Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Simple Rules That May Help Ranchers Select Replacement Heifers For Increased Pregnancy Rates And Reduce Dystocia, Matthew Stockton, Roger K. Wilson

Cornhusker Economics

Every year livestock producers replace cows they cull from their herds with young animals often selected from progeny of the cows they currently own. Since replacement rates for beef cattle in Nebraska tend to average between 16 to 20 percent annually, this is not a trivial undertaking. Much of the talk among producers tends to concentrate on muscling and other physically observable characteristics, and the genetic composition of animals to be selected as replacements. These criteria are important, but what must also be considered is the ability of the selected replacement animals to perform reproductively. Producers expect cost to be …

"Our Woman In China": Louisa Lim, Angilee Shah

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Louisa Lim’s life as National Public Radio’s Shanghai correspondent is characterized by extreme variety. Much like China itself, Lim takes on many roles: hard-hitting investigative reporter, insightful trend spotter, art connoisseur, mother and even restaurateur. It turns out, she’s an excellent email-writer as well.

In a wide-ranging Web 2.0 interview, in between covering the Beijing Olympics and the ever-growing melamine disaster, she described her experiences in her three years as the Beijing correspondent for the BBC and then two with National Public Radio. She talked about the challenges of breaking news but still providing depth of coverage, the West’s growing …

A Better Life In New Shanghai?, Maura Cunningham

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

During the two years I recently spent in Nanjing as a student at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, Shanghai became an increasingly frequent choice when I needed to get away and wander the streets of China for a bit. With the introduction of CRH express train service in 2007, travel time between Nanjing and Shanghai fell to only two hours, and I rejoiced in the improved accessibility of Shanghai’s malls, restaurants, bookstores, and cultural events. However, I often found that I ended my Shanghai sojourns as eager to return to Nanjing as I had been to leave it only a day or …

China In 2008: What’S Inside

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

While our forthcoming blog-to-book, China in 2008, contains some content that regular China Beat readers will find familiar because versions of the pieces have either run or been linked to at China Beat (though many of these have been expanded or revised also), about one-third of the book is brand-new. Below, find the table of contents listing the essays included in the book’s fifteen chapters. Each chapter also includes additional, brief excerpts from the blog which are not listed here. China in 2008 will be published in early 2009.

Collection Development Policy For General Interest Newspapers, Jeanetta Drueke

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Collection Development Policies

General interest newspapers are those that contain news, articles of opinion, features, and advertising. They do not include subject specific periodicals such as W or Barron’s. The audience for newspapers is wide-ranging: undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and community users.

The University Libraries provides newspapers and newspaper articles in a variety of formats: print, microfilm, electronic full facsimile collections (such as ProQuest Historical Newspapers Online), online aggregators (such as LexisNexis), free newspaper websites, and online-only newspapers.

The goal of newspaper collection development is a full and appropriate transition from print to online newspapers.

Most Downloaded Documents For October 2008, University Of Nebraska–Lincoln Digital Commons

Institutional Repository Information

In October 2008, the repository furnished 121,393 downloads; 78.3% of available files were downloaded at least once. The average for all 19,107 documents was 6.35 downloads. The archived spreadsheet shows the top 200 documents, downloaded at least 50 or more times during the month.

Top 25 Downloads for October 2008 (and their authors)
Electronic Rodent Repellent Devices: A Review of Efficacy Test Protocols and Regulatory Actions — Stephen A. Schumake
Online Dictionary of Invertebrate Zoology: Complete Work — Mary Ann Basinger Maggenti, Armand R. Maggenti, & Scott Lyell Gardner
The Constitutions of the Free-Masons (1734). An Online Electronic Edition. — …

Lifestyle Of Shellmound Builders In Brazil (Galley Proofs), Sabine Eggers, C. C. Petronilho, K. Brandt, J. Filippini, Karl J. Reinhard

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The contact of inland and coastal prehistoric groups in Brazil is believed to have been restricted to regions with no geographical barrier, as is the case in the Ribeira de Iguape valley. The inland osteological collection from the riverine shellmound Moraes (5800–4500 BP) represents a unique opportunity to test this assumption for this region. Despite cultural similarities between riverine and coastal shellmounds, important ecological and site distribution differences are expected to impact on lifestyle. The purpose of this study is thus to document and interpret health and lifestyle indicators in Moraes in comparison to coastal shellmound groups. Specifically we test …

A Narrative Of The March And Operations Of The Army Of The Indus In The Expedition Into Affghanistan In The Years 1838-1839, Under The Command Of H.E. Lieut. General Sir John (Now Lord) Keane (1865), William Hough

Digitized Afghanistan Materials in English from the Arthur Paul Afghanistan Collection

Anglo-Afghan War, 1838-1839, Afghanistan History - 18th & 19th century, Dooranee Empire 1747-1840

Blogging China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

One week ago, China Beat founders Jeff Wasserstrom and Ken Pomeranz participated in a conference at the University of California, Irvine called “Public Spheres, Blogospheres.” The day-long event mixed academics with bloggers (and a few people who could claim both titles) for a discussion about the past and future of blogging. You can download each of the day’s sessions here, and a full list of participants here.

