An economic and environmental evaluation of the cost of conservation compliance on a Beaver Creek Watershed representative farm

Soil and water conservation continue to be important environmental concerns. Soil conservation and USDA program benefits became linked for the first time in history with passage of the Food Security Act of 1985. Conservation Compliance denies all USDA benefits to any person who produces an agricultural commodity on highly erodible land without the use of conservation practices appropriate for that land. The Conservation Compliance provisions of the Food Security Act of 1985 were enacted, in part, to reduce soil erosion and improve water quality. This study examined the impact of Conservation Compliance on a representative Beaver Creek Watershed farm. The study addressed the impacts on net return and soil erosion. Alternative Conservation Systems and stricter soil erosion constraints were evaluated. One specific objective of the study was to develop a linear programming model to evaluate the effects of alternative crop systems. Another objective was to evaluate the trade-offs, if any, between soil erosion control and net return. A linear programming model and a simulation model were integrated in this analysis. The Erosion Productivity-Impact Calculator was used to develop soil loss coefficients. The net return effect of compliance under the Alternative Conservation Systems was compared to the current practices. Further restrictions on soil erosion were also evaluated. Partial budgeting was used to develop coefficients for the farm. Net returns was compared with and without constraints on soil erosion. The implementation of Alternative Conservation Systems would reduce erosion on the representative farm by approximately 9,151 tons and net returns by $916 from the current farm practices. If soil erosion were constrained to less than 5-tons per acre, the erosion level would decrease by approximately 12,264 ton, and net returns by$25,247 from the current practices. Alternative Conservation Systems allow farm operators to reduce erosion substantially, but at the same time be cost effective for a given situation

Private School Faculty Perceptions of Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction focuses on students’ readiness, interests, learning styles, and life circumstances, rather than a set curriculum. The perceptions faculty have about differentiated instruction can impact their willingness and ability to implement the practice in their classroom. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore, in a private school in a south-central U.S. state, middle school teachers’ perceptions of, expectations about, and experiences with differentiated instruction. The conceptual framework that guided the study was Tomlinson’ s instructional differentiation philosophy supported by empirical research on differentiated instruction as effective. Six middle school English, history, science, and math teachers completed a survey and were interviewed. Six themes were identified: (a) differentiation is needed in the classroom for all students; (b) attitudes change when differentiation is used; (c) there are limitations that make it difficult to differentiate; (d) differentiation demonstrates an understanding of skill; (e) the use of differentiation builds relationships amongst teachers and with their students; and (f) those that differentiate offer choices to their students. The six emergent themes revealed the challenges and pressures experienced by the teachers when differentiating instruction, such as time and expectations from parents and administration, and the value teachers had for the practice. Participants identified offering choices and having a variety of activities as best practices for differentiation. This study encourages social change by exhibiting how differentiated instruction affects educators’ ability to design lessons with all learners in mind, in an effort to help students transfer their knowledge outside of the schoolroom and into their communities and future jobs

Generalized Twistor Spaces for Hyperkahler and Quaternionic Kahler Manifolds

Generalized complex geometry is a newly emerging field that unites two areas of geometry, symplectic and complex, revealing surprising new aspects in both. Largely motivated by physics, it provides a mathematical context for studying certain string theoretic topics. Since it is a relatively new field, mathematicians are still learning how known geometric objects fit into the realm of generalized complex geometry. One such object is Penrose's twistor space. In this dissertation, we study the generalization of twistor theory for K3 surfaces, hyperkahler, and quaternionic Kahler manifolds. We use generalized complex geometry to construct a manifold fibered over the product of two copies of one-dimensional complex projective space that arises from a family of complex and symplectic structures on a K3 surface. We call this manifold a generalized twistor space. After proving that it has an integrable generalized complex structure, we describe properties on this space analogous to those in classical twistor theory. We then extend this construction to all hyperkahler manifolds of higher dimension. Finally, we consider the quaternionic Kahler analogue of this generalized twistor space. We produce a candidate for a generalized almost complex structure on the space and conjecture that the structure is integrable.Doctor of Philosoph

