WorldWideScience

Sample records for integrity gainful employment

  1. Leading Gainful Employment Metric Reporting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Powers, Kristina; MacPherson, Derek

    2016-01-01

    This chapter will address the importance of intercampus involvement in reporting of gainful employment student-level data that will be used in the calculation of gainful employment metrics by the U.S. Department of Education. The authors will discuss why building relationships within the institution is critical for effective gainful employment…

  2. Employment, work hours and weight gain among middle-aged women.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Au, N; Hauck, K; Hollingsworth, B

    2013-05-01

    To investigate the influence of employment and work hours on weight gain and weight loss among middle-aged women. Quantile regression techniques were used to estimate the influence of employment and hours worked on percentage weight change over 2 years across the entire distribution of weight change in a cohort of middle-aged women. A range of controls was included in the models to isolate the effect of work status. A total of 9276 women aged 45-50 years at baseline who were present in both the 1996 and 1998 surveys of the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women's Health. The women were a representative sample of the Australian population. Being out of the labour force or unemployed was associated with lower weight gain and higher weight loss than being employed. The association was stronger at low to moderate levels of weight gain. Among employed women, working regular (35-40), long (41-48) or very long (49+) hours was associated with increasingly higher levels of weight gain compared with working part-time hours. The association was stronger for women with greater weight gain overall. The association between unemployment and weight change became insignificant when health status was controlled for. Employment was associated with more weight gain and less weight loss. Among the employed, working longer hours was associated with more weight gain, especially at the higher levels of weight gain where the health consequences are more serious. These findings suggest that as women work longer hours they are more likely to make lifestyle choices that are associated with weight gain.

  3. 75 FR 63763 - Program Integrity: Gainful Employment

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-18

    .... Name of individual who will be making the oral presentation on behalf of the commenter. E-mail address of the individual who will be making the oral presentation. If available, the number assigned to your... employment and this rulemaking are. To better understand parties' comments and have an opportunity to...

  4. 75 FR 66665 - Program Integrity: Gainful Employment-New Programs

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-10-29

    ..., requires the GAO to conduct a study and report on issues pertaining to the oral health of children... response to, an initiative by a governmental entity, such as the oral health program with the Federal... already understand the employment demands in their field. The commenters also believed that because...

  5. Productive Employment in Romania: A Major Challenge to the Integration into the European Union

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Emilia Herman

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available It is widely accepted that productive employment represents an essential element of inclusive economic growth, and it can be a driving force in reducing gaps between countries (especially experienced by productivity and income in order for these to integrate into the European Union. The aim of the article is to highlight the process of integration from the perspective of productive employment and its main determinants, in Romania, in the period following accession to the EU and integration into the European economic structures, the 2007-2014 period respectively. The results of this paper highlight a low level of productive employment in Romania determined mainly by low labour productivity, low wages, high vulnerable employment, high and inefficient employment in agriculture and a low level of employment in knowledge-intensive activities. The existence of large gaps, in terms of productive employment and economic development, between Romania and the developed EU countries, as well as the existence of the highest in-work poverty risk in EU emphasizes the need to accelerate productivity growth, which requires a real structural transformation, a shift from low-productivity sectors to high-productivity sectors. However, it is very important that poor workers should significantly benefit from the gains in labour productivity. The findings of this study can be useful for policy makers in order to support the improvement of productive employment so that productive employment contributes efficiently to the real integration of Romania into the EU.

  6. Combined Cycle Power Generation Employing Pressure Gain Combustion

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Holley, Adam [United Technologies Corporation, East Hartford, CT (United States). Research Center

    2017-05-15

    The Phase I program assessed the potential benefit of applying pressure gain combustion (PGC) technology to a natural gas combined cycle power plant. A conceptual design of the PGC integrated gas turbine was generated which was simulated in a detailed system modeling tool. The PGC integrated system was 1.93% more efficient, produced 3.09% more power, and reduced COE by 0.58%. Since the PGC system used had the same fuel flow rate as the baseline system, it also reduced CO2 emissions by 3.09%. The PGC system did produce more NOx than standard systems, but even with the performanceand cost penalties associated with the cleanup system it is better in every measure. This technology benefits all of DOE’s stated program goals to improve plant efficiency, reduce CO2 production, and reduce COE.

  7. Nuclear plants gain integrated information systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Villavicencio-Ramirez, A.; Rodriquez-Alvarez, J.M.

    1994-01-01

    With the objective of simplifying the complex mesh of computing devices employed within nuclear power plants, modern technology and integration techniques are being used to form centralized (but backed up) databases and distributed processing and display networks. Benefits are immediate as a result of the integration and the use of standards. The use of a unique data acquisition and database subsystem optimizes the high costs of engineering, as this task is done only once for the life span of the system. This also contributes towards a uniform user interface and allows for graceful expansion and maintenance. This article features an integrated information system, Sistema Integral de Informacion de Proceso (SIIP). The development of this system enabled the Laguna Verde Nuclear Power plant to fully use the already existing universe of signals and its related engineering during all plant conditions, namely, start up, normal operation, transient analysis, and emergency operation. Integrated systems offer many advantages over segregated systems, and this experience should benefit similar development efforts in other electric power utilities, not only for nuclear but also for other types of generating plants

  8. Are physiotherapy students adequately prepared to successfully gain employment?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Mandy; McIntyre, Judith; Naylor, Sandra

    2010-06-01

    To explore the preparedness of final-year physiotherapy students for their progression into employment, and identify what universities can do to facilitate a smooth transition. A single-cohort study, utilising a qualitative design incorporating a survey followed by transcribed and coded semi-structured interviews. Interviews were held in the Placement and Careers Centre at Brunel University, London. Sixty final-year full- and part-time students participated in the survey, and 12 final-year full- and part-time students participated in the semi-structured interviews. Sixty students completed a questionnaire which explored their preparedness for employment. Questions related to the current job situation, the application process and the student's ideal first post. Responses from the questionnaire were analysed and discussed further through a digitally recorded interview. Twelve students were interviewed by an experienced interviewer from a non-physiotherapy background. Students felt unprepared for employment. Forty-seven per cent wanted a rotational post, but 26% would only spend 6 months and 39% would only spend 1 year looking for a job. Seventy-one percent would change career and 99% would work abroad if they were unable to secure a post in the UK. Most importantly, students could not identify transferable skills required by potential employers; only 25% cited effective communications, and 10% cited flexible working as a transferable skill. Self-management skills (e.g. prioritisation, time management and documentation) were not perceived as essential for employment. The job market requires physiotherapy graduates to possess transferable skills which can be applied to any situation. Many are integral to the profession and the undergraduate curriculum; however, analysis and assimilation of these skills cannot be assumed. Universities should reflect on their curriculum delivery to produce graduates who meet employers' expectations and make a smooth transition into the

  9. Gain Scheduling of Observer-Based Controllers with Integral Action

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Trangbæk, Klaus; Stoustrup, Jakob; Bendtsen, Jan Dimon

    2006-01-01

     This paper presents a method for continuous gain scheduling of  observer-based controllers with integral action. Given two stabilising controllers for a given system, explicit state space formulae are presented, allowing to change gradually from one  controller to the other while preserving...

  10. Monolithically integrated quantum dot optical gain modulator with semiconductor optical amplifier for 10-Gb/s photonic transmission

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yamamoto, Naokatsu; Akahane, Kouichi; Umezawa, Toshimasa; Kawanishi, Tetsuya

    2015-03-01

    Short-range interconnection and/or data center networks require high capacity and a large number of channels in order to support numerous connections. Solutions employed to meet these requirements involve the use of alternative wavebands to increase the usable optical frequency range. We recently proposed the use of the T- and O-bands (Thousand band: 1000-1260 nm, Original band: 1260-1360 nm) as alternative wavebands because large optical frequency resources (>60 THz) can be easily employed. In addition, a simple and compact Gb/s-order high-speed optical modulator is a critical photonic device for short-range communications. Therefore, to develop an optical modulator that acts as a highfunctional photonic device, we focused on the use of self-assembled quantum dots (QDs) as a three-dimensional (3D) confined structure because QD structures are highly suitable for realizing broadband optical gain media in the T+O bands. In this study, we use the high-quality broadband QD optical gain to develop a monolithically integrated QD optical gain modulator (QD-OGM) device that has a semiconductor optical amplifier (QD-SOA) for Gb/s-order highspeed optical data generation in the 1.3-μm waveband. The insertion loss of the device can be compensated through the SOA, and we obtained an optical gain change of up to ~7 dB in the OGM section. Further, we successfully demonstrate a 10-Gb/s clear eye opening using the QD-OGM/SOA device with a clock-data recovery sequence at the receiver end. These results suggest that the monolithic QD-EOM/SOA is suitable for increasing the number of wavelength channels for smart short-range communications.

  11. The modulation of neural gain facilitates a transition between functional segregation and integration in the brain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shine, James M; Aburn, Matthew J; Breakspear, Michael; Poldrack, Russell A

    2018-01-29

    Cognitive function relies on a dynamic, context-sensitive balance between functional integration and segregation in the brain. Previous work has proposed that this balance is mediated by global fluctuations in neural gain by projections from ascending neuromodulatory nuclei. To test this hypothesis in silico, we studied the effects of neural gain on network dynamics in a model of large-scale neuronal dynamics. We found that increases in neural gain directed the network through an abrupt dynamical transition, leading to an integrated network topology that was maximal in frontoparietal 'rich club' regions. This gain-mediated transition was also associated with increased topological complexity, as well as increased variability in time-resolved topological structure, further highlighting the potential computational benefits of the gain-mediated network transition. These results support the hypothesis that neural gain modulation has the computational capacity to mediate the balance between integration and segregation in the brain. © 2018, Shine et al.

  12. National Call for Organizational Change from Sheltered to Integrated Employment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rogan, Patricia; Rinne, Susan

    2011-01-01

    Our purpose in this article is to contend that organizational change from sheltered to integrated employment is not only possible but necessary, and a federal Employment First agenda must be advanced. Findings are reported from interviews with senior managers from 10 organizations that have shifted their service delivery to community employment,…

  13. A differential low-voltage high gain current-mode integrated RF receiver front-end

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wang Chunhua; Ma Minglin; Sun Jingru; Du Sichun; Guo Xiaorong; He Haizhen, E-mail: wch1227164@sina.com [School of Information Science and Technology, Hunan University, Changsha 410082 (China)

    2011-02-15

    A differential low-voltage high gain current-mode integrated RF front end for an 802.11b WLAN is proposed. It contains a differential transconductance low noise amplifier (G{sub m}-LNA) and a differential current-mode down converted mixer. The single terminal of the G{sub m}-LNA contains just one MOS transistor, two capacitors and two inductors. The gate-source shunt capacitors, C{sub x1} and C{sub x2}, can not only reduce the effects of gate-source C{sub gs} on resonance frequency and input-matching impedance, but they also enable the gate inductance L{sub g1,2} to be selected at a very small value. The current-mode mixer is composed of four switched current mirrors. Adjusting the ratio of the drain channel sizes of the switched current mirrors can increase the gain of the mixer and accordingly increase the gain of RF receiver front-end. The RF front-end operates under 1 V supply voltage. The receiver RFIC was fabricated using a chartered 0.18 {mu}m CMOS process. The integrated RF receiver front-end has a measured power conversion gain of 17.48 dB and an input referred third-order intercept point (IIP3) of -7.02 dBm. The total noise figure is 4.5 dB and the power is only 14 mW by post-simulations. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  14. Integrated all optical transmodulator circuits with non-linear gain elements and tunable optical fibers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kuindersma, P.I.; Leijtens, X.J.M.; Zantvoort, van J.H.C.; Waardt, de H.

    2012-01-01

    We characterize integrated InP circuits for high speed ‘all-optical’ signal processing. Single chip circuits act as optical transistors. Transmodulation is performed by non-linear gain sections. Integrated tunable filters give signal equalization in time domain.

  15. Interviewing in Virtual Worlds: A Phenomenological Study Exploring the Success Factors of Job Applicants Utilizing Second Life to Gain Employment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koufoudakis-Whittington, Stefania

    2014-01-01

    This study explored the phenomenon of success factors of job applicants utilizing Second Life to gain employment. The study focused on identifying the perception of what qualified as a successful interview through the lived common experiences of 16 employment recruiters. The research problem was that a gap existed in scholarly research on…

  16. Perspectives on Employment Integration, Mental Illness and Disability, and Workplace Health

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Nene Ernest Khalema

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper reviews the literature on the interplay between employment integration and retention of individuals diagnosed with mental health and related disability (MHRD. Specifically, the paper addresses the importance of an integrative approach, utilizing a social epidemiological approach to assess various factors that are related to the employment integration of individuals diagnosed with severe mental illness. Our approach to the review incorporates a research methodology that is multilayered, mixed, and contextual. The review examines the literature that aims to unpack employers’ understanding of mental illness and their attitudes, beliefs, and practices about employing workers with mental illness. Additionally we offer a conceptual framework entrenched within the social determinants of the mental health (SDOMH literature as a way to contextualize the review conclusions. This approach contributes to a holistic understanding of workplace mental health conceptually and methodologically particularly as practitioners and policy makers alike are grappling with better ways to integrate employees who are diagnosed with mental health and disabilities into to the workplace.

  17. Using Multilayered Substrate Integrated Waveguide to Design Microwave Gain Equalizer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yongfei Wang

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents the design and experiment of a novel microwave gain equalizer based on the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW technique. The proposed equalizer is formed by an SIW loaded by SIW resonators, which has very compact structure and can compensate for gain slope of microwave systems. Equivalent circuit analysis is given about the proposed structure for a better insight into the structure’s response. A Ku-Band equalizer with four SIW resonators is simulated and fabricated with a multilayer printed circuit board process. The measured results show good performance and agreement with the simulated results; an attenuation slope of −4.5 dB over 12.5–13.5 GHz is reached with a size reduction of 76%.

  18. Workplace Integration: Key Considerations for Internationally Educated Nurses and Employers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zubeida Ramji

    2018-02-01

    Full Text Available Integration of internationally educated nurses (IENs in the workplace over the long term, has not been a clear focus in nursing. The role of the employer organization in facilitating workplace integration for IENs has also not been emphasized in research. The overall aim of this paper is to highlight findings from an instrumental qualitative case study research informed by critical social theory, which examined workplace integration of IENs. The study explored what is meant by ‘integration’ and how the employer organizational context affects workplace integration of IENs. A purposeful sample of twenty-eight participants was involved. The participants included: stakeholders from various vantage points within the case organization as well as IENs from diverse backgrounds who were beyond the process of transitioning into the Canadian workplace—they had worked in Canada for an average of eleven years. Four methods of data collection were used: semi-structured interviews; socio-demographic survey; review of documents; and focus group discussions (FGDs. Thematic analysis methods guided the within subcase analysis first, followed by an across subcase analysis. FGDs were used as a platform for member-checking to establish the credibility of study findings. The resulting definition and conceptual framework point to workplace integration of IENs as a two-way process requiring efforts on the part of the IENs as well as the employer organization. This paper elaborates on selected themes of how beyond transition, workplace integration entails IENs progressing on their leadership journey, while persevering to overcome challenges. Organizational factors such as workforce diversity, leadership commitment to equity and engagement with the broader community serve as critical enablers and the importance of workplaces striving to avoid common pitfalls in addressing the priority of IEN integration are also discussed. This paper concludes with implications and

  19. 75 FR 43615 - Program Integrity: Gainful Employment

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-26

    ... Colleges, Sharon Tanner (1st alternate), National League for Nursing Accreditation Commission, and Ralph..., has long played an important role in the nation's system of postsecondary education and training. Many...

  20. Supported Employment in Connecticut: An Examination of Integration and Wage Outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Helms, Barbara L.; And Others

    1991-01-01

    Study of a sample of 93 individuals with disabilities participating in supported employment programs in Connecticut found that monthly wages and levels of integration increased significantly when compared to working situations prior to supported employment placement. (JDD)

  1. Family Perspectives on Integrated Employment for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gilson, Carly B.; Carter, Erik W.; Bumble, Jennifer L.; McMillan, Elise D.

    2018-01-01

    Families are essential partners in efforts to elevate the employment outcomes of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). We examined the employment-related expectations, preferences, and concerns of 673 parents and other family members of adults with IDD. Participants prioritized paid integrated employment over sheltered…

  2. Workplace Integration: Key Considerations for Internationally Educated Nurses and Employers

    OpenAIRE

    Zubeida Ramji; Josephine Etowa

    2018-01-01

    Integration of internationally educated nurses (IENs) in the workplace over the long term, has not been a clear focus in nursing. The role of the employer organization in facilitating workplace integration for IENs has also not been emphasized in research. The overall aim of this paper is to highlight findings from an instrumental qualitative case study research informed by critical social theory, which examined workplace integration of IENs. The study explored what is meant by ‘integration’ ...

  3. Integrated Management of Migration, Employment, Fiscal Policy and Public Debt

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aleksandras Vytautas Rutkauskas

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The main idea of the paper states that national migration indicators are closely related with employment opportunities in that country. In addition, the management quality of migration and employment processes is an indicator of the national socio-economic policy competency, while management of these processes is the main purpose of intelligent adjustment of the national fiscal policy and government debt management. The author of the paper selected the formation of the system of quantitative indicators as the main objective of the paper. The system should allow employing government debt possibilities for the selection of proper fiscal policy in order to prevent the transformation of unemployment into the key reason of uncontrolled national inflation. This would be done by revealing the possibilities of fiscal policy to impact on the level and structure of unemployment. Recent globalisation processes and integration possibilities bring a lot of uncertainty to predetermined viability of theoretical assumptions as well as the adequacy of the applied quantitative methods. The paper uses the possibilities of stochastic optimisation and stochastically informed expertise pursuing the possibilities of integrated management of employment, migration processes, fiscal policy and government debt provisions.

  4. The experience of seeking, gaining and maintaining employment after traumatic spinal cord injury and the vocational pathways involved.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hilton, Gillean; Unsworth, Carolyn A; Stuckey, Ruth; Murphy, Gregory C

    2018-01-01

    Vocational potential in people with spinal cord injury (SCI) are unrealised with rates of employment substantially lower than in the labour force participation of the general population and the pre-injury employment rates. To understand the experience and pathway of people achieving employment outcome after traumatic spinal cord injury by; classifying participants into employment outcome groups of stable, unstable and without employment; identifying pre and post-injury pathways for participants in each group and, exploring the experiences of people of seeking, gaining and maintaining employment. Thirty-one participants were interviewed. Mixed methods approach including interpretive phenomenological analysis and vocational pathway mapping of quantitative data. The most common pathway identified was from study and work pre-injury to stable employment post-injury. Four super-ordinate themes were identified from the interpretive phenomenological analysis; expectations of work, system impacts, worker identity and social supports. Implications for clinical practice include fostering cultural change, strategies for system navigation, promotion of worker identity and optimal use of social supports. The findings increase insight and understanding of the complex experience of employment after spinal cord injury. There is opportunity to guide experimental research, policy development and education concerning the complexity of the return to work experience and factors that influence pathways.

  5. HIV/AIDS and Employment Research: A Need for an Integrative Approach

    Science.gov (United States)

    Conyers, Liza Marie

    2008-01-01

    This article provides a reflection on the three articles that compose the Major Contribution on HIV/AIDS and employment research. It highlights the merits of the contribution in the broader context of HIV/AIDS employment research and recommends future directions for this area of inquiry, including theory integration, an investigation of HIV health…

  6. Low-Gain, Low-Noise Integrated Neuronal Amplifier for Implantable Artifact-Reduction Recording System

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Abdelhamid Benazzouz

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available Brain neuroprostheses for neuromodulation are being designed to monitor the neural activity of the brain in the vicinity of the region being stimulated using a single macro-electrode. Using a single macro-electrode, recent neuromodulation studies show that recording systems with a low gain neuronal amplifier and successive amplifier stages can reduce or reject stimulation artifacts. These systems were made with off-the-shelf components that are not amendable for future implant design. A low-gain, low-noise integrated neuronal amplifier (NA with the capability of recording local field potentials (LFP and spike activity is presented. In vitro and in vivo characterizations of the tissue/electrode interface, with equivalent impedance as an electrical model for recording in the LFP band using macro-electrodes for rodents, contribute to the NA design constraints. The NA occupies 0.15 mm2 and dissipates 6.73 µW, and was fabricated using a 0.35 µm CMOS process. Test-bench validation indicates that the NA provides a mid-band gain of 20 dB and achieves a low input-referred noise of 4 µVRMS. Ability of the NA to perform spike recording in test-bench experiments is presented. Additionally, an awake and freely moving rodent setup was used to illustrate the integrated NA ability to record LFPs, paving the pathway for future implantable systems for neuromodulation.

  7. Employer-driven consumerism: integrating health into the business model.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thompson, Michael; Checkley, Joseph

    2006-01-01

    Consumer-driven health care is a misnomer. Notwithstanding the enormous role the individual consumer has to play in reshaping the U.S. health care delivery system, this article will focus on the employer as the key driver of change and innovation in the consumerism revolution. American Standard provides a case study of how one major employer has evaluated health care in the context of its business and aggressively integrated consumerism and health into the core of its business. Other companies will appropriately execute consumerism strategies in a fashion consistent with their own needs, culture, resources and populations. However, the principles supporting those strategies will be very much consistent.

  8. Gains from an integrated market for tradable renewable energy credits

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mozumder, Pallab; Marathe, Achla

    2004-01-01

    Decoupling the environmental attributes of renewable energy (RE) generation from the physical unit of energy is an innovative mechanism for marketing green or renewable power. The introduction of 'Tradable Renewable Energy Credits' (TRECs) allows the green power attributes of energy to be sold or traded separately from the physical unit of energy. Since the green power certificate system removes potential locational and physical bottlenecks, both suppliers and consumers gain flexibility in the marketplace. The TREC is also an efficient tool to meet 'Renewable Portfolio Standard' (RPS) required by different states in the US. This paper discusses the RPS requirements for different states and examines the implications of an integrated TREC market. It offers a competitive setting to the consumers to pay for renewable energy and a cost effective tool to support renewable energy generation [Grace and Wiser, 2002]. This paper also highlights some practical difficulties that should be addressed in order to establish an efficient integrated TREC market

  9. High Gain Antenna System Deployment Mechanism Integration, Characterization, and Lessons Learned

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parong, Fil; Russell, Blair; Garcen, Walter; Rose, Chris; Johnson, Chris; Huber, Craig

    2014-01-01

    The integration and deployment testing of the High Gain Antenna System for the Global Precipitation Measurement mission is summarized. The HGAS deployment mechanism is described. The gravity negation system configuration and its influence on vertical, ground-based, deployment tests are presented with test data and model predictions. A focus is made on the late discovery and resolution of a potentially mission degrading deployment interference condition. The interaction of the flight deployment mechanism, gravity negation mechanism, and use of dynamic modeling is described and lessons learned presented.

