Trade and Wages: Insights from the Crystal Ball

This study uses both a net factor content analysis and a small simulation model to explore the impact on the U.S. labor market of a fivefold increase in imports of manufactured goods from developing countries. The simulation, which is parameterized by the US economy in 1990, involves a balanced trade expansion which displaces almost half of US manufacturing workers who are reemployed in the remaining manufacturing and non-trade sectors. The results show that relative wages of workers with a high school education or less would be depressed, while those with some college education would rise. However, despite the magnitude of the shock, the effects are surprisingly small. Once account is taken of productivity increases, labor force growth and export sector wage premiums, given unitary elasticities of demand and of substitution between workers with different levels of education, relative wages of workers with some college education rise by 3.5 percent, while the real wages of workers with a high school education or less decline by 1.3 percent. The impact of a variety of parameter assumptions is also explored.

Interview with Carolyn Lawrence

An interview with Carolyn Lawrence regarding her experiences in a one-room school house.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/ors/1136/thumbnail.jp

MaizeGDB – Past, Present, and Future

The Maize Database turns twenty this year. Many of us trace our academic roots back to Emerson: we can do likewise for MaizeGDB

Parental response to a letter reporting child overweight measured as part of a routine national programme in England: results from interviews with parents

Background Rising rates of childhood obesity have become a pressing issue in public health, threatening both the mental and physical well-being of children. Attempts to address this problem are multifaceted, and in England include the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP) which assesses weight status in English primary school children in reception class (aged 4–5) and in year 6 (aged 10–11), with results being sent out to parents. However the effectiveness and impact of this routine parental feedback has yet to be fully understood. This paper reports one component of a mixed methods study undertaken in North East England, examining the impact of the feedback letters on parents’ understanding and feelings about their child’s weight status and whether or not this seemed likely to lead to behaviour change. Methods One-to-one semi-structured interviews (n = 16) were conducted with a sample of parents/guardians after they had received their child’s weight results letter. Eight parents/guardians were sub-sampled from the group whose child had been indicated to be overweight or obese and eight were from the group whose child had been indicated to be of ideal weight status. Interviews were conducted until data saturation was reached for both groups. Results The reactions of parents/guardians whose children were identified as being overweight followed a sequence of behaviours ranging from shock, disgust with the programme, through denial and self-blame to acceptance, worry and intention to seek help. On the other hand, the reaction of parents/guardians whose children were identified as being ideal weight ranged from relief, pleasure and happiness through affirmation and self-congratulation to ‘othering’. Conclusions Whilst overweight and obesity is often portrayed as a medical condition, parents/guardians see it as deeply rooted in their social lives and not in health terms. Parents believe that the causes of overeating and lack of exercise relate closely to the obesogenic environment, particularly the complex social and cultural milieu and time pressures within which this sample of people live. Associating this problem in feedback letters with dangerous diseases like cancer, and advising parents to visit GPs to resolve child weight issues was perceived as inappropriate by the parents, and caused controversy and anger. Given the likelihood that the NCMP will continue as a monitoring device, it is evident that the management of the process needs to be reviewed, with particular attention being paid to the feedback process. Local health authorities will need to manage parental expectations and ensure linkage with appropriately commissioned remedial weight management interventions

Case Studies which Demonstrate the Financial Viability of Precision Dairy Farming

A number of case studies are used to demonstrate the financial viability of precision farming methods for intensively managed pastures. Precision farming has sometimes been criticized as being technology-led where the management goals and desired outcomes are sometimes poorly defined. Case studies presented in this paper demonstrate a strong management approach where appropriate technologies are selected to contribute to the financial success of the farm. The first case study farm has increased milk production by 70% in four years, increased pasture production by 43%, reduced fertilizer costs to 43% of previous levels and has successfully predicted annual production to within 2 to 3% of actual. A strong emphasis on performance measurement is used to support a four stage management approach which consists of Planning, Measurement, Management and Review. The measurement systems in place inform the management at both strategic and operational levels and include twice daily recording of individual milk production and cow weight. The electronic identification (EID) system has been in place since 1996. The second case study farm has demonstrated similar savings in base fertiliser utilisation but has utilised other additional precision agriculture technologies such as the use of crop sensors and variable rate application of nutrients. Again a strong management focus is given, this time expressed as measure, manage, mitigate. This farming partnership also has a very strong environmental sustainability focus and recently received national recognition as the Supreme Winner of the 2013 New Zealand Ballance Farm Environmental Awards, giving further validation to the idea that precision agriculture is profitable as well as environmentally sustainable. Craige Mackenzie has also invested in precision irrigation, and there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that this method can give significant economic and environmental benefits on intensively managed pastures. Further case studies presenting the advantage of variable rate irrigation are also presented

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Course for Engineers, Plant Scientists, and Data Scientists in the Area of Predictive Plant Phenomics

This paper describes the development and first offering of a new graduate course entitled Fundamentals of Predictive Plant Phenomics, which is part of a recently awarded National Science Foundation Graduate Research Traineeship (NRT) award to Iowa State University. The focus of this particular NRT award is to train engineering, plant science, and data science graduate students in the area of predictive plant phenomics (P3), with the goal to develop researchers who can design and construct crops with desired traits to meet the needs of a growing population and that can thrive in a changing environment. To meet this goal, the P3 NRT program will train next generation crop scientists to have broad technical skillsets as well as strong soft skills in communication and collaboration. A companion paper (Dickerson et al., 2017) provides an overview of the P3 NRT program, whereas this paper focuses on a new course developed as part of the P3 NRT. One of the challenges associated with providing the students in the P3 NRT program with the needed multidisciplinary skills to thrive is to ensure that all students have a common knowledge base in engineering, plant sciences, and data sciences, no matter their background. The goal is to get all students communicating in the same language. The course Fundamentals of Predictive Plant Phenomics was developed to meet this challenge. The course planning took nearly one year and incorporated input from faculty with various disciplinary backgrounds. The actual course is coordinated by an engineering faculty member and taught through a series of guest lecturers covering various plant science, data science, and engineering topics over a 15-week period. In addition to the three 50-minute lectures per week, a 3-hour laboratory each week provides an experiential learning opportunity where students can apply the knowledge they learn in the lectures. The first offering of this course occurred in fall 2016, with 16 enrolled students, 7 from engineering disciplines, and 9 from plant and data science programs. Lessons learned from the first offering of this course are summarized in this paper. The course is providing the needed background so students can develop a successful research topic in the area of predictive plant phenomics and communicate with others in this broad multidisciplinary field. Because the course is a leveling or survey of three disciplines, and each student has a good background in at least one of the three, it has been challenging to keep all students interested and engaged for all lectures (but not labs). To address this challenge, expanding the application of Inquiry-Based Learning approaches during the lecture period in future years is proposed