Unions and the City: Negotiating Urban Change

[Excerpt] Labor unions remain the largest membership-based organizations in major North American cities, even after years of decline. Labor continues to play a vital role in mobilizing urban residents, shaping urban conflict, and crafting the policies and regulations that are transforming our urban spaces. As unions become more involved in the daily life of the city, they find themselves confronting the familiar dilemma of how to fold union priorities into broader campaigns that address nonunion workers and the lives of union members beyond the workplace. If we are right to believe that the future of the labor movement is an urban one, union activists and staffers, urban policymakers, elected officials, and members of the public alike will require a fuller understanding of what impels unions to become involved in urban policy issues, what dilemmas structure the choices unions make, and what impact unions have on the lives of urban residents, beyond their members.Unions and the City serves as a road map toward both a stronger labor movement and a socially just urbanism. The book presents the findings of a collaborative project in which a team of labor researchers and labor geographers based in New York City and Toronto investigated how and why labor unions were becoming more involved in urban regulation and urban planning. The contributors assess the effectiveness of this involvement in terms of labor goals―such as protecting employment levels, retaining bargaining relationships with employers, and organizing new workforces―as well as broader social consequences of union strategies, such as expanding access to public services, improving employment equity, and making neighborhoods more affordable. Focusing on four key economic sectors (film, hospitality, green energy, and child care), this book reveals that unions can exert a surprising level of influence in various aspects of urban policymaking and that they can have a significant impact on how cities are changing and on the experiences of urban residents

Structural and electronic properties of fulleride superconductors

In the present thesis, I discuss some of the current advances in research in the field of the solid state science of fullerenes. The reaction of C60 with alkali metals using both conventional solid state and low temperature solution-based synthesis techniques has led to the production of fulleride salts with interesting structural and superconducting properties. In superconducting A3C60 systems, it has been widely reported that Tc increases monotonically with interfulleride separation. Of particular interest is the family Na2Rb1-xCsxC60 (0 ≤ x ≤ 1) as they display a much steeper rate of change of Tc with interfulleride spacing. Here we discuss the related family of quaternary fullerides, Na2-xKxCsC60 in an attempt to explore the consequences of this trend and produce fulleride salts with elevated Tc's In addition, the monotonic increase in Tc with increasing interfulleride separation has driven attempts towards the synthesis of new superconducting fullerides with very large lattice parameters. A key material among the A3C60 systems is the end member, Cs3C60, which has remained elusive in attempts to synthesise it by traditional solid state techniques due to the thermodynamic instability of this phase caused by the accommodation of the large Cs+ ion (r = 1.67 Å) in the small tetrahedral holes (r = 1.12 Å). Here we report the synthesis of “FCC rich” and "A15 rich" samples of the series, RbxCs3-xC60 (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) via low temperature synthetic techniques utilising the solvents ammonia and methylamine, respectively. This allowed us to study the effects of both chemical (by partial substitution of Cs+ by the smaller Rb+ cation) and physical pressure upon the electronic and superconducting properties of these materials. For all samples, detailed structural studies have been performed using synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction and magnetic behaviour using SQUID magnetometry techniques

Modern applications of the punched card system for management control.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Boston Universit

Influence of Social Class on Children\u27s Perception of Teachers

The purpose of this thesis was to examine children\u27s perceptions toward teachers, as related to the child\u27s social class background, and to investigate the influence of social class upon their perceptions. A projective pictorial test, which consisted of nine pictures concerning teachers and children, was administered individually to forth fourth grade school children in two Ogden, Utah, public schools. The findings of this study were that there are differences between middle and lower-class children in their perceptions toward teachers. Children of middle-class backgrounds showed more positive perceptions toward teachers, and lower-class children were found to have a more negative perception of teachers

Performance of cows and calves grazing endophyte infested fescue pasture

Angus X Hereford cows (Bos taurus L.) with spring born Simmental sired calves grazed year round for three years on eight ‘Kentucky 31\u27 tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.) pastures at the Highland Rim Experiment Station near Springfield, Tennessee. Individual pastures contained 0 to 86% plants infected with Acremonium coenophialum Morgan-Jones and Gams. The objective of the study was to evaluate effects of increasing endophyte infestation percentage on cow-calf performance. For statistical analysis, pasture infestation percentages were classified into three groups: Low (EL) (\u3c5% infested), intermediate (EI) (40 to 65%), and high (EH) (\u3e80%). Cows grazing EL pastures had higher pregnancy and calving rates (80 and 78%, respectively) than cows grazing El pastures (56 and 49%, respectively) and cows grazing EH pastures (56 and 49%, respectively). There were no year effects on cow reproductive efficiency, milk production, serum prolactin concentration, or calf weaning weight. Mean cow serum prolactin concentrations of EL, El, and EH cows were 133, 39, and 38 ng/ml, respectively. Average daily gains (ADG) of EL, El, and EH calves during spring (April-June), summer (July-October), and total grazing season (April-October) were 2.32, 1.94, 2.23; 2.08, 1.18, 1.87; 2.06, 1.56, 1.90 lb, respectively. Adjusted 240-d weight for calves grazing EL, El, and EH pastures were 625, 537, and 543 lb, respectively. Increased endophyte percentages between 37% and 86% did not decrease cow or calf performance or physiological characteristics, except calf serum prolaction concentrations, more than that observed at 37% infestation. Calf serum prolactin concentrations continue to decrease as infestation percentages increase within this range. Changes in infestation percentages of EL and EH pastures were similar (12 percentage units change) during the three years, but infestation percentage of 3 out of the 4 El pastures increased 27 to 33 percentage units during the 3-yr study

Road Safety Audit for IA 150/US 52 from I-380 to the Minnesota Border

On June 9, 2009, the Northeast Iowa Highway 150/52 Coalition met with the Iowa Department of Transportation (Iowa DOT) in Cedar Falls, Iowa to discuss concerns regarding roadway conditions and safety which has become a concern because of the potential economic development in the area. In response to the issues raised by the coalition, the Iowa DOT requested that a road safety audit be conducted on the corridor to identify where low-cost improvements could be beneficially applied to address safety concern