Working Paper: Measuring Job Creation in Private Sector Development

The Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED) Standard offers a best practice by outlining the key elements for practically and credibly estimating the results of Private Sector Development programmes, in a process which can be managed by programmes internally. It involves a few common impact indicators to ensure that donors will be able to add up their results across country programmes. The Standard is being piloted on a multi-agency basis; the DCED invites new programmes to join in adopting the approach

Vaccine-Related Injuries: Why Canada Needs to Adopt a No-Fault Compensation Scheme in Light of the New H1N1 Vaccine

On June 11, 2009, the World Health Organization (“WHO”) declared the H1N1 influenza a pandemic. H1N1 is a strain of the influenza virus that, in the past, usually only affected pigs. In the spring of 2009, it emerged in people in North America. This is a new strain of influenza, and because humans have little to no natural immunity to this virus, it can cause serious and widespread illness. As of November 1, 2009, there were more than 440 000 laboratory-confirmed worldwide cases of pandemic influenza H1N1 and over 6000 deaths reported to WHO. In late October, the H1N1 vaccine was approved for rollout across Canada. Since then, Canadians lined up en masse across the provinces and territories to receive the vaccine. This was in part due to the strong urging by the Government of Canada for every Canadian to receive the vaccine. Despite the advantages of wide-scale immunization, there is a significant drawback – many people who receive vaccines each year suffer adverse effects. Despite this fact, Quebec is the only province in Canada that currently has a plan to compensate people who may be injured by vaccinations. For the majority of Canadians, the only recourse when injured by a vaccine is to go through the tort system. By requiring individuals to proceed through the tort system (i.e.: having to prove someone was at fault for causing the injury), many people who have a severe reaction from a vaccine are left with no remedy. This article urges more jurisdictions in Canada to adopt a no-fault compensation scheme for vaccine-related injuries. It will explore how vaccine-related injuries are currently covered under medical malpractice and manufacturer liability schemes, and the reasons why many believe that medical malpractice approaches should be retained in their entirety. In contrast to these beliefs, this article will address how a no-fault system would prove to be an adequate and efficient means of compensating individuals who have been injured by vaccines. This argument will be advanced by looking at how other jurisdictions have implemented no- fault compensation for vaccine-related injuries. Finally, this article will address why it is essential for Canada to adopt this new compensation system as soon as possible in order to address the needs of citizens who may be injured by the new H1N1 vaccine

Building Curriculum for Strategic Alignment and Assessment

The purpose of this session is to present a case for increased strategic alignment between components of a program. You will also learn about practical tools for building and assessing curriculum for meaningful information and improvements

What Is Program Level Assessment and Why Does It Matter to Me?

Oftentimes, faculty know the Office of Institutional Effectiveness facilitates program assessment for SACSCOC, but they may not know exactly what program assessment entails, why it is important, or how faculty can assist. The purpose of this session is to provide helpful information for faculty about program-level assessment and its meaning to faculty and the University at a practical level

Close Relationships, The Self-Concept, and Health Behaviors in College Students

This study investigated whether romantic, parental, and peer relationship satisfaction influence eating behaviors and alcohol consumption through the self-concept. To test this hypothesis, 251 undergraduate students from the University of Mississippi completed an online survey in return for class credit. Participants first answered questions regarding their relationships with their parents, romantic partners, and close friends. These questions were adapted from the Couple's Satisfaction Index (Funk & Rogge, 2007). Next, to assess the self-concept, self-esteem, and objectification participants completed the Robson Self Concept Questionnaire (Robson, 1989), The Rosenberg Self Esteem Scale (Rosenberg,1965), and The Objectified Body Consciousness Scale (McKinley, & Hyde, 1996). Participants then completed the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26; Garner, Olmsted, Bohr, & Garfinkel, 1982), and The Daily Drinking Questionnaire (Murphy, McDevitt-Murphy, & Barnett 2005). Finally, participants completed a demographics questionnaire. Conditional process modeling techniques revealed that, for women, close relationships indirectly influence a person’s eating behaviors, with higher relationship satisfaction leading to a higher self-concept and in turn fewer disordered eating behaviors. This pattern was strongest for romantic relationship satisfaction in relation to the entire EAT-26 scale. For parental and friend relationships, there was no initial direct effect on eating behavior, but there was an indirect path through the self-concept to influence eating behavior (the full EAT-26). Self-Esteem was highly correlated with the self-concept and demonstrated similar results. These results suggest that relationship satisfaction can influence eating behavior through the self-concept. Looking at both male and female participants in terms of alcohol usage, no relationship appeared between close relationship satisfaction, the self-concept, and alcohol usage

An evolutionary and developmental perspective on the loss of regionalization in the limbs of derived ichthyosaurs

Ichthyosaurs, a lineage of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, have garnered attention in both the palaeontological and developmental literature for the unique limb morphology seen in derived genera. These morphologies include an increase in the number of phalanges per digit (hyperphalangy) and in the number of digits (hyperdactyly), but most interestingly also a shift in element identity. Elements distal to the stylopodium acquire characteristics of mesopodial elements, such as a rounded, nodular shape and a loss of perichondral bone on the anterior and posterior surfaces. Here, we examine numerous aspects of the loss of proximodistal identity in ichthyosaur limbs including phylogenetic progression of the loss of perichondral bone, histology and microstructure of the elements retaining perichondral bone in derived taxa, and correlates of intraspecific variation in degree of perichondral bone reduction in a derived ichthyosaur, Stenopterygius quadriscissus. Results show that loss of limb element identity occurred progressively over ichthyosaurian evolution, and the notches seen on the anterior surface of limb elements in derived ichthyosaurs are homologous to the long bone shafts in terrestrial tetrapods. Variation in the number of notches in S. quadriscissus can best be explained through delayed ossification of the anterior perichondrium, indicating a heterochronic component to the loss of identity. We propose a developmental mechanism - gradual expansion of the polyalanine region of HoxD13 over ichthyosaurian evolution - to explain the progressive loss of limb regionalization as well as the heterochronic delay in perichondral ossificatio

