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Recent research to identify significant factors that influence feeder cattle prices has focused on cattle and market characteristics. The research reported here used data from Georgia teleauctions during the 1977 to 1988 pe¡ to determine the possible impact of seller's reputation on price. Both significant premium and discount seUers were identified for two of the three teleauction organizers. Theteleauctionorganization that transferred the least amount of information about the cattle had the greatest number of reputation sellers while the organization with the most information about sellers' cattle given to buyers registered no significant seller reputations. Reputations can help buyers estimate quality in the absence of complete information.Most research identifying significant factors influencing feeder cattle prices has focused on cattle and market characteristics (Buccola, 1980(Buccola, , 1982Schroeder et al.;Lambert et al.;Turner et al.;Bailey et al.). These studies have investigated price determination in traditional, telephone, and video auctions and explained much of the variation in feeder cattle price. Little research has focused on reputation trading. Shapiro explored price premiums as returns to reputations where, nThe idea of reputation makes sense only in an imperfect information world" (Shapiro p. 659). On the other hand, Sporleder used experimental economic methods to investigate the effect of buyer's reputation on exchange prices.The purpose here is to extend research on feeder cattle price determination to include the possible impact of seller's reputation on price. This research is an empirical integration of feeder cattle price determination and reputation trading research. Many of the factors hypothesized to influence feeder cattle prices in Turner et al. are also used here.

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Perceived characteristics of thin markets are described and approaches to furthering their study are suggested. Design features of a laboratory thin market, patterned after a typical livestock marketmg situation, are described. Price bias and variation from a "thick" private negotiation market with 22 traders is compared to that from a "thin" auction market with 8 traders. No systematic price bias was found m any of the markets. Price variation was actually lower in the thin auction market.

Three Georgia feeder cattle teleauction markets were analyzed from 1977 to 1988 to estimate the impacts of cattle characteristics and market conditions on prices. Cattle characteristic price impacts were similar to those in previous studies. The impact of feeder cattle futures price on teleauction price was positive but varied across markets. Optimal lot size ranged from 143 to 276 head. In one market, 14 lots were necessary to generate positive price impacts. Additional buyers were estimated to have a $.30/cwt per buyer impact on price.

Purpose Previous studies indicate that the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) nasal assay for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has a consistently high (>95%) negative predictive value (NPV) in ruling out MRSA pneumonia; however, optimal timing of PCR assay specimen and respiratory culture collection is unclear. Methods A study including 736 patients from a community hospital system was conducted. Patients were included if they had undergone MRSA nasal screening with a PCR assay and had documented positive respiratory culture results. Results In the full cohort, the MRSA PCR nasal screen assay was demonstrated to have an NPV of 94.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], 92.8%-96.5%) in ruling out MRSA-positive respiratory cultures. When evaluating the NPV by level of care (ie, where the MRSA PCR nasal assay sample was collected), no significant difference between values for samples collected in an intensive care unit vs medical/surgical units was identified (NPV [95%CI], 94.9% [92.7%-96.6%] vs 95.3% [88.4%-98.7%]).Additionally, NPV remained high with use of both invasive (NPV [95%CI], 96.8% [92.7%-99.0%]) and noninvasive (NPV [95%CI], 94.5% [91.7%-96.2%]) respiratory sampling methods. Finally, when evaluating the effect of time between MRSA PCR nasal screening and respiratory sample collection, we found high NPVs for all evaluated timeframes: within 24 hours, 93.8% (90.1%-96.4%); within 25 to 48 hours, 98.6% (92.7%-100.0%); within 49 hours to 7 days, 95.7% (91.4%-98.3%); within 8 to 14 days, 92.9% (85.1%-97.3%); and after more than 14 days, 95.5% (84.5%-99.4%). Conclusion We report high NPVs for up to 2 weeks between specimen collections, which allows clinicians to use a negative MRSA PCR nasal screen assay to rule out MRSA pneumonia, potentially leading to decreased exposure to MRSA-active antibiotics.

Our study observed higher rates of AKI in patients presenting with severe hypertension. Further research is needed to determine the most appropriate strategies for managing blood pressure in ICH patients presenting with higher SBP.

In many parts of the U.S., beef cattle production is a large sector of the agricultural economy, yet few of the cattle are stockered; instead the production is focused on cow-calf operations only. Restricting their Operation to only the first phase of beef production may be limiting the cattle owners’ profit potential. This paper examines the opportunities for Operators to earn additional profit from stockering cattle. Using a representative risk-averse producer, a decision set with seven possible marketing strategies is evaluated for the optimal decision in a Bayesian framework which allows for price and production risk. We find that in many instances retaining the cattle for stockering is a superior decision when done in conjunction with specific hedging strategies utilizing options and futures contracts.