Property Tax Restrictions on School Board Fiscal Taxing Authority in Pennsylvania

Historically, in Pennsylvania, the property tax has been the only significant local revenue source over which school boards have had authority, and their authority to raise property tax rates was unrestricted. This flexibility has proved helpful especially when the state has enacted unfunded mandates

Local Property Tax Limitations vs. School District Employee Pension Costs in Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania as in many other states, employee pension costs are a significant source of financial pressure for school districts. In order to gain greater insight into the nature of Pennsylvania school districts’ financial burden related to pension commitments, this article presents the findings of two scenarios, one which compared the maximum amount of local property tax revenue Pennsylvania school districts could raise under a 2010 state property tax limitation statute, Act 120, to their pension obligations; and a second scenario which incorporated a 1% annual salary increase into the analysis. The article is divided into three sections

An ecological understanding of the junior-to-senior transition in professional tennis

The junior-to-senior transition (JST) in professional tennis has been found to be increasingly difficult in recent years (International Tennis Federation (ITF), 2017). Players face considerable financial imbalance on tour, with the top 1% of players (i.e., top 50 males and top 26 females) having earned 60% and 51% of the prize money distributed on the men’s and women’s tours in 2013, respectively, leaving only 1.8% of male and 3.1% of female players able to earn a profit in the professional structure (ITF, 2017). Further, research has shown that the time taken from players earning their first world ranking to reaching the world’s top 100 has increased from 3.7 to 5 years (men) and 3.4 to 4.9 years (women) from 2000 to 2017 (ITF, 2017; ITF Global Tennis Report, 2019), suggesting that there are additional challenges at play than financial imbalance making the professional tour an increasingly difficult environment to thrive in. This thesis aimed to gain a contextualized understanding of the lived JST experiences of tennis players to provide added depth to the limited academic literature base to date and offer valuable applied practice insight and implications for players, their support networks, and other stakeholders. To achieve these aims, three studies were conducted. First, Study 1 adopted an exploratory, single, holistic case design to examine the lifestyle challenges professional players experience in their lives on tour. Behind the Racquet (BTR), a social media platform aimed at raising awareness of professional players’ lifestyle challenges through providing authentic, vulnerable, self-reported experiences from players served as a unique and valuable data source. From the experiences of 65 professional players (33 male, 32 female) from 28 different countries, findings illustrated physical and mental fatigue, financial imbalance of the professional system, the social and psychological impact of living a nomadic existence, the weight of expectation, structural-caused instability, and mental ill-health as six key lifestyle challenges on the professional tour. Collectively, these challenges represented barriers to the satisfaction of many of players’ basic needs (Maslow, 1943; 1954) posing a risk to their tour progression and mental health. With context of the lifestyle challenges professional players experience, there was rationale to then investigate the lived experiences of players’ JST processes. In the first study of a larger, longitudinal, exploratory, collective case study into the lived experiences of seven professional tennis players, Study 2 adopted a narrative enquiry approach and identified three narrative types of the JST process: Supportive Structure and Steady Progression; Lack of Support, Demotivation and Career Termination; and Successive Setbacks and a Search for Solutions. Key findings from this study included: a) the facilitative impact of supportive structures in assisting players to meet many of their basic needs (Maslow, 1943; 1954) and sustain motivation amidst the concurrent and multifaceted challenges they face in their JST experiences; and b) the JST is a complex process constructed of several individual and environmental factors that interact to shape players’ developmental processes. This led to the adoption of the PPCT model (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) in Study 3 to understand the interaction of individual, environmental, and time-based influences in players’ JST experiences. Five themes were generated to illustrate this interaction: A Race Against Time, Riding the ‘Mental Grind’, ‘You Can’t Do It Alone’, A Chance to Pause, and Cultural-Based Opportunities. Collectively, these findings highlighted the varying macroystem and time-based influences that interact with players’ micro- and mesosystems to explain the complexity of the JST process. Taken together, this thesis expanded the knowledge base of the JST process in tennis and offers not just empirical, theoretical, and methodological significance, but valuable applied practice insight and implications to assist tennis players and other stakeholders with their preparations for professional careers

