Four Years of Jointness at Scott Paper Company and the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU): Background Information Submitted to the Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations

Includes Scott/UPIU Joint Declaration Statement.Background_Scott_Paper_091593.pdf: 376 downloads, before Oct. 1, 2020

The comparative biology of terns, sterna spp

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New development: Exploring public service markets

The authors explain why public service markets are fundamentally different from regulated utilities markets by looking at the product characteristics, market structure, funding oversight and legal arrangements in such markets. They highlight the issues which will be important as marketized delivery becomes increasingly mainstream in public services provision

Building Our Savings: Reduced infrastructure costs from improving building energy efficiency

Meeting Australia's energy needs sustainably will be a major challenge for the next decade. Electricity consumption is forecast to increase by over 20 percent in the next 10 years, while peak electrical demand is increasing even more rapidly, with almost 30 percent growth forecast from 2010 to 2020. Natural gas consumption is forecast to rise by almost 50 percent and gas peak demand is set to increase by around 40 percent by 2020. An unprecedented level of energy sector capital expenditure has been proposed to meet this growth in total and peak demand. Over $46 billion in electricity network infrastructure alone is planned over just the next five years. Electricity generation and gas infrastructure will add significantly to this figure. This unprecedented expenditure is resulting in dramatic increases in consumer energy tariff

Defining the Newborn Blood Spot Screening Reference Interval for TSH: Impact of Ethnicity

CONTEXT: There is variability in the congenital hypothyroidism (CH) newborn screening TSH cutoff across the United Kingdom. OBJECTIVE: To determine the influences of year, gender, and ethnicity on screening variability and examine whether there is an optimal operational TSH cutoff. DESIGN AND SETTING: Single center, retrospective population study using blood spot TSH cards received by the Great Ormond Street Hospital Screening Laboratory between 2006 and 2012. PATIENTS: A total of 824 588 newborn screening blood spot TSH cards. INTERVENTION: Blood spot TSH results were recorded with demographic data including the Ethnic Category Code. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The proportions of samples exceeding different TSH cutoffs, ranked by ethnicity. RESULTS: The proportion of samples exceeding the TSH cutoff increased over time, with the cutoff at 4 mU/L, but not at 6 mU/L. There was a consistent trend with ethnicity, irrespective of cutoff, with the odds ratio of exceeding the TSH cutoff lowest (∼1.0) in White babies, higher in Pakistani and Bangladeshi (>2.0), and highest in Chinese (>3.5). CONCLUSIONS: The blood spot TSH screening data demonstrate a clear ranking according to ethnicity for differences in mean TSH. This suggests that there may be ethnic differences in thyroid physiology. Ethnic diversity within populations needs to be considered when establishing and interpreting screening TSH cutoffs

Smart Grid, Smart City, Customer Research Report

Prepared by the UTS: Institute for Sustainable Futures as part of the AEFI consortium for Ausgrid and EnergyAustrali

Sesame ( Sesamum indicum

Studies were conducted during the 2007 and 2008 growing seasons under weed-free conditions in South Texas and the High Plains region of Texas to evaluate preemergence herbicides for sesame tolerance. No reduction in sesame stand was noted with any herbicide at south Texas location; however, at the High Plains location, linuron at the 2X rate reduced stand counts 28 days after treatment (DAT) in 2007 and diuron reduced sesame stand 147 DAT in 2008 when compared with the untreated check. At the 1/2X rate all herbicides exhibited minimal stunting while at the 1X rate stunting was variable and varied between locations. At the 2X rate, all herbicides caused sesame stunting compared to the untreated check. No herbicide, with the exception of linuron at the 2X rate in 2008 at the High Plains location, reduced sesame yield when compared with the untreated check. Although some herbicide treatments resulted in sesame stunting, this did not result in any yield reductions and this can be attributed to the ability of the sesame plant to compensate for injury and/or reduced stands

