A Profile of Advanced Manufacturing in the Berkshire Region:Key Industry and Occupational Trends

This report provides a detailed examination of Advanced Manufacturing in the Berkshire region. This re- port is part of an eight-part series, each focusing on different areas of the Commonwealth. It examines re- cent employment and earnings trends; analyzes key occupations in Advanced Manufacturing’s subsectors, looking for common labor needs and comparing wages to similar workers in other industries; identifies the most common and critical skills needed by employers; and offers a detailed demographic profile of Advanced Manufacturing to highlight areas of critical concern for the future health of the industry. The Advanced Manufacturing sector in the Berkshires is the second smallest of the seven regions, exceeding only the Cape and Islands where manufacturing is all but non-existent. Yet it accounts for just under 4,000 employees or roughly six percent of the region’s entire employment base—a notable share for a region otherwise dominated by the low-wage sectors such as hospitality, trade and services. The Advanced Manufacturing sectors importance to the regional economy is further underscored by the fact that it is the highest paying of all the major sectors in the Berkshires. The region’s largest and most highly specialized subsectors are Paper and Printing and Chemicals and Plastics. The region has relatively few businesses or workers in Medical Equipment and Supplies, Computers and Electronics, and Food Processing. Advanced Manufacturing has struggled over the past several decades, but there are signs of hope. Since 2001, the region has lost nearly half of its entire Advanced Manufacturing employment base. The relative burden of these losses have been far worse than any other region. Things have been particularly bad in the Fabricated Metals and Machinery and in Paper and Printing subsectors, which together account for more than 80 percent of all layoffs in Advanced Manufacturing. Yet these layoffs have abated in recent years. The Advanced Manufacturing sector has actually added a small number of jobs since 2010—although it still lags national trends of net job creation. Most of these recent gains were in in Food Processing and Production, with Chemicals and Plastics and Fabricated Metals also showing signs of recovery. The aging of the Advanced Manufacturing workforce poses a major challenge to the Berkshire region. The Advanced Manufacturing workforce is the oldest of any region in the state. Over 60 percent of the Advanced Manufacturing workforce will reach retirement age within the next twenty years, and the region has relatively few people under the age of 25 to take their place. While outreach and training programs aimed younger workers would certainly help, employers and workforce officials should also look to recruiting non-traditional manufacturing workers—particularly women who are highly underrepresented even in comparison to other regions in the Commonwealth

1919: Abilene Christian College Bible Lectures - Full Text

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The Multiplicity of Massive Stars: A High Angular Resolution Survey with the HST Fine Guidance Sensor

We present the results of an all-sky survey made with the Fine Guidance Sensor on Hubble Space Telescope to search for angularly resolved binary systems among the massive stars. The sample of 224 stars is comprised mainly of Galactic O- and B-type stars and Luminous Blue Variables, plus a few luminous stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The FGS TRANS mode observations are sensitive to detection of companions with an angular separation between 0."01 and 1."0 and brighter than $\triangle m = 5$. The FGS observations resolved 52 binary and 6 triple star systems and detected partially resolved binaries in 7 additional targets (43 of these are new detections). These numbers yield a companion detection frequency of 29% for the FGS survey. We also gathered literature results on the numbers of close spectroscopic binaries and wider astrometric binaries among the sample, and we present estimates of the frequency of multiple systems and the companion frequency for subsets of stars residing in clusters and associations, field stars, and runaway stars. These results confirm the high multiplicity fraction, especially among massive stars in clusters and associations. We show that the period distribution is approximately flat in increments of log P. We identify a number of systems of potential interest for long term orbital determinations, and we note the importance of some of these companions for the interpretation of the radial velocities and light curves of close binaries that have third companions.Comment: 37 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables; AJ, in press; Full version with extended tables and large figure set can be found: http://www.astro.umontreal.ca/~emily/fgs.pd

Total IgA and IgA reactivity to antigen I/II epitopes in HLA-DRB1*04 positive subjects

