus was the most common pathogen in those aged <6 months and 10–16 years, with Neisseria meningitidis and/or Streptococcus pneumoniae commonest at age 6 months to 9 years. The Bacterial Meningitis Score had a negative predictive value of 95·3%. We developed two clinical decision rules, that could be used either before (sensitivity 82%, specificity 71%) or after lumbar puncture (sensitivity 84%, specificity 93%), to determine risk of bacterial meningitis. Conclusions Bacterial meningitis comprised 6% of children with suspected meningitis/encephalitis. Our clinical decision rules provide potential novel approaches to assist with identifying children with bacterial meningitis. Funding This study was funded by the Meningitis Research Foundation, Pfizer and the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research

Advanced Restriction imaging and reconstruction Technology for Prostate MRI (ART-Pro): Study protocol for a multicenter, multinational trial evaluating biparametric MRI and advanced, quantitative diffusion MRI for detection of prostate cancer

Abstract: Background: Multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) is strongly recommended by current clinical guidelines for improved detection of clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa). However, major limitations of mpMRI are the need for intravenous (IV) contrast and dependence on reader expertise. Efforts to address these issues include use of biparametric MRI (bpMRI) and advanced, quantitative MRI techniques. One such advanced technique is the Restriction Spectrum Imaging restriction score (RSIrs), an imaging biomarker that has been shown to improve quantitative accuracy of patient-level csPCa detection. Purpose: To evaluate whether IV contrast can be avoided in the setting of standardized, state-of-the-art image acquisition, with or without addition of RSIrs, and to evaluate characteristics of RSIrs as a stand-alone, quantitative biomarker. Design, setting, and participants: ART-Pro is a multisite, multinational trial that will be conducted in two stages, evaluating bpMRI, mpMRI, and RSIrs on accuracy of expert (ART-Pro-1) and non-expert (ART-Pro-2) radiologists’ detection of csPCa. Additionally, RSIrs will be evaluated as a stand-alone, quantitative, objective biomarker (ART-Pro-1). This study will include a total of 500 patients referred for a multiparametric prostate MRI with a clinical suspicion of prostate cancer at any of the five participating sites (100 patients per site). Intervention: In ART-Pro-1, patients receive standard of care mpMRI, with addition of the RSI sequence, and subsets of the patients’ images are read separately by two expert radiologists, one of whom is the standard of care radiologist (Reader 1). Three research reports are generated using: bpMRI only (Reader 1), mpMRI (Reader 1), and bpMRI + RSIrs (Reader 2). The clinical report is submitted by Reader 1. Patients’ future prostate cancer management will be recorded and used to evaluate the performance of the MRI techniques being tested. In ART-Pro-2, the dataset created in ART-Pro-1 will be retrospectively reviewed by radiologists of varying experience level (novice, basic, and expert). Radiologists will be assigned to read cases and record research reports while viewing subsets of either mpMRI only or RSIrs + mpMRI. Patient cases will be read by two readers from each experience level (6 reads total), and findings will be evaluated against the expertly created dataset from ART-Pro-1. Outcome measurements and statistical analysis: The primary endpoint is to evaluate if bpMRI is non-inferior to mpMRI among expert radiologists (ART-Pro-1) and non-expert radiologists (ART-Pro-2) for detection of grade group (GG) ≥2 csPCa. We will conduct one-sided non-inferiority tests of correlated proportions (ART-Pro-1) and use McNemar’s test and AUC to test the null hypothesis of non-inferiority (ART-Pro-1 and ART-Pro-2). Conclusions: This trial is registered in the US National Library of Medicine Trial Registry (NCT number:NCT06579417) atClinicalTrials.gov. Patient accrual at the first site (UC San Diego) began in December 2023. The expected trial timeline is three years to complete accrual with a six-month endpoint