The clip below is very lengthy. If you’d like to speed through to the parts about China, jump to 25:00 (to about 51:00). The session was a comparative one on blogging and the …

China On My Mind: Last Days Of Old Beijing

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A few weeks ago, those of us based at UCI had the pleasure of hearing author Michael Meyer talk about his new book, The Last Days of OldBeijing. Accompanied by the evocative photos of Mark Leong, Meyer described his experience living in the ancient hutongs of central Beijing and how he tried to convey that experience–threatened by Beijing’s rapid development–in his recent book. Here, Tom Mullaney, who teaches history at Stanford, chats with Meyer about his book. Scroll down to enjoy Leong’s photos while you listen.

The character “chai” (to demolish) is painted on houses marked for demolition.

If you’d …

Wednesday Reading

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The tainted milk scandal has stayed on the front pages, particularly in recent days as the type of tainted products expanded yet again (to include eggs, see below). Here are a few readings on the subject, in case you missed them:

1. Anna Greenspan wrote this piece on the milk scandal for our forthcoming book,China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, but we’re delighted that its up for reading right now at The Nation. Check it out here.

2.Though most stories on the tainted baby formula have emphasized that its devastating impacts are the result of falling rates of …

Leasing Decisions For The Volatile Year Ahead, Bruce B. Johnson

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Leasing Decisions For The Volatile Year Ahead, Bruce B. Johnson

Cornhusker Economics

As if the economic environment for production agriculture isn’t risky enough already, we are now heading into an ‘economic headwind’ that few of us could even have imagined just a few short months ago. A global financial system brought to a screeching halt along with massive asset devaluation, has brought the United States and the rest of the world community to a financial crisis unseen since the depression of the 1930s. While policy makers are responding with measures to divert economic disaster, there seems to be little disagreement that we are, in the very least, staring into the face of …

Wow In China And The U.S.

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

World of Warcraft (WoW) is the most popular massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) ever created, with more than 10 million players worldwide—half of them in China. Before WoW launched in 2004, conventional wisdom placed the potential playerbase for MMOs numbering in the hundreds of thousands. WoW quickly broke those numbers, drawing in new gamers with its cartoonish graphics, tongue-in-cheek storylines, and mix of collaborative and solo player options. Stories on WoW in China a few years ago emphasized a phenomenon known as “gold farming”—sweatshop laborers in China playing the game to raise in-game currency to then sell for real …

1948 & 2008: The George E. Morrison Lectures And Beijing’S Years Of Great Significance, Geremie R. Barme

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The 69th Morrison Lecture, “Reporting the Olympic Year,” was presented by Jane Macartney, The Times’ correspondent in Beijing, on October 22, 2008. The Morrison Lecture is an annual event in the academic calendar and public program of The Australian National University in Canberra. As 2008 was a major year for China, and Beijing in particular (something that will be marked by an upcoming publication by the editors of China Beat, China 2008: A Year of Great Significance), the Morrison Lecture Committee invited Jane to make this year’s presentation. As Jane noted in her précis of the Lecture, “The Olympics were …

The Best Reporting On The Sichuan Earthquake You’Ll Never See, Angilee Shah

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Busan, Korea – Pan Jianlin’s documentary about the earthquake that struck Sichuan province on May 12 made a quiet debut on a Sunday morning, at 10 a.m., the third day of this year’s Pusan International Film Festival.

With its not-so-great timing and grim title, Who Killed Our Children was a blip on the festival calendar’s 315 films and 85 world premieres. And if you happened to miss the documentary in Korea, it’s possible you will not have an opportunity to see it again.

Pan’s film’s subject is as simple as its title, examining the collapse of one of the many …

Estimating Griliches' K-Shifts, Lilyan E. Fulginiti

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Griliches’ k-shift, a crucial parameter in the welfare evaluation of technological change, is shown to be equal to the radial rate of technological change plus a vector of commodity bias parameters obtained from the distance function. The analysis permits decomposition of sectoral productivity growth into productivity growth by commodity. The k-shifts estimated for wheat, corn, soybeans and beef in U.S. agriculture indicate a decrease in the marginal cost of production of corn, soybeans and wheat during the 1950-1993 years.

On The Train To Tibet

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As part of our on-going series of reading recommendations and conversations about Tibet and Tibetan history, we are today featuring a short excerpt from occasional China Beat contributor Alex Pasternack about his recent ride on the new train to Tibet. Pasternack writes regularly for Treehugger, where this essay was published in its entirety.

China’s – and the world’s – reach to the highest plateau on earth grew in summer 2006 with the opening of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway (Qingzang Tielu 青藏铁路). An engineering marvel that China itself once ruled impossible, the $4.2 billion line traverses an region known for earthquakes, low …

Putting A Value On "Sweat Equity", David J. Goeller

Cornhusker Economics

For some farm/ranch families, deciding what to do with the family business can be very troublesome. How can we pass the farming business to the next generation while at the same time not create animosity or envy between the heirs? If we divide it equally between all the children, will it create such small pieces that the successor child cannot make a living operating the family farm? If one child is required to buy out his/her siblings will the business generate enough income to make this a feasible option? Most parents would say “We want to treat our children fairly.” …

Introduction To Data Curation, Elaine L. Westbrooks

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Few people as yet, outside the world of expert librarians and museum curators and so forth, know how manageable well-ordered facts can be made, however multitudinous, and how swiftly and completely even the rarest visions and the most recondite matters can be recalled, once they have been put in place in a well-ordered scheme of reference and reproduction.

