The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation's Tropical Disease Research Program: A 25-Year Retrospective Review 1976-1999

Documents and details the foundation's commitment to the program from its inception, and provides an analysis of its successes until the completion of the program in 1999

Linking Technical Education to Business Growth: A Case Study on Building Technical Skills in India

Education has been recognized as the most important source of competitive advantage for a nation. It is the key determinant of firm level productivity which in turn drives business growth and profitability. Technical knowledge, in particular, is required both for industrial as well as service development. Technical institutions contribute to the growth of business and industry in a variety of ways. The most influential and direct impact is through their graduates who bring in new skills and perspectives to firms. Industries also seek advanced training on specific topics as well as consultancy from technical institutions. Often these institutions collaborate with academics to design and develop new technologies. In this paper we have argued that technical education plays a crucial role in building these capabilities and consequently in the growth of industry. We use the case study of the Indian technical education system to explore the nature of this system, mechanisms used to govern it, linkages between the education regime and the industry, and the roles that different stakeholders play in ensuring that such a regime delivers sustained advantage to the society. We study the business growth in a few select sectors and the changing needs of technical skills therein. These sectors are agricultural implements, auto-components, chemicals, construction, garments and machine tools. We also illustrate the link between technological innovation and technical skills thereby pointing towards the trajectory of developing industrial competitiveness.

Argument Maps Improve Critical Thinking

Computer-based argument mapping greatly enhances student critical thinking, more than tripling absolute gains made by other methods. I describe the method and my experience as an outsider. Argument mapping often showed precisely how students were erring (for example: confusing helping premises for separate reasons), making it much easier for them to fix their errors

Undergraduate and Graduate Course Descriptions, 2022 Spring

Wright State University undergraduate and graduate course descriptions from Spring 2022

21st Century Simulation: Exploiting High Performance Computing and Data Analysis

This paper identifies, defines, and analyzes the limitations imposed on Modeling and Simulation by outmoded paradigms in computer utilization and data analysis. The authors then discuss two emerging capabilities to overcome these limitations: High Performance Parallel Computing and Advanced Data Analysis. First, parallel computing, in supercomputers and Linux clusters, has proven effective by providing users an advantage in computing power. This has been characterized as a ten-year lead over the use of single-processor computers. Second, advanced data analysis techniques are both necessitated and enabled by this leap in computing power. JFCOM's JESPP project is one of the few simulation initiatives to effectively embrace these concepts. The challenges facing the defense analyst today have grown to include the need to consider operations among non-combatant populations, to focus on impacts to civilian infrastructure, to differentiate combatants from non-combatants, and to understand non-linear, asymmetric warfare. These requirements stretch both current computational techniques and data analysis methodologies. In this paper, documented examples and potential solutions will be advanced. The authors discuss the paths to successful implementation based on their experience. Reviewed technologies include parallel computing, cluster computing, grid computing, data logging, OpsResearch, database advances, data mining, evolutionary computing, genetic algorithms, and Monte Carlo sensitivity analyses. The modeling and simulation community has significant potential to provide more opportunities for training and analysis. Simulations must include increasingly sophisticated environments, better emulations of foes, and more realistic civilian populations. Overcoming the implementation challenges will produce dramatically better insights, for trainees and analysts. High Performance Parallel Computing and Advanced Data Analysis promise increased understanding of future vulnerabilities to help avoid unneeded mission failures and unacceptable personnel losses. The authors set forth road maps for rapid prototyping and adoption of advanced capabilities. They discuss the beneficial impact of embracing these technologies, as well as risk mitigation required to ensure success

Evaluating of the disinfection and water quality effects on UV application in the primary stage of water treatment

Background: Irradiation of water by UV has been considered as an attractive alternative for disinfection because its low-impact, pathogen killing capacity shows tremendous promise for meeting today's drinking water regulatory requirements. This study has been performed with the objective of utilizing medium pressure lamp in the preliminary stage of municipal water treatment, namely prior to water clarification and filtration. Methods: Raw water samples were irradiated for 30 s in a lab-scale closed reactor. Disinfection results showed nearly 2 log reduction in HPC for all the samples without formation of nitrite in excess of its MCL. As in a few previous works the formation of nitrite as an objectionable DBP had been reported, this study was extended by preparing synthetic water samples having different amounts of nitrate and turbidities. Results: As far as the initial nitrate concentration dose not exceed 10 mg/L N-NO3, there would be no risk of nitrite increasing in excess of the MCL. Conclusion: Meeting the goal of at least 90 % disinfection for water samples with turbidity levels of as high as 750 NTU is possible by utilizing medium- pressure UV lamp

