McMansions: Re-presenting a divided, subdivided and uncanny suburban landscape

This exegesis speculates on the rise and spread of \u27McMansions\u27 by exploring possible reactions to this architecture and the contextual dimensions of my photographic response. The exegesis aligns aspects of the \u27Uncanny\u27 (Freud, 1919) to new trends in domestic architecture and topographical photography. By pictorially offering a counter-narrative to more conventional representations of the \u27dream home\u27, it ironically demonstrates that some houses can be viewed as unhomely. The exegesis explains how cultural anxieties can be experienced when viewing contemporary trends in domestic architecture within new suburban developments. It does this by aligning the increased use of featurism (Boyd, 1980) in suburban architecture to excessive fictional architectural devices first seen in fictional gothic literature, and later, popular culture. Aiding these anxieties, and also explored, is the concept of historically bereft, continually changing architecture only borrowing from imagined or imported ideas of \u27home\u27. This leads to the theory of the \u27spatial uncanny\u27 (Vidler, 1994), where a sense of home and belonging evaporates with every re-incarnation of suburbia. As the resulting images are a product of contrived photographic technologies and discourses, the exegesis frames them by referencing post-modem notions of photographic narrative. By the use of modified plastic lenses and high-end digital cameras in low light, a new approach towards architectural photography is made possible

MARKET SEGMENTATION PRACTICES OF RETAIL CROP INPUT FIRMS

While market segmentation and the associated idea of target marketing are not new, there are questions about how the strategy of market segmentation and target marketing is being used in retail agribusiness firms. Previous research has demonstrated that distinct groups of farmers/customers exist (Alexander). However, retail crop input firms tend to be of modest size and are geographically bound. Both lack of resources and confinement to a specific geographic market present challenges for successful implementation of a market segmentation/target marketing strategy (Stolp). In this study, market segmentation/target marketing practices were explored in two types of crop input retailers: independently owned and operated firms (9 firms) and agricultural cooperatives (11 firms). A number of questions related to market segmentation/target marketing strategy were assessed via a web-based survey and telephone interviews. Referencing Best's seven-step framework, market segmentation is compared and contrasted by firm type; gaps in market segmentation strategy execution are identified; and challenges to implementing a market segmentation strategy are considered. Results show that market segmentation/target marketing was employed by 85% of the crop input retailers in the sample. Key gaps identified in market segmentation strategy execution include measuring market segment attractiveness; evaluating market segment profitability; developing a product-price positioning strategy for a tailored offering; expanding the positioning strategy to include promotional and sales elements of the marketing-mix; and evaluating the progress/success with each target market segment. Addressing these key gaps will aid industry professionals as they work to serve the needs of a continuously evolving farmer/customer base.market segmentation, target marketing, crop inputs, distribution channel, retailer

Oral history interview transcript with Louise Prugh

Oral history interview transcript with Louise Prugh. Her topic concerns working with airlines during World War II and the interior designing of various campus facilities. Interviewer: Mike Gra

Quorum decision making coordinates group departure decisions in Eurasian oystercatchers, Haematopus ostralegus

Prey species that form groups gain a range of benefits from associating with conspecifics, including access to social information. Groups typically coordinate collective movement through local interactions, where individuals copy their nearest neighbours' behaviour to generate group level decisions. However, individuals in a group may not always make ‘correct’ decisions, and blind copying of behaviour can lead to the spread of poor information and maladaptive cascades. To impede the spread of poor information, many animals that form groups have developed information-dampening mechanisms such as consensus decision making through the quorum response. In this study we monitored flocks of roosting Eurasian oystercatchers with a view to understanding the mechanics of group departure decisions and to test for the presence of a quorum response. Nearing high tide, oystercatchers would leave the roosting site en masse, where the timing of departure of many individuals was coordinated. Coordinating the timing of mass departures was a complex task as single birds and small groups frequently joined and departed from the roosting site, meaning individuals had to decide which departures to copy and which to ignore. Individual oystercatchers were more likely to depart within 10s of another bird if they were closer together in the group, suggesting that departure information may be transferred locally between neighbouring birds. While single departures were very common, most individuals departed in groups of 10 or more, showing that single departures were a relatively weak departure cue and were frequently ignored by the rest of the group. The probability of an individual joining a departure event was higher with increasing departure group size in a nonlinear (sigmoidal) relationship. This trend is consistent with a quorum response with the propensity to copy the departure of groupmates sharply increasing at a quorum threshold of about 10 birds.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Bt Corn, Insecticidal Seed Treatments, and Soil Insecticides for Managing Corn Rootworms: Experiences from 2004, Issues for 2005

The corn rootworm management situation in Illinois in 2004 can be characterized with four statements

Distance Amplitude Correction Factors for Immersion Ultrasonic Measurements through Curved Surfaces

Near net-shaped forgings offer significant advantages for component manufacture, including less material waste and reduced costs for machining to final shape. However, curved entry surfaces on near net shape forgings create complications for ultrasonic inspection methods. In immersion ultrasonic testing, entry surface curvature causes ultrasonic beam focusing or defocusing, which affects the detection sensitivity to interior material flaws, such as voids and inclusions, as compared to inspection through planar surfaces

Agri-food trade in GTAP-HET: Returns to scale in agriculture, and the Melitz model

Agricultural protection is almost always a highly sensitive issue in bi- and multi-lateral trade negotiations. The reasons for this are usually political, but it always means there is a high demand among policy makers for analytical tools which can assess the often complex impacts of liberalisation on farm viability, land use change, and consumer food prices. Since their inception, Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models have made a rich contribution to this analysis. However, when standard assumptions of constant returns to scale and perfect competition are used, this can limit the ability of such models to answer the questions being asked by policy makers. Put simply, these questions often amount to “what are the opportunities, and what are the threats?” If returns to scale are not constant, or if other sources of productivity variation are present in a domestic farming system, the same liberalising policy may represent an opportunity to one farmer, and a threat to another, even if the two are producing the same commodity in the same country. Combining the macroeconomic width and rigour of a CGE model with the heterogeneity of domestic farm systems represents an exciting frontier in agri-food trade policy analysis. This paper will present the current evidence on returns to scale in agricultural sectors in selected countries – drawing on fixed and variable cost share data from the USDA, and European national Farm Business Surveys collated in the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN). Where the evidence for increasing returns to scale is clear, it follows that there is a clear case for the importance of making use of the Melitz model, or some alternative to the standard constant returns to scale assumption

Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Grant, Nebraska Strategic Plan, 2012-2015

The Consortium for Crime and Justice Research (CCJR) at the University of Nebraska at Omaha was tasked by the Nebraska Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice to facilitate the development of a three-year strategic plan for the use of Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistant Grant (JAG) funds. The Crime Commission serves as the State Administering Agency that is responsible for funding projects that fit into one or more of the seven JAG purpose areas: law enforcement programs; planning, evaluation, and technology improvement programs; prevention and education programs; drug treatment and enforcement programs; corrections and community corrections programs; prosecution and court programs; and crime victim and witness programs