bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Factors affecting the adoption of conservation tillage on clay soils in southwestern Ontario, Canada
Authors: Wandel Johanna , Smithers John 
Published: October 2009

AbstractDespite significant progress in promoting the wider use of conservation tillage systems among farmers in Ontario, recent evidence suggests that adoption levels remain low overall, and especially low in those areas where agricultural soils are predominantly clay-based. Given the prominence of cash-crop agriculture in these regions, there is continuing interest in understanding the reasons for non-adoption in these areas, and in identifying strategies that would result in greater use of conservation tillage systems. This paper reports on an empirical analysis of conservation tillage adoption among a sample of 50 farmers in Lambton County, Ontario. The purpose of the research was to document and explain variations in the use of conservation tillage, and to assess prospects for increasing the adoption of this technology. A statistical analysis revealed that personal and attitudinal factors were largely unrelated to decisions concerning the use of conservation tillage. Instead, significant factors related to the scale of the farm operation as reflected in both farm size and sales, and in the nature of the farming system itself Subsequent analysis of farmers' stated motivations and perceived barriers suggests that inertia and uncertainty act as impediments to adoption. The findings point to the need for site-specific and farm system-specific information on the performance of this technology, and to the importance of benefits that are readily observable and communicable within local farming communities.
Small grain winter cover crops for conservation of residual soil nitrogen in the mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain
Authors: Coale F.J. , Costa J.M. , Bollero G.A. , Schlosnagle S.P. 
Published: October 2009

AbstractCereal rye is an effective winter cover crop because it accumulates residual soil N and reduces nitrate leaching. Wheat, barley, and triticale are alternative winter small grain species that may be managed as winter cover crops and yet produce marketable commodities. The objectives of this research were to evaluate N recovery capacity and grain yields of wheat, barley, triticale, and cereal rye grown as winter cover crops. Field plots established in 1996 and 1997 at two different locations on Maryland's mid-Atlantic Coastal Plain were amended with annual spring applications of four rates of broiler litter in a randomized complete block design with four replications. Each manure rate plot was divided into four subplots by planting four winter small grain cover crops: wheat, barley, triticale, and cereal rye. Rye cover crop treatments were killed with herbicide when the plants were 30 to 50 cm tall, while the wheat, barley, and triticale treatments continued to grow until grain maturity. Barley, rye, triticale, and wheat cover crops exhibited similar capacities to accumulate soil N, and therefore, reduce the potential for NO3—N leaching to groundwater. At the time of rye kill-down, aerial biomass N accumulation ranged from 11 to 112 kg N ha−1 and soil NO3—N levels were low (<1.5 mg NO3—N kg−1) and relatively uniform across treatments. Average barley, triticale, and wheat grain yields increased with previous broiler litter application rate and initial soil NO3—N concentration. Potential income derived from the grain and straw produced could partially or completely offset cover crop production costs.
Multifamily farms and America's farm structure: A new perspective on an old issue
Authors: Lillywhite Jay M. , Duffy Michael 
Published: October 2009

AbstractThis study examined the extent and nature of multifamily farms in Iowa. Based on a random sample phone survey conducted in 1997, it was found that over one-fourth (26%) of Iowa's farms would be classified as multifamily farms. Multifamily farms showed significant differences from their single-family farm counterparts in several areas. They tended to have younger operators and larger operations, and the operators were more likely to consider farming as their principal occupation. In addition, they had more diverse operations and generated larger farm and family incomes. The farms were further classified based on their annual sales. As expected, non-commercial farms (sales less than $50,000) had the lowest percentage of multifamily farms (21%). Smallcommercial farms with sales from $50,000 to $250,000 were 30% multifamily, while large-commercial farms were 35% multifamily. The study also addressed whether or not policy restrictions based on age and income would discriminate against farms due to the multifamily farm phenomenon. A logit regression analysis was performed to determine if a multifamily structure was significant in predicting whether or not a farm was small. The results showed that multifamily relations were not a significant predictor. A growing phenomenon in U.S. agriculture, namely the multifamily farm, was examined. A significant percentage of Iowa farms was found to be multifamily. There were many differences between multifamily and single-family farms, but these differences did not display any predictive power. More research is needed in order to understand multifamily farms, a structure that will likely continue to grow and influence U.S. agriculture and outreach programs.
Impacts of low and high input agriculture on landscape structure and function
Authors: Lowrance Richard , Groffman Peter M. 
Published: October 2009

