3,047 research outputs found
Living in Interesting Times: President Obama and the Rebirth of the Labor Movement
Legislation has been introduced in the United States that will allow workers to form unions without secret ballot voting among prospective members. This legislation, in its current form, is the most radical change in Federal law governing union recognition in its history. While passage of the legislation is far from certain, it has generated much discussion and argument, most of it polemical. This article examines the issue from a more academic perspective, reviewing the history of organizing and how management practices have developed that effectively use the current election process as a tool to resist organizing efforts, and the effect the legislation might have upon those practices
Happy at Work: How the Science of Positive Psychology Will Revolutionize the Workplace
This capstone is a draft of a proposed book on positive psychology in the workplace, aimed at a popular audience. It contains a detailed table of contents and reference sources, as well as several complete or partially- complete chapters. It also includes an extended section on lawyers that will form the basis of a separate academic article. The book’s working title is Happy at Work: How the Science of Positive Psychology will Revolutionize the Workplace. Its thesis is that most modern human resources practices are misguided with an overreliance on process and metrics. Humans are treated as capital, and firms focus on their failings and weaknesses rather than their strengths. In a post-crash world such approaches are unsustainable, and positive psychology provides a new way of managing that will revolutionize the workplace. Unlike what many would believe, it is OK to be happy at work; in fact, we should be happy at work. High corporate performance requires happy employees, and the book links the science of positive psychology with its practical application to show how any company can increase happiness at work
A spatially distributed model for the dynamic prediction of sediment erosion and transport in mountainous forested watersheds
Erosion and sediment transport in a temperate forested watershed are predicted with a new sediment model that represents the main sources of sediment generation in forested environments (mass wasting, hillslope erosion, and road surface erosion) within the distributed hydrology-soil-vegetation model (DHSVM) environment. The model produces slope failures on the basis of a factor-of-safety analysis with the infinite slope model through use of stochastically generated soil and vegetation parameters. Failed material is routed downslope with a rule-based scheme that determines sediment delivery to streams. Sediment from hillslopes and road surfaces is also transported to the channel network. A simple channel routing scheme is implemented to predict basin sediment yield. We demonstrate through an initial application of this model to the Rainy Creek catchment, a tributary of the Wenatchee River, which drains the east slopes of the Cascade Mountains, that the model produces plausible sediment yield and ratios of landsliding and surface erosion when compared to published rates for similar catchments in the Pacific Northwest. A road removal scenario and a basin-wide fire scenario are both evaluated with the model
Improving C2 Effectiveness Based on Robust Connectivity
This chapter describes an approach to develop an improved metric for network effectiveness through the use of Cares\u27 (2005) Information Age Combat Model (IACM) as a context for combat (or competition) between networked forces. The IACM highlights the inadequacy of commonly used quantifiable metrics with regards to comparing networks that differ only by the placement of a few links. An agent-based simulation is used to investigate the potential value of the Perron-Frobenius Eigenvalue (λPFE) as an indicator of network effectiveness. The results validate this assumption. Another measurement is proven to be equally important, namely the robustness of a configuration. Potential applications from the domain of ballistic missile defense are included to show operational relevance
Agreement between methods of measurement with multiple observations per individual
Limits of agreement provide a straightforward and intuitive approach to agreement between different methods for measuring the same quantity. When pairs of observations using the two methods are independent, i.e., on different subjects, the calculations are very simple and straightforward. Some authors collect repeated data, either as repeated pairs of measurements on the same subject, whose true value of the measured quantity may be changing, or more than one measurement by one or both methods of an unchanging underlying quantity. In this paper we describe methods for analysing such clustered observations, both when the underlying quantity is assumed to be changing and when it is not
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Separating snow, clean and debris covered ice in the Upper Indus Basin, Hindukush-Karakoram-Himalayas, using Landsat images between 1998 and 2002
NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in the Journal of Hydrology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in the Journal of Hydrology
Volume 521, February 2015, Pages 46–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.11.048The full text of this version of the article is embargoed for 24 months from the date of publication to meet the publisher's requirementsThe Hindukush Karakoram Himalayan mountains contain some of the largest glaciers of the world, and supply melt water from perennial snow and glaciers to the Upper Indus Basin (UIB) upstream of Tarbela dam, which constitutes greater than 80% of the annual flows, and caters to the needs of millions of people in the Indus Basin. It is therefore important to study the response of perennial snow and glaciers in the UIB under changing climatic conditions, using improved hydrological modeling, glacier mass balance, and observations of glacier responses. However, the available glacier inventories and datasets only provide total perennial-snow and glacier cover areas, despite the fact that snow, clean ice and debris covered ice have different melt rates and densities. This distinction is vital for improved hydrological modeling and mass balance studies. This study, therefore, presents a separated perennial snow and glacier inventory (perennial snow-cover on steep slopes, perennial snow-covered ice, clean and debris covered ice) based on a semi-automated method that combines Landsat images and surface slope information in a supervised maximum likelihood classification to map distinct glacier zones, followed by manual post processing. The accuracy of the presented inventory falls well within the accuracy limits of available snow and glacier inventory products. For the entire UIB, estimates of perennial and/or seasonal snow on steep slopes, snow-covered ice, clean and debris covered ice zones are 7238 ± 724, 5226 ± 522, 4695 ± 469 and 2126 ± 212 km^2 respectively. Thus total snow and glacier cover is 19,285 ± 1928 km^2, out of which 12,075 ± 1207 km^2 is glacier cover (excluding steep slope snow-cover). Equilibrium Line Altitude (ELA) estimates based on the Snow Line Elevation (SLE) in various watersheds range between 4800 and 5500 m, while the Accumulation Area Ratio (AAR) ranges between 7% and 80%. 0 °C isotherms during peak ablation months (July and August) range between ~ 5500 and 6200 m in various watersheds. These outputs can be used as input to hydrological models, to estimate spatially-variable degree day factors for hydrological modeling, to separate glacier and snow-melt contributions in river flows, and to study glacier mass balance, and glacier responses to changing climate
Neurologic Issues in Patients Receiving Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation Support
Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) is a well-established therapy for patients experiencing acute severe cardiac and/or respiratory failure. Unfortunately, despite noteworthy improvements in patient selection, technology, and multidisciplinary team management, significant complications are still common. The most dramatic and potentially severe complications are neurologic. However, the incidence of neurologic complications (i.e. embolic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, seizures, and anoxic injuries) has not been completely defined. Unfortunately, brain death and neurologic injuries are significant causes of morbidity and mortality for patients requiring an ECMO support. Critical to the management of patients requiring ECMO is a broader understanding of neurologic monitoring along with the clinical assessment and management of neurologic events. It is important to evaluate and potentially intervene early in the event of a neurologic problem to minimize its clinical significance. Hopefully, with a better understanding of the pathophysiology, diagnostic and therapeutic tools, and prevention strategies, the true incidence of neurologic complications can be understood and minimized
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