The relationship between church health and church growth in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1185/thumbnail.jp

The Department of Labor’s Failed Attempt at Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation: A View Through the Eyes of Texas

Part II of this Comment will discuss the history, development, and purpose of state and federal unemployment insurance law. Part II will also discuss judicial and administrative interpretation, as well as enforcement of the law. Part III will analyze the legality of the failed BAA-UC experiment and its conflict with federal law and United States Supreme Court precedent. Part IV will discuss the Texas Unemployment Compensation System, and why the BAA-UC model state legislation conflicted with state and federal law. Part V will discuss the financial impact that a BAA-UC program would have on the federal-state and Texas unemployment trust funds. Finally, Part VI will propose that, in light of the lessons learned from the failed BAAUC program, Texas should analyze California\u27s solution to providing temporary partial-wage replacement to families on leave following the birth or adoption of a child and seek an alternate program to fund a paid leave program

What and how: doing good research with young people, digital intimacies, and relationships and sex education

© 2020, © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. As part of a project funded by the Wellcome Trust, we held a one-day symposium, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, to discuss priorities for research on relationships and sex education (RSE) in a world where young people increasingly live, experience, and augment their relationships (whether sexual or not) within digital spaces. The introduction of statutory RSE in schools in England highlights the need to focus on improving understandings of young people and digital intimacies for its own sake, and to inform the development of learning resources. We call for more research that puts young people at its centre; foregrounds inclusivity; and allows a nuanced discussion of pleasures, harms, risks, and rewards, which can be used by those working with young people and those developing policy. Generating such research is likely to be facilitated by participation, collaboration, and communication with beneficiaries, between disciplines and across sectors. Taking such an approach, academic researchers, practitioners, and policymakers agree that we need a better understanding of RSE’s place in lifelong learning, which seeks to understand the needs of particular groups, is concerned with non-sexual relationships, and does not see digital intimacies as disconnected from offline everyday ‘reality’

Studies in bovine vibriosis

Vibrio fetus causes infertility and abortion in cattle, the carrier bull being the main agent of transmission. The work done in this thesis studied different methods of detecting V.fetus and where possible compared their results. In the first section V.fetus was added to preputial washings from vibrio-free bulls. After treatment in the laboratory the following procedures were carried out: 1. The material was cultured on to a solid medium containing antibioties. 2. The material was passed through a Millipore filter of 0.65 micron diameter porosity and the filtrate cultured. 3. The material was placed on a slide and treated with a fluorescein conjugated anti-V.fetus serum to detect the presence of V.Fetus cells. The fluorescent antibody technique (FAT) was found to be specific and of comparable sensitivity to the culture method following millipore filtration. The later method was found to be more successful than direct culture on to a medium containing antibioties. The second section dealth with the insemination of heifers with preputial washings (PPW) containing known numbers of V.fetus cells and the subsequent reisolation of V.fetus from vaginal mucus taken from these animals. It was found that when approximately 104 viable vibrios were inseminated, 4 out of 12 helfers gave at least one vaginal mucus sample from which V.fetus was isolated. When approximately 108 vibrios were inseminated, 6 out of 8 heifers gave isolates of V.fetus. The third section was a bull survey in which 89 bulls were examined, 54 using the FAT only and 35 using the FAT and culture following millipore filtration. The results showed that 8 out of the 54 bulls and 10 out of the 35 bulls were vibrio carriers. Only 4 out of the 10 FAT positive bulls gave successful isolation using the millipore filtration culture method. Because of its speed and accuracy the FAT was considered to be a good screening method but isolation was considered essential if further identification of the isolates were required

The Performance Assessment Framework: experiences and perceptions of NHS Scotland. A Report to the Analytical Service Division, Directorate of Performance Management and Finance, Scottish Executive Health Department

The new Performance Assessment Framework (PAF) was introduced in NHSScotland in October 2001 and used in the annual NHS Board Accountability Reviews in 2002 and 2003. The PAF was assigned three objectives outlined in Our National Health: (1) ‘Support and encourage sustained improvement in the performance of NHS Scotland by focussing on key measures in relation to health priorities.' (2) ‘Reinforce and support the role of the 15 NHS Boards in managing the performance of their local NHS systems.' (3) ‘Enable NHS Scotland to account systematically for its performance both locally and through the Scottish Executive to the Scottish Parliament and to the people of Scotland.' The success with which the PAF appears to be meeting those objectives forms the focus of this investigation. A key element determining how and whether the PAF affects the behaviour of decision-makers within the organisations and subsequently NHS Scotland performance is the perception of the PAF and the signals it generates. Thus it is important to determine what these perceptions and understandings are. It is necessary to capture these views in order to appreciate fully the impact of the PAF within the NHS in Scotland and to appraise its salience and power as a performance tool

Stellar Structure of Dark Stars: a first phase of Stellar Evolution due to Dark Matter Annihilation

Dark Stars are the very first phase of stellar evolution in the history of the universe: the first stars to form (typically at redshifts $z \sim 10-50$) are powered by heating from dark matter (DM) annihilation instead of fusion (if the DM is made of particles which are their own antiparticles). We find equilibrium polytropic configurations for these stars; we start from the time DM heating becomes important ($M \sim 1-10 M_\odot$) and build up the star via accretion up to 1000 M$_\odot$. The dark stars, with an assumed particle mass of 100 GeV, are found to have luminosities of a few times $10^6$ L$_\odot$, surface temperatures of 4000--10,000 K, radii $\sim 10^{14}$ cm, lifetimes of at least $0.5$ Myr, and are predicted to show lines of atomic and molecular hydrogen. Dark stars look quite different from standard metal-free stars without DM heating: they are far more massive (e.g. $\sim 800 M_\odot$ for 100 GeV WIMPs), cooler, and larger, and can be distinguished in future observations, possibly even by JWST or TMT.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, shortened manuscript for publication, updated mansucript in accordance with referee's repor

Suicides associated with the 2008-10 economic recession in England: time trend analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether English regions worst affected by the economic recession in the United Kingdom in 2008-10 have had the greatest increases in suicides. DESIGN: Time trend analysis comparing the actual number of suicides with those that would be expected if pre-recession trends had continued. Multivariate regression models quantified the association between changes in unemployment (based on claimant data) and suicides (based on data from the National Clinical Health Outcomes Database). SETTING: 93 English regions, based on the Nomenclature of Territorial Units Statistics level 3 groupings of local authorities at county level and groups of unitary local authorities. PARTICIPANTS: Men and women with a record of death from suicide or injury of undetermined cause in 2000-10. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Number of excess suicides during the economic recession (2008-10). RESULTS: Between 2008 and 2010, we found 846 (95% confidence interval 818 to 877) more suicides among men than would have been expected based on historical trends, and 155 (121 to 189) more suicides among women. Historically, short term yearly fluctuations in unemployment have been associated with annual changes in suicides among men but not among women. We estimated that each 10% increase in the number of unemployed men was significantly associated with a 1.4% (0.5% to 2.3%) increase in male suicides. These findings suggest that about two fifths of the recent increase in suicides among men (increase of 329 suicides, 126 to 532) during the 2008-10 recession can be attributed to rising unemployment. CONCLUSION: The study provides evidence linking the recent increase in suicides in England with the financial crisis that began in 2008. English regions with the largest rises in unemployment have had the largest increases in suicides, particularly among men

Examining California’s Title 22 Community Care Licensing Regulations: The Impact on Inclusive Preschool Settings

Access to general education preschool in California has varied for children with disabilities. One reason for the disparity of educational placement is the preschool regulations outlined in California Department of Education’s Title 22: Community Care Licensing guidelines. These regulations, particularly in preschool, support or hinder preschool inclusion. Examining the preschool section of Title 22 through document analysis resulted in identifying three major themes that embrace or deter inclusive practices: (a) language (i.e., supportive language, antiquated language, and ambiguous language); (b) training, experience, and education; and (c) staff-student ratio. California’s educational leaders should consider these results to provide opportunities for preschool children with disabilities to be in general education environments