AbstractThe conversion from high to low input agricultural systems has been studied at the field and farm scale but analysis of the effects of conversion at the landscape or regional scale has not previously been attempted. In this paper, we apply existing historical data bases on changing inputs and changing land uses to project possible effects of conversion on productivity and environmental quality on the landscape scale. We chose two areas for the analysis of changing input effects on landscape structure and function. One area is a region defined as the southern half of the lower peninsula of Michigan (Southern Lower Michigan or SLM). The second area is a small watershed, Watershed K of the Little River Watershed, in the Gulf-Atlantic Coastal Plain of Georgia. In SLM, land use data suggest that lower input use will lower per hectare productivity, and that regional production can only be maintained by bringing marginal lands into production. The prime lands not already in crop production in SLM are mostly poorly drained or sandy soils which will require either drainage modifications or supplemental irrigation for crop production. Intensification of input use in SLM during the last 20 years has led to increases in aggregate production, but may have contributed to declining water quality in the Grand River, the major drainage of that region. On Watershed K, corn grain yield was linearly related to N fertilizer application. A hypothetical yield response curve with a yield of 1500 kg/ha of corn grain without nitrogen fertilizer was selected for use in the analysis of changing inputs. Land use data on Watershed K showed that even with no nitrogen input to corn, the aggregate production of corn could be maintained without encroachment on riparian areas which are critical to maintenance of water quality. Our analyses, which are limited to historical data on the relationships among input, yield, and environmental quality, raise many questions about the landscape scale effects of conversion from high to low input systems. Relationships between inputs and yields are poorly understood at the field scale and relationships among inputs, productivity, and environmental quality have not been established at the landscape scale. Our analyses also raise questions about the need to maintain aggregate landscape production in the light of crop surpluses and declining environmental quality.
Sustainable agriculture and the challenge of place
Authors: Ehrenfeld David 
Published: October 2009

AbstractModern, conventional agriculture has generalized the technology of farming, minimizing the significance of the relationship between farmers and their particular land. This generalization undermines farm culture and impedes its transmission from generation to generation. To avoid making the same mistake, ecologists designing the new, lower input agriculture should: 1) reject any black box presentations of their systems that the farmer cannot understand and that interfere with the relationship between the farmer and the land; 2) make systematic efforts to rediscover traditional farm wisdom and incorporate it into the new system; 3) utilize academics in a major program of local, adult education for farmers; and 4) reorganize extension services to facilitate the lateral transfer of information from farmer to farmer, and develop methods of incorporating farmers into the agricultural research process at the planning stage.
Making concessions in Tianjin: heterotopia and Italian colonialism in mainland China
Authors: MARINELLI MAURIZIO 
Published: October 2009

ABSTRACT:Between 1860 and 1945, the Chinese port city of Tianjin became the site of up to nine foreign-controlled concessions, functioning side by side. Ruth Rogaski has argued that Tianjin's distinctiveness deserves the appellation ‘hyper-colony’, a term which reflects Tianjin's socio-political intricacies and the multiple colonial discourses of power and space. This article focuses on the representations of the ex-Italian concession in Tianjin, a site which is currently renegotiating its identity between reinvention of the past (1901–45) and property-led regeneration. The article employs the concept of heterotopia to explore ‘semi-colonial’, ‘hyper-colonial’ and ‘globalizing’ representations of Tianjin's built form.
Why Are Federal Arrangements not a Panacea for Containing Ethnic Nationalism? Lessons from the Post-Soviet Russian Experience
Authors: TANRISEVER OKTAY F. 
Published: October 2009

