From the Head to the Heart: A Case Study of the Start-Up Year for Lean Six Sigma in University College Dublin

The purpose of this paper is to reflect back on the first year of running a Lean Six Sigma programme in University College Dublin. This year begins after the decision to run a process enhancement and culture change project using Lean Six Sigma has been taken, a high level implementation plan signed off, and the UCD Agile support unit created

Evaluating Evidence for Historical Anadromous Salmon Runs in Eklutna Lake, Alaska

We assessed historical presence of sockeye salmon in Eklutna Lake, Alaska, prior to construction of a diversion dam on the downstream Eklutna River in 1929, using nitrogen stable isotopes measured in a lacustrine core 93 cm long. Sediments in the core were dated using varve counts, verified by 210Pb and 137Cs measurements. The basal date of the core was AD 1859, and varves became slightly thinner and less distinct after 1929. Sediments were primarily clastic with carbon content below 1%. Nitrogen isotope values were generally low and stable throughout the core, ranging from 1.5‰ to 2.5‰. There is no statistical evidence for a change in isotopic composition after emplacement of the dam. In light of published evidence from oral history, cultural records, and habitat relationships that suggest sockeye salmon could have been present in the lake before 1929, we conducted a simple sensitivity test to assess the possibility that a small salmon run may have gone undetected by our technique. We found that a salmon run of up to 1000/year, and potentially as many as 15 000/year, would be possible without noticeably altering the measured isotopic composition of the sediments in Eklutna Lake. Our results provide no evidence that such runs occurred, but do not preclude the possible existence of a relatively small sockeye fishery in Eklutna Lake before 1929.Nous avons évalué la présence historique du saumon rouge dans le lac Eklutna, en Alaska, avant la construction d’un barrage de dérivation sur la rivière Eklutna en aval en 1929, à l’aide d’isotopes stables de l’azote mesurés dans un noyau lacustre de 93 cm de longueur. Les sédiments du noyau ont été datés au moyen du dénombrement des varves et vérifiés avec les mesures du plomb 210 et du césium 137. La date de base du noyau était de 1859 A.D., et les varves devenaient un peu plus minces et moins distinctes après 1929. Les sédiments étaient principalement clastiques, leur teneur en carbone étant inférieure à 1 %. Les valeurs des isotopes d’azote étaient généralement faibles et stables dans l’ensemble du noyau, variant ainsi entre 1,5 ‰ et 2,5 ‰. Il n’existe pas de preuve statistique de changement de composition isotopique après l’aménagement du barrage. À la lumière de la preuve publiée à partir de l’histoire orale, des dossiers culturels et des relations avec l’habitat qui suggèrent que le saumon rouge aurait pu être présent dans le lac avant 1929, nous avons réalisé un simple test de sensibilité afin d’évaluer la possibilité qu’une petite montaison de saumon n’ait pas été détectée au moyen de notre technique. Nous avons constaté qu’une montaison pouvant atteindre 1 000 saumons par année, voire 15 000 par année, serait possible sans pour autant altérer considérablement la composition isotopique mesurée des sédiments du lac Eklutna. Nos résultats ne fournissent aucune preuve de telles montaisons, sans toutefois exclure l’existence possible d’une pêche relativement petite de saumon rouge dans le lac Eklutna avant 1929

Assessing the Risk of 100-year Freshwater Floods in the Lamprey River Watershed of New Hampshire Resulting from Changes in Climate and Land Use

What is the coastal resource issue the project sought to address? Both the magnitude and frequency of freshwater flooding is on the rise in seacoast NH and around much of New England. In the Great Bay watershed, this is the result of two primary causes: 1) increases in impervious surface stemming from a three-to-four fold increase in developed land since 1962; and 2) changing rainfall patterns in part exemplified by a doubling in the frequency of extreme weather events that drop more than 4 inches of precipitation in less than 48 hours (Wake et al., 2011) over the same time period. Moreover, the size of the 100-year precipitation event in this region has increased 26% from 6.3 inches to 8.5 inches from the mid 1950’s to 2010 (NRCC and NRCS, 2012). One consequence is the occurrence of three 100-year floods measured on the Lamprey River at Packers Falls since 1987, and a fourth if the three days of flooding in March of 2010 had occurred instead in two days (Figure 1). Flooding events are expected to continue to increase in magnitude and frequency as land in the watershed is further developed and climate continues to change in response to anthropogenic forcing (e.g., Hayhoe et el., 2007; IPCC, 2007; Karl et al., 2009). Land use management strategies, in particular low impact development (LID) zoning requirements, are one strategy that communities can employ for increased resiliency to flooding with the greatest influence in urban environments

