Working Together: Rural Nebraskans’ Views of Regional Collaboration

Some people support regional collaboration because they believe it better enables communities to increase the region’s economic vitality and quality of life. However, others worry that such collaboration threatens individual communities’ identities and limits citizens’ access to services. How do rural Nebraskans view regional collaboration? Do they support combining certain services with neighboring communities or counties more than others? Are they already purchasing their goods and services outside their local community? This report details 3,087 responses to the 2003 Nebraska Rural Poll, the eighth annual effort to understand rural Nebraskans’ perceptions. Respondents were asked a series of questions about regional collaboration. Comparisons were made among different respondent subgroups, i.e., comparisons by age, occupation, region, etc. Based on these analyses, some key findings emerged: • Most rural Nebraskans have a positive view of regional collaboration. At least three-quarters either strongly agreed or agreed that “communities in a region working together to generate new businesses are better able to create quality jobs for their residents” (82%) and “retail businesses in a region can provide a better variety of goods and services by working together collaboratively” (75%). Sixty percent agreed that combining community or county services will improve access to services. Fifty-nine percent disagreed that combining services would lead to lower quality services and 47 percent disagreed that combining services would lead to increased prices for the consumer. • Persons with higher education levels, younger respondents, persons with higher incomes and females are the groups most likely to have a positive view of regional collaboration. • At least one-half of rural Nebraskans are willing to raise revenue to keep fire protection and emergency medical services at their current level. When asked how they would cover the costs of various services if faced with a shortage of money, 53 percent were willing to raise revenue to support fire protection services and 50 percent would raise revenue to maintain emergency medical services. Forty-eight percent were willing to raise revenue for their schools (K - 12). • Over one-half of rural Nebraskans would combine or share the following services with other nearby communities or counties if faced with a shortage of money: county road maintenance, veterans services, health clinic, telecommunications services, economic development activities, licenses and permits, street maintenance, property assessment and county weed control. • Younger persons are more likely than older persons to support raising revenue to keep their school services at their current level. Seventy-six percent of the persons age 19 to 29 supported raising revenue to keep their school services at their current level. Only 35 percent of the persons age 65 and older supported raising revenue. The older respondents were more likely than the younger respondents to support combining the school with other nearby communities or reducing its level of service. Forty-five percent of the persons age 65 and older supported combining their school with others and 14 percent said they would reduce its level of service. In comparison, only 21 percent of the persons age 19 to 29 supported combining their school with other communities and only two percent supported reducing its level of service. • Persons living in or near the largest communities are more likely than the persons living in or near the smallest communities to support raising revenue to keep their school services the same. Fifty-two percent of the persons living in or near the communities with populations of 10,000 or more supported raising revenue to keep their school’s services at their current level. Only 39 percent of the persons living in or near communities with less than 500 people supported this option. The persons living in or near the smallest communities were slightly more likely to support combining their school with other communities and were also more likely to not currently have a school in their community. • Differences in the level of support for various alternatives to cover the costs of law enforcement are detected by community size. Persons living in or near the smallest communities were more likely than the persons living in or near the larger communities to say they don’t have law enforcement. Persons living in or near communities with populations ranging from 500 to 999 were the group most likely to support combining law enforcement services with another community or county. Persons living in or near the largest communities were more likely than the persons living in or near the smaller communities to advocate raising revenue to keep their law enforcement services at their current level. • Farmers and ranchers are more likely than persons with different occupations to say they would raise revenue to maintain their county roads. Thirty-two percent of the farmers and ranchers would raise revenue to keep their county road maintenance services at their current level. Only 15 percent of the persons with sales and administrative support occupations agreed. • On average, at least one-half of the following items are purchased by rural Nebraskans in their local community: banking/financial services (75.7%), groceries (73%), automobile/machinery repairs (72%), insurance (67%), farm and ranch inputs (66.9%), doctor/clinic services (63.6%) and hospital services (57.3%). • For each item, rural Nebraskans living in or near the larger communities purchased more locally than did those living in or near the smaller communities. As an example, persons living in or near the communities with populations of 10,000 or more purchased an average of 96.1% of their groceries in their local community. Persons living in or near communities with less than 500 people purchased an average of 38.2% of their groceries in their local community. For most items, respondents living in the smallest communities purchased at least one-half in another community within 50 miles. • For most items, Panhandle residents purchased more in their local community than did residents living in other parts of the state. As an example, Panhandle residents purchased an average of 53.5% of their recreation/entertainment in their local community, compared to an average of 38.7% for Southeast residents. But, South Central residents were more likely than other regional groups to have purchased hospital services, banking/financial services and insurance locally

Bioassay-directed isolation and identification of phytotoxic terpenoids from horseweed (Conyza Canadensis).