AbstractFederal arrangements have been considered by some thinkers as a panacea for containing ethnic nationalism in the ethnically defined regions. This article challenges this view by arguing that federal institutions may enable ethnic nationalists in the ethnically defined regions to consolidate their power through the guarantees that they receive from the federal centre. Although the post-Soviet Russian leadership under Boris Yeltsin sought to use federalism as a tool for containing ethnic nationalism, Russia's this experiment with federalism demonstrates that federalism may serve not to contain but to strengthen ethnic nationalism. Disillusioned with Yeltsin's failed use of federalism in containing ethnic nationalism, the overwhelming majority of the Russian people supported Vladimir Putin's anti-federalist reforms since 2000 which made federalism redundant in Russia. While undermining the basis for Western style democracy in Russia, Putin's centralism proved to be more effective than Yeltsin's federalism in containing ethnic nationalism.
Expression of β-agarase I DagA in prokaryotic cell and its activity identification
Authors: Yan-Sheng Zhou , Bao-Li Wang , Dong Qu 
Published: October 2009

AbstractThe DagA gene and DagA(▽), which is a DagA gene encoding sequence without signal peptide, were cloned from genome DNA ofPseudoalteromonas atlantica19262 by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). After ligation with pET21 vector, DagA and DagA(▽) were respectively expressed inEscherichia coliER2566 using molecular chaperones DsbC and FkpA. A strain of ER2566-pET21a-DagA(▽)-DsbC was screened as a highly effective expressing system in the form of an inclusion body that had the target protein with up to 60% total bacterial protein. DagA protein was renatured and purified by dissolving it in 8 mol/l of urea, using Ni-NTA resin affinity chromatography and refolding using the urea gradient method. DagA with a molecular weight of ~30.8 kDa was identified by sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) and had the ability to digest agarose. In a pH range of 4.8–6.8, DagA maintained a bioactivity greater than 60%, with 5.8 being the optimum pH, and it exhibited activity at temperatures from 37°C to 60°C, with 55°C being the optimum temperature.
New Zealand’s Primary Health Care Strategy: early effects of the new financing and payment system for general practice and future challenges
Authors: Cumming Jacqueline , Mays Nicholas 
Published: October 2009

AbstractSince 2001, implementation of a New Zealand’s Primary Health Care Strategy (the Strategy) has led to an increase in the proportion of primary health care services which are publicly funded, the development of 82 primary health organisations (PHOs) to oversee primary health care services and universal public capitation funding of PHOs. This approach has replaced the previous system of fee-for service targeted public subsidies paid to individual general practitioners (GPs). Patient copayments, although at a reduced level but still set by individual practitioners, have remained a core feature of the system.This paper focuses on the implementation and impact of key policy changes over the first five years of the Strategy. Although patient copayments have fallen and consultation rates have increased, the new funding and payment system has raised a number of unresolved issues – whether to retain the new universal funding system or revert to the former targeted approach; how to achieve the potential gains from capitation when GPs continue to receive their income from a variety of sources and in a variety of different ways; and how to manage the potential for ‘cream skimming’.Recent improvements in access may, in time, improve health status and reduce inequalities in health, but there is no guarantee that a universal system will necessarily improve average health or reduce inequalities. Much depends on the services being delivered and the populations that are benefiting most – something New Zealand needs better evidence on before determining future policy directions in primary health care.
‘Hospital at home’ care model as an effective alternative in the management of decompensated chronic heart failure
Authors: Mendoza Humberto , Martín María Jesús , García Angel , Arós Fernando , Aizpuru Felipe , Regalado De Los Cobos José , Belló María Concepción , Lopetegui Pedro , Cia Juan Miguel 
Published: October 2009