It takes two to tango: improving patient referrals from the emergency department to inpatient clinicians

Background: The transfer of responsibility for patient care across clinical specialties is a complex process. Published and anecdotal data suggest that referrals often fail to meet the needs of one or both parties and that patient focus can be lost during the process. Little is known about the Australian situation. Methods: To obtain a more complete understanding of the referral process, including the nature of communication in an Australian context, we conducted semistructured interviews in a convenience sample of 25 volunteers. Two established strategies for analyzing qualitative data were used. Results: All respondents considered the following information essential components of a referral: an account of the patient’s current condition, a working diagnosis or problem statement and history of the presenting concern, key test results or tests awaiting results, a potential management plan, and any special characteristics of the patient. Respondents acknowledged implied, if not literal, power to accept or reject an emergency department (ED) referral and said the imbalance of power was reinforced when the ED physician was junior to the inpatient clinician. Respondents also noted that in addition to the predominant organizational culture, an independent culture is associated with specific shifts. Foremost among the nonclinical aspects of a referral considered to be important was the timeliness of the contact made to achieve the transition. Respondents also said the success of a referral depended on the speaking and listening abilities of all parties. The individual’s motivation to accept or reject a referral can also have an impact on communication. Conclusion: Respondents attributed the difficulty of negotiating the transfer of a patient’s care across the ED and inpatient interface to three distinct factors: variations in the clinical information required, the culture of the organization and of the clinical team in which the transaction takes place, and the characteristics of the individuals involved in the process. Improving communication skills has the potential to improve patient outcomes

Assessing the Risk of 100-year Freshwater Floods in the Lamprey River Watershed of New Hampshire Resulting from Changes in Climate and Land Use

What is the coastal resource issue the project sought to address? Both the magnitude and frequency of freshwater flooding is on the rise in seacoast NH and around much of New England. In the Great Bay watershed, this is the result of two primary causes: 1) increases in impervious surface stemming from a three-to-four fold increase in developed land since 1962; and 2) changing rainfall patterns in part exemplified by a doubling in the frequency of extreme weather events that drop more than 4 inches of precipitation in less than 48 hours (Wake et al., 2011) over the same time period. Moreover, the size of the 100-year precipitation event in this region has increased 26% from 6.3 inches to 8.5 inches from the mid 1950’s to 2010 (NRCC and NRCS, 2012). One consequence is the occurrence of three 100-year floods measured on the Lamprey River at Packers Falls since 1987, and a fourth if the three days of flooding in March of 2010 had occurred instead in two days (Figure 1). Flooding events are expected to continue to increase in magnitude and frequency as land in the watershed is further developed and climate continues to change in response to anthropogenic forcing (e.g., Hayhoe et el., 2007; IPCC, 2007; Karl et al., 2009). Land use management strategies, in particular low impact development (LID) zoning requirements, are one strategy that communities can employ for increased resiliency to flooding with the greatest influence in urban environments

Fruit syndromes in Viburnum: correlated evolution of color, nutritional content, and morphology in bird-dispersed fleshy fruits

