BUILDING PROFESSIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CAPACITY IN THREE WESTERN UPPER PENINSULA COUNTIES: RESULTS OF A DIAGNOSTIC STUDY AND FOLLOW-UP ACTIVITIES

This paper is a part of a series of reports of the activities conducted under a grant from the Fund for Rural America, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Funds for the three year grant entitled "Enhancing Rural Economies Through Comprehensive Extension, Research & Partnering Approaches Using Multi-County Clusters in Michigan With Application to National Rural Settings" were received by Michigan State University's Department of Agricultural Economics in March, 1998. The major goal of the grant is to increase economic development activity in four clusters of rural counties in Michigan through the utilization of the resources of the Michigan State University Extension Service, Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, and other resources of Michigan State University. Various local, state, and federal public partners as well as the private sector are to co-sponsor projects. This paper represents the first stages of a continuing project to explore the utilization of retirement community human resources in rural Michigan and to develop Extension programs to meet their needs. Future activities include focus groups, labor supply analysis, a conference, and perhaps a rural academy to be developed by Michigan State University and its partners.Community/Rural/Urban Development,

Designing graduate training programs in conservation medicine-producing the right professionals with the right tools.

New challenges to human, animal, and ecosystem health demand novel solutions: New diseases are emerging from new configurations of humans, their domestic animals and wildlife; new pressures on once robust and resilient ecosystems are compromising their integrity; synthetic compounds and engineered organisms, new to the natural world, are spreading unpredictably around the globe. Globalization provides opportunities for infectious organisms to gain access to new hosts, changing in distribution and virulence. What type of training should be developed to provide professionals with the right tools to meet these challenges? In this article, we offer recommendations for developing academic programs in conservation medicine. We discuss the need for, and the advantages to, using a conservation medicine approach to address real world situations and present illustrations of how this is applied today. We suggest a core set of skills that are needed in a conservation medicine practitioner, and recommend key considerations for designing new conservation medicine training programs. We review existing programs that offer conservation medicine content, and provide examples of where opportunities exist for those interested in pursuing a conservation medicine career

Construction of an instrument for the measurement of educational philosophy

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Boston Universit

Exercise and the microbiota

The authors are supported in part by research grants from Science Foundation Ireland including a centre grant (Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre; Grant Numbers SFI/12/RC/2273 and 12/RC/2273). Dr. Orla O’Sullivan is funded by a Starting Investigator Research Grant from Science Foundation Ireland (Grant number 13/SIRG/2160). Dr. Paul Cotter is funded by a Principal Investigator Award from Science Foundation Ireland P.D.C are supported by a SFI PI award (Grant number 11/PI/1137).peer-reviewedSedentary lifestyle is linked with poor health, most commonly obesity and associated disorders, the corollary being that exercise offers a preventive strategy. However, the scope of exercise biology extends well beyond energy expenditure and has emerged as a great ‘polypill’, which is safe, reliable and cost-effective not only in disease prevention but also treatment. Biological mechanisms by which exercise influences homeostasis are becoming clearer and involve multi-organ systemic adaptations. Most of the elements of a modern lifestyle influence the indigenous microbiota but few studies have explored the effect of increased physical activity. While dietary responses to exercise obscure the influence of exercise alone on gut microbiota, professional athletes operating at the extremes of performance provide informative data. We assessed the relationship between extreme levels of exercise, associated dietary habits and gut microbiota composition, and discuss potential mechanisms by which exercise may exert a direct or indirect influence on gut microbiota.The authors are supported in part by research grants from Science Foundation Ireland including a centre grant (Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre; Grant Numbers SFI/12/RC/2273 and 12/RC/2273). Dr. Orla O’Sullivan is funded by a Starting Investigator Research Grant from Science Foundation Ireland (Grant number 13/SIRG/2160). Dr. Paul Cotter is funded by a Principal Investigator Award from Science Foundation Ireland P.D.C are supported by a SFI PI award (Grant number 11/PI/1137)

