The Arbitration Profession in Transition: A Survey of the National Academy of Arbitrators

[From the Foreward]: That the experience, talents, and integrity of the members of the National Academy of Arbitrators are called on to resolve disputes beyond collective bargaining is not surprising. But The Arbitration Profession in Transition shows that this process is far more widespread, and is accelerating, beyond what most of us had speculated. The study provides the baseline for the new century as to the role of Academy members in the expanding use of ADR in employment and in conflicts concerning statutory rights. It is also a remarkable census of who the Academy is, notable for the extraordinarily high participation and cooperation of those studied. It has been compiled with dedication, care, and skill. It is more than a snapshot of a profession; it is an image worthy of contemplation as the Academy, and the users of arbitration and mediation, continue their quest for fairness and equity in the workplace. John Kagel, President –elect, National Academy of Arbitrators, June 1, 2000

The Arbitration Profession in Transition: Final Report to the National Academy of Arbitrators

[Excerpt] In recent years there has been a dramatic increase in the arbitration and mediation of employment disputes outside the collective bargaining context. This increase has been part of a larger shift from reliance on litigation and enforcement agency resolution of disputes to the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), a trend particularly evident in the employment field. Over the course of several decades employees have gained a long list of rights and protections included in a variety of laws, ranging from anti-discrimination statutes to pension safeguards to statutory attempts to guarantee safer and healthier workplaces. The growing use of arbitration, mediation, and related techniques to resolve statutory claims arising in employment relations is in part the consequence of the high costs and long delays associated with the use of administrative agencies and the court system to resolve disputes. The unpredictability of jury awards has also prompted employers and employees to opt for ADR. The growing use of ADR in employment disputes has occurred both inside and outside collective bargaining. In some union workplaces, the parties attempt to resolve statutory claims using the grievance and arbitration procedures in the collective bargaining agreement. In others, many, if not most, statutory claims are handled outside the collective bargaining arena, with employees pursuing their claims through the normal channels of agency and judicial resolution. In a minority but growing number of union-management relationships, the parties have created procedures for resolving statutory claims that are separate or “sheltered” from the collective bargaining agreement (Dunlop and Zack, 1997, particularly pp. 53–72; see also Zack, 1999, pp. 67–94). The growing use of arbitration and mediation to resolve employment disputes has been especially noteworthy in the nonunion sector. In the United States, as most people know, the proportion of the workforce that is unionized has been steadily declining for over forty years and currently stands at about 14 percent. Although the membership in the Canadian labor movement has not suffered as steep a decline, a similar trend is apparent there. As in organized workplaces, the growth of employment ADR in the nonunion sector is one consequence of employers’ attempts to avoid the high costs and long delays of the judicial and administrative routes. Of course, some nonunion employers are also motivated by a desire to provide their employees with fair and equitable dispute resolution procedures (Bingham and Chachere, 1999, pp. 95–135)

The Arbitration Profession in Transition: Preliminary Results From a Survey of the National Academy of Arbitrators

[Excerpt} In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the arbitration and mediation of employment-related disputes. This increase has been part of a larger shift from reliance on litigation and agency resolution of disputes to the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR), a trend particularly evident in the employment field. Over the course of several decades employees have been granted a long list of rights and protections included in a variety of laws, ranging from antidiscrimination statutes to pension safeguards to statutory attempts to guarantee safer and healthier workplaces. The growing use of arbitration, mediation, and related techniques to resolve statutory claims arising in employment relations is largely the consequence of the high costs and long delays associated with the use of administrative agencies and the court system to resolve disputes arising under these various statutes. The growing use of ADR in employment disputes has occurred both inside and outside collective bargaining. In some union workplaces, the parties attempt to resolve statutory claims using the grievance and arbitration procedures in their collective bargaining agreements. In other union workplaces, many, if not most, statutory claims are handled outside the collective bargaining arena. Employees in many such organizations pursue their statutory claims through the normal channels of agency and judicial resolution. In a minority but growing number of union-management relationships, the parties have created procedures for resolving statutory claims that are separate or sheltered from the collective bargaining agreement. The growing use of arbitration and mediation to resolve employment disputes has been especially noteworthy in the nonunion sector. In the United States, as most people know, the proportion of the work force that is unionized has been steadily declining for over 40 years and currently stands at about 14 percent. Although the Canadian labor movement has not suffered as steep a decline as in the United States, a similar trend is apparent there. The growth of employment ADR in the nonunion sector is largely the consequence of employer attempts to avoid the high costs and long delays associated with the use of judicial and administrative means to resolve disputes. Of course, some nonunion employers are also motivated by a desire to provide their employees with fair and equitable dispute resolution procedures

Cystic fibrosis remodels the regulation of purinergic signaling by NTPDase1 (CD39) and NTPDase3

Airway defenses are regulated by a complex purinergic signaling network located on the epithelial surfaces, where ATP stimulates the clearance of mucin and pathogens. The present study shows that the obstructive disease cystic fibrosis (CF) affects the activity, expression, and tissue distribution of two ectonucleotidases found critical for the regulation of ATP on airway surfaces: NTPDase1 and NTPDase3. Functional polarities and mRNA expression levels were determined on primary cultures of human bronchial epithelial (HBE) cells from healthy donors and CF patients. The in vitro model of the disease was completed by exposing CF HBE cultures for 4 days to supernatant of the mucopurulent material (SMM) collected from the airways of CF patients. We report that NTPDase1 and NTPDase3 are coexpressed on HBE cultures, where they regulate physiological and excess nucleotide concentrations, respectively. In aseptic conditions, CF epithelia exhibit >50% lower NTPDase1 activity, protein, and mRNA levels than normal epithelia, whereas these parameters are threefold higher for NTPDase3. Exposure to SMM induced opposite polarity shifts of the two NTPDases on both normal and CF epithelia, apical NTPDase1 being mobilized to basolateral surfaces and bilateral NTPDase3 to the apical surface. Their immunolocalization in human tissue revealed that NTPDase1 is expressed in epithelial, inflammatory, and endothelial cells, whereas NTPDase3 is restricted to epithelial cells. Furthermore, the SMM-exposed CF HBE cultures reproduced the impact of the disease on their in vivo distribution. This study provides evidence that an extensive remodeling of the enzymatic network regulating clearance occurs in the airways of CF patients