  10. The Effects of Working at Gaining Employment Skills on the Social and Vocational Skills of Adolescents with Disabilities: A School-Based Intervention

    Science.gov (United States)

    Murray, Christopher; Doren, Bonnie

    2013-01-01

    The current investigation was designed to evaluate the effects of the Working at Gaining Employment Skills (WAGES) curriculum on the social and occupational skills of adolescents with disabilities. Adolescents with disabilities were assigned to either an intervention or control condition. Youth in the intervention group were exposed to the WAGES…

  11. Employability Skill Development in Work-Integrated Learning: Barriers and Best Practice

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Denise

    2015-01-01

    Work-integrated learning (WIL) is widely considered instrumental in equipping new graduates with the required employability skills to function effectively in the work environment. Evaluation of WIL programs in enhancing skill development remains predominantly outcomes-focused with little attention to the process of what, how and from whom students…

  12. Product Market Integration, Comparative Advantages and Labour Market Performance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Torben M.; Rose Skaksen, Jan

    2004-01-01

    of the specialization gains are similar to anincrease in labour productivity, whereas the labour market reform effectis similar to an increase in the degree of competition in the labourmarket. Wages, employment and welfare increase as a result of furtherproduct market integration. It is interesting to note......In this paper, we set up a two-country general equilibrium modelwhere trade unions have wage bargaining power. We show that adecrease in trade distortions inducing further product market integrationgives rise to specialization gains as well as a labour market reformeffect. The implications...... that the labourmarket reform effect of product market integration is achieved despitean increase in the wage level.JEL Classification: F15, J30, J50.Keywords: Trade frictions, wage formation, employment, welfaregains....

  13. Audiovisual integration in depth: multisensory binding and gain as a function of distance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Noel, Jean-Paul; Modi, Kahan; Wallace, Mark T; Van der Stoep, Nathan

    2018-07-01

    The integration of information across sensory modalities is dependent on the spatiotemporal characteristics of the stimuli that are paired. Despite large variation in the distance over which events occur in our environment, relatively little is known regarding how stimulus-observer distance affects multisensory integration. Prior work has suggested that exteroceptive stimuli are integrated over larger temporal intervals in near relative to far space, and that larger multisensory facilitations are evident in far relative to near space. Here, we sought to examine the interrelationship between these previously established distance-related features of multisensory processing. Participants performed an audiovisual simultaneity judgment and redundant target task in near and far space, while audiovisual stimuli were presented at a range of temporal delays (i.e., stimulus onset asynchronies). In line with the previous findings, temporal acuity was poorer in near relative to far space. Furthermore, reaction time to asynchronously presented audiovisual targets suggested a temporal window for fast detection-a range of stimuli asynchronies that was also larger in near as compared to far space. However, the range of reaction times over which multisensory response enhancement was observed was limited to a restricted range of relatively small (i.e., 150 ms) asynchronies, and did not differ significantly between near and far space. Furthermore, for synchronous presentations, these distance-related (i.e., near vs. far) modulations in temporal acuity and multisensory gain correlated negatively at an individual subject level. Thus, the findings support the conclusion that multisensory temporal binding and gain are asymmetrically modulated as a function of distance from the observer, and specifies that this relationship is specific for temporally synchronous audiovisual stimulus presentations.

  14. Employability Skills Valued by Employers as Important for Entry-Level Employees with and without Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ju, Song; Zhang, Dalun; Pacha, Jacqueline

    2012-01-01

    Individuals with disabilities face persistent challenges in gaining meaningful employment. One of the barriers to successful employment is a lack of employability skills. The purpose of this study was to identify employability skills that employers value as being important and to examine whether employers have different expectations for…

  15. 76 FR 34385 - Program Integrity: Gainful Employment-Debt Measures

    Science.gov (United States)

    2011-06-13

    ... bachelor's and master's degree programs, and 20 years for programs that lead to a doctoral or first...-risk and underserved populations of students; and limit the growth of, and innovation in, new programs... and to society in general, nor that they would represent a poor financial risk. Sen. Rep. No. 758...

  16. Productivity Gains from Training: The Views of Employers and Stakeholders

    Science.gov (United States)

    Menon, Maria Eliophotou

    2013-01-01

    The paper investigates the views of employers and stakeholders in Cyprus regarding the effect of training on productivity in their organisation. Qualitative research was used to collect information from 26 individuals who represented different types of employers (public sector institutions, semi-government institutions, small and large private…

  17. Air pollution policies in Europe: efficiency gains from integrating climate effects with damage costs to health and crops

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tollefsen, Petter; Rypdal, Kristin; Torvanger, Asbjorn; Rive, Nathan

    2009-01-01

    Emissions of air pollutants cause damage to health and crops, but several air pollutants also have an effect on climate through radiative forcing. We investigate efficiency gains achieved by integrating climate impacts of air pollutants into air quality strategies for the EU region. The pollutants included in this study are SO 2 , NH 3 , VOC, CO, NO x , black carbon, organic carbon, PM 2.5 , and CH 4 . We illustrate the relative importance of climate change effects compared to damage to health and crops, as well as monetary gains of including climate change contributions. The analysis considers marginal abatement costs and compares air quality and climate damage in Euros. We optimize abatement policies with respect to both climate and health impacts, which imply implementing all measures that yield a net benefit. The efficiency gains of the integrated policy are in the order of 2.5 billion Euros, compared to optimal abatement based on health and crop damage only, justifying increased abatement efforts of close to 50%. Climate effect of methane is the single most important factor. If climate change is considered on a 20- instead of a 100-year time-scale, the efficiency gain almost doubles. Our results indicate that air pollution policies should be supplemented with climate damage considerations.

  18. Problems in education, employment and social integration of hard of hearing artists

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radić-Šestić Marina

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this research was to determine the problems in education (primary, secondary and undergraduate academic studies, employment and social integration of hard of hearing artists based on a multiple case study. The sample consisted of 4 examinees of both genders, aged between 29 and 54, from the field of visual arts (a painter, a sculptor, a graphic designer, and an interior designer. The structured interview consisted of 30 questions testing three areas: the first area involved family, primary and secondary education; the second area was about the length of studying and socio-emotional problems of the examinees; the third area dealt with problems in employment and job satisfaction of our examinees. Research results indicate the existence of several problems which more or less reflect the success in education, employment and social integration of hard of hearing artists. One of the problems which can influence the development of language abilities, socioemotional maturity, and better educational achievement of hard of hearing artists in general, is prolongation in diagnosing hearing impairments, amplification and auditory rehabilitation. Furthermore, parents of hard of hearing artists have difficulties in adjusting to their children's hearing impairments and ignore the language and culture of the Deaf, i.e. they tend to identify their children with typically developing population. Another problem are negative attitudes of teachers/professors/employers and typically developing peers/ colleagues towards the inclusion of hard of hearing people into the regular education/employment system. Apart from that, unmodified instruction, course books, information, school and working area further complicate the acquisition of knowledge, information, and the progress of hard of hearing people in education and profession.

  19. Gesundes Kinzigtal Integrated Care: improving population health by a shared health gain approach and a shared savings contract

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. Hildebrandt

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Integrated care solutions need supportive financial incentives. In this paper we describe the financial architecture and operative details of the integrated pilot Gesundes Kinzigtal.Description of integrated care case: Located in Southwest Germany, Gesundes Kinzigtal is one of the few population-based integrated care approaches in Germany, organising care across all health service sectors and indications. The system serving around half of the population of the region is run by a regional health management company (Gesundes Kinzigtal GmbH in coope­ration with the physicians' network in the region (MQNK, a German health care management company with a background in medical sociology and health economics (OptiMedis AG and with two statutory health insurers (among them is the biggest health insurer in Southwest Germany: AOK Baden-Württemberg.Discussion and (preliminary conclusion: The shared savings contract between Gesundes Kinzigtal GmbH and the two health insurers, providing financial incentives for managers and health care providers to realize a sub­stantial efficiency gain, could be an appropriate contractual base of Gesundes Kinzigtal's population health gain approach. This approach is based on the assumption that a more effective trans-sector organisation of Germany's health care system and increased investments in well-designed preventive programmes will lead to a reduction in  morbidity, and in particular to a reduced incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases. This, in turn, is to lead to a comparative reduction in health care cost. Although the comparative cost in the Kinzigtal region has been reduced from the onset of Gesundes Kinzigtal Integrated Care, only future research will have to demonstrate whether - and to what extent - cost reduction may be attributed to a real population health gain.

  20. Gesundes Kinzigtal Integrated Care: improving population health by a shared health gain approach and a shared savings contract

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    H. Hildebrandt

    2010-06-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Integrated care solutions need supportive financial incentives. In this paper we describe the financial architecture and operative details of the integrated pilot 'Gesundes Kinzigtal'. Description of integrated care case: Located in Southwest Germany, 'Gesundes Kinzigtal' is one of the few population-based integrated care approaches in Germany, organising care across all health service sectors and indications. The system serving around half of the population of the region is run by a regional health management company (Gesundes Kinzigtal GmbH in coope­ration with the physicians' network in the region (MQNK, a German health care management company with a background in medical sociology and health economics (OptiMedis AG and with two statutory health insurers (among them is the biggest health insurer in Southwest Germany: AOK Baden-Württemberg. Discussion and (preliminary conclusion: The shared savings contract between Gesundes Kinzigtal GmbH and the two health insurers, providing financial incentives for managers and health care providers to realize a sub­stantial efficiency gain, could be an appropriate contractual base of Gesundes Kinzigtal's population health gain approach. This approach is based on the assumption that a more effective trans-sector organisation of Germany's health care system and increased investments in well-designed preventive programmes will lead to a reduction in  morbidity, and in particular to a reduced incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases. This, in turn, is to lead to a comparative reduction in health care cost. Although the comparative cost in the Kinzigtal region has been reduced from the onset of Gesundes Kinzigtal Integrated Care, only future research will have to demonstrate whether - and to what extent - cost reduction may be attributed to a real population health gain.

  1. High speed gain coupled DFB laser diode integrated with MQW electroabsorption modulator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Myung Gyoo; Lee, Seung Won; Park, Seong Su; Oh, Dae Kon; Lee, Hee Tae; Kim, Hong man; Pyun, Kwang Eui

    1998-01-01

    We have demonstrated stable modulation characteristics of the gain coupled distributed feedback(GC-DFB) laser diode integrated with butt-coupled InGaAsP/InGaAsP strain compensated MQW(multiple-Quantum-well) modulator for high speed optical transmission. For this purpose, we have adopted the InGaAsP/InGaAsP strain compensated MQW structure for the EA modulator and n-doped InGaAs absorptive grating for DFB laser. The typical threshold current and slope efficiency were about 15 mA and 0.1 mW/mA, respectively. The extinction ratio of fabricated integrated device was about 15 dB at -2 V, and the small signal bandwidth was shown to be around 17GHz. We also found that the α parameter becomes negative at below a -0.6 V bias voltage. We transmitted 10 Gbps NRZ electrical signal over 90 km of standard single mode optical fiber (SMF). A clearly opened eye diagram was observed in the modulated output

  2. High speed gain coupled DFB laser diode integrated with MQW electroabsorption modulator

    CERN Document Server

    Kim, M G; Park, S S; Oh, D K; Lee, H T; Kim, H M; Pyun, K E

    1998-01-01

    We have demonstrated stable modulation characteristics of the gain coupled distributed feedback(GC-DFB) laser diode integrated with butt-coupled InGaAsP/InGaAsP strain compensated MQW(multiple-Quantum-well) modulator for high speed optical transmission. For this purpose, we have adopted the InGaAsP/InGaAsP strain compensated MQW structure for the EA modulator and n-doped InGaAs absorptive grating for DFB laser. The typical threshold current and slope efficiency were about 15 mA and 0.1 mW/mA, respectively. The extinction ratio of fabricated integrated device was about 15 dB at -2 V, and the small signal bandwidth was shown to be around 17GHz. We also found that the alpha parameter becomes negative at below a -0.6 V bias voltage. We transmitted 10 Gbps NRZ electrical signal over 90 km of standard single mode optical fiber (SMF). A clearly opened eye diagram was observed in the modulated output.

  3. Measurement of Antenna Bore-Sight Gain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fortinberry, Jarrod; Shumpert, Thomas H.

    2016-01-01

    The absolute or free-field gain of a simple antenna can be approximated using standard antenna theory formulae or for a more accurate prediction, numerical methods may be employed to solve for antenna parameters including gain. Both of these methods will result in relatively reasonable estimates but in practice antenna gain is usually verified and documented via measurements and calibration. In this paper, a relatively simple and low-cost, yet effective means of determining the bore-sight free-field gain of a VHF/UHF antenna is proposed by using the Brewster angle relationship.

  4. 20 CFR 404.1084 - Gain or loss from disposition of property; capital assets; timber, coal, and iron ore...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 20 Employees' Benefits 2 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Gain or loss from disposition of property...- ) Employment, Wages, Self-Employment, and Self-Employment Income Self-Employment Income § 404.1084 Gain or loss...-employment, exclude any gain or loss— (1) That is considered a gain or loss from the sale or exchange of a...

  5. Search for MH370: New Geologic Insights Gained from Integrating Multiple Geophysical Datasets

    Science.gov (United States)

    McBee, J.; Gharib, J. J.; Ingle, S.

    2017-12-01

    During the search for the missing flight MH370, Fugro acquired the largest extent of high resolution bathymetry in the southern Indian Ocean to date. These recently released multibeam echosounder (MBES) backscatter, bathymetry, water column, and sub-bottom profiler data reveal additional insights into the characteristics of the Indian Ocean seafloor and the geologic and oceanographic processes that shaped it. The mapping is at a sufficient resolution to examine relict spreading texture such as fracture zones, pseudofaults, failed propogating rifts, devals (deviations from axial linearity), etc. In this presentation, we will highlight several prominent regional seafloor features, and illustrate insights gained by integrating MBES backscatter and water column data with bathymetric analyses. Backscatter data to the north of the southern flank of Broken Ridge illustrate the complexity to which sediment has been reworked downslope where intricate patterns of low backscatter intensities are observed. Here, exposed rocks form prominent high backscatter reflectors amid the surrounding low backscatter sediments. The lateral extent of high backscatter intensity reflectors south of the Diamantina reveals the expansiveness of exposed igneous rocks that resulted from seafloor spreading. Volcanic features, including off-axis volcanoes and leaky transforms are also interpreted as high backscatter anomalies in the tectonic speading fabric to the north of the Geelvinck fracture zone, towards the southern extent of the dataset. These and other examples show that by integrating the entire suite of data collected by MBES systems, more detailed interpretations of the geologic processes that shaped the seafloor may be gained than by examination of bathymetry alone.

  6. Increasing Employability by Implementing a Work-Integrated Learning Partnership Model in South Africa--A Student Perspective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Taylor, Susanne; Govender, Cookie M.

    2017-01-01

    In South Africa, 70 per cent of the population is under 35 years old. South Africa has a vision to increase youth employment by focusing on education, training and skills development that will promote employment opportunities. A work-integrated learning (WIL) partnership model was developed to provide students with work experience and to increase…

  7. Engaging Employers in Workplace Training - Lessons from the English Train to Gain Programme

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mazenod, Anna

    2014-01-01

    Despite the ambition of an employer-led vocational education and training system, a lack of employer engagement in workplace training continues to be reported in England. There seems to be a mismatch between national policy level expectations of how employers should be engaging in workplace training and the practicalities of employer engagement at…

  8. THE EFFECTS OF FIXED-TERM EMPLOYMENT SPELLS ON THE INTEGRATION OF SCHOOL-LEAVERS ON THE LABOUR MARKET: EVIDENCE FROM FRANCE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oana Calavrezo

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we investigate the impact of fixed term employment spells (fixed-term contracts and temporary work on the integration on the labour market (translated by the transition to a permanent contract for French school-leavers. We study, at the same time, the impact of three categories of determinants on the schoolleavers' integration on the labour market: individual's features, a first fixed-term employment spell and a later fixed-term employment episode. More precisely, by taking into account the fixed-term employment spell duration, we identify four possible trajectories and we examine if fixed term employment is a "stepping-stone" to permanent employment. In order to control for possible endogeneity biases, trivariate probit models are implemented on a sample of 11 303 individuals obtained from the French "Generation 98" survey.

  9. Information Literacy and Employability

    OpenAIRE

    O'Keeffe, Colin

    2016-01-01

    Information Literacy (IL) and its relationship to third level graduates’ employability has gained more attention in recent years. This article examines how IL has evolved from skills initially associated with academic libraries into a key workplace skill set of the knowledge economy. It outlines the challenges interviewees encounter when selling IL to employers, how IL can be utilised when preparing for upcoming interviews and suggests a distinction between workplace IL and employability IL. ...

  10. Gain Enhanced LTCC System-on-Package for UMRR Applications

    KAUST Repository

    Shamim, Atif; Ghaffar, Farhan Abdul; Khalid, Muhammad Umair; Salama, Khaled N.

    2014-01-01

    An apparatus, system, and method for Gain Enhanced LTCC System-on-Package radar sensor. The sensor includes a substrate and an integrated circuit coupled to the substrate, where the integrated circuit is configured to transmit and receive radio frequency (RF) signals. An antenna may be coupled to the integrated circuit and a lens may be coupled to the antenna. The lens may be configured to enhance the gain of the sensor.

  11. Gain Enhanced LTCC System-on-Package for UMRR Applications

    KAUST Repository

    Shamim, Atif

    2014-10-14

    An apparatus, system, and method for Gain Enhanced LTCC System-on-Package radar sensor. The sensor includes a substrate and an integrated circuit coupled to the substrate, where the integrated circuit is configured to transmit and receive radio frequency (RF) signals. An antenna may be coupled to the integrated circuit and a lens may be coupled to the antenna. The lens may be configured to enhance the gain of the sensor.

  12. An output amplitude configurable wideband automatic gain control with high gain step accuracy

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    He Xiaofeng; Ye Tianchun; Mo Taishan; Ma Chengyan

    2012-01-01

    An output amplitude configurable wideband automatic gain control (AGC) with high gain step accuracy for the GNSS receiver is presented. The amplitude of an AGC is configurable in order to cooperate with baseband chips to achieve interference suppression and be compatible with different full range ADCs. And what's more, the gain-boosting technology is introduced and the circuit is improved to increase the step accuracy. A zero, which is composed by the source feedback resistance and the source capacity, is introduced to compensate for the pole. The AGC is fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process. The AGC shows a 62 dB gain control range by 1 dB each step with a gain error of less than 0.2 dB. The AGC provides 3 dB bandwidth larger than 80 MHz and the overall power consumption is less than 1.8 mA, and the die area is 800 × 300 μm 2 . (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  13. Improving graduation rates for African Americans in drug court: Importance of human relationships and barriers to gaining and sustaining employment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gallagher, John Robert; Nordberg, Anne; Dibley, Alyssa R

    2017-11-16

    Drug courts have been an important part of the criminal justice system since 1989. They continue to expand throughout the United States because nearly three decades of research has shown that they are more effective than other interventions, such as traditional probation. There is a pattern, though, in some drug courts where African Americans are less likely to graduate than their Caucasian counterparts. This qualitative study explores this phenomenon by asking African American participants (n = 31) their views on the most helpful aspects of drug court and how drug court could be more helpful in supporting them in graduating the program. Participants felt that the respect and compassion they received from the drug court judge and their case managers, as well as the camaraderie they developed with other participants, was an aspect of drug court that supported them in graduating the program. Next, participants felt that graduation rates would improve if drug court better supported them in gaining employment or sustaining the employment they already had. Implications for drug court practice are discussed.

  14. Gains of integrating sector-wise pollution regulation

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jacobsen, Lars Bo; Nielsen, Max; Nielsen, Rasmus

    2016-01-01

    This paper extends the Orani-G Computable General Equilibrium model with an externality market. The externality market is modelled with a limited number of pollution permits that are traded between representative firms in different sectors. The model is applied to identify the gains of a common...... of introducing more coherent regulatory frameworks that include all polluters under the same regulatory system....

  15. Seeking and securing work: Individual-level predictors of employment of psychiatric survivors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, Peter V; Montgomery, Phyllis; Davie, Samantha; Dickins, Kevin; Forchuk, Cheryl; Jeng, Momodou S; Kersey, Melissa; Meier, Amanda; Lahey, Pam; Rudnick, Abraham; Solomon, Michelle; Warner, Laura

    2015-01-01

    For people with mental illness (psychiatric survivors), seeking and securing employment involves personal, social, and environmental factors. In Canada, psychiatric survivors are under-represented in the workforce, and services can help by tailoring their supports to help make the most gains in employment. Determine whether individual socio-demographic and health factors predict seeking and securing employment among psychiatric survivors. A community sample of psychiatric survivors from a Southwestern Ontario region participated in this study. Stepwise logistic regression was used to analyze data from 363 participants who had completed a variety of questionnaires to ascertain individual characteristics and employment outcomes. Health service utilization, living circumstances, homelessness, substance use issues, general health, social integration, ethnicity, having children under 18, and being a student emerged as significant predictors of seeking and securing work. Other commonly accepted human capital indicators, such as education and age, were not predictive of employment search behavior and outcomes. Individual characteristics that predict employment search and success outcomes for psychiatric survivors include aspects related to treatment and living circumstances, which stands in contrast to predictors of employment for the general population, suggesting that employment support services may need to be tailored to psychiatric survivors specifically.

  16. Time-optimal control of nuclear reactor power with adaptive proportional- integral-feedforward gains

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Park, Moon Ghu; Cho, Nam Zin

    1993-01-01

    A time-optimal control method which consists of coarse and fine control stages is described here. During the coarse control stage, the maximum control effort (time-optimal) is used to direct the system toward the switching boundary which is set near the desired power level. At this boundary, the controller is switched to the fine control stage in which an adaptive proportional-integral-feedforward (PIF) controller is used to compensate for any unmodeled reactivity feedback effects. This fine control is also introduced to obtain a constructive method for determining the (adaptive) feedback gains against the sampling effect. The feedforward control term is included to suppress the over-or undershoot. The estimation and feedback of the temperature-induced reactivity is also discussed

  17. Multi-parameter Nonlinear Gain Correction of X-ray Transition Edge Sensors for the X-ray Integral Field Unit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cucchetti, E.; Eckart, M. E.; Peille, P.; Porter, F. S.; Pajot, F.; Pointecouteau, E.

    2018-04-01

    With its array of 3840 Transition Edge Sensors (TESs), the Athena X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) will provide spatially resolved high-resolution spectroscopy (2.5 eV up to 7 keV) from 0.2 to 12 keV, with an absolute energy scale accuracy of 0.4 eV. Slight changes in the TES operating environment can cause significant variations in its energy response function, which may result in systematic errors in the absolute energy scale. We plan to monitor such changes at pixel level via onboard X-ray calibration sources and correct the energy scale accordingly using a linear or quadratic interpolation of gain curves obtained during ground calibration. However, this may not be sufficient to meet the 0.4 eV accuracy required for the X-IFU. In this contribution, we introduce a new two-parameter gain correction technique, based on both the pulse-height estimate of a fiducial line and the baseline value of the pixels. Using gain functions that simulate ground calibration data, we show that this technique can accurately correct deviations in detector gain due to changes in TES operating conditions such as heat sink temperature, bias voltage, thermal radiation loading and linear amplifier gain. We also address potential optimisations of the onboard calibration source and compare the performance of this new technique with those previously used.