Bacterial adherence to the acquired dental pellicle, important in dental caries (caries), is mediated by receptor-adhesins such as salivary agglutinin binding to Streptococcus mutans antigen I/II (I/II). Ten selected I/II epitopes were chosen to determine their reactivity to human salivary IgA. Previous studies suggested that a specific HLA biomarker group (HLA-DRB1*04) may have differential influence of immune responses to I/II. However, it was not known whether secretory IgA (SIgA) responses to the selected epitopes from HLA-DRB1*04 positive subjects were different compared to controls, or across other caries-related factors such as total IgA (TIgA). Thirty-two total subjects were matched according to HLA type, gender, ethnicity and age. HLA genotyping, oral bacterial, immunoglobulin and antibody analyses were performed. A large observed difference emerged with regard to the natural immune reservoir of TIgA in HLA-DRB1*04 positive subjects, specifically, a 27.6% reduction compared to controls. In contrast to all other epitopes studied, HLA-DRB1*04 positive subjects also exhibited reduced reactivity to I/II epitope 834–853. HLA-DRB1*04 positive subjects exhibited lower specific SIgA activity/TIgA to 834–853 and also a lower specific reactivity to 834–853/whole cell S. mutans UA159. Furthermore, HLA-DRB1*04 positive subjects exhibited lower responses to I/II in its entirety. The large observed difference in TIgA and the 834–853 reactivity pattern across multiple measures suggest potentially important connections pertaining to the link between HLA-DRB1*04 and caries

Epsilon Indi Ba, Bb: a detailed study of the nearest known brown dwarfs

The discovery of epsilon Indi Ba, Bb, a binary brown dwarf system very close to the Sun, makes possible a concerted campaign to characterise the physical parameters of two T dwarfs. Recent observations suggest substellar atmospheric and evolutionary models may be inconsistent with observations, but there have been few conclusive tests to date. We therefore aim to characterise these benchmark brown dwarfs to place constraints on such models. We have obtained high angular resolution optical, near-infrared, and thermal-infrared imaging and medium-resolution (up to R~5000) spectroscopy of epsilon Indi Ba, Bb with the ESO VLT and present VRIzJHKL'M' broad-band photometry and 0.63--5.1 micron spectroscopy of the individual components. Furthermore, we use deep AO-imaging to place upper limits on the (model-dependent) mass of any further system members. We derive luminosities of log L/L_sun = -4.699+/-0.017 and -5.232+/-0.020 for epsilon Indi Ba, Bb, respectively, and using the dynamical system mass and COND03 evolutionary models predict a system age of 3.7--4.3 Gyr, in excess of previous estimates and recent predictions from observations of these brown dwarfs. Moreover, the effective temperatures of 1352--1385 K and 976--1011 K predicted from the COND03 evolutionary models, for epsilon Indi Ba and Bb respectively, are in disagreement with those derived from the comparison of our data with the BT-Settl atmospheric models where we find effective temperatures of 1300--1340 K and 880--940 K, for epsilon Indi Ba and Bb respectively, with surface gravities of log g=5.25 and 5.50. Finally, we show that spectroscopically determined effective temperatures and surface gravities for ultra-cool dwarfs can lead to underestimated masses even where precise luminosity constraints are available.Comment: 27 pages, 30 figures, 9 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Isolation of SARS-CoV-2 in viral cell culture in immunocompromised patients with persistently positive RT-PCR results

Immunocompromised adults can have prolonged acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positive RT-PCR results, long after the initial diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This study aimed to determine if SARS-CoV-2 virus can be recovered in viral cell culture from immunocompromised adults with persistently positive SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests. We obtained 20 remnant SARS-CoV-2 PCR positive nasopharyngeal swabs from 20 immunocompromised adults with a positive RT-PCR test ≥14 days after the initial positive test. The patients\u27

Mapping gene associations in human mitochondria using clinical disease phenotypes

