Too Little Too Late For City Spending On Workers Cooperatives

New York City spent $606.7 million in 2016 on Career Pathways, a national workforce development strategy designed to increase education, training, and learning opportunities for the current and emerging workforce. A small portion of that money has gone to worker cooperatives, a business entity that is worker-owned and worker-controlled. Female immigrant entrepreneurs have taken to the model. But the model\u27s strength might prove to be its weakness. http://alejandraoconnell.com/2017/12/27/too-little-too-l…ers-cooperatives/

Comparison of two echocardiographic views for evaluating the right pulmonary artery distensibility index in dogs.

Echocardiographic evaluation of the right pulmonary artery distensibility index (RPAD index) was recently described as a valuable method for early detection and severity evaluation of pulmonary arterial hypertension in dogs. RPAD index is calculated as the percentage change in diameter of the right pulmonary artery (RPA) between systole and diastole, obtained by M-mode echocardiography from the right parasternal long axis view. The aim of this study was to compare the RPAD index obtained by 2 different echocardiographic views in dogs. The study design was a prospective, multicenter, observational study. Forty-five clientowned dogs from different breeds were included: 31 dogs with heart disease and 14 healthy dogs. Two different right parasternal views, long axis (RPLA) and short axis (RPSA), were used to measure the RPAD index. From the RPLA view (method 1) and RPSA view (method 2) a short axis and a long axis image were respectively optimized for the right pulmonary artery. The RPAD index was calculated by M-mode as the percentage change in diameter of the right pulmonary artery: [(systolic diameter - diastolic diameter)/ systolic diameter]*100. Measurements were done off-line as an average of 5 consecutive cardiac cycles by a single investigator blinded to the dogs’ diagnosis. A Pearson and a Bland-Altman test were used to assess correlation and agreement between the 2 methods, respectively. Intra- and inter-observer measurement variability was quantified by average coefficient of variation (CV). Level of significance was set at P < 0.05. M-mode evaluation of the RPAD index was satisfactorily obtained by both methods in all dogs. Pearson test showed a strong positive linear correlation between the values of RPAD index obtained from both methods (r2 = 0.9346, P < 0.0001). Bland-Altman test showed a good agreement between the 2 methods in estimating RPAD index (bias = 0.51%, SD = 2.96%, 95% limits of agreement = 5.30, 6.33%). The mean difference between the 2 methods was 0.51% (95% confidence interval = 0.35; 1.35). Intra- and inter-observer measurement variability was clinically acceptable (CV<10%).The study showed a good agreement between short axis and long axis M-mode evaluation of RPA. Both methods can be used interchangeably to evaluate RPAD index. Further studies are needed to evaluate the RPAD index in a larger population of healthy dogs and the diagnostic and prognostic role of this echocardiographic parameter in dogs with different types of pulmonary hypertension

Circular economy strategies for electric vehicle batteries reduce raw material reliance

The wide adoption of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles will require increased natural resources for the automotive industry. The expected rapid increase in batteries could result in new resource challenges and supply-chain risks. To strengthen the resilience and sustainability of automotive supply chains and reduce primary resource requirements, circular economy strategies are needed. Here we illustrate how these strategies can reduce the extraction of primary raw materials, that is, cobalt supplies. Material flow analysis is applied to understand current and future flows of cobalt embedded in electric vehicle batteries across the European Union. A reference scenario is presented and compared with four strategies: technology-driven substitution and technology-driven reduction of cobalt, new business models to stimulate battery reuse/recycling and policy-driven strategy to increase recycling. We find that new technologies provide the most promising strategies to reduce the reliance on cobalt substantially but could result in burden shifting such as an increase in nickel demand. To avoid the latter, technological developments should be combined with an efficient recycling system. We conclude that more-ambitious circular economy strategies, at both government and business levels, are urgently needed to address current and future resource challenges across the supply chain successfully

Tissue Engineering Strategies for Myocardial Regeneration: Acellular Versus Cellular Scaffolds?