Premise A key question in plant dispersal via animal vectors is where and why fruit colors vary between species and how color relates to other fruit traits. To better understand the factors shaping the evolution of fruit color diversity, we tested for the existence of syndromes of traits (color, morphology, and nutrition) in the fruits of Viburnum. We placed these results in a larger phylogenetic context and reconstructed ancestral states to assess how Viburnum fruit traits have evolved across the clade. Results We find that blue Viburnum fruits are not very juicy, and have high lipid content and large, round endocarps surrounded by a small quantity of pulp. Red fruits display the opposite suite of traits: they are very juicy with low lipid content and smaller, flatter endocarps. The ancestral Viburnum fruit may have gone through a sequence of color changes before maturation (green to yellow to red to black), though our reconstructions are equivocal. In one major clade of Viburnum (Nectarotinus), fruits mature synchronously with reduced intermediate color stages. Most transitions between fruit colors occurred in this synchronously fruiting clade. Conclusions It is widely accepted that fruit trait diversity has primarily been driven by the differing perceptual abilities of bird versus mammal frugivores. Yet within a clade of largely bird-dispersed fruits, we find clear correlations between color, morphology, and nutrition. These correlations are likely driven by a shift from sequential to synchronous development, followed by diversification in color, nutrition, and morphology. A deeper understanding of fruit evolution within clades will elucidate the degree to which such syndromes structure extant fruit diversity

CWLProv - Interoperable Retrospective Provenance capture and its challenges

<p>The automation of data analysis in the form of scientific workflows is a widely adopted practice in many fields of research nowadays. Computationally driven data-intensive experiments using workflows enable <strong>A</strong>utomation, <strong>S</strong>caling, <strong>A</strong>daption and <strong>P</strong>rovenance support (ASAP).</p> <p>However, there are still several challenges associated with the effective sharing, publication, understandability and reproducibility of such workflows due to the incomplete capture of provenance and the dependence on particular technical (software) platforms. This paper presents <strong>CWLProv</strong>, an approach for retrospective provenance capture utilizing open source community-driven standards involving application and customization of workflow-centric <a href="http://www.researchobject.org/">Research Objects</a> (ROs).</p> <p>The ROs are produced as an output of a workflow enactment defined in the <a href="http://www.commonwl.org/">Common Workflow Language</a> (CWL) using the CWL reference implementation and its data structures. The approach aggregates and annotates all the resources involved in the scientific investigation including inputs, outputs, workflow specification, command line tool specifications and input parameter settings. The resources are linked within the RO to enable re-enactment of an analysis without depending on external resources.</p> <p>The workflow provenance profile is represented in W3C recommended standard <a href="https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-n/">PROV-N</a> and <a href="https://www.w3.org/Submission/prov-json/">PROV-JSON</a> format to capture retrospective provenance of the workflow enactment. The workflow-centric RO produced as an output of a CWL workflow enactment is expected to be interoperable, reusable, shareable and portable across different plat-<br> forms.</p> <p>This paper describes the need and motivation for <a href="https://github.com/common-workflow-language/cwltool/tree/provenance">CWLProv</a> and the lessons learned in applying it for ROs using CWL in the bioinformatics domain.</p

Implicit moral evaluations: A multinomial modeling approach

Implicit moral evaluations-i.e., immediate, unintentional assessments of the wrongness of actions or persons-play a central role in supporting moral behavior in everyday life. Yet little research has employed methods that rigorously measure individual differences in implicit moral evaluations. In five experiments, we develop a new sequential priming measure-the Moral Categorization Task-and a multinomial model that decomposes judgment on this task into multiple component processes. These include implicit moral evaluations of moral transgression primes (Unintentional Judgment), accurate moral judgments about target actions (Intentional Judgment), and a directional tendency to judge actions as morally wrong (Response Bias). Speeded response deadlines reduced Intentional Judgment but not Unintentional Judgment (Experiment 1). Unintentional Judgment was stronger toward moral transgression primes than non-moral negative primes (Experiments 2-4). Intentional Judgment was associated with increased error-related negativity, a neurophysiological indicator of behavioral control (Experiment 4). Finally, people who voted for an anti-gay marriage amendment had stronger Unintentional Judgment toward gay marriage primes (Experiment 5). Across Experiments 1-4, implicit moral evaluations converged with moral personality: Unintentional Judgment about wrong primes, but not negative primes, was negatively associated with psychopathic tendencies and positively associated with moral identity and guilt proneness. Theoretical and practical applications of formal modeling for moral psychology are discussed