Furniture Industry Panel

Panelists from three major furniture designers, Haworth, Herman Miller and Steelcase, all located close to the Grand Valley campus, will share their stories about using furniture to revitalize and repurpose spaces for both large and small spaces. They’ll talk about matching function to form, designing for maximum flexibility, catering to the needs of different age groups, and, along the way, address what librarians need to bring to the table when they work with furniture designers

Options for Economic Growth in Mali through the Application of Science and Technology to Agriculture

Prepared For The United States Agency for International Development Initiative To End Hunger In Africafood security, food policy, Mali science and technology research, research and extension, International Development, Q18,

Options pour la croissance économique du Mali à travers l’application des sciences et technologies à l’agriculture

Recognizing that science and technology research (S&T) is one of many inputs into the broader development process, USAID/Mali, via its Initiative to End Hunger in Africa, requested an assessment of the current S&T situation in Mali. USAID asked the assessment team to produce a comprehensive strategic options plan for a Malian S&T agenda that would identify priority short-term actions to stimulate uptake of S&T results likely to make significant contributions to the attainment of Mali’s broad development goals, while simultaneously developing a coherent longer-term action plan to maintain and improve the human, physical, and financial capital needed to generate future streams of S&T results. The scope of work for the assessment team included six points: • Review the current status of agricultural and natural resource programs of Mali’s research institutions, with particular attention to IER, IPR/IFRA, LCV; • Review and assess the programs of International Agriculture Research Centers (IARCs) and other international foundations supporting research in Mali; • Annotate the range of USAID-supported S&T programs in Mali; • Identify available production technology packages and needed support services to achieve rapid (medium-term) impact and identify gaps in S&T programs that hinder attainment of GRM development goals; • Develop a strategic options plan to build needed S&T capabilities, including those for research and supporting institutional development; • Make recommendations for potential USAID/Mali actions, including building partnerships with public and private organizations that would enhance the effective use of S&T for achieving USAID programmatic goalsMali, growth, technology, food security, Agricultural and Food Policy, Food Security and Poverty, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, q16, q18,

The Stellar Population of h and chi Persei: Cluster Properties, Membership, and the Intrinsic Colors and Temperatures of Stars

(Abridged) From photometric observations of $\sim$ 47,000 stars and spectroscopy of $\sim$ 11,000 stars, we describe the first extensive study of the stellar population of the famous Double Cluster, h and $\chi$ Persei, down to subsolar masses. Both clusters have E(B-V) $\sim$ 0.52--0.55 and dM = 11.8--11.85; the halo population, while more poorly constrained, likely has identical properties. As determined from the main sequence turnoff, the luminosity of M supergiants, and pre-main sequence isochrones, ages for h Persei, $\chi$ Persei and the halo population all converge on $\approx$ 14 Myr. From these data, we establish the first spectroscopic and photometric membership lists of cluster stars down to early/mid M dwarfs. At minimum, there are $\sim$ 5,000 members within 10' of the cluster centers, while the entire h and $\chi$ Persei region has at least $\sim$ 13,000 and as many as 20,000 members. The Double Cluster contains $\approx$ 8,400 M$_{\odot}$ of stars within 10' of the cluster centers. We estimate a total mass of at least 20,000 M$_{\odot}$. We conclude our study by outlining outstanding questions regarding the properties of h and $\chi$ Persei. From comparing recent work, we compile a list of intrinsic colors and derive a new effective temperature scale for O--M dwarfs, giants, and supergiants.Comment: 88 pages, many figures, Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplements. Contact lead author for version with high-resolution figure

Direct Evidence for Octupole Deformation in 146^{146}Ba and the Origin of Large E1E1 Moment Variations in Reflection-Asymmetric Nuclei

Despite the more than one order of magnitude difference between the measured dipole moments in $^{144}$Ba and $^{146}$Ba, the strength of the octupole correlations in $^{146}$Ba are found to be as strong as those in $^{144}$Ba with a similarly large value of $B(E3;3^- \rightarrow 0^+)$ determined as 48($^{+21}_{-29}$) W.u. The new results not only establish unambiguously the presence of a region of octupole deformation centered on these neutron-rich Ba isotopes, but also manifest the dependence of the electric dipole moments on the occupancy of different neutron orbitals in nuclei with enhanced octupole strength, as revealed by fully microscopic calculations.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Let

Hats off to you, Jim!

