Adapting to Post-Oil Futures: Community Action, the Urban Sustainability Retrofit, and the Writings of James Howard Kunstler

James Howard Kunstler has written prolifically about the problems of sustainability and livability in the modern American city. This Essay discusses Kunstler\u27s view of adaptation and compares it to the various efforts underway in cities across the United States to address problems of climate change and resource depletion, which I generally term the urban sustainability retrofit. Kunstler describes an adaptive path that is brutal, driven by resource scarcity, social collapse, and environmental disaster. Although Kunstler presents an extreme view, this Essay argues that his books are important because they demand that readers reflect about the conditions under which sustainable and livable cities can be created, and the capacities of our polity, institutions, and society to face monumental problems such as climate change. This Essay draws on Kunstler\u27s writings to construct a framework for assessing the effectiveness and possible consequences of the sustainability retrofit

Common Good HRM: A paradigm shift in Sustainable HRM?

As organizations increasingly claim to have become more sustainable and to have contributed to global sustainable development, demands for Human Resource Management (HRM) to become sustainable intensify. In the past decade, the concept of Sustainable HRM received increasing attention in both practice and research. However, academics' views about what Sustainable HRM means are diverse, and the effectiveness of Sustainable HRM practices is uncertain. We reviewed key articles in the literature on Sustainable HRM and as a result highlight how the purpose of HRM has been transformed in the search for sustainability. We present four Sustainable HRM types and describe how HRM can effectively contribute to solving todays “grand” sustainability challenges by applying ideas from a common good economy perspective. We propose that a new type of Sustainable HRM – Common Good HRM – could be essential in driving progress toward addressing sustainable development goals (SDGs) in Sustainable HRM

Numerical and Experimental Study of Hydraulic Fracture Active Source Monitoring

Hydraulic fracturing is one of the most common operations performed on oil and gas wells. As thehydraulic fracture propagation is so complex, monitoring techniques are used to determine the real-timegeometry of the induced fracture. In this work focus is made on numerical and experimental study ofactive monitoring of hydraulic fracture. Discrete element method is used for numerical simulation ofseismic wave transmission in a block of rock being hydraulically fractured. In this method the rock ismodeled by an assembly of round particles. On the other hand the results of an ultrasonic laboratoryexperiment in which a block of cement is fractured, are reported. Numerical and experimental deliversimilar results which are in agreement with those published in literature. The results show interesting information which can be applied for active monitoring of field hydraulic fractures

Analysis of absolute lymphocyte count in patients with COVID-19

INTRODUCTION: Symptoms of COVID-19 vary in severity and presentation. When admitting patients to the hospital, it is desirable to isolate patients with COVID-19 from those without the disease. However, reliably identifying patients with COVID-19 in the emergency department before hospital admission is often limited by the speed and availability of testing. Previous studies determined a low lymphocyte count is commonly found in patients with COVID-19. We sought to explore the sensitivity of absolute lymphocyte count in patients presenting to the emergency department requiring subsequent hospitalization who were found to have COVID-19. METHODS: A retrospective chart review was performed on 312 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 who were admitted to the hospital from the emergency department. The absolute lymphocyte count for these patients was used to calculate sensitivities at various cut-off values. The relationships between absolute lymphocyte count and variables, including age, sex, need for intubation, and mortality, were also explored. RESULTS: Cut-off values for absolute lymphocyte count ranged from 1.1 K/uL to 2.0 K/uL, with sensitivities of 72% and 94%, respectively. Additionally, lower mean absolute lymphocyte counts were identified in males, patients who required intubation, and patients who died. CONCLUSION: Knowing the sensitivity of absolute lymphocyte count in patients with COVID-19 may help identify patients who are unlikely to have the disease. Additionally, absolute lymphocyte count can be used as a marker of disease severity in patients with COVID-19

An enolase inhibitor for the targeted treatment of ENO1-deleted cancers

https://openworks.mdanderson.org/sumexp21/1197/thumbnail.jp

A qualitative study of the roles, functions, and leadership strategies of central office administrators in district improvement initiatives

Central office administrators are charged with the implementation of various education initiatives each year with the desired end result being an improvement in student performance. The purpose of this study is to discover how central office administrators exhibit leadership, carry out their roles, and perform their functions in district-wide improvement initiatives. Readers will gain a better understanding of how central office administrators work and lead from their positions in the school district. The participants shared their feelings and gave feedback on their direct experiences as central office administrators who are charged with the responsibility of implementing district-wide improvement initiatives. In order to collect and analyze rich data about central office employees, a qualitative study was conducted where there were no preconceived theories. Data were collected through the tape recorded interviews of 12 central office administrators from four different school districts and the collection of relevant documents that pertain to the roles and functions of their jobs. The participants were categorized according to the similarities in their job titles and the findings from the interview data were presented for comparison. The document reviews were used to compare against the information gained from the participants. The three main takeaways from this study were that central office administrators have placed a high value on collaboration, communication, and strategic leadership in order to effectively implement district-wide improvement initiatives. Practitioners can reflect on the newly-gained information from the emerging themes from these interviews and document reviews to propose new studies for research

Seasonal Stability of a Flexible Algal-Cnidarian Symbiosis in a Highly Variable Temperate Environment

We evaluated the seasonal stability of two algal symbiont populations in the temperate intertidal sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima on San Juan Island, Washington, where the relatively thermally tolerant dinoflagellate Symbiodinium muscatinei coexists with the less thermally tolerant chlorophyte Elliptochloris marina. Random collection of anemones along repeatedly sampled transects over four seasons and three shore heights revealed S. muscatinei to be the dominant symbiont, with E. marina mostly limited to anemones in the lower intertidal zone. At the lowest shore height sampled (+0.2 m), the proportion of E. marina was between 40% and 50% of the total symbiont population throughout the year. Symbiont distribution patterns persisted despite considerable seasonal variation in aerial exposure, temperature, irradiance, nutrients, and phytoplankton concentration, as well as a high potential for symbiont shuffling, with mixed-symbiont assemblages occurring in 51% of all anemones sampled. Symbiont density in anemones also changed little despite three- to fourfold-higher division frequencies of both symbionts during July and November. Although the intertidal zonation of these symbionts was stable over an annual period, we predict that their spatial distributions will be responsive to longer-term environmental change, and anticipate that this anemone symbiosis will be a useful and highly tractable barometer for future climate change, with this study serving as a baseline