Power Transformers OLTC Condition Monitoring Based on Feature Extraction from Vibro-Acoustic Signals: Main Peaks and Euclidean Distance

The detection of On-Load Tap-Changer (OLTC) faults at an early stage plays a significant role in the maintenance of power transformers, which is the most strategic component of the power network substations. Among the OLTC fault detection methods, vibro-acoustic signal analysis is known as a performant approach with the ability to detect many faults of different types. Extracting the characteristic features from the measured vibro-acoustic signal envelopes is a promising approach to precisely diagnose OLTC faults. The present research work is focused on developing a methodology to detect, locate, and track changes in on-line monitored vibro-acoustic signal envelopes based on the main peaks extraction and Euclidean distance analysis. OLTC monitoring systems have been installed on power transformers in services which allowed the recording of a rich dataset of vibro-acoustic signal envelopes in real time. The proposed approach was applied on six different datasets and a detailed analysis is reported. The results demonstrate the capability of the proposed approach in recognizing, following, and localizing the faults that cause changes in the vibro-acoustic signal envelopes over time

Rab Interacting Molecules 2 and 3 Directly Interact with the Pore-Forming CaV1.3 Ca2+ Channel Subunit and Promote Its Membrane Expression

Rab interacting molecules (RIMs) are multi-domain proteins that positively regulate the number of Ca2+ channels at the presynaptic active zone (AZ). Several molecular mechanisms have been demonstrated for RIM-binding to components of the presynaptic Ca2+ channel complex, the key signaling element at the AZ. Here, we report an interaction of the C2B domain of RIM2α and RIM3γ with the C-terminus of the pore-forming α–subunit of CaV1.3 channels (CaV1.3α1), which mediate stimulus-secretion coupling at the ribbon synapses of cochlear inner hair cells (IHCs). Co-expressing full-length RIM2α with a Ca2+ channel complex closely resembling that of IHCs (CaV1.3α1-CaVß2a) in HEK293 cells doubled the Ca2+-current and shifted the voltage-dependence of Ca2+ channel activation by approximately +3 mV. Co-expression of the short RIM isoform RIM3γ increased the CaV1.3α1-CaVß2a-mediated Ca2+-influx in HEK293 cells, but disruption of RIM3γ in mice left Ca2+-influx in IHCs and hearing intact. In conclusion, we propose that RIM2α and RIM3γ directly interact with the C-terminus of the pore-forming subunit of CaV1.3 Ca2+ channels and positively regulate their plasma membrane expression in HEK293 cells

Substrate preparation techniques for direct investigation by TEM of single wall carbon nanotubes grown by chemical vapor deposition

We have investigated and evaluated different TEM sample preparation techniques for studying carbon single-walled nanotube (C-SWNT) nucleation and growth, issued from CVD processes when the catalyst is supported on a substrate. This kind of study requires means to observe individual and isolated tubes. It implies using synthesis conditions able to produce only a low density of tubes and to thin the substrate to electron transparency, to observe the nanotubes and the catalytic particles from which they have grown in their native state. We have tested two approaches, depending if the substrate is thinned after or before the synthesis. The low tube density requirement led us to exclude all the techniques where the substrate is thinned to electron transparency after the synthesis. We have shown, that, with this last approach, all TEM preparation techniques dramatically suffer from a lack of control of thin areas with respect to the location of the tubes, which is unknown. However we have demonstrated that the suitable approach is to perform synthesis directly on transparent substrates presenting several holes. We have tested the capabilities and the potentialities of these supports for studying the size distribution and composition of the catalytic particles, the nucleation mode, the diameter and helicity of the tubes. These results are very promising and represent an important step for performing specific nanoscale TEM analyses necessary for the study of the growth mechanism of nanotubes on substrates. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Indexing of individual single-walled carbon nanotubes from Raman spectroscopy

From combined Raman spectroscopy and electron diffraction studies on several freestanding single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs), we define Raman criteria which correlate the main features of the Raman spectrum (radial breathing mode and G modes) and the optical transition energies with the structure of the SWNT under investigation. On this basis, we discuss the possibilities to determine the (n,m) indices of an individual SWNT from a single wavelength Raman experiment. We show the efficiency of this approach in assigning the (n,m) structure of different individual nanotubes including all types of achiral SWNTs. Finally, the limits and the accuracy of the method are discussed

Unveiling the Evolutions of Nanotube Diameter Distribution during the Growth of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes

In situ and ex situ Raman measurements were used to study the dynamics of the populations of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) during their catalytic growth by chemical vapor deposition. Our study reveals that the nanotube diameter distribution strongly evolves during SWCNT growth but in dissimilar ways depending on the growth conditions. We notably show that high selectivity can be obtained using short or moderate growth times. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy observations support that Ostwald ripening is the key process driving these seemingly contradictory results by regulating the size distribution and lifetime of the active catalyst particles. Ostwald ripening appears as the main termination mechanism for the smallest diameter tubes, whereas carbon poisoning dominates for the largest ones. By unveiling the key concept of dynamic competition between nanotube growth and catalyst ripening, we show that time can be used as an active parameter to control the growth selectivity of carbon nanotubes and other 1D systems