  18. Cost and quality gains from diversification and vertical integration in the electricity industry: A DEA approach

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Arocena, Pablo

    2008-01-01

    This paper analyzes the degree of economies of vertical integration, diversification and scale in the electricity industry by means of Data Envelopment Analysis. We estimate the impact that alternative forms of unbundling would have on the cost and quality of supply, measured as the number and duration of supply interruptions, in a group of Spanish electric utilities. We find evidence of the existence of cost and quality gains from integrating power generation and distribution in the range of 1.1 to 4.9%, whereas diversifying the source of power generation saves between 1.3 and 4.3% of costs and quality. Finally, the scale efficiency of the largest utilities could be improved by dividing them into smaller units, provided that their current vertical scope and generation-mix are preserved. (author)

  19. Cost and quality gains from diversification and vertical integration in the electricity industry: A DEA approach

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Arocena, Pablo [Universidad Publica de Navarra, Dpto. Gestion de Empresas, Campus de Arrosadia, 31006 Pamplona (Spain)

    2008-01-15

    This paper analyzes the degree of economies of vertical integration, diversification and scale in the electricity industry by means of Data Envelopment Analysis. We estimate the impact that alternative forms of unbundling would have on the cost and quality of supply, measured as the number and duration of supply interruptions, in a group of Spanish electric utilities. We find evidence of the existence of cost and quality gains from integrating power generation and distribution in the range of 1.1 to 4.9%, whereas diversifying the source of power generation saves between 1.3 and 4.3% of costs and quality. Finally, the scale efficiency of the largest utilities could be improved by dividing them into smaller units, provided that their current vertical scope and generation-mix are preserved. (author)

  20. An analytical method for PID controller tuning with specified gain and phase margins for integral plus time delay processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Wuhua; Xiao, Gaoxi; Li, Xiumin

    2011-04-01

    In this paper, an analytical method is proposed for proportional-integral/proportional-derivative/proportional-integral-derivative (PI/PD/PID) controller tuning with specified gain and phase margins (GPMs) for integral plus time delay (IPTD) processes. Explicit formulas are also obtained for estimating the GPMs resulting from given PI/PD/PID controllers. The proposed method indicates a general form of the PID parameters and unifies a large number of existing rules as PI/PD/PID controller tuning with various GPM specifications. The GPMs realized by existing PID tuning rules are computed and documented as a reference for control engineers to tune the PID controllers. Copyright © 2011 ISA. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Energy Gaining Windows for Residental Buildings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kragh, Jesper; Laustsen, Jacob Birck; Svendsen, Svend

    2008-01-01

    This paper presents some of the research done during the last 8 years at the Technical University of Denmark developing improved low-energy window solutions. The focus has been on maximizing the net energy gain of windows for residential buildings. The net energy gain of windows is the solar gain...... minus the heat loss integrated over the heating season. It is assumed that in northern cold climates all of the solar gain during the heating season can be utilized for space heating. Problems with overheating in the summer period must be solved with overhang or moveable solar shading devices. Two...... and longer durability of the window. The glazing in these fiber reinforced polyester windows is both unsealed and sealed triple glazing units. To increase the net energy gain slim frame profiles have been developed to increase the glazing area and thereby the solar gain. The challenge when developing slim...

  2. Demonstration of Millimeter Wave 5G Setup Employing High-Gain Vivaldi Array

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Waleed Tariq Sethi

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available We present a 4 × 4 slot-coupled Vivaldi antenna (SCVA array unit cell, which offers wide bandwidth and high gain (~23 dBi at the millimeter wave (mmW frequencies of 28 GHz and 38 GHz. A single SCVA element is first presented, which has a bandwidth of 25–40 GHz with an average gain of ~13 dBi at the frequencies of interest. This antenna element is then used to design a 1 × 4 linear SCVA array matched to a 50 Ω impedance via a modified Wilkinson power divider (WPD. Next, the 1 × 4 linear array is used to construct a 4 × 4 antenna array unit cell. The proposed 4 × 4 antenna array unit cell is fabricated, and the characteristics of its elements (i.e., the single SCVA, 1 × 4 linear array, and WPD are thoroughly investigated. Further, the 4 × 4 array is tested for signal reception of various digital modulation formats at lab environment using high-speed digital signal oscilloscope. In particular, a 2.5 Gbps data rate is successfully transmitted achieving receiver sensitivity of −50 dBm at 2 × 10−3 bit error rate (BER for 32 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM with a system baud rate of 500 MHz. The wide bandwidth and high gain along with the excellent performance of the proposed 4 × 4 antenna array unit cell makes it an excellent candidate for future 5G wireless communication applications.

  3. High linearity current communicating passive mixer employing a simple resistor bias

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu Rongjiang; Guo Guiliang; Yan Yuepeng

    2013-01-01

    A high linearity current communicating passive mixer including the mixing cell and transimpedance amplifier (TIA) is introduced. It employs the resistor in the TIA to reduce the source voltage and the gate voltage of the mixing cell. The optimum linearity and the maximum symmetric switching operation are obtained at the same time. The mixer is implemented in a 0.25 μm CMOS process. The test shows that it achieves an input third-order intercept point of 13.32 dBm, conversion gain of 5.52 dB, and a single sideband noise figure of 20 dB. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  4. Disability Employment 101

    Science.gov (United States)

    US Department of Education, 2007

    2007-01-01

    Business is about productivity and maintaining a competitive advantage. To do this, business needs qualified workers. Hiring people with disabilities adds value to a business and will attract new customers. Disability is not inability. Employers can make sound business decisions and gain a competitive advantage by using this guide to increase the…

  5. Work Values, Cognitive Strategies, and Applicant Reactions in a Structured Pre-Employment Interview for Ethical Integrity.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pawlowski, Donna R.; Hollwitz, John

    2000-01-01

    Notes that companies emphasize ethical behavior, and schools and professional groups devote many resources to applied ethics training. Describes initial construct validation of a structured ethical integrity pre-employment interview. Reviews evidence relating to cognitive and impression management strategies used when college students encounter an…

  6. Accelerating Genetic Gains in Legumes for the Development of Prosperous Smallholder Agriculture: Integrating Genomics, Phenotyping, Systems Modelling and Agronomy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Varshney, Rajeev K; Thudi, Mahendar; Pandey, Manish K; Tardieu, Francois; Ojiewo, Chris; Vadez, Vincent; Whitbread, Anthony M; Siddique, Kadambot H M; Nguyen, Henry T; Carberry, Peter S; Bergvinson, David

    2018-03-05

    Grain legumes form an important component of the human diet, feed for livestock and replenish soil fertility through biological nitrogen fixation. Globally, the demand for food legumes is increasing as they complement cereals in protein requirements and possess a high percentage of digestible protein. Climate change has enhanced the frequency and intensity of drought stress that is posing serious production constraints, especially in rainfed regions where most legumes are produced. Genetic improvement of legumes, like other crops, is mostly based on pedigree and performance-based selection over the last half century. For achieving faster genetic gains in legumes in rainfed conditions, this review article proposes the integration of modern genomics approaches, high throughput phenomics and simulation modelling as support for crop improvement that leads to improved varieties that perform with appropriate agronomy. Selection intensity, generation interval and improved operational efficiencies in breeding are expected to further enhance the genetic gain in experiment plots. Improved seed access to farmers, combined with appropriate agronomic packages in farmers' fields, will deliver higher genetic gains. Enhanced genetic gains including not only productivity but also nutritional and market traits will increase the profitability of farmers and the availability of affordable nutritious food especially in developing countries.

  7. Developing inclusive employment: lessons from Telenor Open Mind.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kalef, Laura; Barrera, Magda; Heymann, Jody

    2014-01-01

    Despite significant gains in legal rights for people with disabilities, the employment rate for individuals with disabilities in many countries remains extremely low. Programs to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in the workforce can have an important impact on individuals' economic and social prospects, as well as societal benefits. This article aims to explore Telenor Open Mind, a job training program at Norway's largest telecommunications company with financial support from Norway's Labor and Welfare Organization (NAV), which acts as a springboard for individuals with disabilities into the workplace. A qualitative case study design was utilized to explore the Telenor Open Mind Program. Drawing on field research conducted in Oslo during 2011, this article explores subjective experiences of individuals involved with the program, through interviews and program observations. Telenor Open Mind's two-year program is comprised of a three month training period, in which individuals participate in computer and self-development courses followed by a 21-month paid internship where participants gain hands-on experience. The program has an average 75% rate of employment upon completion and a high rate of participant satisfaction. Participation in the program led to increased self-confidence and social development. The company experienced benefits from greater workplace satisfaction and reductions in sick leave rates. The Telenor Open Mind program has provided benefits for participants, the company, and society as a whole. Participants gain training, work experience, and increased employability. Telenor gains dedicated and trained employees, in addition to reducing sick leave absences among all employees. Finally, society benefits from the Open Mind program as the individuals who gain employment become tax-payers, and no longer need to receive benefits from the government.

  8. Preventive effectiveness of pre-employment medical assessments

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    de Kort, W.; van Dijk, F.

    1997-01-01

    Health gain, prevention of health loss, and avoidance of financial risk all seem to be driving forces for the use of pre-employment medical assessment. An attempt is made to measure the effect of implementing the pre-employment medical assessment on these end points. The anticipated maximum

  9. Building Professionalism and Employability Skills: Embedding Employer Engagement within First-Year Computing Modules

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hanna, Philip; Allen, Angela; Kane, Russell; Anderson, Neil; McGowan, Aidan; Collins, Matthew; Hutchison, Malcolm

    2015-01-01

    This paper outlines a means of improving the employability skills of first-year university students through a closely integrated model of employer engagement within computer science modules. The outlined approach illustrates how employability skills, including communication, teamwork and time management skills, can be contextualised in a manner…

  10. Effect of Phase Change Materials (PCMs Integrated into a Concrete Block on Heat Gain Prevention in a Hot Climate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmad Hasan

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available In the current study, a phase change material (PCM contained in an insulated concrete block is tested in extremely hot weather in the United Arab Emirates (UAE to evaluate its cooling performance. An insulated chamber is constructed behind the block containing PCM to mimic a scaled down indoor space. The effect of placement of the PCM layer on heat gain indoors is studied at two locations: adjacent to the outer as well as the inner concrete layer. The inclusion of PCM reduced heat gain through concrete blocks compared to blocks without PCM, yielding a drop in cooling load indoors. The placement of PCM and insulation layers adjacent to indoors exhibited better cooling performance compared to that adjacent to the outdoors. In the best case, a temperature drop of 8.5% and a time lag of 2.6 h are achieved in peak indoor temperature, rendering a reduction of 44% in the heat gain. In the tested hot climate, the higher ambient temperature and the lower wind speed hampered heat dissipation and PCM re-solidification by natural ventilation. The findings recommend employing a mechanical ventilation in hot climates to enhance regeneration of the PCM to solid state for its optimal performance.

  11. 24-GHz LTCC Fractal Antenna Array SoP With Integrated Fresnel Lens

    KAUST Repository

    Ghaffar, Farhan A.

    2012-09-30

    A novel 24-GHz mixed low-temperature co-fired ceramic (LTCC) tape based system-on-package (SoP) is presented, which incorporates a fractal antenna array with an integrated grooved Fresnel lens. The four-element fractal array employs a relatively low dielectric constant substrate (CT707, εr = 6.4), whereas the lens has been realized on a high-dielectric-constant superstrate (CT765, εr = 68.7 ). The two (substrate and superstrate) are integrated through four corner posts to realize the required air gap (focal distance). The fractal array alone provides a measured gain of 8.9 dBi. Simulations predict that integration of this array with the lens increases the gain by 6 dB. Measurements reveal that the design is susceptible to LTCC fabrication tolerances. In addition to high gain, the SoP provides a bandwidth of 8%. The high performance and compact size (24 × 24 × 4.8 mm3 ) of the design makes it highly suitable for emerging wireless applications such as automotive radar front end.

  12. Integrating cell on chip—Novel waveguide platform employing ultra-long optical paths

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lena Simone Fohrmann

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available Optical waveguides are the most fundamental building blocks of integrated optical circuits. They are extremely well understood, yet there is still room for surprises. Here, we introduce a novel 2D waveguide platform which affords a strong interaction of the evanescent tail of a guided optical wave with an external medium while only employing a very small geometrical footprint. The key feature of the platform is its ability to integrate the ultra-long path lengths by combining low propagation losses in a silicon slab with multiple reflections of the guided wave from photonic crystal (PhC mirrors. With a reflectivity of 99.1% of our tailored PhC-mirrors, we achieve interaction paths of 25 cm within an area of less than 10 mm2. This corresponds to 0.17 dB/cm effective propagation which is much lower than the state-of-the-art loss of approximately 1 dB/cm of single mode silicon channel waveguides. In contrast to conventional waveguides, our 2D-approach leads to a decay of the guided wave power only inversely proportional to the optical path length. This entirely different characteristic is the major advantage of the 2D integrating cell waveguide platform over the conventional channel waveguide concepts that obey the Beer-Lambert law.

  13. Integrating cell on chip—Novel waveguide platform employing ultra-long optical paths

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fohrmann, Lena Simone; Sommer, Gerrit; Pitruzzello, Giampaolo; Krauss, Thomas F.; Petrov, Alexander Yu.; Eich, Manfred

    2017-09-01

    Optical waveguides are the most fundamental building blocks of integrated optical circuits. They are extremely well understood, yet there is still room for surprises. Here, we introduce a novel 2D waveguide platform which affords a strong interaction of the evanescent tail of a guided optical wave with an external medium while only employing a very small geometrical footprint. The key feature of the platform is its ability to integrate the ultra-long path lengths by combining low propagation losses in a silicon slab with multiple reflections of the guided wave from photonic crystal (PhC) mirrors. With a reflectivity of 99.1% of our tailored PhC-mirrors, we achieve interaction paths of 25 cm within an area of less than 10 mm2. This corresponds to 0.17 dB/cm effective propagation which is much lower than the state-of-the-art loss of approximately 1 dB/cm of single mode silicon channel waveguides. In contrast to conventional waveguides, our 2D-approach leads to a decay of the guided wave power only inversely proportional to the optical path length. This entirely different characteristic is the major advantage of the 2D integrating cell waveguide platform over the conventional channel waveguide concepts that obey the Beer-Lambert law.

  14. Do inclusive work environments matter? Effects of community-integrated employment on quality of life for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blick, Rachel N; Litz, Katherine S; Thornhill, Monica G; Goreczny, Anthony J

    2016-01-01

    More individuals with an intellectual disability now possess prerequisite skills and supports necessary for successful work force integration than did previous generations. The current study compared quality of life of community-integrated workers with those participating in sheltered vocational workshops and adult day care programs. We considered numerous indices of quality of life, including inclusion and community participation; satisfaction within professional services, home life, and day activities; dignity, rights, and respect received from others; fear; choice and control; and family satisfaction. Our data revealed several important differences in quality of life across daytime activities; participants involved in community-integrated employment tended to be younger, indicated a greater sense of community integration, and reported more financial autonomy than did those who participated in adult day care programs and sheltered workshops. However, individuals reported no differences in overall satisfaction across daytime activities. We discuss generational differences across employment status as well as possible explanations to account for high levels of satisfaction across daytime activities. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  15. Implication of fractionated dose exposures in therapeutic gain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Hye-Jin; Lee, Min-Ho; Kim, Eun-Hee

    2016-01-01

    Radiation therapy pursues killing tumor cells while sparing normal cells from the radiation exposure. Stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is a cancer treatment modality that delivers a high dose in a single operation. This high-dose single operation shortens the treatment course, but can increase the risk of normal cell damage. Normal cell damage can be reduced by employing multi-directional exposures for an increasing number of isocenters. In this study, we investigated whether therapeutic benefits would be expected by employing new dose fractionation patterns at a high-dose single operation. The conventional single-dose operation in brain tumor radiosurgery is performed by delivering fractionated uniform doses. According to Figs. 2 and 3, the conventional radiosurgery might have obtained some therapeutic benefit by employing the fractionated uniform-dose exposures instead of a single-dose exposure. We suggest that further therapeutic gain be expected by employing the fractionated radiation exposures in an increasing dose pattern. Until ensuring our suggestion, the significance in gain of cell surviving should be verified for all three dose patterns with both normal and tumor cells. The investigation whether normal and tumor cells show the same responses to the fractionated dose exposures at lower and higher than 15 Gy of total dose is also reserved for future work

  16. Commitment and the New Employment Relationship : Exploring a Forgotten Perspective: Employers Commitment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Torka, Nicole; Looise, Jan Kees; van Riemsdijk, Maarten

    2005-01-01

    In this article, we have endeavoured to integrate the concept 'employers’ commitment' into the understanding of the new employment relationship. HRM scholars and practitioners assume that changes in (international) market and employee characteristics lead to a transformation of the employer-employee

  17. Operationalisation the Romanian Employment Strategy – Target for European Union Integration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alina Stefania Cretu

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available In the context of the Romania's integration into the EU, as resources become more limited and constrains more acute, expectations for government services have become more demanding. Regarding labour market these changes had a significant impact on the Public Employment Services(PES. At the beginning of the new millennium the challenges facing the PES are considerable mostly because of some external problems such as: structural unemployment; social exclusion; the vulnerability of many workers because of shortage of decent work; less stability in employment and careers; an increasing demand for lifelong education and learning; public concern about the escalating costs of social security; a multiplicity of public and private labour markets actors. As it is argued in many recent studies: "there is a general agreement on the need to shift the focus of the labour market policies from the passive provision of income support to more active measures which assist reemployment." Being considered, as well, an objective for the developing countries, as Romania, a country that wants the labour market to be flexible, and also wants a fast economic growth and that is joining to an economy based on knowledge is stimulating the development of the service sector, a key factor of national competitiveness.

  18. Operationalisation the Romanian Employment Strategy – Target for European Union Integration

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Alina Stefania Cretu

    2007-01-01

    Full Text Available In the context of the Romania’s integration into the EU, as resources become more limited and constrains more acute, expectations for government services have become more demanding. Regarding labour market these changes had a significant impact on the Public Employment Services(PES. At the beginning of the new millennium the challenges facing the PES are considerable mostly because of some external problems such as: structural unemployment; social exclusion; the vulnerability of many workers because of shortage of decent work; less stability in employment and careers; an increasing demand for lifelong education and learning; public concern about the escalating costs of social security; a multiplicity of public and private labour markets actors. As it is argued in many recent studies: "there is a general agreement on the need to shift the focus of the labour market policies from the passive provision of income support to more active measures which assist reemployment." Being considered, as well, an objective for the developing countries, as Romania, a country that wants the labour market to be flexible, and also wants a fast economic growth and that is joining to an economy based on knowledge is stimulating the development of the service sector, a key factor of national competitiveness.

  19. Analysis and interpretation of geophysical surveys in archaeological sites employing different integrated approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Piro, Salvatore; Papale, Enrico; Kucukdemirci, Melda; Zamuner, Daniela

    2017-04-01

    Non-destructive ground surface geophysical prospecting methods are frequently used for the investigation of archaeological sites, where a detailed physical and geometrical reconstructions of hidden volumes is required prior to any excavation work. All methods measure the variations of single physical parameters, therefore if these are used singularly, they could not permit a complete location and characterization of anomalous bodies. The probability of a successful result rapidly increases if a multhimethodological approach is adopted, according to the logic of objective complementarity of information and of global convergence toward a high quality multiparametric imaging of the buried structures. The representation of the static configuration of the bodies in the subsoil and of the space-time evolution of the interaction processes between targets and hosting materials have to be actually considered fundamental elements of primary knowledge in archaeological prospecting. The main effort in geophysical prospecting for archaeology is therefore the integration of different, absolutely non-invasive techniques, especially if managed in view of a ultra-high resolution three-dimensional (3D) tomographic representation mode. Following the above outlined approach, we have integrated geophysical methods which measure the variations of potential field (gradiometric methods) with active methods which measure the variations of physical properties due to the body's geometry and volume (GPR and ERT). In this work, the results obtained during the surveys of three archaeological sites, employing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Fluxgate Differential Magnetic (FDM) to obtain precise and detailed maps of subsurface bodies, are presented and discussed. The first site, situated in a suburban area between Itri and Fondi, in the Aurunci Natural Regional Park (Central Italy), is characterized by the presence of remains of past human activity

  20. Performance evaluation of a burst-mode EDFA in an optical packet and circuit integrated network.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shiraiwa, Masaki; Awaji, Yoshinari; Furukawa, Hideaki; Shinada, Satoshi; Puttnam, Benjamin J; Wada, Naoya

    2013-12-30

    We experimentally investigate the performance of burst-mode EDFA in an optical packet and circuit integrated system. In such networks, packets and light paths can be dynamically assigned to the same fibers, resulting in gain transients in EDFAs throughout the network that can limit network performance. Here, we compare the performance of a 'burst-mode' EDFA (BM-EDFA), employing transient suppression techniques and optical feedback, with conventional EDFAs, and those using automatic gain control and previous BM-EDFA implementations. We first measure gain transients and other impairments in a simplified set-up before making frame error-rate measurements in a network demonstration.

  1. On FEL integral equation and electron energy loss in intermediate gain regime

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takao, Masaru

    1994-03-01

    The FEL pendulum equation in a intermediate gain small signal regime is investigated. By calculating the energy loss of the electron beam in terms of the solution of the pendulum equation, we confirm the consistency of the FEL equation in intermediate gain regime. (author)

  2. Learn and gain

    CERN Document Server

    Al-Alami, Suhair Eyad Jamal

    2013-01-01

    Initiating the slogan ""love it, live it"", Learn and Gain includes eight short stories, chosen to illustrate various modes of narration, as well as to provoke reflection and discussion on a range of issues. All texts utilized here illustrate how great writers can, with their insight and gift for words, help us to see the world we live in, in new probing and exciting ways. What characterises the book, the author believes, is the integration of the skills of literary competence, communicative c...

  3. Mode division multiplexing over 19-cell hollow-core photonic bandgap fibre by employing integrated mode multiplexer

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Chen, H.; Uden, van R.G.H.; Okonkwo, C.M.; Jung, Y.; Wheeler, N.V.; Fokoua, E.N.; Baddela, N.; Petrovich, M.N.; Poletti, F.; Richardson, D.J.; Raz, O.; Waardt, de H.; Koonen, A.M.J.

