Cut Back Research Articles

EVALUATION OF SURGE AND CUTBACK FLOW FURROW IRRIGATION SYSTEMS FOR PEPPER (CAPSICUM ANNUUM) PRODUCTION

ABSTRACTThe aim of this field experiment was to evaluate surge, cutback and conventional flow furrow irrigation systems in terms of hydraulic, technical and agronomic performance measures for pepper production in Gambella Regional State, Ethiopia. The treatments consisted of two surges (SR1 = 1/3 cycle ratio and SR2 = 1/2 cycle ratio), one cutback (CB) and one conventional (C) flow furrow irrigation systems. The advance time ratios (ATR) recorded under the two surge treatments ranged from 0.57 to 0.70. Maximum application efficiency of 61.8%, storage efficiency of 95.1% and uniformity coefficient of 77.3% were recorded under SR1, whereas the lowest corresponding values of 52.8, 81.2 and 56.1% were recorded under C. Maximum deep percolation (23.6%) and tailwater (27.7%) losses were recorded from CB and C treatments, respectively, whereas SR1 and SR2, respectively, gave minimum deep percolation (14.3%) and tailwater (20.5%) losses. In terms of all agronomic performance measures, it was found that SR2 performed well, followed by SR1. However, the C treatment gave minimum yield (6450 kg ha−1), crop water productivity (17.5 kg ha−1 mm−1) and irrigation water productivity (11.3 kg ha−1 mm−1). From the findings of this study, it was concluded that surge and cutback flow furrow irrigation systems are promising technologies for pepper production in areas with minimal water use. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Fiscal Policy, Net Exports, and the Sectoral Composition of Output in Greece

This paper investigates the effects of fiscal policy shocks on net export performance and the sectoral composition of output in Greece in the post 2000 period. A reduction in government spending (or a tax hike) exerts a negative response on output which reduces import demand. A cut back in government spending boosts exports through the labour cost competitiveness channel further improving net exports. Tax hikes in particular on social security contributions and other indirect taxes reduce export performance. Although real aggregate output declines following a cut in government spending, the tradable sector output responds positively, further improving net exports.

Marketisation, public services and the city: the potential for Polanyian counter movements

Marketisation of urban service delivery gained renewed intensity in the crisis. Mobilising Polanyi’s concept of double movement, we analyse how marketisation of public services both creates and constrains the potential for urban counter movements in the USA and Europe. We identify three main urban responses: ‘hollowing out’, where cities engage in service cut backs; ‘riding the wave’, where cities attempt to harness the market; and ‘push backs’, where cities and citizen movements oppose marketisation. Although the city is constrained by marketisation at national and international levels, we find evidence of push back and, in it, the potential for public service alternatives.

Influence of Induced Growth Patterns on Green Yield Components of Amaranthus cruentus L.

The influence of induced growth patterns on the yield of Amaranthus cruentus L. (Large Green variety) was investigated in the 2009 and 2010 early cropping seasons at the Federal College of Land Resources Technology, Kuru, Nigeria. Four growth patterns (periodic harvesting without cut back, cut back at 10 cm from the base of the stem, cut back at 20 cm from the base of the stem and continuous removal of inflorescence) were compared in a randomized complete block design with five replicates. The three induced growth patterns enhanced shoot regrowth and development of leaves and branches. In the 2009 trial, green yield from the cut back at 10 cm (9.22 t ha –1 ) was significantly (P–1) was significantly different from the yield for cut back at 20 cm (6.07 t ha –1 ). Floral initiation which was delayed by 29 days (2009) and 21 days (2010) after cutting the stem at 10 cm from the base prolonged the proliferation of branches. The lowest number of branches and weight of leaves were recorded under natural growth conditions in the two trials. The findings in this study indicate that Amaranthus cruentus growers could adopt the method of cutting back the stem at 10 cm from the base at 21 days after transplanting in order to take full advantage of the yield potential of the crop.

Influence of Induced Growth Patterns on Green Yield Components of Amaranthus cruentus L.

