The need for support: Young people living through a family health crisis

Young people living with a family health crisis are found to experience high levels of distress, anxiety, low mood and depressive symptoms and are at risk of becoming disengaged with education, socially isolated and uncertain regarding what the future will hold for them. A body of research indicates that practical intervention, including youth work, engagement with other young people and targeted support can have a significant impact upon a young person’s capacity to cope with a complex family health crisis and develop self-reliant behaviours. Despite the plethora of evidence to indicate the need for systems of support for children and young people experiencing a family health crisis, current provision across the UK is inconsistent, inequitable and not clearly underpinned by policy intervention. This study sets out to indicate the extent and nature of need of children and young people who are living with a family health crisis in Britain, the type of support they require and the ways in which Hope Support meets those needs

Crossroads Rhode Island: Proposed Social Enterprise Business Plan

Crossroads Rhode Island provides their clients with a continuum of care that includes basic emergency needs, shelter, housing, case management and vocational services for individuals and families. In order to provide these services they rely on the generosity of their donors and supporters who have helped Crossroads to become the largest homeless services organization in Rhode Island. It is important to Crossroads that they stick to their core values of safety, respect, and effectiveness when helping the homeless or at-risk individuals and families secure stable homes

Contemporary light sources and their impact on the discoloration and oxidation of fresh beef products

Includes vita.Discolored fresh meat products in a retail setting are often perceived negatively by consumers when making purchasing decisions. Prolonging fresh meat color is critical for the retail industry in regard to sales and consumer perception. Variation in retail display settings can impact meat color shelf life from both a discoloration and oxidation standpoint. Lighting technologies are known to impact meat discoloration due to light intensities and temperature variations. A growing demand for the use of energy efficient lighting sources such as light emitting diode (LED) bulbs is being adopted in the United States. Therefore, it is imperative to know the impact these new lighting technologies have on fresh meat quality. Three trials were conducted to determine the impact of LED lighting technologies in comparison to commonly used fluorescent (both low [FLO] and high - UV [HFLO]) bulbs, and no light source (DRK). In a study conducted on ground beef from the Semimembranosus (SM) (n = 20) patties at two different fat levels (5 and 25 percent) had superior a* values, oxymyoglobin concentrations (MbO2), and lipid oxidation levels (TBARS) than those treated with LED or FLO light sources over 7 days of retail display. Patties displayed under LED bulbs had higher a* values and MbO2 concentrations than patties displayed under FLO light sources. Data indicated that the use of LED bulbs on ground beef promoted greater red color retention and less oxidation than FLO bulbs in a retail display setting. To evaluate retail display settings and fresh beef cuts further, two whole muscle cuts one color labile cut (Triceps brachii [TB]) (n = 20) and steaks from the SM (n = 20), known to be moderately color stable were evaluated under HFLO, FLO, and LED light sources over 7 days of retail display. For both whole muscle cuts, the use of HFLO light sources promoted greater redness retention as indicated by MbO2 and a* values, less lipid oxidation as indicated by TBARS values, and less undesirable metmyoglobin (MMb) formation in comparison to steaks displayed under FLO or LED light treatments. The use of LED bulbs for prolonged ground beef retail display was superior to other light sources. However, ground beef is rarely displayed in retail settings for an extended period of time. The use of LED bulbs showed no advantages when displaying whole muscle cuts. Therefore, data from this study suggests while from an energy efficiency standpoint LED bulbs can be beneficial to retail settings. However, from a fresh meat quality standpoint, there is no advantage from color or oxidative standpoint for using LED lights in a retail display setting for fresh beef products.Dr. Carol L. Lorenzen, Thesis Supervisor.|Includes vita.Includes bibliographical references (pages 98-111)

Trinity Restoration Inc.: Southside Cultural Center Economic Impact Study

Economic development has shifted from location-oriented business models towards a more all-encompassing model that recognizes the advancement of human capital or intellectual property as continuously increasing in value. This microcosmic characteristic of development extends to aid in the growth of society as a whole. The Arts and Culture attract a demographic of inspired and motivated people to the area. It results in the development of the society surrounding art venues. The general population will always seek out entertainment, by installing a venue of artistic expression in South Providence that will motivate the community and propel development. This phenomena has been proven, as denoted through the historical evaluation of artistic venues across America that have generated economic growth in their respective communities

Voluntary disclosure in a changing regulatory environment : evidence from Chinese stock market

