INFLUENCES OF HUMAN CAPITAL AND FARM CHARACTERISTICS ON FARMERS' RISK ATTITUDES

We have two objectives for this paper. The first is to develop an index reflective of farmers' attitudes towards risk. In addition, we show how the risk indices are distributed by size of farm and other farm and operator characteristics, providing information as to how risk management tools may be used, and farm policies targeted. This information will be useful to help explain agricultural sector structural change, such as complex business arrangements arising in agriculture, and household portfolio investment choices.Farm Management, Labor and Human Capital, Risk and Uncertainty,

Longitudinal Success of Calculus I Reform

This paper describes the second year of an ongoing project to transform calculus instruction at Boise State University. Over the past several years, Calculus I has undergone a complete overhaul that has involved a movement from a collection of independent, uncoordinated, personalized, lecture-based sections, into a single coherent multi-section course with an activelearning pedagogical approach. The overhaul also significantly impacted the course content and learning objectives. The project is now in its fifth semester and has reached a steady state where the reformed practices are normative within the subset of instructors who might be called upon to teach Calculus I. Gains from the project include a rise in the pass rate in Calculus I, greater student engagement, greater instructor satisfaction, a general shift toward active learning pedagogies, and the emergence of a strong collaborative teaching community. Project leaders are seeking to expand these gains to other areas of the curriculum and to broaden the community of instructors who are fully accepting of the reforms. Common concerns expressed by faculty resistant to the overhaul include suspicion that pass rate gains might reflect grade inflation or weakened standards, and that altering the traditional content of Calculus I might leave students unprepared for Calculus II. External stakeholders also have a vested interest in ensuring students receive a solid preparation in Calculus I. In this paper we develop a response to ensure solid evidence of Calculus II readiness that we hope will be useful to change agents and campus leaders in many other settings. We address concerns about Calculus II readiness by conducting a natural experiment, tracking two cohorts of students through Calculus I and into Calculus II. The “treatment” cohort consists of students who reach Calculus II after passing the reformed Calculus I. The “control” cohort consists of students who reach Calculus II after passing non-reformed Calculus I at Boise State University. The experiment has no designed randomizing, but enrollment data shows that both cohorts spread out across all sections of Calculus II with apparent randomness. Our research question is: “Does the treatment cohort perform any worse than the control cohort in Calculus II?” Data on pass rates and grades in Calculus II will show that the answer is “No.

The Iowa Homemaker vol.15, no.9

New Wrinkles in Lingerie, page 2 Loads of Style, page 3 Hecs Have a Double Job, page 4 A Little Dignity in Dancing, page 5 Through the White House Gates, page 6 Dutch Treat Your Irish Spread, page 7 Give Plants Artificial Light, page 7 What’s New in Home Economics, page 8 Alumnae Notes, page 10 Making Science, page 11 More Pertinent Reading, page 12 Coming Up in the Movies, page 13 Skirt Lengths Short, page 1

Disease modification and other trials in systemic sclerosis have come a long way, but have to go further

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/92019/1/21673_ftp.pd

Development and Validation of a HPV-32 Specific PCR Assay

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Human Papillomavirus-32 (HPV-32) has traditionally been associated with focal-epithelial-hyperplasia (FEH). It is also present in 58% of oral warts of HIV-positive individuals whose prevalence is increasing. Current methods for the detection of HPV-32 are labor-intensive and insensitive so the goal of this work was to develop a highly sensitive and easy to use specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay.</p> <p>Materials and methods</p> <p>An HPV-32 L1 specific PCR assay was developed and optimized. The sensitivity and specificity was compared to previous assays utilized for detection (PGMY and MY09/11 PCR with dot blot hybridization) using cloned HPV-32 L1, the closely related HPV-42 L1 as well as clinical samples (oral swabs and fluids from 89 HIV-positive subjects).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The HPV-32 specific PCR assay showed improved sensitivity to 5 copies of HPV-32 as compared to the PGMY PCR, MY09/11 PCR and dot blot which had a limit of detection of approximately 3,000 copies. Using the HPV-32 dot blot hybridization assay as the gold standard, the HPV-32 specific PCR assay has a sensitivity of 95.8% and 88.9% by sample and subject, respectively, and specificity was 87.8% and 58.8% by sample and subject, respectively. The low sensitivity is due to the HPV-32 specific PCR assays ability to detect more HPV-32 positive samples and may be the new gold standard.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Due to the ease, sensitivity, and specificity the HPV-32 specific PCR assay is superior to previous assays and is ideal for detection of HPV-32 in large cohorts. This assay provides an excellent tool to study the natural history of HPV-32 infection and the development of oral warts.</p

Expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary crystallographic analysis of BipD, a component of the Burkholderia pseudomallei type III secretion system

A construct consisting of residues 10–310 of mature BipD, a component of the B. pseudomallei type III secretion system, has been crystallized. Native BipD crystals and SeMet and K2PtCl4 derivative crystals have undergone preliminary crystallographic analysis

Low‐Fe(III) Greenalite Was a Primary Mineral From Neoarchean Oceans

Banded iron formations (BIFs) represent chemical precipitation from Earth’s early oceans and therefore contain insights into ancient marine biogeochemistry. However, BIFs have undergone multiple episodes of alteration, making it difficult to assess the primary mineral assemblage. Nanoscale mineral inclusions from 2.5 billion year old BIFs and ferruginous cherts provide new evidence that iron silicates were primary minerals deposited from the Neoarchean ocean, contrasting sharply with current models for BIF inception. Here we used multiscale imaging and spectroscopic techniques to characterize the best preserved examples of these inclusions. Our integrated results demonstrate that these early minerals were low‐Fe(III) greenalite. We present potential pathways in which low‐Fe(III) greenalite could have formed through changes in saturation state and/or iron oxidation and reduction. Future constraints for ancient ocean chemistry and early life’s activities should include low‐Fe(III) greenalite as a primary mineral in the Neoarchean ocean.Plain Language SummaryChemical precipitates from Earth’s early oceans hold clues to ancient seawater chemistry and biological activities, but we first need to understand what the original minerals were in ancient marine deposits. We characterized nanoscale mineral inclusions from 2.5 billion year old banded iron formations and determined that the primary minerals were iron‐rich silicate minerals dominated by reduced iron, challenging current hypotheses for banded iron formation centered on iron oxides. Our results suggest that our planet at this time had a very reducing ocean and further enable us to present several biogeochemical mineral formation hypotheses that can now be tested to better understand the activities of early life on ancient Earth.Key PointsNeoarchean nanoparticle silicate inclusions appear to be the earliest iron mineral preserved in cherts from Australia and South AfricaOur multiscale analyses indicate that the particles are greenalite that are dominantly Fe(II) with have low and variable Fe(III) contentWe present four (bio)geochemical hypotheses that could produce low‐Fe(III) greenalitePeer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143747/1/grl57046_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143747/2/grl57046.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143747/3/grl57046-sup-0001-2017GL076311-SI.pd

Prenatal pet keeping and caregiver-reported attention deficit hyperactivity disorder through preadolescence in a United States birth cohort

BACKGROUND: While the keeping of pets has been shown to protect against childhood allergic disease and obesity, less is known regarding potential associations of prenatal pet keeping and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We sought to examine the associations between prenatal dog or cat keeping with caregiver-reported ADHD in preadolescents in the Wayne County Health, Environment, Allergy and Asthma Longitudinal Study (WHEALS) birth cohort (N = 1258). METHODS: At an interview with the caregiver at child age 10-12 years, caregivers reported if the WHEALS child had ever been diagnosed with ADHD. Similarly, during an interview with the mother prenatally, pet keeping (defined as dog or cat kept inside ≥1 h/day) was ascertained. Logistic regression models were fit to examine the association of prenatal pet keeping (dog keeping and cat keeping, separately) with ADHD. RESULTS: A subset of 627 children were included in the analyses: 93 who had ADHD and 534 with neurotypical development. After accounting for confounders and loss to follow-up, maternal prenatal dog exposure was associated with 2.23 times (95% CI: 1.15, 4.31; p = 0.017) greater odds of ADHD among boys. Prenatal dog keeping was not statistically significantly associated with ADHD in girls (odds ratio = 0.27, 95% CI: 0.06, 1.12; p = 0.070). Prenatal cat keeping was not associated with ADHD. CONCLUSIONS: In boys, but not girls, maternal prenatal dog keeping was positively associated with ADHD. Further study to confirm these findings and to identify potential mechanisms of this association (e.g., modification of the gut microbiome, exposure to environmental toxicants or pet-related medications) is needed