Attitudes and opinions of Grundy County citizens concerning the savage gulf state natural area

The purpose of this study was to leam about the habits and patterns of use of the Savage Gulf State National Area (SGSNA) by Grundy County citizens and to determine the attitudes of Grundy Countians about the Savage Gulf project and related issues. The information gained through this study was to be used by the Tennessee Department of Conservation in the planning of the SGSNA. At the time the study was conducted, the De-partment of Conservation was seeking input from various groups of people in order to formulate the Master Plan for the SGSNA project. The local residents of Grundy County and members of certain organizations were sur-veyed to learn more about their perceptions of the SGSNA and the Depart-ment of Conservation, and to obtain their opinions and preferences con-cerning the SGSNA. The primary means and procedures used in data assembly for this re-search involved the administration of a questionnaire to two populations of Grundy Coundy citizens. Informal personal interviews also proA/ided a major portion of the data. The populations included (1) members of eight selected conservation or outdoor recreation organizations and (2) members of randomly selected households from throughout the county. The research findings show that the members of organizations have more knowledge about the SGSNA and they use the land areas of the Savage Gulf project more than county residents who generally do not belong to these organizations. Because organization members presently use SGSNA lands for jeeping, hunting, and hiking, they are brought into closer contact with the Savage Gulf project than those people who do not regularly engage in these three popular activities. Organization respondents were more knowledgeable about the purpose of a natural area and their knowledge of the rules that govern the SGSNA surpassed that of the household respondents. The research also found that the respondents tended to welcome the State of Tennessee as a protector of their resource with the hope that the establishment of the Savage Gulf pro ject would be beneficial for the citizens of Grundy County. The study attempted to learn the opinions and perceptions of Grundy countians about the SGSNA and related issues. This was know-ledge gained through personal contact with many individuals on both a formal basis, the questionnaire, and on an informal basis, through per-sonal interviews. The study makes the point that public participation methods should be applied on a case-by-base basis so that as many citi-zens as possible can have the opportunity to participate in the planning of a project that is important to the entire county

The doors of opportunity: How do community partners experience working as co-educators in a service-learning collaboration?

This article explores the experiences of organisations participating as Community Partners (CPs) and co-educators in a service-learning module in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in South Wales, UK. It focuses on the opportunities and challenges faced by community organisations when working within the Service-learning (SL) model, and the relationship with the university and the students, including issues of expectation, assessment and identity. The partners provided SL placements of 30 hours or more in a range of community projects and organisations. These placements were intensely collaborative affairs. We researched the experiences of community partners to better understand the dynamics of the relationship; to better understand how to prepare community partners, HEIs and students; and to tease out how complex partnership projects like this one with multiple partners may be conducted successfully. A qualitative study was conducted. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using Reflexive Thematic Analysis. Three main themes emerged from the data: Dynamic Tensions; For Each and Every One; and Broadening Horizons. The findings suggest that developing a transformation of the relationship is key to a strong and effective partnership. There needs to be active and dynamic collaboration between CPs and HEIs, including involvement in research projects like these, to better understand and navigate the pleasures and pains of successful cooperative relationships

Influential Article Review - Resilience in leadership Methodological Structures and Analysis Models

