STATED PREFERENCES AND LENGTH OF RESIDENCY IN RURAL COMMUNITIES: ARE DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION VALUES HETEROGENEOUS?

Newer residents of rural, urban-fringe communities are often assumed to have preferences for the development and conservation of rural lands that differ from those of longer-term residents. The existing literature offers little to verify or quantify presumed preference shifts. This paper provides a systematic, quantitative examination of whether stated preferences for development and conservation tradeoffs differ according to length of residency in a rural community, and explores implications of these findings for assumptions regarding development and conservation preferences. Results are based on stated preferences estimated from a multi-attribute contingent choice survey of Rhode Island rural residents. Heterogeneity-according to length of town residency-is incorporated using Lagrangian Interpolation Polynomials. This approach models the influence of policy attributes as a polynomial function of residence time, thereby allowing estimated coefficient values to vary as a continuous function of residence duration.Community/Rural/Urban Development, Land Economics/Use,

THE INFLUENCE OF SPATIAL LAND USE PATTERNS ON RURAL AMENITY VALUES AND WILLINGNESS TO PAY FOR GROWTH MANAGEMENT: EVIDENCE FROM A CONTINGENT CHOICE SURVEY

This paper reports on a contingent choice study in which residents of a rural Rhode Island community were asked to express their preferences for packages of growth management outcomes, where surveys presented both spatial and non-spatial attributes of growth management outcomes. Survey results provide insight on the extent to which estimated willingness to pay (WTP) for marginal changes in specific landscape features or land uses may be influenced by spatial considerations. Results also characterize the potential impact of spatial context on public preferences and WTP for coordinated packages of growth management outcomes. Keywords: Land Use, Spatial, Contingent Choice, Growth Management, Economics, ValuationLand Use, Spatial, Contingent Choice, Growth Management, Economics, Valuation, Land Economics/Use,

Functional imaging reveals working memory and attention interact to produce the attentional blink

Copyright @ 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology PressIf two centrally presented visual stimuli occur within approximately half a second of each other, the second target often fails to be reported correctly. This effect, called the attentional blink (AB; Raymond, J. E., Shapiro, K. L., & Arnell, K. M. Temporary suppression of visual processing in an RSVP task: An attentional blink? Journal of Experimental Psychology, Human Perception and Performance, 18, 849-860, 1992], has been attributed to a resource "bottleneck," likely arising as a failure of attention during encoding into or retrieval from visual working memory (WM). Here we present participants with a hybrid WM-AB study while they undergo fMRI to provide insight into the neural underpinnings of this bottleneck. Consistent with a WM-based bottleneck account, fronto-parietal brain areas exhibited a WM load-dependent modulation of neural responses during the AB task. These results are consistent with the view that WM and attention share a capacity-limited resource and provide insight into the neural structures that underlie resource allocation in tasks requiring joint use of WM and attention.This research was supported by a project grant (071944) from the Wellcome Trust to Kimron Shapiro

Preferences for Residential Development Attributes and Support for the Policy Process: Implications for Management and Conservation of Rural Landscapes

The rural public may not only be concerned with the consequences of land management; residents may also have systematic preferences for policy instruments applied to management goals. Preferences for outcomes do not necessarily imply matching support for the underlying policy process. This study assesses relationships among support for elements of the policy process and preferences for management outcomes. Preferences are examined within the context of alternative proposals to manage growth and conserve landscape attributes in southern New England. Results are based on (a) stated preferences estimated from a multi-attribute contingent choice survey of rural residents, and (b) Likert-scale assessment of strength of support for land use policy tools. Findings indicate general but not universal correlation among policy support indicators and preferences for associated land use outcomes, but also confirm the suspicion that policy support and land use preference may not always coincide.Agricultural and Food Policy,

CONTINGENT VALUATION FOCUS GROUPS: INSIGHTS FROM ETHNOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW TECHNIQUES

Despite the many important uses (and potential abuses) of focus groups in survey design, the CV literature presents few guidelines to aid moderators in their interaction with focus group participants. This paper draws on the theory and practice of ethnographic interviewing to introduce general guidelines that can improve focus groups as an aid to CV research. The proposed guidelines illustrate types of questions that should reduce speculation and moderator-introduced bias in focus group responses, and improve the correspondence between focus group responses and actual behavior. The paper illustrates these ethnographic guidelines through a CV application concerning watershed resources.Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

Establishing gold standard approaches to rapid tranquillisation: a review and discussion of the evidence on the safety and efficacy of medications currently used

Background: Rapid tranquillisation is used when control of agitation, aggression or excitement is required. Throughout the UK there is no consensus over the choice of drugs to be used as first line treatment. The NICE guideline on the management of violent behaviour involving psychiatric inpatients conducted a systematic examination of the literature relating to the effectiveness and safety of rapid tranquillisation (NICE, 2005). This paper presents the key findings from that review and key guideline recommendations generated, and discusses the implications for practice of more recent research and information. Aims: To examine the evidence on the efficacy and safety of medications used for rapid tranquillisation in inpatient psychiatric settings. Method: Systematic review of current guidelines and phase III randomised, controlled trials of medication used for rapid tranquillisation. Formal consensus methods were used to generate clinically relevant recommendations to support safe and effective prescribing of rapid tranquillisation in the development of a NICE guideline. Findings: There is a lack of high quality clinical trial evidence in the UK and therefore a ‘gold standard’ medication regime for rapid tranquillisation has not been established. Rapid tranquillisation and clinical practice: The NICE guideline produced 35 recommendations on rapid tranquillisation practice for the UK, with the primary aim of calming the service user to enable the use of psychosocial techniques. Conclusions and implications for clinical practice: Further UK specific research is urgently needed that provides the clinician with a hierarchy of options for the clinical practice of rapid tranquillisation

ZNF804A genotype modulates neural activity during working memory for faces

Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Novel immune-modulator identified by a rapid, functional screen of the parapoxvirus ovis (Orf virus) genome

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The success of new sequencing technologies and informatic methods for identifying genes has made establishing gene product function a critical rate limiting step in progressing the molecular sciences. We present a method to functionally mine genomes for useful activities <it>in vivo</it>, using an unusual property of a member of the poxvirus family to demonstrate this screening approach.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The genome of <it>Parapoxvirus ovis </it>(<it>Orf virus</it>) was sequenced, annotated, and then used to PCR-amplify its open-reading-frames. Employing a cloning-independent protocol, a viral expression-library was rapidly built and arrayed into sub-library pools. These were directly delivered into mice as expressible cassettes and assayed for an immune-modulating activity associated with parapoxvirus infection. The product of the B2L gene, a homolog of vaccinia F13L, was identified as the factor eliciting immune cell accumulation at sites of skin inoculation. Administration of purified B2 protein also elicited immune cell accumulation activity, and additionally was found to serve as an adjuvant for antigen-specific responses. Co-delivery of the B2L gene with an influenza gene-vaccine significantly improved protection in mice. Furthermore, delivery of the B2L expression construct, without antigen, non-specifically reduced tumor growth in murine models of cancer.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A streamlined, functional approach to genome-wide screening of a biological activity <it>in vivo </it>is presented. Its application to screening in mice for an immune activity elicited by the pathogen genome of <it>Parapoxvirus ovis </it>yielded a novel immunomodulator. In this inverted discovery method, it was possible to identify the adjuvant responsible for a function of interest prior to a mechanistic study of the adjuvant. The non-specific immune activity of this modulator, B2, is similar to that associated with administration of inactivated particles to a host or to a live viral infection. Administration of B2 may provide the opportunity to significantly impact host immunity while being itself only weakly recognized. The functional genomics method used to pinpoint B2 within an ORFeome may be more broadly applicable to screening for other biological activities in an animal.</p

Marshall University Music Department Presents a Faculty Recital featuring Stephen Lawson, horn, assisted by, J. Steven Hall, marimba, percussion, Kay Lawson, bassoon, Peggy Johnston, piano

https://mds.marshall.edu/music_perf/1523/thumbnail.jp

Neurochemistry of response inhibition and interference in gambling disorder: a preliminary study of γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA+) and glutamate–glutamine (Glx)

BackgroundNeurobehavioral research on the role of impulsivity in gambling disorder (GD) has produced heterogeneous findings. Impulsivity is multifaceted with different experimental tasks measuring different subprocesses, such as response inhibition and distractor interference. Little is known about the neurochemistry of inhibition and interference in GD.MethodsWe investigated inhibition with the stop signal task (SST) and interference with the Eriksen Flanker task, and related performance to metabolite levels in individuals with and without GD. We employed magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to record glutamate–glutamine (Glx/Cr) and inhibitory, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA+/Cr) levels in the dorsal ACC (dACC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and an occipital control voxel.ResultsWe found slower processing of complex stimuli in the Flanker task in GD (P < .001, η 2 p = 0.78), and no group differences in SST performance. Levels of dACC Glx/Cr and frequency of incongruent errors were correlated positively in GD only (r = 0.92, P = .001). Larger positive correlations were found for those with GD between dACC GABA+/Cr and SST Go error response times (z = 2.83, P = .004), as well as between dACC Glx/Cr and frequency of Go errors (z = 2.23, P = .03), indicating general Glx-related error processing deficits. Both groups expressed equivalent positive correlations between posterror slowing and Glx/Cr in the right dlPFC (GD: r = 0.74, P = .02; non-GD: r = .71, P = .01).ConclusionInhibition and interference impairments are reflected in dACC baseline metabolite levels and error processing deficits in GD