A University Course on Management Intensive Grazing

Education of new talent in good grassland management is important. Farmer-oriented extension- and outreach- programs do this, but USA university curricula rarely include it. Some livestock production courses contain a segment on grazing management, but there seem to be no credit-bearing, formal courses in USA universities except in the Ohio State University (OSU). Our course teaches management of intensive grazing (MIG) for three credit hours in a quarter system. It has been a popular elective course for the past 6 years. Every year that they have entered, OSU students have won all prizes in the 18-22 age division in the American Forage and Grassland Council and the Ohio Forage and Grassland Council essay competitions. This proves the students\u27 knowledge. On graduation, students often move to professional positions or production agriculture, where they can apply the skills learned. Members of Ohio organizations and government agencies, who are concerned about the environment and family farm survival, enthusiastically support the course

Geochemistry of crustally derived leucocratic igneous rocks from the Ulugh Muztagh Area, Northern Tibet and their implications for the formation of the Tibetan Plateau

This is the published version. Copyright 2012 American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.Igneous rocks collected from the Ulugh Muztagh, 200 km south of the northern rim of the Tibetan Plateau (36°28′N, 87°29′E), form intrusive and extrusive bodies whose magmas were produced by partial melting of upper-crustal, primarily pelitic, source rocks. Evidence for source composition includes high initial 87Sr/86Sr ratios (∼0.711 to 0.713), 206Pb/204Pb ratios of 18.72, 207Pb/204Pb of 15.63 and 208Pb/204Pb of 38.73. The degree of melting in the source region was increased by significant heating via in situ decay of radioactive nuclides; a reasonable estimate for the heat production rate in the source is 3.9×10−6 W/m3. The crystallization ages and cooling ages [Burchfiel et al., 1989] of the earliest intrusive rocks within the suite suggest crustal thickening began in the northern Tibetan Plateau before 10.5 Ma, with maximum average unroofing rates in this part of the Tibetan Plateau for the period between 10.5 and 4 Ma at approximately < 2 mm/yr. The Ulugh Muztagh flows are at the northern edge of a widely distributed field of Plio-pliestocene volcanic rocks in the north-central Tibetan Plateau. The crustally derived rocks described here are an endmember component of a wide mixing zone of hybrid magmas; the other end-member forms mantle-derived, potassic basanites and tephrites exposed in the central section of the Plio-Pleistocene field. The compositional trends in these belts strike east-west, at high angle to the N30E strike of the Plateau itself. Consideration of the chemical data and published geophysical data argue that the sub-Plateau mantle is mechanically detached from the overlying continental lithosphère, and that in this section of the plateau the thermal structure of the asthenosphere is not responsible for the formation or maintenance of the plateau's topography

Major flaws in conflict prevention policies towards Africa : the conceptual deficits of international actors’ approaches and how to overcome them

Current thinking on African conflicts suffers from misinterpretations oversimplification, lack of focus, lack of conceptual clarity, state-centrism and lack of vision). The paper analyses a variety of the dominant explanations of major international actors and donors, showing how these frequently do not distinguish with sufficient clarity between the ‘root causes’ of a conflict, its aggravating factors and its triggers. Specifically, a correct assessment of conflict prolonging (or sustaining) factors is of vital importance in Africa’s lingering confrontations. Broader approaches (e.g. “structural stability”) offer a better analytical framework than familiar one-dimensional explanations. Moreover, for explaining and dealing with violent conflicts a shift of attention from the nation-state towards the local and sub-regional level is needed.Aktuelle Analysen afrikanischer Gewaltkonflikte sind häufig voller Fehlinterpretationen (Mangel an Differenzierung, Genauigkeit und konzeptioneller Klarheit, Staatszentriertheit, fehlende mittelfristige Zielvorstellungen). Breitere Ansätze (z. B. das Modell der Strukturellen Stabilität) könnten die Grundlage für bessere Analyseraster und Politiken sein als eindimensionale Erklärungen. häufig differenzieren Erklärungsansätze nicht mit ausreichender Klarheit zwischen Ursachen, verschärfenden und auslösenden Faktoren. Insbesondere die richtige Einordnung konfliktverlängernder Faktoren ist in den jahrzehntelangen gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzungen in Afrika von zentraler Bedeutung. Das Diskussionspapier stellt die große Variationsbreite dominanter Erklärungsmuster der wichtigsten internationalen Geber und Akteure gegenüber und fordert einen Perspektivenwechsel zum Einbezug der lokalen und der subregionalen Ebene für die Erklärung und Bearbeitung gewaltsamer Konflikte