This paper examines leadership and management. We present insights from a highly influential paper. Here are the highlights from this paper: The purpose of this article was to discuss conceptual frameworks and research models on resilience theory. The constructs of resilience, the history of resilience theory, models of resilience, variables of resilience, career resilience, and organizational resilience will be examined and discussed as they relate to leadership development. The literature demonstrates that there is a direct relationship between the stress of the leader’s job and his or her ability to maintain resilience in the face of prolonged contact with adversity. This article discusses resilience theory as it relates to leadership development. The concept associated with resilience, which includes thriving and hardiness, is explored with the belief that resilient leaders are invaluable to the sustainability of an organization. In addition, the constructs of resilience and the history of resilience studies in the field of psychiatry, developmental psychopathy, human development, medicine, epidemiology, and the social sciences are examined. Survival, recovery, and thriving are concepts associated with resilience and describe the stage at which a person may be during or after facing adversity. The concept of “thriving” refers to a person’s ability to go beyond his or her original level of functioning and to grow and function despite repeated exposure to stressful experiences. The literature suggests a number of variables that characterize resilience and thriving. These variables include positive self-esteem, hardiness, strong coping skills, a sense of coherence, self-efficacy, optimism, strong social resources, adaptability, risk-taking, low fear of failure, determination, perseverance, and a high tolerance of uncertainty. These are reviewed in this article. The findings in this article suggest that those who develop leaders need to create safe environments to help emerging and existing leaders thrive as individuals and as organizational leaders in the area of resilience to impact productivity and sustainability. For our overseas readers, we then present the insights from this paper in Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German

SIFT Flow: Dense Correspondence across Scenes and its Applications

While image alignment has been studied in different areas of computer vision for decades, aligning images depicting different scenes remains a challenging problem. Analogous to optical flow where an image is aligned to its temporally adjacent frame, we propose SIFT flow, a method to align an image to its nearest neighbors in a large image corpus containing a variety of scenes. The SIFT flow algorithm consists of matching densely sampled, pixel-wise SIFT features between two images, while preserving spatial discontinuities. The SIFT features allow robust matching across different scene/object appearances, whereas the discontinuity-preserving spatial model allows matching of objects located at different parts of the scene. Experiments show that the proposed approach robustly aligns complex scene pairs containing significant spatial differences. Based on SIFT flow, we propose an alignment-based large database framework for image analysis and synthesis, where image information is transferred from the nearest neighbors to a query image according to the dense scene correspondence. This framework is demonstrated through concrete applications, such as motion field prediction from a single image, motion synthesis via object transfer, satellite image registration and face recognition

