The Status of Women Leaders in Utah Businesses

In September 2013, the Center for American Progress released a report titled“ The State of Women in America: A 50- State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation.” This report ranks Utah last of all 50 states in terms of women being in positions of decision making and leadership. Although the focus is solely on the percentage of women in elected office and private sector management positions, we feel that a more detailed look on the status of women in leadership in various sectors within the state is useful. This is the last of four 2014 briefs, each of which compares national data with Utah data and provides a pertinent literature review. The first three briefs provide data on women leaders in Utah politics, nonprofit organizations, and higher and public education institutions. This final brief focuses on the status of women leaders in Utah businesses. More specifically, it provides data regarding the gender of top company leaders (e.g., CEO, president, or lead manager) and the corporate board chair and members. But first, details about the Utah study we conducted is highlighted

Spirituality is everybody\u27s business : An exploration of the impact of spiritual care training upon the perceptions and practice of rehabilitation professionals

Purpose: This study explored the impact of a brief spiritual care training program upon the perceptions and self-reported practice of rehabilitation professionals working in traumatic injury. Methodology and methods: A qualitative study. Semi-structured interviews were held with staff from a rehabilitation hospital in Sydney, Australia, between six and eight weeks after participation in spiritual care training. A thematic analysis was conducted. Results: Of the 41 rehabilitation professionals who attended the training (1 h online, 1.5 h face to face), 16 agreed to be interviewed. The majority worked in spinal cord injury and were female. Half reported holding a Christian affiliation. One overarching theme and six sub-themes were identified from the qualitative data. The overarching theme was “spirituality is everybody’s business”. The six sub-themes were: (i) increased awareness of the nature of spirituality, (ii) realisation of the importance of spirituality to clients, (iii) a desire to keep spirituality on the radar, (iv) identifying barriers to providing spiritual care (v) incorporating spirituality into practice, and, (vi) recognising spirituality as personally meaningful. Conclusions: A brief spiritual care training program can impact positively upon perceptions and practice of rehabilitation professionals. Ongoing training is needed to ensure that staff retain what was learnt. IMPLICATIONS FOR REHABILITATION Brief spiritual care training can impact positively upon rehabilitation professionals’ perceptions of spirituality and lead to practice change in the delivery of spiritual care across many clinical disciplines. The stories of patients and family members are powerful staff education tools in spiritual care training. Client spirituality is an under recognised resource that staff can draw upon in supporting and enhancing the rehabilitation process

The Status of Women Leaders in Utah Nonprofits

In September 2013, the Center for American Progress released a report titled “ The State of Women in America: A 50- State Analysis of How Women Are Faring Across the Nation.” This report ranks Utah last of all 50 states in terms of women being in positions of decision making and leadership. Although the focus is solely on the percentage of women in elected office and private sector management positions, we feel that a more detailed look on the status of women in leadership in various sectors within the state would be useful. This is the second of four 2014 briefs, each of which compares national data with Utah data and provides a pertinent literature review. The first provides data on women in Utah politics; subsequent ones will focus on women leaders in education and business. This brief focuses on the status of women leaders in Utah nonprofit organizations

Women’s prospects for career advancement: Narratives of women in core mining positions in a South African mining organisation

Orientation: Even though there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of women employed in the mining industry, the figures hide many gender inequalities as the gendered impediments to career advancement persist despite South Africa’s remarkable equity policy regime. However, it is unclear, from the perspective of the women themselves, how their career advancement is encumbered. Research purpose: This study reflects on the prospects for career advancement by exploring the work and organisational experiences of women in core mining positions in an open-cast mining organisation in South Africa. Motivation for the study: To reflect on the prospects for career advancement of women in core mining positions. Research approach, design and method: Eight professional women, selected through a purposive sampling procedure, participated in in-depth unstructured interviews. Data were analysed using Creswell’s simplified version of the Stevick–Colaizzi–Keen method, guided by the lens of gendered organisations. Main findings: Three themes emerged: (1) male domination that has marginalised women and compelled them to emulate masculinity has legitimised existing gender barriers, (2) the long, awkward and unpredictable hours of work have deepened women’s time constraints because they have to combine the home or family caretaker role with work, and (3) the essence of being a woman in a mining organisation. Practical/managerial implications: The study may present South African managers with a better understanding of how work and organisational features, policies, daily practices and discourses impede career advancement of women in core mining positions. Organisations should train managers to create conditions that minimise barriers and maximise performance and advancement, and align retention strategies. Contribution/value-add: This study builds on existing knowledge about career advancement of women by providing new and valuable information specific to women in core mining positions in an open-cast mining organisation in South Africa, seen through the lens of gendered organisational theory. The findings highlight the need for organisational theory research that is responsive to the subtle issues and gendered assumptions that sustain encumbrances to women’s career trajectories

