A moving baseline for evaluation of advanced coal extraction systems

Results from the initial effort to establish baseline economic performance comparators for a program whose intent is to define, develop, and demonstrate advanced systems suitable for coal resource extraction beyond the year 2000 are reported. Systems used were selected from contemporary coal mining technology and from conservation conjectures of year 2000 technology. The analysis was also based on a seam thickness of 6 ft. Therefore, the results are specific to the study systems and the selected seam extended to other seam thicknesses

Assessing the Needs of IHSS Providers

San Francisco IHSS (In Home Supportive Services) Public Authority serves over 2,000 consumers and this number is growing daily due to the amount of people in need here in San Francisco. The consumers are in need of providers. Currently there is a lack of well-trained providers to aid in meeting the needs of the consumers. This has lead to consumers going back to hospital for injuries and other complications that could have been avoided if they had providers who were properly trained on their condition. This is not the purpose of IHSSPA, they receive funding to prevent hospital recidivism but that is not the case and this has a huge impact on the growing number of consumers in the City and County of San Francisco

Paper Session I-C - The Future of the Space Program is in the Hands of an Unexpected Customer

In order for America to maintain its leadership position in space, a technically skilled workforce must be cultivated. Current projections of the American workforce in the year 2000 predict a shortage of scientists and engineers. America\u27s current educational system will not be able to meet the Space Industry\u27s needs for skilled labor. In order to increase tomorrow\u27s supply of talented individuals, it is imperative that the Space Industry and all other industries that use this resource be proactive in all levels of the educational process. Only then will America be able to retain its competitive edge in space. This paper searches for the root causes of the predicted shortage of scientists and engineers and discusses a potential countermeasure. Emphasis is placed on what Industry can do to augment the traditional educational process

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a possible bioindicator of epigenetic factors present in drinking water that may affect reproductive function: is chorion an issue?

[EN] Emerging organic contaminants have been monitored in stream waters, raw and finished waters and wastewater effluents. Most of these contaminants, such as epigenetic substances, have been detected at very low levels. Unfortunately, their complete monitoring and/or removal are very difficult, given the increasing presence of new contaminants and due to analytical and economic considerations. For this reason, bioindicators are used as an alternative to monitor their presence. To this end, zebrafish is being used to assess certain contaminants in water quality studies. As our long-term aim is to determine if zebrafish (Danio rerio) can be used to detect environmental epigenetic factors in drinking waters with effects on human reproduction, an initial question is whether the chorion could interfere with the possible action of epigenetic factors in two reproductive events: genital ridge formation and migration of the primordial germ cells (PGCs) to these genital ridges. In the first experiment, we attempted to partially degrade the chorion of mid blastula transition (MBT) embryos with pronase, with acceptable survival rates at 5 days post fertilisation (dpf), with the group exposed for 15 min giving the best survival results. As denuded early embryos require a specific culture medium, in the next experiment embryo survival was evaluated when they were cultured up to 5 dpf in drinking waters from six different sources. Results showed a negative effect on embryo survival at 5 dpf from several waters but not in others, thus distorting the survival outcomes. These results suggest using embryos with the chorion intact from the outset when drinking waters from different sources are to be tested.Martínez-Sales, MI.; García Ximenez, F.; Espinos Gutierrez, FJ. (2015). Zebrafish (Danio rerio) as a possible bioindicator of epigenetic factors present in drinking water that may affect reproductive function: is chorion an issue?. Zygote. 23(3):447-452. doi:10.1017/S0967199414000045S44745223

Phenex: Ontological Annotation of Phenotypic Diversity

Phenex is a platform-independent desktop application designed to facilitate efficient and consistent annotation of phenotypic variation using Entity-Quality syntax, drawing on terms from community ontologies for anatomical entities, phenotypic qualities, and taxonomic names. Despite the centrality of the phenotype to so much of biology, traditions for communicating information about phenotypes are idiosyncratic to different disciplines. Phenotypes seem to elude standardized descriptions due to the variety of traits that compose them and the difficulty of capturing the complex forms and subtle differences among organisms that we can readily observe. Consequently, phenotypes are refractory to attempts at data integration that would allow computational analyses across studies and study systems. Phenex addresses this problem by allowing scientists to employ standard ontologies and syntax to link computable phenotype annotations to evolutionary character matrices, as well as to link taxa and specimens to ontological identifiers. Ontologies have become a foundational technology for establishing shared semantics, and, more generally, for capturing and computing with biological knowledge

Restrictive labor practices in baseball: time for a change?

Sports teams ; Labor economics

International banking in Philadelphia

International finance ; Banks and banking

A primer on the risks of international lending and how to evaluate them

International finance ; Risk assessment

How U.S. multinationals manage currency risk

Risk management

A lower profile for the U.S. balance of payments

Balance of payments