Nuclear genes encode most mitochondrial proteins, and their mutations cause diverse and debilitating clinical disorders. To date, 1,200 of these mitochondrial genes have been recorded, while no standardized catalog exists of the associated clinical phenotypes. Such a catalog would be useful to develop methods to analyze human phenotypic data, to determine genotype-phenotype relations among many genes and diseases, and to support the clinical diagnosis of mitochondrial disorders. Here we establish a clinical phenotype catalog of 174 mitochondrial disease genes and study associations of diseases and genes. Phenotypic features such as clinical signs and symptoms were manually annotated from full-text medical articles and classified based on the hierarchical MeSH ontology. This classification of phenotypic features of each gene allowed for the comparison of diseases between different genes. In turn, we were then able to measure the phenotypic associations of disease genes for which we calculated a quantitative value that is based on their shared phenotypic features. The results showed that genes sharing more similar phenotypes have a stronger tendency for functional interactions, proving the usefulness of phenotype similarity values in disease gene network analysis. We then constructed a functional network of mitochondrial genes and discovered a higher connectivity for non-disease than for disease genes, and a tendency of disease genes to interact with each other. Utilizing these differences, we propose 168 candidate genes that resemble the characteristic interaction patterns of mitochondrial disease genes. Through their network associations, the candidates are further prioritized for the study of specific disorders such as optic neuropathies and Parkinson disease. Most mitochondrial disease phenotypes involve several clinical categories including neurologic, metabolic, and gastrointestinal disorders, which might indicate the effects of gene defects within the mitochondrial system. The accompanying knowledgebase (http://www.mitophenome.org/) supports the study of clinical diseases and associated genes

The Visual Orbit of iota Pegasi

We have determined the visual orbit for the spectroscopic binary iota~Pegasi with interferometric visibility data obtained by the Palomar Testbed Interferometer in 1997. iota~Pegasi is a double-lined binary system whose minimum masses and spectral typing suggests the possibility of eclipses. Our orbital and component diameter determinations do not favor the eclipse hypothesis: the limb-to-limb separation of the two components is 0.151 +/- 0.069 mas at conjunction. Our conclusion that the iota~Peg system does not eclipse is supported by high-precision photometric observations. The physical parameters implied by our visual orbit and the spectroscopic orbit of Fekel and Tomkin (1983) are in good agreement with those inferred by other means. In particular, the orbital parallax of the system is determined to be 86.9 +/- 1.0 mas, and masses of the two components are determined to be 1.326 +/- 0.016 M_sun and 0.819 +/- 0.009 M_sun respectively.Comment: ApJ in press. 23 pages, 4 figures & 3-page data tabl

Antibodies in healthcare personnel following severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection

In a prospective cohort of healthcare personnel (HCP), we measured severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) nucleocapsid IgG antibodies after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among 79 HCP, 68 (86%) were seropositive 14-28 days after their positive PCR test, and 54 (77%) of 70 were seropositive at the 70-180-day follow-up. Many seropositive HCP (95%) experienced an antibody decline by the second visit

Theoretical study on the electronic, structural, properties and reactivity of a series of mono-, di-, tri- and tetrachlorothiophenes as well as corresponding radical cation forms as monomers for conducting polymers

In this paper, electrical and structural properties of mono-, di-, tri- and tetrachlorothiophenes and their radical cations have been studied using the density functional theory and B3LYP method with 6-311++G** basis set. The effects of the number and position of the substituent of chlorine atoms on the properties of the thiophene ring for all chlorothiophenes and their radical cations have been studied. Vibrational frequencies, nuclear chemical shielding constants, spin-density distribution, size and direction of dipole moment vector, ionization potential, electric polarizabilities and NICS values of these compounds have been calculated as well. The analysis of these data showed that double bonds in 3-chlorothiophene are more delocalized and it is the best possible candidate monomer among all chlorothiophenes for the synthesis of corresponding conducting polymers with modified characteristics