Agricultural awareness and perceptions of freshmen at West Virginia University

Increased dependence on technology and further removal from agricultural practices has given rise to a decrease in agricultural literacy among members of society, which has established a need for advancement in educating individuals about the basic concepts of agriculture. This study was designed to determine the knowledge of agriculture possessed by incoming freshmen at West Virginia University (WVU). The data collected for this study were obtained from 403 freshmen participants who reported their responses to 35 Agricultural Knowledge, 35 Agricultural Perceptions, and 24 demographic statements and questions on an instrument administered during multiple First Year Orientation courses at WVU. It was revealed that all students lacked a good understanding of agriculture, but students with an agricultural background and who were enrolled in a major in the Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Sciences were more knowledgeable about and possessed more positive perceptions of agriculture than their counterparts

Civil Procedure—Court Inflexibility Puts Appellant in a Bad Position Regarding Attorney Mistake—In re Welfare of J.R., Jr.

Recently, in the case of In re Welfare of J.R., Jr., a proceeding involving the termination of a mother\u27s parental rights, the Minnesota Supreme Court was faced with the issue of whether to affirm a court of appeals order dismissing the mother\u27s appeal for failure to timely serve notice on the child\u27s guardian ad litem, or to excuse the delay under an analysis similar to that required when a party seeks relief from a final judgment or order under Minnesota Rule of Civil Procedure 60.02 (“Rule 60.02”). The appellant argued that in cases involving the termination of parental rights, a technical violation of the rules should not prevent the appeal from proceeding. However, the court refused to apply a Rule 60.02 type analysis and chose not to exercise its inherent power to hear an untimely appeal in the interests of justice. Basing its decision largely on the policy that child protection cases need to be handled expeditiously, the court held that an untimely appeal deprives the appellate court of jurisdiction and affirmed the court of appeals order. Part II of this note explores the primary legal concepts raised in J.R.: the application of a Rule 60.02 analysis, the effect that an untimely appeal has on jurisdiction of Minnesota appellate courts, and extensions for time to appeal under the federal rules. Part III reviews the pertinent facts of J.R. as well as the court\u27s holding and stated policy for reaching that decision. Part IV analyzes the court\u27s decision and current precedent from other jurisdictions that may provide insight and guidance. It also examines the policy behind J.R. and provides a context in which the effectiveness of that policy should be judged. Finally, this note suggests that in the case of J.R., the Minnesota Supreme Court should have recognized that in some civil cases, such as those involving termination of parental rights, the accepted civil remedy of allowing clients to recover for the failure of counsel through a malpractice suit is inadequate. The court should have used an excusable neglect analysis rather than a Rule 60.02 analysis to examine the reason for the attorney\u27s failure to file a timely appeal. Upon satisfaction of the excusable neglect analysis, the court should have exercised its constitutional power to hear a late appeal in the interests of justice

Gunnera herteri - developmental morphology of a dwarf from Uruguay and S Brazil (Gunneraceae)

Abstract.: New morphological and developmental observations are presented of Gunnera herteri (subgenus Ostenigunnera) which is, according to molecular studies, sister to the other species of Gunnera. It is an annual dwarf (up to 4 cm long) whereas the other Gunnera spp. are perennial and slightly to extremely larger. External stem glands are combined with channels into the stem cortex serving as entrance path for symbiotic Nostoc cells. Young stem zones show globular regions of cytoplasm-rich cortex cells, prepared for invasion by Nostoc. The leaf axils contain 2-5 inconspicuous colleters (glandular scales) which can be taken as homologous to the more prominent scales of G. manicata (subg. Panke) and G. macrophylla (subg. Pseudogunnera). Foliage leaves of G. herteri have tooth-like sheath lobes which may be homologous to stipules. Adult plants have extra-axillary inflorescences arising from leaf nodes. The main stem is interpreted as a chain of sympodial units, each one consisting of a leaf and an extra-axillary inflorescence. This "sympodium hypothesis” may be also valid for other species of Gunnera. Each globular inflorescence of G. herteri contains several female flowers and 2-7 stamens at the top, perhaps equalling a single male flower. There are neither bracts nor bracteoles. The ovary is inferior, bicarpellary and unilocular. Its single hanging ovule develops into a dry and endosperm-rich see