The influence of induced growth patterns on the yield of Amaranthus cruentus L. (Large Green variety) was investigated in the 2009 and 2010 early cropping seasons at the Federal College of Land Resources Technology, Kuru, Nigeria. Four growth patterns (periodic harvesting without cut back, cut back at 10 cm from the base of the stem, cut back at 20 cm from the base of the stem and continuous removal of inflorescence) were compared in a randomized complete block design with five replicates. The three induced growth patterns enhanced shoot regrowth and development of leaves and branches. In the 2009 trial, green yield from the cut back at 10 cm (9.22 t ha –1 ) was significantly (P–1) was significantly different from the yield for cut back at 20 cm (6.07 t ha –1 ). Floral initiation which was delayed by 29 days (2009) and 21 days (2010) after cutting the stem at 10 cm from the base prolonged the proliferation of branches. The lowest number of branches and weight of leaves were recorded under natural growth conditions in the two trials. The findings in this study indicate that Amaranthus cruentus growers could adopt the method of cutting back the stem at 10 cm from the base at 21 days after transplanting in order to take full advantage of the yield potential of the crop.

The International Dimension of Climate Change Policy

Climate change is a major challenge to international cooperation, as emphasized for instance by the Stern Review and various IPCC reports (Stern 2006; IPCC 2007) but also many others. One of the main problems of achieving cooperation under international climate agreements is free-riding. Countries have an incentive to adopt a non-cooperative behaviour. Emission reduction constitutes a public good. No country can be excluded to benefit from the emission reduction of other countries. Moreover, by not contributing to emission reduction, a country saves on abatement cost. The Kyoto Protocol ran out in 2012, but all efforts to negotiate an effective follow-up protocol have failed up to now. The reason is not that no negotiations would have taken place, but simply that no proposal was yet formally adopted which sets emission ceilings such that greenhouse gas emissions are stopped from further growing. What is required are substantial cut backs on emissions in order to meet the widely accept target of not allowing the average global temperature to increase beyond 2 ∘C. The seven papers in this special issue look at various important aspects related to the international dimension of climate policy. The first five papers are theoretical papers, the last two papers employ a climate simulation model combined with a game theoretic module to derive their results. Issues that are covered are for, instance, the problem of long-term commitment of governments to a proactive climate policy, the role of R&D in clean technologies, in terms of how they are induced through various policy instruments but also how spillovers and adoption of green technology can support international cooperation, the role of ancillary benefits for the success of climate agreements, the relationship between trade and climate policy, the design of supply-side climate policies to address the green paradox, the driving forces that support or undermine a unilateral climate policy without full participation and finally the role of fat tail distributions of uncertain damages on the performance of partially cooperative climate agreements. In the following, we summarize these papers briefly and encourage the reader to have a careful read of this excellent selection of papers, which span a wide range of important topics in the current debate about an effective way forward in addressing the climate change problem.

Rationing Legal Services

There is a deepening crisis in the funding of legal services in the USA with cut backs in Legal Services Corporation and Interest on Lawyers Trust Account funding, rendering more visible the fact that there is and always will be persistent scarcity in the availability of both criminal and civil legal assistance. This article examines how existing Legal Service Providers (LSPs), both civil and criminal, should ration their services when they cannot help everyone. I draw on the bioethics literature on the allocation of medical goods (organs, ICU beds, vaccine doses, etc.) to illuminate the problems facing LSPs and the potential rationing principles they might adopt.

They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back!: Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment

They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back!: Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment

They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment By Ellen Reese Russell Sage Foundation. 2011. 288 pages. $42.50 cloth

Unsurprisingly, Ellen Reese's account of collective challenges to welfare reform in the 1990s and 2000s does not end in the triumph of welfare activists over the political actors who, with sometimes barely concealed disdain for the recipients of public assistance, sought to make welfare more restrictive by toughening eligibility criteria and imposing new work requirements on recipients. Reese does not claim that a clear-cut victory was within reach of welfare activists. Instead, she seeks to understand the conditions under which activists in Wisconsin and California—particularly in Milwaukee and Los Angeles, the two largest cities of those states—were able to gain some, mostly small-scale, benefit expansions, funding increases and exemptions for particular populations under welfare reform. These efforts were important not only because they made a difference in real people's lives, but also because they sowed the seeds for potentially powerful alliances between welfare activists and two other constituencies: labor and immigrants.