Heart disease remains one of the leading causes of death in industrialized nations with myocardial infarction (MI) contributing to at least one fifth of the reported deaths. The hypoxic environment eventually leads to cellular death and scar tissue formation. The scar tissue that forms is not mechanically functional and often leads to myocardial remodeling and eventual heart failure. Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine principles provide an alternative approach to restoring myocardial function by designing constructs that will restore the mechanical function of the heart. In this review, we will describe the cellular events that take place after an MI and describe current treatments. We will also describe how biomaterials, alone or in combination with a cellular component, have been used to engineer suitable myocardium replacement constructs and how new advanced culture systems will be required to achieve clinical success

Fatty Acid Composition of Beef Fed OmniGen- AF at Receiving or Finishing

Beef fatty acid profiles and superoxide dismutase activity were determined for cattle receiving OmniGen- AF supplementation (a patented nutritional supplement) at receiving (first 28 d at the feedlot) or throughout finishing (all 210 d of finishing) vs. a control group (non- supplemented). Th e most meaningful change in fatty acid composition from inclusion of OmniGen- AF was total poly- unsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) content where beef from the finishing group had more PUFA content in relation to the receiving group and was not different from the control group. Despite this increase in PUFA, cattle supplemented through finishing tended to have less lipid oxidation than the other two treatments yet this difference could not be explained by the superoxide dismutase activity

Strategies for Selecting, Managing, and Engaging Undergraduate Coauthors: A Multi-Site Perspective

In 2018, we delivered a symposium on publishing with undergraduate coauthors in the Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research (Fallon, 2018a; Fallon and Domenech Rodríguez, 2018a,b; Fallon and Scisco, 2018; McCabe and Mendoza, 2018). Based on our collective experience, we identified three common challenges: effectively selecting, managing, and engaging students throughout the publication process. We use our perspectives from different institutions (i.e., small liberal arts colleges, mid-sized regional universities, and a large research university) and evidence from past research to provide strategies to successfully meet these challenges. Ultimately, the actionable strategies we describe could be used by a wide faculty readership to increase rates of successful publishing with undergraduate students

Entrepreneurial Orientation and Firm Performance in the Context of Upper Echelon Theory

Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) is a firm-level phenomenon, which involves the firm’s prospects to take risks, be proactive, and be innovative. Most of the research assumes a positive EO-performance relationship adopting the EO-as-advantage perspective without providing enough theoretical foundations of the way EO enhances performance. This paper provides insights into the EO and firm performance relationship looking into the EO-as-experimentation perspective. Through EO-as-experimentation perspective, we argue for the importance of looking into the differential effects of each of the EO dimensions on firm performance in active and inactive firms. We hypothesized that the effect of each of the proactiveness and innovativeness dimension of EO on firm performance is positive among active firms and negative among inactive firms. Whereas risk taking dimension of EO is negative among active and inactive firms. Based on the results of firm fixed effect regression some empirical support for the hypotheses is presented and discussed

Characterization of surface layers in Zn-diffused LiNbO3 waveguides by heavy ion elastic recoil detection

Copyright (2002) American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters 81.11 (2002): 1981-1983 and may be found at http://apl.aip.org

Efficacy of combinations of colistin with other antimicrobials involves membrane fluidity and efflux machinery

Objective: Despite its use was abandoned several decades ago, the polycationic peptide colistin has become the last hope to treat severe infections caused by multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. Thus, the development of colistin resistance may seriously compromise the efficacy of treatment. Moreover, colistin has high toxicity being dose dependent. A potentially effective strategy to avoid resistance may be to combine colistin with other antimicrobials. This may help in the rescue of old antimicrobials and in reducing toxic undesired effects. Methods: Antimicrobial susceptibility determination, efflux machinery function measurements in different conditions and measurement of inhibition of the extrusion by colistin were performed. Moreover, modifications of anisotropy of the membranes by using fluorescent dyes was accomplished. Results: Sub-inhibitory concentrations of colistin have a synergistic effect with several antimicrobials that act intracellularly (targeting protein synthesis and DNA replication). This effect was demonstrated through the uptake increases of acridine orange. in Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Acinetobacter baumanii but also in an intrinsically colistin-resistant species as Serratia marcescens. Measurements of the anisotropy of bacterial membranes, as a measure of membrane fluidity, showed significant changes indicative of colistin activity. Conclusion: The alterations in the cellular efflux machinery that resulted in higher intracellular concentrations of acridine orange, and likely of other antimicrobials combined with data of membrane fluidity and measured synergism in vitro allow us to envisage the use of these combinations to fight infections caused by multidrug-resistant bact