Private School Faculty Perceptions of Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction focuses on students’ readiness, interests, learning styles, and life circumstances, rather than a set curriculum. The perceptions faculty have about differentiated instruction can impact their willingness and ability to implement the practice in their classroom. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore, in a private school in a south-central U.S. state, middle school teachers’ perceptions of, expectations about, and experiences with differentiated instruction. The conceptual framework that guided the study was Tomlinson’ s instructional differentiation philosophy supported by empirical research on differentiated instruction as effective. Six middle school English, history, science, and math teachers completed a survey and were interviewed. Six themes were identified: (a) differentiation is needed in the classroom for all students; (b) attitudes change when differentiation is used; (c) there are limitations that make it difficult to differentiate; (d) differentiation demonstrates an understanding of skill; (e) the use of differentiation builds relationships amongst teachers and with their students; and (f) those that differentiate offer choices to their students. The six emergent themes revealed the challenges and pressures experienced by the teachers when differentiating instruction, such as time and expectations from parents and administration, and the value teachers had for the practice. Participants identified offering choices and having a variety of activities as best practices for differentiation. This study encourages social change by exhibiting how differentiated instruction affects educators’ ability to design lessons with all learners in mind, in an effort to help students transfer their knowledge outside of the schoolroom and into their communities and future jobs

Private School Faculty Perceptions of Differentiated Instruction

Differentiated instruction focuses on students’ readiness, interests, learning styles, and life circumstances, rather than a set curriculum. The perceptions faculty have about differentiated instruction can impact their willingness and ability to implement the practice in their classroom. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore, in a private school in a south-central U.S. state, middle school teachers’ perceptions of, expectations about, and experiences with differentiated instruction. The conceptual framework that guided the study was Tomlinson’ s instructional differentiation philosophy supported by empirical research on differentiated instruction as effective. Six middle school English, history, science, and math teachers completed a survey and were interviewed. Six themes were identified: (a) differentiation is needed in the classroom for all students; (b) attitudes change when differentiation is used; (c) there are limitations that make it difficult to differentiate; (d) differentiation demonstrates an understanding of skill; (e) the use of differentiation builds relationships amongst teachers and with their students; and (f) those that differentiate offer choices to their students. The six emergent themes revealed the challenges and pressures experienced by the teachers when differentiating instruction, such as time and expectations from parents and administration, and the value teachers had for the practice. Participants identified offering choices and having a variety of activities as best practices for differentiation. This study encourages social change by exhibiting how differentiated instruction affects educators’ ability to design lessons with all learners in mind, in an effort to help students transfer their knowledge outside of the schoolroom and into their communities and future jobs

How pharmaceutical and diagnostic stakeholders construct policy solutions to a public health ‘crisis’: an analysis of submissions to a United Kingdom House of Commons inquiry into antimicrobial resistance

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is often characterised as a ‘crisis’, requiring action by public, private, and third-sector stakeholders to achieve strategic change. Crisis narratives are powerful and may be co-opted to privilege solutions promoted by influential groups. In relation to AMR, this applies particularly to the pharmaceutical and medical diagnostics industries. Given the associated risk of inefficient use of public funds, critical attention must be paid to how the promoted ‘solutions’ to the AMR crisis are constructed, and their symbolic and material effects on health policy. We conducted a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the seventy-one written submissions to the UK House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee’s 2018 inquiry into AMR. Two researchers collaboratively coded the findings and categorised the submissions. We applied the Policy Dystopia Model to further analyse the proposed solutions and ascertain the discursive and instrumental arguments in the industry submissions to the Committee. We found that industry submissions deployed economic and governance discursive strategies, articulating three main ‘market paradoxical’ arguments: (i) interference but non-interference; (ii) power but powerlessness; and (iii) for-profit but not-for-profit. The industry submissions also drew upon instrumental strategies including: coalition management, information management, and direct involvement and influence in policymaking. Our analysis suggests that commercial interests deploy crisis narratives to advocate for solutions involving market deregulation and industry subsidies. Thus, the solutions presented to the Committee were heavily shaped by a technocratic-industrial complex. This contributes to influencing what is seen as possible and acceptable in the global AMR policy landscape.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio