The Status of the At-Will Employment Doctrine in Virginia after Bowman v. State Bank of Keysville

The development of the employment-at-will doctrine has tracked the changing character of the work force from the days of simple master-servant domestic relations to the commercial realities of twentieth-century industrial capitalism. The rule grew out of the humane principle that it would be unjust to employ a laborer during the planting and harvesting months, only to discharge that laborer during the harsh winter. Hence, the realities of the agrarian economy of the British Isles and the closeness of the master and domestic servant relationship shaped the yearly hiring rule. This rule developed into a presumption that a hiring for an indefinite term was a hiring for a year and extended to all types of workers

Optical photon reassignment microscopy (OPRA)

To enhance the resolution of a confocal laser scanning microscope the additional information of a pinhole plane image taken at every excitation scan position can be used (Sheppard 1988). This photon reassignment principle is based on the fact that the most probable position of an emitter is at half way between the nominal focus of the excitation laser and the position corresponding to the (off centre) detection position. Therefore, by reassigning the detected photons to this place, an image with enhanced detection efficiency and resolution is obtained. Here we present optical photon reassignment microscopy (OPRA) which realizes this concept in an all-optical way obviating the need for image-processing. With the help of an additional intermediate optical beam expansion between descanning and a further rescanning of the detected light, an image with the advantages of photon reassignment can be acquired. However, just as in computational photon reassignment, a loss in confocal sectioning performance is caused by working with relatively open pinholes. The OPRA system shares properties such as flexibility and ease of use with a confocal laser scanning microscope, and is therefore expected to be of use for future biomedical routine research

Learning from Neighbors: Reimagining Mission and Pastoral Vocation

Desiring to differentiate itself from the other two Christian Reformed congregations in Ripon, California, Almond Valley Christian Reformed Church’s (hereafter, AVCRC) desire from its beginning in 1978 was to be a church with doors open to the entire Ripon community. With many Christian Reformed Church (hereafter, CRC) congregations experiencing diminishing denominational loyalty, there is a strong desire for church leaders to imagine new ways of being connected to their communities. With previous pastoral training focused on serving the congregation, pastors are now in a position of needing to learn the skills of how to meaningfully engage the community. One significant initiative in AVCRC was a three-month commitment by a small group who devoted themselves to learning from community leaders and reimagining mission and pastoral vocation from the perspective of their neighbors. This doctoral project reports and reflects on that experience. It has four sections. Part One names my adaptive challenge and addresses the theological heritage of the CRC with special emphasis on what Dutch immigrants held most important in establishing themselves in North America. Part Two presents an experiment to facilitate reimagining mission and pastoral vocation by utilizing hospitality, listening, and reflection to understand our neighbors and gain new insights about the broader community as seen from key leaders within the community. Part Three consists of reflections on the new learning coming out of this work integrating theoretical and experiential insights in areas including theology, vocation, context, and leadership. Finally, Part Four presents recommendations for acting on how this project changed the understanding of mission and pastoral vocation. Specifically, it identifies the importance of trust throughout the congregational system, especially as it relates to the role of the pastor and his leadership in and outside the walls of the church. Content Reader: Alan Roxburgh, DMi

Formal Verification of Neural Network Controlled Autonomous Systems

In this paper, we consider the problem of formally verifying the safety of an autonomous robot equipped with a Neural Network (NN) controller that processes LiDAR images to produce control actions. Given a workspace that is characterized by a set of polytopic obstacles, our objective is to compute the set of safe initial conditions such that a robot trajectory starting from these initial conditions is guaranteed to avoid the obstacles. Our approach is to construct a finite state abstraction of the system and use standard reachability analysis over the finite state abstraction to compute the set of the safe initial states. The first technical problem in computing the finite state abstraction is to mathematically model the imaging function that maps the robot position to the LiDAR image. To that end, we introduce the notion of imaging-adapted sets as partitions of the workspace in which the imaging function is guaranteed to be affine. We develop a polynomial-time algorithm to partition the workspace into imaging-adapted sets along with computing the corresponding affine imaging functions. Given this workspace partitioning, a discrete-time linear dynamics of the robot, and a pre-trained NN controller with Rectified Linear Unit (ReLU) nonlinearity, the second technical challenge is to analyze the behavior of the neural network. To that end, we utilize a Satisfiability Modulo Convex (SMC) encoding to enumerate all the possible segments of different ReLUs. SMC solvers then use a Boolean satisfiability solver and a convex programming solver and decompose the problem into smaller subproblems. To accelerate this process, we develop a pre-processing algorithm that could rapidly prune the space feasible ReLU segments. Finally, we demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithms using numerical simulations with increasing complexity of the neural network controller

