The Changing of the Guard: The New American Labor Leader

This article analyzes recent changes in the leadership of international unions. There has been a trend toward leaders who are lifetime bureaucrats rather than rank-and-file members with charisma. This change toward more technocratic leadership is due to the different environment and new challenges that labor currently faces. The United Mine Workers is a good example of a union that has had many changes in the type of person who has become president, from the labor giant John L. Lewis to the 33-year-old lawyer Richard Trumka. The United Auto Workers is an example of a union whose leadership has been consistently drawn from the union hierarchy. The AFL-CIO has made a change in leadership from George Meany to the labor bureaucrat Lane Kirkland. There will probably be an increase in the number of women and minorities in top leadership positions in unions, but this will be a gradual increase.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66627/2/10.1177_000271628447300107.pd

Chlorhexidine versus povidone–iodine skin antisepsis before upper limb surgery (CIPHUR) : an international multicentre prospective cohort study

Introduction Surgical site infection (SSI) is the most common and costly complication of surgery. International guidelines recommend topical alcoholic chlorhexidine (CHX) before surgery. However, upper limb surgeons continue to use other antiseptics, citing a lack of applicable evidence, and concerns related to open wounds and tourniquets. This study aimed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of different topical antiseptics before upper limb surgery. Methods This international multicentre prospective cohort study recruited consecutive adults and children who underwent surgery distal to the shoulder joint. The intervention was use of CHX or povidone–iodine (PVI) antiseptics in either aqueous or alcoholic form. The primary outcome was SSI within 90 days. Mixed-effects time-to-event models were used to estimate the risk (hazard ratio (HR)) of SSI for patients undergoing elective and emergency upper limb surgery. Results A total of 2454 patients were included. The overall risk of SSI was 3.5 per cent. For elective upper limb surgery (1018 patients), alcoholic CHX appeared to be the most effective antiseptic, reducing the risk of SSI by 70 per cent (adjusted HR 0.30, 95 per cent c.i. 0.11 to 0.84), when compared with aqueous PVI. Concerning emergency upper limb surgery (1436 patients), aqueous PVI appeared to be the least effective antiseptic for preventing SSI; however, there was uncertainty in the estimates. No adverse events were reported. Conclusion The findings align with the global evidence base and international guidance, suggesting that alcoholic CHX should be used for skin antisepsis before clean (elective upper limb) surgery. For emergency (contaminated or dirty) upper limb surgery, the findings of this study were unclear and contradict the available evidence, concluding that further research is necessary

Aroma profile and bitter acid characterization of hop cones (Humulus lupulus L.) of five healthy and infected Polish cultivars

The characteristic hoppy aroma is directly correlated with the chemical composition of its volatile profile and essential oil. The aim of this work was to analyse the essential oils and volatile fractions of five popular Polish hop cultivars (Sybilla, Lubelski, Pulawski, Magnat and Marynka), healthy and infected by viruses and viroids by SPME and GC–MS. Hop fraction of hard resins and alpha- and beta acids were determined according to the official analytical method (modified Wöllmer method EBC 7.7 and HPLC method EBC 7.5, respectively). Hop Mosaic Virus (HpMV), Apple Mosaic Virus (ApMV), Hop Latent Viroid (HLVd) are commonly found in plants of all hop cultivars commercially produced in Poland. Monoterpenes hydrocarbons showed higher percentages in the aroma profile of infected cones (82.5%–94.3%) than in the healthy ones (81.1%–91.4%) and increased from the healthy to the infected plants, except for ‘Sybilla’ that had an opposite trend (from 90.1% in healthy to 77.9% in infected hop). Hydrogenated sesquiterpenes were the second main class of aroma constituents with major amount in healthy cones with the exception for ‘Sybilla’. Myrcene was always the most abundant chemical constituent in all the infected cultivars, except for ‘Sybilla’ (from 86.3% in infected to 74.6% in healthy plants), followed by α-humulene in four of the five cultivars except for ‘Marynka’ where (E)-β-farnesene showed higher amount. The EO yields related to the five healthy cultivars showed variations between 0.2% in ‘Lubelski’ up to 1.1% in ‘Marynka’ very similar to those observed in the five infected cultivars. Monoterpenes predominated over sesquiterpenes in healthy and infected ‘Sybilla’ and ‘Marynka’ EOs, while in healthy and infected ‘Lubelski’ and ‘Magnat’ prevailed an opposite trend. ‘Magnat’ is the only one cultivar that showed different amount of the two main classes of constituents between the healthy and infected plants (sesquiterpenes 64.6% in healthy cones and 50.5% of monoterpenes in the infected ones). Myrcene was the main constituent in all the infected EO samples (29.9%–67%), while α-humulene predominated only in three healthy cultivars (‘Lubelski’ ‘Pulawski’ and ‘Magnat’ with 34.2, 36.8, 31.0%, respectively). The content of bitter substances (α and β-acids as well as hard and soft resins) varied in healthy and infected hop plants and this behaviour was strongly dependent on the selected cultivars but differences between healthy and infected plants were not statistically significant. In conclusion virus/viroid infection seems not to interfere in a substantial way with the normal hop secondary metabolite biosynthesis, but only in the biomass yields