Cognition as Embodied Morphological Computation

Cognitive science is considered to be the study of mind (consciousness and thought) and intelligence in humans. Under such definition variety of unsolved/unsolvable problems appear. This article argues for a broad understanding of cognition based on empirical results from i.a. natural sciences, self-organization, artificial intelligence and artificial life, network science and neuroscience, that apart from the high level mental activities in humans, includes sub-symbolic and sub-conscious processes, such as emotions, recognizes cognition in other living beings as well as extended and distributed/social cognition. The new idea of cognition as complex multiscale phenomenon evolved in living organisms based on bodily structures that process information, linking cognitivists and EEEE (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) cognition approaches with the idea of morphological computation (info-computational self-organisation) in cognizing agents, emerging in evolution through interactions of a (living/cognizing) agent with the environment

Boundary quantum critical phenomena with entanglement renormalization

We extend the formalism of entanglement renormalization to the study of boundary critical phenomena. The multi-scale entanglement renormalization ansatz (MERA), in its scale invariant version, offers a very compact approximation to quantum critical ground states. Here we show that, by adding a boundary to the scale invariant MERA, an accurate approximation to the critical ground state of an infinite chain with a boundary is obtained, from which one can extract boundary scaling operators and their scaling dimensions. Our construction, valid for arbitrary critical systems, produces an effective chain with explicit separation of energy scales that relates to Wilson's RG formulation of the Kondo problem. We test the approach by studying the quantum critical Ising model with free and fixed boundary conditions.Comment: 8 pages, 12 figures, for a related work see arXiv:0912.289

The Decisive Moment \u3ci\u3eThe Science of Decision Making under Stress\u3c/i\u3e

I n January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 performed an emergency landing in the Hudson River after hitting a flock of birds and losing thrust in all engines. Decisions made by the pilot not to return to the airport of the flight\u27s origin or to attempt to land at surrounding airports, but instead to bring the aircraft down in the icy cold waters between New York City and New Jersey, saved all 155 people on board. A few years earlier, on September 11, 2001, another plane had flown down the Hudson River, this time intentionally crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, hijackers flew a second plane into the upper floors of the South Tower. On that fateful morning, there were two other deliberate plane crashes, one into the Pentagon and the other into a field in Pennsylvania. People around the world watched intently as firefighters and other emergency responders made critical decisions in their efforts to rescue some 20,000 people thought to have been in the towers that day. Subsequently, in Afghanistan and Iraq, military commanders made life and death decisions on battlefields. Through the use of mass media, people around the world are often eyewitnesses in near real time to the decisive moment when leadership is on the line and critical decisions are made to adapt to the danger of extreme events. Those watching the decision makers have infinite time to second-guess after the fact, free of the stress and personal drama that surround these decisions

The Decisive Moment \u3ci\u3eThe Science of Decision Making under Stress\u3c/i\u3e

I n January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 performed an emergency landing in the Hudson River after hitting a flock of birds and losing thrust in all engines. Decisions made by the pilot not to return to the airport of the flight\u27s origin or to attempt to land at surrounding airports, but instead to bring the aircraft down in the icy cold waters between New York City and New Jersey, saved all 155 people on board. A few years earlier, on September 11, 2001, another plane had flown down the Hudson River, this time intentionally crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Seventeen minutes later, hijackers flew a second plane into the upper floors of the South Tower. On that fateful morning, there were two other deliberate plane crashes, one into the Pentagon and the other into a field in Pennsylvania. People around the world watched intently as firefighters and other emergency responders made critical decisions in their efforts to rescue some 20,000 people thought to have been in the towers that day. Subsequently, in Afghanistan and Iraq, military commanders made life and death decisions on battlefields. Through the use of mass media, people around the world are often eyewitnesses in near real time to the decisive moment when leadership is on the line and critical decisions are made to adapt to the danger of extreme events. Those watching the decision makers have infinite time to second-guess after the fact, free of the stress and personal drama that surround these decisions