What is agritourism? : reconciling farmers, residents and extension faculty perspectives

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on September 12, 2012).The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Thesis advisor: Dr. Carla BarbieriIncludes bibliographical references.M.S. University of Missouri--Columbia 2012."May 2012"Visiting a farm for recreation is an activity that has been increasing in the last 10 years. Despite its growth, a myriad of labels (e.g., farm tourism, agritainment) along with many definitions are used to depict this form of recreation, situation that is constraining its marketing and further diffusion. Therefore, a study was conducted to examine the meaning and label preferences of this form of recreation among three main stakeholders. Data was collected in 2011 from samples of residents, farmers, and extension faculty in Missouri and North Carolina through an online survey. Results showed significant differences on the preferred labels across samples, being "farm visit", "agricultural tourism", and "farm tourism" the ones most preferred. Among those labels, study results suggest that the "farm visit" label may be the most suitable to use for marketing purposes as it showed the highest preferences among residents and farmers. Results showed that a good definition of agritourism should include the terms: agricultural setting, entertainment, farm, farming, education, and working. Results also showed that agritourism should be carried out only on agricultural working facilities; however, the type of contact or experience with agricultural resources (e.g., crops) and practices (e.g., milking a cow) were not relevant for defining this form of recreation across the study samples. Implications of this study are also discussed

¿Qué es agroturismo? Conciliando las perspectivas de los agricultores, residentes y académicos

Visitar una granja para divertirse es una actividad que ha aumentado en los últimos 10 años. A pesar de su crecimiento, una variedad de etiquetas y definiciones son usadas para referirse a esta forma de recreación, lo que nos permite su comercialización y posterior difusión. Por esta razón, un estudio fue realizado para examinar el significado y las preferencias en etiquetas para esta forma de recreación entre sus principales actores. Data fue recolectada en 2011 de muestras de residentes, agricultores y académicos en Missouri y Carolina del Norte a través de una encuesta en línea. Los resultados mostraron diferencias significativas en preferencias de etiquetas entre muestras, siendo “visita a granjas”, “turismo de agricultura” y “turismo de granjas” las más preferidas. Entre estas etiquetas los resultados del estudio sugieren que la etiqueta “visita a granjas” podría ser la más apropiada para estrategias de marketing puesto que mostró ser preferida entre residentes y agricultores. Los resultados muestran que una buena definición de agriturismo debería incluir los términos: escenario agrícola, entretenimiento, granja, agricultura, educación y en funcionamiento. Estos también muestran que el agriturismo debe ser realizado en lugares agrícolas en funcionamiento, sin embargo, el tipo de contacto o experiencia con los recursos agrícolas (e.g. sembríos) y prácticas (e.g. ordeñar una vaca) no eran relevantes para definir este tipo de recreación entre las muestras del estudio.Tesi

Mixing Community Capitals and Creative Placemaking for Craft-Beverage Tourism Development

Craft-beverage tourism (CBT) is a growing segment in the USA and an attractive strategy for sustainable development. Hyperlocal strategies are suitable for this segment because the perception of craft beverages being authentic cultural representations is appealing to tourists. This study aims to identify the resources that facilitate this development by combining two theoretical models; determine the role of hyperlocal strategies in CBT development; and test the resulting model in a different context. A mixed method approach in three phases will address these objectives. Data from the first phase revealed that creativity and meaning accelerated the growth of the community capitals needed for CBT, causing a spiraling up effect. The second phase will provide evidence of the impact of hyperlocal strategies in CBT experiences. Outcomes from the study’s third phase will further improve CBT development efforts and consolidate CBT knowledge, and hyperlocality’s role in different contexts and development stages

A Comparison of Agritourism Understanding among Consumers, Providers, and Extension Faculty

Labels and meanings are important for tourism marketing as they can be the decisive factor for attracting visitors. Given the label and definition ambiguity surrounding agritourism, a study was conducted to identify a common ground between preferred labels and definitional elements for “recreation in agricultural settings” across three key stakeholders. Farmers, residents, and extension faculty from Missouri and North Carolina were surveyed about their preferences on eight labels commonly found across literature and elements to be included within a definition for these activities. Data was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results suggest that “farm visit” should be encouraged in marketing efforts aiming at increasing farm visitation as it was the label preferred by residents and farmers. Results also suggest that “education”, “farm” and “entertainment” are terms that should be included when defining this type of recreation, especially on promotional material to increase the effectiveness of marketing effort

