Live, In-the-Beef, or Formula: Is There a "Best" Method for Selling Fed Cattle?

Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

Ready, Set, Network! Research Speed Networking for Clinicians, Scientists and Engineers

Objectives: A 2013 Institute of Medicine report urged researchers to “engage in additional substantive and productive collaborations” to address important clinical/translational science questions. To encourage team science among our researchers, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences and Center for Clinical and Translational Research hosted a speed networking event, specifically targeting engineers, clinicians, and basic scientists; an analysis of the event is below. Methods: Invitations were distributed to clinicians, engineers, and basic scientists. To maximize interactions without increasing time spent at the event, researchers were divided into three groups. The event was planned such that each group would meet everyone from the other two groups; researchers were placed into appropriate groups according to their interests. Seated at tables of three, attendees introduced themselves and discussed their research interests for three minutes; then they rotated according to their group’s instructions. Lunch was provided afterwards to give attendees an opportunity to follow up with potential collaborators. Results: Twenty-one faculty researchers attended the speed networking event, which took about 30 minutes, excluding lunch. Using a 5-point Likert scale, all participants selected “strongly agree” or “agree” to respond to questions about whether the event was a valuable use of their time. Also, 53% of attendees “strongly” agreed with the statement “I met a potential collaborator” at the event. Discussion: Subjective evaluations show that researchers see speed networking as an effective way to meet potential collaborators. Objective data including sustained research partnerships and collaborative grant and publication submissions will be tracked

The Mad Cow Disease Trade Ban and Changes in the U.S. and Canadian Cull Cow Markets: A DAG Analysis

A directed a cyclical graph (DAG) methodology was used to discover changes in price relationships among cull cow markets in the U.S. and Canada resulting from the trade ban initiated by the discovery of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also called mad cow disease), in a Canadian cow in 2003. Comparison of the pre- and post-ban DAGs supports the hypothesis that large structural changes in the flow of cull cow market information has occurred with significant changes both within and between countries. The typical flow of information from south to north and east to west was disrupted.Livestock Production/Industries,

The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement in Higher Education: Applying an Earnings Function

This paper uses an earnings function to model how class size affects the grade students earn. We test the model using an ordinal logit with and without fixed effects on 363,023 undergraduate observations. We find that class size negatively affects grades. Average grade point declines as class size increases, precipitously up to class sizes of ten, and more gradually but monotonically through class sizes of 400 plus. The probability of getting a B plus or better declines from 0.9 for class sizes 20 to about 0.5 for class sizes of 120 and almost 0.4 for class sizes of 400

A comparison between e-government practices in Taiwan and New Zealand.

Few studies have focused on comparing the state of e-government in Western- and Non-Western settings, where the political, social, economic, and cultural environments can be markedly different. This paper compares the views of local authority policymakers in Taiwan and New Zealand, in order to judge the sophistication of their e-government initiatives via the formal and informal policies underpinning website development. Good level of agreement were observed between the Taiwanese and New Zealander respondents for the high levels of significance they attached to 3 key issues, which the authors argue are critical for successful e-government: Accessibility, Security and Privacy. Similarly, the policymakers agreed on a medium level of significance for the 7 key issues: E-procurement, Digital Divide, Private Sector, Taxation, Cultural Obstacles, IT Workforce, and Social Effects (and on a low level of significance for E-Tailing). It was concluded that government policymakers in both countries, in an era of commercial online social networking, are continuing to favour pushing(what they deem to be important) information to citizens, rather than creating collaborative service channels with citizens, contractors and suppliers or integrating separate service processes to satisfy all stakeholders. An attendant lack of commitment to promoting heightened (e-)democracy was also noted, especially in New Zealand