Horseweed [Conyza canadensis (L.) Cronquist, syn. Erigeron canadensis L.], Asteraceae, is a common weed with known allelopathic effects but few studies on the isolation and identification of the phytotoxic compounds have been reported [1]. C. canadensis infests orchards, vineyards, field crops such as corn, soybean and cotton, particularly in herbicide-resistant crops where conservation tillage or no-till systems are used. The objective of this study was to identify the phytotoxic compounds present by systematically performing bioassay-directed isolation and subsequent identification of the bioactive constituents according to Dayan et al. [2]. No significant phytotoxic activity against Lactuca sativa or Agrostis stolonifera was detected in methanol, or water extracts when tested at 1.0mg·mL-1; however, the dichloromethane extract was active. Further fractionation using liquid-liquid partitioning with hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and water was performed with the DCM extract. The most active extract (chloroform) was subjected to preparative HPLC and the fractions were tested again. The active compounds were isolated and identified by GC-MS and 1H- and 13C-NMR. The isolated compounds (Figure 1) were identified as (2Z,8Z)-matricaria acid methyl ester, (4Z,8Z)-matricarialactone and (4Z)-lachnophyllumlactone. Compound 3 shows similar activity a

Photochemistry in the arctic free troposphere: Ozone budget and its dependence on nitrogen oxides and the production rate of free radicals

Abstract. Local ozone production and loss rates for the arctic free troposphere (58–85 ◦ N, 1–6 km, February–May) during the Tropospheric Ozone Production about the Spring Equinox (TOPSE) campaign were calculated using a constrained photochemical box model. Estimates were made to assess the importance of local photochemical ozone production relative to transport in accounting for the springtime maximum in arctic free tropospheric ozone. Ozone production and loss rates from our diel steady-state box model constrained by median observations were first compared to two point box models, one run to instantaneous steady-state and the other run to diel steady-state. A consistent picture of local ozone photochemistry was derived by all three box models suggesting that differences between the approaches were not critical. Our model-derived ozone production rates increased by a factor of 28 in the 1–3 km layer and a factor of 7 in the 3–6 km layer between February and May. The arctic ozone budget required net import of ozone into the arctic free troposphere throughout the campaign; however, the transport term exceeded the photochemical production only in the lower free troposphere (1–3 km) between February and March. Gross ozone production rates were calculated to increase linearly with NOx mixing ratios up to ∼300 pptv in February and for NOx mixing ratio

Investigations into free tropospheric new particle formation in the central Canadian arctic during the winter/spring transition as part of TOPSE

In this paper, we investigate the role of in situ new particle production in the central Canadian sub-Arctic and Arctic as part of the TOPSE experiment. Airborne measurements conducted primarily in the free troposphere were made from 50° to 90°W longitude and 60° to 85°N latitude during the period from February to May 2000. Data pertinent to this paper include 3–4 nm diameter (Dp) particles, ultrafine condensation nuclei (Dp \u3e 3 nm), fine particles (0.2 \u3c Dp \u3c 3 μm), and the possible nucleation precursor, sulfuric acid, and its precursor, sulfur dioxide. For data averaged over this period, most species showed little evidence for a latitudinal trend. Fine aerosol number concentrations, however, showed a slight increase with latitude. The evolution of various species concentrations over the period of the study show that fine particles also had a consistent temporal trend, increasing at all altitudes from February to May, whereas sulfur dioxide at the surface tended to peak in late March. Ultrafine condensation nuclei and 3–4 nm particles showed no temporal trends. Little evidence for in situ new particle production was observed during the study, except for one atypical event where SO2concentrations were 3.5 ppbv, 2 orders of magnitude higher than typical levels. This paper cannot address the question of whether the observed condensation nuclei were produced in situ by a low particle production rate or transported from lower latitudes

The Effectiveness of the Learning to BREATHE Program on Adolescent Emotion Regulation

This study assessed the effectiveness of a mindfulness-based program, Learning to BREATHE, on adolescent emotion regulation. Participants included 216 regular education public high school students with pretest and posttest data participating in the program or instruction-as-usual comparison condition. Program participants reported statistically lower levels of perceived stress and psychosomatic complaints and higher levels of efficacy in affective regulation. Program participants also evidenced statistically larger gains in emotion regulation skills including emotional awareness, access to regulation strategies, and emotional clarity. These findings provide promising evidence of the effectiveness of Learning to BREATHE on the development of key social-emotional learning skills

Phonon-drag effects on thermoelectric power

We carry out a calculation of the phonon-drag contribution $S_g$ to the thermoelectric power of bulk semiconductors and quantum well structures for the first time using the balance equation transport theory extended to the weakly nonuniform systems. Introducing wavevector and phonon-mode dependent relaxation times due to phonon-phonon interactions, the formula obtained can be used not only at low temperatures where the phonon mean free path is determined by boundary scattering, but also at high temperatures. In the linear transport limit, $S_g$ is equivalent to the result obtained from the Boltzmann equation with a relaxation time approximation. The theory is applied to experiments and agreement is found between the theoretical predictions and experimental results. The role of hot-electron effects in $S_g$ is discussed. The importance of the contribution of $S_g$ to thermoelectric power in the hot-electron transport condition is emphasized.Comment: 8 pages, REVTEX 3.0, 7 figures avilable upon reques