How to create innovation by building the translation bridge from basic research into medicinal drugs: an industrial perspective

The global healthcare industry is undergoing substantial changes and adaptations to the constant decline of approved new medical entities. This decrease in internal research productivity is resulting in a major decline of patent-protected sales (patent cliff) of most of the pharmaceutical companies. Three major global adaptive trends as driving forces to cope with these challenges are evident: cut backs of internal research and development jobs in the western hemisphere (Europe and USA), following the market growth potential of Asia by building up internal or external research and development capabilities there and finally, ‘early innovation hunting’ with an increased focus on identifying and investing in very early innovation sources within academia and small start-up companies. Early innovation hunting can be done by different approaches: increased corporate funding, establishment of translational institutions to bridge innovation, increasing sponsored collaborations and formation of technology hunting groups for capturing very early scientific ideas and concepts. This emerging trend towards early innovation hunting demands special adaptations from both the pharmaceutical industry and basic researchers in academia to bridge the translation into new medicines which deliver innovative medicines that matters to the patient. This opinion article describes the different modalities of cross-fertilisation between basic university or publicly funded institutional research and the applied research and development activities within the pharmaceutical industry. Two key factors in this important translational bridge can be identified: preparation of both partnering organisations to open up for new and sometime disruptive ideas and creation of truly trust-based relationships between the different groups allowing long-term scientific collaborations while acknowledging that value-creating differences are an essential factor for successful collaboration building.

The Financial Toxicity of Cancer Treatment: A Pilot Study Assessing Out-of-Pocket Expenses and the Insured Cancer Patient's Experience

Cancer patients carry rising burdens of health care-related out-of-pocket expenses, and a growing number of patients are considered "underinsured." Our objective was to describe experiences of insured cancer patients requesting copayment assistance and to describe the impact of health care expenses on well-being and treatment. We conducted baseline and follow-up surveys regarding the impact of health care costs on well-being and treatment among cancer patients who contacted a national copayment assistance foundation along with a comparison sample of patients treated at an academic medical center. Among 254 participants, 75% applied for drug copayment assistance. Forty-two percent of participants reported a significant or catastrophic subjective financial burden; 68% cut back on leisure activities, 46% reduced spending on food and clothing, and 46% used savings to defray out-of-pocket expenses. To save money, 20% took less than the prescribed amount of medication, 19% partially filled prescriptions, and 24% avoided filling prescriptions altogether. Copayment assistance applicants were more likely than nonapplicants to employ at least one of these strategies to defray costs (98% vs. 78%). In an adjusted analysis, younger age, larger household size, applying for copayment assistance, and communicating with physicians about costs were associated with greater subjective financial burden. Insured patients undergoing cancer treatment and seeking copayment assistance experience considerable subjective financial burden, and they may alter their care to defray out-of-pocket expenses. Health insurance does not eliminate financial distress or health disparities among cancer patients. Future research should investigate coverage thresholds that minimize adverse financial outcomes and identify cancer patients at greatest risk for financial toxicity.

They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment. By Ellen Reese. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012. Pp. xvi+286. $42.50.

<i>They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment</i>. By Ellen Reese. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012. Pp. xvi+286. $42.50.

Benzocyclobutene (BCB 4022-35) Single Mode Rib Waveguides

Design, fabrication and characterization of a photodefinable benzocyclobutene (BCB 4022-35 is a product of DowTM) single mode rib optical waveguide is presented in this work. At first, the refractive index of polymer film is measured by the method of prism coupling. We design the single mode rib waveguide based on the geometrical adjustment of rib width, total waveguide height using conventional R-soft BPM and effective index methods. Based on the design results, BCB waveguides were fabricated by using photolithographic process with wet etching, which is quite complicated and time consuming. In this work, the insertion and propagation losses of waveguide are measured by using the conventional cut back method. The insertion losses of waveguide are 3.95 dB and 4.08 dB for TE and TM modes respectively. The propagation losses of waveguide are 1.09dB/cm and 1.20dB/cm for TE and TM modes respectively. 

