EVALUATION OF NORTH DAKOTA FARM BUSINESS MANAGEMENT EDUCATION PROGRAM

Net farm income of participants in the North Dakota Farm Business Management Education Program increased with years of enrollment both in absolute terms and compared to peer group benchmarks. Median net farm income increased $7,829 and$14,191 between the first and fifth year of enrollment for all farms in the program and a subset of farms with five consecutive years of records starting with the first year of enrollment, respectively. Net farm income by year of program participation was compared to a benchmark median net farm income for the same geographic region, calendar year, and farm type in an attempt to isolate the affects of management from weather and other exogenous factors. Net farm income as a percent of benchmark increased 17.5 percentage points from first year participation farms to fifth year farms and 28 percentage points for farms for which there were five consecutive years of records starting with the first year of enrollment. Increased net farm income for both groups was accompanied by improved efficiency, increased farm size, and greater net worth. Note: Figures 1 is not included in the machine readable copy--contact the authors for more information.Farm Management, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Therapeutic Potential of Haptic TheraDrive: An Affordable Robot/Computer System for Motivating Stroke Rehabilitation

There is a need for increased opportunities for effective neurorehabilitation services for stroke survivors outside the hospital environment. Efforts to develop low-cost robot/computer therapy solutions able to be deployed in home and community rehabilitation settings have been growing. Our long-term goal is to develop a very low-cost system for stroke rehabilitation that can use commercial gaming technology and support rehabilitation with stroke survivors at all functioning levels. This paper reports the results of experiments comparing the old and new TheraDrive systems in terms of ability to assist/resist subjects and the root-mean-square (RMS) trajectory tracking error. Data demonstrate that the new system, in comparison to the original TheraDrive, produces a larger change in normalized trajectory tracking error when assistance/resistance is added to exercises and has the potential to support stroke survivors at all functioning levels

Design and Development of an Affordable Haptic Robot with Force-Feedback and Compliant Actuation to Improve Therapy for Patients with Severe Hemiparesis

The study describes the design and development of a single degree-of-freedom haptic robot, Haptic Theradrive, for post-stroke arm rehabilitation for in-home and clinical use. The robot overcomes many of the weaknesses of its predecessor, the TheraDrive system, that used a Logitech steering wheel as the haptic interface for rehabilitation. Although the original TheraDrive system showed success in a pilot study, its wheel was not able to withstand the rigors of use. A new haptic robot was developed that functions as a drop-in replacement for the Logitech wheel. The new robot can apply larger forces in interacting with the patient, thereby extending the functionality of the system to accommodate low-functioning patients. A new software suite offers appreciably more options for tailored and tuned rehabilitation therapies. In addition to describing the design of the hardware and software, the paper presents the results of simulation and experimental case studies examining the system\u27s performance and usability

Evaluating the Effect of Operational Conditions and Practices on Warehouse Performance

Analyzing warehouse performance across different environments is critical to improving overall productivity and reducing costs. Although two-stage DEA estimators have been shown to be statistically consistent, the finite sample bias of DEA in the first stage carries over to the secondstage regression, which causes bias in the estimated coefficients of the contextual variables. The bias is particularly severe when the contextual variables are correlated with inputs. To address this shortcoming, we apply insights from Johnson and Kuosmanen (2010), who demonstrate that DEA can be formulated as a constrained special case of the Convex Nonparametric Least Squares (CNLS) regression to develop a new semiparametric one-stage estimator. The new model is applied to a set of warehouses to illustrate its performance

Prenatal Injuries

Our courts have been increasingly perplexted by the question of whether or not an infant should have a right of action for personal injuries negligently caused to its body prior to birth. Stated another way, does an infant while in its mother\u27s womb have an interest in the freedom from invasion of its bodily security equivalent to and commensurate with that of a person already born

Prenatal Injuries

Our courts have been increasingly perplexted by the question of whether or not an infant should have a right of action for personal injuries negligently caused to its body prior to birth. Stated another way, does an infant while in its mother\u27s womb have an interest in the freedom from invasion of its bodily security equivalent to and commensurate with that of a person already born