San Francisco Predictable Scheduling and Fair Treatment for Formula Retail Employees Ordinance

Economic and labor force changes since the Great Recession of 2007 have changed the way many American workers support themselves and their families. Today, Americans who would prefer full-time stable work are more likely to work in part-time jobs, and have little control over their work schedules. As employers seek new ways to maximize scheduling efficiency and profit, worker advocate groups have raised concerns about the implications of these scheduling practices on the lives of employees. This issue brief highlights some of the research on the growth of unstable work schedules, and describes the provisions of recently introduced legislation in San Francisco that seeks to increase predictable scheduling among certain retail and food service workers. San Francisco's is the first such legislation to be introduced at the local level in the natio

Preventing Non-Contact ACL Injuries in Female Athletes: What Can We Learn from the Dancers?

Study design: Cross-sectional case control.
 Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of dance experience and movement instruction on lower extremity kinematics and muscle activation during landing tasks Background/Aim: Current research demonstrates that dancers exhibit a much lower incidence of ACL injuries when compared to athletes of other sports despite the fact that dancers jump and land frequently in their training and performance. The mechanism that underlies this disparity is unclear.
 Methods: We analyzed lower extremity biomechanics during landing in 27 subjects (age 18-25 years, 12 dancers and 15 non-dancers). In the non-instructed (NI) conditions, participants were shown a video in which a successful landing was demonstrated. They were then shown the same videos with specific verbal instructions (VI) on how to perform the landings. Surface electromyography (EMG) was used to measure the activation of gluteus maximus and medius during the deceleration phase of landings. Peak hip knee and hip frontal plane angles were acquired using a 3-D motion capture system. Two-way mixed measures ANOVAs were used to assess the effects of group (dancers vs. non-dancers) and instruction (NI vs. VI) on the biomechanical variables.
 Results: During landings, dancers demonstrated greater gluteus maximus activation and maintained generally more neutral hip and knee alignments when compared to non-dancers. A significant interaction showed that instruction led to increased knee valgus angle in non-dancers but not dancers Conclusions: Our findings suggested that dance training experience may lead to safer landing mechanics. Specific acute movement instruction can potentially deteriorate the mechanics of those with no dance training experience

Environmental and Economic Implications of Alternative Cruise Ship Pathways in Bermuda

As the cruise ship industry moves towards ever larger vessels, many tourist destinations are faced with dilemmas about how to accommodate the latest generation of ships, which require deeper and wider shipping pathways. The location of nearshore shipping channels traveled by cruise ships has important environmental and economic implications, as dredging larger lanes damages habitat, ship traffic produces sediment plumes that can smother adjacent sensitive habitats (e.g., coral reefs, seagrass beds), and dredging costs vary spatially. These environmental and economic costs should ideally be evaluated in the context of projected benefits from increased tourism. To inform decision-making on cruise ship pathway design, we evaluated tradeoffs among tourism revenue to the local economy, dredging costs, direct coral damage and sedimentation impacts to coral reefs of alternative cruise ship approach channels for the island of Bermuda. We compiled economic data on cruise tourism and dredging costs and developed a sediment particle tracking model, overlaid on maps of coral cover, to track the spread of sediment particles and resulting coral sedimentation caused by cruise ships. Using our models we compared two viable routes, if dredged, for larger ships to reach Bermuda, along with a scenario of no dredging in which the next generation of larger ships is not accommodated. Our tradeoff analysis shows that the status quo (no dredging; no larger ships) scenario performs relatively well except for the risk of a significant loss in tourism revenue. When selecting between the two channel upgrade scenarios, the south channel upgrade is preferable if dredged material can be reused, thereby recouping dredging costs; otherwise, there is a strong tradeoff between upgrade costs and coral sedimentation. While developed with data layers and inputs specific to Bermuda, this analytical approach could easily be configured to other locations facing similar spatial planning decisions about whether and where to allow pathways for larger cruise ships

