Forestry in the Next Millennium: Challenges and Opportunities for the USDA Forest Service

Throughout the globe, forestry faces predictable trends associated with the transition from reliance on natural forests to ones created through human stewardship. Laid over the ordinary economics of this transition are increases in the values of the environmental services that forests provide. The three general approaches to forest management--natural forest management, plantation forest management, and preserve management--are evaluated in this economic context. The USDA Forest Service has interesting opportunities to apply each approach, but doing so will require profound organizational changes.

The Relation Between Dietary Change and Rising U.S. Obesity

Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety, Health Economics and Policy,

Mobilizing Resources for the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: Challenges and Opportunities

Funding for work to advance the human rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) issues across the globe is surprisingly scarce. Approximately $10 million USD was spent in total on LGBT issues in the Global South and East in 2005, compared to$336 million to support 48 LGBT rights organizations based only in the United States in the same year. Ninety-three percent of funders who do not currently support LGBT human rights work in the Global South and East acknowledge the human rights community's responsibility to help advance it. This report is intended to help mobilize additional funding for LGBT human rights work by identifying obstacles to increased funding among human rights funders, exploring the implications of those obstacles and surfacing approaches to mitigate or overcome them

Mobilizing Resources for the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) People: Challenges and Opportunities

Based on a survey of funders, identifies barriers to increased funding for global LGBT human rights work and the implications. Outlines strategies including peer-to-peer networking, capacity-building for intermediaries, and tapping bilateral aid agencies

CONSUMER PRICE AWARENESS IN FOOD SHOPPING: THE CASE OF QUANTITY SURCHARGES

Data from 54 grocery regions is on tuna sales, prices, and consumer demographics is used to examine why consumers purchase large sizes when unit prices are higher. Results strongly indicate that this is done on the mistaken belief that large sizes are always cheaper: buyers are not examining prices.quantity surcharges, price awareness, Consumer/Household Economics,

System overview of the NASA Dryden Integrated Test Facility

The Integrated Test Facility, built at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, provides new real-time test capabilities for emerging research aircraft. An overview of the test facility and the real-time systems developed to operate this unique facility is presented. The facility will reduce flight test risk by minimizing the difference between the flight and ground test environments. This ground test environment is provided by combining real-time flight simulation with the actual aircraft. A brief introduction to the facility is followed by a discussion of the generic capabilities of its real-time systems. The simulation system with flight hardware and the remotely augmented vehicle system is described. An overview of many hardware systems developed for the facility follows. The benefits of applying simulation to hardware-in-the-loop testing on the X-31 Flight Research Program are presented

A DAY WITHOUT FAFH IS A DAY WITH BETTER NUTRITION

Two day food intakes from the continuing Survey of Individual Food Intake is used to compare nutrition of individuals who on one day had a FAFH meal and on the other did not. It is found that nutrition on the FAFH day is consistently worse for almost all population subgroups. In particular, significantly more calories are consumed on a day with FAFH meal.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,

Determinants of household choice of breakfast cereals: healthy or unhealthy?

We studied consumer demand for more and less healthy breakfast cereals. Using ACNielsen Homescan database and USDA food nutrition data, we developed three cereal nutrition indexes for each household in the data. In addition to the standard demographic characteristics of households and prices, we included variables representing differences between private labels and national brands. We found that the structure of the industry, through its effect on the product mix produced, affects consumer choice of nutritious foods. Some households buy fewer healthy cereals simply through reluctance to trust private labels. Among all factors expected to influence consumer purchases, the prices appear to have the strongest effect on the healthiness of the choice of breakfast cereals, which is a relatively inexpensive product. Households with children and teens buy less healthy cereals, while older and more educated households make healthier choices.consumer demand, healthy and unhealthy food, breakfast cereals, Consumer/Household Economics,

THE EFFECT OF FOOD STAMPS ON SPENDING FOR GROCERY PRODUCTS

We constructed demographic profiles of each market area by aggregating circa-1990 county US census data. We constructed a measure for market level food stamp benefits using 1990 county-level food stamp benefit data supplied by the USDA. This is the key explanatory variable in regressions in which sales of many specific foods and food aggregates are regressed on food stamp benefits and a large number of demographics, including a measure of poverty. The percent of grocery sales accounted for by food stamps ranged from less than two in the Boston area to more than ten in Shreveport. The primary interest is to evaluate the extent to which differences in food stamp usage across market areas alters the relative sales of grocery products. Because food stamps are a food-specific increase in income, we might expect a shift into more desirable, income-elastic grocery categories, perhaps more nutritious ones. We examine major food categories and find effects in the expected direction, in some cases significant. Focusing on nutrition, we examine sales of particular cereal brands, for which we have detailed sales and nutrition content data. No strong impacts are found. The second interest is the food buying habits of low income buyers in general and food stamp users in particular. It is commonly felt that low income households are necessarily more adroit food shoppers and will tend to buy more economical versions of their choices. However, there is little evidence of this. Indeed, it has been repeatedly found that low income buyers are less likely to substitute private labels goods for their branded counterparts. We study the role of food stamp and poverty in differences across markets on private label share of 71 grocery categories. A recent study by Gundersen and Oliveira might suggest that food stamp users are more likely to watch the food budget than are low income nonusers, suggesting different effects. Essentially this is what is found, for the ceteris paribus impact of poverty is to reduce sales of private label products, but if anything those using food stamps tend to buy them.Food Consumption/Nutrition/Food Safety,