Ag econ angst crisis revisited: a rejoinder

Poverty reduction has been an underlying goal of governments and the development community since the Second World War, but it was the 1973 Nairobi address of Robert S. McNamara, then President of the World Bank, that created a new commitment to directly address poverty reduction in the quest for development (McNamara 1973). More than half a century after the war and close to 30 years after Robert McNamara’s speech, poverty is still rampant in many parts of the globe. Reflections on why this scourge remains, and what we as agricultural economists can do about it, were the driving forces behind our paper with the late John L. Dillon entitled ‘Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects’ (Rola-Rubzen et al. 2001). The part of our paper that Johnson, Rossmiller and Sandiford-Rossmiller (JRS) have reacted to was deliberately provocative to stimulate thinking on ways to combat poverty. We are pleased that someone has taken the bait. As the two surviving authors, we find ourselves in agreement with much that JRS have written. However, in preparing this rejoinder we have sadly missed John Dillon, especially his broad international experience. We note that in several respects JRS amplify and support some of our points, as well as adding a new perspective of their own, dealing with the new institutional economics. We find it hard to work out just where they differ from us.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Translating evidence-based guidelines to improve feedback practices:the interACT case study

Background: There has been a substantial body of research examining feedback practices, yet the assessment and feedback landscape in higher education is described as ‘stubbornly resistant to change’. The aim of this paper is to present a case study demonstrating how an entire programme’s assessment and feedback practices were re-engineered and evaluated in line with evidence from the literature in the interACT (Interaction and Collaboration via Technology) project.Methods: Informed by action research the project conducted two cycles of planning, action, evaluation and reflection. Four key pedagogical principles informed the re-design of the assessment and feedback practices. Evaluation activities included document analysis, interviews with staff (n = 10) and students (n = 7), and student questionnaires (n = 54). Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the questionnaire data. Framework thematic analysis was used to develop themes across the interview data.Results: InterACT was reported by students and staff to promote self-evaluation, engagement with feedback and feedback dialogue. Streamlining the process after the first cycle of action research was crucial for improving engagement of students and staff. The interACT process of promoting self-evaluation, reflection on feedback, feedback dialogue and longitudinal perspectives of feedback has clear benefits and should be transferable to other contexts.Conclusions: InterACT has involved comprehensive re-engineering of the assessment and feedback processes using educational principles to guide the design taking into account stakeholder perspectives. These principles and the strategies to enact them should be transferable to other contexts

Agricultural economists and world poverty: progress and prospects

New development paradigms come and go, seemingly with increasing rapidity, yet poverty remains the scourge of the developing nations. As we enter the new millennium, we fear that still more development fads and fancies will emerge, to be taken up and then dropped by the development community. These swings in fashion bring with them the danger that the ‘basics’ of effective development strategies for poverty reduction will be neglected. In this article, we advance some personal and perhaps controversial views about the virtues of getting agriculture moving as a means of reducing poverty, and about the role that agricultural economists can and should play in that endeavour.Food Security and Poverty,

Use of multiple singular value decompositions to analyze complex intracellular calcium ion signals

We compare calcium ion signaling ($\mathrm {Ca}^{2+}$) between two exposures; the data are present as movies, or, more prosaically, time series of images. This paper describes novel uses of singular value decompositions (SVD) and weighted versions of them (WSVD) to extract the signals from such movies, in a way that is semi-automatic and tuned closely to the actual data and their many complexities. These complexities include the following. First, the images themselves are of no interest: all interest focuses on the behavior of individual cells across time, and thus, the cells need to be segmented in an automated manner. Second, the cells themselves have 100$+$ pixels, so that they form 100$+$ curves measured over time, so that data compression is required to extract the features of these curves. Third, some of the pixels in some of the cells are subject to image saturation due to bit depth limits, and this saturation needs to be accounted for if one is to normalize the images in a reasonably unbiased manner. Finally, the $\mathrm {Ca}^{2+}$ signals have oscillations or waves that vary with time and these signals need to be extracted. Thus, our aim is to show how to use multiple weighted and standard singular value decompositions to detect, extract and clarify the $\mathrm {Ca}^{2+}$ signals. Our signal extraction methods then lead to simple although finely focused statistical methods to compare $\mathrm {Ca}^{2+}$ signals across experimental conditions.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS253 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Should patients with acute DVT limit activity?

Ambulation, combined with compression of the affected extremity, appears to be safe for medically stable patients with deep venous thromboses (DVT) (strength of recommendation [SOR]: A, consistent randomized controlled trials [RCTs]). Leg compression and ambulation, compared with bed rest without compression, can effectively decrease swelling and pain (SOR: A, consistent RCTs). Only weak data exist to suggest that early ambulation can reduce mortality (SOR: C, cohort studies with historical controls)

Left ear advantage in speech-related dichotic listening is not specific to auditory processing disorder in children: A machine-learning fMRI and DTI study

AbstractDichotic listening (DL) tests are among the most frequently included in batteries for the diagnosis of auditory processing disorders (APD) in children. A finding of atypical left ear advantage (LEA) for speech-related stimuli is often taken by clinical audiologists as an indicator for APD. However, the precise etiology of ear advantage in DL tests has been a source of debate for decades. It is uncertain whether a finding of LEA is truly indicative of a sensory processing deficit such as APD, or whether attentional or other supramodal factors may also influence ear advantage. Multivariate machine learning was used on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional MRI (fMRI) data from a cohort of children ages 7–14 referred for APD testing with LEA, and typical controls with right-ear advantage (REA). LEA was predicted by: increased axial diffusivity in the left internal capsule (sublenticular region), and decreased functional activation in the left frontal eye fields (BA 8) during words presented diotically as compared to words presented dichotically, compared to children with right-ear advantage (REA). These results indicate that both sensory and attentional deficits may be predictive of LEA, and thus a finding of LEA, while possibly due to sensory factors, is not a specific indicator of APD as it may stem from a supramodal etiology

Farm Management - Bugger the roots, where is the future?

The Farm Management discipline has long been closely aligned with agricultural economics. The question we raise is not where either discipline came from but where is Farm Management going. The impact of globalisation, the rising tide of deregulation and chain reversal mean that farm management professionals who have traditionally focused on optimisation of activities at a farm level are now commonly expected to use sociology and management science to explain economic organisation and performance on farms. They also are required to look at relationships in the value chain(s) in which the farm sits. This paper will analyse the implications of such change for Farm Management professionals.Farm Management, value chains, Farm Management,