World Trade & U.S. Jobs

[Excerpt] It has become obvious to everyone in and around the U.S. labor movement that our problems involve the global arena. Hundreds of thousands of trade unionists have seen their employers shut down plants and shift production overseas. Countless union negotiators have seen the boss play the foreign card at contract time: You have to give concessions to meet the foreign competition. U.S. trade unionists are a diverse lot, and they have come up with numerous interpretations of the international challenge. But, in practice, the primary way the U.S. labor movement has responded to the internationalization of labor relations has been to push for protective legislation against the unfair trading practices of foreign nations. This article takes a different tack. While it is true that unfair trading practices have deepened America\u27s economic problems, our trade deficit is itself a symptom of a deeper problem — global economic stagnation — that afflicts not only American workers but workers all around the world. The world economic situation now resembles that of the 1930s, when farmers dumped surplus food on the highways and factories lay idle because ordinary working Americans could not afford to buy what they produced. Today this crisis of underconsumption has returned — but on a global scale. As long as the world\u27s workers can\u27t afford to buy what they produce, competition for markets will remain feverish, trade wars will spur demands for protectionism, and workers will continue to find themselves under severe pressure to restrain their wage demands. The restoration of fair trade is desirable, but in itself it is no solution to the fundamental crisis of underconsumption caused by workers\u27 lagging spending power

Job Combinations and Speed-up in Steel

[Excerpt] The Rail Mill Manning Agreement at South works in not unique. Reducing labor costs by combining jobs is a key part of the steel companies\u27 strategy for regaining profitability. MCLR has conducted a survey of five other mills to find out what the companies are doing to reduce the work force, and speed up work. We print here a summary of our preliminary findings

BAC\u27s Comeback: The Bricklayers\u27 Renewal Program

[Excerpt] The Bricklayers\u27 and Allied Craftsmen\u27s International Union (BAC) typifies the contemporary crisis of the building trades. Membership plunged from a high of 160,000 in 1970 to just over 100,000 in 1986. As a result, the International Union ran a budget deficit five years in a row. Fewer than half the craftsmen in BAC\u27s jurisdiction now belong to the union, and many BAC members can be found working on nonunion projects. Even where union contracts prevail, wage and work-rule concessions have become standard fare. But BAC is not taking its decline lying down. Over the past five years, the International Union has embarked on an imaginative process of renewal, one which combines efforts to revive the masonry industry with programs to strengthen the union through education, organizing, and structural reform. While it is too early to tell whether BAC\u27s campaign will succeed, it is already clear that the effort has brought new hope and determination to a union that desperately needed them

SATCOM antenna siting study on P-3C aircraft, volume 1

The NEC-BSC (Basic Scattering Code) was used to study the performance of a SATCOM antenna on a P-3C aircraft. After plate cylinder fields are added to version 3.1 of the NEC-BSC, it is shown that the NEC-BSC can be used to accurately predict the performance of a SATCOM antenna system on a P-3C aircraft. The study illustrates that the NEC-BSC gives good results when compared with scale model measurements provided by Boeing and Lockheed

The Role of NOD-Mediated Innate Immune Activation in Lung Epithelia

The ability to recognize and remove pathogens that invade the lower airway, while maintaining homeostasis in the lung microenvironment, is an essential function of the innate immune system. An evolving hypothesis in this relatively new area of research is that in addition to maintaining normal host function, the molecular machinery responsible for pathogen recognition and activation of the innate immune response, may also contribute to chronic inflammatory diseases if a break down in normal function occurs [9]. This thesis focuses on the investigation of NOD-like receptor proteins (NLRs) which are involved in intracellular pathogen recognition and activation of the innate immune response. Recent work by others has identified that NOD1 and NOD2, of the NLR family, are critical components in intestinal inflammatory diseases [1]. An association between NOD1 and NOD2 with autoimmune diseases of the lung, primarily asthma and sarcoidosis respectively, has also been described [3,11]. The main goal of this thesis is to investigate the intracellular NLRs present in lung epithelium and their role in directing innate immune activation. The specific hypothesis is that NOD1 and NOD2 activate the innate protein complex called the “signalosome” leading to NF-κB activation in human lung epithelia. Data presented show that NOD1 and NOD2 along with RIP2, a key signaling protein of the NLR pathway, are constitutively present and associate in the lung epithelia. Upon recognition of the PAMP, iE-DAP, NOD1 facilitates physical recruitment of RIP2 activating the “signalosome”. Furthermore exposure to the NOD1 specific agonist, iE-DAP, but not NOD2 specific agonist, MDP, result in increased release of Interleukin 6 and Interleukin 8 mediated through the activation of the transcription factor NF-κB. These findings provide a framework to explain the recognition of gram negative bacterial invasion by lung epithelium and provide a valid model for future studies that will investigate the proximal entry of PAMPs into the lung epithelium thereby activating the “signalosome” upon NOD recognition and signal transduction. In conclusion our findings indicate that, NOD1 activates the “signalosome” machinery resulting in activation of the NF-κB pathway thereby inducing proinflammatory cytokine and chemokine release. This highlights the importance of NOD1 function in bacterial clearance and epithelial homeostasis, as well as, a potential for aberrant immune responses potentiated by dysregualtion in lung pathogenesis and inflammatory diseases.College of Pharmacy Undergraduate Research Scholarshi

Newspaper circulation scandals : testing a new dimension of media credibility

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file.Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on October 20, 2009).Thesis advisor: Dr. Esther Thorson.M.A. University of Missouri--Columbia 2009.In light of the new phenomenon of multiple high profile newspaper circulation accounting fraud scandals in recent years, this thesis sought to examine the relationship between factors that motivate advertisers to buy space and their perceptions of trust and credibility toward newspaper sales departments. A survey of 82 automobile dealerships in an urban Texas market afflicted by one such circulation overstatement scandal in 2004, that served by The Dallas Morning News, sought to determine to what extent purchase motivation variables, such as trust and credibility, were associated with reduced buying as a result. Also sought was a measure of any impact on credibility of the newspaper's image restoration strategy of internal accounting reforms and compensation as restitution. The response rate to the survey was insufficient to conduct meaningful statistical analysis but provided valuable descriptive conclusions and an argument for future study.Includes bibliographical references

The GAMMA Project: A Cooperative Cataloging Venture

Archival and historical organizations have traditionally suffered from a lack of funding and personnel. One way to combat this classic problem is through the development of collaborative grant-funded projects. By bonding like institutions together and creating a cooperative venture with a common goal, institutions can share funds, personnel, and knowledge in an undertaking that provides assistance to all without placing undue stress upon individual organizations