By What Measure? A Comparison of French and U.S. Labor Market Performance with New Indicators of Employment Adequacy

The unemployment rate is conventionally relied upon to measure national employment performance, and has been the main indicator justifying comprehensive labor market reforms, generally in the direction of deregulation and benefit reduction. The starting point of this working paper is that a well-functioning labor market should produce not just enough jobs, but enough “decent” jobs. We compare U.S. and French performance according to three indicators, calculated from each country’s main household survey for 1993-2005 by age, gender and education group. With low wages defined as less than 2/3 of the full-time median and inadequate hours defined as working involuntarily part-time, we calculate: 1) the low-wage share of employment; 2) the underemployed share of the labor force; and 3) the adequately employed share of the working age population. France performs well above the U.S. on all three indicators, particularly for less-educated workers, and the French advantage has grown substantially since the late 1990s. In 2005 the underemployed share of the male labor force with less than a high school degree was 64% in the U.S. and just 23% in France; for the female labor force, these figures were 84% in the U.S. and 41% in France. The adequately employed share of the prime-age (25-54) population with just a high school degree was 64% for U.S. men and 80% for French men; among women, these rates were 39% for the U.S. and 63% for France. These results indicate that accounting for adequate pay and hours of work has large effects on the measurement of labor market performance. The authors conclude by recommending that indicators such as these, and not just the unemployment rate, should have a central place in discussions of national labor market reform.This paper was revised in November 2008.labor supply, labor demand, wages, unemployment,

The influence of politics on German cultural life during the third Reich, with particular reference to opera

One of Hitler's intentions on acceding to power was to formulate a new cultural policy which would be fit to represent his new Reich. He never succeeded in this aim, and this thesis sets out to examine the reasons for his failure. Firstly, it places the efforts of the Nazis in the cultural sphere in the context of the cultural climate of Germany as a whole, and also in relation to the developments and trends which had taken place during the Twenties. Secondly, the genre of opera is considered in relation to the social and political climate of the time. When the Nazis came to power, many artists - a lot of them Jewish - either left Germany of their own accord or were driven out. This was the first step in the Nazis' purging of the arts. They then fiercely supported the operas they felt were representative of their new regime, whilst at the same time organising exhibitions to denigrate all foreign, Jewish and avant garde art. The Nazis encouraged composers to write operas with specific themes and on certain styles, and these are examined, as, too, is the role of Wagner, his influence, and position in Nazi ideology. This study concentrates on the situations in the various opera houses during the Thirties, and specifically on those composers who decided to remain, and in most cases continue their careers, in Germany during the Thirties, noting why some were successful, and the reasons why others came into conflict with the regime

A Comparison of Usual to Best Practices in Cardiac Rehabilitation Education

Cardiac medical conditions are the leading cause of death worldwide. Cardiac rehabilitation following hospitalizations for cardiac events is used as a means to improve client functional status and well-being. Knowledge of the best cardiac rehabilitation methods is needed to support implementation of best practices. A program evaluation was conducted to assess the program and the barriers and facilitators for cardiac rehabilitation education in a rehabilitation center in eastern North Carolina. Some of the barriers to education included health literacy, race, language, and ability to use technology. Five key informants responded to a questionnaire, and a policy review was conducted. Data collection from key informants revealed that the nurses at the center felt well-trained to perform education and were able to understand the needs of their clients. They also believed they were well-equipped to overcome the barriers to education. However, the nurses also believed their client population would not benefit from new technological approaches to education suggested in the literature due to perceived barriers of client age and potential inability to use technology. The policy review showed that the policy and procedure handbook did not include anything about technology use. Both policies and staff reports, however, revealed ways to deal with health disparities in education. Recommendations included integrating simple take-home technology for patients in cardiac rehabilitation in addition to the regular program. Adding such approaches as a phone calls, text messages, online diaries, or website referrals whenever possible may aid clients in carrying out the therapy regimen at home

Alternative Semantics Across Languages: Case Studies on Disjunctive Questions and Free Choice Items in Samoan and Yoruba

