Development of Strategic Consultancy to Farm Managers: Experience from an Action Research Approach

A Danish action research approach to the development of strategic consultancy to farm managers is presented. The development principles adopted include separate investigations of the content and process of strategic consultancy resulting in the formulation of a development matrix and a procedure for knowledge transformations. The project activities were carried out by a self-organised team group with participants from both consultancy and research organisations. The produced knowledge and strategic tools have been tested in a number of farm cases by local consultants and the implemented evaluation programme indicates that the needs of farmers have been fulfilled and the local consultants have increased their strategic competences. Key words: Action research, strategic consultancy, process and content, development matrix, self-organisation, knowledge transformations, complex learning and consultancy processes.Farm Management,

Agricultural Risk Management - Experiences from an Action Research Approach

A new model for risk management in agriculture is described in the paper. The risk model is constructed as a context dependent process, which includes four main phases. The model is aimed at agricultural advisors, who wish to facilitate and disseminate risk management to farmers. It is developed and tested by an action research approach in an attempt to make risk management more applicable on family farms. Our obtained experiences indicate that farmers don't apply probabilistic thinking and other concepts according to formal decision theory.Risk management, consulting, action research, farm families, Risk and Uncertainty,

Genome-wide meta-analysis of 241,258 adults accounting for smoking behaviour identifies novel loci for obesity traits

Few genome-wide association studies (GWAS) account for environmental exposures, like smoking, potentially impacting the overall trait variance when investigating the genetic contribution to obesity-related traits. Here, we use GWAS data from 51,080 current smokers and 190,178 nonsmokers (87% European descent) to identify loci influencing BMI and central adiposity, measured as waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio both adjusted for BMI. We identify 23 novel genetic loci, and 9 loci with convincing evidence of gene-smoking interaction (GxSMK) on obesity-related traits. We show consistent direction of effect for all identified loci and significance for 18 novel and for 5 interaction loci in an independent study sample. These loci highlight novel biological functions, including response to oxidative stress, addictive behaviour, and regulatory functions emphasizing the importance of accounting for environment in genetic analyses. Our results suggest that tobacco smoking may alter the genetic susceptibility to overall adiposity and body fat distribution.Peer reviewe

Development of Strategic Consultancy to Farm Managers - Experiences from an Action Research Approach

A Danish action research approach to the development of strategic consultancy to farmm anagers is presented. The development principles adopted include separate investigations of the content and process of strategic consultancy resulting in the formulation of a development matrix and a procedure for knowledge transformations. The project activities were carried out by a self-organised team group with participants from both consultancy and research organisations. The produced knowledge and strategic tools have been tested in a number of farm cases by local consultants and the implemented evaluation programme indicates that the needs of farmers have been fulfilled and the local consultants have increased their strategic competences

Development of Strategic Consultancy to Farm Managers - Experiences from an Action Research Approach

A Danish action research approach to the development of strategic consultancy to farmm anagers is presented. The development principles adopted include separate investigations of the content and process of strategic consultancy resulting in the formulation of a development matrix and a procedure for knowledge transformations. The project activities were carried out by a self-organised team group with participants from both consultancy and research organisations. The produced knowledge and strategic tools have been tested in a number of farm cases by local consultants and the implemented evaluation programme indicates that the needs of farmers have been fulfilled and the local consultants have increased their strategic competences.Farm Management, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Agricultural Risk Management - Experiences from an Action Research Approach

A new model for risk management in agriculture is described in the paper. The risk model is constructed as a context dependent process, which includes four main phases. The model is aimed at agricultural advisors, who wish to facilitate and disseminate risk management to farmers. It is developed and tested by an action research approach in an attempt to make risk management more applicable on family farms. Our obtained experiences indicate that farmers don't apply probabilistic thinking and other concepts according to formal decision theory

The Influence of Age and Sex on Genetic Associations with Adult Body Size and Shape: A Large-Scale Genome-Wide Interaction Study.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified more than 100 genetic variants contributing to BMI, a measure of body size, or waist-to-hip ratio (adjusted for BMI, WHRadjBMI), a measure of body shape. Body size and shape change as people grow older and these changes differ substantially between men and women. To systematically screen for age- and/or sex-specific effects of genetic variants on BMI and WHRadjBMI, we performed meta-analyses of 114 studies (up to 320,485 individuals of European descent) with genome-wide chip and/or Metabochip data by the Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) Consortium. Each study tested the association of up to ~2.8M SNPs with BMI and WHRadjBMI in four strata (men ≤50y, men >50y, women ≤50y, women >50y) and summary statistics were combined in stratum-specific meta-analyses. We then screened for variants that showed age-specific effects (G x AGE), sex-specific effects (G x SEX) or age-specific effects that differed between men and women (G x AGE x SEX). For BMI, we identified 15 loci (11 previously established for main effects, four novel) that showed significant (FDR<5%) age-specific effects, of which 11 had larger effects in younger (<50y) than in older adults (≥50y). No sex-dependent effects were identified for BMI. For WHRadjBMI, we identified 44 loci (27 previously established for main effects, 17 novel) with sex-specific effects, of which 28 showed larger effects in women than in men, five showed larger effects in men than in women, and 11 showed opposite effects between sexes. No age-dependent effects were identified for WHRadjBMI. This is the first genome-wide interaction meta-analysis to report convincing evidence of age-dependent genetic effects on BMI. In addition, we confirm the sex-specificity of genetic effects on WHRadjBMI. These results may provide further insights into the biology that underlies weight change with age or the sexually dimorphism of body shape