Increasing Black Start Capacity by Fast Cut Back Function of Thermal Power Plants

Power system restoration is well recognized as one of the most important tasks for electric power grids. During the restoration process, preparation is the first stage, in which time is critical, and many non-blackstart units need to be cranked. The black start capacity plays a key role in preparation stage. This paper addresses thermal units with fast cut back (FCB) function as black start units. The model of FCB unit and algorithm for black start capacity assessment accounting for FCB unit is proposed. First, the general restoration process is briefly introduced. Second, the general restoration process is introduced by summarizing the industrial restoration practice. A piece of software entitled as “System Restoration Navigator” (SRN) is developed and used as a computational tool for restoration strategy assessment. Third, the model of FCB units and algorithm for assessment of FCB function in system restoration are proposed. Fourth, case studies show that FCB units increase black start capacity and reduce restoration time considerably. The proposed method has been successfully applied in Guangdong Power Company, China Southern Power Grid (CSG), where hydro power plants are limited and reliability requirement is critical.

Agriculture branch of the Romanian economy.

Agriculture is an integral part of contemporary Romanian economy and society. In terms ofindirect effects, any significant cut back in European farming activity would in turn generate losses inGDP and jobs in linked economic sectors – notably within the agro-food supply chain, which relies onthe Romanian primary agricultural sector for high quality, competitive and reliable raw materialinputs, as well as in non-food sectors. Rural activities, from tourism, transport, to local and publicservices would also be affected. Depopulation in rural areas would probably accelerate. There wouldtherefore be important environmental and social consequences.

Of Mauern and Mortality

old German protest song, Die Gedanken sind frei (thoughts are free) says that thoughts are so powerful they can break Mauern entzwei (break the prison walls in two). But life is not so simple. As prisoners grow older, they don't break down walls. They grow physically weaker and less able to break down anything. Indeed, as prisoners grow older, their physical infirmities multiply, and the state finds itself feeding and housing persons who are no longer a danger to anyone but whose medical needs cause their confinement to be enormously expensive.An example of the problem surfaced in the recent action of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour in pardoning or releasing more than 200 prisoners. One of the reasons for this action, apparently, was that care expenses while incarcerated were costing the state so much money (New York Times, Jan. 12, 2012, p. A13).The flip side of the dilemma presented by the older prisoner appears in The Shawshank Rebellion. An older prisoner has established his own niche behind the bars: He runs the library and has a pet crow. Released, he follows a path well worn by previous ex-cons and becomes a stock boy at a grocery with which the penal system has a relationship. Facing an endless future of filling and carrying out grocery bags, he hangs himself.A prisoner my wife and I came to know at the Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP), Ohio's supermaximum security prison, offers another illustration of the dilemma. Pop, as fellow prisoners called him, had a variety of diagnoses. He was a diabetic. He had a heart problem and renal difficulties. He also had a skin affliction that spread throughout his body and was extremely painful. A New York City doctor who reviewed the care of prisoners at the supermax during a class action lawsuit about conditions of confinement there described Pop's situation as fragile.Pop had come back to prison twice after a release because he could not control his sexuality. But he was also a victim of the financial crunch that has caused prisons all over the United States to cut back on medical care of the incarcerated.For a time, Pop was cared for at the Corrections Medical Center (CMC) in Columbus where his medical conditions were closely monitored. But that institution is intended for short-term response rather than indefinite or permanent care that is very expensive. And so, over his protests, Pop was sent back to OSP.At OSP, the other prisoners in his living area tried to keep track of Pop. But what do you do when you are locked in a cell and you become aware that an older African American in a nearby cell is stretched out on the floor, inert, and unresponsive?A prisoner wrote to us that Pop had been taken to the infirmary. We contacted the prison and tried to arrange a visit with him. We were told that Pop was indeed in the infirmary, on oxygen, and it would not be possible for us to visit. We made arrangements for a phone call with him. Then there came a phone call from the warden. Pop's heart had failed him. warden himself had attempted to give pulmonary resuscitation, but Pop was dead.Fundamentally, the reasons for more older prisoners with aboveaverage health care costs are the dramatic increases in the number of prisoners and the length of sentences. Michelle Alexander, in her book, New Jim Crow, argues persuasively that these are the results of a misguided and hypocritical war on drugs. She states that in the last 25 years, the prison population of the United States lept from approximately 350,000 to 2.3 million, and that this was due to changes in laws and policies, not changes in crime rates (p. 92). At the same time, she explains, mandatory minimum sentences tied the hands of judges who would otherwise have been willing to consider the seriousness of an offense, the age of the offender, whether the conviction was for a first offense, and other mitigating factors. She writes,A life sentence for a first-time drug offense is unheard of in the rest of the developed world . …

