An Assessment of Education and Training Needs in the Ohio Aerospace Industry

The Ohio Aerospace Institute engaged the Center for Economic Development at the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University to conduct an assessment of the education and training needs of Ohio aerospace companies, with an

"Convergence or Divergence? The Empirical Evidence"

[From the Introduction]. The Single European Act has affirmed the reduction of regional economic disparities as a necessary step to achieve the social and political cohesion of the community as a whole. To better understand the problem of regional disparities, the Commission has been actively studying the situation for the past decade in the publication 'The periodic reports of the social and economic situations of the regions of the Community'....My goal is to identify those regions that have experienced a steady trend of improvement or decline relative to the other European regions. A comparison between strong and weak, especially if the regions in these groups remain fairly constant over time, lends itself only to a tautological explanation of the differences between the two groups. Conversely, recognizing the regions experiencing real change in living standards and relative ranks, allow us to ask what are they doing that supports these changes. I will hypothesize that these movements can only be explained by examining the social and political situations in the regions

Novel dry powder preparations of whole inactivated influenza virus for nasal vaccination

Nasal dry powder vaccines may provide safe, effective, stable, and affordable alternatives to currently available influenza vaccines. It was proposed that maximal mucosal and systemic antibody production would be elicited by a whole inactivated influenza virus dry powder nasal vaccine formulation in response to increased local residence time. Full factorial designed experiments examining freezing rate, solute concentration, and annealing (freeze-drying) and solution feed rate, atomization airflow rate, and solute concentration (spray-freeze-drying (SFD)) were used to produce particles suitable for nasal delivery. Freeze-drying followed by milling and sieving produced heterogeneous-shaped particles below the targeted particle size, which weren't ideal for blending with mucoadhesive compounds (MA). Optimized SFD runs produced particles for human (D50=38.5[micrometer]) and rat (D50=26.9[micrometer]) delivery which were characterized for flow and thermal properties, surface area, true density, moisture content, and impact energy separation and demonstrated improved storage stability than liquid formulations. A modified cascade impactor was calibrated to characterize particles in the 10-20[micrometer] size range. Wettability, dissolution rate, and swelling indices were obtained as potential predictors of the effects MA may have on the residence time. Gamma scintigraphy allowed for visual imaging of nasal clearance, while residence time studies quantified mucociliary clearance rates. In vitro and in vivo experiments indicated that sodium alginate (SA) and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC-HMW) powder formulations had the greatest effect on increasing residence time in Brown Norway rats. A dose-response curve determined that a 2[microgram] dose was appropriate to quantify potential differences in antibody responses of formulations. IM delivery provided equivalent serum antibody titers to IN powder without MA, CMC-HMW, SA, and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC-HMW) after initial dosing and IN liquid and IN powder without-MA, CMC-HMW, SA, and HPMC-HMW after boosting. IN liquid vaccine provided equivalent serum antibody titers to IN powder without-MA, CMC-HMW, SA, chitosan, and HPMC-HMW after the initial vaccination. IN liquid provided significantly greater serum antibody titers than IN powder with chitosan after boosting. While no significant differences between powder and liquid formulations were observed, trends are consistent with residence time studies with respect to eliciting an immune response. Maximal serum and mucosal antibodies were elicited following administration of IN powder with SA

Institutional networks and industrial restructuring: Local initiatives toward the textile industry in Nottingham and Prato.

The effects of global change in the nature of production are most acutely felt at the local level. Local authorities have been quick to respond to these changes with a flurry of policy measures. An important debate has surfaced as to whether local initiatives can indeed mediate global restructuring in order to sustain the economic well-being of the locality. My thesis is a contribution to this debate. The organizing hypothesis is that, under certain conditions, local activity can help to moderate the restructuring process. In particular, a locality is most effective when it possesses thick institutional networks between public and private actors that supply a wide range of services to aid industrial adjustment. Specifically, certain types of institutional networks can provide the essential infrastructure for learning, which refers to the ability of institutions to habitually adapt both these support services and their institutional relationships to meet the new politico-economic conditions engendered by the restructuring process. My research compares how two proactive localities (Nottingham in the East Midlands and Prato in Tuscany), both historic centres of textile and clothing production but with different institutional architecture, have assisted their industry to restructure away from the mass production of low-priced goods toward the more flexible production of high value products. Chapter one critically reviews the debate on the role of local institutions in economic development. Chapter two then discusses how different institutional networks emerge and establishes the methodology for recognizing networks, measuring thickness and assessing institutional learning capacity. Chapters three and four present an institutional map of each locality, identifying the key institutions and the types of networks that have developed. Chapters five and six examine the evolution of both the support services provided to the industry and the institutional relations during the restructuring period to assess each locality's institutional learning capacity. Chapter seven looks specifically at the growing, albeit recent, influence of the European Union on local institution-building in the two cases. Finally, chapter eight directly compares the two localities to draw general conclusions regarding the role of institutional networks in the industrial restructuring process and in economic development more generally

Novel dry powder preparations of whole inactivated influenza virus for nasal vaccination

