Vacation laws and annual work hours

This article reviews the theory and evidence regarding how work hours are determined and the role of employer policies on vacation. The authors discuss possible economic rationales for vacation laws and present empirical evidence on whether they affect annual work hours. The results indicate that vacation laws lead to a substantial reduction in work hours.Hours of labor ; Vacations, Employee

Feasibility Study of Regional Air Mobility Services for High Priority Transportation in the San Joaquin Valley

Regional Air Mobility (RAM) focuses on building upon existing airport infrastructure to transport people and goods using innovative aircraft that offer a huge improvement in efficiency, affordability, and community-friendly integration over existing regional transportation options. These aircraft, which typically carry less than 20 passengers or an equivalent weight in cargo, are flexible in terms of where they can take off and land, even using existing runways and infrastructure to maximize compatibility with today’s airports. This project examines the feasibility of RAM supporting high-speed transportation for high-priority passenger and cargo movement within Fresno County and connection to coastal urban centers. Some examples of high-priority passengers and cargo could include, but would not be limited to, medical patients needing specialized and/or emergency treatment, organ transport, and critical medical supply deliveries. Electrification of aviation is happening, and Fresno County has the potential to combine our existing closely spaced underutilized airport infrastructure, early demonstration, and experience with electric aircraft, renewable energy opportunities, central location within the state, and the need to open the door for new industry opportunities for youth to take advantage of this “Third Revolution” in aviation

Recognizing the Potential to Reduce GHG Emissions Through Air Transportation Electrification

California is aggressively moving forward with efforts to deploy zero-emission transportation technology to fight climate change, especially the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from the high-impact transportation sector. However, to date, the investments California has made with Cap-and-Trade funding have focused on ground transportation and some marine sources and not the aircraft at the over 140 airports in the state. Through a California-focused comprehensive GHG emissions analysis, this research project seeks to determine how RAM using electric/hybrid electric aircraft can provide new high-speed transportation for high-priority passenger and cargo movement within Fresno County and connections to coastal urban centers. Using VISION, a model developed by the Argonne National Laboratory Transportation Systems Assessment Group, the research team identified and compared the emission per mile and emission per passenger mile between different modes of transportation using traditional petroleum fuel and other sustainable alternatives at an individual level and within the context of the transportation sector, by comparing different modes of transportation. With this estimation on hand, it becomes more viable for the state of California and other states, as well as the federal government, to establish guidelines and goals for transportation policies and investments

DEXTER: Generating Documents by means of computational registers

Software is often capable of efficiently storing and managing data on computers. However, even software systems that store and manage data efficiently often do an inadequate job of presenting data to users. A prototypical example is the display of raw data in the tabular results of SQL queries. Users may need a presentation that is sensitive to data values and sensitive to domain conventions. One way to enhance presentation is to generate documents that correctly convey the data to users, taking into account the needs of the user and the values in the data. I have designed and implemented a software approach to generating human-readable documents in a variety of domains. The software to generate a document is called a {\em computational register}, or ``register\u27\u27 for short. A {\em register system} is a software package for authoring and managing individual registers. Registers generating documents in various domains may be managed by one register system. In this thesis I describe computational registers at an architectural level and discuss registers as implemented in DEXTER, my register system. Input to DEXTER registers is a set of SQL query results. DEXTER registers use a rule-based approach to create a document outline from the input. A register creates the output document by using flexible templates to express the document outline. The register approach is unique in several ways. Content determination and structural planning are carried out sequentially rather than simultaneously. Content planning itself is broken down into data re-representation followed by content selection. No advanced linguistic knowledge is required to understand the approach. Register authoring follows a course very similar to writing a single document. The internal data representation and content planning steps allow registers to use flexible templates, rather than more abstract grammar-based approaches, to render the final document, Computational registers are applicable in a variety of domains. What registers can be written is restricted not by domain, but by the original data representation. Finally, DEXTER shows that a single software suite can assist in authoring and management of a variety of registers

COVID-19 Public Transportation Air Circulation and Virus Mitigation Study

COVID-19 may have forever changed our world. Given the limited space and air circulation, potential infections on public transportation could be concerningly high. Accordingly, this study has two objectives: (1) to understand air circulation patterns inside the cabins of buses; and (2) to test the impact of different technologies in mitigating viruses from the air and on surfaces inside bus cabins. For the first objective, different devices, metrics and experiments (including colored smoke; videotaping; anemometers; pressure differentials; particle counts; and 3D numerical simulation models) were utilized and implemented to understand and quantify air circulation inside different buses, with different characteristics, and under different operating conditions (e.g. with windows open and shut). For the second objective, three different live prokaryotic viruses were utilized: Phi6, MS2 and T7. Various technologies (including positive pressure environment inside the cabin, HEPA filters with different MERV ratings, concentrated UV exposure with charged carbon filters in the HVAC systems, center point photocatalytic oxidation technology, ionization, and surface antiviral agents) were tested to evaluate the potential of mitigating COVID-19 infections via air and surfaces in public transportation. The effectiveness of these technologies on the three live viruses was tested in both the lab and in buses in the field. The results of the first objective experiments indicated the efficiency of HVAC system designs, where the speed of air spread was consistently much faster than the speed of air clearing. Hence, indicating the need for additional virus mitigation from the cabin. Results of the second objective experiments indicated that photocatalytic oxidation inserts and UVC lights were the most efficient in mitigating viruses from the air. On the other hand, positive pressure mitigated all viruses from surfaces; however, copper foil tape and fabrics with a high percentage of copper mitigated only the Phi6 virus from surfaces. High-temperature heating was also found to be highly effective in mitigating the different viruses from the vehicle cabin. Finally, limited exploratory experiments to test possible toxic by-products of photocatalytic oxidation and UVC lights inside the bus cabin did not detect any increase in levels of formaldehyde, ozone, or volatile organic compounds. Implementation of these findings in transit buses, in addition to the use of personal protective equipment, could be significantly valuable for protection of passengers and drivers on public transportation modes, possibly against all forms of air-borne viruses

Improving the competitiveness and marketability of locally-produced rice in Ghana

Irrigated rice has been grown over a number of decades in Ghana on state-sponsored government irrigation projects. Over the years these projects have received extensive state support, as the government has attempted, through various initiatives, to achieve food self-sufficiency. The emphasis on promoting domestic rice production was enhanced by the growing importance of rice in the diet of the urban population, combined with technical assistance provided by donors, such as the Chinese. In addition, the promotion of state-sponsored, input-intensive agriculture reflected the Ghanaian government's past adherence to socialist development models

Analysis of Student Misconceptions Using Python as an Introductory Programming Language

Python has become a popular language for the delivery of introductory programming courses. Two reasons for this are Python's convenience and syntactic simplicity, giving a low entry barrier for beginners and the ability to solve complex problems with short snippets of code. However, students exhibit widespread misconceptions about the meaning of basic language constructs, inhibiting their ability to solve problems and damaging their understanding of fundamental concepts. In this paper, we document our observations of level 1 university students over several years, as well as surveys probing the nature of their misconceptions. We analyze the misconceptions in relation to a notional machine model for Python, and show that many students form inadequate and brittle mental models of the language. Our results indicate that one of the major sources of misunderstanding is the heavy use of overloading in Python. Overloading hides the complexity of algorithms and data structures, often leading students to write code that involves mutability, sharing, copying, side effects, coroutines, concurrency, and lazy evaluation -- and none of those topics are accessible to students who haven't yet mastered basic assignments, conditionals, and looping. We suggest that Python, when taught alone, is insufficient as an introductory language: students can gain a firmer grasp of programming fundamentals when Python is presented alongside a complementary low level language that makes a notional machine clear and explicit

When Is Antipsychotic Polypharmacy Supported by Research Evidence? Implications for QI

Background: Concurrent use of multiple standing antipsychotics (antipsychotic polypharmacy) is increasingly common among both inpatients and outpatients. Although this has often been cited as a potential quality-of-care problem, reviews of research evidence on antipsychotic polypharmacy have not distinguished between appropriate versus inappropriate use. Methods A MEDLINE search from 1966 to December 2007 was completed to identify studies comparing changes in symptoms, functioning, and/or side effects between patients treated with multiple antipsychotics and patients treated with a single antipsychotic. The studies were reviewed in two groups on the basis of whether prescribing was concordant with guideline recommendations for multiple-antipsychotic use. Results A review of the literature, including three randomized controlled trials, found no support for the use of antipsychotic polypharmacy in patients without an established history of treatment resistance to multiple trials of monotherapy. In patients with a history of treatment resistance to multiple monotherapy trials, limited data support antipsychotic polypharmacy, but positive outcomes were primarily found in studies of clozapine augmented with a second-generation antipsychotic. Discussion Research evidence is consistent with the goal of avoiding antipsychotic polypharmacy in patients who lack guideline-recommended indications for its use. The Joint Commission is implementing a core measure set for Hospital-Based Inpatient Psychiatric Services. Two of the measures address antipsychotic polypharmacy. The first measure assesses the overall rate. The second measure determines whether clinically appropriate justification has been documented supporting the use of more than one antipsychotic medication

Power, Avionics and Software Communication Network Architecture

This document describes the communication architecture for the Power, Avionics and Software (PAS) 2.0 subsystem for the Advanced Extravehicular Mobile Unit (AEMU). The following systems are described in detail: Caution Warn- ing and Control System, Informatics, Storage, Video, Audio, Communication, and Monitoring Test and Validation. This document also provides some background as well as the purpose and goals of the PAS project at Glenn Research Center (GRC)

Power, Avionics and Software - Phase 1.0:

This report describes Power, Avionics and Software (PAS) 1.0 subsystem integration testing and test results that occurred in August and September of 2013. This report covers the capabilities of each PAS assembly to meet integration test objectives for non-safety critical, non-flight, non-human-rated hardware and software development. This test report is the outcome of the first integration of the PAS subsystem and is meant to provide data for subsequent designs, development and testing of the future PAS subsystems. The two main objectives were to assess the ability of the PAS assemblies to exchange messages and to perform audio testing of both inbound and outbound channels. This report describes each test performed, defines the test, the data, and provides conclusions and recommendations