    2014-01-01

    A photonic integrated mode coupler based on silicon-on-insulator is employed for mode division multiplexing (MDM) over a 193 m 19-cell hollow-core photonic bandgap fibre (HC-PBGF) with a -3 dB bandwidth >120 nm. Robust MDM transmissions using LP01 and LP11 modes, and two degenerate LP11 modes (LP11a

  4. High peak-power kilohertz laser system employing single-stage multi-pass amplification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shan, Bing; Wang, Chun; Chang, Zenghu

    2006-05-23

    The present invention describes a technique for achieving high peak power output in a laser employing single-stage, multi-pass amplification. High gain is achieved by employing a very small "seed" beam diameter in gain medium, and maintaining the small beam diameter for multiple high-gain pre-amplification passes through a pumped gain medium, then leading the beam out of the amplifier cavity, changing the beam diameter and sending it back to the amplifier cavity for additional, high-power amplification passes through the gain medium. In these power amplification passes, the beam diameter in gain medium is increased and carefully matched to the pump laser's beam diameter for high efficiency extraction of energy from the pumped gain medium. A method of "grooming" the beam by means of a far-field spatial filter in the process of changing the beam size within the single-stage amplifier is also described.

  5. Transient optical gain in germanium quantum wells

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Chatterjee, Sangam; Lange, Christoph; Koester, Niko S.; Schaefer, Martin; Kira, Mackillo; Koch, Stephan W. [Faculty of Physics and Materials Sciences Center, Philipps-Universitaet Marburg (Germany); Chrastina, Daniel; Isella, Giovanni; Kaenel, Hans von [CNISM, Como (Italy); L-NESS, Dipartimento di Fisica del Politecnico di Milano, Como (Italy); Sigg, Hans [Laboratory for Micro and Nanotecnology, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen PSI (Switzerland)

    2010-07-01

    One of today's most-sought goals in semiconductor technology is the monolithic integration of microelectronics and photonics on Si. Optical gain is, in general, not expected for Si and Ge or its alloys due to the indirect nature of the band gap in this material system. Here, we show that Ge/SiGe QWs show transient optical gain and may thus be used as an optically-pumped amplifier at room temperature. Further, the nonequilibrium effects which govern the relaxation dynamics of the optically injected carrier distributions in this material were observed and analyzed using a microscopic many-body theory. Strong non-equilibrium gain was obtained on a sub-100 fs time scale. Long-lived gain arising from {gamma}-point transitions is overcompensated by a process bearing the character of free carrier absorption.

  6. Employment and Training for America's Homeless: Best Practices Guide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beck, Susan Kessler; Trutko, John W.; Isbell, Kellie; Rothstein, Frances; Barnow, Burt S.

    This document is a how-to guide to help employment and training agencies tailor their delivery systems to be more effective in training, placing, and retaining homeless individuals in gainful employment. The guide is written from the perspective of an employment and training agency and based largely on the experiences of 63 organizations from…

  7. [Employment during pregnancy and neonatal morbidity].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fricker, H S; Bruppacher, R

    1984-01-01

    Neonatal morbidity was higher among the babies of 521 women who were gainfully employed during pregnancy compared to those of 475 non working women of the same area (Aarau, Switzerland). The difference was lower (6%) in the part time employed than in those working full time (11%.) It was almost entirely due to the higher number of primiparae and of smokers among those women who were working during pregnancy.

  8. Integrating ergonomic knowledge into engineering design processes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hall-Andersen, Lene Bjerg

    Integrating ergonomic knowledge into engineering design processes has been shown to contribute to healthy and effective designs of workplaces. However, it is also well-recognized that, in practice, ergonomists often have difficulties gaining access to and impacting engineering design processes...... employed in the same company, constituted a supporting factor for the possibilities to integrate ergonomic knowledge into the engineering design processes. However, the integration activities remained discrete and only happened in some of the design projects. A major barrier was related to the business...... to the ergonomic ambitions of the clients. The ergonomists’ ability to navigate, act strategically, and compromise on ergonomic inputs is also important in relation to having an impact in the engineering design processes. Familiarity with the engineering design terminology and the setup of design projects seems...

  9. Integrating Fieldwork into Employment Counseling for Methadone-Treatment Patients

    Science.gov (United States)

    Blankertz, Laura; Spinelli, Michael; Magura, Stephen; Bali, Priti; Madison, Elizabeth M.; Staines, Graham L.; Horowitz, Emily; Guarino, Honoria; Grandy, Audrey; Fong, Chunki; Gomez, Augustin; Dimun, Amy; Friedman, Ellen

    2005-01-01

    An innovative employment counseling model, Customized Employment Supports, was developed for methadone-treatment patients, a population with historically low employment rates. The effectiveness of a key component of the model, "vocational fieldwork," the delivery of services in the community rather than only within the clinic, was assessed through…

  10. Two integrator loop quadrature oscillators: A review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmed M. Soliman

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available A review of the two integrator loop oscillator circuits providing two quadrature sinusoidal output voltages is given. All the circuits considered employ the minimum number of capacitors namely two except one circuit which uses three capacitors. The circuits considered are classified to four different classes. The first class includes floating capacitors and floating resistors and the active building blocks realizing these circuits are the Op Amp or the OTRA. The second class employs grounded capacitors and includes floating resistors and the active building blocks realizing these circuits are the DCVC or the unity gain cells or the CFOA. The third class employs grounded capacitors and grounded resistors and the active building blocks realizing these circuits are the CCII. The fourth class employs grounded capacitors and no resistors and the active building blocks realizing these circuits are the TA. Transformation methods showing the generation of different classes from each other is given in details and this is one of the main objectives of this paper.

  11. Is there an occupational therapy employment crisis within Australia? An investigation into two consecutive cohorts of occupational therapy graduates from a single Victorian University identifying trends in employment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fay, Pearse; Adamson, Lynne

    2017-12-01

    Within the context of growing concerns about a potential oversupply of occupational therapist, this research examines when, where and how long new graduates take to gain employment and identifies influences upon the health and university systems. A mixed method research design, using an online survey was adopted to investigate the topic. Two consecutive cohorts of graduates from a single university program were invited to participate. Seventy-five (58%) responses were received, with 63 (84%) currently employed in an occupational therapy role. Of the 12 (16%) not employed, only 3 (4%) described themselves as actively seeking employment in an occupational therapy role. A wide spread of employment settings and scope of practice areas was reported. Findings suggest that occupational therapy graduates are gaining employment in a range of settings and practice areas, relatively quickly. This research adds evidence to the conversation around graduate employment within a region of Australia. The Australian population, health system and university changes are possible factors influencing employment. The research reveals the difficulties in understanding the current situation with limitations in data collected, varied terminology and an ever changing job seeking environment. The research provides a starting point for the occupational therapy profession to further understand the directions the profession is taking. University programs may also benefit by using the research to tailor course content to assist graduates in gaining employment or to present students with the prospects of new employment opportunities. © 2017 Occupational Therapy Australia.

  12. High Voltage Coil Current Sensor for DC-DC Converters Employing DDCC

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M. Drinovsky

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Current sensor is an integral part of every switching converter. It is used for over-current protection, regulation and in case of multiphase converters for balancing. A new high voltage current sensor for coil-based current sensing in DC-DC converters is presented. The sensor employs DDCC with high voltage input stage and gain trimming. The circuit has been simulated and implemented in 0.35 um BCD technology as part of a multiphase DC-DC converter where its function has been verified. The circuit is able to sustain common mode voltage on the input up to 40 V, it occupies 0.387*0.345 mm2 and consumes 3.2 mW typically.

  13. Education for Employment in Nigeria in the 21st Century: Some ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    This paper examined education for employment in Nigeria in the 21st Century. This paper therefore looked at the demand of workplace employment skills, learning skills, literacy skills and life skills. This paper concludes by advocating how to teach 21st Century employment skills, how to guarantee gainful employment, and ...

  14. Employment gains and wage declines: the erosion of black women's relative wages since 1980.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pettit, Becky; Ewert, Stephanie

    2009-08-01

    Public policy initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, including Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity law, helped mitigate explicit discrimination in pay, and the expansion of higher education and training programs have advanced the employment fortunes of many American women. By the early 1980s, some scholars proclaimed near equity in pay between black and white women, particularly among young and highly skilled workers. More recent policy initiatives and labor market conditions have been arguably less progressive for black women's employment and earnings: through the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, the wage gap between black and white women widened considerably. Using data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS-MORG), this article documents the racial wage gap among women in the United States from 1979 to 2005. We investigate how demographic and labor market conditions influence employment and wage inequality among black and white women over the period. Although shifts in labor supply influence the magnitude of the black-white wage gap among women, structural disadvantages faced by black women help explain the growth in the racial wage gap.

  15. Radiation hardness of thin Low Gain Avalanche Detectors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kramberger, G.; Carulla, M.; Cavallaro, E.; Cindro, V.; Flores, D.; Galloway, Z.; Grinstein, S.; Hidalgo, S.; Fadeyev, V.; Lange, J.; Mandić, I.; Medin, G.; Merlos, A.; McKinney-Martinez, F.; Mikuž, M.; Quirion, D.; Pellegrini, G.; Petek, M.; Sadrozinski, H. F.-W.; Seiden, A.; Zavrtanik, M.

    2018-05-01

    Low Gain Avalanche Detectors (LGAD) are based on a n++-p+-p-p++ structure where an appropriate doping of the multiplication layer (p+) leads to high enough electric fields for impact ionization. Gain factors of few tens in charge significantly improve the resolution of timing measurements, particularly for thin detectors, where the timing performance was shown to be limited by Landau fluctuations. The main obstacle for their operation is the decrease of gain with irradiation, attributed to effective acceptor removal in the gain layer. Sets of thin sensors were produced by two different producers on different substrates, with different gain layer doping profiles and thicknesses (45, 50 and 80 μm). Their performance in terms of gain/collected charge and leakage current was compared before and after irradiation with neutrons and pions up to the equivalent fluences of 5 ṡ 1015 cm-2. Transient Current Technique and charge collection measurements with LHC speed electronics were employed to characterize the detectors. The thin LGAD sensors were shown to perform much better than sensors of standard thickness (∼300 μm) and offer larger charge collection with respect to detectors without gain layer for fluences gain prolongs the beneficial performance of LGADs. Pions were found to be more damaging than neutrons at the same equivalent fluence, while no significant difference was found between different producers. At very high fluences and bias voltages the gain appears due to deep acceptors in the bulk, hence also in thin standard detectors.

  16. An Analysis Nomoto Gain and Norbin Parameter on Ship Turning Maneuver

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aulia Siti Aisjah

    2010-05-01

    Full Text Available First order approach of maneuvering ship model developed by Nomoto, that has commonly underpinned researchers on mathematical models of ship maneuvering, is employed by the present research in order to describe the results of Nomoto validation gain value from some type of ships. In this present study, the controls are designated using FLC, while the rules are derived from FLC; furthermore, the reference is the LQG/LTR. On the other pole, Norbin parameters are obtained under the bases of the gain and time constant output control response. Validation of Nomoto gain value is obtained through the calculation of the value of a constant gain, settling time of the first order response, and approach value toward damping ratio and natural frequency response of the system used to control the output of the second order pattern. Validation is employed on 20 types of ships with a length between 40-350 meters; as a result, it is figured out that at the Low Speed General Cargo ship, Mariner, RO/RO, and Barge Carrier have good maneuverability compared to the other 17 types of ships.

  17. Employer Health and Productivity Roadmap™ strategy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Parkinson, Michael D

    2013-12-01

    The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health Total Worker Health™ Program defines essential elements of an integrated health protection and health promotion model to improve the health, safety, and performance of employers and employees. The lack of a clear strategy to address the core drivers of poor health, excessive medical costs, and lost productivity has deterred a comprehensive, integrated, and proactive approach to meet these challenges. The Employer Health and Productivity Roadmap™, comprising six interrelated and integrated core elements, creates a framework of shared accountability for both employers and their health and productivity partners to implement and monitor actionable measures that improve health, maximize productivity, and reduce excessive costs. The strategy is most effective when linked to a financially incentivized health management program or consumer-directed health plan insurance benefit design.

  18. A CMOS variable gain amplifier for PHENIX electromagnetic calorimeter and RICH energy measurements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wintenberg, A.L.; Simpson, M.L.; Young, G.R. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States); Palmer, R.L.; Moscone, C.G.; Jackson, R.G. [Tennessee Univ., Knoxville, TN (United States)

    1996-12-31

    A variable gain amplifier (VGA) has been developed equalizing the gains of integrating amplifier channels used with multiple photomultiplier tubes operating from common high-voltage supplies. The PHENIX lead-scintillator electromagnetic calorimeter will operate in that manner, and gain equalization is needed to preserve the dynamic range of the analog memory and ADC following the integrating amplifier. The VGA is also needed for matching energy channel gains prior to forming analog sums for trigger purposes. The gain of the VGA is variable over a 3:1 range using a 5-bit digital control, and the risetime is held between 15 and 23 ns using switched compensation in the VGA. An additional feature is gated baseline restoration. Details of the design and results from several prototype devices fabricated in 1.2-{mu}m Orbit CMOS are presented.

  19. Design and development of a cross-European employability training for older jobseekers

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Janssen, José; Hale, Hilary; Sanders, Val; Boon, Jo; Van der Klink, Marcel; Stoyanov, Slavi

    2015-01-01

    The importance of social networking for effective job-search has been clearly established in various studies. Social networks (social capital) represent a constituent component of employability: the potential of an individual to gain employment and to stay employed. However, not everyone feels

  20. Energy Gaining Windows for Residental Buildings

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kragh, Jesper; Laustsen, Jacob Birck; Svendsen, Svend

    2008-01-01

    window is made of fiber-reinforced plastic (plastic reinforced by fine fibers made of glass). This composite material is a weatherproof material with very low thermal conductivity and high mechanical strength. These properties make the material very suitable for frame profiles due to lower heat loss...... minus the heat loss integrated over the heating season. It is assumed that in northern cold climates all of the solar gain during the heating season can be utilized for space heating. Problems with overheating in the summer period must be solved with overhang or moveable solar shading devices. Two...... and longer durability of the window. The glazing in these fiber reinforced polyester windows is both unsealed and sealed triple glazing units. To increase the net energy gain slim frame profiles have been developed to increase the glazing area and thereby the solar gain. The challenge when developing slim...

  1. A Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) Framework to Develop Graduate Skills and Attributes in an Australian University's Accounting Program

    Science.gov (United States)

    Leong, Raymond; Kavanagh, Marie

    2013-01-01

    Universities are being placed under increasing pressure to produce employable work ready graduates who are able to cope in a rapidly changing work environment. This has resulted in universities offering their undergraduate students the opportunity to gain business acumen and real world experience by undertaking work-integrated learning (WIL) as…

  2. Ultra-high gain diffusion-driven organic transistor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Torricelli, Fabrizio; Colalongo, Luigi; Raiteri, Daniele; Kovács-Vajna, Zsolt Miklós; Cantatore, Eugenio

    2016-01-01

    Emerging large-area technologies based on organic transistors are enabling the fabrication of low-cost flexible circuits, smart sensors and biomedical devices. High-gain transistors are essential for the development of large-scale circuit integration, high-sensitivity sensors and signal amplification in sensing systems. Unfortunately, organic field-effect transistors show limited gain, usually of the order of tens, because of the large contact resistance and channel-length modulation. Here we show a new organic field-effect transistor architecture with a gain larger than 700. This is the highest gain ever reported for organic field-effect transistors. In the proposed organic field-effect transistor, the charge injection and extraction at the metal–semiconductor contacts are driven by the charge diffusion. The ideal conditions of ohmic contacts with negligible contact resistance and flat current saturation are demonstrated. The approach is general and can be extended to any thin-film technology opening unprecedented opportunities for the development of high-performance flexible electronics. PMID:26829567

  3. Employing finite-state machines in data integrity problems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Malikov Andrey

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper explores the issue of group integrity of tuple subsets regarding corporate integrity constraints in relational databases. A solution may be found by applying the finite-state machine theory to guarantee group integrity of data. We present a practical guide to coding such an automaton. After creating SQL queries to manipulate data and control its integrity for real data domains, we study the issue of query performance, determine the level of transaction isolation, and generate query plans.

  4. Receiver gain function: the actual NMR receiver gain

    OpenAIRE

    Mo, Huaping; Harwood, John S.; Raftery, Daniel

    2010-01-01

    The observed NMR signal size depends on the receiver gain parameter. We propose a receiver gain function to characterize how much the raw FID is amplified by the receiver as a function of the receiver gain setting. Although the receiver is linear for a fixed gain setting, the actual gain of the receiver may differ from what the gain setting suggests. Nevertheless, for a given receiver, we demonstrate that the receiver gain function can be calibrated. Such a calibration enables accurate compar...

  5. Direct ink write fabrication of transparent ceramic gain media

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Ivy Krystal; Seeley, Zachary M.; Cherepy, Nerine J.; Duoss, Eric B.; Payne, Stephen A.

    2018-01-01

    Solid-state laser gain media based on the garnet structure with two spatially distinct but optically contiguous regions have been fabricated. Transparent gain media comprised of a central core of Y2.97Nd0.03Al5.00O12.00 (Nd:YAG) and an undoped cladding region of Y3Al5O12 (YAG) were fabricated by direct ink write and transparent ceramic processing. Direct ink write (DIW) was employed to form the green body, offering a general route to preparing functionally structured solid-state laser gain media. Fully-dense transparent optical ceramics in a "top hat" geometry with YAG/Nd:YAG have been fabricated by DIW methods with optical scatter at 1064 nm of <3%/cm.

  6. Women's self-employment: An act of institutional (dis)integration?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Klyver, Kim; Nielsen, Suna Løwe; Evald, Majbritt Rostgaard

    2013-01-01

    In this paper we investigate the extent to which gender equality disintegrates women's self-employment choice (compared to that for men) and whether this is contingent upon a country's development stage and industries. We rely on symbolic interactionism to argue that employment choices emerge from...... an interactive conversation between individual and social institutional processes. Using data from 61 countries, we find that overall gender equality is associated with the gender gap in men's and women's self-employment choices and that this association depends upon the country's development stage...

  7. Building professionalism and employability skills: embedding employer engagement within first-year computing modules

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hanna, Philip; Allen, Angela; Kane, Russell; Anderson, Neil; McGowan, Aidan; Collins, Matthew; Hutchison, Malcolm

    2015-07-01

    This paper outlines a means of improving the employability skills of first-year university students through a closely integrated model of employer engagement within computer science modules. The outlined approach illustrates how employability skills, including communication, teamwork and time management skills, can be contextualised in a manner that directly relates to student learning but can still be linked forward into employment. The paper tests the premise that developing employability skills early within the curriculum will result in improved student engagement and learning within later modules. The paper concludes that embedding employer participation within first-year models can help relate a distant notion of employability into something of more immediate relevance in terms of how students can best approach learning. Further, by enhancing employability skills early within the curriculum, it becomes possible to improve academic attainment within later modules.

  8. Slow-light-enhanced gain in active photonic crystal waveguides

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ek, Sara; Hansen, Per Lunnemann; Chen, Yaohui

    2014-01-01

    Passive photonic crystals have been shown to exhibit a multitude of interesting phenomena, including slow-light propagation in line-defect waveguides. It was suggested that by incorporating an active material in the waveguide, slow light could be used to enhance the effective gain of the material......, which would have interesting application prospects, for example enabling ultra-compact optical amplifiers for integration in photonic chips. Here we experi- mentally investigate the gain of a photonic crystal membrane structure with embedded quantum wells. We find that by solely changing the photonic...... crystal structural parameters, the maximum value of the gain coefficient can be increased compared with a ridge waveguide structure and at the same time the spectral position of the peak gain be controlled. The experimental results are in qualitative agreement with theory and show that gain values similar...

  9. Virtual Placements to Develop Employability Skills for Civil and Environmental Engineering Students

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Parneet Paul

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available This project work addresses the crucial need to encourage undergraduate civil and environmental engineering students to gain employment skills and training right from the start of their studies so that their overall employability increases; their confidence level in networking with industry and within the workplace increases; and so that they are successfully able to obtain employment after finishing their studies. This initiative is a stepping-stone employability exercise which focuses specifically on first year students to help them engage with industry right from the start of their course. It is proposed that they would gain some realistic work experience both individually and as part of group within a virtual work environment using an action learning approach. The virtual environment used was based on SecondLife, a popular virtual reality programme. A pilot scheme was set up and run at Brunel University during the summer of 2014 using eight self-selecting first year students. The scheme’s outputs were extensively monitored and evaluated to assess its impact on the development of employability skills. This approach may prove a cost effective way of letting students gain an insight into the workplace whilst improving these skills. It may also prove a way for employers to select from a large range of students the best to actually undertake their real work-based internships.

  10. Water savings through off-farm employment?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Wachong Castro, V.; Heerink, N.; Shi, X.; Qu, W.

    2010-01-01

    Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to gain more insight into the relationship between off-farm employment of rural households and water-saving investments and irrigation water use in rural China. Design/methodology/approach – Data from a survey held among 317 households in Minle County, Zhangye

  11. Image-converter streak cameras with very high gain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1975-01-01

    A new camera is described with slit scanning and very high photonic gain (G=5000). Development of the technology of tubes and microchannel plates has enabled integration of such an amplifying element in an image converter tube which does away with the couplings and the intermediary electron-photon-electron conversions of the classical converter systems having external amplification. It is thus possible to obtain equal or superior performance while retaining considerable gain for the camera, great compactness, great flexibility in use, and easy handling. (author)

  12. Employment Gains and Wage Declines: The Erosion of Black Women’s Relative Wages Since 1980

    Science.gov (United States)

    PETTIT, BECKY; EWERT, STEPHANIE

    2009-01-01

    Public policy initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, including Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity law, helped mitigate explicit discrimination in pay, and the expansion of higher education and training programs have advanced the employment fortunes of many American women. By the early 1980s, some scholars proclaimed near equity in pay between black and white women, particularly among young and highly skilled workers. More recent policy initiatives and labor market conditions have been arguably less progressive for black women’s employment and earnings: through the 1980s, 1990s, and the first half of the 2000s, the wage gap between black and white women widened considerably. Using data from the Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Group (CPS-MORG), this article documents the racial wage gap among women in the United States from 1979 to 2005. We investigate how demographic and labor market conditions influence employment and wage inequality among black and white women over the period. Although shifts in labor supply influence the magnitude of the black-white wage gap among women, structural disadvantages faced by black women help explain the growth in the racial wage gap. PMID:19771940

  13. An efficient fast response and high-gain solar-blind flexible ultraviolet photodetector employing hybrid geometry

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hussain, Amreen A.; Pal, Arup R.; Patil, Dinkar S.

    2014-05-01

    We report high performance flexible hybrid ultraviolet photodetector with solar-blind sensitivity using nanocomposite film of plasma polymerized aniline-titanium dioxide. A facile solvent-free plasma technique is used to synthesize superior quality hybrid material with high yield. The hybrid photodetector exhibited high photoconductive gain of the order of ˜105 and fast speed with response and recovery time of 22.87 ms and 34.23 ms. This is an excellent result towards getting a balance in the response speed and photoconductive gain trade-off of the photodetectors reported so far. In addition, the device has the advantages of enhanced photosensitivity ((Ilight - Idark)/Idark) of the order of ˜102 and high responsivity of ˜104 AW-1. All the merits substantiates that, to prepare hybrid material, plasma based method holds potential to be an easy way for realizing large scale nanostructured photodetectors for practical applications.

