Politics And Culture Of The Great Plains: An Introduction

In April 1996 the Center for Great Plains Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln sponsored its twentieth interdisciplinary symposium, Politics and Culture of the Great Plains. From papers and presentations by scholars from the United States and Canada, dealing with Indian rights, women\u27s suffrage, education, the economy, elections, social movements, and historical and contemporary personalities, four are presented in this issue of Great Plains Quarterly. Treaty Seven and Guaranteed Representation: How Treaty Rights Can Evolve into Parliamentary Seats deals with relations between sovereign nations-the Blackfoot Confederacy of southern Alberta and the national government of Canada. Kiera Ladner argues that the Indians had a fundamentally different view than national authorities of Treaty Seven. Concerned about rapid westward expansion in the US in the 1870s, Canadian authorities encouraged their own westward expansion. Authorities viewed treaties as a way to secure title to the land and bring the Indians under control, but the tribes intended to protect their land and life style. What is the legal standing and meaning of treaty rights today? How can the tribes maintain peace and good order as they agreed to do in the treaty? Ladner suggests one way: guaranteed representation in Parliament. The indigenous peoples of North America were and continue to be sovereign nations. Agreements negotiated between them and national governments are still valid, and national governments are obligated to honor them, albeit in a contemporary context. Guaranteed parliamentary representation is an intriguing idea, though perhaps unlikely to be implemented. Ladner\u27s essay encourages us to consider this and other alternatives that will enable national governments to fulfill their obligations to North America\u27s first peoples. National boundaries rarely prevent people and ideas from moving in or out. Ideas, of course, are the most mobile. In Liberal Education on the Great Plains: American Experiments, Canadian Flirtations, 1930-1950, Kevin Brooks focuses on the spread of liberal education to American and Canadian universities of the Great Plains in the 1930s and 1940s. He distinguishes between the oratorical tradition, dedicated to inculcating traditional values and insuring social stability, and the philosophical tradition of seeking new knowledge in the hope of improving society. Universities in the Midwest and Prairies sought to make education useful, combining the philosophical liberal education tradition with vocational and professional training. In spite of the strong commitment of the universities in eastern Canada to the oratorical tradition and the recruitment of college educators from these institutions to oversee the development of prairie universities, it was the midwestern model, with its emphasis on the practical as well as the general, that took hold. Brooks argues lack of resources, distance, and the demand that education focus on the practical foreclosed other options. His study suggests that regional identities are sometimes as important as national ones in explaining the spread and adoption of ideas. The study also helps define the Great Plains as a distinct region, where environmental constraints ensure common responses to social problems, in this case sufficient to overcome the power of national identity and national boundaries

Bedded Pack Management System Case Study

Agribusiness, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Anisotropic stresses in inhomogeneous universes

Anisotropic stress contributions to the gravitational field can arise from magnetic fields, collisionless relativistic particles, hydrodynamic shear viscosity, gravitational waves, skew axion fields in low-energy string cosmologies, or topological defects. We investigate the effects of such stresses on cosmological evolution, and in particular on the dissipation of shear anisotropy. We generalize some previous results that were given for homogeneous anisotropic universes, by including small inhomogeneity in the universe. This generalization is facilitated by a covariant approach. We find that anisotropic stress dominates the evolution of shear, slowing its decay. The effect is strongest in radiation-dominated universes, where there is slow logarithmic decay of shear.Comment: 7 pages Revte

Flying Squirrel–associated Typhus, United States

In March 2002, typhus fever was diagnosed in two patients residing in West Virginia and Georgia. Both patients were hospitalized with severe febrile illnesses, and both had been recently exposed to or had physical contact with flying squirrels or flying squirrel nests. Laboratory results indicated Rickettsia prowazekii infection

Flying Squirrel–associated Typhus, United States

In March 2002, typhus fever was diagnosed in two patients residing in West Virginia and Georgia. Both patients were hospitalized with severe febrile illnesses, and both had been recently exposed to or had physical contact with flying squirrels or flying squirrel nests. Laboratory results indicated Rickettsia prowazekii infection