Department of Animal Sciences research and reviews: beef and sheep

Relationship of a PCR-SSCP at the Bovine calpastatin locus with calpastatin activity and meat tenderness / H. Y. Chung, M. E. Davis, H. C. Hines, and D. M. Wulf -- Effects of calpain proteolysis and calpain genotypes on meat tenderness of angus bulls / H. Y. Chung, M. E. Davis, H. C. Hines, and D. M. Wulf -- Identification of genetic markers for growth and carcass traits in beef cattle / W. Ge, M. E. Davis, H. C. Hines, and K. M. Irvin -- Relationships of polymorphisms in the bovine leptin gene with differences in beef carcass traits / K. Tessanne, H. C. Hines, and M. E. Davis -- Effects of rate of gain during periods of restricted intake on performance and carcass characteristics in steers fed to achieve step-wise increases in rate of gain / J. E. Rossi and S. C. Loerch -- Effects of feeding regimen and days fed on performance and carcass characteristics of feedlot steers / J. E. Rossi, S. C. Loerch, S. J. Moeller, and J. P. Schoonmaker -- Effect of an accelerated finishing program on performance and carcass characteristics of early weaned bulls and steers / J. P. Schoonmaker, S. C. Loerch, F. L. Fluharty, T. B. Turner, S. J. Moeller and J. E. Rossi -- Yeast-mineral mixes and beef-cattle performance in fescue-based grazing systems: preliminary report / S. Boyles, W. Shriver, and D. Kobs -- Forage and animal evaluation of heifers at Indian Lake Hydrologic Unit CRP stocker grazing demonstration / S. L. Boyles, B. W. Stoll, and T. L. Dobbels -- Beef quality is every cattleman's business: education program / J. Yates and S. Boyles -- Effects of pelleted alfalfa and whole-shelled corn combinations on lamb growth and carcass characteristics / F. L. Fluharty -- Effects of feeding pelleted, ensiled, or a combination of pelleted and ensiled alfalfa on lamb growth and carcass characteristics / F. L. Fluharty, G. D. Lowe, and D. D. Clevenger -- Effects of corn silage vs. alfalfa haylage on lamb growth and carcass characteristics in forage-based finishing systems / F. L. Fluharty, G. D. Lowe, and D. D. Clevenger -- Effects of feed-delivery system and corn processing on lamb growth and carcass characteristics / F. L. Fluharty, G. D. Lowe, and D. D. Clevenger -- Effects of pen floor type and bedding on lamb growth and carcass characteristics / F. L. Fluharty, G. D. Lowe, and D. D. Clevenger -- A PCR-SSCP polymorphism detected in the 5' flanking region of the ovine IGF-I gene / A. Yilmaz, M. E. Davis, and H. C. Hine

Accelerated Multi-Organization Conflict Resolution

In this paper, we discuss two situations where two organizations with different aims recognized the dysfunctionality of their relationship. In each of these cases, which were long running (6–8 months), the organizations had worked hard to resolve this dysfunctionality, and conflict, by organizing off-site meetings designed to resolve the conflict. These 1-day meetings failed. Subsequently Group Support System workshops were used for 1 day workshops and in each case the conflict was essentially resolved within 55 min. The research reported in this paper seeks to answer the question: what happened in these cases that led to a resolution of the conflict in such a short time period, given other attempts had failed? Specifically the paper explores the impact of the GSS used to facilitate two organizations seeking to resolve a conflictual situation

The Amazon Epiphyte Network: A First Glimpse Into Continental-Scale Patterns of Amazonian Vascular Epiphyte Assemblages

Epiphytes are still an understudied plant group in Amazonia. The aim of this study was to identify distributional patterns and conservation priorities for vascular epiphyte assemblages (VEA) across Amazonia. We compiled the largest Amazonian epiphyte plot database to date, through a multinational collaborative effort of 22 researchers and 32 field sites located across four Amazonian countries – the Amazonian Epiphyte Network (AEN). We addressed the following continental-scale questions by utilizing the AEN database comprising 96,448 epiphyte individuals, belonging to 518 vascular taxa, and growing on 10,907 tree individuals (phorophytes). Our objectives here are, first, to present a qualitative evaluation of the geographic distribution of the study sites and highlight regional lacunae as priorities for future quantitative inventories. Second, to present the floristic patterns for Amazonia-wide VEA and third, to combine multivariate analyses and rank abundance curves, controlled by major Amazonian habitat types, to determine how VEA vary geographically and ecologically based on major Amazonian habitat types. Three of the most striking patterns found are that: (1) VEA are spatially structured as floristic similarity decays with geographic distance; (2) a core group of 22 oligarchic taxa account for more than a half of all individuals; and (3) extensive floristic sampling gaps still exist, mainly across the highly threatened southern Amazonian deforestation belt. This work represents a first step toward unveiling distributional pattern of Amazonian VEA, which is important to guide future questions on ecology and species distribution ranges of VEA once the collaborative database grows allowing a clearer view of patterns