Extreme Minimum Wages: Effects on the U.S. Hotel Industry

The subject report analyzes literature regarding minimum wages to explore the potential effects of what could be described as extreme increases in the minimum wage on the American hotel industry. The current presidential administration as well as several large municipalities are actively seeking, or recently passed laws that increase the minimum wage by an extreme amount. The subject report quantifies the forecasted effect on the U.S. hotel industry. The study concludes that the hotel industry in the U.S. would have a negative economic impact estimated at $2.53 billion if the current national minimum wage proposal is approved.Mi

Using Remote Data Collection to Identify Bridges and Culverts Susceptible to Blockage During Flooding Events

Debris blockages of transportation-related river and stream crossing structures such as bridges and culverts can cause flooding at lower flow volumes than predicted by floodplain delineations. These types of flooding events contribute to the damage that was observed during both Tropical Storm Irene and the heavy rainfall in the spring and summer of 2013. Flooding occurs (1) when rain falls over a prolonged period of time, (2) when intense rain falls over a short period of time, or (3) when an ice or debris jam reduces the capacity of a crossing structure and causes a river or stream to overflow onto the surrounding area. The focus of this project is on the third type of flooding, specifically due to debris jams at crossing structures – culverts and bridges. Debris jams can also cause riverbank erosion, impede migration of aquatic creatures and adversely impact wildlife habitats. A new approach to mapping potential debris blockages that can produce actionable information in a timely manner at a reasonable cost would be highly valuable to Vermont agencies at many levels of government. The objectives of this project were to pilot test the use of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to gather stereo imagery of streambeds upstream of crossing structures, and develop a process of rapidly transmitting actionable information about potentially blocking material to stakeholders. A new system was developed in this project to identify potentially obstructing debris using a lightweight, easily deployable UAV. The system was pilot-tested to provide safe, timely, and cost-effective information about potentially blocking material at vulnerable bridges and culverts. A process was also developed and tested for automating detection of these potential obstructions and outputting a data table containing an extracted thumbnail image of each identified obstruction

Cybersecurity Incident Response in Organisations: A Meta-level Framework for Scenario-based Training

Cybersecurity Incident Response (IR) teams mitigate the impact of adverse cyber-related events in organisations. Field studies of IR teams suggest that at present the process of IR is underdeveloped with a focus on the technological dimension with little consideration of practice capability. To improve IR capabilities, we develop a scenario-based training approach to assist organisations to overcome socio-technical barriers to IR. The training approach is informed by a comprehensive list of socio-technical barriers compiled from a review of the literature. Our primary contribution is a novel meta-level framework to generate scenarios specifically targeting socio-technical issues. As a first step towards demonstrating the utility of the framework, a proof-of-concept scenario is presented

Reflections in Systemic Family Psychotherapy and Adult Mental Health Services in the South East of Ireland; and beyond.

Systemic Family Psychotherapy (SFP) has been involved in the Carlow Kilkenny South Tipperary Adult Mental Services since 1994: in the main this involved meeting with service users, their families, couples and friends. However, from 2012 to 2019 five SFPs retired. This occurred when decisions were made by some Mental Health Management not to replace those SFPs that retired: thereby reducing the number of SFPs in the Southeast Adult Mental Health Services (AMHS); presumably due to funding difficulties at that time. However, as the months and years went by it became oblivious that two AMHSs were not going to employ SPTs. It was obvious that the AMHS in Waterford had never employed any SFT, and Wexford AMHS has only employed a half-time SFT for four Community Mental Teams. Consequently, this had an impact on the availability of SFPs in AMHSs in the south east AMHSs. However, on the other hand, the Carlow Kilkenny AMHS continues to be supported from Management and colleagues; SFTs since 1997. This is obvious as all Community Mental Health Teams refer service users attends the AMHSs in Carlow and Kilkenny, as well as their families/partners/friends for SFP. This article will try to ascertain how this came about, and what can be done to influences AMHS managers’ and concerning supporting SFPs. Key words: Family Therapy; Families; Mental Health Services; Family Meetings; Context in family therapy