Return on interactivity: The impact of online agents on newcomer adjustment

As service offerings grow in both range and complexity, how service providers and their customers interact is becoming increasingly important. In response to the challenge of optimizing these interactions, companies have introduced sophisticated online "socialization agents," whose purpose is to help new customers more effectively adjust to and function within the service environment. The objective of these online agents, or virtual employees, is to help customers evaluate new or unfamiliar service offerings, as well as help companies achieve greater levels of service delivery and financial performance. To investigate this, the authors analyze the process by which online agents help both new and current customers adjust to and function within new, unfamiliar, or complex service contexts. They examine the impact of an online agent on account performance in the banking industry. They find that both interaction style and content of the online agent significantly influence the newcomer adjustment process over time, which in turn influences firm-level performance

A Multitrait–Multimethod Analysis of the Construct Validity of Child Anxiety Disorders in a Clinical Sample

The present study examines the construct validity of separation anxiety disorder (SAD), social phobia (SoP), panic disorder (PD), and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) in a clinical sample of children. Participants were 174 children, 6 to 17 years old (94 boys) who had undergone a diagnostic evaluation at a university hospital based clinic. Parent and child ratings of symptom severity were assessed using the Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children (MASC). Diagnostician ratings were obtained from the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for Children and Parents (ADIS: C/P). Discriminant and convergent validity were assessed using confirmatory factor analytic techniques to test a multitrait–multimethod model. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the current classification of these child anxiety disorders. The disorders demonstrated statistical independence from each other (discriminant validity of traits), the model fit better when the anxiety syndromes were specified than when no specific syndromes were specified (convergent validity), and the methods of assessment yielded distinguishable, unique types of information about child anxiety (discriminant validity of methods). Using a multi-informant approach, these findings support the distinctions between childhood anxiety disorders as delineated in the current classification system, suggesting that disagreement between informants in psychometric studies of child anxiety measures is not due to poor construct validity of these anxiety syndromes

Acute Regulation of Cardiac Metabolism by the Hexosamine Biosynthesis Pathway and Protein O-GlcNAcylation

OBJECTIVE: The hexosamine biosynthesis pathway (HBP) flux and protein O-linked N-acetyl-glucosamine (O-GlcNAc) levels have been implicated in mediating the adverse effects of diabetes in the cardiovascular system. Activation of these pathways with glucosamine has been shown to mimic some of the diabetes-induced functional and structural changes in the heart; however, the effect on cardiac metabolism is not known. Therefore, the primary goal of this study was to determine the effects of glucosamine on cardiac substrate utilization. METHODS: Isolated rat hearts were perfused with glucosamine (0-10 mM) to increase HBP flux under normoxic conditions. Metabolic fluxes were determined by (13)C-NMR isotopomer analysis; UDP-GlcNAc a precursor of O-GlcNAc synthesis was assessed by HPLC and immunoblot analysis was used to determine O-GlcNAc levels, phospho- and total levels of AMPK and ACC, and membrane levels of FAT/CD36. RESULTS: Glucosamine caused a dose dependent increase in both UDP-GlcNAc and O-GlcNAc levels, which was associated with a significant increase in palmitate oxidation with a concomitant decrease in lactate and pyruvate oxidation. There was no effect of glucosamine on AMPK or ACC phosphorylation; however, membrane levels of the fatty acid transport protein FAT/CD36 were increased and preliminary studies suggest that FAT/CD36 is a potential target for O-GlcNAcylation. CONCLUSION/INTERPRETATION: These data demonstrate that acute modulation of HBP and protein O-GlcNAcylation in the heart stimulates fatty acid oxidation, possibly by increasing plasma membrane levels of FAT/CD36, raising the intriguing possibility that the HBP and O-GlcNAc turnover represent a novel, glucose dependent mechanism for regulating cardiac metabolism