scholarly journals Results of Beer Game Trials Played by Natural Resource Managers Versus Students: Does Age Influence Ordering Decisions?

Systems ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Benjamin L. Turner ◽  
Michael Goodman ◽  
Rick Machen ◽  
Clay Mathis ◽  
Ryan Rhoades ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Simulation Game ◽  
State University ◽  
Honors College ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Natural Resource Managers ◽  
Ranch Management ◽  
Common Learning ◽  
Beer Game

Systems involving agriculture and natural resources (AGNR) management and representing integrations of biologic, geologic, socio-economic, and climatic characteristics are incredibly complex. AGNR managers purport using a systems-oriented mental model while many observed management and policy strategies remain linear or symptom-driven. To improve AGNR professionals’ systems thinking abilities, two programs, the King Ranch® Institute for Ranch Management at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (KRIRM) and the Honors College at South Dakota State University (SDSUHC), implemented the famous Production Distribution Simulation Game (a.k.a. the Beer Game) into their programs beginning in 2003 and 2011. A Beer Game database consisting of 10 years of trials or over 270 individual players was compared to seminal work in the literature as well as to one another. We found that AGNR managers and students performed worse than players in a seminal Beer Game study. More interestingly, we found that younger players adapted more readily to inventory surpluses by reducing the order rates and effective inventories significantly when compared to older players (p < 0.10 for retailer and distributors, and p < 0.05 for wholesales and factories). We substantiated our results to those in more recent studies of age-related decision-making and in the context of common learning disabilities. Lastly, we discuss some implications of such decision-making on 21st century AGNR problems and encourage AGNR disciplines to better integrate system dynamics-based education and collaboration in order to better prepare for such complex issues.

scholarly journals Environmental DNA Monitoring: Better Tracking of Endangered, Rare, Cryptic, and Invasive Species

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
William M. Ota ◽  
Caitlyn Hall ◽  
John Malloy ◽  
Morgan A. Clark
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Invasive Species ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Environmental Dna ◽  
United States Department ◽  
States Department ◽  
Monitoring Techniques ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Natural Resource Managers

As the global number of endangered, rare, and invasive species continues to increase, legally mandated efforts to monitor species’ ranges and abundances have grown exponentially. Human population growth is affecting an increasing number of species that need to be monitored, resulting in difficulties providing necessary data on the abundances, ranges, and movement of these species (Kelly 2014). We currently lack practical monitoring techniques for remote, hard-to-access habitats and species with low population counts, which makes it difficult to make informed management decisions (Kelly et al. 2014). Biologists use a variety of comprehensive field- and labor-based monitoring techniques including mark-recapture studies, depletion surveys, and tracking surveys. Environmental DNA (eDNA) is the genetic material shed by every organism into its surrounding environment, which can then be collected from air, soil, or water and analyzed to assess the composition of species present at a site (Thomsen and Willerslev 2015). eDNA monitoring is a tool that does not require the same man-hours that other techniques require. This allows eDNA to be deployed for biomonitoring, natural resource management, and decision making in ways traditional techniques cannot (Biggs et al. 2015; Kelly et al. 2014). Past use of eDNA in programs, including CaleDNA and the Aquatic eDNA atlas project, demonstrated that eDNA is currently a viable monitoring tool for endangered, rare, cryptic, and invasive species. In 2020, the United States Department of the Interior’s National Invasive Species Council Work Plan recognized the potential of eDNA and prioritized its exploration for the first time (United States Department of the Interior, 2020). We believe developing permanent funding sources or amending AB 2470 to include funds for natural resource managers to implement eDNA monitoring programs and information databases is necessary to continue to support societal growth and biodiversity in California. An eDNA monitoring program will allow natural resource managers to better inform land development, conservation, and environmental management decision-making in California.

