OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVES ON AGRIBUSINESS RESEARCH, TEACHING, AND OUTREACH

Many of my thoughts in this paper come from the author's experience in conducting comprehensive reviews of agricultural economics departments. The author suggests the need to look at the forces affecting the demand for our products and be willing to challenge many of the myths about the structure and performance of the university system and the agribusiness system. Agriculture is losing a lot of its uniqueness and becoming part of the mainstream. Colleges of agriculture have changed considerably in the last 50 years; they will change even more in the next fifty years. What is our unique niche? How willing are we to adapt to its challenges? These questions must be answered in regard to the future of agribusiness research, teaching, and outreach.Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession, Agribusiness,

Examining the Impact of Learning Communities on Motivation

The purpose of this study was to determine if learning communities have an inherent motivational effect on learners and, if so, whether higher motivation impacts attitudinal change. As learning communities and groups become more established in distance education settings, it is important to understand the impact these groups have on the motivation of the learners. Motivation is the length and direction of effort expended by the learners in pursuit of achievement (Keller, 1979a, 1979b; Moller & Russell, 1994). It is assumed that configuring learners into communities produces a positive effect on each community member. This positive response, in turn, increases motivation or effort. This research project was conducted to determine if learning communities increase the effort level (motivation) expended by students in distance education. Based on this small sample study, groups do have a motivational impact on learners; although, in this case, that impact was not transferable to an attitudinal change. This lack of attitude change may be more related to the lack of potency of the instructional materials than to any effort, or lack thereof, on the part of the subjects

Technologies for Delivery of Proton and Ion Beams for Radiotherapy

Recent developments for the delivery of proton and ion beam therapy have been significant, and a number of technological solutions now exist for the creation and utilisation of these particles for the treatment of cancer. In this paper we review the historical development of particle accelerators used for external beam radiotherapy and discuss the more recent progress towards more capable and cost-effective sources of particles.Comment: 53 pages, 13 figures. Submitted to International Journal of Modern Physics

The Factorization method for three dimensional Electrical Impedance Tomography

The use of the Factorization method for Electrical Impedance Tomography has been proved to be very promising for applications in the case where one wants to find inhomogeneous inclusions in a known background. In many situations, the inspected domain is three dimensional and is made of various materials. In this case, the main challenge in applying the Factorization method consists in computing the Neumann Green's function of the background medium. We explain how we solve this difficulty and demonstrate the capability of the Factorization method to locate inclusions in realistic inhomogeneous three dimensional background media from simulated data obtained by solving the so-called complete electrode model. We also perform a numerical study of the stability of the Factorization method with respect to various modelling errors.Comment: 16 page

Heard but Not Seen: Instructor-Led Video and its Effect on Learning

Educators and instructional designers are seeking ways to increase levels of learning. One of the ways this is being done is through cognitive load theory which attempts to reduce cognitive load through a better understanding of working memory and the factors that impact its function. Past studies have found that working memory processes visual and auditory information using separate and non-sharable resources (dual coding theory) and that by properly utilizing multimedia elements, information processing in working memory is more efficient (multimedia learning). What is not known is the effect that instructor-led video, which uses the visual channel but delivers no information, has on the cognitive load of the learner. Further, will the introduction of multimedia elements make the information processing of the learner more efficient? This study examined three ways in which instructional designers may create a more efficient learning environment through a better understanding of multimedia learning. First, by using the theories of multimedia learning, I examined a more efficient use of sensory memory. By minimizing extraneous load, which communication theory calls noise, on working memory through increased utilization of the visual and auditory channels, the effectiveness of instruction was increased. Secondly, the multimedia effect, defined as using visual helps and guides with spoken and written text, was shown to assist working memory in processing new information into existing schema. Last, by using the personalization principle set forth by Clark and Mayer (2008), I used both the video feed and multimedia together to foster a more social or conversational presentation to the learner

An assessment of some possible neurological applications of electrical impedance tomography

Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a recently developed technique which produces reconstructed images of the internal distribution of the impedance of an object from measurement with external electrodes. It was assessed for its possible application in imaging intra-cranial disorders non- invasively with the use of scalp electrodes. Cerebral impedance increases of 12-55% were measured by a four electrode method at 50 kHz during global cerebral ischaemia or cortical spreading depression (CSD) in anaesthetized rats. Measured with scalp electrodes in two pairs 2-26 mm apart, impedance increased by 1.8-5.9% during global cerebral ischaemia for 5 or 15 min; the changes correlated in duration with cortical impedance changes, but increased more gradually. Increases of about 2% still were observed when the effects of variations in temperature and local scalp impedance were excluded. A finite element model was used to predict the attenuation of a signal due to cerebral anoxic depolarization by the extracerebral layers. These residual impedance changes were compatible with this, but their cause by other mechanisms related to the method of production of cerebral ischaemia could not be ruled out. An unexpected decrease of 0.8% was observed during CSD with electrodes 0.5mm apart on the scalp. This became undetectable when scalp temperature was kept constant. The model predicted that impedance changes of about 1% could be measured during CSD with scalp electrodes spaced further apart. Images were then collected using a prototype EIT system operating at 51 kHz during the same model of cerebral ischaemia. Test objects in a medium of constant resistivity could be accurately localized, but spatial resolution of intracranial impedance changes was substantially degraded when recorded with scalp electrodes. EIT has the potential for imaging various cerebral physiological or pathological changes, but improvements to the reconstruction algorithm are needed if regional intracerebral changes are to be discriminated during recording with scalp electrodes

Status of the VERITAS observatory

Journal ArticleAbstract. VERITAS, an Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) system for gammma-ray astronomy in the GeV-TeV range, has recently completed its first season of observations with a full array of four telescopes. A number of astrophysical gamma-ray sources have been detected, both galactic and extragalactic, including sources previously unknown at TeV energies. We describe the status of the array and some highlight results, and assess the technical performance, sensitivity and shower reconstruction capabilities

Intrinsic Contact Geometry of Protein Dynamics

We introduce a new measure for comparing protein structures that is especially applicable to analysis of molecular dynamics simulation results. The new measure generalizes the widely used root-mean-squared-deviation (RMSD) measure from three dimensional to n-dimensional Euclidean space, where n equals the number of atoms in the protein molecule. The new measure shows that despite significant fluctuations in the three dimensional geometry of the estrogen receptor protein, the protein\u27s intrinsic contact geometry is remarkably stable over nanosecond time scales. The new measure also identifies significant structural changes missed by RMSD for a residue that plays a key biological role in the estrogen receptor protein