Oregon State University's Steer-a-Year program: integrating classroom learning and hands-on experience.

The Steer-a-Year course is designed to provide classroom and hands-on experience, industry-student interaction, and student group problem-solving opportunities. It is a cooperative agreement between the Department of Animal Sciences and the Oregon Cattlemen's and Cattlewomen's Associations. Steers are donated to the program by beef producers, fed a high concentrate ration to a target BW and condition, and marketed as either carcass or retail beef. After feed and management expenses are deducted, the Department of Animal Sciences retains one-half of the profit to be used for beef facilities improvements, and the other half is distributed to the donor's choice of either the Oregon Cattlemen's or Cattlewomen's Association. Approximately 30 steers have been donated to the program annually each of the past eight years. The donor receives updates regarding steer performance during the feeding period and carcass data following harvest of the animal. Students and instructors feed and manage the steers. The instructor uses classroom time to provide information to enable students to make informed management decisions. Officers are elected from within the class each term. Student officers are responsible for ensuring that cattle are managed and fed appropriately, and they lead the class in writing and sending producer updates. An evolving facet of the program is processing and marketing. Steers are sold locally through the Clark Meat Science Center. Students are encouraged to participate in a separate course in which they process the steers into retail product. In this manner, students can be involved in procurement, management, processing, and marketing. The course is challenging for the instructor since it requires management of lecture material, cattle health and feeding, producer and employee rapport, and student participation to ensure annual success of the program in terms of student learning and public relations. The course is very well received by students, most of whom have labeled it as a great learning experience.

Canine discluder mechanics.

The amount of lateral force exerted on the periodontium of a discluder tooth can be controlled in at least two ways: (1) by changing the location of the force application point relative to a tooth's center of rotation (Fig. 10) and (2) by changing the steepness of the discluder path relative to the lateral path. Since it is desirable to minimize the force exerted between discluders, the acceleration and normal frictional force between them must be kept as small as possible. This means choosing a discluder path with the most gentle slope possible departing from the lateral path. Before this slope angle can be chosen, however, there must be a base line from which to measure its steepness. The "base line" is the lateral path. Therefore, the lateral path must be located first. The discluder slant and relief slant are each chosen to be successively steeper in angulation relative to the lateral path. In summary, if the angular difference between the discluder path and the lateral path is kept at a minimum, the force between the discluders due to acceleration will be at a minimum.