The Design of Student Training Resources to Enhance the Student Voice in Academic Quality Assurance and Quality Enhancement Processes

Without appropriate training and recognition, students – in particular Class Representatives – often struggle to engage fully with a University’s quality assurance and quality enhancement processes. Through the “Our Student Voice” project in Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin), a suite of digital training resources were designed to provide training for students to help develop the requisite knowledge and skills for effective participation there processes, thus strengthening student engagement and enhancing the student voice. The resources are organised into thirteen accessible episodes that each commence with an animated scenario that sets out key messages. The remainder of the episode provides detailed guidance for students and learning activities to help students develop their skillset. Upon completion of the learning activities, and having satisfactorily undertaken one of three specific student role in the quality processes, students can apply for recognition through a digital badge. The training resources and digital badges have been co-designed by a project team comprised of staff and students from across the University guided by best practice internationally. This paper describes the co-design process and presents a set of lessons learned that may assist other higher education institutions in enabling impactful student engagement in their academic quality assurance and quality enhancement processes

It\u27s safe to move! A protocol for a randomised controlled trial investigating the effect of a video designed to increase people\u27s confidence becoming more active despite back pain

Introduction Social media provide promising contemporary platforms for sharing public health information with a broad audience. Before implementation, testing social media campaigns that are intended to engage audiences and initiate behaviour change is necessary. This trial aims to investigate the effectiveness of a public health campaign to increase people\u27s confidence in becoming more active despite low back pain in comparison with no intervention. Methods and analysis This is an online randomised controlled trial with two intervention groups and one control group in a 1:1:1 allocation. People over 18 years of age and fluent in English will be recruited via social media advertising. We developed a social media-based public health campaign to support recommendations for managing low back pain. The interventions are two videos. Participants in the control group will be asked questions about low back pain but will not view either video intervention. The primary outcome will be item 10 of the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, which asks participants to rate how confident they would feel to gradually become more active despite pain ranging from 0 (not at all confident) to 6 (completely confident). This outcome will be measured immediately in all participant groups. We will compare group mean of the three arms of the trial using univariate analyses of variance. Ethics and dissemination This trial has been prospectively registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry. We obtained ethical approval from our institutions Human Research Ethics Committee before data collection. We will publish the results in a peer-reviewed medical journal and on institution websites

Gait Characteristics and Cognitive Function in Middle-Aged Adults With and Without Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Data from ENBIND

Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) in midlife is associated with a greater risk of dementia in later life. Both gait speed and spatiotemporal gait characteristics have been associated with later cognitive decline in community-dwelling older adults. Thus, the assessment of gait characteristics in uncomplicated midlife T2DM may be important in selecting-out those with T2DM at greatest risk of later cognitive decline. We assessed the relationship between Inertial Motion Unit (IMUs)- derived gait characteristics and cognitive function assessed via Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MOCA)/detailed neuropsychological assessment battery (CANTAB) in middle-aged adults with and without uncomplicated T2DM using both multivariate linear regression and a neural network approach. Gait was assessed under (i) normal walking, (ii) fast (maximal) walking and (iii) cognitive dual-task walking (reciting alternate letters of the alphabet) conditions. Overall, 138 individuals were recruited (n = 94 with T2DM; 53% female, 52.8 8.3 years; n = 44 healthy controls, 43% female, 51.9 8.1 years). Midlife T2DM was associated with significantly slower gait velocity on both slow and fast walks (both p \u3c 0.01) in addition to a longer stride time and greater gait complexity during normal walk (both p \u3c 0.05). Findings persisted following covariate adjustment. In analyzing cognitive performance, the strongest association was observed between gait velocity and global cognitive function (MOCA). Significant associations were also observed between immediate/delayed memory performance and gait velocity. Analysis using a neural network approach did not outperform multivariate linear regression in predicting cognitive function (MOCA) from gait velocity. Our study demonstrates the impact of uncomplicated T2DM on gait speed and gait characteristics in midlife, in addition to the striking relationship between gait characteristics and global cognitive function/memory performance in midlife. Further studies are needed to evaluate the longitudinal relationship between midlife gait characteristics and later cognitive decline, which may aid in selecting-out those with T2DM at greatest-risk for preventative interventions