Effectiveness of spiritual care training for rehabilitation professionals: An exploratory controlled trial

Background: Spirituality may play an important role in neurorehabilitation, however research findings indicate that rehabilitation professionals do not feel well equipped to deliver spiritual care. Objective: To evaluate a spiritual care training program for rehabilitation professionals. Methods: An exploratory controlled trial was conducted. Participants enrolled in a two-module spiritual care training program. Spiritual care competency was measured with the Spiritual Care Competency Scale. Confidence and comfort levels were measured using the Spiritual Care Competency Scale domains. The Spirituality and Spiritual Care Rating Scale assessed participant attitudes and knowledge. Measures were administered three times: pre-program, post-program and six weeks follow-up. Results: The training (n = 41) and control (n = 32) groups comprised rehabilitation professionals working in spinal cord or traumatic brain injury units. No between-group differences were observed on the study variables at the pre-program time point. Multilevel models found that levels of spiritual care competency, confidence, comfort, and ratings on existential spirituality increased significantly for the training group (versus control) post-program (p \u3c 0.05) and these significant differences were maintained at follow-up. Conclusions: A brief spiritual care training program can be effective in increasing levels of self-reported competency, confidence and comfort in delivery of spiritual care for rehabilitation professionals

Planet Four: A Neural Network’s search for polar spring-time fans on Mars

Dark deposits visible from orbit appear in the Martian south polar region during the springtime. These are thought to form from explosive jets of carbon dioxide gas breaking through the thawing seasonal ice cap, carrying dust and dirt which is then deposited onto the ice as dark ‘blotches’, or blown by the surface winds into streaks or ‘fans’. We investigate machine learning (ML) methods for automatically identifying these seasonal features in High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) satellite imagery. We designed deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) that were trained and tested using the catalog generated by Planet Four, an online citizen science project mapping the south polar seasonal deposits. We validated the CNNs by comparing their results with those of ISODATA (Iterative Self-Organizing Data Analysis Technique) clustering and as expected, the CNNs were significantly better at predicting the results found by Planet Four, in both the area of predicted seasonal deposits and in delineating their boundaries. We found neither the CNNs or ISODATA were suited to predicting the source point and directions of seasonal fans, which is a strength of the citizen science approach. The CNNs showed good agreement with Planet Four in cross-validation metrics and detected some seasonal deposits in the HiRISE images missed in the Planet Four catalog; the total area of seasonal deposits predicted by the CNNs was 27% larger than that of the Planet Four catalog, but this aspect varied considerably on a per-image basis

Co-producing UK climate change adaptation policy: An analysis of the 2012 and 2017 UK Climate Change Risk Assessments

This paper explores the use and perceived usefulness of the 2012 and 2017 United Kingdom Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) reports to identify potential areas of improvement for UK adaptation policy. We conducted interviews with key stakeholders and analysed each CCRA in the context of objective, audience, budget, frame, key findings, dissemination, and how they informed policy. We found that stakeholders used the CCRA in three main ways: (i) to make a business case for their work; (ii) to shape direction of policy or work; and (iii) practical applications. Our findings suggest that the way in which both CCRAs have been operationalized are symptomatic of the UK state reinforcing scientific reductionism in adaptation assessments for policymaking. Recommendations from interviews for future CCRAs included (i) adopting more innovative methodological approaches, (ii) developing more effective mechanisms for operationalisation of the CCRAs, and (iii) improving communication of the CCRAs, their risks and recommendations. This would enable better alignment with user needs and more robust inclusive decision-making processes in the assessment of future UK climate risks and impacts. We discuss how a new framework is needed in which evidence assessments such as the CCRA can be further developed utilising methods of co-production

Improvement and decline of cognitive function in schizophrenia over one year: a longitudinal investigation using latent growth modelling.

