The Labor Supply of Nurses and Nursing Assistants in the United States

Health care administrators and public policy makers are currently much concerned with the labor supply of nurses and nursing assistants. Hospitals and nursing homes, complaining of labor shortages, request public assistance to enable them to pay higher wages. Before committing public funds, policy makers want up-to-date estimates of the wage elasticities of labor supply for nurses and nursing assistants. Constructing a framework within which these elasticities can be estimated requires consideration of the nature and possible origins of the reported shortages. Based on annual time-series data for the US, 1988-2002, the study has derived posterior distributions for short- and long-run own wage elasticities of labor supply by Registered Nurses (RN) and nursing aides, orderlies, and attendants (NAOA). This analysis suggests that increased public assistance to health care providers, designed to raise wages, probably would not reduce reported shortages arising from monopsony power but would nonetheless appreciably increase employment of RNs and NAOAs.

Correlation of Hook-and-Line Vulnerability of Largemouth Bass (Micropterus salmoides) with Selected Physicochemical Parameters at Ridge Lake

Fluctuation in kilograms of largemouth bass caught per man-hour of fishing pressure (catch rate) in Ridge Lake (a 6.8ha impoundment located in Fox Ridge State Park, Coles County, Illinois) was positively correlated with dissolved oxygen concentration (r=0.7490), conductivity (r=0.7439), pH (r=0.5965), and alkalinity (r=0.7531). Negative correlations were found between largemouth bass catch rate and turbidity (r=-0.5145), as well as ammonia (r=-0.4694). No significant (p\u3c0.05) correlations were found between catch rate and column water temperature, air temperature, barometric pressure, water level, maximum water temperature, minimum water temperature, maximum air temperature, or minimum air temperature. Models describing the relationships of the most significant physicochemical parameters to catch rate of largemouth bass were chosen to represent the effects of environment on catch rate. These models were generated utilizing two variations on stepwise multiple regression available through the Statistical Analysis System (R-square and Maximum R-square Improvement). Selection of the best models from the many produced involved the following criteria: any model containing component independent variables with p\u3e0.05 was deleted, any model not agreeing with both the R-square procedure and the Maximum R-square Improvement procedure was deleted, and any model not accounting for a minimum of 50% of catch rate fluctuation was deleted. The best two independent variable model generated was as follows: Kg/man-hour = -0.4377Amm + 0.0020Alk - 0.0301 (Amm = total ionized ammonia, ppm; Alk = total carbonate alkalinity, ppm) with r2=0.7028. Examination of Pearson product moment correlation results, R-square procedure results, and Maximum R-square Improvement results revealed that the single most significant factor responsible for catch rate fluctuation was alkalinity; in addition, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, conductivity, column water temperature, ammonia, and maximum air temperature were significant

Homiletics as mnemonic practice: Collective memory and contemporary Christian preaching, with special reference to the work of Maurice Halbwachs

In his book Twilight Memories Andreas Huyssen (1995) famously described contemporary Western culture as 'a culture of amnesia'. That concern about social memory is evident in many areas of contemporary discourse. Social memory's confabulatory, subjective, and ambiguous nature makes its analysis an arena of conflicting and diverse opinions. Drawing on Maurice Halbwachs' concept of 'collective memory', and its use in more recent sociological studies, this study uses preaching theory and practice as a way of addressing those wider memory concerns in the life of the church. In particular, the profound challenge of memory work to Christianity's insistence on remembrance as the foundation of its authenticity is examined through contemporary homiletic practice. It is argued that, alongside the familiar didactic, cognitive, epistemological and contextual categories employed in preaching practice, the current crisis of memory requires a new emphasis on memory maintenance. Sermons are presented as mnemonic events essential to the ongoing living tradition of the faith

Persistent topographic development along a strike-slip fault system: The Mount McKinley restraining bend

The Denali Fault is a major strike-slip fault extending from British Colombia, into western Alaska. Mount McKinley, at 6,114 m, is the highest peak in North America and is located to the south of a bend in the Denali Fault (Fig.1). To the north, at the apex of the bend in the fault, Peters Dome (3,221 m) is the highest peak and north-side peak elevations rapidly decrease moving away from the bend’s apex

Preindustrial and Postwar Economic Development: Is There a Link?

