The W. I. Myers Professorship of Agricultural Finance

This paper reviews the establishment and funding of the W. I. Myers Professorship of Agricultural Finance and the activities and accomplishments of early chair holders. Because considerable time has passed since the formation of the Chair, this record will undoubtedly be incomplete in unknown ways. William I. Myers (1891-1976) was born and reared on a dairy and tobacco farm in Chemung County, New York. He received his Ph. D. from Cornell and was appointed to the faculty in 1918. In 1920 he was the first person ever appointed full professor of agricultural finance. In 1932, during the depth of the depression, Myers was asked by Henry Morgenthau to prepare recommendations for a legislative program to solve the agricultural finance problem. His ideas were approved by president-elect Roosevelt who asked him to come to Washington to assist with development of the Farm Credit Administration. In 1933, Myers was appointed Governor of the Farm Credit Administration, succeeding original Governor Henry Morgenthau, when Morgenthau was appointed Secretary of the Treasury. As Governor of FCA he was the principal architect and top administrator during the revitalization, reorganization and expansion of what beacame the Farm Credit System. In 1938, he returned to Cornell as head of the Department of Agricultural Economics, and he later served as Dean of the College of Agriculture from 1943 to 19592.Agricultural Finance, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

APPLICATION OF RECURSIVE PARTITIONING TO AGRICULTURAL CREDIT SCORING

Recursive Partitioning Algorithm (RPA) is introduced as a technique for credit scoring analysis, which allows direct incorporation of misclassification costs. This study corroborates nonagricultural credit studies, which indicate that RPA outperforms logistic regression based on within-sample observations. However, validation based on more appropriate out-of-sample observations indicates that logistic regression is superior under some conditions. Incorporation of misclassification costs can influence the creditworthiness decision.finance, credit scoring, misclassification, recursive partitioning algorithm, Agricultural Finance,

THE EFFECT OF INTERSTATE BANKING ON FARM LENDER MARKET SHARES IN NEW YORK STATE

Commercial bank loans to New York farmers are significantly overestimated in the reported USDA statistics due to out-of-state lending and reporting of some agribusiness loans as agricultural loans by New York State banks. Correcting for this distortion lowers the 1978-84 average New York agricultural credit market share held by banks from 36 to 24 percent. As deregulation allows more interstate banking activity, the overestimate of agricultural loan volume in states with money center banks and the corresponding underestimate of loan levels and market shares in nonmoney center states could cause increased distortion of state level farm debt statistics.Agricultural Finance,

VARIABLE INTEREST RATES AND THE FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF DAIRY FARM BUSINESSES

Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

Partnerships and collaborations in higher education

https://scholarworks.wm.edu/educationbookchapters/1037/thumbnail.jp

Editor’s notes

A ground swell of activism on campus is underway to recognize a wider understandings of gender, to support long time marginalized populations, and to open up leadership pipelines that result in a reflection of the populations community colleges servewhich include women, minorities, and diverse stakeholders. This issue expands on the research regarding the stubborn persistence of the glass ceiling and thinking about constructions of gender, inclusivity, and strategies to advance equity for all. Tackling new and extended conceptions of gender to include issues facing the LGBTQ community; it: highlights the intersections of race and gender, addresses how gender performance continues to influence the experiences of men and women in the 2-year college sector, presents strategies for supporting women leaders updates readers on the Clery Act on campus, and includes strategies for inclusivity. This is the 179th volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Essential to the professional libraries of presidents, vice presidents, deans, and other leaders in today\u27s open-door institutions, New Directions for Community Colleges provides expert guidance in meeting the challenges of their distinctive and expanding educational mission.https://scholarworks.wm.edu/educationbookchapters/1029/thumbnail.jp

Current insights

The Current Insights feature is designed to introduce life science educators and researchers to current articles of interest in other social science and education journals. In this installment, I highlight three recent studies from the fields of psychology and higher education that can inform practices in the life sciences. The first is a synthesis paper that builds a unifying framework for the diverse activities that fall under the umbrella term “active learning.” This paper emphasizes a novel aspect of the active-learning classroom: student agency. The second paper employs an underutilized framework in biology education research, quantitative critical theory, to explore why faculty–student interactions may not be universally beneficial. The third paper explores how valuing relationships can keep first-generation college students from reaching out for help when they need it. Together, these last two papers help researchers understand the perceived costs and benefits of seeking help from faculty

Structure and Function of Asthma Evaluated Using Pulmonary Imaging

Asthma has been understood to affect the airways in a spatially heterogeneous manner for over six decades. Computational models of the asthmatic lung have suggested that airway abnormalities are diffusely and randomly distributed throughout the lung, however these mechanisms have been challenging to measure in vivo using current clinical tools. Pulmonary structure and function are still clinically characterized by the forced expiratory volume in one-second (FEV1) – a global measurement of airflow obstruction that is unable to capture the underlying regional heterogeneity that may be responsible for symptoms and disease worsening. In contrast, pulmonary magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides a way to visualize and quantify regional heterogeneity in vivo, and preliminary MRI studies in patients suggest that airway abnormalities in asthma are spatially persistent and not random. Despite these disruptive results, imaging has played a limited clinical role because the etiology of ventilation heterogeneity in asthma and its long-term pattern remain poorly understood. Accordingly, the objective of this thesis was to develop a deeper understanding of the pulmonary structure and function of asthma using functional MRI in conjunction with structural computed tomography (CT) and oscillometry, to provide a foundation for imaging to guide disease phenotyping, personalized treatment and prediction of disease worsening. We first evaluated the biomechanics of ventilation heterogeneity and showed that MRI and oscillometry explained biomechanical differences between asthma and other forms of airways disease. We then evaluated the long-term spatial and temporal nature of airway and ventilation abnormalities in patients with asthma. In nonidentical twins, we observed a spatially-matched CT airway and MRI ventilation abnormality that persisted for seven-years; we estimated the probability of an identical defect occurring in time and space to be 1 in 130,000. In unrelated asthmatics, ventilation defects were spatially-persistent over 6.5-years and uniquely predicted longitudinal bronchodilator reversibility. Finally, we investigated the entire CT airway tree and showed that airways were truncated in severe asthma related to thickened airway walls and worse MRI ventilation heterogeneity. Together, these results advance our understanding of asthma as a non-random disease and support the use of MRI ventilation to guide clinical phenotyping and treatment decisions