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Employing the case of the expansion and regulation of hog confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) in Texas combined with the actions of the transnational agri-food corporation Seaboard Farms, Inc., this paper probes the relationship between the state and corporations in the global era. It specifically investigates the ability of the state to control agri-food corporations in a context in which the hyper-mobility of capital has increasingly allowed corporations to by-pass state regulations and requirements. Salient literature is reviewed by grouping it into three camps: the first views the state as largely controlled by corporations; the second stresses the powers left to the state and the fact that corporations need state assistance to successfully operate in the current global economy; and the third acknowledges the crisis of the nation-state under globalization but maintains that the state has retained some ability to resist globalization forces. The case study documents the expansion of Seaboard Farms' hog operations in the Panhandle Region of Texas and nearby states and its interaction with local and state governments and agencies. The article indicates that the relationship between transnational corporations and the state is contradictory. Its source rests on the fracture between varying postures maintained by the state and the relatively homogenous behavior of the CAFO corporations. The case also reveals that the state's limited control of corporate actions is facilitated by state strategies; that corporate actions are successful if corporations enlist the cooperation of the state; and the state is able to control resistance and legitimize its actions to its constituencies. These conditions, however, do not prevent the emergence of anti-corporate resistance at local and state levels. In the search for new forms of socioeconomic development, local residents and their leaders should be aware of corporations' ability to affect state action, state postures that favor corporate designs, and the fact that successful opposition to corporate designs can be, and is, carried out. (Contains 1 table and 3 footnotes.

The article discusses a study on the migration and habitat preferences of Swainson's hawk at a stopover site for foraging in northwestern Texas in autumn. It notes in the results that the most favored habitat type of these raptors was the harvested silage corn fields which exposes invertebrates and small mammals to predation during harvest. It also suggests in this study that these raptors use this area as a refueling site due to its abundance in invertebrate prey before embarking on their long journey to southern America.

The Missouri School of Agrifood Studies began with a focus on the power of agribusiness corporations in relation to quality of life of farmers and their related communities. The poultry industry was the first commodity studied, with later research into other commodity sectors and then the global dimensions of this process. In this paper I continue the Missouri School agenda by focusing on the entry of the poultry firm Sanderson Farms and the hog firm Seaboard Farms into Texas. This paper combines a sociology of the agrifood system conceptual framework with two case studies of agribusiness expansion in Texas to inform discussions regarding the characteristics of the globalization of the agrifood system. The results of the research indicate that the CAFO-based economic development strategies in Texas created significant controversies as local citizens organized to challenge the initiatives. This contested process of the globalization of the agrifood system was mediated by the state, mostly in favor of the agribusiness transnational corporations (TNCs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic agriculture has been advanced as a production system that improves environmental quality and supports rural community development. Recent developments in organics have called into question both assertions. Researchers have argued that the advent of national-level organic standards has contributed to the conventionalization and bifurcation of organics. Conventionalization refers to the process by which organic agriculture increasingly takes on the characteristics of mainstream industrial agriculture. Bifurcation refers to the process by which the organic agriculture adopts a dual-structure of smaller, lifestyle-oriented producers and larger, industrial-scale producers. This research examines the conventionalization and bifurcation theses through a comparison of certified organic and non-certified organic producers in Texas. We conclude that the case of organics in Texas provides mixed support for the conventionalization thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has your region struggled with the development of a regional unified medical command that is recognized by local EOCs, EMS providers, and healthcare facilities, and meets the HRSA grant requirements for regional planning? Does your VA Medical Center have Pitocin and know how to deliver babies? Can your pediatric hospital provide care for an obese congestive heart failure patient? Can your freestanding surgical hospitals accept and care for isolated trauma? Can your specialty hospitals without emergency rooms, accept 911-ambulance patients? Do you know your hospital helicopter landing coordinates? During a disaster, a unified approach to medical command provides rapid facilitation of