Farming initiatives: A base in rural development?

38th European Regional Science Association ? Congress 1998 August 28th ? September 1st Topic H: Services, Small Firms, Employment Creation and Regional Development A b s t r a c t Farming Initiatives ? A base in Rural Development? by Elisabeth Loibl As agricultural policy has failed to ensure sufficient income, some farm women and farmers try new ways in order to invent new economic bases to improve their household income. The ideas and their way of implementation are often very original, the combining of agricultural and non-agricultural activities innovative. The Federal Institute for Less-favoured and Mountainous Areas has carried out a study on different innovative projects in rural areas which have their roots in agriculture connected with non-agricultural business. The central issues are: Which circumstances lead to the idea and innovative improvement? How is the idea implemented? Is there any support by public and private institutions (extension service, promotion)? The possibilities of alternative income sources on farm units are very manifold. The wide range reaches from selling special products over cooperative trading agricultural products to different services including social services by alternative use of farm resources. Nearly every initiative made use of the existing extension services which lead to the conclusion that consulting is a decisive factor for initiatives. One of the consulting's crucial part is to act as a mediator between the administration and other public institutions on the one hand and the participants in rural areas on the other hand in order to connect the institutions of promotion with the entitled rural population. In general, farm women provide a big sensitivity for the changes in life. Thus they are often open-hearted towards readjustment and new alternative income prospects. However, they can suffer from the opposition within the farm family starting new occupations. In most cases the first impediments have to be overcome already before the activity starts. The initiative was taken for various reasons, the alternative income source develops step by step and sometimes has already become an own enterprise. During innovative processes the participants' activity and commitment is accompanied with recognizing and perceiving their circumstances, chances, and the impact of certain general settings concerning their activities. With regard to changing activities it is very essential to team up with other people in order to create capable organisation structures and to give each other human support. Most of the participants working in rural initiatives have further plans for the future. At the end it was given the impression that one step is following the other and it seems as if the road is made on the move.

Simulation of suburban migration: driving forces, socio-economic characteristics, migration behaviour and resulting land-use patterns

Land-use transitions in metropolitan areas have a high impact on environment and appear as pressures on the inhabitants' living conitions. Tools are needed to support planning decisions to overcome or at least mitigate those pressures. Simulation models are such tools, generating land-use change scenarios that help to examine effects of planning strategies. This article introduces a model that establishes a multiagent system approach to achieve results for changes in land-use and migration patterns with high spatial accuracy. Details of suburban migration behaviour modelling are described with emphasis on the definition of socio-economic classes, on the detection of driving forces triggering suburban migration and on migration behaviour aspects with respect to those socio-economic classes. The model concept is presented as well as results of retrospective simulation runs for a 30-year time range that are compared with the observations of the simulation target year in order to examine the model's validity. Future scenario runs show different urban sprawl trends with either restricted or unlimited residential area zoning and higher versus lower target residential density regulations. A remarkable decrease of suburban sprawl can be achieved by applying the right planning measures, even if the numbers of migrating households remain the same.

Can Financial Education Reduce Food Insecurity? Evidence from an Asset-Building Program for Families in Poverty

IMPACT. 1: Our first finding is that food insecurity is high among IDA program families: 21% of current and former IDA program families report high or very high food insecurity for their children, compared to 9.9% of the general population. -- 2. Food insecurity is not lower among those who successfully complete the program, despite intensive training in financial management, budgeting, and saving provided in the IDA program. -- 3. Examining predictors of children's food insecurity, we find a higher financial literacy score to increase the odds of children's food insecurity. Other factors such as frugal behavior, lower material deprivation, and higher subjective well-being are, as expected, associated with lower odds of children's food insecurity.OSU PARTNERS: College of Education and Human Ecology; Department of Human Sciences Consumer Sciences Human Development and Family StudyCOMMUNITY PARTNERS: CASA of Oregon; Utah IDA Network; Prosperity Works New Mexico; United Way of Central Alabama; Economic and Community Development Institute, Ohio; Covenant Community Capital, Houston, Texas; Capital Area Asset Builders, Washington, DCPRIMARY CONTACT: Caezilia Loibl ([email protected])This study examines food insecurity among children of participants in a federally funded, intensive financial education program in the United States, the Individual Development Account (IDA) program. The goal was to evaluate the effectiveness of program participation in reducing food insecurity. The characteristics of IDA program families match closely the demographics of food insecure households: female-headed, single-parent families; African American and Hispanic families; families with lower educational attainment and a higher number of children

OSU Extension Housing Corps: A Partnership to Support Ohio Homeowners in Financial Distress

IMPACT. 1: Since dispatching the AmeriCorps, over 1,500 rural homeowners have been provided with educational materials, community referrals, and hands-on instructions for applying to mortgage assistance programs. -- 2. The community need remains as urgent as ever: The fastest growth in foreclosure rates has been occurring in Ohio's rural areas.OSU PARTNERS: College of Education and Human Ecology; College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences; Department of Human Sciences; John Glenn School of Public Affairs; OSU ExtensionCOMMUNITY PARTNERS: Ohio Housing Finance Agency; Ohio Commission on Service and VolunteerismPRIMARY CONTACT: Caezilla Loibl ([email protected])OSU Extension Housing Corps is a new Ohiowide collaboration of faculty at the College of Education and Human Ecology and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs, OSU Extension, Ohio Housing Finance Agency, and the Ohio Commission on Service and Volunteerism. The goal of this unique partnership is to provide economically vulnerable homeowners in rural Ohio with information and assistance to prevent mortgage default and foreclosure. The partnership launched in autumn 2011 with a "planning year" grant and in summer 2012 with an AmeriCorps of 15 volunteers housed in and serving the rural areas in Ohio