Is There a Relationship Between Lived Discrimination and Chronic Pain? - A Pilot Study

Background: The complexity of the human experience of pain involves myriad biological, psychological, and social factors, each contributing uniquely to the overall experience. Recent literature illustrates the impact of social determinants on health outcomes, including an association between chronic pain and lived-discrimination. Heart rate variability (HRV) is used as a measure of systemic health, with diminished HRV often accompanying chronic pain. Purpose: The primary aim of this study is to provide a pilot feasibility protocol to investigate the relationship between lived discrimination and HRV across the spectrum of pain duration. Methods: HRV data was collected from 39 participants while seated and taking an iPad survey that encompassed sociodemographic information, pain experience, and the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS). HRV data analysis was performed on 37 participants. Pearson’s correlation was used to compare total EDS score to HRV. Results: Due to the positive skew of EDS and HRV scores, the natural logs of EDS, high-frequency power (HFP), and low-frequency power (LFP) were utilized. Total log EDS (lnEDS) was not correlated with either lnHFP (r = -.08, p = .637) or lnLFP (r = .08, p = .658). Conclusions: This protocol demonstrates a feasible structure for further exploration of the relationship between lived discrimination and HRV. While nonsignificant in this small sample, the relationship between discrimination and HFP is opposite of LFP, suggesting different relationships between these variables. Future research should investigate the differences in these relationships in a larger sample between groups of those experiencing no pain, acute pain, and chronic pain

A Composite Metric for Benchmarking Site Performance in TAVR: Results from the STS/ACC TVT Registry

Background: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is a transformative therapy for aortic stenosis. Despite rapid improvements in technology and techniques, serious complications remain relatively common and are not well described by single outcome measures. The purpose of this study was to determine if there is site-level variation in TAVR outcomes in the United States using a novel 30-day composite measure. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study using data from the STS/ACC TVT Registry to develop a novel ranked composite performance measure that incorporates mortality and serious complications. The selection and rank order of the complications for the composite was determined by their adjusted association with 1-year outcomes. Sites whose risk-adjusted outcomes were significantly more or less frequent than the national average based on a 95% probability interval were classified as performing worse or better than expected. Results: The development cohort consisted of 52,561 patients who underwent TAVR between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2017. Based on the associations with 1-year risk-adjusted mortality and health status, we identified four periprocedural complications to include in the composite risk model in addition to mortality. Ranked empirically according to severity, these included stroke, major, life-threatening or disabling bleeding, stage III acute kidney injury, and moderate or severe peri-valvular regurgitation. Based on these ranked outcomes, we found that there was significant site-level variation in quality of care in TAVR in the United States. Overall, better than expected site performance was observed in 25/301 (8%) of sites; performance as expected was observed in 242/301 sites (80%); and worse than expected performance was observed in 34/301 (11%) of sites. Thirty-day mortality, stroke, major, life-threatening or disabling bleeding, and moderate or severe peri-valvular leak were each substantially more common in sites with worse than expected performance as compared with other sites. There was good aggregate reliability of the model. Conclusions: There are substantial variations in the quality of TAVR care received in the United States, and 11% of sites were identified as providing care below the average level of performance. Further study is necessary to determine structural, process-related, and technical factors associated with high- and low-performing sites

International Perspectives on Nonformal Education

The New England Regional Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society was held on the campus of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, on 3 May, 1979. The conference was co-sponsored by the Division of Community Education, Springfield College, and the Center for International Education, School of Education, University of Massachusetts. The theme of the conference was International Perspectives on Nonformal Education. The papers delivered ranged in topics from the use of traditional art forms and poetry as a medium of nonformal education to the discussion of the philosophical foundations underlying the field. Case studies of specific nonformal education projects helped to highlight the conference. A total fifteen papers were delivered, all of which are included in their original form in this document. The papers represent the views of the authors and not necessarily those of the organizers