This paper investigates the voluntary disclosure made by 297 Chinese listed firms in their 1995-2006 annual reports. It aims to determine how firms in the Chinese stock market have responded to the coercive pressure exerted upon them by the market regulatory body, the Chinese Security Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in terms of providing transparent information to the stock market. The findings show that over the study period, listed firms have gradually increased their voluntary disclosure. This paper also explores the main characteristics of voluntary disclosure made by listed firms in the Chinese stock market. It is concluded that voluntary disclosure has been adopted by firms to achieve institutional legitimacy in the stock market.<br /

The SseC translocon component in Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium is chaperoned by SscA

Background: Salmonella enterica is a causative agent of foodborne gastroenteritis and the systemic disease known as typhoid fever. This bacterium uses two type three secretion systems (T3SSs) to translocate protein effectors into host cells to manipulate cellular function. Salmonella pathogenicity island (SPI)-2 encodes a T3SS required for intracellular survival of the pathogen. Genes in SPI-2 include apparatus components, secreted effectors and chaperones that bind to secreted cargo to coordinate their release from the bacterial cell. Although the effector repertoire secreted by the SPI-2 T3SS is large, only three virulence-associated chaperones have been characterized. Results: Here we report that SscA is the chaperone for the SseC translocon component. We show that SscA and SseC interact in bacterial cells and that deletion of sscA results in a loss of SseC secretion, which compromises intracellular replication and leads to a loss of competitive fitness in mice. Conclusions: This work completes the characterization of the chaperone complement within SPI-2 and identifies SscA as the chaperone for the SseC translocon

Social reporting in the annual reports of Iranian listed companies

This paper examines corporate social reporting (CSR) in the annual reports of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) in Iran. Descriptive analysis and multiple linear regression techniques are used to analyse the extent of CSR disclosure and to test hypotheses regarding the relationships between CSR disclosure and four company characteristics namely size, profitability, finanacial leverage and industry type. Among five important themes of social disclosure (human resources, environmental performance and policies, community activities, energy consumptionn, and customer satisfaction and product quality) the human resources theme was found to be the most common type of disclosure made. Only the size of the disclosing company was found to be significantly related to the level of overall CSR disclosure

Characterization of porcine endogenous retrovirus expression in neonatal and adult pig pancreatic islets

BACKGROUND: Pig islets represent an alternative to the current modes of treatment for patients with diabetes. However, the concerns over pathogen transmission including that of PERV limit their immediate, widespread usage in humans. It has been previously demonstrated that PERV copy number and particularly expression levels can vary considerably between individuals and within different tissues of a single animal. In general, expression levels have been found to be particularly low in the pancreas compared to other porcine tissues suggesting a reduced risk associated with the use of this tissue. Data regarding this crucial aspect, however, remain limited and little is known about PERV status of islets themselves, which represent the final product to be transplanted. In addition, comparative analysis of the PERV status of neonatal piglets with adults is important as they are increasingly considered as potential islet donors for xenotransplantation. METHODS: Tissue samples from 51 neonatal piglets (age between 14 and 21 days) and 29 adult pigs were collected from Belgian landrace pigs used for pancreas procurement and islet isolation. Tissue biopsies were used to extract DNA for PERV copy number quantification by qPCR and RNA for PERV expression by qRT-PCR. RESULTS: As expected, PERV expression demonstrated great variation and was significantly lower in pancreas compared to other tissues. More importantly, PERV RNA expression was found to be specifically enriched in pancreatic islets reaching values similar to those found in other tissues such as liver and kidney. Interestingly, this expression was not coupled with the detection of reverse transcriptase in islet cultures or indeed detection of PERV virus. Lung, spleen, and lymph node consistently showed the highest levels of PERV expression. Comparison of PERV in neonatal and adult pigs showed that copy number did not vary significantly from birth to adulthood. PERV expression on the other hand was significantly lower in neonatal pig islets compared to adult islets and did not increase over the period of culture. CONCLUSION: Our study confirms the low level of PERV expression in whole pancreas in a large population of both neonatal and adult pigs (n=80). The level of PERV expression was however higher in the endocrine tissue than in the exocrine cells. There was no correlation between PERV status in donor PBMCs and islet cells, and no evidence of active replication in in vitro regardless of PERV expression in islet cells. Moreover, neonatal pig islets were found to have significantly lower PERV expression compared to adult islets. Neonatal islets have been suggested as the best choice for xenotransplantation in terms of economic and procurement considerations; the PERV status reported here would also potentially support their use