Utilization of aging program results in plant inspections

Research conducted under the auspices of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission Nuclear Plant Aging Research (NPAR) Program has resulted in a large data base of component and system operating experience. This data base has been used to determine equipment aging susceptibility and the potential for equipment aging to impact plant safety and reliability. Methods of detecting and mitigating component and system aging have also been identified. This paper discusses how the NPAR results could be used to focus inspection activities on age-sensitive components and systems and on the specific modes and mechanisms of age degradation. These activities range from the regular inspections conducted by resident inspectors to extensive special inspections such as the Safety System Functional Inspection typically conducted by a team of inspectors. 5 refs., 3 figs., 1 tab

Knowledge sharing in context: The case of volunteer development at a heritage site

© The Authors, 2017. This paper offers insights into the role and processes associated with knowledge sharing, as part of the development of volunteers at a substantial heritage site. The marked growth in the numbers and importance of volunteers in the heritage sector in the UK has fuelled interest and research in volunteer management, but researchers have paid little attention to the important area of the processes through which volunteers develop the skills and knowledge that they need to deliver their role. In order to contribute to addressing this gap, this paper reports on research conducted at a major heritage site in the UK. Data was gathered through onsite interviews with management and focus groups with volunteers. Questions explored the sources of knowledge utilised by volunteers, the knowledge sharing processes involved and how this contributed to their development. Whilst some managers are more committed to embedding learning opportunities in the everyday volunteering experience than others, and volunteers vary in their interest in developing new skills or transferring their existing knowledge and skills into their role as a volunteer, there is a general acknowledgement that knowledge sharing is pivotal to volunteer development. Informal learning was found to be the principal vehicle for the acquisition of knowledge by volunteers. This took place in many situations such as shared breaks, mentoring and community of practice situations, although the nature of volunteer roles determined the extent of social contact. Managers were fully aware of their critical role in knowledge sharing and attempted to facilitate such informal learning through formal and informal mentoring whilst also instigating some formal training and cascading information. Volunteers also took the initiative in setting up a dropbox for knowledge sharing, and in managing a social club, both of which they regarded as a vehicle for networking, informal learning and benchmarking. However, volunteers were less enthusiastic about the introduction of an intranet specifically for volunteers

An investigation of factors affecting knowledge sharing amongst UK academics

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to construct and investigate relationships between knowledge-sharing factors, attitude and the intention to share of UK academics, as research on knowledge sharing in higher education is extremely sparse. Design/methodology/approach A research model and hypotheses were constructed from individual and organisational factors that were identified to affect knowledge sharing. Questionnaire data were obtained from 367 academics concerning their attitude and intention towards knowledge sharing. This was then used in a two-stage structural equation modelling approach where the measurement model was used for confirmatory factor analysis. The structural model was used to measure and test the hypothesised relationships. Findings Findings indicate that, in general, individual beliefs amongst academics were more influential on their knowledge-sharing attitudes than organisational culture. Furthermore, leadership was the most influential factor within the overall organisational culture whereas autonomy demonstrated the weakest relationship. Belief in the possibility of rewards through associations was found to be a highly significant individual factor. The relationship between attitude and intention was relatively weak although still statistically significant. Originality/value The research demonstrates that management should ensure that departmental leaders promote knowledge sharing and that valued rewards are linked to sharing within the department

The Black Feminist Mixtape: A Collective Black Feminist Autoethnography of Black Women\u27s Existence in the Academy

Seven Black women graduate students from across different functional areas of higher education work in solidarity to write a collective Black Feminist Autoethnography (BFA) (Griffin, 2012) about our experiences at our respective colleges and universities. BFA is a theoretical and methodological means for Black female academics to critically narrate the pride and pain of Black womanhood (Griffin, 2012, p. 1). This article centers Black feminist scholarship as a framework to reflexively interpret how we as seven Black women navigate within, against, and beyond the academy to address dominant narratives that affect our professional and personal experiences. We use contemporary music lyrics and poems by Black women to actively illustrate and interrogate our individual and collective positionalities to promote critical literacy. Together, we are seven Black sista scholars who reclaim our voice as legitimized epistemologies in academic spaces. Hear Our Voices

GIVE: portable genome browsers for personal websites.

Growing popularity and diversity of genomic data demand portable and versatile genome browsers. Here, we present an open source programming library called GIVE that facilitates the creation of personalized genome browsers without requiring a system administrator. By inserting HTML tags, one can add to a personal webpage interactive visualization of multiple types of genomics data, including genome annotation, "linear" quantitative data, and genome interaction data. GIVE includes a graphical interface called HUG (HTML Universal Generator) that automatically generates HTML code for displaying user chosen data, which can be copy-pasted into user's personal website or saved and shared with collaborators. GIVE is available at: https://www.givengine.org/

Leadership and decision-making practices in public versus private universities in Pakistan

