Using Dialogue to Engage Agricultural Audiences in Cooperative Learning About Climate Change: A Strategy with Broad Implications

Dialogue with stakeholders has been recognized as an effective educational strategy for addressing complex topics such as climate change. We report here on the Carbon, Energy, and Climate fishbowl discussion series developed by Michigan State University Extension to assist the state\u27s agricultural community in understanding and adapting to the changing climate. Facilitated dialogue reduced barriers to communication and promoted cooperative learning for target audiences and the project team, generating useful information on the current status of climate change adaptation within Michigan\u27s agriculture sector and revealing needs to be addressed by future Extension programming. Using a dialogue-based approach such as the one we describe can highlight challenges and opportunities Extension faces in addressing various complex issues with diverse audiences

The New FARM Program: A Model for Supporting Diverse Emerging Farmers and Early-Career Extension Professionals

As early-career Extension educators challenged by societal, structural, agricultural, and fiscal trends, we designed a multiyear educational program to support the diverse needs of emerging specialty crop producers in northwest Michigan. This article presents outcomes of that program. We explore how Extension professionals can develop impactful programs that address the varied needs of the next generation of agricultural producers. We provide an overview of the New FARM program, addressing the rationale, program objectives, program logistics, evaluation results, and implications. We hope the New FARM program will serve as a useful model for early-career Extension professionals

Participatory Data Collection Technique for Capturing Beginning Farmer Program Outcomes

This article describes an innovative evaluation plan we employed to capture outcomes of a multiyear beginning farmer program and, specifically, highlights the facilitation technique we used to document short-term and intermediate goals of the program that matched U.S. Department of Agriculture grant requirements and Extension administration priorities. Developing a comprehensive, two-phase evaluation plan based on a well-conceived logic model was a key factor in the success of the New FARM program. Our midterm and end-of-program evaluations addressed often sought, but sometimes difficult to obtain, intermediate goals from the logic model and demonstrated program effectiveness to a variety of funders

Evaluating Impacts of Five Years of Beginning Farmer Webinar Training

The Michigan State University Extension Beginning Farmer Webinar Series has been implemented statewide since 2012. For the period 2012–2016, 63 webinars were provided to 607 participants. Regular evaluation efforts capture impact data from participants 6 to 10 months after they complete the series. However, to determine longer range impacts of the program, we developed a follow-up online evaluation and distributed it via email invitation to 2012–2016 participants for whom contact information was available. The evaluation results indicate an encouraging level of impact with regard to knowledge retained, farm practices changed, and positive economic metrics such as new farm start-ups and new jobs

Expanding Effective Behavioral Health Literacy Programs to Address Farm Stress

Attention to stress and mental health among agricultural producers has increased over recent years, and Cooperative Extension has been active in offering educational workshops and resources to agricultural audiences. This article describes the process and effectiveness of expanding two (university) Extension farm stress management programs to Cooperative Extension in other states through a national Farm Stress Management Summit. The two-day training Summit provided deeper knowledge about farm stress issues and prepared Extension professionals to offer behavioral health programs in their own communities and respective states. Evaluation findings highlight effective aspects of the Summit and next steps

Prevalencia de caries dental en niños entre 1996–2000

Objectives This study was carried out to assess whether delaying umbilical cord clamping is effective in improving the haematological status of term infants living in a malaria-endemic area, and whether this is associated with complications in infants and mothers. Metyhods We randomly assigned women delivering term babies in Mpongwe Mission Hospital, Zambia, to delayed cord clamping (DCC, n = 46) or immediate cord clamping (controls, n = 45) and followed their infants on a bi-monthly basis until the age of 6 months. We compared the haemoglobin (Hb) change from cord values and the proportion of anaemic infants. Secondary outcomes related to infant and maternal safety. Results Throughout the observation period infant Hb levels in both groups declined, but more rapidly in controls than in the DCC group [difference in Hb change from baseline at 4 months 1.1 g/dl, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.2; 2.1]. By 6 months, this difference had disappeared (0.0 g/dl, 95% CI -0.9; 0.8). The odds ratio for iron deficiency anaemia in the DCC group at 4 months was 0.3 (95% CI 0.1; 1.0), but no differences were found between the groups at 6 months. No adverse events were seen in infants and mothers. Conclusion Our findings indicate that DCC could help improve the haematological status of term infants living in a malaria-endemic region at 4 months of age. However, the beneficial haematological effect disappeared by 6 months. This simple, free and safe delivery procedure might offer a strategy to reduce early infant anaemia risk, when other interventions are not yet feasible

