Conclusion: Capitalism, Resistance and What is to be Done?

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Pennsylvania’s True Commonwealth: The State of Manufacturing – Challenges and Opportunities (Full Report)

The Industrial Resource Center Network of Pennsylvania is the state’s affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. Both the IRC program and the MEP have longstanding traditions of self-assessment and evolution as ways of being accountable to the public and of promoting continuous improvement. The IRC program and the MEP are charged with helping manufacturing in general, and small to midsized manufacturers in particular, improve their competitive position. The IRC program uses the outcomes from these assessments to think about the challenges their constituents face due to rapid evolution in the globally competitive environment. Additionally, the IRC Program has joined with the MEP to discover best management and production practices, standardize them in terms of educational and training practices, and then disseminate these practices widely. Again, this is with an emphasis on small and midsized establishments and businesses. This report builds on the 2004 report, Manufacturing Pennsylvania’s Future, written by Deloitte Consulting and the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. In August 2010, as the negative impact of the Great Recession was beginning to ebb and after a decade of global competitive challenges, the IRC Program embarked on a new round of self-evaluation and assessment. The economic development and nonprofit management research groups at Cleveland State University’s Levin College were engaged to examine the state of manufacturing in the Commonwealth, discover the management practices of the “best of the best” manufacturers in the state, and suggest practice innovations that would enhance the competitive position of Pennsylvania’s manufacturers. This work was undertaken with the MPI Group. The project was supported by funding from the Industrial Resource Center program, the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the John D.and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Network on Building Resilient Regions, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, with funding provided by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The work benefited from the advice and review of an external advisory board that was facilitated by Ken Voytek, NIST/MEP’s chief economist, and Joe Houldin, CEO of the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center. They worked with: Emily DeRocco, President, the Manufacturing Institute of the National Association of Manufacturers; Samuel Leiken, Vice President of the Council on Competitiveness; Howard Wial, Ph.D., Fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution; and Mike Trebing, Senior Economic Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The work was also reviewed and discussed by the IRC’s Strategic Advisory Board and the directors of the network\u27s seven centers. The report also benefited from data provided by the Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corporation (CPWDC). The research team acknowledges the many contributions of our advisers and funders. Their participation and support do not mean that each agrees with all we have written. The team alone is responsible for the findings and interpretation of the data

Pennsylvania’s True Commonwealth: The State of Manufacturing – Challenges and Opportunities (Full Report)

The Industrial Resource Center Network of Pennsylvania is the state’s affiliate of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership program. Both the IRC program and the MEP have longstanding traditions of self-assessment and evolution as ways of being accountable to the public and of promoting continuous improvement. The IRC program and the MEP are charged with helping manufacturing in general, and small to midsized manufacturers in particular, improve their competitive position. The IRC program uses the outcomes from these assessments to think about the challenges their constituents face due to rapid evolution in the globally competitive environment. Additionally, the IRC Program has joined with the MEP to discover best management and production practices, standardize them in terms of educational and training practices, and then disseminate these practices widely. Again, this is with an emphasis on small and midsized establishments and businesses. This report builds on the 2004 report, Manufacturing Pennsylvania’s Future, written by Deloitte Consulting and the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University. In August 2010, as the negative impact of the Great Recession was beginning to ebb and after a decade of global competitive challenges, the IRC Program embarked on a new round of self-evaluation and assessment. The economic development and nonprofit management research groups at Cleveland State University’s Levin College were engaged to examine the state of manufacturing in the Commonwealth, discover the management practices of the “best of the best” manufacturers in the state, and suggest practice innovations that would enhance the competitive position of Pennsylvania’s manufacturers. This work was undertaken with the MPI Group. The project was supported by funding from the Industrial Resource Center program, the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the John D.and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Network on Building Resilient Regions, and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, with funding provided by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The work benefited from the advice and review of an external advisory board that was facilitated by Ken Voytek, NIST/MEP’s chief economist, and Joe Houldin, CEO of the Delaware Valley Industrial Resource Center. They worked with: Emily DeRocco, President, the Manufacturing Institute of the National Association of Manufacturers; Samuel Leiken, Vice President of the Council on Competitiveness; Howard Wial, Ph.D., Fellow of the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution; and Mike Trebing, Senior Economic Analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The work was also reviewed and discussed by the IRC’s Strategic Advisory Board and the directors of the network\u27s seven centers. The report also benefited from data provided by the Central Pennsylvania Workforce Development Corporation (CPWDC). The research team acknowledges the many contributions of our advisers and funders. Their participation and support do not mean that each agrees with all we have written. The team alone is responsible for the findings and interpretation of the data

Torsion-Free Groups and Modules with the Involution Property

An Abelian group or module is said to have the involution property if every endomorphism is the sum of two automorphisms, one of which is an involution. We investigate this property for completely decomposable torsion-free Abelian groups and modules over the ring of -adic integers

Phylogenetic patterns differ for native and exotic plant communities across a richness gradient in Northern California