Jim’s intellectual curiosity was an inspiration. In addition to those whose comments follow, he clearly touched the careers and lives of many others

Shortfalls and Solutions for Meeting National and Global Conservation Area Targets

Governments have committed to conserving greater than or equal to 17% of terrestrial and greater than or equal to 10% of marine environments globally, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity through ecologically representative Protected Area (PA) systems or other area-based conservation measures , while individual countries have committed to conserve 3-50% of their land area. We estimate that PAs currently cover 14.6% of terrestrial and 2.8% of marine extent, but 59-68% of ecoregions, 77-78% of important sites for biodiversity, and 57% of 25,380 species have inadequate coverage. The existing 19.7 million km super(2) terrestrial PA network needs only 3.3 million km super(2) to be added to achieve 17% terrestrial coverage. However, it would require nearly doubling to achieve, cost-efficiently, coverage targets for all countries, ecoregions, important sites, and species. Poorer countries have the largest relative shortfalls. Such extensive and rapid expansion of formal PAs is unlikely to be achievable. Greater focus is therefore needed on alternative approaches, including community- and privately managed sites and other effective area-based conservation measures

Risk of mortality and cardiovascular events following macrolide prescription in chronic rhinosinusitis patients: a cohort study using linked primary care electronic health records

Background: Macrolide antibiotics have demonstrated important anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory properties in chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) patients. However, reports of increased risks of cardiovascular events have led to safety concerns. We investigated the risk of all-cause and cardiac death, and cardiovascular outcomes, associated with macrolide use. Methodology: Observational cohort (1997-2016) using linked data from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink, Hospital Episodes Statistics, and the Office for National Statistics. Patients aged 16-80 years with CRS prescribed a macrolide antibiotic or penicillin were included, comparing prescriptions for macrolide antibiotics to penicillin. Outcomes were all-cause mortality, cardiac death, myocardial infarction, stroke, diagnosis of peripheral vascular disease, and cardiac arrhythmia. Results: Analysis included 320,798 prescriptions received by 66,331 patients. There were 3,251 deaths, 815 due to cardiovascular causes, 925 incident myocardial infarctions, 859 strokes, 637 diagnoses of peripheral vascular disease, and 1,436 cardiac arrhythmias. A non-statistically significant trend towards increased risk of myocardial infarction during the first 30 days following macrolide prescription was observed (fully adjusted hazard ratio 1.60, 95% confidence interval: 0.95, 2.68, p=0.08). No statistically significant short- or long-term risks were observed for macrolide prescription. No significant risks were identified for clarithromycin in particular. Conclusions: Although not statistically significant, our best estimates suggest an increased short-term risk of myocardial infarction in patients with CRS following macrolide prescription, supporting previous observational evidence. However, confounding by indication remains a possible explanation for this apparent increased risk. We found no evidence of longer term increased risks

Evaluation of the effectiveness, implementation and cost-effectiveness of the Stay One Step Ahead home safety promotion intervention for pre-school children: a study protocol

Background: Unintentional injuries in children under 5 commonly occur in the home and disproportionately affect those living in disadvantaged circumstances. Targeted home safety promotion should be offered to families most at risk but there is a paucity of standardised evidence-based resources available for use across family-support practitioners. Objective: To assess the effectiveness, implementation and cost-effectiveness of a 2-year home safety programme (Stay One Step Ahead) developed by parents, practitioners and researchers, and delivered by a range of family support providers in inner-city localities, compared to usual care in matched control localities. Methods: Parents of children aged 0-7 months will be recruited to a controlled before and after observational study. The primary outcome is home safety assessed by the proportion of families with a fitted and working smoke alarm, safety gate on stairs (where applicable) and poisons stored out of reach, assessed using parent-administered questionnaires at baseline, 12 and 24 months.Secondary outcomes include: the impact on other parent-reported safety behaviours, medically-attended injuries, self-efficacy for home safety and knowledge of child development and injury risk using questionnaires and emergency department attendance data; implementation (reach, acceptability, barriers, facilitators) of home safety promotion assessed through interviews and observations; and cost-effectiveness using medically-attended injury costs ascertained from healthcare records.Conclusions: If shown to be effective and cost-effective this study will provide a practical resource to underpin national guidance. The study could inform public health prevention strategies to reduce home injury in children most at risk, whilst delivering cost savings to health and care services