Disabled Laborers And The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOCs) Nightmare

In 2012, EEOC v. Henry’s Turkey Service was one of the largest disability settlements in American history.  Henry’s Turkey Service was ordered to pay $240 million for paying mentally disabled workers with I.Q.s estimated in the 60-70 range, 41 cents per hour and housing them in unsafe housing and health conditions (Hsieh, 2013).  Over forty years, Henry’s Turkey Service relocated hundreds of mentally disabled workers from Texas to Iowa where they were subjected to horrendous living conditions with unlawful, minimal pay—about$65.00 per month, while they worked at a local turkey processing factory in West Liberty, Iowa.  The actual case shows a pattern of violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and Americans with Disability Act, 1990. After a raid of the bright blue, florescent colored, century old school house in Atalissa, Iowa, these employers were brought to justice.  This case study is about one of the largest EEOC settlements in the history of the United States; yet due to federal damage caps was cut to $1.6 million for all of the men and their estates. The graphic account of the inhumane treatment and degradation of the labors presented in this study is not provided for gratuitous or salacious purposes; rather, it places into context what can occur when governmental regulations and laws go unheeded, unenforced and when authorities are apprised of wrongdoing possibilities stand idly by and in this case, do nothing for 35 years.

WALLABY Early Science - I. The NGC 7162 Galaxy Group

We present Widefield ASKAP L-band Legacy All-sky Blind Survey (WALLABY) early science results from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) observations of the NGC 7162 galaxy group. We use archival HIPASS and Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) observations of this group to validate the new ASKAP data and the data reduction pipeline ASKAPsoft. We detect six galaxies in the neutral hydrogen (HI) 21-cm line, expanding the NGC 7162 group membership from four to seven galaxies. Two of the new detections are also the first HI detections of the dwarf galaxies, AM 2159-434 and GALEXASC J220338.65-431128.7, for which we have measured velocities of $cz=2558$ and $cz=2727$ km s$^{-1}$, respectively. We confirm that there is extended HI emission around NGC 7162 possibly due to past interactions in the group as indicated by the $40^{\circ}$ offset between the kinematic and morphological major axes for NGC 7162A, and its HI richness. Taking advantage of the increased resolution (factor of $\sim1.5$) of the ASKAP data over archival ATCA observations, we fit a tilted ring model and use envelope tracing to determine the galaxies' rotation curves. Using these we estimate the dynamical masses and find, as expected, high dark matter fractions of $f_{\mathrm{DM}}\sim0.81-0.95$ for all group members. The ASKAP data are publicly available.Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Rethinking business models for innovation

One of the major challenges confronted by those in charge of technological innovation involves anticipating the value creation model sufficiently early on,in a highly uncertain context both as far as the technology itself is concerned and the potential market. Today, in many industrial sectors, the innovation boundaries have moved towards projects that are more and more exploratory and fuzzy. The simple optimisation of linear processes of the "stage-gate" type is no longer sufficient to build sustainable competitive advantages. The notion of Business Models, when applied to innovation, enables us to describe how a company creates value through innovation, generally within a business ecosystem, and how the value will be distributed between the actors involved. The authors of this book believe that the notions of Business Modelling and value creation are key to all the dimensions of successful innovation, whether technology, marketing, organisational or economically based. Rethinking Business Models for Innovation: this title describes the relationship between thinking, modelling, and also field-testing. The book is based on a series of nine recent cases of innovation involving company managers, often assisted by researchers (the co-authors of each chapter), and how they built and formalised their Business Models and then tested their strategies. After having discovered the variety of the cases, the reader will understand that every innovation situation generates specific questions about Business Models. However, we feel that we can identify three key issues that arise, more or less, in each of these projects. The chapters in this book build on these issues: the identification of sources of value and revenue models (the notion of value creation), the position of the company in the value-network or ecosystem (the sharing of value) and finally the evolution of Business MoDdels over time (the sustainability and the competitiveness of the company). The last chapter goes over all the contributions, exploring the notion of value in the Business Model approach.business model ; innovation ; value ; entrepreneurial project

Lasertechnik für das Verkehrsmanagement im All: Technologien für eine nachhaltige Raumfahrt

