An experience of virtual leadership development for human resource managers

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Problem</p> <p>Strong leadership and management skills are crucial to finding solutions to the human resource crisis in health. Health professionals and human resource (HR) managers worldwide who are in charge of addressing HR challenges in health systems often lack formal education in leadership and management.</p> <p>Approach</p> <p>Management Sciences for Health (MSH) developed the Virtual Leadership Development Program (VLDP) with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The VLDP is a Web-based leadership development programme that combines face-to-face and distance-learning methodologies to strengthen the capacity of teams to identify and address health challenges and produce results.</p> <p>Relevant changes</p> <p>The USAID-funded Leadership, Management and Sustainability (LMS) Program, implemented by MSH, and the USAID-funded Capacity Project, implemented by IntraHealth, adapted the VLDP for HR managers to help them identify and address HR challenges that ministries of health, other public-sector organizations and nongovernmental organizations are facing.</p> <p>Local settings</p> <p>Three examples illustrate the results of the VLDP for teams of HR managers:</p> <p>1. the Uganda Protestant and Catholic Medical Bureaus</p> <p>2. the Christian Health Association of Malawi</p> <p>3. the Developing Human Resources for Health Project in Uganda.</p> <p>Lessons learnt</p> <p>The VLDP is an effective programme for developing the management and leadership capacity of HR managers in health.</p

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Retrospective Analysis of Conservative Treatments

Objective: The purpose of this study was to identify which conservative occupational therapy (OT) treatment(s) were most effective in reducing pain in patients diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). Design: A retrospective study of 222 de-identified treatment cases of patients seen from January 1st, 2004 to December 31st, 2013 were examined. Paired sample t-tests determined statistical significance between eight initial and final outcome measures. Binary logistic regressions determined statistical significance of clinically effective treatments that reduced pain at rest and pain with activity. Setting: The 222 cases were from 31 outpatient rehabilitation clinics offering occupational therapy services. Subjects: Participants were 18+ years of age and treated by an occupational therapist for conservative treatment of CTS. Methods: Twenty-two treatments were analyzed for statistical significance using the VAS at rest and VAS with activity. For cases with a clinical significance in the VAS at rest and VAS with activity, frequencies were used to identify predominant treatments utilized. Results: Massage was found to be statistically significant (p=0.027) in reducing pain at rest among those with a clinically significant reduction in pain at rest. Therapeutic exercises were found to be statistically significant (p=0.026) in reducing pain with activity among those with a clinically significant reduction in pain with activity. Therapeutic exercise, ultrasound, and manual therapy techniques were used in over 50% of treatments. Conclusion: This study found therapeutic exercise and massage to be statistically significant treatments in the conservative treatment of CTS. Further investigation is warranted to determine specific methods of treatment labeled as therapeutic exercises and massage

An experience of virtual leadership development for human resource managers

summary:In this paper, we introduce the notion of the $(\alpha ,\beta )$-weakly smooth fuzzy continuous proper function and discuss its properties. We also study several notions of connectedness in smooth fuzzy topological spaces and establish that the product of connected sets (spaces) is not connected in any sense, as well as investigate continuous images of smooth connected sets (spaces) under $(\alpha ,\beta )$-weakly smooth fuzzy continuous functions

The Shape of LITTLE THINGS Dwarf Galaxies DDO 46 and DDO 168: Understanding the stellar and gas kinematics

We present the stellar and gas kinematics of DDO 46 and DDO 168 from the LITTLE THINGS survey and determine their respective Vmax/sigma_z,0 values. We used the KPNO's 4-meter telescope with the Echelle spectrograph as a long-slit spectrograph. We acquired spectra of DDO 168 along four position angles by placing the slit over the morphological major and minor axes and two intermediate position angles. However, due to poor weather conditions during our observing run for DDO 46, we were able to extract only one useful data point from the morphological major axis. We determined a central stellar velocity dispersion perpendicular to the disk, sigma_z,0, of 13.5+/-8 km/s for DDO 46 and of 10.7+/-2.9 km/s for DDO 168. We then derived the maximum rotation speed in both galaxies using the LITTLE THINGS HI data. We separated bulk motions from non-circular motions using a double Gaussian decomposition technique and applied a tilted-ring model to the bulk velocity field. We corrected the observed HI rotation speeds for asymmetric drift and found a maximum velocity, Vmax, of 77.4 +/- 3.7 and 67.4 +/- 4.0 km/s for DDO 46 and DDO 168, respectively. Thus, we derived a kinematic measure, Vmax/sigma_z,0, of 5.7 +/- 0.6 for DDO 46 and 6.3 +/- 0.3 for DDO 168. Comparing these values to ones determined for spiral galaxies, we find that DDO 46 and DDO 168 have Vmax/sigma_z,0 values indicative of thin disks, which is in contrast to minor-to-major axis ratio studies