patient triage and placement in appropriate facilities, coordinates with local, regional, state and federal initiatives, and helps ensure a stable medical infrastructure. During Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Houston, Texas was placed in unique situations with the influx of evacuated populations from the Gulf Coast region, as well as evacuation of the Texas Gulf Coast and regions of East Texas. The leaders of the Disaster Unified Medical Command for the Houston region would like to share their experiences and lessons learned from these natural disasters. By doing so, the authors hope to encourage other areas of the nation to adopt this program for emergency responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fossil record preserves numerous natural experiments that can shed light on the response of ecological communities to environmental change. However, directly observing the community dynamics of extinct organisms is not possible. As an alternative, neutral ecological models suggest that species abundance distributions reflect dynamical processes like migration, competition, recruitment, and extinction. Live-dead comparisons suggest that such distributions can be faithfully preserved in the rock record. Here we use a maximum-likelihood approach to show that brachiopod (lamp shell) abundance distributions from four temporally distinct ecological landscapes from the Glass Mountains, Texas (of the Permian period), exhibit significant differences. Further, all four are better fitted by zero-sum multinomial distributions, characteristic of Hubbell's neutral model, than by log-normal distributions, as predicted by the traditional ecological null hypothesis. Using the neutral model as a guide, we suggest that sea level fluctuations spanning about 10?Myr altered the degrees of isolation and exchange among local communities within these ecological landscapes. Neither these long-term environmental changes nor higher-frequency sea level fluctuations resulted in wholesale extinction or major innovation within evolutionary lineages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Hazardous waste and environmental justice are important public issues as well as vital areas of academic discussion. The occurrence of hazardous waste sites in Texas and Louisiana is among the highest in the U.S. This study reexamines the claim that hazardous waste sites are disproportionately located in communities with higher percentages of minorities and poor in the population. Because of varying units of analysis and improper operationalization of variables, research based on this claim has produced inconsistent findings. This paper uses the case of Superfund hazardous waste site locations in Texas and Louisiana combined with a multi-dimensional conceptual frame to rectify weaknesses associated with conventional approaches to environmental justice issues. The goal of this analysis is to address two shortcomings in the environmental justice literature. First, we introduce the concept of relative deprivation and, second, we expand the traditional class focus of such research to include both status and power dimensions. The major hypothesis of this research is that environmental justice issues are better conceptualized as environmental classism rather than environmental racism. The results indicate that a multi-dimensional theoretical approach that includes class, status, and power indicators is superior to previous approaches. Furthermore, results indicate that race is not a significant correlate with the location of hazardous waste sites. We conclude that the operationalization of the concept of relative deprivation is valuable in sorting out the influence of race from other independent variables. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Guadalupian Epoch was characterized by major changes in paleogeography, paleoclimate, and biodiversity. Yet, the paucity of precise and accurate radioisotopic dates from the Guadalupian stages in their type area, Guadalupe Mountains National Park in West Texas has rendered their calibration inadequate. In this study, we report high-precision U-Pb zircon geochronology by the CA-ID-TIMS method from three ash beds (2σ internal errors only) in the Rader Member of the Bell Canyon Formation at the Back Ridge Section (262.127 ± 0.097 Ma, MSWD = 0.89, n = 3), the lower Pinery Member of the Bell Canyon Formation at the Frijole Section (264.23 ± 0.13 Ma, MSWD = 0.89, n = 8) and the basal South Wells Member of the Cherry Canyon Formation at the Monolith Canyon Section (266.525 ± 0.078 Ma, MSWD = 0.62, n = 5). The Bayesian interpolation statistics method is used to establish an age-stratigraphy model that estimates the base of the Capitanian to be 264.28 ± 0.16 Ma, serving as the best age estimate for the Capitanian Stage at present. In addition, we review the existing geochronology from the Guadalupian Series in West Texas and seek to propose more precise temporal estimates of Guadalupian geological and biological events. These data constrain the high-frequency sequences of the Cherry Canyon and Bell Canyon formations in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park area. Accordingly, the base of the Wordian is estimated at 266.9 ± 0.4 Ma and the Illawarra geomagnetic polarity reversal in West Texas at 267.4 ± 0.4 Ma to 266.5 ± 0.3 Ma. The global end-Guadalupian extinction began in the conodont zone of Jinogondolella altudaensis above the base of the Reef Trail Member of the Bell Canyon Formation and might continue