BACKGROUND: Long-term follow-up studies of people with schizophrenia report stability of cognitive performance; less is known about any shorter-term changes in cognitive function. METHODS: This longitudinal study aimed to establish whether there was stability, improvement or decline in memory and executive functions over four assessments undertaken prospectively in one year. Cognitive performance was assessed during randomized controlled trials of first- and second-generation antipsychotic medication. Analyses used a latent growth modeling approach, so that individuals who missed some testing occasions could be included and trajectories of cognitive change explored despite missing data. RESULTS: Over the year there was significant decline in spatial recognition but no change in pattern recognition or motor speed. Improvement was seen in planning and spatial working memory tasks; this may reflect improved strategy use with practice. There were significant individual differences in the initial level of performance on all tasks but not in rate of change; the latter may have been due to sample size limitations. Age, sex, premorbid IQ and drug class allocation explained significant variation in level of performance but could not predict change. Patients randomized to first-generation drugs improved more quickly than other groups on the planning task. CONCLUSION: We conclude that cognitive change is present in schizophrenia but the magnitude of change is small when compared with the large differences in cognitive function that exist between patients. Analyses that retain patients who drop out of longitudinal studies, as well as those who complete testing protocols, are important to our understanding of cognition in schizophrenia.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

NPC1 regulates the distribution of phosphatidylinositol 4-kinases at Golgi and lysosomal membranes

Cholesterol and phosphoinositides (PI) are two critically important lipids that are found in cellular membranes and dysregulated in many disorders. Therefore, uncovering molecular pathways connecting these essential lipids may offer new therapeutic insights. We report that loss of function of lysosomal Niemann-Pick Type C1 (NPC1) cholesterol transporter, which leads to neurodegenerative NPC disease, initiates a signaling cascade that alters the cholesterol/phosphatidylinositol 4-phosphate (PtdIns4P) countertransport cycle between Golgi-endoplasmic reticulum (ER), as well as lysosome-ER membrane contact sites (MCS). Central to these disruptions is increased recruitment of phosphatidylinositol 4-kinases-PI4KIIα and PI4KIIIβ-which boosts PtdIns4P metabolism at Golgi and lysosomal membranes. Aberrantly increased PtdIns4P levels elevate constitutive anterograde secretion from the Golgi complex, and mTORC1 recruitment to lysosomes. NPC1 disease mutations phenocopy the transporter loss of function and can be rescued by inhibition or knockdown of either key phosphoinositide enzymes or their recruiting partners. In summary, we show that the lysosomal NPC1 cholesterol transporter tunes the molecular content of Golgi and lysosome MCS to regulate intracellular trafficking and growth signaling in health and disease

Cardiac-specific suppression of NF-kappa B signaling prevents diabetic cardiomyopathy via inhibition of the renin-angiotensin system

Activation of NF-kappa B signaling in the heart may be protective or deleterious depending on the pathological context. in diabetes, the role of NF-kappa B in cardiac dysfunction has been investigated using pharmacological approaches that have a limitation of being nonspecific. Furthermore, the specific cellular pathways by which NF-kappa B modulates heart function in diabetes have not been identified. To address these questions, we used a transgenic mouse line expressing mutated I kappa B-alpha in the heart (3M mice), which prevented activation of canonical NF-kappa B signaling. Diabetes was developed by streptozotocin injections in wild-type (WT) and 3M mice. Diabetic WT mice developed systolic and diastolic cardiac dysfunction by the 12th week, as measured by echocardiography. in contrast, cardiac function was preserved in 3M mice up to 24 wk of diabetes. Diabetes induced an elevation in cardiac oxidative stress in diabetic WT mice but not 3M mice compared with nondiabetic control mice. in diabetic WT mice, an increase in the phospholamban/sarco(endo) plasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase 2 ratio and decrease in ryanodine receptor expression were observed, whereas diabetic 3M mice showed an opposite effect on these parameters of Ca2+ handling. Significantly, renin-angiotensin system activity was suppressed in diabetic 3M mice compared with an increase in WT animals. in conclusion, these results demonstrate that inhibition of NF-kappa B signaling in the heart prevents diabetes-induced cardiac dysfunction through preserved Ca2+ handling and inhibition of the cardiac renin-angiotensin system.National Heart, Lung, and Blood InstituteTexas A&M Hlth Sci Ctr, Div Mol Cardiol, Dept Med, Coll Med, Temple, TX USABaylor Scott & White Hlth, Temple, TX USACent Texas Vet Hlth Care Syst, Temple, TX USAUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Med, Div Nephrol, São Paulo, BrazilLoyola Univ Chicago, Maywood, IL USAUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Med, Div Nephrol, São Paulo, BrazilNational Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: 5-R01-HL-090817Web of Scienc