Public Service Markets: Their Economics, Oversight and Regulation

This paper has three aims. Firstly, it aims to show that the language of markets can help to frame arguments about how effectively public services are achieving their intended outcomes. Using ‘market’ language and concepts may not always be comfortable for those from a traditional policy-making background. This paper suggests that thinking in these terms can nevertheless be very useful when designing investigations of the effectiveness of public services, whenever those services entail a degree of personalisation or user choice – as is currently the case, for example, in large parts of health, social care and education in England. Secondly, the paper aims to show that public service markets (public services that involve choice on the part of service users) differ quite fundamentally from private markets. Hence the conditions for the success, or failure, of public service markets to achieve public policy intentions may be different from the conditions that are necessary to foster successful (well functioning) markets in the private sector. Although there are analogies between private and public markets, some of which are discussed, the introduction of ‘market mechanisms’ into public service provision does not necessarily mean that the public service markets thus created will behave like private markets, or that policy intentions will be achieved simply by ‘leaving it to the market’. This, of course, has implications for how public service markets are overseen, managed, and regulated. In particular, the nature of the ‘goods’ that are ‘traded’ in public service markets is often very different from those in many private markets. This paper argues that not only are public services typically merit goods (characterised by positive externalities in their consumption), but that there is an important distinction between ‘choice’ merit goods, such as education or social care, and ‘compulsory’ merit goods, such as probation services or welfare-to-work programmes. Choice merit goods could in principle be provided through vouchers or direct payments to users, although doing so would not necessarily achieve other policy objectives such as universality or equity, even if all conditions were in place for the public market to operate efficiently (in practice, this latter requirement is also unlikely to be met). There may also be conflicts between how service users actually make choices, and how the state would ‘like’ them to (for example, hospital patients may value proximity of the hospital to their home more highly than its results on clinical performance measures). The ‘users’ of compulsory merit goods, on the other hand, may not wish to consume them, but it may be welfare-enhancing for society to coerce them to do so. The commissioning or direct provision by the state of such goods may meet public policy objectives more effectively than the market mechanism alone, as users are not able to internalise the full social benefits of their actions. Finally, building on these foundations, the paper discusses when public service markets are likely to be an effective method of achieving public policy objectives, and when they may not be. Issues that arise frequently in public service markets are discussed, such as principal-agent relationships; determining the quality of complex experience goods; the existence of local or regional monopolies of provision, and monopsonies of funding; the operation of competition law in the public sector; and how to deal with provider failure. The paper concludes with some suggestions for what this all means for those charged with overseeing public service markets in practice, based both on the preceding considerations, and on empirical evidence and experience to date

Characterization of Pulmonary Metastases in Children With Hepatoblastoma Treated on Children\u27s Oncology Group Protocol AHEP0731 (The Treatment of Children With All Stages of Hepatoblastoma): A Report From the Children\u27s Oncology Group.

Purpose To determine whether the pattern of lung nodules in children with metastatic hepatoblastoma (HB) correlates with outcome. Methods Thirty-two patients with metastatic HB were enrolled on Children\u27s Oncology Group Protocol AHEP0731 and treated with vincristine and irinotecan (VI). Responders to VI received two additional cycles of VI intermixed with six cycles of cisplatin/fluorouracil/vincristine/doxorubicin (C5VD), and nonresponders received six cycles of C5VD alone. Patients were imaged after every two cycles and at the conclusion of therapy. All computed tomography scans and pathology reports were centrally reviewed, and information was collected regarding lung nodule number, size, laterality, timing of resolution, and pulmonary surgery. Results Among the 29 evaluable patients, only 31% met Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) for measurable metastatic disease. The presence of measurable disease by RECIST, the sum of nodule diameters greater than or equal to the cumulative cohort median size, bilateral disease, and ≥ 10 nodules were each associated with an increased risk for an event-free survival event ( P = .48, P = .08, P = .065, P = .03, respectively), with nodule number meeting statistical significance. Ten patients underwent pulmonary resection/metastasectomy at various time points, the benefit of which could not be determined because of small patient numbers. Conclusion Children with metastatic HB have a poor prognosis. Overall tumor burden may be an important prognostic factor for these patients. Lesions that fail to meet RECIST size criteria (ie, those \u3c 10 mm) at diagnosis may contain viable tumor, whereas residual lesions at the end of therapy may constitute eradicated tumor/scar tissue. Patients may benefit from risk stratification on the basis of the burden of lung metastatic disease at diagnosis

Proposal for the determination of nuclear masses by high-precision spectroscopy of Rydberg states

The theoretical treatment of Rydberg states in one-electron ions is facilitated by the virtual absence of the nuclear-size correction, and fundamental constants like the Rydberg constant may be in the reach of planned high-precision spectroscopic experiments. The dominant nuclear effect that shifts transition energies among Rydberg states therefore is due to the nuclear mass. As a consequence, spectroscopic measurements of Rydberg transitions can be used in order to precisely deduce nuclear masses. A possible application of this approach to the hydrogen and deuterium, and hydrogen-like lithium and carbon is explored in detail. In order to complete the analysis, numerical and analytic calculations of the quantum electrodynamic (QED) self-energy remainder function for states with principal quantum number n=5,...,8 and with angular momentum L=n-1 and L=n-2 are described (j = L +/- 1/2).Comment: 21 pages; LaTe