Coal dust explosibility meter evaluation and recommendations for application

"This report details the results of a NIOSH investigation on the ability of the Coal Dust Explosibility Meter (CDEM) to accurately predict the explosibility of samples of coal and rock dust mixtures collected from underground coal mines in the U.S. The CDEM, which gives instantaneous results in real time, represents a new way for miners and operators to assess the relative hazard of dust accumulations in their mines and the effectiveness of their rock dusting practices. The CDEM was developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and successfully underwent national and international peer review. The intention of the device is to assist mine operators in complying with the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) final rule 30 CFR* 75.403, requiring that the incombustible content of combined coal dust, rock dust, and other dust be at least 80% in underground areas of bituminous coal mines. As a final step towards commercialization of the CDEM, and to evaluate the performance of the device as a potential compliance tool, NIOSH undertook an extensive cooperative study with MSHA. This study, completed in 2009-2010, involved field use of the CDEM within MSHA's 10 bituminous coal districts. As part of their routine dust compliance surveys in these districts, MSHA inspectors collected sample coal and rock dust mixtures, field testing these samples for explosibility with the CDEM. Samples were then sent to the MSHA National Air and Dust Laboratory at Mt. Hope, WV, for parallel testing, first using a drying oven to determine the moisture followed by the traditional low temperature ashing (LTA) method. The LTA method determines explosibility of a coal and rock dust sample in a laboratory by heating the mixture to burn off the combustible material. The results, when combined with the moisture, are reported as total incombustible content (TIC). If the TIC is . 80%, the sample is deemed to be nonexplosible and compliant with 30 CFR 75.403. In the field component of this study, MSHA's use of the CDEM indicated that 30% (175) of the 591 samples collected were explosible. NIOSH was able to obtain and remeasure 297 samples, and 97% of those identified by the CDEM as being explosible (27% of samples) or nonexplosible (73% of samples) correlated with the results of the subsequent lab analysis using the LTA method. Of the remaining 3% where there were differences between the field and laboratory methods, subsequent NIOSH evaluation attributed these differences to the variability (incomplete mixing, inadequate drying of the sample, the particle size of the rock dust and/or coal dust) of the samples being analyzed, the retained moisture in those samples, and the inherent ash in the coal. In considering these results and comparing the CDEM field measurements to the LTA laboratory measurements, it is important to understand the fundamental distinctions between the two methods. The determination of TIC by the LTA method is not itself a direct measure of explosibility, but a surrogate that calculates a single parameter associated with full-scale experimental results. This method is not based on particle size and treats all particles equally regardless of the size. In contrast, the CDEM utilizes a different approach, using optical reflectance to determine the ratio of rock dust to coal dust in a mixture, with full-scale experiments on flame propagation having already demonstrated the effects of varying the coal dust particle sizes and incombustible concentrations on the explosible vs. nonexplosible dust mixtures. A final important distinction between the two methods is that the CDEM offers real-time measurements of the explosion propagation hazard within a coal mine entry, allowing for immediate identification and mitigation of the problem, while the results from the traditional LTA method are not known for days or weeks after a sample is collected, allowing for the deficiency in rock dust to continue. The conclusions of this study strongly support the field use of the CDEM to measure the explosibility of coal and rock dust mixtures, to more effectively improve the onsite adequacy of rock dusting for explosion prevention. Mine operators could use the CDEM on a regular basis to ensure that their rock dusting practices are achieving inertization requirements and meeting the intent of 30 CFR 75.403. MSHA inspectors could use the CDEM as a tool to immediately identify onsite explosibility hazards and initiate corrective action. A critical issue to both the LTA and the CDEM analysis methods is that the results are dependent on representative samples being collected for analysis." - NIOSHTIC-2Executive summary -- Introduction -- Background on coal dust and explosibility testing -- CDEM 0peration -- Comparison of laboratory results and CDEM results -- Joint study between NIOSH and MSHA -- Results and discussion -- GREEN measurements -- RED/YELLOW measurements -- Conclusions from the NIOSH study -- Commercial CDEM development -- Calibration and programming of the commercial CDEM -- Commercial CDEM changes based on potential customer concerns -- The Commercial CDEM as a verification and compliance tool -- NIOSH recommendations -- Acknowledgments -- References -- APPENDIX A: CDEM design -- APPENDIX B: CDEM training -- APPENDIX C: Prototype CDEM calibration and testing procedures used in the joint study -- APPENDIX D: Particle size effect -- APPENDIX E: MSHA inspector questions and commentsMarcia L. Harris, Michael J. Sapko, Floyd D. Varley, and Eric S. Weiss"August 2012."Also available via the World Wide Web.Includes bibliographical references (p. 25-26)

Immuno-Oncology Medicines: Policy Implications and Economic Considerations

Significant progress has taken place in the field of cancer immunotherapy in recent years. Cancer immunotherapy, particularly immune checkpoint inhibitors, have shown rather dramatic results and are believed to have completely transformed the field of oncology. However, these transformational therapies are more expensive than previous cancer therapies. As more cancer immunotherapy agents are being developed, with some already being marketed, it is important to consider how economic constraints will shape health policy and value assessment related to these agents. A number of strategies have been suggested to alleviate the price burden and the ensuing concerns about the sustainability of publicly funded healthcare systems. Among these strategies, value-based pricing (VBP) for innovative drugs dominates the headlines in the field of oncology. The specifics of how VBP may be implemented in the United States is still unclear. Nonetheless, policy reform and economic considerations will have to be incorporated into the planning of VBP. The objective of this paper is multifold: (i) to identify the factors affecting the impact of cancer immunotherapy on healthcare cost; (ii) to critically appraise current approaches used to assess the value of novel cancer therapies; (iii) to assess the methodological challenges associated with the economic evaluation of cancer immunotherapy. As the health care system in the U.S transitions toward a value-based model, the need for a formal value assessment framework is warranted in cancer immunotherapy.   Article Type: Revie

