DEMAND FOR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMIC INFORMATION

Using data gathered in two surveys we analyze the movement of information in agriculture. The relative importance of varying classes of information providers are assessed by classes of users. A network based framework expands models of human capital and bounded rationality to assess the calculus of choice of information.information, bounded rationality, Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Finger extensor variability in TMS parameters among chronic stroke patients

BACKGROUND: This study determined the reliability of topographic motor cortical maps and MEP characteristics in the extensor digitorum communis (EDC) evoked by single-pulse TMS among patients with chronic stroke. METHODS: Each of ten patients was studied on three occasions. Measures included location of the EDC hotspot and center of gravity (COG), threshold of activation and average amplitude of the hotspot, number of active sites, map volume, and recruitment curve (RC) slope. RESULTS: Consistent intrahemispheric measurements were obtained for the three TMS mapping sessions for all measured variables. No statistically significant difference was observed between hemispheres for the number of active sites, COG distance or the RC slope. The magnitude and range of COG movement between sessions were similar to those reported previously with this muscle in able-bodied individuals. The average COG movement over three sessions in both hemispheres was 0.90 cm. The average COG movement in the affected hemisphere was 1.13 (± 0.08) cm, and 0.68 (± 0.04) cm) for the less affected hemisphere. However, significant interhemispheric variability was seen for the average MEP amplitude, normalized map volume, and resting motor threshold. CONCLUSION: The physiologic variability in some TMS measurements of EDC suggest that interpretation of TMS mapping data derived from hemiparetic patients in the chronic stage following stroke should be undertaken cautiously. Irrespective of the muscle, potential causes of variability should be resolved to accurately assess the impact of pharmacological or physical interventions on cortical organization as measured by TMS among patients with stroke

Genetic Studies of Cave and Spring Populations of the Freshwater Amphipod Crustacean \u3ci\u3eGammarus Minus\u3c/i\u3e Say

The amphipod Gammaru. minus has three morphotypes in its Appalachian range : (1) a spring form with well-developed eyes, (2) an intermediate cave form with slightly reduced eyes, and (3) an extreme cave form with greatly reduced eyes. This study compares the genetic structure of populations in two karst areas and analyzes the genetics of populations of the three morphotypes. Genetic data were collected from populations in the Ward\u27s Cove, Virginia and Greenbrier Valley, West Virginia karst areas using zone electrophoresis zymograms. One hundred percent of the Ward\u27s Cove populations are polymorphic at both MDH-1 and PEP 1 loci with alleles and allelic frequencies nearly identical. Polymorphism is low in most of the Greenbrier Valley populations. The allelic frequencies are also nearly identical. The well integrated subterranean drainage systems of both the Greenbrier Valley and Ward\u27s Cove karst areas favor intermittent gene flow among populations. Gene flow and random drift are probably responsible for the low levels of genetic variability. The genetic homogeneity seen in populations in certain drainage basins within these two karst areas is probably due primarily to gene flow. No consistent genetic differences were found between the three morphotypes A preliminary study of the chromosomal make-up also indicates no differences ( 2N·= 53-54 ). This indicates that photoreceptor regression has not been accompanied by a major reorganization of the genome. Also, based on these data there is nothing to warrant the division of the species into separate taxa

Learning about the Energy of a Hurricane System through an Estimation Epistemic Game

As part of a study into students' problem solving behaviors, we asked upper-division physics students to solve estimation problems in clinical interviews. We use the Resources Framework and epistemic games to describe students' problem solving moves. We present a new epistemic game, the "estimation epistemic game". In the estimation epistemic game, students break the larger problem into a series of smaller, tractable problems. Within each sub-problem, they try to remember a method for solving the problem, and use estimation and reasoning abilities to justify their answers. We demonstrate how a single case study student plays the game to estimate the total energy in a hurricane. Finally, we discuss the implications of epistemic game analysis for other estimation problems.Comment: 4 pages. Submitted to Physics Education Research Conference 201

Efficient Level 2 Surveys Using Mechanical Detonators: Returning More Land, Creating More Wealth, Saving More Lives

The biggest problem facing demining enterprises is this: productivity of individual deminers is so low that total labor costs per unit of land cleared remain exorbitant—despite minuscule wages in mine-affected countries. Clearing agricultural land in developing countries typically costs many times the land’s expected mine-free annual revenues. Most remediation is uneconomic for public and private parties alike, and funding is never enough

The Necessity of Implementing a Public-Health Approach to Humanitarian Demining

Clearing mines is expensive, and demining programs usually consume funding before reaching the task of mine removal. The authors suggest ways to make demining more practical, effective and economical using a public-health approach

A Paradox perspective : how social-business hybrids manage the tension between commercial growth and environmental impact