Die stark zunehmende Anzahl an Satelliten ermöglicht großen Fortschritt in der Wissenschaft und Technik und eröffnet neue Möglichkeiten wie ein weltweit verfügbares Internet. Gleichzeitig sind damit Herausforderungen für das Verkehrsmanagement im Weltraum (meist Englisch als Space Traffic Management bezeichnet) verbunden. Simulationen zeigen, dass die Anzahl an Kollisionswarnungen im niedrigen Erdorbit allein durch den Ausbau von 5 Megakonstellationen (Starlink, OneWeb, Amazon Kuiper, Guo Wang und SatRevolution) mit insgesamt ca. 70000 Satelliten etwa um den Faktor 4000 ansteigen wird. Durch weitere Satelliten und zusätzlichen Weltraummüll wird diese Zunahme real weitaus größer sein. Selbst wenn sich Kollisionen durch Ausweichmanöver verhindern lassen, verursachen diese hohe Kosten. Um die Anzahl an notwendigen Ausweichmanövern zu reduzieren und die weiterhin notwendigen Manöver effizient zu machen, ist eine hochpräzise Vermessung der Bahndaten der Weltraumobjekte erforderlich. Je genauer die Bahndaten sind, desto kleiner ist der Abstand in dem die Weltraumobjekte bei gleichem Kollisionsrisiko aneinander vorbeifliegen können. Beim Satellitenlaserranging (SLR) wird die Laufzeit eines gepulsten Lasers vermessen, der von einer Bodenstation emittiert und durch einen am Satelliten befestigten Retroreflektor wieder antiparallel zu dieser zurück reflektiert wird. Dadurch lassen sich millimetergenaue Abstände ermitteln, aus denen die Bahndaten des Satelliten errechnet werden. Da diese Messungen viel präzisiere Daten liefern als derzeit verfügbar, würden ca. 99% aller Ausweichmanöver unnötig werden. In Zusammenarbeit mit der Industrie entwickeln wir eine kompakte und transportable SLR Bodenstation, das miniSLR®. Hiermit konnte kürzlich gezeigt werden, dass trotz der kompakten, kostengünstigen Bauweise und der Nutzung von, gegenüber anderen SLR Stationen, verhältnismäßig langen Laserpulse durch Datenmittelung Millimeter präzise Abstandsmessungen erzielt werden. Um den Nutzen der SLR Technologie für das Space Traffic Management weiter zu erhöhen, arbeiten wir weiterhin an der Entwicklung von polarimetrischem SLR. Dies soll neben der Bahnvermessung auch eine Identifikation von Satelliten (z.B. nach Massenstarts von Kleinsatelliten) ermöglichen. Hierfür werden spezielle Retroreflektoren entwickelt, welche für die Raumfahrt qualifiziert und in zukünftigen Missionen getestet werden sollen

: Lessons from entrepreneurial projects

International audienceOne of the major challenges confronted by those in charge of technological innovation involves anticipating the value creation model sufficiently early on,in a highly uncertain context both as far as the technology itself is concerned and the potential market. Today, in many industrial sectors, the innovation boundaries have moved towards projects that are more and more exploratory and fuzzy. The simple optimisation of linear processes of the "stage-gate" type is no longer sufficient to build sustainable competitive advantages. The notion of Business Models, when applied to innovation, enables us to describe how a company creates value through innovation, generally within a business ecosystem, and how the value will be distributed between the actors involved. The authors of this book believe that the notions of Business Modelling and value creation are key to all the dimensions of successful innovation, whether technology, marketing, organisational or economically based. Rethinking Business Models for Innovation: this title describes the relationship between thinking, modelling, and also field-testing. The book is based on a series of nine recent cases of innovation involving company managers, often assisted by researchers (the co-authors of each chapter), and how they built and formalised their Business Models and then tested their strategies. After having discovered the variety of the cases, the reader will understand that every innovation situation generates specific questions about Business Models. However, we feel that we can identify three key issues that arise, more or less, in each of these projects. The chapters in this book build on these issues: the identification of sources of value and revenue models (the notion of value creation), the position of the company in the value-network or ecosystem (the sharing of value) and finally the evolution of Business MoDdels over time (the sustainability and the competitiveness of the company). The last chapter goes over all the contributions, exploring the notion of value in the Business Model approach.L'innovation technologique, qu'elle soit conduite par des start-ups ou par de grandes entreprises, n'est plus une condition suffisante de la création de valeur. Créer de la valeur sur des marchés nouveaux nécessite le plus souvent de repenser l'organisation de l'entreprise, sa façon de faire des affaires, ses partenariats stratégiques, autrement dit, son business model. Cet ouvrage se veut un guide pour les porteurs de projets d'innovation en leur fournissant des outils de compréhension et d'analyse de la dimension stratégique de leur projet. Les études de cas présentées sont le fruit d'une collaboration étroite entre les porteurs de chacun des projets et des chercheurs en management de l'innovation reconnus. Au travers de ces cas, trois grandes problématiques sont abordées : l'identification des sources de valeur chez les clients potentiels, la position que l'entreprise pourra prendre dans son écosystème et enfin l'évolution des business models dans le temps. Sur chacun des cas, le lecteur aura accès à une compréhension fine des problèmes stratégiques posés par l'innovation ainsi que des outils de management mis en œuvre pour aider à réfléchir et à agir. (http://www.rethinkingbusinessmodel.net/