Alternative semantics and the associated compositional machinery has become an important part of the formal semanticist's toolbox. Beyond its origins as a tool to model the semantics of questions (Hamblin 1973) and focus (Rooth 1985), alternative semantics is now used in a myriad of ways to model phenomena at the semantics/pragmatics interface including Negative Polarity Items (Lahiri 1998, Krifka 1992, Chierchia 2013), Free Choice (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, Aloni 2007, Men endez-Benito 2010), Quantifi er particles crosslinguistically (Kratzer and Shimoyama 2002, Szabolcsi 2015), Disjunction (Alonso-Ovalle 2006, M. Simons 2016) and by proponents of the 'grammatical view' of scalar implicatures in conjunction with the alternative sensitive exhausitivty operator (Chierchia, Fox, and Spector 2012, Fox 2007). Since the early days of alternative semantics, there has also been considerable discussion among formal semanticists about formal aspects of the compositional system for modelling alternative semantics for focus and just how much expressive power this system needs to adequately model association with focus and associated discourse phenomena (Rooth 1985, Rooth 1992, Rooth 1996, Kratzer 1991, Wold 1996, Krifka 2001, Krifka 2006, Beck 2006, Romero and Novel 2013). This question has not been addressed to the same extent for other phenomena where alternatives have been argued to play a role in the compositional semantics. While the tools from alternative semantics have proved extremely useful in modelling the behaviour of these other grammatical phenomena, it remains an open question to what extent they rely on the same grammatical system. This is the question at the heart of this thesis: Where do the alternatives introduced by free choice items and disjunction fi t into the compositional system of alternative introduction and manipulation underlying focus and questions? How do they interact? This thesis contributes two case studies that address this issue from a crosslinguistic perspective. The first case study looks at alternatives introduced by disjunction in Yoruba disjunctive questions. In Yoruba, a Niger-Congo language, polar and alternative disjunctive questions are disambiguated via a syntactic and morphological focus fronting strategy that expresses exhaustive focus elsewhere in the language. I argue that the interpretation of alternative questions in Yoruba arises via the introduction of alternatives by disjunction which are operated on, first by an alternative sensitive maximality operator responsible for the exhaustivity inference observed with Yoruba ex-situ focus, and subsequently by an alternative sensitive Q-operator. The way in which these different alternative evaluating operators must both associate with a single alternative-introducing element is evidence that all of these elements (focus, questions, exhaustive inferences) employ the same kind of alternatives and, furthermore, that the grammatical system responsible for generating and manipulating alternatives must have the power to selectively evaluate alternatives. The second case study looks at a Free Choice Item in Samoan, a Polynesian language. In Samoan, the determiner so'o se is morphologically composed of a non-specifi c determiner se, and a particle 'o, which has been argued in previous work to mark the introduction of alternatives. The use of so'o se gives rise to a universal free choice interpretation and shares a similar restricted distribution with other universal free choice items crosslinguistically. I argue that the free choice interpretation and restricted distribution of so'o se in Samoan comes about through a semantic composition employing alternatives and their interaction with two covert alternative evaluating operators: an exhaustivity-contributing operator as well as a universal quantifier over alternatives, like in the proposal by Men endez-Benito 2010 for the Spanish FCI cualquier. As with the disjunctive questions in the previous chapter, the account requires adopting a view of alternatives under which they are able to pass on alternatives, and able to selectively bind distinguished variables. On the other hand, puzzling data from a lack of intervention e ffects with so'o se complicates the picture, suggesting that covert movement of the alternative-introducing FCI occurs, at least in some cases. Overall, this thesis argues for a view of alternative evaluating operators as a single compositional mechanism available in natural language grammar that is at work across various phenomena including focus, questions, disjunction and the derivation of free choice interpretations. Furthermore, it highlights an interesting crosslinguistic regularity concerning the areas in which alternatives come to be used

Type I Diabetes and Exercise

https://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/exercise-science-research-proposal-posters/1044/thumbnail.jp

The impact of modelling method selection on predicted extent and distribution of deep-sea benthic assemblages

Predictive modelling of deep-sea species and assemblages with multibeam acoustic datasets as input variables is now a key tool in the provision of maps upon which spatial planning and management of the marine environment can be based. However, with a multitude of methods available, advice is needed on the best methods for the task at hand. In this study, we predictively modelled the distribution and extent of three vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs) at the assemblage level (‘Lophelia pertusa reef frameworks’; ‘Stylasterids and lobose sponges’; and ‘Xenophyophore fields’) on the eastern flank of Rockall Bank, using three modelling methods: MaxEnt; RandomForests classification with multiple assemblages (gRF); and RandomForests classification with the presence/absence of a single VME (saRF). Performance metrics indicated that MaxEnt performed the best, but all models were considered valid. All three methods broadly agreed with regard to broad patterns in distribution. However, predicted extent presented a variation of up to 35 % between the different methods, and clear differences in predicted distribution were observed. We conclude that the choice of method is likely to influence the results of predicted maps, potentially impacting political decisions about deep-sea VME conservation