Spirituality and Leisure: An Auto-Ethnographic Life-Hisory Study

Abstract Life-history and auto-ethnography research methods were employed to explore the influence of spiritual beliefs upon individuals’ leisure time activity throughout their life experience. Data were collected from a semi-structured discussion among 12 individuals with different spiritual backgrounds. Overall, it was found that religious and non-religious spirituality influenced participants’ leisure participation at different stages of their lives in both positive and negative ways. Specifically, six themes emerged from this study: (1) Recreation and Play Catalyst; (2) Family Leisure and Religion; (3) Social Enabler; (4) Time and Schedule Conflicts; (5) Guilt and Fear; and (6) The Role of Otherism

Prognostic Role of Neutrophil, Monocyte and Platelet to Lymphocyte Ratios in Advanced Ovarian Cancer According to the Time of Debulking Surgery

Despite a multimodal radical treatment, mortality of advanced epithelial ovarian cancer (AEOC) remains high. Host-related factors, such as systemic inflammatory response and its interplay with the immune system, remain underexplored. We hypothesized that the prognostic impact of this response could vary between patients undergoing primary debulking surgery (PDS) and those undergoing interval debulking surgery (IDS). Therefore, we evaluated the outcomes of two surgical groups of newly diagnosed AEOC patients according to the neutrophil, monocyte and platelet to lymphocyte ratios (NLR, MLR, PLR), taking median ratio values as cutoffs. In the PDS group (n = 61), low NLR and PLR subgroups showed significantly better overall survival (not reached (NR) vs. 72.7 months, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 40.9-95.2, p = 0.019; and NR vs. 56.1 months, 95% CI: 40.9-95.2, p = 0.004, respectively) than those with high values. Similar results were observed in progression free survival. NLR and PLR-high values resulted in negative prognostic factors, adjusting for residual disease, BRCA1/2 status and stage (HR 2.48, 95% CI: 1.03-5.99, p = 0.043, and HR 2.91, 95% CI: 1.11-7.64, p = 0.03, respectively). In the IDS group (n = 85), ratios were not significant prognostic factors. We conclude that NLR and PLR may have prognostic value in the PDS setting, but none in IDS, suggesting that time of surgery can modulate the prognostic impact of baseline complete blood count (CBC)

Identification of genetic variants associated with Huntington's disease progression: a genome-wide association study

Background Huntington's disease is caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene, HTT. Age at onset has been used as a quantitative phenotype in genetic analysis looking for Huntington's disease modifiers, but is hard to define and not always available. Therefore, we aimed to generate a novel measure of disease progression and to identify genetic markers associated with this progression measure. Methods We generated a progression score on the basis of principal component analysis of prospectively acquired longitudinal changes in motor, cognitive, and imaging measures in the 218 indivduals in the TRACK-HD cohort of Huntington's disease gene mutation carriers (data collected 2008–11). We generated a parallel progression score using data from 1773 previously genotyped participants from the European Huntington's Disease Network REGISTRY study of Huntington's disease mutation carriers (data collected 2003–13). We did a genome-wide association analyses in terms of progression for 216 TRACK-HD participants and 1773 REGISTRY participants, then a meta-analysis of these results was undertaken. Findings Longitudinal motor, cognitive, and imaging scores were correlated with each other in TRACK-HD participants, justifying use of a single, cross-domain measure of disease progression in both studies. The TRACK-HD and REGISTRY progression measures were correlated with each other (r=0·674), and with age at onset (TRACK-HD, r=0·315; REGISTRY, r=0·234). The meta-analysis of progression in TRACK-HD and REGISTRY gave a genome-wide significant signal (p=1·12 × 10−10) on chromosome 5 spanning three genes: MSH3, DHFR, and MTRNR2L2. The genes in this locus were associated with progression in TRACK-HD (MSH3 p=2·94 × 10−8 DHFR p=8·37 × 10−7 MTRNR2L2 p=2·15 × 10−9) and to a lesser extent in REGISTRY (MSH3 p=9·36 × 10−4 DHFR p=8·45 × 10−4 MTRNR2L2 p=1·20 × 10−3). The lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRACK-HD (rs557874766) was genome-wide significant in the meta-analysis (p=1·58 × 10−8), and encodes an aminoacid change (Pro67Ala) in MSH3. In TRACK-HD, each copy of the minor allele at this SNP was associated with a 0·4 units per year (95% CI 0·16–0·66) reduction in the rate of change of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Total Motor Score, and a reduction of 0·12 units per year (95% CI 0·06–0·18) in the rate of change of UHDRS Total Functional Capacity score. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age of onset. Interpretation The multidomain progression measure in TRACK-HD was associated with a functional variant that was genome-wide significant in our meta-analysis. The association in only 216 participants implies that the progression measure is a sensitive reflection of disease burden, that the effect size at this locus is large, or both. Knockout of Msh3 reduces somatic expansion in Huntington's disease mouse models, suggesting this mechanism as an area for future therapeutic investigation

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries