A Model for Marketing Agricultural Programs [in] Private Colleges and Universities

Problem. Enrollment in agriculture programs has been declining despite a shortage of qualified graduates to meet the current needs of the agriculture industry. Although the principles of marketing have been applied to higher education, little has been written about the marketing of agriculture programs in a liberal arts institution. Method. Information about marketing educational programs was reviewed in the literature and knowledge of current marketing practices of liberal arts colleges with agriculture programs was assembled by conducting site visits at seven colleges selected for the study. This information was the basis for the development of a marketing model. The model was reviewed by two panels of judges and their suggestions were noted in the study. Conclusions and recommendations were then made. Conclusions. The principles of marketing have been applied to institutions of higher learning and have had a positive impact on enrollment. A marketing plan should incorporate institutional research, market research, strategy formation, strategy execution and program review and evaluation. All the elements of a marketing plan are essential if the plan is to be dynamic and meet the specific needs of the institution. The marketing of agriculture programs utilizes marketing activities that are unique to the field of agriculture

How universal is the fractional-quantum-Hall edge Luttinger liquid?

This article reports on our microscopic investigations of the edge of the fractional quantum Hall state at filling factor $\nu=1/3$. We show that the interaction dependence of the wave function is well described in an approximation that includes mixing with higher composite-fermion Landau levels in the lowest order. We then proceed to calculate the equal time edge Green function, which provides evidence that the Luttinger exponent characterizing the decay of the Green function at long distances is interaction dependent. The relevance of this result to tunneling experiments is discussed.Comment: 5 page

Long-read viral metagenomics captures abundant and microdiverse viral populations and their niche-defining genomic islands

Marine viruses impact global biogeochemical cycles via their influence on host community structure and function, yet our understanding of viral ecology is constrained by limitations in host culturing and a lack of reference genomes and ‘universal’ gene markers to facilitate community surveys. Short-read viral metagenomic studies have provided clues to viral function and first estimates of global viral gene abundance and distribution, but their assemblies are confounded by populations with high levels of strain evenness and nucleotide diversity (microdiversity), limiting assembly of some of the most abundant viruses on Earth. Such features also challenge assembly across genomic islands containing niche-defining genes that drive ecological speciation. These populations and features may be successfully captured by single-virus genomics and fosmid-based approaches, at least in abundant taxa, but at considerable cost and technical expertise. Here we established a low-cost, low-input, high throughput alternative sequencing and informatics workflow to improve viral metagenomic assemblies using short-read and long-read technology. The ‘VirION’ (Viral, long-read metagenomics via MinION sequencing) approach was first validated using mock communities where it was found to be as relatively quantitative as short-read methods and provided significant improvements in recovery of viral genomes. We then then applied VirION to the first metagenome from a natural viral community from the Western English Channel. In comparison to a short-read only approach, VirION: (i) increased number and completeness of assembled viral genomes; (ii) captured abundant, highly microdiverse virus populations, and (iii) captured more and longer genomic islands. Together, these findings suggest that VirION provides a high throughput and cost-effective alternative to fosmid and single-virus genomic approaches to more comprehensively explore viral communities in nature

A Standard Platform for Testing and Comparison of MDAO Architectures

The Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization (MDAO) community has developed a multitude of algorithms and techniques, called architectures, for performing optimizations on complex engineering systems which involve coupling between multiple discipline analyses. These architectures seek to efficiently handle optimizations with computationally expensive analyses including multiple disciplines. We propose a new testing procedure that can provide a quantitative and qualitative means of comparison among architectures. The proposed test procedure is implemented within the open source framework, OpenMDAO, and comparative results are presented for five well-known architectures: MDF, IDF, CO, BLISS, and BLISS-2000. We also demonstrate how using open source soft- ware development methods can allow the MDAO community to submit new problems and architectures to keep the test suite relevant

The culture history of Madagascar

Madagascar's culture is a unique fusion of elements drawn from the western, northern, and eastern shores of the Indian Ocean, and its past has fascinated many scholars, yet systematic archaeological research is relatively recent on the island. The oldest traces of visitors are from the first century AD. Coastal settlements, with clear evidence of ties to the western Indian Ocean trading network, were established in several places over the next millennium. Important environmental changes of both plant and animal communities are documented over this period, including the extinctions of almost all large animal species. Urban life in Madagascar began with the establishment of the entrepôt of Mahilaka on the northwest coast of the island in the twelfth century. At about the same time, communities with ties to the trade network were established around the island's coasts. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, social hierarchies developed in several regions of the island. During the succeeding two centuries, Madagascar saw the development of state polities.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45256/1/10963_2004_Article_BF00997802.pd