Development of the cat-owner relationship scale (CORS)

Characteristics of the human-animal bond can be influenced by both owner-related and pet-related factors, which likely differ between species. Three studies adapted the Monash Dog-Owner Relationship Scale (MDORS) to permit assessment of human-cat interactions as perceived by the cat's owner. In Study 1293 female cat owners completed a modified version of the MDORS, where 'dog' was replaced with 'cat' for all items. Responses were compared with a matched sample of female dog owners. A partial least squares discriminant analysis revealed systematic differences between cat and dog owners in the Dog (Cat)-Owner Interaction subscale (MDORS subscale 1), but not for Perceived Emotional Closeness or Perceived Costs (Subscales 2 and 3). Study 2 involved analysis of free-text descriptions of cat-owner interactions provided by 61 female cat owners. Text mining identified key words which were used to create additional questions for a new Cat-Owner Interaction subscale. In Study 3, the resulting cat-owner relationship scale (CORS) was tested in a group of 570 cat owners. The main psychometric properties of the scale, including internal consistency and factor structure, were evaluated. We propose that this scale can be used to accurately assess owner perceptions of their relationship with their cat. A modified scale, combining items from the CORS and MDORS (a C/DORS), is also provided for when researchers would find it desirable to compare human-cat and human-dog interactions. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Depiction of Lying Down and Standing up Sequences in Multiparous Sows

The objective of this study was tocreatea pictorial lying down-standing up sequence depiction in multiparous sows.Eighty-five multiparous sows were moved from their home stallto a testingstall where they were video recorded for one lying down–standing up event on 30, 60 and 90 days of gestation. The digital video camera was positioned on the adjacent stall so the sows’ profile was visible while recording. Observations ceased when the sow successfully lied down or if 2.5 hours elapsed since recording began. Normal standing and lying pictorial depictions were created, and deviations fromthenormal lying down and standing up sequences were also pictorially depicted. This is the first published pictorial depictions on mulitparous sows on the standing-lying-standing sequence

Reconstructing baselines: use of habitat suitability modelling to predict pre-fishing condition of a Vulnerable Marine Ecosystem

As industrialized fishing activities have moved into deeper water, the recognition of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) has become important for the protection of the deep-sea. Our limited knowledge on the past and present distribution of VMEs hinders our ability to manage bottom fisheries effectively. This study investigated whether accounting for bottom fishing intensity (derived from Vessel Monitoring System records) as a predictor in habitat suitability models can (1) improve predictions of, and (2) provide estimates for a pre-fishing baseline for the distribution and biomass of a VME indicator taxon. Random Forest models were applied to presence/absence and biomass of Geodia sponges and environmental variables with and without bottom fishing intensity. The models including fishing were further used to predict distribution and biomass of Geodia to a pre-fishing scenario. Inclusion of fishing pressure as a predictive term significantly improved model performance for both sponge presence and biomass. This study has demonstrated a way to produce a more accurate picture of the current distribution of VMEs in the study area. The pre-fishing scenario predictions also identified areas of suitable Geodia habitat that are currently impacted by fishing, suggesting that sponge habitat and biomass have been impacted by bottom trawling activities.1054-3139Versión del editor2,27

Could a Protist help us understand cancer?

Cancer is a deadly disease which affects millions of people globally. Cancer ultimately arises from dysregulation of growth pathways, leading to loss of cell cycle control and tumor formation. Cancer cells maintain constant cell division, evade immune detection, ignore signals for apoptosis, and may acquire the ability to degrade the extracellular matrix and metastasize. Tetrahymena thermophila are free-living (non-parasitic) ciliated unicellular eukaryotes belonging to Kingdom Protista. They are often used as a model system because they are relatively inexpensive and easy to culture and maintain. In addition, it is relatively simple to grow and harvest large numbers of cells for biochemical applications such as protein, DNA, or RNA purification. Because of their adaptability as a model system, we asked whether whether Tetrahymena possessed two common pathways often dysregulated in cancer; the Wnt signaling pathway and the Ras signaling pathway. In order to test our hypothesis, we used the Tetrahymena genome database to search for homologs of Wnt, Ras, and Raf. In addition, we used a Wnt agonist and an antagonist of Ras/Raf inhibition to determine whether the mitotic rate would be affected. While the Wnt agonist had no significant affect on mitosis, the Ras/Raf inhibitor significantly decreased mitotic rate in this organism. We also found homologs of Ras and Raf in the Tetrahymena genome database. Further studies are needed in order to obtain an accurate dose-response curve with the Ras/Raf inhibitor, BAY-293