AimsThe ‘Hospital at home’ (HaH) model avoids hospital admission by transferring healthcare and treatment to the patient's home. We aimed to compare the effectiveness and direct healthcare costs of treating elderly patients with decompensated heart failure (HF) using HaH care vs. inpatient hospital care (IHC) in a cardiology unit.Methods and resultsEighty patients aged over 65 years who presented at the emergency department with decompensated HF were randomly assigned to IHC or HaH. All patients were studied for 1 year. Seventy‐one patients completed the study, of these 34 were admitted to cardiology and 37 received HaH care. No significant differences were found in baseline characteristics, including comorbidity, functional status, and health‐related quality of life. Clinical outcomes were similar after initial admission and also after the 12 months of follow‐up. Death or re‐admission due to HF or another cardiovascular event occurred in 19 patients in IHC and 20 in HaH (P = 0.88). Changes in functional status and health‐related quality of life over the follow‐up period were not significantly different. The average cost of the initial admission was 4502 ± 2153€ in IHC and 2541 ± 1334€ in HaH (P < 0.001). During 12 months of follow‐up, the average expenditure was 4619 ± 7679€ and 3425 ± 4948€ (P = 0.83) respectively.ConclusionHospital at home care allows an important reduction in the costs during the index episode compared with hospital care, whilst maintaining similar outcomes with respect to cardiovascular mortality and morbidity and quality of life at 1 year follow‐up.
Beyond fractional derivatives: local approximation of other convolution integrals
Authors: Singh Satwinder Jit , Chatterjee Anindya 
Published: October 2009

Dynamic systems involving convolution integrals with decaying kernels, of which fractionally damped systems form a special case, are non-local in time and hence infinite dimensional. Straightforward numerical solution of such systems up to time
t
needs

computations owing to the repeated evaluation of integrals over intervals that grow like
t
. Finite-dimensional and local approximations are thus desirable. We present here an approximation method which first rewrites the evolution equation as a coupled infinite-dimensional system with no convolution, and then uses Galerkin approximation with finite elements to obtain linear, finite-dimensional, constant coefficient approximations for the convolution. This paper is a broad generalization, based on a new insight, of our prior work with fractional order derivatives (
Singh & Chatterjee 2006
Nonlinear Dyn.
45
, 183–206). In particular, the decaying kernels we can address are now generalized to the Laplace transforms of known functions; of these, the power law kernel of fractional order differentiation is a special case. The approximation can be refined easily. The local nature of the approximation allows numerical solution up to time
t
with

computations. Examples with several different kernels show excellent performance. A key feature of our approach is that the dynamic system in which the convolution integral appears is itself approximated using another system, as distinct from numerically approximating just the solution for the given initial values; this allows non-standard uses of the approximation, e.g. in stability analyses.
Quantitative assessment of PTPN11 or RAS mutations at the neonatal period and during the clinical course in patients with juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia
Authors: Matsuda Kazuyuki , Sakashita Kazuo , Taira Chiaki , Tanaka‐Yanagisawa Miyuki , Yanagisawa Ryu , Shiohara Masaaki , Kanegane Hirokazu , Hasegawa Daiichiro , Kawasaki Keiichiro , Endo Mikiya , Yajima Shuhei , Sasaki Shinya , Kato Keisuke , Koike Kazutoshi , Kikuchi Akira , Ogawa Atsushi , Watanabe Akihiro , Sotomatsu Manabu , Nonoyama Shigeaki , Koike Kenichi 
Published: October 2009

SummaryTo evaluate minimal residual disease (MRD) after chemotherapy and haematopoietic stem cell transplantation in juvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia (JMML), a locked nucleic acid‐allele specific quantitative polymerase chain reaction (LNA‐AS‐qPCR) was developed for 13 patients (four types of PTPN11 mutation and four types of RAS mutation). The post‐transplant MRD detected by LNA‐AS‐qPCR analysis was well correlated with chimerism assessed by short tandem repeat PCR analysis. Non‐intensive chemotherapy exerted no substantial reduction of the tumour burden in three patients. There was no significant difference in the quantity of RAS mutant DNA after spontaneous haematological improvement in 4 patients with NRAS or KRAS 34G > A during a 2‐ to 5‐year follow‐up. PTPN11, NRAS, or KRAS mutant DNA was detected from Guthrie card dried blood in five of seven patients (who were aged <2 years at diagnosis) at a level of 1·0–6·5 × 10−1 of the values at diagnosis. Accordingly, these five patients might have already reached a subclinical status at birth. Considering the negative correlation between mutant DNA level in neonatal blood spots and age at diagnosis, JMML patients with a larger tumour burden at birth appeared to show earlier onset.
Mannitol challenge for assessment of airway responsiveness, airway inflammation and inflammatory phenotype in asthma
Authors: Wood L. G. , Powell H. , Gibson P. G. 
Published: October 2009

