CULTIVATING AMERICA\u27S WORKING LANDS: A STUDY OF THE SOCIOCULTURAL VALUE OF FAMILY FARMS

Our ability to produce food in a sustainable, healthy and humane manner is threatened, both in the United States and on the global scale. This difficulty is exacerbated by expected population growth, creating a need for 60% more food worldwide by 2050 to feed a population of 9.3 billion (United Nations Chronicle, 2012). How we produce food affects local economies, the cultural vitality of communities, and the health of regional ecosystems. Industrial or conventional agriculture is damaging all three of these systems, by draining local economies through corporate business practices, isolating farmers and attributing to rural population losses, while depleting natural resources and polluting the environment (National Research Council, 2010; Union for Concerned Scientists, 2008; World Bank, 2012). Additionally, the healthy agricultural lands that remain around cities are being developed at alarming rates in relation to population growth (Partnership for a Sustainable Community, 2011; USDA, 2012). In response to these threats, as well as inequities in global food supply and distribution, this study is concerned with how family farms that practice sustainable agriculture approach self-sufficiency within their local communities. This study address self-sufficiency from the perspectives of scale, practices, proximity, access, relationship, and engagement through case studies of nine southeastern family farms. The goal of the study is to define design solutions for managing working lands through sustainable agriculture, so as to ensure the long-term health of local communities, economies, and ecosystems. Results of the study indicate that there is a need to holistically address agriculture from the perspectives of government, farmers, and citizens through conservation, production, and education. Moving forward, this research implies a need to expedite the National discussion on food production and working lands management, so that we can begin to prevent the loss of productive lands, agricultural knowledge, and of able farmers, ensuring a future for food and farming in America

Cultivating America\u27s working lands: a study of the sociocultural value of family farms

Our ability to produce food in a sustainable, healthy and humane manner is threatened, both in the United States and on the global scale. This difficulty is exacerbated by expected population growth, creating a need for 60% more food worldwide by 2050 to feed a population of 9.3 billion. How we produce food affects local economies, the cultural vitality of communities, and the health of regional ecosystems. Industrial or conventional agriculture is damaging all three of these systems by draining local economies through corporate business practices, isolating farmers and attributing to rural population losses, while depleting natural resources and polluting the environment. Additionally, the healthy agricultural lands that remain around cities are being developed at alarming rates in relation to population growth. In response to these threats, as well as inequities in global food supply and distribution, this study is concerned with how family farms that practice sustainable agriculture approach self-sufficiency within their local communities. Through case studies of nine southeastern family farms, this study address self-sufficiency from the perspectives of scale, practices, proximity, access, relationship, and engagement. Results of the study help to form design strategies that sustain workings lands through conservation, production and education

APICULTURE ADAPTATIONS IN A SHIFTING WORLD: THE BEEKEEPER’S EXPERIENCE ACROSS THE GLOBE

Existing research suggests that changes in climate, such as rainfall and temperature shifts, will threaten bees’ main food sources and cause detrimental impacts on apiculture globally. Despite this, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there is little available by way of research relating to how beekeepers themselves experience these increased pressures to their practices. This research project investigated the experiences of beekeepers in the United States, Malawi, and Cameroon. Surveys of US beekeepers, and interviews with Malawian and Cameroonian beekeepers were coded for emergent themes and surveys were analyzed via descriptive statistics. Major differences in challenges reported by beekeepers in the United States and Sub-Saharan Africa included a higher incidence of disease and pest prevalence in the US, and more issues surrounding resource and materials access in Malawi and Cameroon. Survey and interview observations on temperature and precipitation contained common emergent themes such as climate “unpredictability” and “extreme” weather events paired with adaptations including supplementary feeding, hive construction and placement alterations, temporal shifts in practices, and increased monitoring techniques. As pollinators such as honey bees are essential to food systems and biodiversity across the globe, all practices to promote the health of managed bee populations are to be encouraged. Beekeeping adaptation may be vital to ensuring continued pollination services, for which demands are expected to increase in the future landscape of agriculture. For these reasons the global community would benefit from more cross-cultural exchange of methods to practice beekeeping sustainably, and in-depth research into the adaptation themes uncovered in this study

Narratives of belonging and exclusion :the negotiation of heritage and place in young people's conceptualisations of national identity in Scotland

PhD Thesis : This is an edited version of the printed thesis in which copyrighted images have been removed. The thesis can be viewed in full, on request at the University Library.This thesis analyses whether attempts to reimagine the nation in plural terms can be successful in altering individuals’ conceptualisations of national identity and belonging. Drawing on theories of identity maintenance and ontological security (Giddens 1991), identity as performance (Butler, 1990; Goffman, 1959) and Mason’s (2013) concept of ‘cosmopolitan museology’, it questions the degree to which individuals are willing or able to accept plural representations of national identity increasingly seen in European museums such as the National Museum of Scotland. Such interpretative approaches attempt to deconstruct homogenous discourses of nationhood while encouraging individuals to develop a reflexive sense of self. This thesis argues that further research is needed into the way in which heritage is produced and negotiated in everyday social environments beyond the museum in order to understand what—if any— impact museums may have in producing ‘inclusive’ definitions of national identity. These issues are examined in Scotland, a devolved nation in the UK. The thesis critically analyses how young people aged between 13-17 years old from 5 schools in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Barra and the Scottish Borders utilised and negotiated concepts of ‘heritage’, ‘place’, ‘national identity’ and ‘diversity’ in narratives of belonging and exclusion. 73 young people participated in the research, which was conducted using focus groups and semi-structured interviews. The analysis also draws upon insights gained from teachers and heritage professionals. The research found that the majority of participants adopted positions that reinforced their existing sense of self, rather than alter their definitions of nationhood. While many participants were comfortable with the language of ‘diversity’, they frequently struggled to express themselves when applying these principles to everyday life. The findings indicate that museums could make a positive contribution to public debates by enabling individuals to articulate ideas of diversity while avoiding the essentialisation of difference.AHRC: The Postgraduate Research Student Submission Support Fund