  14. Study of an automatic readout integrated circuit for the signal shaping of the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter; Etude d`un circuit integre de commutation automatique de gain pour le circuit de mise en forme du signal du calorimetre electromagnetique d`ATLAS

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bussat, J.M. [Laboratoire d`Annecy-le-Vieux de Physique des Particules, 74 - Annecy-le-Vieux (France)

    1996-12-01

    This paper describes the present state of the development of an automatic readout integrated circuit that can be used, connected to the four gain shaper of LAL, at the ATLAS electromagnetic calorimeter.

  15. Has the tradeoff between productivity gains and job growth disappeared?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    P.A.D. Cavelaars

    2004-01-01

    textabstractPolicymakers’ efforts to boost trend output growth may be hampered by the presence of a tradeoff between productivity gains and job creation. This paper presents empirical evidence that the negative relationship between productivity growth and employment growth that prevailed in the

  16. Randomized Trial of Supported Employment Integrated With Assertive Community Treatment for Rural Adults With Severe Mental Illness

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gold, Paul B; Meisler, Neil; Santos, Alberto B; Carnemolla, Mark A; Williams, Olivia H; Keleher, Jennie

    2006-01-01

    Urban-based randomized clinical trials of integrated supported employment (SE) and mental health services in the United States on average have doubled the employment rates of adults with severe mental illness (SMI) compared to traditional vocational rehabilitation. However, studies have not yet explored if the service integrative functions of SE will be effective in coordinating rural-based services that are limited, loosely linked, and geographically dispersed. In addition, SE's ability to replicate the work outcomes of urban programs in rural economies with scarce and less diverse job opportunities remains unknown. In a rural South Carolina county, we designed and implemented a program blending Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) with an SE model, Individual Placement and Support (IPS). The ACT-IPS program operated with ACT and IPS subteams that tightly integrated vocational with mental health services within each self-contained team. In a 24-month randomized clinical trial, we compared ACT-IPS to a traditional program providing parallel vocational and mental health services on competitive work outcomes for adults with SMI (N = 143; 69% schizophrenia, 77% African American). More ACT-IPS participants held competitive jobs (64 versus 26%; p < .001, effect size [ES] = 0.38) and earned more income (median [Mdn] = $549, interquartile range [IQR] = $0–$5,145, versus Mdn = $0, IQR = $0–$40; p < .001, ES = 0.70) than comparison participants. The competitive work outcomes of this rural ACT-IPS program closely resemble those of urban SE programs. However, achieving economic self-sufficiently and developing careers probably require increasing access to higher education and jobs imparting marketable technical skills. PMID:16177278

  17. Improve data integration performance by employing metadata management utility

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wei, M.; Sung, A.H. [New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center, Socorro, NM (United States)

    2005-07-01

    This conference paper explored ways of integrating petroleum and exploration data obtained from different sources in order to provide more comprehensive data for various analysis purposes and to improve the integrity and consistency of integrated data. This paper proposes a methodology to enhance oil and gas industry data integration performance by cooperating data management utilities in Microsoft SQL Server database management system (DBMS) for small scale data integration without support of commercial software. By semi-automatically capturing metadata, data sources are investigated in detail, data quality problems are partially cleansed, and the performance of data integration is improved. 20 refs., 7 tabs., 1 fig.

  18. Combined optical gain and degradation measurements in DCM2 doped Tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum thin-films

    Science.gov (United States)

    Čehovski, Marko; Döring, Sebastian; Rabe, Torsten; Caspary, Reinhard; Kowalsky, Wolfgang

    2016-04-01

    Organic laser sources offer the opportunity to integrate flexible and widely tunable lasers in polymer waveguide circuits, e.g. for Lab-on-Foil applications. Therefore, it is necessary to understand gain and degradation processes for long-term operation. In this paper we address the challenge of life-time (degradation) measurements of photoluminescence (PL) and optical gain in thin-film lasers. The well known guest-host system of aluminum-chelate Alq3 (Tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline)aluminum) as host material and the laser dye DCM2 (4-(Dicyanomethylene)-2- methyl-6-julolidyl-9-enyl-4H-pyran) as guest material is employed as laser active material. Sample layers have been built up by co-evaporation in an ultrahigh (UHV) vacuum chamber. 200nm thick films of Alq3:DCM2 with different doping concentrations have been processed onto glass and thermally oxidized silicon substrates. The gain measurements have been performed by the variable stripe length (VSL) method. This measurement technique allows to determine the thin-film waveguide gain and loss, respectively. For the measurements the samples were excited with UV irradiation (ƛ = 355nm) under nitrogen atmosphere by a passively Q-switched laser source. PL degradation measurements with regard to the optical gain have been done at laser threshold (approximately 3 μJ/cm2), five times above laser threshold and 10 times above laser threshold. A t50-PL lifetime of > 107 pulses could be measured at a maximum excitation energy density of 32 μJ/cm2. This allows for a detailed analysis of the gain degradation mechanism and therefore of the stimulated cross section. Depending on the DCM2 doping concentration C the stimulated cross section was reduced by 35 %. Nevertheless, the results emphasizes the necessity of the investigation of degradation processes in organic laser sources for long-term applications.

  19. Combining Quality Work-Integrated Learning and Career Development Learning through the Use of the SOAR Model to Enhance Employability

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reddan, Gregory; Rauchle, Maja

    2017-01-01

    This paper presents students' perceptions of the benefits to employability of a suite of courses that incorporate both work-integrated learning (WIL) and career development learning (CDL). Field Project A and Field Project B are elective courses in the Bachelor of Exercise Science at Griffith University. These courses engage students in active and…

  20. Employment Gains and Wage Declines: The Erosion of Black Women’s Relative Wages Since 1980

    OpenAIRE

    PETTIT, BECKY; EWERT, STEPHANIE

    2009-01-01

    Public policy initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s, including Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity law, helped mitigate explicit discrimination in pay, and the expansion of higher education and training programs have advanced the employment fortunes of many American women. By the early 1980s, some scholars proclaimed near equity in pay between black and white women, particularly among young and highly skilled workers. More recent policy initiatives and labor market conditions hav...

  1. Promotion of sustainable employability : Occupational health in the meat processing industry

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van Holland, Breunis Johannes

    2016-01-01

    Due to rising retirement age, sustainable employability is gaining interest among employers. Such is the case in the meat processing industry. A strategy to address these challenges is health promotion at work. Therefore, the largest Dutch meat processing company has implemented a Workers’ Health

  2. Two Integrator Loop Filters: Generation Using NAM Expansion and Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ahmed M. Soliman

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available Systematic synthesis method to generate a family of two integrator loop filters based on nodal admittance matrix (NAM expansion is given. Eight equivalent circuits are obtained; six of them are new. Each of the generated circuits uses two grounded capacitors and employs two current conveyors (CCII or two inverting current conveyors (ICCII or a combination of both. The NAM expansion is also used to generate eight equivalent grounded passive elements two integrator loop filters using differential voltage current conveyor (DVCC; six of them are new. Changing the input port of excitation, two new families of eight unity gain lowpass filter circuits each using two CCII or ICCII or combination of both or two DVCC are obtained.

  3. Fast estimation of expected information gains for Bayesian experimental designs based on Laplace approximations

    KAUST Repository

    Long, Quan; Scavino, Marco; Tempone, Raul; Wang, Suojin

    2013-01-01

    Shannon-type expected information gain can be used to evaluate the relevance of a proposed experiment subjected to uncertainty. The estimation of such gain, however, relies on a double-loop integration. Moreover, its numerical integration in multi-dimensional cases, e.g., when using Monte Carlo sampling methods, is therefore computationally too expensive for realistic physical models, especially for those involving the solution of partial differential equations. In this work, we present a new methodology, based on the Laplace approximation for the integration of the posterior probability density function (pdf), to accelerate the estimation of the expected information gains in the model parameters and predictive quantities of interest. We obtain a closed-form approximation of the inner integral and the corresponding dominant error term in the cases where parameters are determined by the experiment, such that only a single-loop integration is needed to carry out the estimation of the expected information gain. To deal with the issue of dimensionality in a complex problem, we use a sparse quadrature for the integration over the prior pdf. We demonstrate the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the proposed method via several nonlinear numerical examples, including the designs of the scalar parameter in a one-dimensional cubic polynomial function, the design of the same scalar in a modified function with two indistinguishable parameters, the resolution width and measurement time for a blurred single peak spectrum, and the boundary source locations for impedance tomography in a square domain. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

  4. Fast estimation of expected information gains for Bayesian experimental designs based on Laplace approximations

    KAUST Repository

    Long, Quan

    2013-06-01

    Shannon-type expected information gain can be used to evaluate the relevance of a proposed experiment subjected to uncertainty. The estimation of such gain, however, relies on a double-loop integration. Moreover, its numerical integration in multi-dimensional cases, e.g., when using Monte Carlo sampling methods, is therefore computationally too expensive for realistic physical models, especially for those involving the solution of partial differential equations. In this work, we present a new methodology, based on the Laplace approximation for the integration of the posterior probability density function (pdf), to accelerate the estimation of the expected information gains in the model parameters and predictive quantities of interest. We obtain a closed-form approximation of the inner integral and the corresponding dominant error term in the cases where parameters are determined by the experiment, such that only a single-loop integration is needed to carry out the estimation of the expected information gain. To deal with the issue of dimensionality in a complex problem, we use a sparse quadrature for the integration over the prior pdf. We demonstrate the accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the proposed method via several nonlinear numerical examples, including the designs of the scalar parameter in a one-dimensional cubic polynomial function, the design of the same scalar in a modified function with two indistinguishable parameters, the resolution width and measurement time for a blurred single peak spectrum, and the boundary source locations for impedance tomography in a square domain. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

  5. New Forms of Employment and Working Time in the Service Economy

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Thaulow, Ivan; Boll, Joachim

    in the sercvice sector. The need for enterprises to gain more flexibility comes through in two ways on the Danish labour market. First, it has made the weekly working hours more flexible than just ten years ago. Secondly, numeric flexibility on the Danish labour market is gained through a numer of new forms......The Study presented in this paper is part of the European project: New Forms of Employment and Working Time in the Servece Economy/NESY. The overalle objective of the project is to analyse the emergence and the effects of the new forms of employment, work organisation and working time patterns...... of employment such as time and task-limited work, temporary agency and freelance work. Illustrative Danish examples of time or task-limited employment, temporary work agencies or freelance work can, as expected be forund in the commercial and clerical sector. The same goes for parts of the expanding business...

  6. Study on high gain broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, S.K.; Fujita, M.; Yamanaka, C.; Yoshida, H.; Kodama, R.; Fujita, H.; Nakatsuka, M.; Izawa, Y.

    2000-01-01

    Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification has apparent advantages over the current schemes for high energy ultrashort pulse amplification. High gain in a single pass amplification, small B-integral, low heat deposition, high contrast ratio and, especially the extremely broad gain bandwidth with large-size crystals available bring people new hope for over multi-PW level at which the existing Nd:glass systems suffered difficulties. In this paper we present simulation and experimental studies for a high gain optical parametric chirped pulse amplification system which may be used as a preamplifier to replace the current complicated regenerative system or multi-pass Ti:sapphire amplifiers. Investigations on the amplification bandwidth and gain with BBO are performed. Analysis and discussions are also given. (author)

  7. Turning value chains into social gains in Southeast Asia | CRDI ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Turning value chains into social gains in Southeast Asia. Global value chains, which now form the largest share of the world's trade, involve producers and enterprises that produce goods as inputs for other producers. In Southeast Asian countries, these industries employ large numbers of low-skilled workers, particularly ...

  8. An integrative model for measuring graduates’ employability skills—A study in China

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Wenping Su

    2015-12-01

    Full Text Available Employability is a key issue in graduates’ job-hunting, but little research has been done on that of the graduates in Chinese universities. These universities have been experiencing a decline in their graduate employment since the past decade. This paper attempts to tackle this issue. It reviews the relevant research on employability and develops a research-based theoretical framework to evaluate and analyze the graduates’ employability in China. It adopts multiple approaches to establish the skills that will enhance university students’ employability. Investigating around 100 employers and 200 undergraduates from the universities in Beijing, the paper explores the characteristics of and factors influencing the graduates’ employability. Subsequently, it proposes a qualitative model to measure graduates’ employability. Based on the findings, it discusses the theoretical and practical implications and provides advice for Chinese graduates to improve their employability.

  9. Validating a Method to Assess Lipreading, Audiovisual Gain, and Integration During Speech Reception With Cochlear-Implanted and Normal-Hearing Subjects Using a Talking Head.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schreitmüller, Stefan; Frenken, Miriam; Bentz, Lüder; Ortmann, Magdalene; Walger, Martin; Meister, Hartmut

    Watching a talker's mouth is beneficial for speech reception (SR) in many communication settings, especially in noise and when hearing is impaired. Measures for audiovisual (AV) SR can be valuable in the framework of diagnosing or treating hearing disorders. This study addresses the lack of standardized methods in many languages for assessing lipreading, AV gain, and integration. A new method is validated that supplements a German speech audiometric test with visualizations of the synthetic articulation of an avatar that was used, for it is feasible to lip-sync auditory speech in a highly standardized way. Three hypotheses were formed according to the literature on AV SR that used live or filmed talkers. It was tested whether respective effects could be reproduced with synthetic articulation: (1) cochlear implant (CI) users have a higher visual-only SR than normal-hearing (NH) individuals, and younger individuals obtain higher lipreading scores than older persons. (2) Both CI and NH gain from presenting AV over unimodal (auditory or visual) sentences in noise. (3) Both CI and NH listeners efficiently integrate complementary auditory and visual speech features. In a controlled, cross-sectional study with 14 experienced CI users (mean age 47.4) and 14 NH individuals (mean age 46.3, similar broad age distribution), lipreading, AV gain, and integration of a German matrix sentence test were assessed. Visual speech stimuli were synthesized by the articulation of the Talking Head system "MASSY" (Modular Audiovisual Speech Synthesizer), which displayed standardized articulation with respect to the visibility of German phones. In line with the hypotheses and previous literature, CI users had a higher mean visual-only SR than NH individuals (CI, 38%; NH, 12%; p < 0.001). Age was correlated with lipreading such that within each group, younger individuals obtained higher visual-only scores than older persons (rCI = -0.54; p = 0.046; rNH = -0.78; p < 0.001). Both CI and NH

  10. VIIRS day-night band gain and offset determination and performance

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geis, J.; Florio, C.; Moyer, D.; Rausch, K.; De Luccia, F. J.

    2012-09-01

    On October 28th, 2011, the Visible-Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) was launched on-board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) spacecraft. The instrument has 22 spectral bands: 14 reflective solar bands (RSB), 7 thermal emissive bands (TEB), and a Day Night Band (DNB). The DNB is a panchromatic, solar reflective band that provides visible through near infrared (IR) imagery of earth scenes with radiances spanning 7 orders of magnitude. In order to function over this large dynamic range, the DNB employs a focal plane array (FPA) consisting of three gain stages: the low gain stage (LGS), the medium gain stage (MGS), and the high gain stage (HGS). The final product generated from a DNB raw data record (RDR) is a radiance sensor data record (SDR). Generation of the SDR requires accurate knowledge of the dark offsets and gain coefficients for each DNB stage. These are measured on-orbit and stored in lookup tables (LUT) that are used during ground processing. This paper will discuss the details of the offset and gain measurement, data analysis methodologies, the operational LUT update process, and results to date including a first look at trending of these parameters over the early life of the instrument.

  11. Social integration and mortality in Australia.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Siahpush, M; Singh, G K

    1999-12-01

    To investigate the relationship between social integration and mortality at the aggregate level of analysis. The data were compiled from several Australian Bureau of Statistics documents. The unit of analysis was State (Territory)-year. The multivariate regression analysis included data from all States and the Australian Capital Territory for 1990-96. Five indicators of social integration--percentage of people living alone; divorce rate; unemployment rate; proportion of people who are discouraged job seekers; and unionization rate--were used as predictors of nine measures of mortality. Higher levels of social integration, as measured by all indicators except unionization, were associated with lower mortality rates. In the case of unionization, higher levels were associated with increased mortality rates. Studies concerning the relationship between social integration and health should investigate the 'type' and 'level' of social integration that is conducive to better health. To help reduce disparities in health and mortality across communities, public health researchers and policy makers need to closely monitor geographic and temporal trends in social integration measures. Social policies that emphasise investment in social integration or social capital through job creation and training, provision of gainful employment and social services for discouraged and marginalized workers, improved work conditions and social support may lower mortality directly or through their beneficial effects on health-promoting behaviours such as reduced levels of smoking, drinking and physical inactivity.

  12. Reduction the effects of opamp finite gain and offset voltage in LDI termination with a minus one half delay of SC ladder filters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radev Nikolay A.

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper a combined approach for reducing the effects of op amp imperfections (finite gain A and offset voltage VOS in first-order SC cell, realizing LDI (loss less discrete integrator termination with a minus one half delay is presented. First, the conventional integrator is replaced with gain- and offset-compensated (GOC integrator. Next, the gain errors m(ω and the phase errors θ(ω are further reduced by using the precise op amp gain approach in the GOC structure. The variation of the dc gain A from its nominal value A0 is taken into account.

  13. Peer Teaching in the Food Chemistry Laboratory: Student-produced Experiments, Peer and Audio Feedback and Integration of Employability

    OpenAIRE

    Dunne, Julie

    2014-01-01

    This paper describes the author’s experience over the last several years of implementing an alternative Food Chemistry laboratory practical for a group of third-year BSc Nutraceuticals students. The initial main objectives were to prepare students for the more independent final-year research project; to incorporate innovative approaches to feedback; and to integrate key employability skills into the curriculum. These were achieved through building the skills required to ultimately allow stude...

  14. Brain Gain am Beispiel Österreich

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aschbacher Christine

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available BrainGain is a common trend within the last ten years in Europe and all-over the world. Managers, key players and scientists are allowed to choose wherever they want to work in the world. As there is a lack of qualified individuals for companies and universities, BrainGain has become a necessity, and mostly – the higher educated individuals are moving away according to a better offer elsewhere in the world. Therefore, a lot of expats are moving around with their families. Many times, the lack of integration at the current place, country or city, is the critical success factor for staying or leaving. Furthermore, if the family does not feel happy in the current location, then the manager or scientist will move away or return home and the investment will be lost.

  15. Associations of neighbourhood walkability indices with weight gain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koohsari, Mohammad Javad; Oka, Koichiro; Shibata, Ai; Liao, Yung; Hanibuchi, Tomoya; Owen, Neville; Sugiyama, Takemi

    2018-04-03

    Inconsistent associations of neighbourhood walkability with adults' body weight have been reported. Most studies examining the relationships of walkability and adiposity are cross-sectional in design. We examined the longitudinal relationships of two walkability indices - conventional walkability and space syntax walkability, and their individual components, with weight change among adults over four years. Data were from the Physical Activity in Localities and Community study in Adelaide, Australia. In 2003-2004, 2650 adults living in 154 Census Collection Districts (CCDs) returned baseline questionnaires; in 2007-2008, the follow-up survey was completed by 1098. Participants reported their weight at baseline and at follow-up. Neighbourhood walkability indices were calculated using geographic information systems and space syntax software. Linear marginal models using generalized estimating equations with robust standard errors were fitted to examine associations of the two walkability indices and their individual components with the weight at follow-up, adjusting for baseline weight, socio-demographic variables, and spatial clustering at the level of CCD. The overall mean weight gain over four years was 1.5 kg. The two walkability indices were closely correlated (r = 0.76, p walkability indices and weight change. Among walkability components, there was a marginally significant negative association between space syntax measure of street integration and weight change: one standard deviation increment in street integration was associated with 0.31 kg less weight gain (p = 0.09). Using a prospective study design and a novel space-syntax based measure of walkability, we were not able to identify relationships between neighbourhood walkability with weight gain. This is consistent with other inconclusive findings on the built environment and obesity. Research on the built environment and adults' weight gain may need to consider not just local environments but

  16. Enhancing genetic gain in the era of molecular breeding.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Yunbi; Li, Ping; Zou, Cheng; Lu, Yanli; Xie, Chuanxiao; Zhang, Xuecai; Prasanna, Boddupalli M; Olsen, Michael S

    2017-05-17

    As one of the important concepts in conventional quantitative genetics and breeding, genetic gain can be defined as the amount of increase in performance that is achieved annually through artificial selection. To develop pro ducts that meet the increasing demand of mankind, especially for food and feed, in addition to various industrial uses, breeders are challenged to enhance the potential of genetic gain continuously, at ever higher rates, while they close the gaps that remain between the yield potential in breeders' demonstration trials and the actual yield in farmers' fields. Factors affecting genetic gain include genetic variation available in breeding materials, heritability for traits of interest, selection intensity, and the time required to complete a breeding cycle. Genetic gain can be improved through enhancing the potential and closing the gaps, which has been evolving and complemented with modern breeding techniques and platforms, mainly driven by molecular and genomic tools, combined with improved agronomic practice. Several key strategies are reviewed in this article. Favorable genetic variation can be unlocked and created through molecular and genomic approaches including mutation, gene mapping and discovery, and transgene and genome editing. Estimation of heritability can be improved by refining field experiments through well-controlled and precisely assayed environmental factors or envirotyping, particularly for understanding and controlling spatial heterogeneity at the field level. Selection intensity can be significantly heightened through improvements in the scale and precision of genotyping and phenotyping. The breeding cycle time can be shortened by accelerating breeding procedures through integrated breeding approaches such as marker-assisted selection and doubled haploid development. All the strategies can be integrated with other widely used conventional approaches in breeding programs to enhance genetic gain. More transdisciplinary

  17. 2-LP mode few-mode fiber amplifier employing ring-core erbium-doped fiber.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ono, Hirotaka; Hosokawa, Tsukasa; Ichii, Kentaro; Matsuo, Shoichiro; Nasu, Hitoshi; Yamada, Makoto

    2015-10-19

    A fiber amplifier supporting 2 LP modes that employs a ring-core erbium-doped fiber (RC-EDF) is investigated to reduce differential modal gain (DMG). The inner and outer radii of the ring-core of the RC-EDF are clarified for 2-LP mode operation of the amplifier, and are optimized to reduce the DMG. It is shown that using the overlap integral between the erbium-doped core area and the signal power mode distribution is a good way to optimize the inner and outer radii of the ring-core of the RC-EDF and thus minimize the DMG. A fabricated RC-EDF and a constructed 2-LP mode EDFA are described and a small DMG of around 1 dB is realized for LP01, LP11 and LP21 pumping.

  18. Virtual Placements to Develop Employability Skills for Civil and Environmental Engineering Students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paul, Parneet

    2015-01-01

    This project work addresses the crucial need to encourage undergraduate civil and environmental engineering students to gain employment skills and training right from the start of their studies so that their overall employability increases; their confidence level in networking with industry and within the workplace increases; and so that they are…

  19. 3-D numerical analysis of a high-gain free-electron laser

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gallardo, J.C.

