2015 Alaska's Construction Spending Forecast

OVERVIEW The total value of construction spending “on the street” in Alaska in 2015 will be $8.5 billion, down 3Wage and salary employment in the construction industry, which increased an estimated 6 percent last year, to about 17,600, will decline slightly in 2015.4 Oil and gas sector spending will fall 2$3.8 billion from its record level of $3.9 billion last year. Other spending will be$4.7 billion, a decline from $4.9 billion last year. Private spending, excluding oil and gas, will be about$1.7 billion, down from $2.0 billion last year—while public spending will increase from$2.9 to $3.0 billion. Construction spending in Alaska in 2015 is expected to be strong in spite of the drop in the price of oil from more than$100 per barrel in the summer of 2014 to between $45 and$50 today. However, the longer the price stays low, the greater the risk that some projects will be cancelled or postponed. It is impossible to predict what will happen to the oil price, because world supply has outstripped demand. The price will stabilize, and perhaps begin to increase, only when the low price stimulates more demand and eliminates high cost production, a process that could take more than a year. A further complication is the unpredictability of the role of OPEC in determining oil supply. In particular Saudi Arabia, the largest producer, could decide to restrict supply for political or strategic reasons. Because of the drop in the price of oil, the state is facing a general fund budget deficit of about $3 billion for the current fiscal year (FY2015) and is projected to have a similar deficit in FY2016 (which begins July 1 of this year). However, this will not have a large negative impact on state government construction spending this year for several reasons.Northrim Bank. Construction Industry Progress Fund. The Associated General Contractors of Alaska

2017 Alaska's Construction Spending Forecast

The total value of construction spending “on the street” in Alaska in 2017 will be $6.5 billion, down 10$2.4 billion, from $2.9 billion last year. All other construction spending will be$4.0 billion, a decline of 7% from $4.3 billion last year. Private spending, excluding oil and gas, will be about$1.6 billion, up 2% from last year—while public spending will decline 12% to $2.5 billion. Wage and salary employment in the construction industry, which dropped by 8.5% in 2016 to 16.2 thousand, will drop another 7.4% in 2017 to 15 thousand, the lowest level in more than a decade.n 2016 the Alaska economy slipped into a recession that is expected to continue at least through 2017. Total wage and salary employment fell in 2016 by 6.8 thousand, about 2%. This year it is anticipated the decline will be 7.5 thousand, or 2.3%, which will return the economy to the 2010 level.5. Weakness in the economy is also reflected in a net outmigration of population over the last four years.Construction Industry Progress Fund Associated General Contractors of Alask

What The Numbers Say About How To Reduce Imprisonment: Offenses, Returns, and Turnover

Reformers across the political spectrum are calling for a rollback of mass incarceration. The U.S. rate of incarceration in state prisons would have to decline by 75% to return to its 1970s level. How might this be accomplished? This Article provides descriptive statistics about the mix of offenses, sentence lengths, and admission types and shows that no single approach can undo mass incarceration. Those classified as violent offenders are a majority of those in prison, but nonviolent offenders are a majority of those entering, leaving, or having been in prison. A majority of those in prison are scheduled to be released within five years, meaning that steep reductions in prison admissions can have a large impact on imprisonment rates. Revisiting the sentences and parole options for those who have already been in prison ten years or more could have some impact. An examination of the rate of returns to prison after a first release from prison suggests that the rate of committing a new crime is low and that reductions in revocations for violations of the conditions of supervision are an important avenue for reducing incarceration. The U.S. states vary greatly in their mixes of prisoners by offense, sentence length, and returns to prison for parole violations with no new crime as well as in their histories of trends over time. States will vary markedly in which reforms will affect their prison populations, and assumptions based on old data may not hold true as conditions change

A novel phosphorylation-independent interaction between SMG6 and UPF1 is essential for human NMD

Eukaryotic mRNAs with premature translation-termination codons (PTCs) are recognized and eliminated by nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD). NMD substrates can be degraded by different routes that all require phosphorylated UPF1 (P-UPF1) as a starting point. The endonuclease SMG6, which cleaves mRNA near the PTC, is one of the three known NMD factors thought to be recruited to nonsense mRNAs via an interaction with P-UPF1, leading to eventual mRNA degradation. By artificial tethering of SMG6 and mutants thereof to a reporter mRNA combined with knockdowns of various NMD factors, we demonstrate that besides its endonucleolytic activity, SMG6 also requires UPF1 and SMG1 to reduce reporter mRNA levels. Using in vivo and in vitro approaches, we further document that SMG6 and the unique stalk region of the UPF1 helicase domain, along with a contribution from the SQ domain, form a novel interaction and we also show that this region of the UPF1 helicase domain is critical for SMG6 function and NMD. Our results show that this interaction is required for NMD and for the capability of tethered SMG6 to degrade its bound RNA, suggesting that it contributes to the intricate regulation of UPF1 and SMG6 enzymatic activitie

Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay in human cells: mechanistic insights, functions beyond quality control and the double-life of NMD factors

Nonsense-mediated decay is well known by the lucid definition of being a RNA surveillance mechanism that ensures the speedy degradation of mRNAs containing premature translation termination codons. However, as we review here, NMD is far from being a simple quality control mechanism; it also regulates the stability of many wild-type transcripts. We summarise the abundance of research that has characterised each of the NMD factors and present a unified model for the recognition of NMD substrates. The contentious issue of how and where NMD occurs is also discussed, particularly with regard to P-bodies and SMG6-driven endonucleolytic degradation. In recent years, the discovery of additional functions played by several of the NMD factors has further complicated the picture. Therefore, we also review the reported roles of UPF1, SMG1 and SMG6 in other cellular processe

Saccharide Display on Microtiter Plates

AbstractNew insight into the importance of carbohydrates in biological systems underscores the need for rapid synthetic and screening procedures for them. Development of an organic synthesis-compatible linker that would attach saccharides to microtiter plates was therefore undertaken to facilitate research in glycobiology. Galactosyllipids containing small, hydrophobic groups at the anomeric position were screened for noncovalent binding to microtiter plates. When the lipid component was a saturated hydrocarbon between 13 and 15 carbons in length, the monosaccharide showed complete retention after aqueous washing and could be utilized in biological assays. This alkyl chain was also successfully employed with more complex oligosaccharides in biological assays. In light of these findings, this method of attachment of oligosaccharides to microtiter plates should be highly efficacious to high-throughput synthesis and analyses of carbohydrates in biological assays

Propiedades psicométricas de la escala de preocupación por el contagio de la Covid-19 (Pre-Covid-19) en adultos, Lima Norte-2022

La investigación tuvo como objetivo determinar las propiedades psicométricas de la Escala de Preocupación por Contagio de COVID-19 (PRE-COVID-19) (CaychoRodríguez et al., 2020), modelo unidimensional de 6 ítems con escala de Likert en población de adultos entre las edades de 25 a 59 años de ambos sexos de los distritos de Lima Norte. El diseño empleado fue tipo instrumental, la muestra estuvo conformada por 600 sujetos. Los resultados estadísticos, de validez y confiabilidad, fueron aceptables. En ese sentido, las características de los ítems evidenciaron dispersión aceptable. El Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio (AFC) tuvo valores adecuados de bondad (X² = 95.5; CFI = 0.970; TLI = 0.949; GFI = 0.991; RMSEA = 0.127; SRMR = 0.062). Además, tuvo una correlación (rho) significativa (p < 0.05) de validez convergente. Asimismo, adecuados índices de alfa (0.89) y omega (0.94). Por otro lado, Para hallar los datos normativos se sometió la muestra, según sexo, a la prueba de normalidad (K-S) demostrando tener datos no paramétricos (sig < .05) y la prueba U de Mann-Whitney sin diferencia significativa en las puntuaciones (sig > .05) para no discriminar la muestra en dos. Se concluye que, la Escala de Preocupación por Contagio de COVID-19 (PRE-COVID-19), posee adecuadas propiedades psicométricas y resulta ser un instrumento válido y confiable para su aplicación en dicha població

Dubiofossils from a Mars-analogue subsurface palaeoenvironment: the limits of biogenicity criteria

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS S. M. acknowledges funding by the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement 747877. MI acknowledges funding from Swedish Research Council (Contract 2017-04129) and funding from the Paul Scherrer Institute, Villigen, Switzerland (20130185, 20141047) granted to Stefan Bengtson. DW acknowledges funding from the Australian Research Council via a Future Fellowship (FT140100321). The authors acknowledge the facilities, and the scientific and technical assistance of Microscopy Australia at the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation & Analysis, The University of Western Australia, a facility funded by the University, State and Commonwealth Governments. The chemical garden experiments were supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1609495 to O.S. Chemical garden SEM measurements were carried out at the Condensed Matter and Materials Physics User Facility of Florida State University. We thank Dr. Eric Lochner for sharing his technical expertise. We acknowledge the Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland for provision of synchrotron radiation beamtime at the TOMCAT beamline X02DA of the Swiss Light Source and would like to thank Federica Marone for help at the beamline and SRXTM analyses. We thank three anonymous reviewers for their comments, which greatly improved the manuscript. Funding information Paul Scherrer Institut, Grant/Award Number: 20130185 and 20141047; Vetenskapsrådet, Grant/Award Number: 2017-04129; Australian Research Council, Grant/Award Number: FT140100321; H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, Grant/Award Number: 747877; National Science Foundation, Grant/Award Number: 1609495Peer reviewedPublisher PD