NLR members NLRC4 and NLRP3 mediate sterile inflammasome activation in microglia and astrocytes

Inflammation in the brain accompanies several high-impact neurological diseases including multiple sclerosis (MS), stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease. Neuroinflammation is sterile, as damage-associated molecular patterns rather than microbial pathogens elicit the response. The inflammasome, which leads to caspase-1 activation, is implicated in neuroinflammation. In this study, we reveal that lysophosphatidylcholine (LPC), a molecule associated with neurodegeneration and demyelination, elicits NLRP3 and NLRC4 inflammasome activation in microglia and astrocytes, which are central players in neuroinflammation. LPC-activated inflammasome also requires ASC (apoptotic speck containing protein with a CARD), caspase-1, cathepsin-mediated degradation, calcium mobilization, and potassium efflux but not caspase-11. To study the physiological relevance, Nlrc4 −/− and Nlrp3 −/− mice are studied in the cuprizone model of neuroinflammation and demyelination. Mice lacking both genes show the most pronounced reduction in astrogliosis and microglial accumulation accompanied by decreased expression of the LPC receptor G2A, whereas MS patient samples show increased G2A. These results reveal that NLRC4 and NLRP3, which normally form distinct inflammasomes, activate an LPC-induced inflammasome and are important in astrogliosis and microgliosis

Biodiversity 2020: climate change evaluation report

In 2011, the government published Biodiversity 2020: A strategy for England’s wildlife and ecosystem services [1]. This strategy for England builds on the 2011 Natural Environment White Paper - NEWP [2] and provides a comprehensive picture of how we are implementing our international and EU commitments. It sets out the strategic direction for biodiversity policy between 2011-2020 on land (including rivers and lakes) and at sea, and forms part of the UK’s commitments under the ‘the Aichi targets’ agreed in 2010 under the United Nations Convention of Biological Diversity’s Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 [3]. Defra is committed to evaluating the Biodiversity 2020 strategy and has a public commitment to assess climate change adaptation measures. This document sets out the information on assessing how action under Biodiversity 2020 has helped our wildlife and ecosystems to adapt to climate change. Biodiversity 2020 aims to halt the loss of biodiversity and restore functioning ecosystems for wildlife and for people. The outcomes and actions in Biodiversity 2020, although wider in scope, aimed to increase resilience of our wildlife and ecosystems in the face of a changing climate. In order to inform the assessment, we have defined which of the measurable outputs under Biodiversity 2020 contribute to resilience. Biodiversity 2020 included plans to develop and publish a dedicated set of indicators to assess progress towards the delivery of the strategy. The latest list (at the time of writing), published in 2017, contains 24 biodiversity indicators [4] that would help inform progress towards achieving specific outcomes, they are also highly relevant to the outputs (detailed below) that form the basis for this evaluation. The Adaptation Sub-Committee’s 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Evidence Report [5] sets out the priority climate change risks and opportunities for the UK. The ASC also produced a review of progress in the National Adaptation Programme - “Progress in preparing for climate change” [6], which highlights adaptation priorities and progress being made towards achieving them. The UK Government’s response to the ASC [7] review includes a set of recommendations, of which Recommendation 6 states that “Action should be taken to enhance the condition of priority habitats and the abundance and range of priority species”. The recommendation further iterated that “This action should maintain or extend the level of ambition that was included in Biodiversity 2020” and that “An evaluation should be undertaken of Biodiversity 2020 including the extent to which goals have been met and of the implications for resilience to climate change.” To this, end an evaluation process has been put in place to define: a. What worked and why? Which actions or activities have had the greatest benefit in terms of delivering the desired outcomes? And, conversely, what prevented progress? b. Where are the opportunities? What are the financial, political, scientific and social opportunities for furthering the desired outcomes in the future? These objectives underpin the evaluation process for actions to date, and will also inform future actions and the iteration of a new nature strategy for England