to the Clarkina postbitteri postbitteri Zone in the earliest Wuchiapingian. The conodonts display a rapid evolutionary rate during this interval. This constrains the biotic crisis from ca. 260 Ma to 259 Ma based on our conodont age estimation. The emplacement of the Emeishan Large Igneous Province (ELIP) in South China has been constrained to ca. 260 Ma to 257.4 Ma based on zircon U-Pb geochronology by the CA-ID-TIMS method, overlapping with the end-Guadalupian extinction, which provides support for the temporal relationship between them. Additionally, the ELIP persisted into the early Wuchiapingian and may have hampered ecosystem restoration during the post-extinction interval. • U-Pb zircon geochronology by CA-ID-TIMS method for Guadalupian Series in West Texas • Calibrating Capitanian base to 264.28 ± 0.16 Ma by Bayesian age-depth model • Constraints on Guadalupian high-frequency sequences in northwestern Delaware Basin • Estimating Wordian base to 266.9 Ma and Illawarra Reversal to 267.4 to 266.5 Ma • Emeishan Large Igneous Province overlapped with end-Guadalupian extinction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Incidental detection of small renal masses has increased in recent years with increased use of various imaging modalities, and a substantial number of diagnoses are made in the elderly population. Minimally invasive surgical procedures have previously been established as options with excellent long-term oncological results, but surveillance strategies have more recently been introduced as alternatives for surgical intervention. This study reviews the outcomes for elderly patients treated with observation or surgery for small renal masses in order to better elucidate optimal management strategies., Methods: A total of 4647 patients from the SEER database met criteria for inclusion in this study. Cumulative incidences of RCC-specific mortality and non-RCC-related mortality were estimated, and frequency distributions by tumor size and surgical status were calculated., Results: No difference in RCC-related mortality was observed among all treatment groups, including surveillance, for tumors 1-30 mm in size. RCC-related mortality was significantly lower for surgically treated patients for all other tumor size groups. Mortality unrelated to RCC was significantly higher in patients undergoing surveillance compared to those undergoing surgical intervention for tumor sizes 1-30 or 1-40 mm., Conclusions: A small renal mass in patients of 80+ years of age is best defined as up to 3 cm in size. For these patients, observation appears be a valid, if not preferential strategy. Patients 80+ years of age with renal masses greater than 3 cm still appear to benefit from surgical intervention.

Background: Practical studies in real-world settings may be particularly vulnerable to unintended effects on intervention outcomes, including what is commonly known as the Hawthorne Effect. This phenomenon suggests that study subjects' behavior or study results are altered by the subjects' awareness that they are being studied or that they received additional attention. This is especially a concern when subjects are not blinded to randomization or when they participate in studies with observational components. As part of a larger practical intervention designed to improve the clinical management of skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs), we specifically examined the potential for a Hawthorne Effect from the extra attention some clinicians received when completing follow-up case reviews., Methods: De-identified, electronic data from a larger practical intervention allowed for the comparison of the clinical management of SSTIs among 14 randomly selected clinicians who participated in follow-up case reviews versus 77 clinicians who did not., Results: There were no differences in the management of SSTIs between the 2 groups of clinicians. No evidence of a Hawthorne Effect was observed in this quality-improvement intervention., Conclusion: More extensive contact with the research team did not seem to have unintended effects on the outcomes of interest for the management of SSTIs. Further study in practice-based research settings could help to establish whether different types of studies and outcomes are more or less susceptible to the Hawthorne Effect.

Representative PM2.5 and PM10 source emissions were sampled in Texas during the Big Bend Regional Aerosol Visibility and Observa (BRAVO) study. Chemical source profiles for elements, ions, and carbon fractions of 145 samples are reported for paved and unpaved road dust, soil dust, motor vehicle exhaust, vegetative burning, four coal-fired power stations, an oil refinery catalytic cracker, two cement kilns, and residential meat cooking. Several samples were taken from each emitter and source type, and these were averaged by source type, and in source subgroups based on commonality of chemical composition. The standard deviation represents the variability of the chemical mass fractions. BRAVO profiles differed in some respects from profiles measured elsewhere. High calcium abundances in geological dust, high selenium abundances in coal-fired power stations, and high antimony abundances in oil refinery catalytic cracker emissions were found. Abundances of eight thermally evolved carbon fractions [Atmos. Environ. 28 (15) (1994) 2493] differ among combustion sources, and a Monte Carlo simulation demonstrates that these differences are sufficient to differentiate among several carbon-emitters.