Many New Hampshire Jobs Do Not Pay a Livable Wage

Two forces are likely to have the greatest impact on the projected availability of livable wage jobs in coming years. The first is the course of the current economic downturn. Table 11 shows the New England Economic Partnership (NEE P) forecast for New Hampshire's unemployment rate from 2008 to 2012. As the table shows, unemployment is projected to increase from 3.7 percent in 2007 to 4.2 percent in 2009, after which it is projected to gradually fall. The latest NEE P forecast predicted a relatively mild economic contraction, which provides some reason for optimism among New Hampshire workers. However, any optimism should be tempered by the fact that the latest forecast was issued before the dramatic stock market decline and at the beginning of the financial crisis.The second major factor impacting the availability of livable wage jobs is the changing composition of New Hampshire's economic base. Between 2000 and 2007, New Hampshire lost 25,400 manufacturing jobs, representing a 25 percent decline in the industry.10 Over the same period, jobs in education, healthcare, retail trade, and leisure and hospitality grew by about the same number of jobs. To the extent New Hampshire continues in this transition from a production-based to a service-based economy, the proportion of livable wage jobs is expected to decline

Rhythmic Clay: A View of Jun Kaneko\u27s Process

In this diverse age of artistic pluralism, retrospection and cynicism, Jun Kaneko\u27s ceramic sculptures prevail as confirmations of essential constancies. The certainties of man\u27s elemental graphic urge, the determinism of archetypal shapes, and the symbiosis of time and space are all revealed in Kaneko\u27s three dimensional abstractions. Kaneko employs abstraction, not to transcend contemporary complexities, but to reveal the inherent synchrony of the natural world. From a position of acceptance, rather than control, Kaneko is but one participant in a private conversation with his media. And though this internal conversation is not directed at Kaneko\u27s audience, we partake of his direct access to the absolute of form evolving in space. Kaneko\u27s bi-cultural experience and non-hierarchical sense of reality enable him to interpret the sculptural properties, rather than to predict them. His response to the organic pliability of the raw clay and transparent glazes permits the revelation of the underlying equilibrium of the world in flux. Thus Kaneko\u27s role is more collaborative than singular. His is a process based on intuitive observation of the interacting materials. It is his reception, rather than his manipulation of the innate sculptural qualities that determines the ultimate resolution of the work. Kaneko\u27s measured orchestration of the interplay of clay and form, surface and pattern, is toward the extraction of a visible harmony. The pattemed surfaces and emphatic shapes emerge from a gestalt of eastern and western aesthetics as precise distillations of Kaneko\u27s vision--a vision seen from within nature, ordered by mark-making and time

Rhythmic Clay: A View of Jun Kaneko\u27s Process

In this diverse age of artistic pluralism, retrospection and cynicism, Jun Kaneko\u27s ceramic sculptures prevail as confirmations of essential constancies. The certainties of man\u27s elemental graphic urge, the determinism of archetypal shapes, and the symbiosis of time and space are all revealed in Kaneko\u27s three dimensional abstractions. Kaneko employs abstraction, not to transcend contemporary complexities, but to reveal the inherent synchrony of the natural world. From a position of acceptance, rather than control, Kaneko is but one participant in a private conversation with his media. And though this internal conversation is not directed at Kaneko\u27s audience, we partake of his direct access to the absolute of form evolving in space. Kaneko\u27s bi-cultural experience and non-hierarchical sense of reality enable him to interpret the sculptural properties, rather than to predict them. His response to the organic pliability of the raw clay and transparent glazes permits the revelation of the underlying equilibrium of the world in flux. Thus Kaneko\u27s role is more collaborative than singular. His is a process based on intuitive observation of the interacting materials. It is his reception, rather than his manipulation of the innate sculptural qualities that determines the ultimate resolution of the work. Kaneko\u27s measured orchestration of the interplay of clay and form, surface and pattern, is toward the extraction of a visible harmony. The pattemed surfaces and emphatic shapes emerge from a gestalt of eastern and western aesthetics as precise distillations of Kaneko\u27s vision--a vision seen from within nature, ordered by mark-making and time

Three new species of shallow water, yellow zoanthids (Hexacorallia: Zoanthidea: Epizoanthidae) from southern California, USA, and southern Australia

In southern California and southern Australia, several species of hexacorals that are common at diving depths have been referred to as “Yellow Zoanthids.” We describe three new species of them in the genus Epizoanthus because all have a macrocnemic mesenterial arrangement and mesogleal marginal sphincter muscle. Epizoanthus giveni is from southern California, and Epizoanthus karenae and Epizoanthus rodmani are from southern Australia. Distinguishing features of E. giveni n. sp. are a sphincter muscle with alveoli arrayed in a single, longitudinal column, polyps no longer than 8 mm beyond the coenenchyme, obvious scapus ridges numbering 19 or fewer, and mesenteries numbering 36 or fewer. Distinguishing features of E. karenae n. sp. are radiating dark-orange lines on the oral disc (in life), a broad sphincter muscle filling most of the margin distally and transversely stratified proximally, polyps no longer than 12 mm beyond the coenenchyme, obvious scapus ridges numbering 20 or fewer, and mesenteries numbering no more than 40. Distinguishing features of E. rodmani n. sp. are the lack of lines on the oral disc (in life), a sphincter muscle situated in the middle of the mesoglea with alveoli more elliptical than circular in section, polyps no longer than 8 mm beyond the coenenchyme, scapus ridges not obvious, and mesenteries numbering 48 or fewer

Study design and protocol of a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial using a practical implementation strategy as a model for hypertension-HIV integration - The MAP-IT trial

BACKGROUND: As people living with HIV (PLWH) experience earlier and more pronounced onset of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), advancing integrated care networks and models in low-resource-high-need settings is critical. Leveraging current health system initiatives and addressing gaps in treatment for PLWH, we report our approach using a late-stage (T4) implementation research study to test the adoption and sustainability of a proven-effective implementation strategy which has been minimally applied in low-resource settings for the integration of hypertension control into HIV treatment. We detail our protocol for the Managing Hypertension Among People Living with HIV: an Integrated Model (MAP-IT) trial, which uses a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial (SW-CRT) design to evaluate the effectiveness of practice facilitation on the adoption of a hypertension treatment program for PLWH receiving care at primary healthcare centers (PHCs) in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. DESIGN: In partnership with the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and community organizations, the MAP-IT trial takes place in 30 PHCs. The i-PARiHS framework guided pre-implementation needs assessment. The RE-AIM framework will guide post-implementation activities to evaluate the effect of practice facilitation on the adoption, implementation fidelity, and sustainability of a hypertension program, as well as blood pressure (BP) control. Using a SW-CRT design, PHCs sequentially crossover from the hypertension program only (usual care) to hypertension plus practice facilitation (experimental condition). PHCs will recruit and enroll an average of 28-32 patients to reach a maximum of 960 PLWH participants with uncontrolled hypertension who will be followed longitudinally for BP outcomes. DISCUSSION: Given the need for integrated NCD-HIV care platforms in low-resource settings, MAP-IT will underscore the challenges and opportunities for integrating hypertension treatment into HIV care, particularly concerning adoption and sustainability. The evaluation of our integration approach will also highlight the potential impact of a health systems strengthening approach on BP control among PLWH. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov ( NCT05031819 ). Registered on 2nd September 2021

LAP3, a novel plant protein required for pollen development, is essential for proper exine formation

We isolated lap3-1 and lap3-2 mutants in ascreen for pollen that displays abnormal stigma binding.Unlike wild-type pollen, lap3-1 and lap3-2 pollen exine isthinner, weaker, and is missing some connections betweentheir roof-like tectum structures. We describe the mappingand identification of LAP3 as a novel gene that contains arepetitive motif found in b-propeller enzymes. Insertionmutations in LAP3 lead to male sterility. To investigatepossible roles for LAP3 in pollen development, we assayedthe metabolite profile of anther tissues containing developingpollen grains and found that the lap3-2 defect leadsto a broad range of metabolic changes. The largest changeswere seen in levels of a straight-chain hydrocarbon nonacosaneand in naringenin chalcone, an obligate compoundin the flavonoid biosynthesis pathway