Moving Up in the New Economy: Career Ladders for U.S. Workers

[Excerpt] This book is about restoring the upward mobility of U.S. workers. Specifically it is about the one workforce-development strategy that is currently aimed at exactly that goal – the strategy of creating (or re-creating) not just jobs but also career ladders. Career-ladder strategies aim to devise explicit pathways of occupational advancement

Subsidizing solar power manufacturers is no guarantee of success

In the early 2000s, as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, many US states and cities expanded subsidies for solar power manufacturers, which led to a growing industry. But by the early 2010s, many previously successful companies had gone bankrupt. Joan Fitzgerald writes that these companies were largely undercut by China’s solar industry which dumped its products on the world market at below-cost prices. Rather than providing subsidies, she argues, cities and states should promote solar adoption through power purchase agreements, renewable energy zones and community generation

US city planners can learn lessons from the successes of Malmö‘s eco-districts

With the decline and demise of manufacturing industries in many areas across the US, city planners now have an opportunity to introduce policies to make cities more sustainable. Joan Fitzgerald looks at lessons in sustainability from the Swedish city of Malmö which used its industrial decline in the 1990s as an opportunity to create an eco-district. She writes that through a participatory planning process city planners were able to test the effectiveness of green technologies while building the social infrastructure of neighborhoods. She argues that much of the city’s success is a story of effective urban planning and these lessons can be applied anywhere

Boston Climate Progress Report 2022

This report, to be updated every two years, examines Boston's progress toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, our resilience to future climate disruptions, and the equity of our climate response. It also highlights a dozen key outcomes that must be achieved by programs, projects, and initiatives whose success is imperative to reaching the overarching goals, and lays out four "big lifts," system-transforming actions which Boston—along with the broader region and state—needs to accelerate to sharply reduce net emissions

Host-specialized fibrinogen-binding by a bacterial surface protein promotes biofilm formation and innate immune evasion

Fibrinogen is an essential part of the blood coagulation cascade and a major component of the extracellular matrix in mammals. The interface between fibrinogen and bacterial pathogens is an important determinant of the outcome of infection. Here, we demonstrate that a canine host-restricted skin pathogen, Staphylococcus pseudintermedius, produces a cell wall-associated protein (SpsL) that has evolved the capacity for high strength binding to canine fibrinogen, with reduced binding to fibrinogen of other mammalian species including humans. Binding occurs via the surface-expressed N2N3 subdomains, of the SpsL A-domain, to multiple sites in the fibrinogen α-chain C-domain by a mechanism analogous to the classical dock, lock, and latch binding model. Host-specific binding is dependent on a tandem repeat region of the fibrinogen α-chain, a region highly divergent between mammals. Of note, we discovered that the tandem repeat region is also polymorphic in different canine breeds suggesting a potential influence on canine host susceptibility to S. pseudintermedius infection. Importantly, the strong host-specific fibrinogen-binding interaction of SpsL to canine fibrinogen is essential for bacterial aggregation and biofilm formation, and promotes resistance to neutrophil phagocytosis, suggesting a key role for the interaction during pathogenesis. Taken together, we have dissected a bacterial surface protein-ligand interaction resulting from the co-evolution of host and pathogen that promotes host-specific innate immune evasion and may contribute to its host-restricted ecology

Fishbowl Discussions: Promoting Collaboration between Mathematics and Partner Disciplines

A National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships project (SUMMIT-P) is a collaboration of institutions focused on revising first- and second-year mathematics courses with the help of partner disciplines with prerequisite mathematics courses. This paper describes the fishbowl discussion technique used by the consortium members to encourage interdisciplinary conversation. Vignettes describing the results of conversations that occurred at several consortium member institutions are provided by the co-authors

CV11004

Use the URI link below to search the Marine Institute Data Discovery Catalogue for datasets relevant to this report.The prawn (Nephrops norvegicus) are common in the Celtic Sea occurring in geographically distinct sandy/muddy areas were the sediment is suitable for them to construct their burrows. The Celtic Sea area (Functional Units 19-22) supports a large multi-national targeted Nephrops fishery mainly using otter trawls and yielding landings in the region of ~6,000 t annually over the last decade (ICES, 2011). Nephrops spend a great deal of time in their burrows and their emergence behaviour is influenced many factors; time of year, light intensity and tidal strength. Underwater television surveys and assessment methodologies have been developed to provide a fishery independent estimate of stock size, exploitation status and catch advice (ICES, 2009 & 2011).This is the sixth in a time series of UWTV surveys in the Celtic Sea carried out by the Marine Institute, Ireland. The 2011 survey was multi disciplinary in nature and this report details the final UWTV results of the 2011 survey and also documents other data collected during the survey

Getting It on Record: Issues and Strategies for Ethnographic Practice in Recording Studios

The recording studio has been somewhat neglected as a site for ethnographic fieldwork in the field of ethno-musicology and, moreover, the majority of published studies tend to overlook the specific concerns faced by the researcher within these contexts. Music recording studios can be places of creativity, artistry, and collaboration, but they often also involve challenging, intimidating, and fractious relations. Given that recording studios are, first and foremost, concerned with documenting musicians’ performances, we discuss the concerns of getting studio interactions “on record” in terms of access, social relations, and methods of data collection. This article reflects on some of the issues we faced when conducting our fieldwork within British music recording facilities and makes suggestions based on strategies that we employed to address these issues

HIV outbreaks among people who inject drugs in Europe, North America and Israel

During 2011–16, HIV outbreaks occurred among people who inject drugs (PWID) in Canada (southeastern Saskatchewan), Greece (Athens), Ireland (Dublin), Israel (Tel Aviv), Luxembourg, Romania (Bucharest), Scotland (Glasgow), and USA (Scott County, Indiana). Factors common to many of these outbreaks included community economic problems, homelessness, and changes in drug injection patterns. The outbreaks differed in size (from under 100 to over 1000 newly reported HIV cases among PWID) and in the extent to which combined prevention had been implemented before, during, and after the outbreaks. Countries need to ensure high coverage of HIV prevention services and coverage higher than the current UNAIDS recommendation might be needed in areas in which short acting drugs are injected. In addition, monitoring of PWID with special attention for changing drug use patterns, risk behaviours, and susceptible subgroups (eg, PWID experiencing homelessness) needs to be in place to prevent or rapidly detect and contain new HIV outbreaks