Union Response to Technological Change

Basic to the development of featherbedding are the fear of displacement and resistance to the use of the machine. Featherbedding grew out of an environment of violence in which destruction of machinery was frequent and represents a more civilized (sic) manner by which workers can protect their employment opportunities. Since the plight of workers affected by technological change concerns many groups of workers in the economy, different attitudes toward displacement and technological change are examined in this study. Clearly apparent is the fact that featherbedding is part of the larger problem of technological displacement •. As industrial and governmental techniques and programs reduce the fears 1-mich workers have of new machine, featherbedding will also decline. Although it may be true that craft unionism must bear some of the blame for mallee-work practices and attitudes, generally the best method of ridding industry. of this practice is to tackle the overall problem of displacement by promoting practices that increase job security

Sharing financial risk through flexible farm lease agreements

A simulation model representing a north central U.S. corn and soybean farm was used to estimate the degree of financial risk borne by the tenant and the landlord under 10 different types of flexible cash leases. Probability distributions for yields, prices and production costs were incorporated. Measures of risk included standard deviation of profits, probability of loss, and 10th percentile value at risk. A profit sharing lease that included rent adjustments for all three variables shifted the most risk from the tenant to the landowner, and reduced the tenant\u27s probability of incurring an economic loss from 51 percent to 37 percent

An Introduction to the COLIN Optimization Interface

We describe COLIN, a Common Optimization Library INterface for C++. COLIN provides C++ template classes that define a generic interface for both optimization problems and optimization solvers. COLIN is specifically designed to facilitate the development of hybrid optimizers, for which one optimizer calls another to solve an optimization subproblem. We illustrate the capabilities of COLIN with an example of a memetic genetic programming solver

Preliminary Report on Experimental Investigation of Engine Dynamics and Controls for a 48-inch Ram-jet Engine

Engine dynamics and controls data are presented for a ram-jet engine which was operated in a free-jet facility at a Mach number of 2.76 and altitudes from 68,000 to 82,000 feet. The predominant engine dynamic characteristics was dead time, with values ranging from 0.018 to 0.053 sec. The control systems were designed to hold a constant ratio of a diffuser static pressure to an inlet-cone reference static pressure. Response times and percent overshoot to fuel-flow disturbances that would have caused subcritical operation without control are included for a wide range of control settings. For all settings, the control response was fast enough (0.08 to 0.5 sec) to prevent subcritical operation

Barriers to the Effective Implementation of Immunization Information Systems in a Private Provider Setting

One of the goals of Healthy People 2010 is to increase the proportion of children less than 6 years of age with two or more vaccinations recorded in a fully operational population-based immunization information system to 95%. In 2008, we piloted the Nevada web-based immunization information system (WEBIZ) in a large private pediatric clinic in north-west Las Vegas. Our objectives were: (1) to determine compliance with the recommendation that all vaccine providers report immunization activities to the WEBIZ without a state mandate and (2) to determine perceived barriers to compliance and suggestions on how to overcome expressed barriers. We documented the number of newly created and updated immunization records as outcome measures of compliance following initial training, ongoing technical support and feedback to the clinic staff on the use of WEBIZ. We found low compliance with the recommendation to document immunization activities and clinic staffs were more likely to document immunization activities when there is an established record in WEBIZ compared to when a new record had to be created by the staff. Our survey of participating clinic staff, identified time to create new records as the most common reported barrier to compliance with recommendation. We concluded that without a state mandate, compliance with the recommendation would remain low and that documentation of hepatitis B birth dose in WEBIZ, thus creating an initial record, could potentially reduce barriers to compliance with recommendation to document immunization activity in WEBIZ

Radar Measurements of NHTSA’s Surrogate Vehicle ‘SS-V’

NHTSA seeks to objectively quantify the performance of forward-looking advanced technologies such as Crash Imminent Braking (CIB) and Dynamic Brake Support (DBS) on the test track. Since these evaluations are expected to result in collisions between the subject vehicle (SV) and a principal other vehicle (POV) positioned directly in front of it, safety necessitates that the POV be a surrogate. However, to insure the tests will provide an accurate assessment of the SV’s CIB and/or DBS capabilities, the surrogate must present as realistic. One way “realism” must be quantified involves a surrogate’s radar return characteristics. The tests described in this report were performed to assess the radar return characteristics of NHTSA’s Strikeable Surrogate Vehicle (SS_V), a test target visually similar to a small hatchback. This work was performed by Michigan Tech Research Institute (MTRI) and the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) on August 5, 2012 and October 11, 2012 under US DOT/NHTSA contracts DTNH22-12-P-0158 and DTNH22-12-P-01638, respectively. The tests performed indicate the SS_V is a viable surrogate for automotive safety tests where the SV approaches a POV from the tail-aspect

Metabolism of plasmalogen III. Relative reactivities of acyl and alkenyl derivatives of glycerol-3-phosphorylcholine

1. (1) The alkenyl ether derivatives of phospholipids (plasmalogens) react at slower rates than the acyl analogs in several enzyme-catalyzed reactions.2. (2) Alkenylglycerol-3-phosphorylcholine is essentially inert as a substrate for acyl-CoA: phospholipid acyltransf erase. This result suggests that in vivo the 2-acyl substituent may be present before the alkenyl ether group is formed in the molecule.3. (3) Alkenyl acylglycerol 3-phosphorylcholine is essentially inert as a substrate for cabbage phospholipase D (EC 3.1.4.4.). This lack of reactivity allows a convenient separation of alkenyl acylglycerol 3-phosphorylcholine from its diacyl analog in naturally occurring mixtures.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32018/1/0000060.pd

Cross-biome transplants of plant litter show decomposition models extend to a broader climatic range but lose predictability at the decadal time scale

We analyzed results from 10-year long field incubations of foliar and fine root litter from the Long-term Intersite Decomposition Experiment Team (LIDET) study. We tested whether a variety of climate and litter quality variables could be used to develop regression models of decomposition parameters across wide ranges in litter quality and climate and whether these models changed over short to long time periods. Six genera of foliar and three genera of root litters were studied with a 10-fold range in the ratio of acid unhydrolyzable fraction (AUF, or ‘lignin’) to N. Litter was incubated at 27 field sites across numerous terrestrial biomes including arctic and alpine tundra, temperate and tropical forests, grasslands and warm deserts. We used three separate mathematical models of first-order (exponential) decomposition, emphasizing either the first year or the entire decade. One model included the proportion of relatively stable material as an asymptote. For short-term (first-year) decomposition, nonlinear regressions of exponential or power function form were obtained with r 2 values of 0.82 and 0.64 for foliar and fine-root litter, respectively, across all biomes included. AUF and AUF : N ratio were the most explanative litter quality variables, while the combined temperature-moisture terms AET (actual evapotranspiration) and CDI (climatic decomposition index) were best for climatic effects. Regressions contained some systematic bias for grasslands and arctic and boreal sites, but not for humid tropical forests or temperate deciduous and coniferous forests. The ability of the regression approach to fit climate-driven decomposition models of the 10-year field results was dramatically reduced from the ability to capture drivers of short-term decomposition. Future work will require conceptual and methodological improvements to investigate processes controlling decadal-scale litter decomposition, including the formation of a relatively stable fraction and its subsequent decomposition.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78615/1/j.1365-2486.2009.02086.x.pd