Minnesota Extension's Mixed Regional/County Model: Greater Impacts Follows Changes in Structure

The Cooperative Extension Service has as its mission helping the public use the research generated at land-grant universities. Since 1914, most states have used a county-based Extension model, with educators in every county and campus-based faculty supporting local educational efforts. This paper outlines why and how the Minnesota Extension Service has replaced this model with a mixed regional/county model, the major features of the new delivery model and the employment consequences of the shift as well as the non-financial advantages of the new model. The structural changes in Minnesota are of interest to Extension stakeholders in other states who are facing similar challenges and want to learn more about the benefits and costs of Minnesota's new model. Within Minnesota the public is beginning to ask a much more important question: What are the impacts of the programs being delivered? Structural change is only valuable if it results in increased programming and greater impacts than would have happened without the change. Although this paper starts to outline some of the changes in program impact, the bulk of that discussion will be reserved for later papers.Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Preliminary steps toward artificial protocell computation

Protocells are hypothesised as a transitional phase in the origin of life, prior to the evolution of fully functional prokaryotic cells. The work reported here is being done in the context of the PACE project, which is investigating the fabrication of artificial protocells de novo. We consider here the important open question of whether or how articifial protocells (if or when they are successfully fabricated) might be applied as “computing” devices—what sort of computing might they be suitable for, and how might they be “programmed”? We also present some preliminary analysis of a crude model of such “evolutionary protocell computation”

Asian Gypsy Moth Revisited

Asian gypsy moths are closely related to the “normal” European gypsy moth but with a broader host range and much more mobile females. The two “strains” look so much alike that the only way to conclusively distinguish them is to analyze DNA. Thus far molecular analysis of gypsy moths in upstate New York feeding on spruce (especially blue spruce) but causing little or no damage to their usual deciduous host trees growing nearby, has indicated that moths on spruce are not the Asian strain

Thickened renewal processes

AbstractLet {ti, i ⩾ 0} be an ordinary renewal process and assume the lifetime distribution function has the form F(x) = cxα (1 + λx + o(x)) near 0+. The asymptotic conditional distribution as n→∞ of {nti, i⩾0}, given that tn ⩽ 1, is that of a renewal process with a gamma lifetime distribution depending only on α

Scenario analysis to support decision making in addressing wicked problems: pitfalls and potential

This paper provides a review and evaluation of the use of scenario methods from the Intuitive Logics (IL) school to address so-called ‘wicked problems’. Scenario planning has been widely advocated by its practitioners and its popularity has increased in the practice arena since the Millennium. However, some academics have described the technique as an ‘art’ that lacks theoretical and methodological rigour. Over recent years, academics have responded to this critique, drawing on both empirical and conceptual studies. This has led to a multiplicity of augmented IL scenario methods. Here, we review these developments and compare them to soft OR methods as a means of tackling wicked problems, drawing, in particular, on Churchman’s moral imperative that we must address the whole problem, not merely ‘carve off’ one part. We conclude that IL scenario planning can be a useful tool in the OR practitioner’s tool kit and that it can complement many of the established soft OR method