Participatory Mapping in Browns Canyon National Monument, Colorado (USA)

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
John Harner ◽  
Lee Cerveny ◽  
Rebecca Gronewold
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Management Plan ◽  
Bureau Of Land Management ◽  
National Monument ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Us Forest Service ◽  
Natural Resource Managers

Natural resource managers need up-to-date information about how people interact with public lands and the meanings these places hold for use in planning and decision-making. This case study explains the use of public participatory Geographic Information System (GIS) to generate and analyze spatial patterns of the uses and values people hold for the Browns Canyon National Monument in Colorado. Participants drew on maps and answered questions at both live community meetings and online sessions to develop a series of maps showing detailed responses to different types of resource uses and landscape values. Results can be disaggregated by interaction types, different meaningful values, respondent characteristics, seasonality, or frequency of visit. The study was a test for the Bureau of Land Management and US Forest Service, who jointly manage the monument as they prepare their land management plan. If the information generated is as helpful throughout the entire planning process as initial responses seem, this protocol could become a component of the Bureau’s planning tool kit.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

Integration of Human/Social Dimensions into the Traditional European Model of Natural Resource Education and Management

2005 ◽  
Vol 156 (8) ◽  
pp. 264-268
Author(s):  
James J. Kennedy ◽  
Niels Elers Koch
Keyword(s):  
Natural Resources ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Natural Resource Managers ◽  
Rural Ecosystem ◽  
Professional Roles And Responsibilities

The increasing diversity, complexity and dynamics of ecosystem values and uses over the last 50 years requires new ways for natural resource managers (foresters, wildlife biologists, etc.)to understand and relate to their professional roles and responsibilities in accommodating urban and rural ecosystem users, and managing the complimentary and conflicting interactions between them. Three stages in Western-world natural resources management are identified and analyzed, beginning with the (1) Traditional stage: natural resources first, foremost and forever, to (2) Transitional stage: natural resource management,for better or worse, involves people, to (3) Relationship stage: managing natural resources for valued people and ecosystem relationships. The impacts of these three perspectives on how natural resource managers view and respond to ecosystems,people and other life-forms is basic and can be profound.

Water Management by Farmers

2018 ◽  
pp. 796-813
Author(s):  
Laurence Smith
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Coordination Mechanisms ◽  
Policy Mix ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multifunctional Land Use ◽  
Resource Managers ◽  
Policy Challenge ◽  
Communication And Coordination

Analyzing the public policy challenge of multifunctional land use, for which farmers are required to be food producers, water resource managers and environmental stewards, it is argued that a location-sensitive policy mix is required, consisting of appropriate regulation complemented by advice provision, voluntarism, and well-targeted incentive schemes. The case is further made for adaptive management, local deliberation and stakeholder participation, and hence for governance that is open, delegated, and collaborative. Assessment, planning, and decision making need to be delegated to the most appropriate governmental level and spatial scale to achieve desired outcomes, whilst effective mechanisms for vertical and horizontal coordination of the resulting multilevel and polycentric governance are essential. Hydrographic catchments have significant advantages as spatial units for analysis, planning, coordination, and policy delivery. However, catchment-based working creates further need for cross-level, sector, and scale communication and coordination. Mechanisms for this merit further attention.

Neuroscience: The New English Major?

2021 ◽  
pp. 107385842110039
Author(s):  
Kristin F. Phillips ◽  
Harald Sontheimer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Graduate Education ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Undergraduate Curriculum ◽  
Virginia Tech ◽  
Bachelor's Degree ◽  
State University ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
English Major ◽  
The Brain

Once strictly the domain of medical and graduate education, neuroscience has made its way into the undergraduate curriculum with over 230 colleges and universities now offering a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. The disciplinary focus on the brain teaches students to apply science to the understanding of human behavior, human interactions, sensation, emotions, and decision making. In this article, we encourage new and existing undergraduate neuroscience programs to envision neuroscience as a broad discipline with the potential to develop competencies suitable for a variety of careers that reach well beyond research and medicine. This article describes our philosophy and illustrates a broad-based undergraduate degree in neuroscience implemented at a major state university, Virginia Tech. We highlight the fact that the research-centered Experimental Neuroscience major is least popular of our four distinct majors, which underscores our philosophy that undergraduate neuroscience can cater to a different audience than traditionally thought.

The Age-related Neural Strategy Alterations in Decision Making Under Risk

Neuroscience ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 440 ◽  
pp. 30-38
Author(s):  
Xue-rui Peng ◽  
Xu Lei ◽  
Peng Xu ◽  
Jing Yu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Under Risk ◽  
Age Related
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document