Book Review: \u3cem\u3eThinking the Unthinkable: The Riddle of Classical Social Theories\u3c/em\u3e by Charles Lemert

Lemert, Charles. Thinking the Unthinkable: TheRiddle of Classical Social Theories. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2007. 195 pp. $60.00 cloth,$22.95 paper

Ideological Currents Of The Rural Crisis: The Fats, Small Town, And Rural Peoples\u27 Conf

The rural crisis of the 1900s plowed a deep furrow across the economic, political, cultural, social, and psychological landscape of the Upper Midwest. Rooted in the financial problems of farmers, the crisis rippled not only through farm families but also into the region\u27s small towns (Buttel, 1909; Farm Crisis, 1986; Cinder et al., 1986; Heffernan and Heffernan. 1986; Rosenblatt, 1990: 3-13). Responses to the crisis were many and varied. Some people, although in actual numbers only slightly greater than the previous fifty years, followed perhaps the most traditional response to rural crisis and fled in search of work to more prosperous towns and cities (Buttel, 1989: 59-60; Cordes, 1986; Farm Numbers, 1906; Rosenblatt, 1990; Satcerlee and Goreham, 1985; Waterfield, 1986; 5-7). others formed organizations of the political left and right, like the National Save the Family Farm Coalition, the North American Farm Alliance, the Iowa Farm Unity Coalition, the Posse Comitatus, the Farmers Liberation Army, and the National Agricultural Press Association, to protest conditions (Browne, 1988; 66-88; King, 1985; Malcolm, 1985a; Scholar, 1985). Still others, more tragically, turned inward, falling into emotional and physical health problems, sometimes even taking their own lives and those of family, friends, and business associates ( Farm Loan Aide, 1986; Heffernan and Heffernan, 1966; Langham, 1988; Levitas. 1985; Malcolm, 1985b; Malcolm. 19B5c; Robbins, 1986). One response to the crisis, a reaction from the educational institution of the rural community, emerged in the form of the Farm, Small Town, and Rural Peoples\u27 Conference (FSTRPC). Faculty members of the University of South Dakota at Vermllllon hosted this day-long conference on January 31, 1966, to address problems stemming from the crisis.* The FSTRPC\u27s theme was Perspectives on the Farm Crisis. William Janidow, the governor of South Dakota, and Tom Daschle, the congressional representative of South Dakota, provided keynote addresses, and sixteen other regional leaders spoke. More than four hundred area farmers and town\u27s people attended ( Farmers Caught, 1986; Murphy, 1986; Heeren, 1986). Regional news media supplied extensive coverage of the conference. The NBC affiliate from Sioux City provided periodic live coverage as did South Sioux City radio station KWSL/KGLI: Other television and radio. The FSTRPC provides an unique opportunity to explore the thoughts of the regional leaders concerning the rural crisis. This paper examines the conference\u27s content, relying on transcripts from the videotapes, to gain a sense of how leaders in the Upper Midwest conceptualized and responded to the crisis. From the transcripts of the FSTRPC, a number of different ideological strands are isolated. These ideological strands emerge from the leaders\u27 differing economic, political, and social vantage points. The leaders, of course, diverge on specific points about the crisis, but they also share a kind of consensus. Where they disagree and agree reveals much. Before turning to examine the thoughts of the leaders, a theoretical discussion is provided. \u27 Barbara Johnson, Associate Professor of Social Work, Department of Social Behavior, The University of South Dakota, and I (then Assistant Professor of Sociology, Department of Social Behavior, The University of South Dakota) acted as coordinators for the first FSTRPC. A second conference entitled Small Town America; What Is Its Future? was held on October 24. 1986, and a third Working in Rural America: Employment, Underemployment , Unemployment! on January 29, 1988, The University of South Dakota and the Chamber of Commerce of Vermillion,South Dakota, sponsored this trilogy of conferences. Stations and newspapers from Sioux City and Sioux Falls sent reporters. The University of South Dakota\u27s Department of Mass Communications videotaped the entire proceedings for preservation as an historical document

The Agricultural Crisis in the Upper Midwest: Responses to Financial Distress on the Family Farm

The farm crisis in the Upper Midwest in the mid-1980s created financial distress that has deeply affected farm families. This paper examines the experiences of these families attempting to survive their financial troubles. It provides a portrait of their personal characteristics and gives a sense of the conditions that they confront in their daily lives. Out of the insights gleaned, this study furnishes ideas for future research. Twenty-two husbands and nineteen wives from twenty-five farm families participated in this study. The data collected from these financially troubled families was gathered between February and November 1986. It was obtained through use of a nonrandom purpose sampling method, and through administration of a survey questionnaire and extensive interview

Book Review: \u3cem\u3ePredictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions\u3c/em\u3e by Dan Ariely

Book Review: Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariel

The Farm Movement in America\u27s Heartland: A Profile of Leaders, Their Power, and Problems

