Employment Law - Federal Employers\u27 Liability Act - Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress

The United States Supreme Court held that negligent infliction of emotional distress is a cognizable injury under the Federal Employers\u27 Liability Act provided that the employee satisfies the elements of the common law zone-of-danger test. Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Gottshall, 114 S. Ct. 2396 (1994)

Developing a New Generation of Pastors at Grace Point Community Church

The purpose of this project is to develop a strategy helping those who desire to enter pastoral ministry at Grace Point Community Church (GPCC). Elements of this strategy will include identifying their calling, developing the necessary elements to become a pastor, and then exposing them to a variety of ministry styles by shadowing seasoned pastors throughout the community. This paper begins with a description of the local communities surrounding GPCC. It explains the unique decade of growth that Lewis Center, Ohio has experienced. It also explains how that growth is creating opportunities for expansion for GPCC into surrounding communities that will necessitate a new generation of God-called and well-prepared pastors. The second section reviews several books that address the relevant biblical and theological concepts regarding the topics of ecclesiology, the pastoral calling, pastoral development and ecumenical cooperation and unity. The second section also presents a concise theology of both pastoral leadership and pastoral development. The final section focuses on the strategy itself as it is built upon the theological discoveries of the second section. It presents a pathway for selecting, developing, and commissioning future pastors at Grace Point Community Church. It also presents ways to evaluate and assess the pathways. Content Reader: Kurt Fredrickson, Ph

Mechanisms of estrogen sensitivity in the human endometrium

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecologic malignancy, and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in women in the Western World. The American Cancer Society estimates that 41,200 cases will be diagnosed and 7,350 deaths will result from endometrial cancer in the United States in 2007. Unopposed estrogen exposure is the primary etiologic risk factor for developing this disease. However, the effects of estrogen and its receptors are not well defined within the human endometrium. The principal goal of this dissertation was to understand the individual contributions of the estrogen receptors (ERs) α and β within epithelial cells of the endometrium. To this end, three specific aims were developed to help further our understanding of the functions of these receptors in this tissue: (1) evaluate the expression of the receptors in normal, hyperplastic, and malignant tissue, (2) evaluate the effects of the receptor subtypes on the estrogen-inducible placental alkaline phosaphatase (ALPP) gene, and (3) to evaluate the effects of the receptors on proliferation of endometrial adenocarcinoma cells. Findings from the first aim indicate that an alteration in the normal ERα/ERβ ratio takes place in the stromal and epithelial compartments of the endometrium at the pre-malignant (hyperplastic) state. We believe that this change may be a key step that permits the endometrium to produce an exaggerated response to estrogens. Further studies evaluating the effects of the receptors on the ALPP gene used highly specific agonists of the estrogen receptors, PPT and DPN, along with cell lines expressing one receptor or the other. These studies reveal that ERα, and not ERβ, is responsible for the upregulation of ALPP. Further studies utilizing inhibitors of both MAP-Kinase and (PI)3-Kinase, revealed that the upregulation of ALPP is at least in part due to these signaling pathways within this model system. In our final aim we learned that ERα, and not ERβ, is involved in estrogen-induced proliferation of endometrial epithelial cells. Furthermore, ERβ acts as an inhibitor of proliferation within this tissue by possibly inhibiting the cell cycle by regulating key components of the cell cycle machinery

Phase Separation in Microscale Convective Boiling

It is hypothesized that extracting the vapor from two-phase flow in a microchannel will result in a lowered pressure drop required to drive the flow. The goal of this thesis is to construct an experimental device that will test this hypothesis by comparing a number of phase separating test conditions to respective control conditions that do not allow for any phase separation. It was discovered that using a transparent, thin-film heater to boil flow in a microchannel required too much power; the heater designed and built for this purpose was burnt out during testing. Possible reasons for the burnout are discussed. The original test plan was modified to boil the flow prior to the microchannel. The trends found from the new test plan supported the hypothesis. Vapor extraction was related to decreases in the pressure drops; however, vapor extraction rates were measured well below their predicted values. Reasons for the discrepancies are discussed. In conclusion, it was found that vapor extraction does decrease microchannel pressure drops due to decreases in two-phase flow effects

The teachable moment: engaging students in social justice movements

Social justice has long been at the forefront of the core values of the social work profession. Social workers are charged to confront social injustices and advocate for social change. In 2014, there was a societal response across the United States to the deaths of two African-American men, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, and the decision to not indict the police officers who killed them. The collective reaction was reflective of a country unsettled by the criminal justice system’s ongoing acceptance of structural discrimination. This article will focus on one university’s social work faculty’s collective response to the brutal killings of African-American men by police officers. With a main campus located in the suburbs and a satellite campus situated in a major city, the faculty felt compelled to guide students from both campuses through an understanding of what was happening locally and nationally by facilitating forums and programs to engage in dialog, not only in the classroom, but throughout the campus community. The concept of the living classroom is introduced and applied as a way to combat discrimination and advocate for social justice and human rights

Common Metrics for Human-Robot Interaction

This paper describes an effort to identify common metrics for task-oriented human-robot interaction (HRI). We begin by discussing the need for a toolkit of HRI metrics. We then describe the framework of our work and identify important biasing factors that must be taken into consideration. Finally, we present suggested common metrics for standardization and a case study. Preparation of a larger, more detailed toolkit is in progress

Early Cortical Thickness Change after Mild Traumatic Brain Injury following Motor Vehicle Collision

In a motor vehicle collision (MVC), survivors often receive mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI). Although there have been some reports of early white matter changes after an mTBI, much less is known about early cortical structural changes. To investigate early cortical changes within a few days after an MVC, we compared cortical thickness of mTBI survivors with non-mTBI survivors, then reexamined cortical thickness in the same survivors 3 months later. MVC survivors were categorized as mTBI or non-mTBI based on concussive symptoms documented in emergency departments (EDs). Cortical thickness was measured from MRI images using FreeSurfer within a few days and again at 3 months after MVC. Post-traumatic stress symptoms and physical conditions were also assessed. Compared with the non-mTBI group (n=23), the mTBI group (n=21) had thicker cortex in the left rostral middle frontal (rMFG) and right precuneus gyri, but thinner cortex in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus at 7.2±3.1 days after MVC. After 3 months, cortical thickness had decreased in left rMFG in the mTBI group but not in the non-mTBI group. The cortical thickness of the right precuneus region in the initial scans was positively correlated with acute traumatic stress symptoms for all survivors and with the number of reduced activity days for mTBI survivors who completed the follow-up. The preliminary results suggest that alterations in cortical thickness may occur at an early stage of mTBI and that frontal cortex structure may change dynamically over the initial 3 months after mTBI.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/140167/1/neu.2014.3492.pd

Status of Heavy Quark Physics on the Lattice

The status of lattice calculations of some phenomenology of heavy quarks is presented. Emphasis is on progress made in calculating those quantities relevant to estimating parameters of the quark mixing matrix, namely leptonic decay constants, the bag parameter of neutral $B$ mixing, and semileptonic form factors. New results from studies of quarkonia are highlighted.Comment: LATTICE98(Plenary Review Talk), to be published in Nucl. Phys. Proc. Suppl.; LaTeX, 15 pages, 9 PostScript figures, uses espcrc2.st