    1988-01-01

    We present a novel approach to the 3-dimensional high-gain free- electron laser amplifier problem. The method allows us to write the laser field as an integral equation which can be efficiently and accurately evaluated on a small computer. The model is general enough to allow the inclusion of various initial electron beam distributions to study the gain reduction mechanism and its dependence on the physical parameters. 16 refs., 8 figs., 1 tab

  20. Tropical Forest Gain and Interactions amongst Agents of Forest Change

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sean Sloan

    2016-02-01

    Full Text Available The tropical deforestation literature advocates multi-agent enquiry in recognition that key dynamics arise from inter-agent interactions. Studies of tropical forest-cover gain have lagged in this respect. This article explores the roles and key aspects of interactions shaping natural forest regeneration and active reforestation in Eastern Panama since 1990. It employs household surveys of agricultural landholders, interviews with community forest-restoration organisations, archival analysis of plantation reforestation interests, satellite image analysis of forest-cover change, and the consideration of State reforestation policies. Forest-cover gain reflected a convergence of interests and land-use trends amongst agents. Low social and economic costs of sustained interaction and organisation enabled extensive forest-cover gain, but low transaction costs did not. Corporate plantation reforestation rose to the fore of regional forest-cover gain via opportunistic land sales by ranchers and economic subsidies indicative of a State preference for autonomous, self-organising forest-cover gain. This reforestation follows a recent history of neoliberal frontier development in which State-backed loggers and ranchers similarly displaced agriculturalists. Community institutions, long neglected by the State, struggled to coordinate landholders and so effected far less forest-cover gain. National and international commitments to tropical forest restoration risk being similarly characterised as ineffective by a predominance of industrial plantation reforestation without greater State support for community forest management.

  1. 26 CFR 1.1402(a)-6 - Gain or loss from disposition of property.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... (CONTINUED) INCOME TAX (CONTINUED) INCOME TAXES Tax on Self-Employment Income § 1.1402(a)-6 Gain or loss from..., coal, or iron ore, even though held primarily for sale to customers, if section 631 is applicable to...

  2. Unequal Gain of Equal Resources across Racial Groups

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shervin Assari

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available The health effects of economic resources (eg, education, employment, and living place and psychological assets (eg, self-efficacy, perceived control over life, anger control, and emotions are well-known. This article summarizes the results of a growing body of evidence documenting Blacks’ diminished return, defined as a systematically smaller health gain from economic resources and psychological assets for Blacks in comparison to Whites. Due to structural barriers that Blacks face in their daily lives, the very same resources and assets generate smaller health gain for Blacks compared to Whites. Even in the presence of equal access to resources and assets, such unequal health gain constantly generates a racial health gap between Blacks and Whites in the United States. In this paper, a number of public policies are recommended based on these findings. First and foremost, public policies should not merely focus on equalizing access to resources and assets, but also reduce the societal and structural barriers that hinder Blacks. Policy solutions should aim to reduce various manifestations of structural racism including but not limited to differential pay, residential segregation, lower quality of education, and crime in Black and urban communities. As income was not found to follow the same pattern demonstrated for other resources and assets (ie, income generated similar decline in risk of mortality for Whites and Blacks, policies that enforce equal income and increase minimum wage for marginalized populations are essential. Improving quality of education of youth and employability of young adults will enable Blacks to compete for high paying jobs. Policies that reduce racism and discrimination in the labor market are also needed. Without such policies, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate the sustained racial health gap in the United States.

  3. Information Technology How Leading Firms Use It to Gain an Advantage

    CERN Document Server

    Rapp, William V

    2002-01-01

    Focuses on the strategic principles fundamental to using information technology to gain market control. This book provides case examples of how to use IT. It is designed to help managers struggling with how to harness the information revolution. It describes how non-information technology companies are employing strategic principles and using it.

  4. Mentoring: The Contextualisation of Learning--Mentor, Protege and Organisational Gain in Higher Education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dutton, Chris

    2003-01-01

    A British university's hospitality education program matched students with industry mentors. For students, mentoring helped contextualize learning and contributed to personal development. Mentors gained personal satisfaction, and employers were able to hire vocationally aware graduates. (Contains 43 references.) (SK)

  5. Lower-power, high-linearity class-AB current-mode programmable gain amplifier

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wu Yiqiang; Wang Zhigong; Wang Junliang; Ma Li; Xu Jian; Tang Lu

    2014-01-01

    A novel class-AB implementation of a current-mode programmable gain amplifier (CPGA) including a current-mode DC offset cancellation loop is presented. The proposed CPGA is based on a current amplifier and provides a current gain in a range of 40 dB with a 1 dB step. The CPGA is characterized by a wide range of current gain variation, a lower power dissipation, and a small chip size. The proposed circuit is fabricated using a 0.18 μm CMOS technology. The CPGA draws a current of less than 2.52 mA from a 1.8 V supply while occupying an active area of 0.099 μm 2 . The measured results show an overall gain variation from 10 to 50 dB with a gain error of less than 0.40 dB. The OP 1dB varies from 11.80 to 13.71 dBm, and the 3 dB bandwidth varies from 22.2 to 34.7 MHz over the whole gain range. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  6. Peer-teaching in the food chemistry laboratory: student-produced experiments, peer and audio feedback, and integration of employability skills

    OpenAIRE

    Julie Lisa Dunne

    2014-01-01

    This paper describes the author’s experience over the last several years of implementing an alternative Food Chemistry laboratory practical model for a group of third-year BSc Nutraceuticals students. The initial main objectives were to prepare students for the more independent final-year research project; to incorporate innovative approaches to feedback; and to integrate key employability skills into the curriculum. These were achieved through building the skills required to ultimately allow...

  7. High-gain bipolar detector on float-zone silicon

    Science.gov (United States)

    Han, D. J.; Batignani, G.; Del Guerra, A.; Dalla Betta, G.-F.; Boscardin, M.; Bosisio, L.; Giorgi, M.; Forti, F.

    2003-10-01

    Since the float-zone (FZ) silicon has lower contaminations and longer minority-carrier lifetime than those in Czochralski silicon and other semiconductor materials, it has potential advantages to fabricate bipolar detectors on the high-purity FZ silicon substrate to achieve a high gain at ultra-low-signal levels. The authors present preliminary experimental results on a bipolar detector fabricated on an unusual high-purity FZ silicon substrate. A backside gettering layer of phosphorus-doped polysilicon was employed to preserve the long carrier lifetime of the high-purity FZ silicon. The device has been investigated in the detection of a continuous flux of X-ray and infrared light. The bipolar detector with a circular emitter of 2 mm diameter has demonstrated high gains up to 3820 for 22 keV X-ray from a 1 mCi Cd radioactive source (the X-ray photon flux, received by the detector is estimated to be ˜7.77×10 4/s). High gain up to 4400 for 0.17 nW light with a wavelength of 0.83 μm has been observed for the same device.

  8. High-gain bipolar detector on float-zone silicon

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Han, D.J.; Batignani, G.; Guerra, A.D.A. Del; Dalla Betta, G.-F.; Boscardin, M.; Bosisio, L.; Giorgi, M.; Forti, F.

    2003-01-01

    Since the float-zone (FZ) silicon has lower contaminations and longer minority-carrier lifetime than those in Czochralski silicon and other semiconductor materials, it has potential advantages to fabricate bipolar detectors on the high-purity FZ silicon substrate to achieve a high gain at ultra-low-signal levels. The authors present preliminary experimental results on a bipolar detector fabricated on an unusual high-purity FZ silicon substrate. A backside gettering layer of phosphorus-doped polysilicon was employed to preserve the long carrier lifetime of the high-purity FZ silicon. The device has been investigated in the detection of a continuous flux of X-ray and infrared light. The bipolar detector with a circular emitter of 2 mm diameter has demonstrated high gains up to 3820 for 22 keV X-ray from a 1 mCi Cd radioactive source (the X-ray photon flux, received by the detector is estimated to be ∼7.77x10 4 /s). High gain up to 4400 for 0.17 nW light with a wavelength of 0.83 μm has been observed for the same device

  9. Employment, social capital, and community participation among Israelis with disabilities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Araten-Bergman, Tal; Stein, Michael Ashley

    2014-01-01

    Employment, social capital, and community participation have emerged in recent years as significant concepts for realizing the human rights of individuals with disabilities. Yet the theoretical interrelationship of these concepts remains largely overlooked, as does the empirical basis for understanding the underlying connections. This study explores the relationship between employment status, social capital, community participation, and well-being among Israelis with disabilities. It also explores the unique contribution of social capital to the well-being and integration of individuals with disabilities. 274 participants with self-reported disabilities completed a questionnaire containing measures of individual social capital, community participation, well-being, and background data. Correlation and Univariate analysis were used to compare scores between employed (n=131) and non-employed (n=143) participants, and logistic regression analysis was conducted to test the unique contribution of employment to social inclusion and well-being. Employed participants reported significantly higher levels of social capital and were more integrated in leisure and civic activities than their non-employed counterparts. Moreover, employment status was found to have a significant contribution to the variance in the subjective well-being of participants. By more fully understanding the importance of social capital for community inclusion, practitioners can better address the importance of network-building during the rehabilitation process as a means of promoting social and vocational integration.

  10. ATTITUDES AND OPINIONS OF EMPLOYERS, EMPLOYEES AND PARENTS ABOUT THE EMPLOYMENT OF PEOPLE WITH AUTISM IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tanja STANKOVA

    2010-11-01

    Full Text Available The right to work is one of the fundamental human rights in all developed countries around the world. The employment, actually the right to work of persons with disability is the final phase of the long and complex process of their rehabilitation that affects the possibility of their integration in the community.The main objective of this research is to investigate the possibility of employment of people with autism, based on the attitudes and opinions of employers, employees and parents of the children with autism.The basic tasks of this research are: to determine whether the employers would employ a person with autism; weather employers and the employees know what autism is; weather according to employers and employees people with autism are able to perform their job duties in complete and weather the parents of children with autism would like their child to be employed.We conducted this research in a period of 3 months and included 130 respondents. Obtained data were collected, grouped, tabled and processed with standard statistical program Microsoft Office Excel 2003, applying χ2 tests and Fisher's Exact test. Statistical important difference was at the level of p<0.05.From the analysis and the interpretation of the results, we concluded that in the Republic of Macedonia do not exist positive atmosphere, for employment of the persons with autism, the employers do not want to employ a person with autism. The professionals must engage more deeply in this problematic in order to achieve a complete integration of the people with autism in the society.

  11. Energy performance of windows based on the net energy gain

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Svendsen, Svend; Kragh, Jesper; Laustsen, Jacob Birck

    2005-01-01

    The paper presents a new method to set up energy performance requirements and energy classes for windows of all dimensions and configurations. The net energy gain of windows is the solar gain minus the heat loss integrated over the heating season. The net energy gain can be calculated for one...... be expressed as a function of two parameters representing the energy performance and two parameters representing the geometry of the window. The two energy performance parameters are the net energy gain per area of the glazing unit and the sum of the heat losses through the frame and the assembly per length...... of the frame. The two geometry numbers are the area of the glazing unit relative to the window area and the length of the frame profiles relative to the window area. Requirements and classes for the energy performance of the window can be given by assigning values to the two energy performance parameters...

  12. An integrated circuit switch

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bonin, E. L.

    1969-01-01

    Multi-chip integrated circuit switch consists of a GaAs photon-emitting diode in close proximity with S1 phototransistor. A high current gain is obtained when the transistor has a high forward common-emitter current gain.

  13. 78 FR 60303 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Online Survey of Web Services Employers; New...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-10-01

    ...-NEW] Agency Information Collection Activities: Online Survey of Web Services Employers; New... information collection. (2) Title of the Form/Collection: Online Survey of Web Services Employers. (3) Agency... USCIS obtains data on the E-Verify Program Web Services. Gaining an understanding of the Web Services...

  14. Integrated Control Using the SOFFT Control Structure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Halyo, Nesim

    1996-01-01

    The need for integrated/constrained control systems has become clearer as advanced aircraft introduced new coupled subsystems such as new propulsion subsystems with thrust vectoring and new aerodynamic designs. In this study, we develop an integrated control design methodology which accomodates constraints among subsystem variables while using the Stochastic Optimal Feedforward/Feedback Control Technique (SOFFT) thus maintaining all the advantages of the SOFFT approach. The Integrated SOFFT Control methodology uses a centralized feedforward control and a constrained feedback control law. The control thus takes advantage of the known coupling among the subsystems while maintaining the identity of subsystems for validation purposes and the simplicity of the feedback law to understand the system response in complicated nonlinear scenarios. The Variable-Gain Output Feedback Control methodology (including constant gain output feedback) is extended to accommodate equality constraints. A gain computation algorithm is developed. The designer can set the cross-gains between two variables or subsystems to zero or another value and optimize the remaining gains subject to the constraint. An integrated control law is designed for a modified F-15 SMTD aircraft model with coupled airframe and propulsion subsystems using the Integrated SOFFT Control methodology to produce a set of desired flying qualities.

  15. Changes in Employed People’s Health Satisfaction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Monika Jungbauer-Gans

    2013-09-01

    Full Text Available The article examines for Germany whether the subjective satisfaction with health has changed over the course of time. It is analysed whether a drop in health satisfaction can be observed and whether this can be explained by changing employment circumstances. Labour market research has documented a change in the employment situation in detail, which can be subsumed under the keyword of precarisation. In the theoretical section we will portray the current state of research concerning the development of the employment situation and emphasize the significance of gainful employment for health. The empirical analyses of the article are based on data of employed people in the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP of the years 1985, 1996 and 2009. The data show a significantly declining health satisfaction between 1985 and 2009 in Western Germany and no noteworthy change in Eastern Germany between 1996 and 2009. The Blinder/Oaxaca decomposition is used in the analyses to better differentiate the effect of the changed employment situation on the drop in health satisfaction. The analyses indeed reveal changing effects of the employment situation. In Western Germany, a significant percentage of the lesser health satisfaction can be attributed to an increasing number of workers in precarious employment situations. Workplace security is of primary significance for explaining the declining health satisfaction in Western Germany.

  16. Applied optics. Gain modulation by graphene plasmons in aperiodic lattice lasers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chakraborty, S; Marshall, O P; Folland, T G; Kim, Y-J; Grigorenko, A N; Novoselov, K S

    2016-01-15

    Two-dimensional graphene plasmon-based technologies will enable the development of fast, compact, and inexpensive active photonic elements because, unlike plasmons in other materials, graphene plasmons can be tuned via the doping level. Such tuning is harnessed within terahertz quantum cascade lasers to reversibly alter their emission. This is achieved in two key steps: first, by exciting graphene plasmons within an aperiodic lattice laser and, second, by engineering photon lifetimes, linking graphene's Fermi energy with the round-trip gain. Modal gain and hence laser spectra are highly sensitive to the doping of an integrated, electrically controllable, graphene layer. Demonstration of the integrated graphene plasmon laser principle lays the foundation for a new generation of active, programmable plasmonic metamaterials with major implications across photonics, material sciences, and nanotechnology. Copyright © 2016, American Association for the Advancement of Science.

  17. A 2 x 2 imaging MIMO system based on LED Visible Light Communications employing space balanced coding and integrated PIN array reception

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Li, Jiehui; Xu, Yinfan; Shi, Jianyang

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, we proposed a 2 x 2 imaging Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO)-Visible Light Communication (VLC) system by employing Space Balanced Coding (SBC) based on two RGB LEDs and integrated PIN array reception. We experimentally demonstrated 1.4-Gbit/s VLC transmission at a distance of 2.5 m...

  18. The Contribution of Work-Integrated Learning to Undergraduate Employability Skill Outcomes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jackson, Denise

    2013-01-01

    WIL has attracted considerable attention as an instrument for enhancing professional practice and developing work-readiness in new graduates. It is widely considered as a point of difference in developing graduate employability by enhancing skill outcomes, such as team-work, communication, self-management and problem solving, employment prospects…

  19. Landau damping: the mechanics model and its ultimate entropy gain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hannay, J H; Kluge, Michel

    2011-01-01

    Classical mechanics has only been invoked to account for Landau damping in a rather half-hearted way, alongside plasma perturbation theory. In particular this invocation is essential for the study of the saturation, or post-linear (or 'nonlinear') regime of the damping initiated by Dawson and O'Neill. By embracing mechanics wholeheartedly here, with its attendant phase space, one can access results, old and new, cleanly and directly, and with one fewer numerical integration for the post-linear regime. By using a summation technique familiar in semiclassical quantum mechanics (Poisson summation), the one remaining numerical integration can be much improved in accuracy. Also accessible from mechanics is the ultimate entropy gain. Though zero for any finite time (in the absence of coarse graining), the entropy gain is ultimately non-zero (at infinite time the required coarse graining is zero). It is calculated analytically by using the appropriate asymptotics, hitherto not fully exploited.

  20. Employment impacts of alcohol taxes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wada, Roy; Chaloupka, Frank J; Powell, Lisa M; Jernigan, David H

    2017-12-01

    There is strong scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of increasing alcohol taxes for reducing excessive alcohol consumption and related problems. Opponents have argued that alcohol tax increases lead to job losses. However, there has been no comprehensive economic analysis of the impact of alcohol taxes on employment. To fill this gap, a regional macroeconomic simulation model was used to assess the net impact of two hypothetical alcohol tax increases (a 5-cent per drink excise tax increase and a 5% sales tax increase on beer, wine, and distilled spirits, respectively) on employment in Arkansas, Florida, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Wisconsin. The model accounted for changes in alcohol demand, average state income, and substitution effects. The employment impact of spending the new tax revenue on general expenditures versus health care was also assessed. Simulation results showed that a 5-cent per drink additional excise tax on alcoholic beverages with new tax revenues allocated to general expenditures increased net employment in Arkansas (802 jobs); Florida (4583 jobs); Massachusetts (978 jobs); New Mexico (653 jobs); and Wisconsin (1167 jobs). A 5% additional sales tax also increased employment in Arkansas (789 jobs; Florida (4493 jobs); Massachusetts (898 jobs); New Mexico (621 jobs); and Wisconsin (991 jobs). Using new alcohol tax revenues to fund health care services resulted in slightly lower net increases in state employment. The overall economic impact of alcohol tax increases cannot be fully assessed without accounting for the job gains resulting from additional tax revenues. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  1. Tuning gain and bandwidth of traveling wave tubes using metamaterial beam-wave interaction structures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lipton, Robert; Polizzi, Anthony

    2014-01-01

    We employ metamaterial beam-wave interaction structures for tuning the gain and bandwidth of short traveling wave tubes. The interaction structures are made from metal rings of uniform cross section, which are periodically deployed along the length of the traveling wave tube. The aspect ratio of the ring cross sections is adjusted to control both gain and bandwidth. The frequency of operation is controlled by the filling fraction of the ring cross section with respect to the size of the period cell.

  2. High-Current Cold Cathode Employing Diamond and Related Materials

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hirshfield, Jay L. [Omega-P, Inc., New Haven, CT (United States)

    2014-10-22

    The essence of this project was for diamond films to be deposited on cold cathodes to improve their emission properties. Films with varying morphology, composition, and size of the crystals were deposited and the emission properties of the cathodes that utilize such films were studied. The prototype cathodes fabricated by the methods developed during Phase I were tested and evaluated in an actual high-power RF device during Phase II. These high-power tests used the novel active RF pulse compression system and the X-band magnicon test facility at US Naval Research Laboratory. In earlier tests, plasma switches were employed, while tests under this project utilized electron-beam switching. The intense electron beams required in the switches were supplied from cold cathodes embodying diamond films with varying morphology, including uncoated molybdenum cathodes in the preliminary tests. Tests with uncoated molybdenum cathodes produced compressed X-band RF pulses with a peak power of 91 MW, and a maximum power gain of 16.5:1. Tests were also carried out with switches employing diamond coated cathodes. The pulse compressor was based on use of switches employing electron beam triggering to effect mode conversion. In experimental tests, the compressor produced 165 MW in a ~ 20 ns pulse at ~18× power gain and ~ 140 MW at ~ 16× power gain in a 16 ns pulse with a ~ 7 ns flat-top. In these tests, molybdenum blade cathodes with thin diamond coatings demonstrated good reproducible emission uniformity with a 100 kV, 100 ns high voltage pulse. The new compressor does not have the limitations of earlier types of active pulse compressors and can operate at significantly higher electric fields without breakdown.

  3. Broadband tunability of gain-flattened quantum-well semiconductor lasers with an external grating

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mittelstein, M.; Mehuys, D.; Yariv, A.; Sarfaty, R.; Ungar, J.E.

    1989-01-01

    Semiconductor injection lasers are known to be tunable over a range of order kΒ · T. Quantum-well lasers, in particular, are shown to exhibit flattened, broadband gain spectra at a particular pumping condition. The gain requirement for a grating-tuned external cavity configuration is examined and is applied to a semiconductor quantum-well laser with an optimized length of gain region. The coupled-cavity formalism is employed to examine the conditions for continuous tuning. The possible tuning range of double-heterostructure lasers is compared to that of quantum-well lasers. The predicted broadband tunability of quantum-well lasers is confirmed experimentally by grating-tuning of uncoated lasers exceeding 120 nm, with single, longitudinal mode output power exceeding 300 mW

  4. Gestational weight gain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kominiarek, Michelle A; Peaceman, Alan M

    2017-12-01

    Prenatal care providers are advised to evaluate maternal weight at each regularly scheduled prenatal visit, monitor progress toward meeting weight gain goals, and provide individualized counseling if significant deviations from a woman's goals occur. Today, nearly 50% of women exceed their weight gain goals with overweight and obese women having the highest prevalence of excessive weight gain. Risks of inadequate weight gain include low birthweight and failure to initiate breast-feeding whereas the risks of excessive weight gain include cesarean deliveries and postpartum weight retention for the mother and large-for-gestational-age infants, macrosomia, and childhood overweight or obesity for the offspring. Prenatal care providers have many resources and tools to incorporate weight and other health behavior counseling into routine prenatal practices. Because many women are motivated to improve health behaviors, pregnancy is often considered the optimal time to intervene for issues related to eating habits and physical activity to prevent excessive weight gain. Gestational weight gain is a potentially modifiable risk factor for a number of adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials report that diet or exercise interventions during pregnancy can help reduce excessive weight gain. However, health behavior interventions for gestational weight gain have not significantly improved other maternal and neonatal outcomes and have limited effectiveness in overweight and obese women. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  5. Substrate Integrated Evanescent Filters Employing Coaxial Stubs

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Zhurbenko, Vitaliy

    2015-01-01

    Evanescent mode substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) is one of the promising technologies for design of light-weight low-cost microwave components. Traditional realization methods used in the standard evanescent waveguide technology are often not directly applicable to SIW due to dielectric filli...... of the microwave filter are discussed. The approach is useful in applications where a sharp roll-off at the upper stop-band is required....

  6. Operational gain : measuring the capture of genetic gain ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    The concept of operational gain is more than the weighted average of the genetic quality of planted hectares, and encompasses tree breeding efficiencies, propagation efficiencies, matching of species and genotype to site, plant use efficiency and early measures of stand density and growth. To test the operational gain ...