Environmental Law-Making In The European Context And Its Relations To International Environmental Agreements

In Europe--and I am taking Europe not just in the limited geographical sense, but in a more political way—environmental regulations have been created and further evolved by different means and instruments: bilateral agreements, limited regional agreements, and multilateral agreements adopted by nearly all European States

Late Holocene glacier fluctuations in the eastern Nyainqêntanglha Range, southeastern Tibet

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OSU Extension Housing Counseling Services: A Comprehensive Program Package

Joining community and statewide efforts to limit the effects of the foreclosure crisis, OSU Extension\u27s Family and Consumer Sciences program has been involved in both early-prevention pre-purchase as well as loss-mitigations programs. The first step was obtaining approval as a housing counseling agency through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. After HUD approval was granted, partnerships with the state housing agency were established, and collaboration with a wide range of community partners were strengthened

Monitoring of Micro RNA Maturation and Its Inhibition in Living Cells

Im ersten Teil der Arbeit wurde die Verwendung von Präkursor microRNA-21(pre-miR21)-spezifischen Peptidnukleinsäure(PNA)-Sonden zur Inhibierung der Dicer-vermittelnden miRNA-Reifung untersucht. Im Gegensatz zur Arbeitshypothese wurde bei der Behandlung von Zellen mit den pre-miR21-spezifischen PNA-Sonden jedoch keine Änderung des miR-21 Niveau beobachtet. Um die Hybridisierung der Sonde an die Zielsequenz nachzuweisen, wurden fluorogene Hybridisierungssonden zur erzwungenen Interkalation (FIT-Sonden), unter Verwendung des Interkalationsfarbstoffes Thiazolorange (TO), entwickelt. Wie vorläufige Ergebnisse zeigen, könnte die TO-PNA Sonde für die Unterscheidung von Zellen mit hohem miR-21-Gehalt nützlich sein, aber eine weitere Verbesserung der Sonde ist noch erforderlich. Im nächsten Teil der Arbeit wurden neuartige FIT-Sonden für die Analyse der Dicer-vermittelnden miR-21-Reifung entwickelt. Um die gleichzeitige Detektion der entstehenden pre-miR21 und der antisense miR-21 (as-miR21) in Echtzeit zu ermöglichen, wurden die Verwendung von spektral unterscheidbaren FIT-Sonden auf Quinolinblau(QB)-und TO-Basis getestet. Das entwickelte Sonden-Paar ermöglichte die Analyse der rhDicer-Reaktion. Dabei wurde entdeckt, dass die rhDicer-Reaktion an der in vitro transkribierten pre-miR21 unspezifisch spaltet. Zusätzlich wies die kürze as-miR21 spezifische TO-Sonde (7nt) eine Sensitivität gegenüber der Anwesenheit des Ago-2 Proteins auf. In der Zukunft könnten die entwickelten Sonden für schnelle in vitro Screenings neuer Dicer-und Ago-2-Inhibitoren angewendet werden. Im zweiten Teil der Dissertation wurde die Verwendung von niedermolekularen Inhibitoren (small molecular inhibitors, SMIs) getestet. Zusammenfassend könnten die zwei identifizierten SMIs für die Inhibierung der miR-122-Reifung genutzt werden, allerdings bleibt die Spezifität der SMIs fraglich und mögliche off-target-Effekte können nicht ausgeschlossen werden.MicroRNAs (miRNAs) represent small non-coding RNA molecules that mostly negatively regulate gene expression. To yield mature miRNAs, primary miRNA precursors go through two consequent cleavages by Drosha and Dicer RNAse. This work describes the development of tools for inhibition und monitoring the dicer-mediated miRNA processing. Here, peptide nucleic acid (PNA) based probes, targeting the precursor miR-21 (pre-miR21), were designed for inhibition the dicer-mediated miR-21 maturation. In contrast, no change in miR-21 level was observed after cell treatment with the pre-miR21 specific PNA probes. To detect the probe/target hybridization state, the fluorogenic forced intercalation (FIT) PNA probes, bearing thiazole orange dye (TO), were developed. As preliminary results show, the FIT PNA probe might be useful for discrimination of high miR-21 abundant cells, but further probe improvement is still required. To monitor the pre-miR21 cleavage, the combination of the two spectrally distinguishable FIT PNA probes, bearing quinoline blue (QB) and TO fluorophore, was developed to allow the rapid and simultaneous detection of pre-miR21 and antisense mature miR-21 (as-miR21). The probe set was successfully used for detection of the modelled dicer reaction. However, the monitoring of rhDicer reaction have revealed that rhDicer cleaves the in vitro transcribed pre-miR21 nonspecifically. Additionally, the short as-miR21 specific TO PNA probe (7nt) was responsive to the presence of Ago-2 protein. In future, the developed probes can be applied for the fast in vitro screening of new Dicer and Ago-2 inhibitors. In the second part of this work, an alternative approach, small molecular inhibitors (SMIs), was tested. Two identified pre-miR122-targeting SMIs might be used for inhibition of the miR-122 maturation, although, a specificity of these SMIs remains questionable and possible off target effects cannot be excluded