A body of new farm leaders emerged during the mid-1980s in response to the farm crisis in the Upper Midwest. This paper explores the influence of these leaders in shaping the direction of their groups. It does so through examining the farm leaders\u27 socio-demographic characteristics, their use of power, and the way they confront problems. The leaders of two groups, the Farm Crisis Committee (FCC) and Groundswell (GS), are studied. The data for this paper were collected through use of a nonrandom-purposive sampling method. They were gathered through administration of a survey questionnaire in 1986 and intensive interviews during 1986-87. All eight of the FCC\u27s and seven of nine of GS\u27s founding leaders participated. These persons were identified as leaders because they held elected or appointed positions in their groups. The surveys and interviews for the leaders of the FCC were carried out at the group\u27s office in Emerson, Nebraska, while those of GS, because the organization in its early days had no headquarters, were conducted at their individual homes or in restaurants throughout Minnesota. This paper\u27s findings are further supported through use of documentary data from the farm groups and\u27 supplementary secondary data, including scholarly publications, magazines, newspapers, and a television documentary

Simultaneous mapping of temporally-resolved blood flow velocity and oxygenation in femoral artery and vein during reactive hyperemia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Post-occlusive hyperemia is often used as a paradigm to evaluate vascular reactivity, for example by measuring post-ischemic flow-mediated dilation, arterial blood flow or temporally resolved venous blood oxygenation (HbO₂). Here we demonstrate the feasibility of a simultaneous measurement of blood flow and HbO₂in the femoral circulation as part of a single procedure.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A multi-echo GRE pulse sequence was designed and implemented to collect velocity-encoded projections in addition to full-image echoes for field mapping as a means to quantify intravascular magnetic susceptibility. The method's feasibility was evaluated at 3T in a small pilot study involving two groups of healthy subjects (mean ages 26 ± 1.6 and 59 ± 7.3 years, N = 7 and 5, respectively) in terms of six parameters characterizing the time-course of reactive hyperemia and their sensitivity to differentiate age effects. The reproducibility was assessed on two of the seven young healthy subjects with three repeated measurements.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The physiological parameters agree with those obtained with current methods that quantify either velocity or HbO₂alone. Of the six measures of vascular reactivity, one from each group was significantly different in the two subject groups (p < 0.05) even though the study was not powered to detect differences. The mean coefficient of variation (CV) from two subjects undergoing repeat scans were approximately 8% for the oximetric and the arterial velocimetric parameters in the femoral vein and artery, respectively, considerably below intersubject CVs (20 and 35%, for the young and older subject groups, respectively).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The proposed method is able quantify multiple parameters that may lead to more detailed assessment of peripheral vascular reactivity in a single cuff paradigm rather than in separate procedures as required previously, thereby improving measurement efficiency and patient comfort.</p

Non-triggered quantification of central and peripheral pulse-wave velocity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Purpose</p> <p>Stiffening of the arteries results in increased pulse-wave velocity (PWV), the propagation velocity of the blood. Elevated aortic PWV has been shown to correlate with aging and atherosclerotic alterations. We extended a previous non-triggered projection-based cardiovascular MR method and demonstrate its feasibility by mapping the PWV of the aortic arch, thoraco-abdominal aorta and iliofemoral arteries in a cohort of healthy adults.</p> <p>Materials and Methods</p> <p>The proposed method "simultaneously" excites and collects a series of velocity-encoded projections at two arterial segments to estimate the wave-front velocity, which inherently probes the high-frequency component of the dynamic vessel wall modulus in response to oscillatory pressure waves. The regional PWVs were quantified in a small pilot study in healthy subjects (N = 10, age range 23 to 68 yrs) at 3T.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The projection-based method successfully time-resolved regional PWVs for 8-10 cardiac cycles without gating and demonstrated the feasibility of monitoring beat-to-beat changes in PWV resulting from heart rate irregularities. For dul-slice excitation the aliasing was negligible and did not interfere with PWV quantification. The aortic arch and thoracoabdominal aorta PWV were positively correlated with age (p < 0.05), consistent with previous reports. On the other hand, the PWV of the iliofemoral arteries showed decreasing trend with age, which has been associated with the weakening of muscular arteries, a natural aging process.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The PWV map of the arterial tree from ascending aorta to femoral arteries may provide additional insight into pathophysiology of vascular aging and atherosclerosis.</p

Harnessing the Power of Volunteer Labor

62 pages. A thesis presented to the Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management and the Clark Honors College of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for degree of Bachelor of Arts, Spring 2014.In 2012, about one in every four adults in the United States volunteered at least once, totaling 7.9 billion hours of volunteer service. This abundance of unpaid labor is an incredibly valuable resource that many nonprofit organizations utilize in order to operate programming and provide services, but it also dictates a need for a volunteer management program within organizations to coordinate all of the volunteer functions. The amount of people who choose to volunteer and the number of organizations who utilize this volunteer labor has made volunteerism and volunteer management a compelling research topic. Thousands of articles have been published in academic journals in a variety of disciplines. This thesis examines volunteer management by researching the findings of academia and discovering the practices nonprofit organizations use through interviews and case studies. I hypothesize that there is a disconnect between the academic and professional sphere, and found that all of the volunteer management professionals who were interviewed do not use academic research as a resource when seeking to improve their volunteer programs. I call for a better integration of the extensive knowledge to bridge the gap between the academic and professional spheres