Increasingly, ecologists are using evolutionary relationships to infer the mechanisms of community assembly. However, modern communities are being invaded by non-indigenous species. Since natives have been associated with one another through evolutionary time, the forces promoting character and niche divergence should be high. On the other hand, exotics have evolved elsewhere, meaning that conserved traits may be more important in their new ranges. Thus, co-occurrence over sufficient time-scales for reciprocal evolution may alter how phylogenetic relationships influence assembly. Here, we examined the phylogenetic structure of native and exotic plant communities across a large-scale gradient in species richness and asked whether local assemblages are composed of more or less closely related natives and exotics and whether phylogenetic turnover among plots and among sites across this gradient is driven by turnover in close or distant relatives differentially for natives and exotics.Central and northern California, USA.We used data from 30 to 50 replicate plots at four sites and constructed a maximum likelihood molecular phylogeny using the genes: matK , rbcl , ITS1 and 5.8s . We compared community-level measures of native and exotic phylogenetic diversity and among-plot phylobetadiversity.There were few exotic clades, but they tended to be widespread. Exotic species were phylogenetically clustered within communities and showed low phylogenetic turnover among communities. In contrast, the more species-rich native communities showed higher phylogenetic dispersion and turnover among sites.The assembly of native and exotic subcommunities appears to reflect the evolutionary histories of these species and suggests that shared traits drive exotic patterns while evolutionary differentiation drives native assembly. Current invasions appear to be causing phylogenetic homogenization at regional scales.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/79365/1/j.1472-4642.2010.00700.x.pd

The institutional shaping of management: in the tracks of English individualism

Globalisation raises important questions about the shaping of economic action by cultural factors. This article explores the formation of what is seen by some as a prime influence on the formation of British management: individualism. Drawing on a range of historical sources, it argues for a comparative approach. In this case, the primary comparison drawn is between England and Scotland. The contention is that there is a systemic approach to authority in Scotland that can be contrasted to a personal approach in England. An examination of the careers of a number of Scottish pioneers of management suggests the roots of this systemic approach in practices of church governance. Ultimately this systemic approach was to take a secondary role to the personal approach engendered by institutions like the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, but it found more success in the different institutional context of the USA. The complexities of dealing with historical evidence are stressed, as is the value of taking a comparative approach. In this case this indicates a need to take religious practice as seriously as religious belief as a source of transferable practice. The article suggests that management should not be seen as a simple response to economic imperatives, but as shaped by the social and cultural context from which it emerges

Assessment of humoral immune responses to blood-stage malaria antigens following ChAd63-MVA immunization, controlled human malaria infection and natural exposure.

The development of protective vaccines against many difficult infectious pathogens will necessitate the induction of effective antibody responses. Here we assess humoral immune responses against two antigens from the blood-stage merozoite of the Plasmodium falciparum human malaria parasite--MSP1 and AMA1. These antigens were delivered to healthy malaria-naïve adult volunteers in Phase Ia clinical trials using recombinant replication-deficient viral vectors--ChAd63 to prime the immune response and MVA to boost. In subsequent Phase IIa clinical trials, immunized volunteers underwent controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) with P. falciparum to assess vaccine efficacy, whereby all but one volunteer developed low-density blood-stage parasitemia. Here we assess serum antibody responses against both the MSP1 and AMA1 antigens following i) ChAd63-MVA immunization, ii) immunization and CHMI, and iii) primary malaria exposure in the context of CHMI in unimmunized control volunteers. Responses were also assessed in a cohort of naturally-immune Kenyan adults to provide comparison with those induced by a lifetime of natural malaria exposure. Serum antibody responses against MSP1 and AMA1 were characterized in terms of i) total IgG responses before and after CHMI, ii) responses to allelic variants of MSP1 and AMA1, iii) functional growth inhibitory activity (GIA), iv) IgG avidity, and v) isotype responses (IgG1-4, IgA and IgM). These data provide the first in-depth assessment of the quality of adenovirus-MVA vaccine-induced antibody responses in humans, along with assessment of how these responses are modulated by subsequent low-density parasite exposure. Notable differences were observed in qualitative aspects of the human antibody responses against these malaria antigens depending on the means of their induction and/or exposure of the host to the malaria parasite. Given the continued clinical development of viral vectored vaccines for malaria and a range of other diseases targets, these data should help to guide further immuno-monitoring studies of vaccine-induced human antibody responses

Achieving optimal cancer outcomes in East Africa through multidisciplinary partnership: a case study of the Kenyan National Retinoblastoma Strategy group.

BACKGROUND: Strategic, interdisciplinary partnerships are essential to addressing the complex drivers of health inequities that result in survival disparities worldwide. Take for example the aggressive early childhood eye cancer retinoblastoma, where survival reaches 97 % in resource-rich countries, but is as low 30 % in some resource-limited nations, where 92 % of the burden lies. This suggests a need for a multifaceted approach to achieve a tangible and sustainable increase in survival. METHODS: We assembled the history the Kenyan National Retinoblastoma Strategy (KNRbS), using information documented in NGO reports, grant applications, news articles, meeting agendas and summaries. We evaluated the KNRbS using the principles found in the guide for transboundary research partnerships developed by the Swiss Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries. RESULTS: A nationally co-ordinated approach drawing input and expertise from multiple disciplines and sectors presented opportunities to optimise cure of children with retinoblastoma. Annual meetings were key to achieving the over 40 major outputs of the group's efforts, related to Awareness, Medical Care, Family Support and Resource Mobilization. Three features were found to be critical to the KNRbS success: multidisciplinarity, consistency and flexibility. CONCLUSION: The KNRbS has achieved a number of key outputs with limited financial investment. As a partnership, the KNRbS meets most of the criteria identified for success. Challenges remain in securing the long-term sustainability of its achievements. Elements of the Kenyan National Retinoblastoma Strategy may be useful to other developing countries struggling with limited survival of retinoblastoma and other cancers or rare diseases