SummaryBackground
Assessment of airway inflammation in asthma is becoming increasingly important, as the inflammatory phenotype underpins the treatment response.Objective
This study aimed to evaluate mannitol as a tool for assessing airway responsiveness and airway inflammation in asthma, compared with hypertonic saline.Methods
Fifty‐five subjects with stable asthma completed a hypertonic (4.5%) saline challenge and a mannitol challenge at two separate visits, performed 48–72 h apart, in random order.Results
Induced sputum was obtained from 49 (89%) subjects during the saline challenge and 42 (76%) subjects during the mannitol challenge (P>0.05). There was a significant correlation between the greatest percentage fall in forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) (r=0.6, P<0.0001), the dose–response slope (r=0.73), cumulative dose (r=0.55) and PD15 (r=0.46) for mannitol and hypertonic saline. The greatest percentage fall in FEV1 to mannitol was less in non‐eosinophilic asthma. There was a lower total cell count in mannitol vs. hypertonic‐saline‐induced sputum. However, sputum eosinophils and neutrophils were not significantly different. Using mannitol, a higher proportion of subjects were classified as having eosinophilic asthma. There were no differences in IL‐8, neutrophil elastase or matrix‐metalloproteinase 9 concentrations in sputum samples induced with mannitol or hypertonic saline.Conclusion
We conclude that mannitol can be used to induce good‐quality sputum, useful for analysis of inflammatory mediators and for predicting the inflammatory phenotype in asthma. Cite this as: L. G. Wood, H. Powell and P. G. Gibson, Clinical & Experimental Allergy, 2010 (40) 232–241.
6th International Immunoglobulin Symposium: Poster presentations
Authors: Fernandez-Cruz E , Kaveri S V , Peter H-H , Durandy A , Cantoni N , Quinti I , Sorensen R , Bussel J B , Danieli M G , Winkelmann A , Bayry J , Käsermann F , Späth P , Helbert M , Salama A , Van Schaik I N , Yuki N 
Published: October 2009

Summary
The posters presented at the 6th International Immunoglobulin Symposium covered a wide range of fields and included both basic science and clinical research. From the abstracts accepted for poster presentation, 12 abstracts were selected for oral presentations in three parallel sessions on immunodeficiencies, autoimmunity and basic research. The immunodeficiency presentations dealt with novel, rare class-switch recombination (CSR) deficiencies, attenuation of adverse events following IVIg treatment, association of immunoglobulin (Ig)G trough levels and protection against acute infection in patients with X-linked agammaglobulinaemia (XLA) and common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), and the reduction of class-switched memory B cells in patients with specific antibody deficiency (SAD). The impact of intravenous immunoglobulin on fetal alloimmune thrombocytopenia, pregnancy and postpartum-related relapses in multiple sclerosis and refractory myositis, as well as experiences with subcutaneous immunoglobulin in patients with multi-focal motor neuropathy, were the topics presented in the autoimmunity session. The interaction of dendritic cell (DC)-SIGN and α2,6-sialylated IgG Fc and its impact on human DCs, the enrichment of sialylated IgG in plasma-derived IgG, as wells as prion surveillance and monitoring of anti-measles titres in immunoglobulin products, were covered in the basic science session. In summary, the presentations illustrated the breadth of immunoglobulin therapy usage and highlighted the progress that is being made in diverse areas of basic and clinical research, extending our understanding of the mechanisms of immunoglobulin action and contributing to improved patient care.