  7. Automatic Voltage Control System with Market Price Employing Large Wind Farms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Qin, Nan; Bak, Claus Leth; Abildgaard, Hans

    2018-01-01

    of the voltage control service provided by the power plant owners. The benefit of employing the large offshore wind farms in this AVC system is investigated. The simulation based on the measurement data from the Danish electricity control center demonstrates the superiority of the proposed approach in terms...... of the cost minimization. The gained profit by employing the wind farms can be an argument to purchase the voltage control service provided by these wind farms....

  8. Integrated Three-Voltage-Booster DC-DC Converter to Achieve High Voltage Gain with Leakage-Energy Recycling for PV or Fuel-Cell Power Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chih-Lung Shen

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, an integrated three-voltage-booster DC-DC (direct current to direct current converter is proposed to achieve high voltage gain for renewable-energy generation systems. The proposed converter integrates three voltage-boosters into one power stage, which is composed of an active switch, a coupled-inductor, five diodes, and five capacitors. As compared with conventional high step-up converters, it has a lower component count. In addition, the features of leakage-energy recycling and switching loss reduction can be accomplished for conversion efficiency improvement. While the active switch is turned off, the converter can inherently clamp the voltage across power switch and suppress voltage spikes. Moreover, the reverse-recovery currents of all diodes can be alleviated by leakage inductance. A 200 W prototype operating at 100 kHz switching frequency with 36 V input and 400 V output is implemented to verify the theoretical analysis and to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed high step-up DC-DC converter.

  9. Integration of extracellular RNA profiling data using metadata, biomedical ontologies and Linked Data technologies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sai Lakshmi Subramanian

    2015-08-01

    Full Text Available The large diversity and volume of extracellular RNA (exRNA data that will form the basis of the exRNA Atlas generated by the Extracellular RNA Communication Consortium pose a substantial data integration challenge. We here present the strategy that is being implemented by the exRNA Data Management and Resource Repository, which employs metadata, biomedical ontologies and Linked Data technologies, such as Resource Description Framework to integrate a diverse set of exRNA profiles into an exRNA Atlas and enable integrative exRNA analysis. We focus on the following three specific data integration tasks: (a selection of samples from a virtual biorepository for exRNA profiling and for inclusion in the exRNA Atlas; (b retrieval of a data slice from the exRNA Atlas for integrative analysis and (c interpretation of exRNA analysis results in the context of pathways and networks. As exRNA profiling gains wide adoption in the research community, we anticipate that the strategies discussed here will increasingly be required to enable data reuse and to facilitate integrative analysis of exRNA data.

  10. Integration of extracellular RNA profiling data using metadata, biomedical ontologies and Linked Data technologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Subramanian, Sai Lakshmi; Kitchen, Robert R; Alexander, Roger; Carter, Bob S; Cheung, Kei-Hoi; Laurent, Louise C; Pico, Alexander; Roberts, Lewis R; Roth, Matthew E; Rozowsky, Joel S; Su, Andrew I; Gerstein, Mark B; Milosavljevic, Aleksandar

    2015-01-01

    The large diversity and volume of extracellular RNA (exRNA) data that will form the basis of the exRNA Atlas generated by the Extracellular RNA Communication Consortium pose a substantial data integration challenge. We here present the strategy that is being implemented by the exRNA Data Management and Resource Repository, which employs metadata, biomedical ontologies and Linked Data technologies, such as Resource Description Framework to integrate a diverse set of exRNA profiles into an exRNA Atlas and enable integrative exRNA analysis. We focus on the following three specific data integration tasks: (a) selection of samples from a virtual biorepository for exRNA profiling and for inclusion in the exRNA Atlas; (b) retrieval of a data slice from the exRNA Atlas for integrative analysis and (c) interpretation of exRNA analysis results in the context of pathways and networks. As exRNA profiling gains wide adoption in the research community, we anticipate that the strategies discussed here will increasingly be required to enable data reuse and to facilitate integrative analysis of exRNA data.

  11. Unequal Gain of Equal Resources across Racial Groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Assari, Shervin

    2017-08-05

    The health effects of economic resources (eg, education, employment, and living place) and psychological assets (eg, self-efficacy, perceived control over life, anger control, and emotions) are well-known. This article summarizes the results of a growing body of evidence documenting Blacks' diminished return, defined as a systematically smaller health gain from economic resources and psychological assets for Blacks in comparison to Whites. Due to structural barriers that Blacks face in their daily lives, the very same resources and assets generate smaller health gain for Blacks compared to Whites. Even in the presence of equal access to resources and assets, such unequal health gain constantly generates a racial health gap between Blacks and Whites in the United States. In this paper, a number of public policies are recommended based on these findings. First and foremost, public policies should not merely focus on equalizing access to resources and assets, but also reduce the societal and structural barriers that hinder Blacks. Policy solutions should aim to reduce various manifestations of structural racism including but not limited to differential pay, residential segregation, lower quality of education, and crime in Black and urban communities. As income was not found to follow the same pattern demonstrated for other resources and assets (ie, income generated similar decline in risk of mortality for Whites and Blacks), policies that enforce equal income and increase minimum wage for marginalized populations are essential. Improving quality of education of youth and employability of young adults will enable Blacks to compete for high paying jobs. Policies that reduce racism and discrimination in the labor market are also needed. Without such policies, it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate the sustained racial health gap in the United States. © 2018 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. This is an open

  12. Employment for adults with autism spectrum disorders: A retrospective review of a customized employment approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wehman, Paul; Brooke, Valerie; Brooke, Alissa Molinelli; Ham, Whitney; Schall, Carol; McDonough, Jennifer; Lau, Stephanie; Seward, Hannah; Avellone, Lauren

    2016-01-01

    Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in prevalence of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and those children are now becoming young adults in need of competitive integrated employment (CIE). Customized employment (CE) is one pathway to employment that has been successful for other individuals with developmental disabilities (DD), though research has been very limited on the effectiveness with individuals with ASD. This paper provides a retrospective review of 64 individuals with ASD who came to our program from 2009 to 2014 for supported employment services as referred by the state vocational rehabilitation services agency. Employment specialists engaged in situational assessment, discovery, job development, customized job descriptions, on-site training and support, positive behavioral supports, and job retention techniques. The employment specialists were responsible for tracking their actual time spent working directly with or for the jobseeker with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). All vocational rehabilitation clients with ASD served during this time successfully secured CIE, and maintained their employment with ongoing supports, with intensity of support time decreasing over time. The majority (63/64, 98.4%) of individuals successfully secured CIE through the use of supported employment, in 72 unique employment positions. Of the majority of the individuals who secured employment, 77% (50) individuals indicated that they had never worked before and additional 18% (12) reported having short intermittent histories of employment. Despite this lack of employment experience, in all cases the jobseeker directed the job search and ultimately the job selection. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Employee Selection Process: Integrating Employee Needs and Employer Motivators.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carroll, Brian J.

    1989-01-01

    Offers suggestions for managers relative to the employee selection process, focusing on the identification of a potential employee's needs and the employer's motivators that affect employee productivity. Discusses the use of a preemployment survey and offers a questionnaire that allows matching of the employee's needs with employment…

  14. Utilizing wideband AMC structures for high-gain inkjet-printed antennas on lossy paper substrate

    KAUST Repository

    Cook, Benjamin Stassen

    2013-01-01

    Significant gain and bandwidth improvement of inkjet-printed antennas with integrated artificial magnetic conductor (AMC) is achieved by utilizing wideband ground-backed frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) to overcome the high losses of organic substrates such as paper. A microstrip-fed monopole mounted on an artificial magnetic conductor is demonstrated to improve the gain by 5 dB over previous works and exhibit much wider impedance bandwidth while maintaining a thin antenna profile and a 20% electrical size reduction. The effect of AMC bandwidth on substrate losses and the gain reduction caused by finite AMC array effects are investigated in an effort to produce high-gain, miniaturized, low-cost wearable and structure mount antennas. © 2013 IEEE.

  15. Summary of Pressure Gain Combustion Research at NASA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Perkins, H. Douglas; Paxson, Daniel E.

    2018-01-01

    NASA has undertaken a systematic exploration of many different facets of pressure gain combustion over the last 25 years in an effort to exploit the inherent thermodynamic advantage of pressure gain combustion over the constant pressure combustion process used in most aerospace propulsion systems. Applications as varied as small-scale UAV's, rotorcraft, subsonic transports, hypersonics and launch vehicles have been considered. In addition to studying pressure gain combustor concepts such as wave rotors, pulse detonation engines, pulsejets, and rotating detonation engines, NASA has studied inlets, nozzles, ejectors and turbines which must also process unsteady flow in an integrated propulsion system. Other design considerations such as acoustic signature, combustor material life and heat transfer that are unique to pressure gain combustors have also been addressed in NASA research projects. In addition to a wide range of experimental studies, a number of computer codes, from 0-D up through 3-D, have been developed or modified to specifically address the analysis of unsteady flow fields. Loss models have also been developed and incorporated into these codes that improve the accuracy of performance predictions and decrease computational time. These codes have been validated numerous times across a broad range of operating conditions, and it has been found that once validated for one particular pressure gain combustion configuration, these codes are readily adaptable to the others. All in all, the documentation of this work has encompassed approximately 170 NASA technical reports, conference papers and journal articles to date. These publications are very briefly summarized herein, providing a single point of reference for all of NASA's pressure gain combustion research efforts. This documentation does not include the significant contributions made by NASA research staff to the programs of other agencies, universities, industrial partners and professional society

  16. Behavioral factors predicting response to employment-based reinforcement of cocaine abstinence in methadone patients

    OpenAIRE

    Holtyn, August F.; Washington, Wendy Donlin; Knealing, Todd W.; Wong, Conrad J.; Kolodner, Ken; Silverman, Kenneth

    2016-01-01

    We sought to identify behavioral factors associated with response to an employment-based intervention, in which participants had to provide drug-free urine samples to gain access to paid employment. The present secondary analysis included data from a randomized clinical trial. The trial evaluated whether employment-based reinforcement could decrease cocaine use in community methadone patients. Participants (N=56) in the trial worked in a model workplace for 4 hr every weekday and earned about...

  17. Can Rural Employment Benefit from Changing Labor Skills in U.S. Processed Food Trade?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schluter, Gerald; Lee, Chinkook

    2002-01-01

    The 1990s saw a gain in rural food-processing employment, particularly meat packing and poultry processing, as the industry's demand for low-skilled workers increased. Analysis links the change in worker skills to international trade. While increased rural employment may seem beneficial, the jobs often do not appeal to rural domestic workers, and…

  18. Inkjet printing of novel wideband and high gain antennas on low-cost paper substrate

    KAUST Repository

    Cook, Benjamin Stassen; Shamim, Atif

    2012-01-01

    for the UWB band which exhibits a significantly higher gain of up to 8 dBi as compared to the currently published inkjet printed antennas, and a novel slow-wave log periodic dipole array which employs a new miniaturization technique to show 20% width reduction

  19. Investing in Women’s Employment : Good for Business, Good for Development

    OpenAIRE

    International Finance Corporation

    2013-01-01

    Economic growth is more robust and sustainable when women and men alike participate fully in the labor market. Better jobs for women, employment that leads to higher wages and greater decision-making, also have a positive influence on the ways households spend money on children s nutrition, health, and education. Meanwhile, companies that invest in women s employment gain an important competitive advantage. Yet despite the persuasive evidence that gender equality has a transformative effect o...

  20. PV source based high voltage gain current fed converter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saha, Soumya; Poddar, Sahityika; Chimonyo, Kudzai B.; Arunkumar, G.; Elangovan, D.

    2017-11-01

    This work involves designing and simulation of a PV source based high voltage gain, current fed converter. It deals with an isolated DC-DC converter which utilizes boost converter topology. The proposed converter is capable of high voltage gain and above all have very high efficiency levels as proved by the simulation results. The project intends to produce an output of 800 V dc from a 48 V dc input. The simulation results obtained from PSIM application interface were used to analyze the performance of the proposed converter. Transformer used in the circuit steps up the voltage as well as to provide electrical isolation between the low voltage and high voltage side. Since the converter involves high switching frequency of 100 kHz, ultrafast recovery diodes are employed in the circuitry. The major application of the project is for future modeling of solar powered electric hybrid cars.

  1. Three-dimensional analysis of harmonic generation in high-gain free-electron lasers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Huang, Zhirong; Kim, Kwang-Je

    2000-01-01

    In a high-gain free-electron laser (FEL) employing a planar undulator, strong bunching at the fundamental wavelength can drive substantial bunching and power levels at the harmonic frequencies. In this paper we investigate the three-dimensional evolution of harmonic radiation based on the coupled Maxwell-Klimontovich equations that take into account nonlinear harmonic interactions. Each harmonic field is a sum of a linear amplification term and a term driven by nonlinear harmonic interactions. After a certain stage of exponential growth, the dominant nonlinear term is determined by interactions of the lower nonlinear harmonics and the fundamental radiation. As a result, the gain length, transverse profile, and temporal structure of the first few harmonics are eventually governed by those of the fundamental. Transversely coherent third-harmonic radiation power is found to approach 1% of the fundamental power level for current high-gain FEL projects

  2. Clinical and cognitive correlates of employment among patients with schizophrenia: a cross-sectional study in Malaysia

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radzi Rozhan SM

    2011-05-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background Gainful employment is one major area of functioning which is becoming an important goal in psychiatric rehabilitation of patients with schizophrenia. Studies in western countries are pointing to evidence that certain sociodemographic and clinical factors may contribute to employment outcomes in this group of people. However, the area is still largely unexplored in Malaysia. The aim of this study was to examine the sociodemographic, clinical and cognitive correlates of employment status among patients with Schizophrenia. Methods This was a cross-sectional study. All participants who fulfilled the requirements of the study according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria were enrolled. Study instruments included a demographic data questionnaire, Positive and Negative Symptom Scale (PANSS, Trail Making Tests, Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT and Digit Span. Bivariate analyses were done using chi-square for categorical data and t-test for continuous data and multiple logistic regression analysis was done to identify predictors of employment status. Results A total of 95 participants who fulfilled the inclusion criteria were enrolled into the study. Among the sociodemographic, clinical and cognitive variables studied marital status, educational level, mean scores of negative symptoms, Digit Span and RAVLT and Trail Making Tests were found to show significant association with employment status on bivariate analyses. However, when entered into a logistic regression model, only cognitive variables ie. Trail A and B, Digit Span and RAVLT were significant predictors of employment status. Conclusions The results from this study support the role of cognitive function, particularly, attention, working memory and executive functioning on attaining and maintaining employment in persons with schizophrenia as measured by the RAVLT, Digit Span and Trail Making Tests. These findings may act as preliminary evidence suggesting the

  3. MOS current gain cells with electronically variable gain and constant bandwidth

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Klumperink, Eric A.M.; Seevinck, Evert

    1989-01-01

    Two MOS current gain cells are proposed that provide linear amplification of currents supplied by several linear MOS V-I converters. The gain is electronically variable by a voltage or a current and can be made insensitive to temperature and IC processing. The gain cells have a constant

  4. Immigrants’ Paths to Employment in Finland

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Aini Pehkonen

    2006-01-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate how immigrants have integrated into Finnish life from the standpoints of employment. The empirical research material consisted of 30 interviews with immigrants and four interviews with of? cials and others dealing with immigrant affairs. Factors promoting employment of immigrants were the voluntary nature of the immigration, educational quali? cations as demonstrated by the relevant certi? cates and knowledge of the Finnish language. One in three reported that they had ? rst received information about vacancies from the Employment Of? ce, and one in ? ve by approaching the employer directly asking for work. One in seven had found out about jobs through friends.

  5. An employer brand predictive model for talent attraction and retention

    OpenAIRE

    Annelize Botha; Mark Bussin; Lukas de Swardt

    2011-01-01

    Orientation: In an ever shrinking global talent pool organisations use employer brand to attract and retain talent, however, in the absence of theoretical pointers, many organisations are losing out on a powerful business tool by not developing or maintaining their employer brand correctly. Research purpose: This study explores the current state of knowledge about employer brand and identifies the various employer brand building blocks which are conceptually integrated in a predictiv...

  6. Semi-custom integrated circuit amplifier and level discriminator for nuclear and space instruments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hahn, S.F.; Cafferty, M.M.

    1991-01-01

    This paper reports on the development an extra fast current feedback amplifier and a level discriminator employing a dielectrically-isolated bipolar, semi-custom Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) process. These devices are specifically designed for instruments aboard spacecrafts or in portable packages requiring low power and weight. The amplifier adopts current feedback for a unity-gain bandwidth of 90 MHz while consuming 50 mW. The level discriminator uses a complementary output driver for balanced positive and negative response times. The power consumption of these devices can be programmed by external resistors for optimal speed and power trade-off

  7. Semi-custom integrated circuit amplifier and level discriminator for nuclear and space instruments

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hahn, S.F.; Cafferty, M.M.

    1990-01-01

    This paper reports an extra fast current feedback amplifier and a level discriminator developed employing a dielectrically isolated bipolar, semi-custom Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) process. These devices are specifically designed for instruments aboard spacecrafts or in portable packages requiring low power and weight. The amplifier adopts current feedback for a unity- gain bandwidth of 90 MHz while consuming 50 mW. The level discriminator uses a complementary output driver for balanced positive and negative response times. The power consumption of these devices can be programmed by external resistors for optimal speed and power trade-off

  8. Deficiency of employability capacity

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Pelse I.

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available Young unemployed people have comprised one of the significantly largest groups of the unemployed people in Latvia in recent years. One of the reasons why young people have difficulty integrating into the labour market is the “expectation gap” that exists in the relations between employers and the new generation of workers. Employers focus on capacity-building for employability such individual factors as strength, patience, self-discipline, self-reliance, self-motivation, etc., which having a nature of habit and are developed in a long-term work socialization process, which begins even before the formal education and will continue throughout the life cycle. However, when the socialization is lost, these habits are depreciated faster than they can be restored. Currently a new generation is entering the labour market, which is missing the succession of work socialization. Factors, such as rising unemployment and poverty in the background over the past twenty years in Latvia have created a very unfavourable employability background of “personal circumstances” and “external factors”, which seriously have impaired formation of the skills and attitudes in a real work environment. The study reveals another paradox – the paradox of poverty. Common sense would want to argue that poverty can be overcome by the job. However, the real state of affairs shows that unfavourable coincidence of the individual, personal circumstances and external factors leads to deficit of employability capacity and possibility of marked social and employment deprivation.

  9. Employed men and women substance abusers: job troubles and treatment outcomes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Slaymaker, Valerie J; Owen, Patricia L

    2006-12-01

    The majority of U.S. adults with substance abuse or dependence are gainfully employed. However, little is known about outcomes among stably employed people in treatment for substance dependence. Participants (N = 212) entering a residential treatment program completed the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) at intake and 6 and 12 months follow-up. Significant improvements were seen in absenteeism, number of employment problem days, and whether their job was in jeopardy 12 months later. Overall, 65% were retained by their original employer. ASI composite alcohol, drug, legal, family, and psychiatric scores also improved significantly. Continuous abstinence was achieved by 65% and 51% at 6 and 12 months, respectively. Although less likely to be referred to treatment by their employer, women responded to treatment as well as men, reporting similar abstinence rates and overall quality of life during the year following discharge from treatment.

  10. A low power automatic gain control loop for a receiver

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li Guofeng; Geng Zhiqing; Wu Nanjian, E-mail: nanjian@red.semi.ac.c [State Key Laboratory for Super lattices and Microstructures, Institute of Semiconductors, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083 (China)

    2010-09-15

    This paper proposes a new structure to lower the power consumption of a variable gain amplifier (VGA) and keep the linearity of the VGA unchanged. The structure is used in a high rate amplitude-shift keying (ASK) based IF-stage. It includes an automatic gain control (AGC) loop and ASK demodulator. The AGC mainly consists of six-stage VGAs. The IF-stage is realized in 0.18 {mu}m CMOS technology. The measurement results show that the power consumption of the whole system is very low. The system consumes 730 {mu}A while operating at 1.8 V. The minimum ASK signal the system could detect is 0.7 mV (peak to peak amplitude). (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  11. A simple method to increase effective PMT gain by amplifier circuit powered from voltage divider

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Popov, V.; Majewski, S.; Wojtsekhowski, B.; Guerin, D

    2001-01-01

    A novel concept is introduced of additional effective signal amplification by employing a dedicated circuit to process anode or dynode signals prior to sending them through a standard 50 /spl Omega/ line/cable. The circuit is entirely powered by the current flowing through the base voltage divider. Additional gain factors of 2-10 were easily achieved with preserved operation speed and rate capability up to several MHz. This additional signal boost can be used in many applications where higher gain and/or lower PMT operational voltages are desirable. For example, in the case of a PMT employed in a low input light signal (such as a Cherenkov counter), this technique will permit operation at a lower voltage and, therefore, will result in better operational PMT stability and longer PMT lifetime. At present, two experimental set-ups at Jefferson Lab are using PMT bases using this concept

  12. Multisensory Integration in Cochlear Implant Recipients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stevenson, Ryan A; Sheffield, Sterling W; Butera, Iliza M; Gifford, René H; Wallace, Mark T

    Speech perception is inherently a multisensory process involving integration of auditory and visual cues. Multisensory integration in cochlear implant (CI) recipients is a unique circumstance in that the integration occurs after auditory deprivation and the provision of hearing via the CI. Despite the clear importance of multisensory cues for perception, in general, and for speech intelligibility, specifically, the topic of multisensory perceptual benefits in CI users has only recently begun to emerge as an area of inquiry. We review the research that has been conducted on multisensory integration in CI users to date and suggest a number of areas needing further research. The overall pattern of results indicates that many CI recipients show at least some perceptual gain that can be attributable to multisensory integration. The extent of this gain, however, varies based on a number of factors, including age of implantation and specific task being assessed (e.g., stimulus detection, phoneme perception, word recognition). Although both children and adults with CIs obtain audiovisual benefits for phoneme, word, and sentence stimuli, neither group shows demonstrable gain for suprasegmental feature perception. Additionally, only early-implanted children and the highest performing adults obtain audiovisual integration benefits similar to individuals with normal hearing. Increasing age of implantation in children is associated with poorer gains resultant from audiovisual integration, suggesting a sensitive period in development for the brain networks that subserve these integrative functions, as well as length of auditory experience. This finding highlights the need for early detection of and intervention for hearing loss, not only in terms of auditory perception, but also in terms of the behavioral and perceptual benefits of audiovisual processing. Importantly, patterns of auditory, visual, and audiovisual responses suggest that underlying integrative processes may be

  13. Optical gain and gain suppression of quantum-well lasers with valence band mixing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahn, D.; Chuang, S.L.

