The Work, Family, and Equity Index: How Does the United States Measure Up

As part of the Project on Global Working Families, with the support of the Ford Foundation, the Work, Family, and Equity Index has been developed to measure governmental performance around the world in meeting the needs of working families. The elements in the Index have been selected to comprise an evidence-based set of policies that are important to meeting the needs of working families in general and low- and middle-income working families in particular. Those policies that have achieved widespread recognition based on the weight of the research evidence or consensus in global policy and international agreements are included. To complete the index, data were gathered from 177 countries that represent a wide range of political, social and economic systems

Educating Calvary Baptist Church, Asheville, NC, on the Value of Following the Christian Year as a Means for Spiritual Renewal Through Worship

This project introduced the spiritual value of following the Christian year in worship. Through a series of sermons and study lessons that focused on eight major seasons (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time), participants were exposed to the history and spiritual purpose of each, respectively. Two surveys were administered, along with weekly evaluations, and interviews, to measure the project’s effectiveness. The desired outcome was a greater degree of knowledge and interest in worshipping through the Christian year. According to the final analysis, increased understanding, spiritual growth, and desire to worship through the Christian year did occur

Expression of three GnRH receptors in specific tissues in male and female sea lampreys Petromyzon marinus at three distinct life stages

Two recently cloned gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) receptors (lamprey GnRH-R-2 and lamprey GnRH-R-3) along with lamprey (l) GnRH-R-1 were shown to share similar structural features and amino acid motifs common to other vertebrate receptors. Here we report on our findings of RNA expression of these three GnRH receptors in the three major life stages (larval, parasitic, and adult phases) of the sea lamprey, Petromyzon marinus, a basal vertebrate. For each stage, we examined the expression of messenger RNA encoding the receptors in the brain, pituitary, gonad, heart, muscle, liver, eye, intestine, kidney, skin, thyroid, gill, and endostyle by RT-PCR. In adult lampreys, the spatial expression of the three receptors in the brain and pituitary was investigated by in situ hybridization. In general, the receptors were more widely expressed in adult tissues as compared to parasitic-phase tissues and least widely expressed in the larval tissues. There were noted differences in male and female lampreys in the adult and parasitic phases for all three receptors. The data showed the presence of all three receptor transcripts in brain tissues for adult and parasitic phases and all three receptor transcripts were expressed in the adult pituitaries, but not in the parasitic pituitaries. However, in the larval phase, only lGnRH-R-1 was expressed in the larval brain and pituitary. In situ hybridization revealed that lGnRH-R-2 and -3 were expressed in the pineal tissue of adult female lampreys while lGnRH-R-1 was expressed in the pineal in adult male lampreys, all restricted to the pineal pellucida. In summary, these data provide an initial comparative analysis of expression of three lamprey GnRH receptors suggesting differential regulation within males and females at three different life/reproductive stages

Distracted by Cues for Suppressed Memories

We examined the potential cost of practicing suppression of negative thoughts for subsequent performance in an unrelated task. Cues for previously suppressed and baseline responses in a think/no-think procedure were displayed as irrelevant flankers for neutral words to be judged for emotional valence. These critical flankers were homographs with one negative meaning denoted by their paired responses during learning. Suppression cues as flankers delayed responding to the targets, compared to baseline cues and new negative homographs, but only following direct-suppression instructions and not when benign substitutes had been provided to aid suppression. On the final recall test, suppression-induced forgetting (SIF) following direct suppression and the flanker task was positively correlated with the flanker effect. Experiment 2 replicated these findings. Finally, valence ratings of neutral targets were influenced by the valence of the flankers but not by the prior role of the negative flankers

Sony Corporation: Reinventing Itself to Rediscover the Technological Edge

Sony is a global conglomerate with a wide variety of businesses in its portfolio, but a heavy emphasis on electronics and related products. Due to a number of setbacks such as the earthquake in Japan and a weak global economy, the firm has experienced sales declines and negative earnings in recent years. In early 2012 the company announced a major restructuring and new strategy to regain its edge. However, Sony has an uphill battle

Astronomical Software Directory Service

With the support of NASA's Astrophysics Data Program (NRA 92-OSSA-15), we have developed the Astronomical Software Directory Service (ASDS): a distributed, searchable, WWW-based database of software packages and their related documentation. ASDS provides integrated access to 56 astronomical software packages, with more than 16,000 URLs indexed for full-text searching. Users are performing about 400 searches per month. A new aspect of our service is the inclusion of telescope and instrumentation manuals, which prompted us to change the name to the Astronomical Software and Documentation Service. ASDS was originally conceived to serve two purposes: to provide a useful Internet service in an area of expertise of the investigators (astronomical software), and as a research project to investigate various architectures for searching through a set of documents distributed across the Internet. Two of the co-investigators were then installing and maintaining astronomical software as their primary job responsibility. We felt that a service which incorporated our experience in this area would be more useful than a straightforward listing of software packages. The original concept was for a service based on the client/server model, which would function as a directory/referral service rather than as an archive. For performing the searches, we began our investigation with a decision to evaluate the Isite software from the Center for Networked Information Discovery and Retrieval (CNIDR). This software was intended as a replacement for Wide-Area Information Service (WAIS), a client/server technology for performing full-text searches through a set of documents. Isite had some additional features that we considered attractive, and we enjoyed the cooperation of the Isite developers, who were happy to have ASDS as a demonstration project. We ended up staying with the software throughout the project, making modifications to take advantage of new features as they came along, as well as influencing the software development. The Web interface to the search engine is provided by a gateway program written in C++ by a consultant to the project (A. Warnock)

Relationships Between the Occurrence and Concentrations of Cryptosporidium, Giardia and Fecal Indicator Microbes in Waters from Tributaries of the Kensico Reservoir

As much as 96% of the surface waters in the US are contaminated by the protozoan parasites Cryptosporidium parvum and Giardia lamblia. Both of these organisms have low infectious doses and form (oo)cysts that are resistant to chlorine-based disinfection processes. Unfiltered drinking water systems, such as those of New York City, rely on chlorination processes as a primary method of ensuring consumer safety and are therefore especially concerned with Cryptosporidium and Giardia. This study was undertaken to determine the occurrence of Cryptosporidium and Giardia in New York City's Kensico Reservoir and the correlation of these protozoan parasites with fecal indicator microbes and various physicochemical water quality measures. During storm events, significant (α = 0.05) Spearman rank correlations were found between Giardia concentrations and those of thermotolerant coliforms, enterococci, Clostridium perfringens spores, somatic coliphages, particles, turbidity, and total organic carbon. Cryptosporidium was significantly correlated with Giardia and temperature, but only during wet weather events. Within individual storm events, rising hydrographic limbs accounted for disproportionately high E. coli and TOC loadings when compared with peak and falling limbs on the basis of stream volume fraction, providing some evidence for a "first flush" for these variables. Water samples taken at the peak of each storm collectively represented 36% of total stream volume during this study, but accounted for approximately 60% of FIB and particle loading. These results indicate that wet weather events, and particularly the peak stages, should be priorities in reducing the water quality impacts of FIB and protozoan parasites. Enterococci may be a suitable microbial surrogate for Giardia in Kensico tributaries during both dry and wet weather periods.Master of Science in Public Healt