In this thesis I study how social-business hybrid organizations manage the tension between commercial growth and environmental impact. I do so by inductively investigating six different organization in the food and beverage industry in Europe and relating the findings to existing academic literature on sustainability, organizational hybridity and sustainability. I found that organizations can perform three different strategies to navigate aforementioned tensions—‘justification’, ‘live with it’ and ‘avoidance’—also discovering that their adoption can be explained by the dominant motivation behind commercial growth and by how the tensions is perceived by the manager. Based on these findings I developed a theoretical model which illustrates which strategies social-business hybrid organizations adopt to manage impact vs. growth tensions, in this way contributing to a better understanding of the peculiar challenges faced by organizations aiming at growing in a sustainable way.Nesta dissertação, eu estudo como as empresas sociais de organização híbrida gerenciam a tensão entre crescimento económico e impacto ambiental. Eu faço isso investigando de forma indutiva seis diferentes empresas do setor de alimentos e bebidas na Europa, relacionando as descobertas à literatura académica existente sobre sustentabilidade e hibridez organizacional. Eu constatei que tais organizações podem adotar três diferentes estratégias para lidar com as mencionadas tensões - ‘justificação’, ‘aceitação’ e ‘evasão’ - descobrindo, além disso, que a adoção de tais estratégias pode ser explicada pela motivação dominante por trás do crescimento económico, bem como pela forma que essas tensões são percebidas pelo administrador. Com base nesses resultados, eu desenvolvi um modelo teórico que ilustra quais estratégias as empresas sociais de organização híbrida adotam para gerenciar a tensão entre impacto ambiental e crescimento económico, contribuindo, dessa forma, para um melhor entendimento sobre os desafios peculiares enfrentados pelas organizações que objetivam o crescimento de forma sustentável

Response to Bob Keeley’s Letter to the Journal of Mine Action

We appreciate Bob being picky in examining our article on applying a public-health approach to demining. The lives at stake in demining are worth the extra care. As it happens, we generally agree with his views. First, let’s do get our terminology straight. Thanks, Bob, for the lesson in British diction. We had hoped that placing the modifier mechanical before detonator would make our intentions clear. That it did not, we apologize to our readers. More substantive issues await us. As Bob rightly points out, our ideas are not new. The public-health/cost-benefit approach predates the birth of everyone reading these words and using detonation devices to map mine fields is likewise not fresh. Plenty of deminers apply both of these techniques. Our purpose in writing the article was to memorialize the principles involved, and thereby educate and even convince people who have not joined the choir, of whom there are many

New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison

On November 9 and 10, 1938, Nazi leadership unleashed an unprecedented orchestrated wave of violence against Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland, supposedly in response to the assassination of a Nazi diplomat by a young Polish Jew, but in reality to force the remaining Jews out of the country. During the pogrom, Stormtroopers, Hitler Youth, and ordinary Germans murdered more than a hundred Jews (many more committed suicide) and ransacked and destroyed thousands of Jewish institutions, synagogues, shops, and homes. Thirty thousand Jews were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps. Volume 17 of the Casden Annual Review includes a series of articles presented at an international conference titled “New Perspectives on Kristallnacht: After 80 Years, the Nazi Pogrom in Global Comparison.” Assessing events 80 years after the violent anti-Jewish pogrom of 1938, contributors to this volume offer new cutting-edge scholarship on the event and its repercussions. Contributors include scholars from the United States, Germany, Israel, and the United Kingdom who represent a wide variety of disciplines, including history, political science, and Jewish and media studies. Their essays discuss reactions to the pogrom by victims and witnesses inside Nazi Germany as well as by foreign journalists, diplomats, Jewish organizations, and Jewish print media. Several contributors to the volume analyze postwar narratives of and global comparisons to Kristallnacht, with the aim of situating this anti-Jewish pogrom in its historical context, as well as its place in world history.https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/purduepress_previews/1042/thumbnail.jp

Accountability and sustainability transitions

What constitutes a sustainability transition? We identify sustainability transitions as premised on shifts in accountability relations – assessments of conformance with institutional controls coupled with application of sanctions, incentives, and subsidies – which structure the selection pressures that shape future demographics, technical practices, and social and material trajectories of an economic sector or domain. Contestation and adaptation of accountability mechanisms lend themselves to empirical observation. Beyond evaluating institutional changes that might support a sustainability transition, our analytic framework positions us to identify incoherent, hollow and regressive modes of accountability that constrain sustainability transitions. To operationalize our conceptual scheme, we analyze a purported case of sustainability transitions, solar energy in Portugal during the period 2017–2020. This empirical analysis juxtaposes the promise of movement to a more equitable, low-carbon energy future with institutional and material inertia. We draw on expert interviews, field observation and secondary research to apply accountability analysis to this energy transition case. We find evidence of shifts in relations of accountability that bode well for accelerated growth of solar uptake in Portugal. More broadly, this pilot application of an analytic framework for studying relations of accountability shows significant promise for advancing environmental governance research.acceptedVersio