The Effects Of Structural Adjustment On The Lives Of Small-Scale Farmers A Micro Study Of The Cape Coast District, Central Region, Ghana

his paper seeks to determine the effects of structural adjustment policies on a group of small-scale farmers in the Cape Coast District of the Central Region of Ghana. The paper seeks answers to three questions: Has the small farmer\u27s ability to produce improved since adjustment began? And has the small farmer\u27s quality of life improved since adjustment began? And how have policies affected cocoa farmers differently from non-cocoa farmers? The paper concludes that many factors hamper farmers\u27 ability to produce, and some are related to adjustment, while some are not. Quality of life proved difficult to determine, but it seems that the quality of life for cocoa farmers is considerably higher than that of non-cocoa farmers due to adjustment pricing policies

Shelter Dogs Need A Home: The Effect of Enrichment and Human Contact on the Welfare and Adoptability of Shelter Dogs

It comes as no surprise that an animal shelter can be a stressful place for dogs. Shelter conditions, accompanied by multiple, novel stimuli, produce a stressful environment that cause hormonal and behavioral responses in dogs housed in shelters. Many of the stereotypical behaviors produced by the stress of living in a shelter, which tend to worsen as length of stay increases, are undesirable to potential adopters. However, many studies have shown that enrichment with a variety of toys, exercise, and human interaction can buffer the stress response in shelter dogs and improve their well-being. Implementing obedience training and temporary fostering programs are especially helpful for shelter dogs in aiding long term adoption success. The aim of improving the lives of dogs living in animal shelters through enhancing their daily activities leads to the ultimate goal of increasing adoption success. In the future, it would be beneficial to focus studies on the effects of sheltering and enrichment on individual dogs, as individuals respond differently to stressors based on a variety of factors. Further research could lead to improved strategies for enhancing the welfare and adoptability of shelter dogs

Testing dogs in ape-like conditions: the effect of a barrier on dogs’ performance on the object-choice task

Recent reviews have found marked procedural and methodological differences in the testing of different taxonomic groups on the object-choice task. One such difference is the imposition of a barrier in the testing environment of nonhuman primates in the form of a cage, necessitated to ensure the experimenter’s safety. Here, we conducted two studies with domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in which we compared the performance of dogs tested from within a child’s playpen and dogs tested without this barrier present. In Study 1, in a within-subjects design, we found no effect of the barrier on dogs’ ability to use a pointing cue, but there was an increase in instances in which dogs failed to choose a cup. In Study 2, in a between-subjects design, dogs tested with a barrier failed to perform above chance, and were also more likely to fail to make a choice. When dogs tested without a barrier made an incorrect response, these were more likely to be incorrect choices than no choice errors. We discuss the implications of these differences in behavioural responses in function of the presence of a barrier and the necessity of ensuring matched conditions when comparing across species

Land Grant Application- Alld, William (Hollis)

Land grant application submitted to the Maine Land Office on behalf of William Alld for service in the Revolutionary War, by their widow Hannah Clark.https://digitalmaine.com/revolutionary_war_me_land_office/1012/thumbnail.jp

Mentor / mentee: a 360 degree look at the relationships

One mentor, Kristy Widdicombe, and two mentees, Cheryl Clark and Hannah Bennett, share experiences of their professional development journey

Paving the Pathways to Quality: Washington's Early Learning Professional Development Landscape

Stakeholders from across the early care and education spectrum joined together to investigate what it will take to achieve a strong professional development system for early learning providers that will result in quality care and long-term outcomes for children. This collaborative process revealed a need for foundational work upon which to base a comprehensive, state-wide system of professional development for Washington's early childhood education workforce

Protecting Our Futures: Challenges & Strategies for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

This report, supported by the National Women\u27s Studies Association, addresses the current state of Women\u27s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies departments and programs across the United States. In particular, the report focuses on changes in support, resources, and enrollment, as well as the impact of anti-DEI legislation being passed across the country at this time.https://commons.case.edu/mathercenter-briefs/1004/thumbnail.jp

Environmental influences on behavioural responses on the object choice task in dogs and children: implications for the evolution of human cognition

Several prominent theories claim that humans possess specialised socio-cognitive skills that emerge early in ontogeny and are attributable to selective histories not shared by other hominids. The generally poor performance of nonhuman primates on tasks designed to measure skills of joint attention, such as the Object Choice Task (OCT), is a key evidence base for these theories. Similar claims are made for domestic dogs, whose apparent proficiency in following pointing cues is taken as evidence for the idea that domestication selected for advanced socio-cognitive skills. The aim of this thesis is to extend current reviews which highlight methodological differences in OCT studies that compare across species, by first analysing the prevalence and the effects of such confounds in the existing literature, and then by conducting a series of systematic experiments to further investigate how these differences may affect behavioural responses. This thesis presents six papers, beginning with a meta-analysis of 71 published OCT studies with nonhuman primates and dogs, which finds between-groups differences in subjects’ pre-experimental histories, the use of a barrier in the form of a test cage, and the types of cues presented. Effects of performance associated with these differences were also found. Following this are four papers which present the results of empirical studies manipulating the presence of a barrier in the testing environment and the spatial configuration of the test set-up distinguishing between central and peripheral versions of the task with human children and dogs. For both taxonomic groups, there were differences in the behavioural responses elicited, and some performance effects for dogs. A further paper finds no effect of manipulating food reward type in an OCT with children. This demonstrates that failing to match testing environments represents an experimental confound and challenges the validity of phylogenetic theories based on studies which use incommensurate test protocols