Designing MPAs for food security in open-access fisheries

Food security remains a principal challenge in the developing tropics where communities rely heavily on marine-based protein. While some improvements in fisheries management have been made in these regions, a large fraction of coastal fisheries remain unmanaged, mismanaged, or use only crude input controls. These quasi-open-access conditions often lead to severe overfishing, depleted stocks, and compromised food security. A possible fishery management approach in these institution-poor settings is to implement fully protected marine protected areas (MPAs). Although the primary push for MPAs has been to solve the conservation problems that arise from mismanagement, MPAs can also benefit fisheries beyond their borders. The literature has not completely characterized how to design MPAs under diverse ecological and economic conditions when food security is the objective. We integrated four key biological and economic variables (i.e., fish population growth rate, fish mobility, fish price, and fishing cost) as well as an important aspect of reserve design (MPA size) into a general model and determined their combined influence on food security when MPAs are implemented in an open-access setting. We explicitly modeled open-access conditions that account for the behavioral response of fishers to the MPA; this approach is distinct from much of the literature that focuses on assumptions of “scorched earth” (i.e., severe over-fishing), optimized management, or an arbitrarily defined fishing mortality outside the MPA’s boundaries. We found that the MPA size that optimizes catch depends strongly on economic variables. Large MPAs optimize catch for species heavily harvested for their high value and/or low harvesting cost, while small MPAs or no closure are best for species lightly harvested for their low value and high harvesting cost. Contrary to previous theoretical expectations, both high and low mobility species are expected to experience conservation benefits from protection, although, as shown previously, greater conservation benefits are expected for low mobility species. Food security benefits from MPAs can be obtained from species of any mobility. Results deliver both qualitative insights and quantitative guidance for designing MPAs for food security in open-access fisheries

Feminism, Abortion and Disability: irreconcilable differences?

There has been considerable discussion of the political allegiance between the feminist and disability movements, but the question of abortion remains a thorny one. Disability rights advocates have been keen to demonstrate that it is possible to believe in a woman's right to sovereignty over the body and, yet, be opposed to the selective abortion of an impaired foetus – describing the latter as a form of 'weak' eugenics. The aim of this paper is to show that whilst there may be some points of agreement between the feminist and disability movements on the question of abortion, there exist fundamental and irreconcilable differences

Phenotypes associated with genetic determinants of type I interferon regulation in the UK Biobank:a protocol

BACKGROUND: Type I interferons are cytokines involved in innate immunity against viruses. Genetic disorders of type I interferon regulation are associated with a range of autoimmune and cerebrovascular phenotypes. Carriers of pathogenic variants involved in genetic disorders of type I interferons are generally considered asymptomatic. Preliminary data suggests, however, that genetically determined dysregulation of type I interferon responses is associated with autoimmunity, and may also be relevant to sporadic cerebrovascular disease and dementia. We aim to determine whether functional variants in genes involved in type I interferon regulation and signalling are associated with the risk of autoimmunity, stroke, and dementia in a population cohort.METHODS: We will perform a hypothesis-driven candidate pathway association study of type I interferon-related genes using rare variants in the UK Biobank (UKB). We will manually curate type I interferon regulation and signalling genes from a literature review and Gene Ontology, followed by clinical and functional filtering. Variants of interest will be included based on pre-defined clinical relevance and functional annotations (using LOFTEE, M-CAP and a minor allele frequency &lt;0.1%). The association of variants with 15 clinical and three neuroradiological phenotypes will be assessed with a rare variant genetic risk score and gene-level tests, using a Bonferroni-corrected p-value threshold from the number of genetic units and phenotypes tested. We will explore the association of significant genetic units with 196 additional health-related outcomes to help interpret their relevance and explore the clinical spectrum of genetic perturbations of type I interferon.ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The UKB has received ethical approval from the North West Multicentre Research Ethics Committee, and all participants provided written informed consent at recruitment. This research will be conducted using the UKB Resource under application number 93160. We expect to disseminate our results in a peer-reviewed journal and at an international cardiovascular conference.</p

