Financing Options for Local Government

In this session, attendees will learn how the Indiana Bond Bank (IBB) can be an asset to local government. The IBB provides financing options for essential equipment, short-term infrastructure projects, and fuel budgeting; is set up to assist with debt issuance; and exempts the need to bid the financing. Officials from INDOT and the City of Lafayette will offer their insight on how the IBB may benefit your organization or community

Field-Based Assessment of the Role of Porcine Cytomegalovirus in Respiratory Disease of Nursery Pigs

Porcine cytomegalovirus (PCMV) is an ubiquitous infectious agent in swine population throughout the world. Field and some experimental observations have suggested that PCMV plays an important role in causing or enhancing respiratory and/or reproductive disease of swine. However, no actual measure of this has been documented. As the first step in assessing the economic significance of PCMV infection for swine herds in the United States, a field-based case-control study was conducted to evaluate the potential role of the virus in respiratory disease of young swine. The data in this study, thus far, suggest that there may be an association between PCMV infection and increased risk of respiratory disease development in nursery pig populations and that, as was expected, PCMV infection is a common finding among nursery pigs. In an era in which multifactorial respiratory disease and associated decrease in production efficiency is such a large concern, it may be prudent to consider PCMV when developing and implementing strategies for production management and pig flow

Surviving Variable Yields and Prices

A marketing strategy focusing on prices from the most re-cent past, indirectly gives little or no weight to all of the other possible price outcomes. While it is intuitive that the most recent prices are more likely to play a role in our decision-making process, there are other price events that can happen. The seasonal price path from the 2019/2020 crop year was nothing like we have recently experienced. Sup-pose we entered the 2020’s marketing decision using a seasonal approach that considers only the average price series over the past 5 years (2015-19 average), Figure 1. The seasonal average indicates prices at harvest are among the lowest with early summer prices higher. The 2020 price series turned out to be nothing like the previous five-year average. This may have left you wondering what happened and perhaps in an unexpected financial position. This illustration shows us that recent experience does not give us enough information to construct an appropriate risk management decision framework. Price outcomes that have not yet been experienced will likely be the ones that severely hurt the financial health of a farming operation. A better understanding of the price generating process and an improved risk management decision framework are required

Factors influencing health care workers' willingness to respond to duty during infectious disease outbreaks and bioterrorist events: an integrative review

Background: Infectious disease emergencies are increasingly becoming part of the health care delivery landscape, having implications to not only individuals and the public, but also on those expected to respond to these emergencies. Health care workers (HCWs) are perhaps the most important asset in an infectious disease emergency, yet these individuals have their own barriers and facilitators to them being willing or able to respond. Aim: The purpose of this review was to identify factors affecting HCW willingness to respond (WTR) to duty during infectious disease outbreaks and/or bioterrorist events. Methods: An integrative literature review methodology was utilized to conduct a structured search of the literature including CINAHL, Medline, Embase, and PubMed databases using key terms and phrases. PRISMA guidelines were used to report the search outcomes and all eligible literature was screened with those included in the final review collated and appraised using a quality assessment tool. Results: A total of 149 papers were identified from the database search. Forty papers were relevant following screening, which highlighted facilitators of WTR to include: availability of personal protective equipment (PPE)/vaccine, level of training, professional ethics, family and personal safety, and worker support systems. A number of barriers were reported to prevent WTR for HCWs, such as: concern and perceived risk, interpersonal factors, job-level factors, and outbreak characteristics. Conclusions: By comprehensively identifying the facilitators and barriers to HCWs' WTR during infectious disease outbreaks and/or bioterrorist events, strategies can be identified and implemented to improve WTR and thus improve HCW and public safety. Keywords: bioterrorism; health care workers; infectious disease emergency; infectious disease outbreak; willingness to respond

2009 Ruby Yearbook

A digitized copy of the 2009 Ruby, the Ursinus College yearbook.https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/ruby/1112/thumbnail.jp

iSKID: From integrated pilot scale runs to GMP implementation approach

One of the most compelling business reasons for integrated processing is the ability to de-risk capital investment due to a significantly more productive process that takes less space and fewer campaigns to generate clinical and commercial material. Boehringer Ingelheim and Pfizer developed the iSKID, a fully integrated and automated system that hydraulically links the perfusion bioreactor with several downstream unit operations (2xProtein A columns, continuous viral inactivation, AEX in flow through mode, and SPTFF). The Protein A elution cycles are discrete and separated by \u3e2hrs, allowing the ability to discard cycles that do not meet process specifications. The discreteness between product cycles and hydraulic linkage enables the sanitization between cycles for a robust bioburden control strategy. Each cycle is captured in a single use mixer (SUM), where the product is pooled in stable conditions until viral filtration, ultrafiltration/diafiltration and final filtration are performed in batch mode. Identical iSKID prototypes at 100L scale were used at three different sites to generate product quality, process, and bioburden data from three different molecules. The data has been used to understand implementation gaps in GMP facilities and process platforms (CMC1/CMC2). In addition, the team identified specific items to present to the FDA’s Emerging Technology Team (ETT). These items include our strategies for batch definition, microbial control, and process control. In this talk, we will use the data generated from the consistency runs to elaborate on the robustness of the process and touch upon the strategies to be presented to the ETT

Barriers and facilitators to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students during the pandemic: a nationwide study

Using a cross-sectional online survey we investigated knowledge, attitudes, and risk perception about COVID-19 vaccination and identified factors influencing vaccine uptake among Australian health professional students from October 2021 to January 2022. We analysed data from 1114 health professional students from 17 Australian universities. Most participants were enrolled in nursing programs (n = 958, 86.8%), and 91.6% (n = 858) of the participants received COVID-19 vaccination. Approximately 27% believed COVID-19 was no more serious than seasonal influenza and that they had a low risk of acquiring COVID-19. Nearly 20% disagreed that COVID-19 vaccines in Australia were safe and perceived they were at higher-risk of acquiring COVID infection than the general population. Higher-risk perception viewing vaccination as their professional responsibility, and vaccine mandate strongly predicted vaccination behaviour. Participants consider COVID-19 information from health professionals, government websites, and World Health Organization as the most trusted information sources. The findings highlight that healthcare decision-makers and university administrators need to monitor students’ hesitancy with vaccination to improve students’ promotion of the vaccination to the general population

An Innovative Solution to NASA's NEO Impact Threat Mitigation Grand Challenge and Flight Validation Mission Architecture Development

This final technical report describes the results of a NASA Innovative Advanced Concept (NIAC) Phase 2 study entitled "An Innovative Solution to NASA's NEO Impact Threat Mitigation Grand Challenge and Flight Validation Mission Architecture Development." This NIAC Phase 2 study was conducted at the Asteroid Deflection Research Center (ADRC) of Iowa State University in 2012-2014. The study objective was to develop an innovative yet practically implementable solution to the most probable impact threat of an asteroid or comet with short warning time (less than 5 years). The technical materials contained in this final report are based on numerous technical papers, which have been previously published by the project team of the NIAC Phase 1 and 2 studies during the past three years. Those technical papers as well as a NIAC Phase 2 Executive Summary report can be downloaded from the ADRC website (www.adrc.iastate.edu)

Prospectus, September 24, 1986

https://spark.parkland.edu/prospectus_1986/1022/thumbnail.jp

An Innovative Solution to NASA's NEO Impact Threat Mitigation Grand Challenge and Flight Validation Mission Architecture Development

To develop an innovative yet practically implementable mitigation technique for the most probable impact threat of an asteroid or comet with short warning time(i.e., when we don't have sufficient warning times for a deflection mission