Publicly Funded Jobs: An Essential Strategy for Reducing Poverty and Economic Distress Throughout the Business Cycle

The need for direct public job creation efforts is greater today than at any time during the past seven decades. With a national unemployment rate that recently exceeded 10 percent and severe economic distress in hard-hit communities and population groups, a new federal initiative that puts jobless individuals immediately to work must be a central element of any strategy for restoring economic growth and responding to pressing human needs in 2010 and beyond. Public service employment (PSE) and transitional jobs (TJ) programs that use time-limited, paid work as the centerpiece of efforts to assist the unemployed offer tested and urgently needed models for combating the current recession and advancing longer-term workforce development goals

Fruit and Vegetable Servings in Local Farm-Sourced and Standard Lunches Offered to Children in a Head Start Program

This project compared servings of fruits and vegetables consumed in farm-to-school lunches to that in conventional lunches served to students attending a Head Start preschool. The sample used was the student population of a Head Start preschool. Students were observed eating lunch twice weekly for 25 weeks. In this observational study, research staff were trained to visually determine amounts of food items placed on subjects' plates and percentages consumed. Amounts were recorded and analyzed. Independent-samples t-tests were performed using SPSS. There were no significant differences in either fruit or vegetable consumption between conventional lunches and locally-sourced lunches. Even though there was more variety of fruit and vegetable offerings in the locally-sourced lunches, the consumption of those possibly unfamiliar foods to the sample may have been limited by the phenomenon of food neophobia. Future studies should focus on offering locally-sourced foods on a repeated basis, possibly in a rotating cycle menu

Organization Development in the Fire Service: A Case Study of the Duluth Fire Department

This research is a case study of the Duluth Fire Department and how they uniquely experience, perceive, and react to organization change. Written through the lens of an Organization Development practitioner for practitioners and change agents, this study also examines the implications for change work within these systems. The factors that affect change in High Reliability organizations, and the fire service specifically, are considered in this research along with the qualitative analysis of questionnaire responses directly from Duluth fire fighters. This research concludes that, to be most successful, Organization Development practitioners must be aware of, and adapt to, the unique factors and experience of the fire service when consulting on organization change

Factors Affecting Parent Perceptions of Children\u27s Performance In Inclusive Classroom Settings

The subjects of this study included parents of forty - five students with learning disabilities who were integrated in the regular education classroom from rural Virginia. A self developed questionnaire was used to collect the data . Thirteen (28%) of the questionnaires were returned. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results showed that divorced parents, married couples working between 20 to 29 hours per week, married parents who both had finished college, single I divorced parents who had finished High School only, and parents who had one child or all children in the family receiving Special Educational services strongly agreed on variables affecting the child\u27s school performance

Herschel Observations of Debris Discs Orbiting Planet-hosting Subgiants

Debris discs are commonly detected orbiting main-sequence stars, yet little is known regarding their fate as the star evolves to become a giant. Recent observations of radial velocity detected planets orbiting giant stars highlight this population and its importance for probing, for example, the population of planetary systems orbiting intermediate mass stars. Our Herschel survey observed a subset of the Johnson et al program subgiants, finding that 4/36 exhibit excess emission thought to indicate debris, of which 3/19 are planet-hosting stars and 1/17 are stars with no current planet detections. Given the small numbers involved, there is no evidence that the disc detection rate around stars with planets is different to that around stars without planets. Our detections provide a clear indication that large quantities of dusty material can survive the stars' main-sequence lifetime and be detected on the subgiant branch, with important implications for the evolution of planetary systems and observations of polluted or dusty white dwarfs. Our detection rates also provide an important constraint that can be included in models of debris disc evolution.Comment: 12 pages, MNRAS, accepte

What went wrong for Quilliam: an investigative analysis of the Quilliam Foundation and the reasons behind its apparent failure

The thesis undertakes an investigative analysis of the Quilliam Foundation, the world’s first counter extremism think tank. A strong opponent of Islamist ideology in its battle against extremism, since its formation Quilliam has attracted growing criticism. The thesis traces the reasons behind this criticism in order to answer the question posed - what went wrong for Quilliam? Issues of unsound theory, the influencing of government, the support of the Prevent policy and a series of public relations disasters has caused Quilliam to alienate the very people it needs to work alongside. Its actions have caused it to be mistrusted and to be deemed out of touch with what it mean to be Muslim in modern Britain