The purpose of these studies was to enhance mucosal and systemic antibody production in response to increased local residence time of a whole inactivated influenza virus administered as a dry powder nasal vaccine formulation. Spray-freeze-drying (SFD) particles suitable for nasal delivery were characterized for physico-chemical properties and stability. Mucoadhesive compounds (MA) were characterized for their effects on nasal residence time of vaccine powders in rats compared with published in vitro data and elicited immune responses. SFD particles (D50=26.9µm) were spherical with a specific surface area of 1.25 m2/g. Thermal analysis indicated SFD powders were amorphous and demonstrated improved stability with respect to liquid formulations under various storage conditions. In vitro physico-chemical studies and in vivo scintigraphic imaging experiments indicated sodium alginate (SA) and carboxymethylcellulose-high molecular weight (CMC-HMW) powder formulations most significantly increased residence time in Brown Norway rats. Intramuscular delivery provided equivalent serum antibody titers to intranasal (IN) powder without MA, in the presence of CMC-HMW, SA, and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC-HMW) after initial dosing and all formulations except IN powder with chitosan after boosting. IN liquid provided equivalent serum antibody titers to all IN powders after the initial vaccination and significantly greater serum antibody titers than IN powder with chitosan after boosting. Trends were consistent between residence time studies and immune response; however, no statistically significant differences between powder and liquid formulations were observed. It was concluded that enhanced serum and mucosal antibody responses were elicited by a dry powder nasal vaccine, specifically, administered in the presence of sodium alginate

Italian and English local funding networks: Is there a winning formula?

This article contributes to the understanding of European Local Governance by exploring the European funding networks developed within local areas under Objective 2 of the Structural Funds. The article describes the EU funding networks (within the theoretical perspective of network theory) and examines the relationship between the presence of local EU funding networks and councils' success in accessing EU funds. This exploratory study focuses on the appearance of policy networks at the local government level in Italy and England and discusses their durability and implications for their future

Intranasal Delivery of Influenza Subunit Vaccine Formulated with GEM Particles as an Adjuvant

Nasal administration of influenza vaccine has the potential to facilitate influenza control and prevention. However, when administered intranasally (i.n.), commercially available inactivated vaccines only generate systemic and mucosal immune responses if strong adjuvants are used, which are often associated with safety problems. We describe the successful use of a safe adjuvant Gram-positive enhancer matrix (GEM) particles derived from the food-grade bacterium Lactococcus lactis for i.n. vaccination with subunit influenza vaccine in mice. It is shown that simple admixing of the vaccine with the GEM particles results in a strongly enhanced immune response. Already after one booster, the i.n. delivered GEM subunit vaccine resulted in hemagglutination inhibition titers in serum at a level equal to the conventional intramuscular (i.m.) route. Moreover, i.n. immunization with GEM subunit vaccine elicited superior mucosal and Th1 skewed immune responses compared to those induced by i.m. and i.n. administered subunit vaccine alone. In conclusion, GEM particles act as a potent adjuvant for i.n. influenza immunization

COGNITIVE TEMPO AND SELF-CONCEPT IN INNER CITY CHILDREN WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

The relationship of cognitive tempo, as measured by the Matching Familiar Figures Test, to tests of cognitive and personality functioning was assessed in a multi-ethnic inner-city environment. A group of boys aged 8 to 11 who were functioning at grade level in public school classes were contrasted with a similar group whose learning disabilities were serious enough to warrant their referral for placement in full-time special classes. The children were all of low socioeconomic status and did not differ significantly as to age or ethnicity. The study attempted to extend previous observations of cognitive tempo functioning to an inner-city environment, and to explore the degree to which learning disability subjects might be profitably discriminated by means of the MFFT for better placement and remediation. Besides the slow-accurate and fast-inaccurate cognitive tempo groups usually investigated in MFFT research, slow-inaccurate subjects were also included in order to clarify the extent to which such subjects might function independently of other groups. Differences between cognitive tempo subgroups were assessed on the Ravens Coloured Progressive Matrices, the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities Visual Reception subtest, the Wepman Auditory Discrimination Test, and the Piers-Harris Children\u27s Self-Concept Scale. All tests were scored for correct responses; the RCPM and ITPA subtests were also administered as instruments of cognitive tempo to explore their characteristics as instruments of response uncertainty. Cognitive tempo differences on total scores were tested for each of the two samples separately by one-way analyses of variance and subsequent Newman-Keuls comparisons. Generally, learning disabilities children (N = 45) demonstrated greater differences between the abilities measured by the tests than did normal class children (N = 45). For LD children, differences in abstract reasoning as measured by the RCPM were different from all three cognitive tempo groups. Slow-accurate LD subjects also had a higher self-concept than slow-inaccurate LD subjects. For NC subjects, only differences for slow-accurates over other subgroups on the RCPM emerged as significant. No subgroup differences were apparent for either sample on the Wepman. Correlations of errors and latency showed that the MFFT retained its robustness as an instrument of cognitive tempo in the inner-city samples; RCPM error-latency scores also demonstrated significant negative correlations for both samples. Intercorrelations among MFFT, RCPM, and ITPA subtest error and latency scores suggest that situations with response uncertainty may differ for different populations and different measures. It was recommended that instruments be developed that might be more sensitive to cognitive tempo manifestations and that clinical tasks be developed that make use of cognitive tempo observations