Data-driven MRI analysis reveals fitness-related functional change in default mode network and cognition following an exercise intervention

Previous research has indicated that cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) is structurally and functionally neuroprotective in older adults. However, questions remain regarding the mechanistic role of CRF on cognitive and brain health. The purposes of this study were to investigate if higher pre-intervention CRF was associated with greater change in functional brain connectivity during an exercise intervention and to determine if the magnitude of change in connectivity was related to better post-intervention cognitive performance. The sample included low-active older adults (n = 139) who completed a 6-month exercise intervention and underwent neuropsychological testing, functional neuroimaging, and CRF testing before and after the intervention. A data-driven multi-voxel pattern analysis was performed on resting-state MRI scans to determine changes in whole-brain patterns of connectivity from pre- to post-intervention as a function of pre-intervention CRF. Results revealed a positive correlation between pre-intervention CRF and changes in functional connectivity in the precentral gyrus. Using the precentral gyrus as a seed, analyses indicated that CRF-related connectivity changes within the precentral gyrus were derived from increased correlation strength within clusters located in the Dorsal Attention Network (DAN) and increased anti-correlation strength within clusters located in the Default Mode Network (DMN). Exploratory analysis demonstrated that connectivity change between the precentral gyrus seed and DMN clusters were associated with improved post-intervention performance on perceptual speed tasks. These findings suggest that in a sample of low-active and mostly lower-fit older adults, even subtle individual differences in CRF may influence the relationship between functional connectivity and aspects of cognition following a 6-month exercise intervention.Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory at University of Illinois, Grant/Award Number: C4712National Institute on Aging, Grant/Award Number: R37 AG02566

Benthic Prey in a Bowhead Whale from the Northern Bering Sea

Stomach contents were examined from a bowhead whale, Balaena mysticetus, killed at Gambell, Alaska, on 1 May 1982. It contained an estimated 20-40 litres of recently ingested prey, principally gammarid amphipods (91.7% of the volume of a 157-ml subsample) and cumaceans (7%). All identified prey were primarily epibenthic forms. The stomach of this whale was significant in several respects: (1) it contained the largest amount of food recorded in any whale taken and examined in spring; (2) it provided the first direct evidence of bowheads feeding in the Bering Sea; and (3) the contents indicated that benthic prey are sometimes intentionally fed upon.Key words: Balaena mysticetus, benthic prey, Bering Sea, bowhead whale, feeding, gammarid amphipodsMots clés: Balaena mysticetus, proie benthique, mer de Béring, baleine boréale, alimentation, amphipodes gammaridé

How to brief a case

This is a guide for students on how to brief a case. A student brief is a short summary and analysis of the case prepared for use in classroom discussion. It is a set of notes, presented in a systematic way, in order to sort out the parties, identify the issues, ascertain what was decided, and analyze the reasoning behind decisions made by the courts. Created by Christopher Pyle, 1982Revised by Prof. Katherine Killoran, Feb. 1999

Research on the current state of PRS monitoring systems

This report reviews recent literature on monitoring Poverty Reduction Strategies. It discusses four challenging areas: institutional arrangements; the role of non-government organisations; implementation and intermediate output monitoring; and using results. The main findings are: • Severe capacity constraints are not sufficiently acknowledged. International agencies should be less ambitious about what can be achieved and in what time frame. • The “technical secretariats”, responsible for implementing monitoring, are of central importance. Their need for analytical skills is widely acknowledged, but expertise in data management, communication and marketing are also necessary. • Building cooperation between ministries and agencies responsible for producing data is proving difficult. Success often depends on the status, capabilities and personalities of key people, not on formal mandates and frameworks. • Unless countries have strong local monitoring systems, it is hard to see that building local PRS monitoring capacity should be an immediate priority, given the magnitude of this task. • There is often confusion about the role of civil society in government monitoring systems. It is important that all stakeholders are aware of the involvement offered and that sufficient thought is given to the capacity, information access and influence required for civil society to perform their role. • The “chains of causality” between policies and outcomes remain problematic. This leads to problems in identifying appropriate intermediate indicators. Given scarce resources, a focus on monitoring budget allocations – linked to a small set of basic provision indicators – may be a reasonable and realistic starting point. • Administrative data provide essential information, but often not of sufficient quality for PRS monitoring. It is worth exploring possibilities for combining them with other sources to generate “best estimates”. • Demand for PRS monitoring information, other than to meet donor requirements, is often very weak. Monitoring systems must include marketing and communication activities to build this demand. Keywords: PRSPs, monitoring, evaluation, participatory processes, poverty assessments, institutional reform, decentralisation, poverty indicators. The findings of the fieldwork support the hypothesis that communities exposed to the risk of civil war consciously take rational courses of action over their assets to confront the adverse effects of the war. One apparent policy implication that arises from this is that communities exposed to civil war consciously manage their assets, it is possible to pursue poverty programmes during conflict in order to support the innovative household assets management strategies as well as addressing the underlying sources of grievance and horizontal inequality. While such programmes may not be relevant to communities exposed to endogenous counterinsurgency warfare, they are appropriate to support assets management strategies adopted by households exposed to exogenous counterinsurgency warfare