Inter-Community Cooperation in the Micro-Region: A Saskatchewan Perspective on Rural Development

The application of the concept inter-community cooperation in rural development in Saskatchewan, Canada is explored. It is argued that there is an emergence of a new geographic unit of development which is referred to as the micro-region. The micro-region represents the growing inter-dependence among neighboring, small urban-centered communities in optimizing rural development. Selected references to inter-community cooperation experience in the larger macro-region (province or multi-province area) are reviewed. It is concluded that emphasis on the macro-region is giving way to the smaller micro-region. Selected topics on the application of intercommunity cooperation in micro-regions are discussed, including some ground rules of application, circumstances that foster cooperation, harriers to cooperation, benefits from cooperation, and risks/costs of cooperation

Misguided by experience: a defense of Custer\u27s actions at the Little Bighorn

At midday on June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer split his Seventh Cavalry Regiment into three elements and attacked an enormous village of hostile Indians situated along the Little Bighorn River in modern-day Montana. Custer and his immediate command of five troops, a total of 225 men, did not survive the fight. Immediately following the battle, officers-Reno, Benteen, Brisbin, Terry, Gibbon-began to recreate the history of the campaign\u27s recent events in an effort to explain the disaster and clear themselves of responsibility. Their self-serving omission of facts and their convenient remembrance of things that had not happened fully blamed Custer for the calamity and heavily influenced future historical assessments of the battle. Numerous explanations for the disaster have surfaced over the years. Driven by vain personal motives, Custer allegedly disobeyed General Terry\u27s orders by taking a direct route to the Indian village and then rushing his exhausted men into battle without waiting for Gibbon\u27s support. He did not conduct a thorough reconnaissance and ignored the warnings of his scouts. He violated a basic maxim of war by splitting his force in the face of the enemy, and his midday attack destroyed any hopes for surprise. Finally, Custer\u27s actions displayed an overall ineptness at fighting Indians. Some of the assessments hold truths, but they must be placed in the context of what Custer knew at the time and expected to encounter. In fact, given his prior experiences and information at hand, Custer correctly configured his forces and acted appropriately by attacking the hostile village. His forces, however, were not enough to overcome the combination of peculiar circumstances, some of his own creation, that opposed them

Influential Article Review - Twitter as A Communication Channel for Scientists

This paper examines innovation. We present insights from a highly influential paper. Here are the highlights from this paper: There have been strong calls for scientists to share their discoveries with society. Some scientists have heeded these calls through social media platforms such as Twitter. Here, we ask whether Twitter allows scientists to promote their findings primarily to other scientists (“inreach”), or whether it can help them reach broader, non-scientific audiences (“outreach”). We analyzed the Twitter followers of more than 100 faculty members in ecology and evolutionary biology and found that their followers are, on average, predominantly (∼55%) other scientists. However, beyond a threshold of ∼1000 followers, the range of follower types became more diverse and included research and educational organizations, media, members of the public with no stated association with science, and a small number of decision-makers. This varied audience was, in turn, followed by more people, resulting in an exponential increase in the social media reach of tweeting academic scientists. Tweeting, therefore, has the potential to disseminate scientific information widely after initial efforts to gain followers. These results should encourage scientists to invest in building a social media presence for scientific outreach. For our overseas readers, we then present the insights from this paper in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German