Protecting the Older Worker

Unlike racial discrimination, age discrimination statutes do not prohibit all forms of discrimination but only those forms that are arbitrary. In this respect age is most analogous to sex as a basis of discrimination: in neither case has a conclusive statutory presumption been made that these factors are irrelevant in an employment situation; in both situations the employer must make his decision to hire or not to hire on the abilities of the individual and not on assumptions, proven or unproven, about the class as a whole. This note considers the extent of arbitrary age discrimination and what measures have been taken and should be taken to combat it

Solid state television camera system Patent

Solid state television camera system consisting of monolithic semiconductor mosaic sensor and molecular digital readout system

Implementing a perioperative efficiency initiative for orthopedic surgery instrumentation at an academic center: A comparative before-and-after study.

Optimizing surgical instrumentation may contribute to value-based care, particularly in commonly performed procedures. We report our experience in implementing a perioperative efficiency program in 2 types of orthopedic surgery (primary total-knee arthroplasty, TKA, and total-hip arthroplasty, THA).A comparative before-and-after study with 2 participating surgeons, each performing both THA and TKA, was conducted. Our objective was to evaluate the effect of surgical tray optimization on operating and processing time, cost, and waste associated with preparation, delivery, and staging of sterile surgical instruments. The study was designed as a prospective quality improvement initiative with pre- and postimplementation operational measures and a provider satisfaction survey.A total of 96 procedures (38 preimplementation and 58 postimplementation) were assessed using time-stamped performance endpoints. The number and weight of trays and instruments processed were reduced substantially after the optimization intervention, particularly for TKA. Setup time was reduced by 23% (6 minutes, P = .01) for TKA procedures but did not differ for THA. The number of survey respondents was small, but satisfaction was high overall among personnel involved in implementation.Optimizing instrumentation trays for orthopedic procedures yielded reduction in processing time and cost. Future research should evaluate patient outcomes and incremental/additive impact on institutional quality measures

The Political Economy of Myanmar's Transition

This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article whose final and definitive form, the Version of Record, has been published in the JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY ASIA, 07 Feb 2013, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00472336.2013.764143.Since holding elections in 2010, Myanmar has transitioned from a direct military dictatorship to a formally democratic system and has embarked on a period of rapid economic reform. After two decades of military rule, the pace of change has startled almost everyone and led to a great deal of cautious optimism. To make sense of the transition and assess the case for optimism, this article explores the political economy of Myanmar's dual transition from state socialism to capitalism and from dictatorship to democracy. It analyses changes within Myanmar society from a critical political economy perspective in order to both situate these developments within broader regional trends and to evaluate the country's current trajectory. In particular, the emergence of state-mediated capitalism and politico-business complexes in Myanmar's borderlands are emphasised. These dynamics, which have empowered a narrow oligarchy, are less likely to be undone by the reform process than to fundamentally shape the contours of reform. Consequently, Myanmar's future may not be unlike those of other Southeast Asian states that have experienced similar developmental trajectories

Perceptions, Antecedents and Consequents of Employee Engagement Initiatives in Australian Organizations

This paper presents a research project which was designed to explore employee engagement (EE) initiatives in Australian companies from the perspective of human resource (HR) managers. The research design was quantitative in the form of a self-administered survey instrument which was mailed to 703 HR managers in seven major Australian cities. 205 (29 per cent) usable surveys were returned with almost two-thirds from women. Respondents reported having a good understanding of EE but there was much less endorsement of the value, importance and benefits of EE initiatives. Respondents generally indicated that their organizations were not committed to EE in any demonstrable way. The data highlighted that employee retention was the primary reason organizations embark upon EE initiatives and that the outcomes of initiatives were only tentatively acknowledged by respondents. The research has implications for HR managers, senior management, EE consultants and organizations generally. Much more can be done to raise the profile, importance and benefits of EE initiatives. The originality of this research is that it is the first scholarly study to look at EE initiatives from the perspective of HR manager

Trusty URIs: Verifiable, Immutable, and Permanent Digital Artifacts for Linked Data

To make digital resources on the web verifiable, immutable, and permanent, we propose a technique to include cryptographic hash values in URIs. We call them trusty URIs and we show how they can be used for approaches like nanopublications to make not only specific resources but their entire reference trees verifiable. Digital artifacts can be identified not only on the byte level but on more abstract levels such as RDF graphs, which means that resources keep their hash values even when presented in a different format. Our approach sticks to the core principles of the web, namely openness and decentralized architecture, is fully compatible with existing standards and protocols, and can therefore be used right away. Evaluation of our reference implementations shows that these desired properties are indeed accomplished by our approach, and that it remains practical even for very large files.Comment: Small error corrected in the text (table data was correct) on page 13: "All average values are below 0.8s (0.03s for batch mode). Using Java in batch mode even requires only 1ms per file.

Occurrence of the Brackish Water Asellote Isopod Munna (Uromunna) reynoldsi in Texas

The asellote isopod Munna (Uromunna) reynoldsi Frankenberg and Menzies, previously known from coastal swamps a t Sapelo Island, Georgia, is reported from Texas. Several specimens were collected in grab samples from Fence Lake, a small brackish marsh lake (salinity 0 to 2.7 ppt) in Sca Rim State Park, and in a nearby coastal marsh (salinity 4.4 ppt). The present records indicate that the species is a brackish water form