Everybody knows now that the “hardware” dimension of development—the physical infrastructure, for example—is a lot easier to put in place than the “software” to keep it operable, which depends on local skills and institutions. (United Nations Development Programme

Technical Tension Between Achieving Particulate and Molecular Organic Environmental Cleanliness: Data from Astromaterial Curation Laboratories

NASA Johnson Space Center operates clean curation facilities for Apollo lunar, Antarctic meteorite, stratospheric cosmic dust, Stardust comet and Genesis solar wind samples. Each of these collections is curated separately due unique requirements. The purpose of this abstract is to highlight the technical tensions between providing particulate cleanliness and molecular cleanliness, illustrated using data from curation laboratories. Strict control of three components are required for curating samples cleanly: a clean environment; clean containers and tools that touch samples; and use of non-shedding materials of cleanable chemistry and smooth surface finish. This abstract focuses on environmental cleanliness and the technical tension between achieving particulate and molecular cleanliness. An environment in which a sample is manipulated or stored can be a room, an enclosed glovebox (or robotic isolation chamber) or an individual sample container

Higher Magnification Imaging of the Polished Aluminum Collector Returned from the Genesis Mission

The polished aluminum collector (previously referred to as the polished aluminum kidney) was intended for noble gas analysis for the Gene-sis mission. The aluminum collector, fabricated from alloy 6061T, was polished for flight with alumina, then diamond paste. Final cleaning was performed by soak-ing and rinsing with hexane, then isopropanol, and last-ly megasonically energized ultrapure water prior to installation. It was mounted inside the collector canister on the thermal shield at JSC in 2000. The polished aluminum collector was not surveyed microscopically prior to flight

Twelve weeks of BodyBalance® training improved balance and functional task performance in middle-aged and older adults

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of BodyBalance® training on balance, functional task performance, fear of falling, and health-related quality of life in adults aged over 55 years. Participants and methods: A total of 28 healthy, active adults aged 66±5 years completed the randomized controlled trial. Balance, functional task performance, fear of falling, and self-reported quality of life were assessed at baseline and after 12 weeks. Participants either undertook two sessions of BodyBalance per week for 12 weeks (n=15) or continued with their normal activities (n=13). Results: Significant group-by-time interactions were found for the timed up and go (P=0.038), 30-second chair stand (P=0.037), and mediolateral center-of-pressure range in narrow stance with eyes closed (P=0.017). There were no significant effects on fear of falling or self-reported quality of life. Conclusion: Twelve weeks of BodyBalance training is effective at improving certain balance and functional based tasks in healthy older adults

Using Image Pro Plus Software to Develop Particle Mapping on Genesis Solar Wind Collector Surfaces

The continued success of the Genesis mission science team in analyzing solar wind collector array samples is partially based on close collaboration of the JSC curation team with science team members who develop cleaning techniques and those who assess elemental cleanliness at the levels of detection. The goal of this collaboration is to develop a reservoir of solar wind collectors of known cleanliness to be available to investigators. The heart and driving force behind this effort is Genesis mission PI Don Burnett. While JSC contributes characterization, safe clean storage, and benign collector cleaning with ultrapure water (UPW) and UV ozone, Burnett has coordinated more exotic and rigorous cleaning which is contributed by science team members. He also coordinates cleanliness assessment requiring expertise and instruments not available in curation, such as XPS, TRXRF [1,2] and synchrotron TRXRF. JSC participates by optically documenting the particle distributions as cleaning steps progress. Thus, optical document supplements SEM imaging and analysis, and elemental assessment by TRXRF

Examples of Optical Assessment of Surface Cleanliness of Genesis Samples

Optical microscope assessment of Genesis solar wind collector surfaces is a coordinated part of the effort to obtain an assessed clean subset of flown wafer material for the scientific community. Microscopic survey is typically done at 50X magnification at selected approximately 1 square millimeter areas on the fragment surface. This survey is performed each time a principle investigator (PI) returns a sample to JSC for documentation as part of the established cleaning plan. The cleaning plan encompasses sample handling and analysis by Genesis science team members, and optical survey is done at each step in the process. Sample surface cleaning is performed at JSC (ultrapure water [1] and UV ozone cleaning [2]) and experimentally by other science team members (acid etch [3], acetate replica peels [4], CO2 snow [5], etc.). The documentation of each cleaning method can potentially be assessed with optical observation utilizing Image Pro Plus software [6]. Differences in particle counts can be studied and discussed within analysis groups. Approximately 25 samples have been identified as part of the cleaning matrix effort to date