Examining the Role of Environment in a Comprehensive Sample of Compact Groups

(Abridged) Compact groups, with their high number densities, small velocity dispersions, and an interstellar medium that has not been fully processed, provide a local analog to conditions of galaxy interactions in the earlier universe. The frequent and prolonged gravitational encounters that occur in compact groups affect the evolution of the constituent galaxies in a myriad of ways, for example gas processing and star formation. Recently, a statistically significant "gap" has been discovered mid-infrared IRAC colorspace of compact group galaxies. This gap is not seen in field samples and is a new example of how the compact group environment may affect the evolution of member galaxies. In order to investigate the origin and nature of this gap, we have compiled a sample of 49 compact groups. We find that a statistically significant deficit of galaxies in this gap region of IRAC colorspace is persistant in this sample, lending support to the hypothesis that the compact group environment inhibits moderate SSFRs. We note a curvature in the colorspace distribution, which is fully consistent with increasing dust temperature as the activity in a galaxy increases. This full sample of 49 compact groups allows us to subdivide the data according to physical properties of the groups. An analysis of these subsamples indicates that neither projected physical diameter nor density show a trend in colorspace within the values represented by this sample. We hypothesize that the apparent lack of a trend is due to the relatively small range of properties in this sample. Thus, the relative influence of stochastic effects becomes dominant. We analyze spectral energy distributions of member galaxies as a function of their location in colorspace and find that galaxies in different regions of MIR colorspace contain dust with varying temperatures and/or PAH emission.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures. Accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journa

Rice genotype differences in tolerance of zinc-deficient soils: evidence for the importance of root-induced changes in the rhizosphere

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpls.2015.01160Zinc (Zn) deficiency is a major constraint to rice production and Zn is also often deficient in humans with rice-based diets. Efforts to breed more Zn-efficient rice are constrained by poor understanding of the mechanisms of tolerance to deficiency. Here we assess the contributions of root growth and root Zn uptake efficiency, and we seek to explain the results in terms of specific mechanisms. We made a field experiment in a highly Zn-deficient rice soil in the Philippines with deficiency-tolerant and -sensitive genotypes, and measured growth, Zn uptake and root development. We also measured the effect of planting density. Tolerant genotypes produced more crown roots per plant and had greater uptake rates per unit root surface area; the latter was at least as important as root number to overall tolerance. Tolerant and sensitive genotypes took up more Zn per plant at greater planting densities. The greater uptake per unit root surface area, and the planting density effect can only be explained by root-induced changes in the rhizosphere, either solubilizing Zn, or neutralizing a toxin that impedes Zn uptake (possibly HCO − 3 HCO3− or Fe2+), or both. Traits for these and crown root number are potential breeding targets.This research was funded by a grant from the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC, Grant Ref. BB/J011584/1) under the Sustainable Crop Production Research for International Development (SCPRID) programme, a joint multi-national initiative of BBSRC, the UK Government's Department for International Development (DFID) and (through a grant awarded to BBSRC) the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Support to AKN in the form of a fellowship awarded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) is gratefully acknowledged

Some Like It Hot: Linking Diffuse X-ray Luminosity, Baryonic Mass, and Star Formation Rate in Compact Groups of Galaxies

We present an analysis of the diffuse X-ray emission in 19 compact groups of galaxies (CGs) observed with Chandra. The hottest, most X-ray luminous CGs agree well with the galaxy cluster X-ray scaling relations in $L_X-T$ and $L_X-\sigma$, even in CGs where the hot gas is associated with only the brightest galaxy. Using Spitzer photometry, we compute stellar masses and classify HCGs 19, 22, 40, and 42 and RSCGs 32, 44, and 86 as fossil groups using a new definition for fossil systems that includes a broader range of masses. We find that CGs with total stellar and HI masses $\gtrsim10^{11.3}$ M$_\odot$ are often X-ray luminous, while lower-mass CGs only sometimes exhibit faint, localized X-ray emission. Additionally, we compare the diffuse X-ray luminosity against both the total UV and 24 $\mu$m star formation rates of each CG and optical colors of the most massive galaxy in each of the CGs. The most X-ray luminous CGs have the lowest star formation rates, likely because there is no cold gas available for star formation, either because the majority of the baryons in these CGs are in stars or the X-ray halo, or due to gas stripping from the galaxies in CGs with hot halos. Finally, the optical colors that trace recent star formation histories of the most massive group galaxies do not correlate with the X-ray luminosities of the CGs, indicating that perhaps the current state of the X-ray halos is independent of the recent history of stellar mass assembly in the most massive galaxies.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap