The Role of Agricultural Education and Extension in Influencing Best Practice for Managing Mastitis in Dairy Cattle

Purpose: To examine the role of agricultural education and extension in influencing the adoption of best practice with regard to herd-level mastitis management.Design/Methodology/Approach: Somatic cell count (SCC) is an indicator of herd health with regard to mastitis and is negatively related to productivity and profitability. Panel data regression methods are utilised here to quantify the role of agricultural education and extension in reducing cell count and in influencing farmer best practice with regard to herd health. The impact of education and extension on farmer uptake of milk recording is of particular interest. Data utilised is farm-level Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data for Ireland over a five-year period (2008–2012).Findings: Farmer uptake of formal agricultural training and liaison with agricultural extension services are shown to significantly improve mastitis herd health. Collectively, education, extension and milk recording results in an overall SCC reduction of 25% for the average herd. Farmers who undertook agricultural training were ten times more likely to monitor milk quality through milk recording compared to those who had not. Additionally, those farmers in contact with an extension service and also participated in a dairy discussion group were seven times more likely to practice milk recording.Practical Implications: The importance of farmer behaviour in the optimum management of herd health has been validated, as has the role of agricultural education and extension in influencing the uptake of best practice by farmers.Originality/Value: To date little research has been conducted using nationally representative herd-level data on the role of agricultural education and extension in improving animal health best practice.     

Adding a Data Point to a Scatterplot

Students who have been taught regression properly are certainly familiar with the dangers and curiosities to which the regression analysis leads when only two data points are available. However, one may ask whether students are familiar with the effects of adding a third observation into this data set. The purpose of this article is to illustrate some unexpected phenomena related to this situation using a specific map technique.     

Introducing APL

This article introduce a powerful mathematically orientated programming language which handles statistical concepts very succinctly, and which is now available to schools.     

优质杂交早稻T优7889高产高效综合栽培技术研究

运用二次回归旋转组合设计，对优质杂交早稻T优7889进行移栽叶龄、插植密度、施N、P、K肥用量5项农艺措施综合栽培技术研究．建立了产量、净收入与5项农艺措施的回归模型．分析了农艺措施对产量和净收入的影响，结果表明，对产量的作用主要是施N量、叶龄和插植密度，对净收入的作用主要是施N、P、K肥量和叶龄．并经微机模拟筛选出每667m^2产量≥400kg、净收入≥380元的取值范围是：3．5～5．5叶移栽、插1．43～1．98万丛、施纯N11～12k、P2050～1．8kg、K2O3．75～7．88kg．     

中国工程教育发展改革的成效和问题

本文首先概要阐述了制造业的重要性,作为中国发展和改善工程教育的背景,提出了"回归工程"作为近年来中国工程教育发展的特征,继而从工程技术与科学的区别、理论与实践的关系、转变思想方法、建立系统概念、学科融合、评价和供需实际等七个方面讲述了工程教育改革发展的成就和存在的问题,进而分析了中国教育整体的情况,并提出了人才结构研究、人力资本研究和校企全面合作等三个建议。     

The impact of Israel's class-based affirmative action policy on admission and academic outcomes

In the early to mid-2000s, four flagship Israeli selective universities introduced a voluntary need-blind and color-blind affirmative action policy for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The program allowed departments to offer admission to academically borderline applicants who were above a certain threshold of disadvantage. We examine the effect of eligibility for affirmative action on admission and enrollment outcomes as well as on academic achievement using a regression discontinuity (RD) design. We show that students who were just barely eligible for this voluntary policy had a significantly higher probability of admission and enrollment, as compared to otherwise similar students. The affirmative action program also led to higher rates of admission to the most selective majors. Moreover, after enrollment, AA-eligible students are not falling behind academically, even at the most selective majors. Our results suggest the potential for a long-lasting impact of class-based preferences in admission on social and economic mobility.     

对体育科研中多元线性回归模型变量间关系的探析

本文针对回归分析在体育科研中存在的几个与变量有关的典型问题进行分析,指出建立有价值回归模型的关键在于认清回归分析中两类变量问的关系,而认清变量间关系必须深入理解回归分析的实质。本文从2个不同的角度剖析回归分析的基本思想和实质,以期广大体育科研工作者能够正确的使用多元线性回归模型。     

Using Regression Discontinuity to Test the Impact of a Tier 2 Reading Intervention in First Grade

Abstract

?Multitiered systems of reading instruction and intervention, including response to intervention, are widely used in early reading by schools to provide more intense services to students who need them. Research using randomized controlled trials has compared innovative Tier 2 interventions to business-as-usual Tier 2 approaches and established a number of important components that compose effective Tier 2 interventions in early reading. The purpose of this study was to test the impact of a Tier 2 intervention with Tier 2 compared to Tier 1 instruction alone using regression discontinuity. A cut score was used to assign first-grade students at risk for reading difficulties to Tier 2 intervention plus Tier 1 instruction. Students who missed the cut score in the control group received Tier 1 instruction only. Students in the treatment group, just below the cut score, made greater gains on the SAT10 total score and the individual subtests than students just above the cut score. Outcomes were not significant on oral reading fluency.