Summary of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)

[Excerpt] The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) provides a comprehensive federal scheme for the regulation of employee pension and welfare benefit plans offered by employers. ERISA contains various provisions intended to protect the rights of plan participants and beneficiaries in employee benefit plans. These protections include requirements relating to reporting and disclosure, participation, vesting, and benefit accrual, as well as plan funding. ERISA also regulates the responsibilities of plan fiduciaries and other issues regarding plan administration. ERISA contains various standards that a plan must meet in order to receive favorable tax treatment, and also governs plan termination. This report provides background on the pension laws prior to ERISA, discusses various types of employee benefit plans governed by ERISA, provides an overview of ERISA\u27s requirements, and includes a glossary of commonly used terms

Service as Leadership

This Grants Collection for College Algebra was created under a Round Eleven ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/business-collections/1008/thumbnail.jp

Programming and Problem Solving I

This Grants Collection for Programming and Problem Solving I was created under a Round Eleven ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/compsci-collections/1020/thumbnail.jp

Behavioral and Psychological Aspects of Physical Education and Coaching

This Grants Collection for Behavioral and Psychological Aspects of Physical Education and Coaching was created under a Round Eleven ALG Textbook Transformation Grant. Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process. Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials: Linked Syllabus Initial Proposal Final Reporthttps://oer.galileo.usg.edu/education-collections/1009/thumbnail.jp

The changing body work of abortion: a qualitative study of the experiences of health professionals

‘Body work’ has emerged at the nexus of sociologies of work and bodies as a means of conceptualising work focusing on the bodies of others. This article utilises this analytical tool in the context of contemporary abortion work. Abortion provision in Britain has seen significant change in the last 25 years, paralleling developments in medical methods, and the option for women under nine weeks' gestation to complete the abortion at home. These shifts raise questions around how abortion work is experienced by those who do it. We apply the conceptual lens of body work to data drawn from in-depth interviews with 37 health professionals involved in abortion provision, to draw out the character, constraints and challenges of contemporary abortion work. We explore three key themes: the instrumental role of emotional labour in facilitating body work; the temporality of abortion work; and bodily proximity, co-presence and changes in provision. By drawing on the conceptual frame of body work, we illuminate the dynamics of contemporary abortion work in Britain and, by introducing the idea of ‘body work-by-proxy’, highlight ways in which this context can be used to expand the conceptual boundaries of body work

Modeling the response of top-down control exerted by gelatinous carnivores on the Black Sea pelagic food web

Recent changes in structure and functioning of the interior Black Sea ecosystem are studied by a series of simulations using a one-dimensional, vertically resolved, coupled physical-biochemical model. The simulations are intended to provide a better understanding of how the pelagic food web structure responds to increasing grazing pressure by gelatinous carnivores (medusae Aurelia aurita and ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi) during the past 2 decades. The model is first shown to represent typical eutrophic ecosystem conditions of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This simulation reproduces reasonably well the observed planktonic food web structure at a particular location of the Black Sea for which a year-long data set is available from 1978. Additional simulations are performed to explore the role of the Mnemiopsis-dominated ecosystem in the late 1980s. They are also validated by extended observations from specific years. The results indicate that the population outbreaks of the gelatinous species, either Aurelia or Mnemiopsis, reduce mesozooplankton grazing and lead to increased phytoplankton blooms as observed throughout the 1980s and 1990s in the Black Sea. The peaks of phytoplankton, mesozooplankton, Noctiluca, and gelatinous predator biomass distributions march sequentially as a result of prey-predator interactions. The late winter diatom bloom and a subsequent increase in mesozooplankton stocks are robust features common to all simulations. The autotrophs and heterotrophs, however, have different responses during the rest of the year, depending on the nature of grazing pressure exerted by the gelatinous predators. In the presence of Mnemiopsis, phytoplankton have additional distinct and pronounced bloom episodes during the spring and summer seasons. These events appear with a 2 month time shift in the ecosystem prior to introduction of Mnemiopsis

Next Generation Practitioner-Scholars Navigating Community Engagement Professional Development: A Collaborative Autoethnography

This collaborative autoethnographic research study examines the motivations, experiences, and professional outcomes of seven community engagement practitioner-scholars who served in a high-level elected position in a community engagement research association and its affiliated graduate student network. The findings highlight the role of professional associations and graduate student networks in facilitating professional development for next generation community engagement practitioner-scholars, such as supporting them in creating connections, expanding networks, developing professional identities, and cultivating cultural capital

Predation and food limitation as causes of mortality in larval herring at a spawning ground in British Columbia

We quantified both in situ predation on Pacific herring (Clupea haregus pallasi ) larvae by soft-bodied zooplankton, and microzooplankton prey of herring larvae in Kulleet Bay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Samples were collected at 0 to 5 m depth daily at peak larval hatching from 14 to 21 April 1985. The hydromedusa Aequorea victoria was the only soft-bodied zooplankter that ate herring larvae. Densities of A. victoria reached as much as 17 m⁻³, and averaged 1 to 5 m⁻³. Predation on the herring larvae was severe, averaging 57 ± 29% d⁻¹ of larvae during each sampling period. Microzooplankton prey of post-yolksac herring larvae were mainly copepod nauplii and eggs, shelled protozoans, and bivalve veligers, and averaged 40.8 ± 21.51⁻¹ in the environment.Keywords: Clupea harengus pallasi, mortality causes, zooplankton, spawning ground, fish larva

Deterministic Factors Overwhelm Stochastic Environmental Fluctuations as Drivers of Jellyfish Outbreaks

16 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, supporting Information http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0141060Jellyfish outbreaks are increasingly viewed as a deterministic response to escalating levels of environmental degradation and climate extremes. However, a comprehensive understanding of the influence of deterministic drivers and stochastic environmental variations favouring population renewal processes has remained elusive. This study quantifies the deterministic and stochastic components of environmental change that lead to outbreaks of the jellyfish Pelagia noctiluca in the Mediterranen Sea. Using data of jellyfish abundance collected at 241 sites along the Catalan coast from 2007 to 2010 we: (1) tested hypotheses about the influence of time-varying and spatial predictors of jellyfish outbreaks; (2) evaluated the relative importance of stochastic vs. deterministic forcing of outbreaks through the environmental bootstrap method; and (3) quantified return times of extreme events. Outbreaks were common in May and June and less likely in other summer months, which resulted in a negative relationship between outbreaks and SST. Cross- and along-shore advection by geostrophic flow were important concentrating forces of jellyfish, but most outbreaks occurred in the proximity of two canyons in the northern part of the study area. This result supported the recent hypothesis that canyons can funnel P. noctiluca blooms towards shore during upwelling. This can be a general, yet unappreciated mechanism leading to outbreaks of holoplanktonic jellyfish species. The environmental bootstrap indicated that stochastic environmental fluctuations have negligible effects on return times of outbreaks. Our analysis emphasized the importance of deterministic processes leading to jellyfish outbreaks compared to the stochastic component of environmental variation. A better understanding of how environmental drivers affect demographic and population processes in jellyfish species will increase the ability to anticipate jellyfish outbreaks in the futureThe authors gratefully acknowledge financial support by the European Community Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) for the project VECTORS (grant agreement no. 266445) (URL: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html). AC was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Chilean National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research (CONICYT – PFCHA/Doctorado al Extranjero 4a Convocatoria, 72120016).Peer Reviewe