Letters from the Executive Director Jonathan Brock

Task Force on Excellence in State and Local Government Through Labor-Management Cooperation (1994-1996)CombinedExcellenceaskLetter.pdf: 285 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

Eavesdropping by Bats: The Influence of Echolocation Call Design and Foraging Strategy

We used playback presentations to free-flying bats of 3 species to assess the influence of echolocation call design and foraging strategy on the role of echolocation calls in communication. Near feeding sites over water, Myotis lucifugus and M. yumanensis responded positively only to echolocation calls of conspecifics. Near roosts, these bats did not respond before young of the year became volant, and after this responded to presentations of echolocation calls of similar and dissimilar design. At feeding sites Lasiurus borealis responded only to echolocation calls of conspecifics and particularly to feeding buzzes . While Myotis, particularly subadults, appear to use the echolocation calls of conspecifics to locate feeding sites, L. borealis appears to use the calls of a foraging neighbor attacking prey to identify opportunities for \u27stealing\u27 food

Public Sector Collective Bargaining and the Imperative for Service Delivery: An Overview

[Excerpt] When public sector officials and union leaders are willing to enter into cooperative arrangements, the evidence in this volume and elsewhere suggests they usually find that cooperation results in improvements in both the delivery of public services and the quality of work life. Certainly there have been instances when cooperation has failed to produce desirable results, but this volume includes ample testimony to its potential beneficial effects and depicts successful experiences with cooperation at the federal government level, in a number of state governments, in Indianapolis, and elsewhere. Also, we know that in places such as Los Angeles; Phoenix; Portland, Maine; Toledo, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; and numerous other locales the cooperative approach has achieved positive results (U.S. DOL 1996). Yet cooperation in the public sector remains the exception rather than the rule

Structural basis for mechanotransduction in a potassium-dependent mechanosensitive ion channel

Mechanosensitive channels of small conductance, found in many living organisms, open under elevated membrane tension and thus play crucial roles in biological response to mechanical stress. Amongst these channels, MscK is unique in that its activation also requires external potassium ions. To better understand this dual gating mechanism by force and ligand, we elucidate distinct structures of MscK along the gating cycle using cryo-electron microscopy. The heptameric channel comprises three layers: a cytoplasmic domain, a periplasmic gating ring, and a markedly curved transmembrane domain that flattens and expands upon channel opening, which is accompanied by dilation of the periplasmic ring. Furthermore, our results support a potentially unifying mechanotransduction mechanism in ion channels depicted as flattening and expansion of the transmembrane domain

Design and Demonstration of a New Small-Scale Jet Noise Experiment

A facility capable of acoustic and velocity field measurements of high-speed jets has recently been built and tested. The anechoic chamber that houses the jet has a 2.1 m × 2.3 m × 2.5 m wedge tip to wedge tip working volume. We aim to demonstrate that useful experiments can be performed in such a relatively small facility for a substantially lower cost than in larger facility. Rapid prototyping allows for quick manufacturing of both simple and complex geometry nozzles. Sideline and 30° downstream acoustic measurements between 400 Hz and 100 kHz agree well with accepted results. Likewise, nozzle exit-plane data obtained using particle image velocimetry are in good agreement with other studies

A Framework For The Domain-Driven Utilization Of Manufacturing Sensor Data In Process Mining: An Action Design Approach

Manufacturers install and rely on a large number of sensors to operate and control their processes. However, the collected sensor data is rarely used to analyse and improve the higher-level, aggregated business processes. Process mining (PM) appears to be a promising solution, with the ability to automatically generate and analyse business process models based on data. However, the atomic events of sensor measurements need to be refined, aggregated, and enriched to properly represent a business process. In this paper, we propose a novel framework to make manufacturing sensor data analysable with PM. The framework allows manufacturers with batch and continuous processes (BCP) to systematically enrich their sensor data to use it for optimization purposes. Following the action design research, we demonstrate the applicability of the framework in a use case study using sensor data from a BCP beverage production