TOURISM DEVELOPMENT: AN ECONOMIC RECOVERY OPPORTUNITY FOR CÂMPULUNG MUSCEL DEPRESSION

Developing tourism in an area represents the continuous process of planning and building tourist facilities, refurbishing and modernizing the existing ones, resizing them according to the types and sizes of tourist fluxes, shaping demand and offer, rendering a sustainable tourist activity. Perspective studies on the evolution of the phenomenon are necessary to design the tourist activity, following the insertion of the future area parameters into the decision models allowing them to be monitored and changed during the modelling process. Given the geographic really of space, the present study focuses on highlighting several indicators concerning tourism development in an area severely affected by economic cut backs, suggesting and also trying to monitor the social and economic effects tourism development could have upon. Besides determining the function of the territory, authors have conducted a diagnostic analysis which underlines the favourable factors of tourism, indicating, at the same time, the necessary measures to insure the best development. Thus, given the conditions of massive cut backs in the major economic sectors, the local development of tourism is of a crucial importance. As a key element of the sustainable development, tourism could provide new business and work places in the same time; it could determine the increase of incomes for the rural area habitants through the capitalization of local resources.

Book Review: They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment

Book Review: They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment

Technology Focus: Reservoir Performance and Monitoring (September 2012)

Technology Focus Positioning for Long-Term High Recovery While Meeting Short-Term Objectives To balance short-term production and long-term recovery is a key reservoir-engineering challenge in many fields. Optimizing, and even maximizing, short-term production is very important and has high focus in many organizations. The “maximum efficient rate” often is the compromise—a higher short-term, or plateau, rate than this would damage the reservoir irreversibly and a lower ultimate recovery would be the result. The industry has largely succeeded in maximizing short-term production, but case studies seldom demonstrate the link between rates today and ultimate recoveries tomorrow: Discounting makes early accelerated barrels more valuable than later barrels, and because value often is more important than volume (or resource management), the bias tends to be toward high early rates. The systematic approach to production optimization, short- and long-term, described in these highlights is worth a closer look. It describes 6 years of experience and improvements. The key to optimization is data and our ability to transfer data into knowledge. Intelligent-well systems are rich data sources that have expanded over the last 20 years. The systems have improved our intelligent-reservoir-management capabilities such as “intelligent slots,” but there is still unlocked potential. I think development and application of sensors able to read or sense at a distance from the wells will be important, closing the gap between short- and long-term optimization. Just imagine the following situation: You have received information from your intelligent-well sys-tem that a water front is approaching one of your producers and is 500 ft away. What do you do? Do you cut back on this producer because when water breaks through, you do not have sufficient water-handling capacity to obtain a high cumulative recovery from this well, or do you crank the well up and force water breakthrough because this is the first producer with water breakthrough and there is a lot of spare water-handling capacity allowing you to produce the well at high water cut longer, securing a good ultimate recovery? Understanding reservoir performance is about data, knowledge, experience, and feedback loops. It is also about our ability to do the right thing at the right time. One of the selected papers deals with transformation and change in the exploration/production business, why they are needed, and potential solutions to identified challenges. This paper made me reflect on my own organization and how we go about balancing short-term production with long-term recovery—sometimes without acquiring new (feedback) data from the reservoir. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 153220 Hybrid Forecasting Methods for Multifractured Horizontal Wells: EUR Sensitivities by M. Nobakht, SPE, Fekete Associates, et al. SPE 150868 Improved Determination of Well Rate From Temperature and Pressure Distributions Along the Well by E. Barrett, SPE, Santos, et al. SPE 151807 The Extinction of Skin by M.T. Byrne, Senergy, et al. SPE 147059 Unconventional Type Curves: Useful, or Sirens of Destruction? by William J. Haskett, Decision Strategies

Book Review: They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment

Book Review: They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back! Welfare Activism in an Era of Retrenchment