Rectified Asteroid Albedos and Diameters from IRAS and MSX

Rectified diameters and albedo estimates of 1517 main belt asteroid selected from the IRAS and MSX asteroid photometry catalogues are derived from updated infrared thermal models, the Standard Thermal Model (STM) and the Near Earth Asteroid Thermal Model (NEATM), and Monte Carlo simulations, using new Minor Planet Center (MPC) compilations of absolute magnitudes (H-values) constrained by occultation and radar derived parameters. The NEATM approach produces a more robust estimate of albedos and diameters, yielding albedos of $p_{v}$(NEATM mean)$=0.081 \pm 0.064$. The asteroid beaming parameter ($\eta$) for the selected asteroids has a mean value of $1.07 \pm 0.27$, and the smooth distribution of $\eta$ suggests that this parameter is independent of asteroid properties such as composition. No trends in $\eta$ due to size-dependent rotation rates are evident. Comparison of derived $\eta$'s as a function of taxonomic type indicates the beaming parameter values for S-type and C-type asteroids are identical within the standard deviation of the population of beaming parameters.Comment: 43 pages in manuscript layout, 9 figures. Submitted to The Astronomical Journa

A Further Look at Potential Impact of Satlets on Design, Production, and Cost of Satellite Systems

For the past 50 years, the morphology for satellites has remained fundamentally unchanged despite evolutions in manufacturing, communications, and software occurring in other industries. Primary spacecraft support systems—power, attitude control, and others—are designed in the same way, whether in space telescopes, large communications satellites, interplanetary spacecraft, or Cubesats. This paradigm has been the status quo in spacecraft design and construction and has precluded any industry-wide, large-scale cost savings while maintaining performance. To change this trend and ensure performance and utility at low cost, that can scale, DARPA postulated the concept of a cellularized satellite, or “satlet,” as a satellite architectural unit. In this new morphology, each satlet would provide some fraction of the overall functions that, when aggregated via hardware and software, provide spacecraft space system with its complete required capabilities. The DARPA Phoenix program has developed this satlet morphology in Phase I and plans to validate and demonstrate it in a series of steps that exercise various applications and levels of configuration flexibility enabled by a satlet architecture. The first system experiment is planned to be conducted on orbit in 2015. This paper aims to take a deeper look at the potential impact of space systems with cellular based designs, and using historical data showcases how design, production and ultimately cost can form the foundation for next generation spacecraft opportunities. A first order analysis conducted in a previous paper indicated that U.S.-launched satellites alone could create a market demand for 2,000-8,000 satlets flown per year, while the overall annual world satellite market could create demand for 10,000-40,000 satlets. This paper explores the instantiation of a cellular morphology to design, production and development to further quantify the impact of this revolutionary space system capability

DARPA Phoenix Payload Orbital Delivery System: Progress towards Small Satellite Access to GEO

The emerging practice of hosting payloads on commercial geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO) satellites is gaining traction throughout the space community because of the flight opportunities and budgetary savings that it offers. Using the hosted payload model, the DARPA Phoenix Payload Orbital Delivery (POD) system is meant to enable a higher tempo to GEO for small‐mass hardware items. The POD system proposes a departure from the typical hosted payload. The POD would provide a controlled release of the hosted payload from the commercial host near GEO. The POD standard user\u27s guide developed under the Phoenix program ensures compatibility with most of the approximately 15 commercial launches to GEO each year. By hosting with a standard user’s guide, commercial satellite providers would be capable of bringing hosted payloads quite late into the typical launch integration cycle. The combination of hightempo commercial launches and late integration would create an “express delivery” capability to GEO orbit. This POD capability would continue the paradigm shift of working with the commercial satellite provider directly to leverage the efficiencies of mass to orbit, reducing interactions with the launch provider. Phoenix is completing the design and ground testing of the POD system to help make access to new orbits more affordable and more routine for small‐mass systems

Utilization of the propensity score method: an exploratory comparison of proxy-completed to self-completed responses in the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey

BACKGROUND: This research examined the use of the propensity score method to compare proxy-completed responses to self-completed responses in the first three baseline cohorts of the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey, administered in 1998, 1999, and 2000, respectively. A proxy is someone other than the respondent who completes the survey for the respondent. METHODS: The propensity score method of matched sampling was used to compare proxy and self-completed responses. A propensity score is a value that equals the estimated probability of a given individual belonging to a treatment group given the observed background characteristics of that individual. Proxy and self-completed responses were compared on demographics, the SF-36, chronic conditions, activities of daily living, and depression-screening questions. For each individual survey respondent, logistic regression was used to calculate the probability that this individual belonged to the proxy respondent group (propensity score). Pre and post adjustment comparisons were tested by calculating effect sizes. RESULTS: Differences between self and proxy-completed responses were substantially reduced with the use of the propensity score method. However, differences were still found in the SF-36, several demographics, several impaired activities of daily living, several chronic conditions, and one depression-screening question. CONCLUSION: The propensity score method helped to reduce differences between proxy-completed and self-completed survey responses, thereby providing an approximation to a randomized controlled experiment of proxy-completed versus self-completed survey responses