AMERICAN AGRICULTURE, 1957 - AS IT LOOKS FROM THE GRASS ROOTS

Agribusiness,

Exploration of planetesimals by a tripartite tethered spacecraft

Asteroids and comets exert such a small gravitational force that it is not practical to survey them from orbit. One must instead continuously accelerate using maneuvering rockets to move around the surface. A space exploration craft in three parts connected by lightweight cables can survey asteroids and comets, and deploy landers, without requiring the large thrusters and the continuous depletion of fuel required by a single craft. The spacecraft is deployed by spinning up from a compact configuration using low thrust jets, and then maintain surveying orbit without any major expenditure of energy. The triangular tether arrangement is stable, but care must be taken in changing orbits and with deploying and recovering samples, as can be demonstrated with a simple simulation. Even 100 km long tethers occupy a low payload fraction

In times of recession, a population that is worried and uninformed on economic matters may help to prolong the financial misery

In 2008, financial speculation on over-valued US housing stock was rife. When investors awoke to the extent of the debt, Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, credit evaporated and world economies began to shrink. The global financial crisis had begun. Richard Stephens examines the psychological effects of such bad news, and argues that the more people are worried about the economy, the less they spend, thus prolonging the recession. He suggests that part of the solution may be to encourage a citizenry that is better informed on economic matters and knowledgeable of their place in the recession economy

Identification of putative methanol dehydrogenase (moxF) structural genes in methylotrophs and cloning of moxF genes from Methylococcus capsulatus bath and Methylomonas albus BG8

An open-reading-frame fragment of a Methylobacterium sp. strain AM1 gene (moxF) encoding a portion of the methanol dehydrogenase structural protein has been used as a hybridization probe to detect similar sequences in a variety of methylotrophic bacteria. This hybridization was used to isolate clones containing putative moxF genes from two obligate methanotrophic bacteria, Methylococcus capsulatus Bath and Methylomonas albus BG8. The identity of these genes was confirmed in two ways. A T7 expression vector was used to produce methanol dehydrogenase protein in Escherichia coli from the cloned genes, and in each case the protein was identified by immunoblotting with antiserum against the Methylomonas albus methanol dehydrogenase. In addition, a moxF mutant of Methylobacterium strain AM1 was complemented to a methanol-positive phenotype that partially restored methanol dehydrogenase activity, using broad-host-range plasmids containing the moxF genes from each methanotroph. The partial complementation of a moxF mutant in a facultative serine pathway methanol utilizer by moxF genes from type I and type X obligate methane utilizers suggests broad functional conservation of the methanol oxidation system among gram-negative methylotrophs

Importance and Satisfaction with Institutional Factors among Students in Technical Colleges in Georgia

The researcher\u27s purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the student\u27s identification of importance and satisfaction with institutional factors (those factors that the institutions can control) of Georgia\u27s technical colleges and to determine the extent of the differences between importance of and satisfaction with institutional factors. For the study, two databases were analyzed that were comprised of data from Georgia\u27s technical college students who took the Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory questionnaire. To explain the findings from the analysis, discussion topics were derived from the themes and trends and were presented to two, five person focus groups of students who attended a technical college in Georgia for discussion. The researchers findings revealed that students ranked the factors of instructional effectiveness, registration effectiveness, and academic advising/counseling as the most important factors within the institution. The researcher found that service excellence, safety and security issues, and campus support services were ranked by technical college students in Georgia as factors with which they were least satisfied. Students reported the least differences between the importance and satisfaction of the factors in the categories of safety and security, admissions and financial aid, and registration effectiveness reflected the greatest differences. The focus group expressed discontent with safety and security and the student services department of the institutions. The students are most satisfied with the faculty of the college. Administrators and decision makers may use the information garnered by this research to promote the areas that students feel are important and those in which students are satisfied, while focusing on correcting the items within the institution in which students are not satisfied. Policies and procedures can focus on factors that students feel are important such as instructional effectiveness, registration effectives, and academic advising and counseling. Coupled with this, policies should bolster factors that students are satisfied with such as institutional effectiveness, student centeredness, and concern for the individual while adding or changing policies that affect the factors that students are not satisfied; academic services, safety and security, and campus support services