Ixekizumab and complete resolution of enthesitis and dactylitis: integrated analysis of two phase 3 randomized trials in psoriatic arthritis

Abstract Background Ixekizumab improves signs/symptoms of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). We present an integrated analysis of baseline disease burden and post-baseline outcomes in ixekizumab-treated patients with enthesitis or dactylitis. Methods Data from SPIRIT-P1 and SPIRIT-P2 were integrated. Patients with PsA were randomized to 80-mg ixekizumab every 4 weeks (IXEQ4W) or 2 weeks (IXEQ2W), after a 160-mg starting dose, or to placebo. Inadequate responders at week 16 received rescue therapy. Among patients with baseline enthesitis (Leeds Enthesitis Index [LEI] > 0) or dactylitis (Leeds Dactylitis Index-Basic [LDI-B] > 0), baseline characteristics and disease burden were reported. At week 24, LEI and LDI-B (percentage of patients with resolution [LEI = 0, LDI-B = 0]) were assessed. In pooled treatment groups, the impact of enthesitis or dactylitis resolution on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) (EuroQol-5 Dimensions Visual Analogue Scale [EQ-5D VAS]), physical function (Health Assessment Questionnaire-Disability Index [HAQ-DI]), and pain was assessed. Results The integrated analysis set comprised 679 patients; of these, 60% (n = 403 of 675) had baseline enthesitis (LEI > 0) and 23% (n = 155 of 676) had baseline dactylitis (LDI > 0). At week 24, ixekizumab-treated patients experienced significantly more resolution than placebo of enthesitis (39% IXEQ4W, 35% IXEQ2W, 21% placebo) and dactylitis (78% IXEQ4W, 65% IXEQ2W, 24% placebo). Furthermore, at entheseal points measured by the LEI, ixekizumab-treated patients had significantly higher resolution of enthesitis compared to placebo. At week 24, among all placebo- and ixekizumab-treated patients, resolution of enthesitis was associated with improvements in function and HRQoL whereas dactylitis resolution was associated with more limited improvements. The least squares mean HAQ-DI improvements from baseline were − 0.44 and − 0.25 for patients who did/did not resolve enthesitis, and − 0.41 and − 0.31 for patients who did/did not resolve dactylitis. EQ-5D VAS improvements were 12.3 and 5.8 for patients who did/did not resolve enthesitis, and 10.8 and 9.8 for patients who did/did not resolve dactylitis. Conclusions Among patients with pre-existing enthesitis or dactylitis, IXEQ2W- and IXEQ4W-treatment resulted in significant improvements in enthesitis and dactylitis. Enthesitis resolution was associated with improvements in patients’ function, pain, and HRQoL. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01695239, registered on September 25, 2012, and NCT02349295, registered on October 10, 2014

Characterization of Salmonella Type III Secretion Hyper-Activity Which Results in Biofilm-Like Cell Aggregation

We have previously reported the cloning of the Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium SPI-1 secretion system and the use of this clone to functionally complement a ΔSPI-1 strain for type III secretion activity. In the current study, we discovered that S. Typhimurium cultures containing cloned SPI-1 display an adherent biofilm and cell clumps in the media. This phenotype was associated with hyper-expression of SPI-1 type III secretion functions. The biofilm and cell clumps were associated with copious amounts of secreted SPI-1 protein substrates SipA, SipB, SipC, SopB, SopE, and SptP. We used a C-terminally FLAG-tagged SipA protein to further demonstrate SPI-1 substrate association with the cell aggregates using fluorescence microscopy and immunogold electron microscopy. Different S. Typhimurium backgrounds and both flagellated and nonflagellated strains displayed the biofilm phenotype. Mutations in genes essential for known bacterial biofilm pathways (bcsA, csgBA, bapA) did not affect the biofilms formed here indicating that this phenomenon is independent of established biofilm mechanisms. The SPI-1-mediated biofilm was able to massively recruit heterologous non-biofilm forming bacteria into the adherent cell community. The results indicate a bacterial aggregation phenotype mediated by elevated SPI-1 type III secretion activity with applications for engineered biofilm formation, protein purification strategies, and antigen display