Wiki-Ing China: The Discussion Continues

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Charles Hayford shared the link to his recent China Beat pieces (Parts 1 and 2) on using (and altering) Wikipedia with the Asia Scholars listserv, H-Asia. A brief discussion ensued there, which included references to several new (to us) resources. Though we won’t mention names or specific discussions, we did want to share some of the resources we learned about as a result of listening in:

1. At this website, Vincent Pollard has written a student guide on internet credibility that could be easily adapted to an exercise on testing/editing/using Wikipedia.

2. One contributor noted a particularly outstanding Wikipedian (not …

China In 2008: A Year Of Great Significance

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last month, we announced our forthcoming book, China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance, to be published by Rowman & Littlefield in early 2009. With the manuscript beginning to take its final shape (and 2008 far enough advanced that we felt somewhat—but only somewhat, given what a crazy year it’s been so far—safe beginning to reflect on it), we thought we would share a little bit from the book with you. In the coming weeks, we hope to share with you a preview of the table of contents as well as perhaps snippets of other new pieces from the …

Greatball

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Taiwanese baseball has just been giving a powerful shot in the arm, with three consecutive shots out of the park by the Brother Elephants’ star player Peng Chen-min 彭政閔 during his team’s 7-1 victory over the LaNew Bears in the first game of their playoff series.

For video highlights, please click here. I especially like the announcer’s comments about a home run ball resembling a girlfriend who has just had a change of heart — neither is coming back (In the case of one of Taiwan’s 40-something superstars, Chang Tai-shan 張泰山, this is modified to include a reference to his …

October 2008 - Staff Meeting Minutes

ALEC Committee Minutes

No abstract provided.

Painted Skin: To Scare Or Not To Scare?, Haiyan Lee

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

It may come as a surprise that movies about ghosts and monsters are strictly speaking illegal in China, a land that has given us such an enchanting array of supernatural figures as the White Serpent Lady, the Weaving Girl, the three-headed Nuozha, and, of course, the delightful trickster Monkey. Gods and ghosts do show up on the Chinese screen, but they have to be framed as “characters” of folklore or fanciful creations of the “primitive” mind, something of ethnographic interest but no longer relevant to our sense of self and world. However, if they end up unsettling our secular confidence …

Fakeball

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

The Taiwan baseball world has been rocked by yet another game-fixing scandal, this time involving the dmedia T-Rex team. A total of three players (including a former MLB pitcher) are out on bail, while some bookies, gangsters, and team officials (including coaches, the assistant manager, and the team spokesman) have been detained. The guilt of those involved has yet to be proven, but there have certainly been some suspicious incidents. During one game on July 11, the dmedia’s normally accurate U.S. hurler lasted only three innings, managing just 32 strikes out of 84 pitches (an almost unheard of ball-strike ratio), …

Ethanol And Low Carbon Fuel Standards, Richard K. Perrin

Cornhusker Economics

There have been two primary reasons why the public has had an interest in more ethanol, rather than leaving the issue to the private market. First, it has been thought to be beneficial in slowing climate change. Second, it would increase energy independence by reducing the amount of petroleum we import. We will discuss the first of these issues in this article, with the second issue to be addressed in a later article.

China Annals: Factory Girls

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Last weekend China Beat contributors—and longtime Beijing neighbors—Susan Jakes and Leslie T. Chang caught up to talk about Chang’s newly released book,Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China. The book, which builds on stories Chang wrote as a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal (and currently garnering glowing reviews and widespread coverage), follows the lives of young rural women making new lives for themselves in the southern Chinese city of Dongguan.

Susan Jakes: How did you decide you wanted to write a book about migrant workers in China? What did you want to try to figure out? …

Part Ii, Improving Wikipedia: Technique And Strategy For China Folk, Charles W. Hayford

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

How do we improve the coverage, reliability, and balance for China? With all the objections listed in my previous post, in the end, clearly we can’t achieve perfection, only make improvements. If you are already participating, you have doubtless come to terms with the culture of the natives; if you now join, remember to respect our perhaps outlandish ways. Like members of any other cult(ure), we have to live with each other. Some Wikipedians are nuts, some are smart and generous, most are trying to be useful, some are all of the above. Wikipedia enthusiasts simply accept that the project …

Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trap solar heat in the atmosphere, increasing global temperature by an estimated 1.4 degrees. Increases in GHG emissions resulting largely from energy use have led to more heat being trapped in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. Major impacts of global warming include rising sea levels, higher temperatures and increased global migration of disease-carrying insects.

While there is continuing scientific discussion regarding how quickly the earth’s atmosphere will warm and when the adverse global warming impacts will occur, most scientists believe that GHG emissions must be reduced 50-80 percent in the next 50 years to minimize …