Research protocol – Assessing Post-Stroke Psychology Longitudinal Evaluation (APPLE) study : A prospective cohort study in stroke

Acknowledgements The following experts provided advice on the design and conduct of the APPLE study: Prof Jonathan Evans (University of Glasgow); Prof Gillian Mead (University of Edinburgh); Prof Sarah T Pendlebury (University of Oxford) Funding This work was supported by the Chief Scientist Office and Stroke Association (funders reference PPA 2015/01_CSO).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Evaluating tradeoffs among ecosystem services to inform marine spatial planning

A central challenge for natural resource management is developing rigorous yet practical approaches for balancing the costs and benefits of diverse human uses of ecosystems. Economic theory has a long history of evaluating tradeoffs in returns from different assets to identify optimal investment strategies. There has been recent progress applying this framework to the delivery of ecosystem services in land use planning. However, despite growing national and international interest in marine spatial planning, we lack parallel frameworks in the marine realm. This paper reviews an ecosystem service tradeoff analysis framework and provides a more comprehensive synthesis for how it can be applied to marine spatial planning and marine ecosystem-based management. A tradeoff analysis approach can reveal inferior management options, demonstrate the benefits of comprehensive planning for multiple, interacting services over managing single services, and identify ‘compatible’ services that provide win-win management options.Keywords: marine spatial planning, efficiency frontier, ecosystem based management, tradeoff analysis, economics, ecosystem service

The brain microvasculature is a primary mediator of interferon-α neurotoxicity in human cerebral interferonopathies

Aicardi-Goutières syndrome (AGS) is an autoinflammatory disease characterized by aberrant interferon (IFN)- production. The major cause of morbidity in AGS is brain disease, yet the primary source and target of neurotoxic IFN- remains unclear. Here, we demonstrated that the brain was the primary source of neurotoxic IFN- in AGS, and confirmed neurotoxicity of intracerebral IFN- using astrocyte-driven Ifna1 misexpression in mice. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we demonstrated that intracerebral IFN- activated IFNAR signaling within cerebral endothelial cells, caused a distinctive cerebral small vessel disease similarly observed in individuals with AGS. MRI and single-molecule ELISA revealed that central and not peripheral IFN- was the primary determinant of microvascular disease in humans. Ablation of endothelial Ifnar1 in mice rescued microvascular disease, stopped development of diffuse brain disease and prolonged lifespan. These results identify the cerebral microvasculature as a primary mediator of IFN- neurotoxicity in AGS, representing an accessible target for therapeutic intervention

Molecular evolution of HoxA13 and the multiple origins of limbless morphologies in amphibians and reptiles

Developmental processes and their results, morphological characters, are inherited through transmission of genes regulating development. While there is ample evidence that cis-regulatory elements tend to be modular, with sequence segments dedicated to different roles, the situation for proteins is less clear, being particularly complex for transcription factors with multiple functions. Some motifs mediating protein-protein interactions may be exclusive to particular developmental roles, but it is also possible that motifs are mostly shared among different processes. Here we focus on HoxA13, a protein essential for limb development. We asked whether the HoxA13 amino acid sequence evolved similarly in three limbless clades: Gymnophiona, Amphisbaenia and Serpentes. We explored variation in ω (dN/dS) using a maximum-likelihood framework and HoxA13sequences from 47 species. Comparisons of evolutionary models provided low ω global values and no evidence that HoxA13 experienced relaxed selection in limbless clades. Branch-site models failed to detect evidence for positive selection acting on any site along branches of Amphisbaena and Gymnophiona, while three sites were identified in Serpentes. Examination of alignments did not reveal consistent sequence differences between limbed and limbless species. We conclude that HoxA13 has no modules exclusive to limb development, which may be explained by its involvement in multiple developmental processes