Live, In-the-Beef, or Formula: Is There a "Best" Method for Selling Fed Cattle?

Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

Religion, politics, and the environment in rural America

Reflecting the heterogeneous nature of rural America, rural Americans are divided primarily along religious lines on their perspectives of environmental conservation and climate change. And as rural voters and environmental issues become key issues in the upcoming presidential election, this religious divide presents a challenge to political candidates

Ready, Set, Network! Research Speed Networking for Clinicians, Scientists and Engineers

Objectives: A 2013 Institute of Medicine report urged researchers to “engage in additional substantive and productive collaborations” to address important clinical/translational science questions. To encourage team science among our researchers, Tompkins-McCaw Library for the Health Sciences and Center for Clinical and Translational Research hosted a speed networking event, specifically targeting engineers, clinicians, and basic scientists; an analysis of the event is below. Methods: Invitations were distributed to clinicians, engineers, and basic scientists. To maximize interactions without increasing time spent at the event, researchers were divided into three groups. The event was planned such that each group would meet everyone from the other two groups; researchers were placed into appropriate groups according to their interests. Seated at tables of three, attendees introduced themselves and discussed their research interests for three minutes; then they rotated according to their group’s instructions. Lunch was provided afterwards to give attendees an opportunity to follow up with potential collaborators. Results: Twenty-one faculty researchers attended the speed networking event, which took about 30 minutes, excluding lunch. Using a 5-point Likert scale, all participants selected “strongly agree” or “agree” to respond to questions about whether the event was a valuable use of their time. Also, 53% of attendees “strongly” agreed with the statement “I met a potential collaborator” at the event. Discussion: Subjective evaluations show that researchers see speed networking as an effective way to meet potential collaborators. Objective data including sustained research partnerships and collaborative grant and publication submissions will be tracked

IMPACTS OF THE 2002 DROUGHT ON WESTERN RANCHES AND PUBLIC LAND POLICIES

Land Economics/Use,

The Effects of Class Size on Student Achievement in Higher Education: Applying an Earnings Function

This paper uses an earnings function to model how class size affects the grade students earn. We test the model using an ordinal logit with and without fixed effects on 363,023 undergraduate observations. We find that class size negatively affects grades. Average grade point declines as class size increases, precipitously up to class sizes of ten, and more gradually but monotonically through class sizes of 400 plus. The probability of getting a B plus or better declines from 0.9 for class sizes 20 to about 0.5 for class sizes of 120 and almost 0.4 for class sizes of 400