Lives versus Livelihoods? Perceived economic risk has a stronger association with support for COVID-19 preventive measures than perceived health risk

This paper examines whether compliance with COVID-19 mitigation measures is motivated by wanting to save lives or save the economy (or both), and which implications this carries to fight the pandemic. National representative samples were collected from 24 countries (N = 25,435). The main predictors were (1) perceived risk to contract coronavirus, (2) perceived risk to suffer economic losses due to coronavirus, and (3) their interaction effect. Individual and country-level variables were added as covariates in multilevel regression models. We examined compliance with various preventive health behaviors and support for strict containment policies. Results show that perceived economic risk consistently predicted mitigation behavior and policy support—and its effects were positive. Perceived health risk had mixed effects. Only two significant interactions between health and economic risk were identified—both positive

Identifying important individual‐ and country‐level predictors of conspiracy theorizing: a machine learning analysis

Psychological research on the predictors of conspiracy theorizing—explaining important social and political events or circumstances as secret plots by malevolent groups—has flourished in recent years. However, research has typically examined only a small number of predictors in one, or a small number of, national contexts. Such approaches make it difficult to examine the relative importance of predictors, and risk overlooking some potentially relevant variables altogether. To overcome this limitation, the present study used machine learning to rank-order the importance of 115 individual- and country-level variables in predicting conspiracy theorizing. Data were collected from 56,072 respondents across 28 countries during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Echoing previous findings, important predictors at the individual level included societal discontent, paranoia, and personal struggle. Contrary to prior research, important country-level predictors included indicators of political stability and effective government COVID response, which suggests that conspiracy theorizing may thrive in relatively well-functioning democracies

Associations of autozygosity with a broad range of human phenotypes

In many species, the offspring of related parents suffer reduced reproductive success, a phenomenon known as inbreeding depression. In humans, the importance of this effect has remained unclear, partly because reproduction between close relatives is both rare and frequently associated with confounding social factors. Here, using genomic inbreeding coefficients (FROH) for >1.4 million individuals, we show that FROH is significantly associated (p < 0.0005) with apparently deleterious changes in 32 out of 100 traits analysed. These changes are associated with runs of homozygosity (ROH), but not with common variant homozygosity, suggesting that genetic variants associated with inbreeding depression are predominantly rare. The effect on fertility is striking: FROH equivalent to the offspring of first cousins is associated with a 55% decrease [95% CI 44–66%] in the odds of having children. Finally, the effects of FROH are confirmed within full-sibling pairs, where the variation in FROH is independent of all environmental confounding

The Changing Landscape of New York Agriculture in the Twentieth Century

A.E. Ext. 92-5This report seeks to highlight the changes that have occurred in New York State's agriculture during the twentieth century. It is a look backward to observe the processes of change that have occurred and to provide perspective on the changes yet to come. It is hard to believe that the next century can provide the same kind of dramatic changes we have experienced in the past fifty years, but we should not be surprised at the unexpected, even to a return of some forest land to farming

Eighty Years of Change in Dairy Farming- Dryden township, tompkins County, New York

A.E. Res. 89-

Raising Dairy Replacements: Practices and Costs New York, 1990

A.E. Ext. 91-12As the dairy industry becomes more competitive and farms increase in size, heifer management may not receive the attention it deserves. Cost savings and increased efficiency may deserve greater attention. An effort was made to investigate management practices now being followed in raising dairy replacements on farms participating in New York's Dairy Farm Business Management Summary program (Smith, et. al.). All participants in the project were asked to answer a series of questions about their current practices in handling their dairy replacements using a mailed questionnaire. The response rate was 56 percent. Only farms with 80 or more milking cows were included in this survey. All of those surveyed were also asked to provide information about individuals who were contracting to raise dairy heifers on some kind of arrangement. This source plus contacts with county extension staff provided a list of the individuals who were operating dairy replacement enterprises. A mailed questionnaire was developed to ask these individuals about their practices and experiences with this enterprise. The response rate was 74 percent. As a final component of this study, personal interview records were obtained from a selected sample of individuals with contracts to grow dairy replacements for others. Estimates of costs for these enterprises were obtained as well as greater detail on the procedures followed with individual groups on these farms. Both costs and returns were calculated. This report provides a preliminary summary of the results obtained from these studies. It provides a way to report to participants in the various parts of the study group averages and initial findings. Their cooperation and willingness to share experiences is appreciated. The variability in the way dairy replacements are handled is given special recognition in this report. A further report analyzing alternative practices and suggesting some of the more successful ways of managing these operations will be issued in the next six months

Using Markov Models to Predict the Size Distribution of Dairy Farms, New York State, 1968-1985

A.E. Res. 80-2