The goal of this study is to examine differences in leadership and decision-making practices in public and private universities in Pakistan, with a focus on transformational leadership (TL) and participative decision-making (PDM). We conducted semi-structured interviews with 46 deans and heads of department from two public and two private universities in Pakistan. Our findings indicate that leadership and decision-making practices are different in public and private universities. While differences were observed in all six types of TL-behaviour, the following three approaches emerged to be crucial in both public and private universities: (1) articulating a vision, (2) fostering the acceptance of group goals, and (3) high-performance expectations. In terms of PDM, deans and heads of department in public and private universities adopt a collaborative approach. However, on a practical level this approach is limited to teacher- and student-related matters. Overall, our findings suggest that the leadership and decision-making practices in Pakistani public and private universities are transformational and participative in nature

Implementation of self management support for long term conditions in routine primary care settings: cluster randomised controlled trial

ObjectiveTo determine the effectiveness of an intervention to enhance self management support for patients with chronic conditions in UK primary care. Design Pragmatic, two arm, cluster randomised controlled trial.SettingGeneral practices, serving a population in northwest England with high levels of deprivation.Participants5599 patients with a diagnosis of diabetes (n=2546), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n=1634), and irritable bowel syndrome(n=1419) from 43 practices (19 intervention and 22 control practices).Intervention Practice level training in a whole systems approach to self management support. Practices were trained to use a range of resources: a tool to assess the support needs of patients, guidebooks on self management, and a web based directory of local self management resources. Training facilitators were employed by the health management organisation.Main Outcome MeasuresPrimary outcomes were shared decision making, self efficacy, and generic health related quality of life measured at 12 months. Secondary outcomes were general health, social or role limitations, energy and vitality, psychological wellbeing, self care activity,and enablement.ResultsWe randomised 44 practices and recruited 5599 patients, representing 43% of the eligible population on the practice lists. 4533 patients (81.0%) completed the six month follow-up and 4076 (72.8%)the 12 month follow-up.No statistically significant differences were found between patients attending trained practices and those attending control practices on any of the primary or secondary outcomes. All effect size estimates were well below the prespecified threshold of clinically important difference

Strain- and plasmid-level deconvolution of a synthetic metagenome by sequencing proximity ligation products

Metagenomics is a valuable tool for the study of microbial communities but has been limited by the difficulty of “binning” the resulting sequences into groups corresponding to the individual species and strains that constitute the community. Moreover, there are presently no methods to track the flow of mobile DNA elements such as plasmids through communities or to determine which of these are co-localized within the same cell. We address these limitations by applying Hi-C, a technology originally designed for the study of three-dimensional genome structure in eukaryotes, to measure the cellular co-localization of DNA sequences. We leveraged Hi-C data generated from a simple synthetic metagenome sample to accurately cluster metagenome assembly contigs into groups that contain nearly complete genomes of each species. The Hi-C data also reliably associated plasmids with the chromosomes of their host and with each other. We further demonstrated that Hi-C data provides a long-range signal of strain-specific genotypes, indicating such data may be useful for high-resolution genotyping of microbial populations. Our work demonstrates that Hi-C sequencing data provide valuable information for metagenome analyses that are not currently obtainable by other methods. This metagenomic Hi-C method could facilitate future studies of the fine-scale population structure of microbes, as well as studies of how antibiotic resistance plasmids (or other genetic elements) mobilize in microbial communities. The method is not limited to microbiology; the genetic architecture of other heterogeneous populations of cells could also be studied with this technique

Enrichment analysis of Alu elements with different spatial chromatin proximity in the human genome

Transposable elements (TEs) have no longer been totally considered as “junk DNA” for quite a time since the continual discoveries of their multifunctional roles in eukaryote genomes. As one of the most important and abundant TEs that still active in human genome, Alu, a SINE family, has demonstrated its indispensable regulatory functions at sequence level, but its spatial roles are still unclear. Technologies based on 3C(chromosomeconformation capture) have revealed the mysterious three-dimensional structure of chromatin, and make it possible to study the distal chromatin interaction in the genome. To find the role TE playing in distal regulation in human genome, we compiled the new released Hi-C data, TE annotation, histone marker annotations, and the genome-wide methylation data to operate correlation analysis, and found that the density of Alu elements showed a strong positive correlation with the level of chromatin interactions (hESC: r=0.9, P<2.2×1016; IMR90 fibroblasts: r = 0.94, P < 2.2 × 1016) and also have a significant positive correlation withsomeremote functional DNA elements like enhancers and promoters (Enhancer: hESC: r=0.997, P=2.3×10−4; IMR90: r=0.934, P=2×10−2; Promoter: hESC: r = 0.995, P = 3.8 × 10−4; IMR90: r = 0.996, P = 3.2 × 10−4). Further investigation involving GC content and methylation status showed the GC content of Alu covered sequences shared a similar pattern with that of the overall sequence, suggesting that Alu elements also function as the GC nucleotide and CpG site provider. In all, our results suggest that the Alu elements may act as an alternative parameter to evaluate the Hi-C data, which is confirmed by the correlation analysis of Alu elements and histone markers. Moreover, the GC-rich Alu sequence can bring high GC content and methylation flexibility to the regions with more distal chromatin contact, regulating the transcription of tissue-specific genes