Non-invasive assessment of coronary artery bypass graft patency using 16-slice computed tomography angiography

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Invasive coronary angiography is the gold standard means of imaging bypass vessels and carries a small but potentially serious risk of local vascular complications, including myocardial infarction, stroke and death. We evaluated computed tomography as a non-invasive means of assessing graft patency.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fifty patients with previous coronary artery bypass surgery who were listed for diagnostic coronary angiography underwent contrast enhanced computed tomography angiography using a 16-slice computed tomography scanner. Images were retrospectively gated to the electrocardiogram and two dimensional axial, multiplanar and three dimensional reconstructions acquired. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value, accuracy and level of agreement for detection of graft patency by multidetector computed tomography.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 116 grafts were suitable for analysis. The specificity of CT for the detection of graft patency was 100%, with a sensitivity of 92.8%, positive predictive value 100%, negative predictive value 85.8% and an accuracy of 94.8%. The kappa value of agreement between the two means of measuring graft patency was 0.9. Mean radiation dose was 9.0 ± 7.2 mSv for coronary angiography and 18.5 ± 4 mSv for computed tomography. Pooled analysis of eight studies, incorporating 932 grafts, confirmed a 97% accuracy for the detection of graft patency by multidetector computed tomography.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Computed tomography is an accurate, rapid and non-invasive method of assessing coronary artery bypass graft patency. However, this was achieved at the expense of an increase in radiation dose.</p

Production of a reference transcriptome and transcriptomic database (PocilloporaBase) for the cauliflower coral, Pocillopora damicornis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Motivated by the precarious state of the world's coral reefs, there is currently a keen interest in coral transcriptomics. By identifying changes in coral gene expression that are triggered by particular environmental stressors, we can begin to characterize coral stress responses at the molecular level, which should lead to the development of more powerful diagnostic tools for evaluating the health of corals in the field. Furthermore, the identification of genetic variants that are more or less resilient in the face of particular stressors will help us to develop more reliable prognoses for particular coral populations. Toward this end, we performed deep mRNA sequencing of the cauliflower coral, <it>Pocillopora damicornis</it>, a geographically widespread Indo-Pacific species that exhibits a great diversity of colony forms and is able to thrive in habitats subject to a wide range of human impacts. Importantly, <it>P. damicornis </it>is particularly amenable to laboratory culture. We collected specimens from three geographically isolated Hawaiian populations subjected to qualitatively different levels of human impact. We isolated RNA from colony fragments ("nubbins") exposed to four environmental stressors (heat, desiccation, peroxide, and hypo-saline conditions) or control conditions. The RNA was pooled and sequenced using the 454 platform.</p> <p>Description</p> <p>Both the raw reads (n = 1, 116, 551) and the assembled contigs (n = 70, 786; mean length = 836 nucleotides) were deposited in a new publicly available relational database called PocilloporaBase <url>http://www.PocilloporaBase.org</url>. Using BLASTX, 47.2% of the contigs were found to match a sequence in the NCBI database at an E-value threshold of ≤.001; 93.6% of those contigs with matches in the NCBI database appear to be of metazoan origin and 2.3% bacterial origin, while most of the remaining 4.1% match to other eukaryotes, including algae and amoebae.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p><it>P. damicornis </it>now joins the handful of coral species for which extensive transcriptomic data are publicly available. Through PocilloporaBase <url>http://www.PocilloporaBase.org</url>, one can obtain assembled contigs and raw reads and query the data according to a wide assortment of attributes including taxonomic origin, PFAM motif, KEGG pathway, and GO annotation.</p