Leading Lady: Sallie Mae and the Origins of Today's Student Loan Controversy

Over the past 40 years, the student loan industry has evolved from a relatively small, government-sponsored program into an $85 billion a year industry with thousands of lenders and industry-related companies. But, in recent months, the industry -- and its biggest player Sallie Mae -- have been at the center of controversy and calls for reform

Cross-departmental initiative to produce an online Image Library for staff at the National Gallery, London

The Image Gallery project ran from June 2007 and was launched via a tab in the staff Intranet in April 2008. It was a collaboration between the Photographic Department and the Libraries and Archive Department, but also engaged image users across the Gallery. The aim of the Image Gallery was to provide photographs taken of Gallery activities and events, images from the Photographic Archive, and works of art from other museums and galleries, not the works of art in the National Gallery's collection. This paper discusses project management standards, data standards, creation of a subject index, design of the interface, and user testing

Matching and stabilization by the method of controlled Lagrangians

We describe a class of mechanical systems for which the “method of controlled Lagrangians” provides a family of control laws that stabilize an unstable (relative) equilibrium. The controlled Lagrangian approach involves making modifications to the Lagrangian for the uncontrolled system such that the Euler-Lagrange equations derived from the modified or “controlled” Lagrangian describe the closed-loop system. For the closed-loop equations to be consistent with available control inputs, the modifications to the Lagrangian must satisfy “matching” conditions. Our matching and stabilizability conditions are constructive; they provide the form of the controlled Lagrangian, the control law and, in some cases, conditions on the control gain(s) to ensure stability. The method is applied to stabilization of an inverted spherical pendulum on a cart and to stabilization of steady rotation of a rigid spacecraft about its unstable intermediate axis using an internal rotor

PLASC guidance for primary schools free breakfast initiative

Published in 2008, this information document sets out how the PLASC data for the Primary School Free Breakfast Initiative (PSFBI) is to be collected. These changes were designed to help reduce the overall burden that was associated with collecting data takeup on the Primary Schools Free Breakfast Initiative, reducing the amount of data collected, from a termly basis (3 times a year) to an annual basis

Skills, government intervention and business performance: implications for the regional skills partnership (RSP)

The aim of this briefing paper is to provide an understanding of the factors that determine the level of skills in the economy, the level and type of skills demanded by employers, and how these are translated into performance improvements by individual employees. The paper deals with these questions at the national and regional level, at the level of the firm and finally of the individual employee. It then uses this knowledge to identify the range of alternative measures available to policy makers

Сигнальні системи та проблеми мислення особистості норми і патології (Signal system and problems of thinking of personality in health and disease)

У статті розглядаються історичні складові та перспективи міждисциплінарних досліджень сигнальних систем, мови і мислення особистості у єдиному функціональному комплексі. (This article offers to review different historical components and prospects of interdisciplinary researches in the signaling system of language and thinking of a personality in its indivisible functional complex.

Consensus mutagenesis reveals that non-helical regions influence thermal stability of horseradish peroxidase

The enzyme horseradish peroxidase has many uses in biotechnology but a stabilized derivative would have even wider applicability. To enhance thermal stability, we applied consensus mutagenesis (used successfully with other proteins) to recombinant horseradish peroxidase and generated five single-site mutants. Unexpectedly, these mutations had greater effects on steady-state kinetics than on thermal stability. Only two mutants (T102A, T110V) marginally exceeded the wild type's thermal stability (4% and 10% gain in half-life at 50 °C respectively); the others (Q106R, Q107D, I180F) were less stable than wild type. Stability of a five-fold combination mutant matched that of Q106R, the least-stable single mutant. These results were perplexing: the Class III plant peroxidases display wide differences in thermal stability, yet the consensus mutations failed to reflect these natural variations. We examined the sequence content of Class III peroxidases to determine if there are identifiable molecular reasons for the stability differences observed. Bioinformatic analysis validated our choice of sites and mutations and generated an archetypal peroxidase sequence for comparison with extant sequences. It seems that both genetic variation and differences in protein stability are confined to non-helical regions due to the presence of a highly conserved alpha-helical structural scaffold in these enzymes

A growing disconnection from nature is evident in cultural products

Human connection with nature is widely believed to be in decline, even though empirical evidence on the magnitude and temporal pattern of the change is scarce. Studying works of popular culture in English throughout the 20th century and later, we document a cultural shift away from nature, beginning in the 1950s. Since then, references to nature have been decreasing steadily in fiction, song lyrics, and film storylines. No parallel decline is observed in references to the human-made environment. These findings are cause for concern, not only because they imply foregone benefits from engagement with nature, but also because cultural products are agents of socialization that can evoke curiosity, respect, and concern for the natural world

Survey of Chinese Workers’ Working Conditions in 2010

This document is part of a digital collection provided by the Martin P. Catherwood Library, ILR School, Cornell University, pertaining to the effects of globalization on the workplace worldwide. Special emphasis is placed on labor rights, working conditions, labor market changes, and union organizing.CLW_2011_Report_China_survey_of_chinese.pdf: 539 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

MiR-539-5p alleviates sepsis-induced acute lung injury by targeting ROCK1

Introduction. Sepsis-induced acute lung injury (ALI) is an inflammatory process involved with simultaneous production of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. In this study, we investigated the regulatory role of miR-539-5p in sepsis-induced ALI using a mouse model of cecal ligation puncture (CLP) and an in vitro model of primary murine pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (MPVECs). Material and methods. Adult male C57BL/6 mice were intravenously injected with or without miR-539-5p agomir or scrambled control one week before CLP operation. MPVECs were transfected with miR-539-5p mimics or control mimics, followed by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) stimulation. ROCK1 was predicted and confirmed as a direct target of miR-539-5p using dual-luciferase reporter assay. In rescue experiment, MPVECs were co-transfected with lentiviral vector expressing ROCK1 (or empty vector) and miR-539-5p mimics 24 h before LPS treatment. The transcriptional activity of caspase-3, the apoptosis ratio, the levels of miR-539-5p, interleukin-1b (IL-1b), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and ROCK1 were assessed. Results. Compared to sham group, mice following CLP showed pulmonary morphological abnormalities, elevated production of IL-1b and IL-6, and increased caspase-3 activity and apoptosis ratio in the lung. In MPVECs, LPS stimulation resulted in a significant induction of inflammatory cytokine levels and apoptosis compared to untreated cells. The overexpression of miR-539-5p in septic mice alleviated sepsis-induced pulmonary injury, apoptosis, and inflammation. MiR-539-5p also demonstrated anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory effect in LPS-treated MPVECs. The upregulation of ROCK1 in MPVECs recovered miR-539-5p-suppressed caspase-3 activity and proinflammatory cytokine production. Conclusion. In conclusion, miR-539-5p alleviated sepsis-induced ALI via suppressing its downstream target ROCK1, suggesting a therapeutic potential of miR-539-5p for the management of sepsis-induced ALI