Spatially Resolved Images of Dust Belt(s) Around the Planet-hosting Subgiant Kappa CrB

We present Herschel spatially resolved images of the debris disc orbiting the subgiant Kappa CrB. Not only are these the first resolved images of a debris disc orbiting a subgiant, but Kappa CrB is a rare example of an intermediate mass star where a detailed study of the structure of the planetary system can be made, including both planets and planetesimal belt(s). The only way to discover planets around such stars using the radial velocity technique is to observe 'retired' A stars, which are cooler and slower rotators compared to their main-sequence counterparts. A planetary companion has already been detected orbiting the subgiant Kappa CrB, with revised parameters of m sin i = 2.1MJ and apl = 2.8AU (Johnson et al. 2008a). We present additional Keck I HIRES radial velocity measurements that provide evidence for a second planetary companion, alongside Keck II AO imaging that places an upper limit on the mass of this companion. Modelling of our Herschel images shows that the dust is broadly distributed, but cannot distinguish between a single wide belt (from 20 to 220AU) or two narrow dust belts (at around 40 and 165AU). Given the existence of a second planetary companion beyond approximately 3AU it is possible that the absence of dust within approximately 20AU is caused by dynamical depletion, although the observations are not inconsistent with depletion of these regions by collisional erosion, which occurs at higher rates closer to the star.Comment: Updated abstrac

Total hip replacement for the treatment of end stage arthritis of the hip : a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: Evolvements in the design, fixation methods, size, and bearing surface of implants for total hip replacement (THR) have led to a variety of options for healthcare professionals to consider. The need to determine the most optimal combinations of THR implant is warranted. This systematic review evaluated the clinical effectiveness of different types of THR used for the treatment of end stage arthritis of the hip. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was undertaken in major health databases. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic reviews published from 2008 onwards comparing different types of primary THR in patients with end stage arthritis of the hip were included. Results: Fourteen RCTs and five systematic reviews were included. Patients experienced significant post-THR improvements in Harris Hip scores, but this did not differ between impact types. There was a reduced risk of implant dislocation after receiving a larger femoral head size (36 mm vs. 28 mm; RR = 0.17, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.78) or cemented cup (vs. cementless cup; pooled odds ratio: 0.34, 95% CI: 0.13, 0.89). Recipients of cross-linked vs. conventional polyethylene cup liners experienced reduced femoral head penetration and revision. There was no impact of femoral stem fixation and cup shell design on implant survival rates. Evidence on mortality and complications (aseptic loosening, femoral fracture) was inconclusive. Conclusions: The majority of evidence was inconclusive due to poor reporting, missing data, or uncertainty in treatment estimates. The findings warrant cautious interpretation given the risk of bias (blinding, attrition), methodological limitations (small sample size, low event counts, short follow-up), and poor reporting. Long-term pragmatic RCTs are needed to allow for more definitive conclusions. Authors are encouraged to specify the minimal clinically important difference and power calculation for their primary outcome(s) as well CONSORT, PRISMA and STROBE guidelines to ensure better reporting and more reliable production and assessment of evidence

Medium development strategies and scale down models for a high density high productivity cell line

Medium Development at Regeneron continues to enhance fed batch culture productivity. These efforts have been enabled through the development of high throughput scale down models in shake flasks and the ambr® 250. Design of Experiment (DOE) approaches have been applied to optimize the operating conditions in the small scale models leading to performance for growth and titer that match benchtop bioreactor with no off-set. The development of these representative scale down models and our approach to medium development will be described. A medium development case study will be presented from a recent Regeneron fed batch process with a cell line achieving high cell densities and depleting the culture of key amino acids. The traditional medium development approach of supplementing the culture with the depleted nutrients was unsuccessful: high amino acid consumption rates required large amounts of amino acids resulting in significantly increased culture osmolality and reduced productivity. Leveraging high throughput culture systems and multifactor DOEs, multiple medium composition factors in combination were rapidly evaluated. Mathematical models relating medium input factors to process outputs are generated that allow for process optimization. Using this approach, a new feeding strategy was developed that limits increases in osmolality and yields titers approaching 10g/L in both the scale down systems and a process that has been implemented for clinical scale manufacturing of a monoclonal antibody