Targeting the Microbiota to Address Diet-Induced Obesity: A Time Dependent Challenge

peer-reviewedLinks between the gut microbiota and host metabolism have provided new perspectives on obesity. We previously showed that the link between the microbiota and fat deposition is age- and time-dependent subject to microbial adaptation to diet over time. We also demonstrated reduced weight gain in diet-induced obese (DIO) mice through manipulation of the gut microbiota with vancomycin or with the bacteriocin-producing probiotic Lactobacillus salivarius UCC118 (Bac+), with metabolic improvement achieved in DIO mice in receipt of vancomycin. However, two phases of weight gain were observed with effects most marked early in the intervention phase. Here, we compare the gut microbial populations at the early relative to the late stages of intervention using a high throughput sequencing-based analysis to understand the temporal relationship between the gut microbiota and obesity. This reveals several differences in microbiota composition over the intervening period. Vancomycin dramatically altered the gut microbiota composition, relative to controls, at the early stages of intervention after which time some recovery was evident. It was also revealed that Bac+ treatment initially resulted in the presence of significantly higher proportions of Peptococcaceae and significantly lower proportions of Rikenellaceae and Porphyromonadaceae relative to the gut microbiota of L. salivarius UCC118 bacteriocin negative (Bac-) administered controls. These differences were no longer evident at the later time. The results highlight the resilience of the gut microbiota and suggest that interventions may need to be monitored and continually adjusted to ensure sustained modification of the gut microbiota.The authors are supported in part by Teagasc, Science Foundation Ireland (in the form of a research centre grant to the Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre and PI awards to PWOT and PC) and by Alimentary Health Ltd

PANIC: A Near-infrared Camera for the Magellan Telescopes

PANIC (Persson's Auxiliary Nasmyth Infrared Camera) is a near-infrared camera designed to operate at any one of the f/11 folded ports of the 6.5m Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. The instrument is built around a simple, all-refractive design that reimages the Magellan focal plane to a plate scale of 0.125'' pixel^{-1} onto a Rockwell 1024x1024 HgCdTe detector. The design goals for PANIC included excellent image quality to sample the superb seeing measured with the Magellan telescopes, high throughput, a relatively short construction time, and low cost. PANIC has now been in regular operation for over one year and has proved to be highly reliable and produce excellent images. The best recorded image quality has been ~0.2'' FWHM.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. To appear in "Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation," Proc SPIE (Glasgow), June 2004. Version with higher resolution figures is available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/~pmartini/professional/publications/panic.pd

Reproductive Failure in UK Harbour Porpoises Phocoena phocoena : Legacy of Pollutant Exposure?

This research was supported by a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the Seventh European Community Framework Programme (Project Cetacean-stressors, PIOF-GA-2010-276145 to PDJ and SM). Additional funding was provided through the Agreement on the Conservation of Small Cetaceans of the Baltic, North East Atlantic, Irish and North Seas (ASCOBANS) (Grants SSFA/2008 and SSFA / ASCOBANS / 2010 / 5 to SM). Analysis of Scottish reproductive and teeth samples was funded by the EC-funded BIOCET project (BIOaccumulation of persistent organic pollutants in small CETaceans in European waters: transport pathways and impact on reproduction, grant EVK3-2000-00027 to GJP), and Marine Scotland (GJP). Samples examined in this research were collected under the collaborative Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (http://ukstrandings.org/), which is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the UK’s Devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales (http://sciencesearch.defra.gov.uk/Defaul​t.aspx?Menu=Menu&Module=More&Location=No​ne&Completed=0&ProjectID=15331) (grants to PDJ, RD). UK Defra also funded the chemical analysis under a service-level agreement with the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (grants to RJL, JB). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

How far and for how much? Evidence on wages and potential travel-to-work distances from a survey of the economically inactive

The U.K. government has recently committed itself to an ambitious 80 per cent employment rate target. Recognising that achieving this aspiration will require significant numbers of the economically inactive to (re-)engage with the labour market, the government has enacted various policy reforms seeking to encourage those on the fringes of the labour market to do so. The present paper uses unique survey data to examine three factors relevant to these issues, namely the desire to work, minimum acceptable wages and the distance the inactive are prepared to travel to work for a given minimum acceptable wage offer