Benefits realisation for healthcare

Following the emergent importance of benefits realisation applied to healthcare infrastructure and service development programs, HaCIRIC has undertaken a research initiative targeting the development of a robust and comprehensive Benefits Realisation (BeReal©) process. The resulting model is focusing on how benefits should be elicited at the initial strategic stages, and how benefits should be deployed, managed and traced along the lifecycle of a programme so their realisation contributes to successful health outcomes. Subsequently BeReal© aspires to be an appropriate method to drive and control the programme plan; providing tools and techniques for defining specific benefits. It also allows the measurement and evaluation of the extent to which those benefits are delivered. We have set ourselves the objective of identifying current best practices and demonstrate how to improve benefits realisation in healthcare infrastructure provision. The HaCIRIC team in active collaboration with leading industry partners have undertaken various case and comparator studies not only to define a business critical process but to set out an ideology which places benefits realisation at the heart of securing wholly integrated (collective) change. We believe that to deliver consistent high quality infrastructure and services within an ever changing investment model requires a different level of thinking and understanding towards benefits realisation. The challenge of answering community needs through intelligent investment in infrastructure is complex and demands a deeper and inclusive awareness and appreciation of how to deliver benefits and effectively allocate resources. The BeReal© initiative seeks to contribute methodologically and intends to help spending money intelligently, working with programme and project related stakeholders, securing that the best possible benefits are obtained for the overall healthcare communities. This report highlights selected performed initiatives and summarises BeReal© process’s major characteristics, covering far more than the follow-up of a competitive tendering process and of the development of a traditional business case. BeReal© copes with a detailed definition of changing activities, breakdown of (needs into) benefits that drive the investment, supports decision-making, proposes the development of controlling initiatives and suggests major awareness to the implementation of corrective actions. We seek to continue innovating, stimulate learning, contributing to an increase of health and care performance that properly answers to community needs and intelligently invests public and private resources

Fear expression and return of fear following threat instruction with or without direct contingency experience

Prior research showed that mere instructions about the contingency between a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) can generate fear reactions to the CS. Little is known, however, about the extent to which actual CS US contingency experience adds anything beyond the effect of contingency instructions. Our results extend previous studies on this topic in that it included fear potentiated startle as an additional dependent variable and examined return of fear (ROF) following reinstatement. We observed that CS US pairings can enhance fear reactions beyond the effect of contingency instructions. Moreover, for all measures of fear, instructions elicited immediate fear reactions that could not be completely overridden by subsequent situational safety information. Finally, ROF following reinstatement for instructed CS+s was unaffected by actual experience. In summary, our results demonstrate the power of contingency instructions and reveal the additional impact of actual experience of CS US pairings

Biliary brush cytology for the diagnosis of malignancy: a single center experience [Citološki razmazi brisa četkicom u dijagnostici malignih promjena bilijarnog stabla: naše iskustvo]

Differentiation between benign and malignant biliary strictures is critical to the provision of adequate treatment. Brush cytology during the endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is the most commonly used method for obtaining tissue confirmation of the nature of biliary strictures. It’s specificity is remarkably high but reported sensitivities for the diagnosis of malignancy are low. Aim of our study was to assess sensitivity and specificity of biliary brush cytology in our institution, to find out main causes of false negative diagnoses and to confirm impression that the team approach has impact on sensitivity. Gold standard for diagnosis was definitive surgical histology or adequate clinical follow up for minimum of six month. Direct smears made by cytotechnician at the endoscopy room, and stained according to Papanicolaou and May-Grünwald Giemsa (MGG) were examined for well-recognized features of malignancy on conventional smears as a part of diagnostic routine. Cytologic diagnoses were benign, atypical/reactive, suspicious for malignancy and malignant. Of 143 brushings with available definitive diagnosis 36 (25%) had malignant cytologic diagnosis and 91(63.6%) were classified as benign, 3 were atypical/reactive and 13 suspicious for malignancy with 20 »false-negative« cases. When specimens with atypical and suspicious cytology were excluded from data analysis sensitivity was 64% and specificity was 100% and when suspicious findings were taken into account as true positives sensitivity rose to 71%. We find that biliary brush cytology, although mainly depending on the skill of endoscopist, as well as the experience of the cytologist, is a valuable method for obtaining accurate tissue diagnosis of biliary strictures, thus solving eternal diagnostic dilemma: benign or malignant

Evaluation of the Sustainable Employment in a Green US Economy (SEGUE)

The Rockefeller Foundation's Sustainable Employment in a Green US Economy(SEGUE) initiative has been a central player in green job discussions since 2009, andeven earlier through the Foundation's Campaign for American Workers. In its earliestdevelopmental stages, the initiative sought "to maximize the 'green' growth areas ofthe economy while benefiting low- and moderate-income workers" (RockefellerFoundation, 2009b). SEGUE focused on creating jobs by supporting green economicactivities. Initially, the focus was the building energy-retrofit market in the constructionindustry and, later, on water infrastructure and waste management. The demandfor workers became recognized as the bottleneck that needed to be released, in orderto realize the benefits of the green economy.To document and expand upon the learning and exploration that SEGUE has started,the Rockefeller Foundation provided a grant to the research firm, Abt Associates,Inc., in April 2012, to conduct a short-term, developmental evaluation of SEGUE. Theevaluation focused on three areas: learning for the purposes of determining SEGUE'sfuture direction, documenting SEGUE's grant and non-grant outputs for accountabilityneeds, and providing public knowledge on green jobs and evaluations in general.This report provides the results from the evaluation