THE DESCRIPTION OF SCHUMANN ELECTROMAGNETIC RESONANCES BETWEEN EARTH AND ITS IONOSPHERE AS BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATES OF EXTREMELY LOW FREQUENCY PHOTONS

The purpose of this thesis is to show that Schumann resonances between Earth and its ionosphere are Bose-Einstein condensates of extremely low frequency photons. We will show that the photon densities of the first five modes of the Schumann resonances are each sufficient for the creation of a Bose-Einstein condensate. We will also study the coherence of the Schumann resonance electromagnetic waves, another necessary condition for the onset of a Bose-Einstein condensation.  M.S

Xeroderma Pigmentosum Group C Deficiency Alters Cigarette Smoke DNA Damage Cell Fate and Accelerates Emphysema Development

Cigarette smoke (CS) exposure is a major risk factor for the development of emphysema, a common disease characterized by loss of cells comprising the lung parenchyma. The mechanisms of cell injury leading to emphysema are not completely understood but are thought to involve persistent cytotoxic or mutagenic DNA damage induced by CS. Using complementary cell culture and mouse models of CS exposure, we investigated the role of the DNA repair protein, xeroderma pigmentosum group C (XPC), on CS-induced DNA damage repair and emphysema. Expression of XPC was decreased in mouse lungs after chronic CS exposure and XPC knockdown in cultured human lung epithelial cells decreased their survival after CS exposure due to activation of the intrinsic apoptosis pathway. Similarly, cell autophagy and apoptosis were increased in XPC-deficient mouse lungs and were further increased by CS exposure. XPC deficiency was associated with structural and functional changes characteristic of emphysema, which were worsened by age, similar to levels observed with chronic CS exposure. Taken together, these findings suggest that repair of DNA damage by XPC plays an important and previously unrecognized role in the maintenance of alveolar structures. These findings support that loss of XPC, possibly due to chronic CS exposure, promotes emphysema development and further supports a link between DNA damage, impaired DNA repair, and development of emphysema

Self-reported adverse reactions in 4337 healthcare workers immunizations against novel H1N1 influenza

Purpose: The use of the 2009 H1N1 vaccine has generated much debate concerning safety issues among the general population and physicians. Therefore, we investigated the safety of an inactivated monovalent H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccine Methods: We focused on the H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccine Pandemrix(R) and applied a self reporting questionnaire in a population of healthcare workers (HCWs) and medical students at a major university hospital. Results: In total, 4337 individuals were vaccinated, consisting of 3808 HCWs and 529 medical students. The vaccination rate of the employees was higher than 40%.The majority of individuals were vaccinated in November 2009. In total, 291 of the 4337 vaccinations were reported to lead to one or more adverse reactions (6.7%). Local reactions were reported in 3.8%, myalgia and arthralgia in 3.7%, fatigue in 3.7%, headache in 3.1%. Conclusions: Our data together with available data from several national and international institutions points to a safe pandemic influenza vaccine

IL-10 is necessary and sufficient for autoimmune diabetes in conjunction with NOD MHC homozygosity.

Contrary to expectations based on in vitro experiments, we previously found that pancreatic IL-10 did not inhibit autoimmune diabetes but accelerated it in an MHC-dependent manner. Therefore, the ability of IL-10 to overcome the absence of all non-MHC diabetes susceptibility (Idd) alleles was studied in transgenic mice expressing pancreatic IL-10 backcrossed to B10.H2g7 congenic mice, which have no Idd alleles other than NOD MHC (H2g7). IL-10 transgenic backcross 1 (BC1) mice with H2g7/g7 haplotype developed clear-cut insulitis and diabetes, but neither transgenic mice with the H2g/b haplotype nor nontransgenic BC1 mice did so. Further implicating IL-10 in autoimmune diabetes, anti-IL-10 antibody treatment inhibited the development of insulitis in NOD mice. These results suggest that IL-10 may be necessary and sufficient for producing autoimmune diabetes in conjunction with NOD MHC homozygosity and that some Idd genes may be related to the regulation of IL-10