Assessing the effect of flood restoration on surface–subsurface interactions in Rohrschollen Island (Upper Rhine river – France) using integrated hydrological modeling and thermal infrared imaging

Rohrschollen Island is an artificial island of the large Upper Rhine river whose geometry and hydrological dynamics are the result of engineering works during the 19th and 20th centuries. Before its channelization, the Rhine river was characterized by an intense hydromorphological activity which maintained a high level of biodiversity along the fluvial corridor. This functionality considerably decreased during the two last centuries. In 2012, a restoration project was launched to reactivate typical alluvial processes, including bedload transport, lateral channel dynamics, and surface–subsurface water exchanges. An integrated hydrological model has been applied to the area of Rohrschollen Island to assess the efficiency of the restoration regarding surface and subsurface flows. This model is calibrated using measured piezometric heads. Simulated patterns of water exchanges between the surface and subsurface compartments of the island are checked against the information derived from thermal infrared (TIR) imaging. The simulated results are then used to better understand the evolutions of the infiltration–exfiltration zones over time and space and to determine the physical controls of surface–subsurface interactions on the hydrographic network of Rohrschollen Island. The use of integrated hydrological modeling has proven to be an efficient approach to assess the efficiency of restoration actions regarding surface and subsurface flows.</p

Wrist-Worn Physical Activity Trackers Tend To Underestimate Steps During Walking

International Journal of Exercise Science 10(5): 764-773, 2017. The purpose of this study was to determine step-count accuracy of pedometers at different walking speeds. Ten recreationally active participants walked at five treadmill speeds (0.89, 1.11, 1.34, 1.56, and 1.79 m/s) for five minutes while wearing four wrist-worn activity trackers (Fitbit Charge HR®, Garmin Vivosmart HR®, Apple iWatch®, Jawbone UP3®) and the hip-worn Digi-Walker®. Each step was manually counted by a research technician (benchmark). Total step count at each speed was obtained for each device and compared to the benchmark using one-way MANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient. For all five speeds, the Digi-Walker® yielded the most accurate values, averaging -0.4% difference from the benchmark counted steps, and showed the strongest correlation, r \u3e.730, p \u3c.05, at every speed. The Fitbit averaged the highest percent difference of -10.2% from the benchmark of counted steps, and underestimated steps at all speeds (p \u3c0.05). Garmin averaged a -2.7% step difference, Jawbone averaged a -5.3% step difference, and the iWatch showed a -7.9% step difference. Specifically, the Fitbit, Garmin, and Jawbone got progressively worse with increasing speed, whereas the iWatch performed the worst at the slowest and fastest speeds. All wrist-worn devices tested tended to underestimate steps. These data indicate that wrist-worn pedometers are inaccurate even with a specific designed purpose: count steps in a controlled manner. Because these devices are inaccurate in this setting, they remain highly questionable for accuracy in a real-world setting in which the definition of a “step” becomes less finite

Room temperature high frequency transport of Dirac fermions in epitaxially grown Sb_2Te_3 based topological insulators

We report on the observation of photogalvanic effects in epitaxially grown Sb_2Te_3 three-dimensional (3D) topological insulators (TI). We show that asymmetric scattering of Dirac electrons driven back and forth by the terahertz electric field results in a dc electric current. Due to the "symmetry filtration" the dc current is generated in the surface electrons only and provides an opto-electronic access to probe the electric transport in TI, surface domains orientation and details of electron scattering even in 3D TI at room temperature where conventional surface electron transport is usually hindered by the high carrier density in the bulk