    1990-01-01

    The effects of valence band mixing on the nonlinear gains of quantum-well lasers are studied theoretically. The authors' analysis is based on the multiband effective-mass theory and the density matrix formalism with intraband relaxation taken into account. The gain and the gain-suppression coefficient of a quantum-well laser are calculated from the complex optical susceptibility obtained by the density matrix formulation with the theoretical dipole moments obtained from the multiband effective-mass theory. The calculated gain spectrum shows that there are remarkable differences (both in peak amplitude and spectral shape) between our model with valence band mixing and the conventional parabolic band model. The shape of the gain spectrum calculated by the authors' model becomes more symmetric due to intraband relaxation together with nonparabolic energy dispersions and is closer to the experimental observations when compared with the conventional method using the parabolic band model and the multiband effective-mass calculation without intraband relaxation. Both give quite asymmetric gain spectra. Optical intensity in the GaAs active region is estimated by solving rate equations for the stationary states with nonlinear gain suppression. The authors calculate the mode gain for the resonant mode including the gain suppression, which results in spectral hole burning of the gain spectrum

  14. Pressure Gain Combustion for Gas Turbines

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-08-20

    downstream of a large  diesel  engine, they tested three turbine geometries the best experienced  a drop in efficiency of 10%.   A few people have  looked...Society of Mechanical Engineers Turbo Expo 1995 [3] Heffer, J., 2010, Integration of Pressure Gain Combustion with Gas Turbines, Ph.D. Thesis...investigated  an  axial  turbocharger  designed  for  use  downstream  of  a  large  diesel   engine,  they  tested  three  turbine geometries the best

  15. Maternal Employment and Children's Academic Achievement: Parenting Styles as Mediating Variable.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Beyer, Sylvia

    1995-01-01

    Provides a review and integration of findings on the effects of parenting styles and maternal employment on children's academic achievement. Presents a model in which it is argued that maternal employment status has little, if any, direct effect on children's academic achievement. Suggests maternal employment affects parenting styles, which in…

  16. Phase and gain control policies for robust active vibration control of flexible structures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang, K; Ichchou, M N; Scorletti, G; Mieyeville, F

    2013-01-01

    The interest of this paper is to develop a general and systematic robust control methodology for active vibration control of flexible structures. For this purpose, first phase and gain control policies are proposed to impose qualitative frequency-dependent requirements on the controller to consider a complete set of control objectives. Then the proposed control methodology is developed by employing phase and gain control policies in the dynamic output feedback H ∞  control: according to the set of control objectives, phase and gain control policies incorporate necessary weighting functions and determine them in a rational and systematic way; on the other hand, with the appropriate weighting functions efficient H ∞  control algorithms can automatically realize phase and gain control policies and generate a satisfactory H ∞  controller. The proposed control methodology can be used for both SISO and MIMO systems with collocated or non-collocated sensors and actuators. In this paper, it is validated on a non-collocated piezoelectric cantilever beam. Both numerical simulations and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control methodology. (paper)

  17. Minimizing differential modal gain in cladding-pumped EDFAs supporting four and six mode groups.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kang, Qiongyue; Lim, Ee-Leong; Jung, Francesco Poletti Yongmin; Baskiotis, Catherine; Alam, Shaif-Ul; Richardson, David J

    2014-09-08

    We employ a Genetic Algorithm for the purpose of minimization of the maximum differential modal gain (DMG) over all the supported signal modes (at the same wavelength) of cladding-pumped four-mode and six-mode-group EDFAs. The optimal EDFA designs found through the algorithm provide less than 1 dB DMG across the C-band (1530-1565 nm) whilst achieving more than 20 dB gain per mode. We then analyze the sensitivity of the DMG to small variations from the optimal value of the erbium doping concentration and the structural parameters, and estimate the fabrication tolerance for reliable amplifier performance.

  18. What happens to the employment of disabled individuals when all financial disincentives to work are abolished?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vall Castelló, Judit

    2017-09-01

    Policymakers and organizations representing people with disabilities have highlighted the importance of promoting the employment prospects of disabled individuals as a determinant to ensure their broader integration into the society. Policy reforms that attempt to incentivise disabled individuals to work typically involve reduced financial punishments for earning above a predetermined threshold (substantial gainful activity). This paper exploits a Spanish reform that entirely eliminated any disincentives for disabled individuals to work. Partially disabled individuals in Spain are subject to income taxation in all regions except in the province of Bizkaia. Before 2007, partially disabled individuals in Bizkaia were exempt from income taxation if they did not work. In December 2006, a new law was passed in Bizkaia that distinguished between individuals aged 55 or younger, who were no longer tax-exempt, and those who were older than 55 years, who continued to be tax-exempt if they did not work. I exploit this change in the legislation and employ both a difference-in-difference strategy comparing the employment outcomes of disabled young men across provinces and time as well as a triple difference model with disabled men older than 55 years, who are unaffected by the policy. My results show that the reform increased the probability of working by 6.5 percentage points for disabled men aged 55 or younger. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  19. A Longitudinal Investigation of Work-Family Strains and Gains, Work Commitment, and Subsequent Employment Status among Partnered Working Mothers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mulvaney, Matthew K.; McNall, Laurel A.; Morrissey, Rebecca A.

    2011-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of the work-family interface on mothers' commitment to work and the implications of that work commitment for subsequent employment. The study included a sample of employed partnered mothers who participated in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child…

  20. Cancer and its impact on work among the self-employed: A need to bridge the knowledge gap

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Sharp, L.; Torp, S.; van Hoof, E.; de Boer, A. G. E. M.

    2017-01-01

    Self-employment-the so-called flexible layer of the economy-has gained importance following the 2007-2008 global economic and financial crisis. In Europe, the self-employed now comprise on average 15% of workers [Eurostat, Labour market and Labour force survey (LFS) statistics, 2016]. Around

  1. Suppression of Gain Ripples in Superconducting Traveling-Wave Kinetic Inductance Amplifiers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bal, Mustafa; Erickson, Robert P.; Ku, Hsiang Sheng; Wu, Xian; Pappas, David P.

    Superconducting traveling-wave kinetic inductance (KIT) amplifiers demonstrated gain over a wide bandwidth with high dynamic range and low noise. However, the gain curve exhibits ripples. Impedance mismatch at the input and output ports of the KIT amplifier as wells as split ground planes of the coplanar waveguide (CPW) geometry are potential contributors to the ripple in the gain curve. Here we study the origin of these ripples in KIT amplifiers configured in CPW geometry using approximately 20 nm thick NbTiN films grown by reactive co-sputtering of NbN and TiN. Our NbTiN films have non-linear kinetic inductance as a function of current, described by L =L0 (1 +(I /I*) 2) , where I* = 15 . 96 +/- 0 . 11 mA measured by time domain reflectometry. We report the results of implementing an impedance taper that takes into account a significantly reduced phase velocity as it narrows, adding Au onto the CPW split grounds, as well as employing different designs of dispersion engineering. Qubit Measurements using KIT amplifiers will also be reported.

  2. Reduction of operational amplifiers finite gain effects in switched-capacitor biquads

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Radev Nikolay

    2005-01-01

    Full Text Available A combined approach for reducing the errors in the pole frequency f p, the pole Q - factor Qp and the magnitude at the pole frequency Hp, of switched capacitor biquads is presented. First, the conventional integrators in the biquads are replaced with gain-and offset-compensated integrators. Next, the errors Δ ƒp / ƒp, Δ Qp / Qp and Δ Hp / Hp are minimized by modifying three capacitances: two feedback capacitances and feed forward capacitance. The effectiveness of this approach is demonstrated by designing a band pass biquad.

  3. Brain Gain am Beispiel Österreich

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aschbacher, Christine; Gejguš, Mirko; Sablik, Jozef

    2016-06-01

    BrainGain is a common trend within the last ten years in Europe and all-over the world. Managers, key players and scientists are allowed to choose wherever they want to work in the world. As there is a lack of qualified individuals for companies and universities, BrainGain has become a necessity, and mostly - the higher educated individuals are moving away according to a better offer elsewhere in the world. Therefore, a lot of expats are moving around with their families. Many times, the lack of integration at the current place, country or city, is the critical success factor for staying or leaving. Furthermore, if the family does not feel happy in the current location, then the manager or scientist will move away or return home and the investment will be lost. Moreover, many students have received a good education in a state university, however afterwards they have not secured a satisfactory job in the country where they have studied, therefore they are moving away to utilise their know-how. Measures to retain the know-how include a common placement and a welcome-culture in the country, and also exchanges on an international level.

  4. Employing 3R Techniques in Managing Cement Industry Waste

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lamyaa Mohammed Dawood

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Waste management conserves human health, ownership, environment, and keeps valuable natural resources. Lean-green waste of an organization’s operations can be decreased through implementation 3R (Reduce, Reuse, and Recycling techniques by reduction of manufacturing system wastes. This research aims to integrate lean-green waste of the manufacturing system throughout employing 3R techniques and weighted properties method in order to manage waste. Al-Kufa cement plant is employed as a case study. Results are generated using Edraw Max Version 7 and Excel. Overall results show reduce technique of lean-green waste management has major contribution of 55 % and recycling technique has minor contribution 18 %. Defects waste has major integration of lean-green waste, while air emissions waste has minor integration of lean-green waste.

  5. arXiv Simulation of gain stability of THGEM gas-avalanche particle detectors

    CERN Document Server

    Correia, P.M.M.; Azevedo, C.D.R.; Breskin, A.; Bressler, S.; Oliveira, C.A.B.; Silva, A.L.M.; Veenhof, R.; Veloso, J.F.C.A.

    2018-01-19

    Charging-up processes affecting gain stability in Thick Gas Electron Multipliers (THGEM) were studied with a dedicated simulation toolkit. Integrated with Garfield++, it provides an effective platform for systematic phenomenological studies of charging-up processes in MPGD detectors. We describe the simulation tool and the fine-tuning of the step-size required for the algorithm convergence, in relation to physical parameters. Simulation results of gain stability over time in THGEM detectors are presented, exploring the role of electrode-thickness and applied voltage on its evolution. The results show that the total amount of irradiated charge through electrode's hole needed for reaching gain stabilization is in the range of tens to hundreds of pC, depending on the detector geometry and operational voltage. These results are in agreement with experimental observations presented previously.

  6. The welfare gain from replacing the health insurance tax exclusion with lump-sum tax credits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Liqun; Rettenmaier, Andrew J; Saving, Thomas R

    2011-06-01

    This paper analyzes the welfare gain from replacing the tax exclusion of employer-provided health insurance with a lump-sum tax credit. It differs from earlier studies in that we look at the welfare cost of health insurance tax exclusion as coming directly from excessive health insurance rather than from overconsumption of medical care and that we account for the labor market effect of the tax exclusion on welfare. Both differences work to produce a smaller tax reform welfare gain. For a set of mid-range parameter values, the welfare gain is about 21% of current health insurance tax expenditures. In addition, government tax expenditures would fall by 38%, and health insurance spending would fall by 77% after the reform.

  7. The impact of maternal employment on children's adiposity: Evidence from China's labor policy reform.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jo, Young; Wang, Qing

    2017-12-01

    China has experienced a rapid growth in childhood adiposity in recent years. Although a large number of studies examine the effect of maternal employment on children's adiposity in developed countries, only a few studies investigate the issue in developing countries. Moreover, existing studies tend to suffer from a potential endogeneity issue. We provide new evidence on the causal effect of maternal employment on children's adiposity in China. We employ a difference-in-difference strategy that takes advantage of China's 1995 legislative change to labor regulations, which reduced the number of workdays from 6 to 5 days per week. Using longitudinal data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we compare children whose mothers are wage-earning employees to those whose mothers are self-employed because the reform only affected the former. Although maternal employment and childhood obesity in China exhibits the same positive association as in the United States, our difference-in-difference estimates present a different picture. We find that a reduction in the maternal labor supply led to children's weight gain. Further investigation reveals that the effect was stronger among children who were male, younger, in urban areas, and from households with low socioeconomic status. Our evidence suggests that a change in maternal behaviors was likely responsible for children's weight gain. In particular, a greater proportion of treatment group mothers cooked and also devoted more time to cooking after the reform, which led to an increased caloric intake by their children. Such weight gain was beneficial for children who were previously underweight but harmful to those who became overweight. The finding implies that additional maternal time at home likely has a different effect in China compared to the United States. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

  8. The Impact of Kangaroo Care on Premature Infant Weight Gain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Evereklian, Melvina; Posmontier, Bobbie

    Preterm births occur among 11.4% of all live infant births. Without steady weight gain, premature infants may experience lengthy hospitalizations, neurodevelopmental deficits and hospital readmissions, which can increase the financial burden on the health care system and their families. The total U.S. health-related costs linked to preterm infant deliveries are estimated at $4.33 billion. Kangaroo care is a feasible practice that can improve preterm infant weight gain. However, this intervention is utilized less often throughout the U.S. due to numerous barriers including a lack of consistent protocols, inadequate knowledge, and decreased level of confidence in demonstrating the proper kangarooing technique. An integrative review was conducted to evaluate the impact of kangaroo care on premature infant weight gain in order to educate nurses about its efficacy among preterm infants. A literature search was conducted using CINAHL, PubMed, Cochrane Reviews, ClinicalKey and Google Scholar. Large volume searches were restricted using appropriate filters and limiters. Most of the evaluated studies determined that weight gain was greater among the kangarooing premature infants. Kangaroo care is a low-tech low-cost modality that can facilitate improved preterm infant weight gain even in low-resource settings. Despite its current efficacy, kangaroo care is not widely utilized due to several barriers including an absence of standardized protocols and a lack of knowledge about its benefits. Kangaroo care can become a widespread formalized practice after nurses and parents learn about the technique and its numerous benefits for premature infants, including its association with improved weight gain. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  9. Plasmonic modulator based on thin metal-semiconductor-metal waveguide with gain core

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Babicheva, Viktoriia; Malureanu, Radu; Lavrinenko, Andrei

    2013-01-01

    We focus on plasmonic modulators with a gain core to be implemented as active nanodevices in photonic integrated circuits. In particular, we analyze metal–semiconductor–metal (MSM) waveguides with InGaAsP-based active material layers. A MSM waveguide enables high field localization and therefore...

  10. The Role of Small Cities in Shaping Youth Employment Outcomes in ...

    International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Digital Library (Canada)

    Growing workforce, internal migration The future of sustainable growth in several emerging markets rests on the ability of its young populations to find gainful ... from Indonesia will provide a richer analysis of the role of small cities in shaping youth employment outcomes in the region's large, middle-income economies.

  11. High gain semiconductor optical amplifier — Laser diode at visible wavelength

    KAUST Repository

    Shen, Chao; Lee, Changmin; Ng, Tien Khee; Nakamura, Shuji; Speck, James S.; DenBaars, Steven P.; Alyamani, Ahmed Y.; El-Desouki, Munir M.; Ooi, Boon S.

    2017-01-01

    We reported on the first experimental demonstration of a two-section semipolar InGaN-based laser diode with monolithically integrated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA-LD). The onset of amplification effect was measured at 4V SOA bias (VSOA). The SOA-LD shows a large gain of 5.32 dB at Vsoa = 6 V.

  12. High gain semiconductor optical amplifier — Laser diode at visible wavelength

    KAUST Repository

    Shen, Chao

    2017-02-07

    We reported on the first experimental demonstration of a two-section semipolar InGaN-based laser diode with monolithically integrated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA-LD). The onset of amplification effect was measured at 4V SOA bias (VSOA). The SOA-LD shows a large gain of 5.32 dB at Vsoa = 6 V.

  13. How to gain additional knowledge in the situation when university degrees (no longer guarantee suitable employment

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Krajnc

    2011-06-01

    Full Text Available There were a number of reason for a shortage of educated people in the post-war time. The state planned and dictated acce- lerated development of industry. There was a lack of skilled workers. The war had interrupted education of many individuals and there the casualties among intellectuals were greater than in the rest of population. The demand for qualified workers, recorded by employment agencies, exceeded the supply. As a result, education of adults in practice expanded rapidly. Prac- titioners required professional support and suitable literature. In 1956 the first lectures in andragogy were delivered within the framework of pedadgogy studies at the Faculty of Philo- sophy in Zagreb. In the years to follow, Prof Mihajlo Ogrizovi9, founder of the study subject, published the first works on andragogy Metode obrazovanja odraslih (Adult Education Methodology and Problemi andragogije (Problems of Andra- gogy. In 1960 the Chair of Andragogy was set up at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade (Prof DuOan Savi9evi9, Borivoj Samolov:ev. My decision to get engaged in research into adult education was made while I was working at the Institute of Sociology (1967 and joined the first international comparative research study in this country, Education of Adults, Social Mobility and Social Participation. Lectures in General Andragogy and Andragogical Didactics began in Ljubljana in the Pedagogy Department of the Faculty of Philosophy in 1972. In 1976 the study of andragogy became o special course of study within the Department. In 1993/94 andragogy was introduced as an independent study. The Ministry of Education and Sport confirmed the new study programme within the framework of the European TEMPUS project. The new study programmes were devised under the influence of the best-known world institutes for adult education (The Andragogy Department of Montreal University, the European Bureau for Adult Education in London, Wellington College in Oxford

  14. Ejector-Enhanced, Pulsed, Pressure-Gain Combustor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paxson, Daniel E.; Dougherty, Kevin T.

    2009-01-01

    An experimental combination of an off-the-shelf valved pulsejet combustor and an aerodynamically optimized ejector has shown promise as a prototype of improved combustors for gas turbine engines. Despite their name, the constant pressure combustors heretofore used in gas turbine engines exhibit typical pressure losses ranging from 4 to 8 percent of the total pressures delivered by upstream compressors. In contrast, the present ejector-enhanced pulsejet combustor exhibits a pressure rise of about 3.5 percent at overall enthalpy and temperature ratios compatible with those of modern turbomachines. The modest pressure rise translates to a comparable increase in overall engine efficiency and, consequently, a comparable decrease in specific fuel consumption. The ejector-enhanced pulsejet combustor may also offer potential for reducing the emission of harmful exhaust compounds by making it practical to employ a low-loss rich-burn/quench/lean-burn sequence. Like all prior concepts for pressure-gain combustion, the present concept involves an approximation of constant-volume combustion, which is inherently unsteady (in this case, more specifically, cyclic). The consequent unsteadiness in combustor exit flow is generally regarded as detrimental to the performance of downstream turbomachinery. Among other adverse effects, this unsteadiness tends to detract from the thermodynamic benefits of pressure gain. Therefore, it is desirable in any intermittent combustion process to minimize unsteadiness in the exhaust path.

  15. EU language policy and the language goals and gains of exchange students in Scandinavia

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Petersen, Margrethe; Shaw, Philip; Caudery, Tim

    To assess whether the Erasmus student exchange program contributes to EU’s language policy aim of furthering multilingualism/plurilingualism, this presentation draws on interviews with, and tests taken by, some 50 incoming exchange students in Scandinavia and employs Bourdieu’s concept of capital...... in explaining individual variation in students’ language goals and gains....

  16. Effects of Gain/Loss Framing in Cyber Defense Decision-Making

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bos, Nathan; Paul, Celeste; Gersh, John; Greenberg, Ariel; Piatko, Christine; Sperling, Scott; Spitaletta, Jason; Arendt, Dustin L.; Burtner, Edwin R.

    2016-10-24

    Cyber defense requires decision making under uncertainty. Yet this critical area has not been a strong focus of research in judgment and decision-making. Future defense systems, which will rely on software-defined networks and may employ ‘moving target’ defenses, will increasingly automate lower level detection and analysis, but will still require humans in the loop for higher level judgment. We studied the decision making process and outcomes of 17 experienced network defense professionals who worked through a set of realistic network defense scenarios. We manipulated gain versus loss framing in a cyber defense scenario, and found significant effects in one of two focal problems. Defenders that began with a network already in quarantine (gain framing) used a quarantine system more than those that did not (loss framing). We also found some difference in perceived workload and efficacy. Alternate explanations of these findings and implications for network defense are discussed.

  17. Dependence of therapeutic gain factor on stage of oral cancer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Velmurugan, J.; Solomon, J.G.R.; Koteshwer Rao, K.; Supe, S.S.; Prasad, G.N.S.

    1998-01-01

    To achieve therapeutic gain, unconventional dose per fraction has been employed in radiotherapy, in addition to the conventional dose per fraction of 2 Gy. Dose fractionation factor (DFF) and therapeutic gain factor (TGF) have been utilised to test the efficiency of such unconventional fractionation schedules. In this study, isoeffective dose for 100% tumour regression and mucosal and skin reactions were estimated. CRE, TDF and ERD values for tumour and normal tissue reactions were evaluated. DEF and TGF values have been determined on the basis of dose, CRE, TDF and ERD, in order to understand the influence of these bioeffect models and stage of cancer on TGF associated with differing fractionation schedules. There was a noticeable difference in TGF values determined on the basis of four criteria, which is in agreement with radiobiological phenomenon, that tissues with different α/β values differ in their responsiveness. (author)

  18. Targeting the maximum heat recovery for systems with heat losses and heat gains

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wan Alwi, Sharifah Rafidah; Lee, Carmen Kar Mun; Lee, Kim Yau; Abd Manan, Zainuddin; Fraser, Duncan M.

    2014-01-01

    Graphical abstract: Illustration of heat gains and losses from process streams. - Highlights: • Maximising energy savings through heat losses or gains. • Identifying location where insulation can be avoided. • Heuristics to maximise heat losses or gains. • Targeting heat losses or gains using the extended STEP technique and HEAT diagram. - Abstract: Process Integration using the Pinch Analysis technique has been widely used as a tool for the optimal design of heat exchanger networks (HENs). The Composite Curves and the Stream Temperature versus Enthalpy Plot (STEP) are among the graphical tools used to target the maximum heat recovery for a HEN. However, these tools assume that heat losses and heat gains are negligible. This work presents an approach that considers heat losses and heat gains during the establishment of the minimum utility targets. The STEP method, which is plotted based on the individual, as opposed to the composite streams, has been extended to consider the effect of heat losses and heat gains during stream matching. Several rules to guide the proper location of pipe insulation, and the appropriate procedure for stream shifting have been introduced in order to minimise the heat losses and maximise the heat gains. Application of the method on two case studies shows that considering heat losses and heat gains yield more realistic utility targets and help reduce both the insulation capital cost and utility cost of a HEN

  19. Gender and Sexual Mores in Educational Employment. A Legal Memorandum.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nolte, M. Chester, Ed.

    Discrimination against women in public employment may soon be coming to an end. Since 1972, when the Equal Opportunity Act was expanded to include public schools, the cause of women's rights has been gaining momentum. Today, although there are no quotas for women and men in education, many districts are under affirmative action mandates to move…

  20. A CMOS Integrating Amplifier for the PHENIX Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wintenberg, A.L.; Jones, J.P. Jr.; Young, G.R.; Moscone, C.G.

    1997-11-01

    A CMOS integrating amplifier has been developed for use in the PHENIX Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector. The amplifier, consisting of a charge-integrating amplifier followed by a variable gain amplifier (VGA), is an element of a photon measurement system comprising a photomultiplier tube, a wideband, gain of 10 amplifier, the integrating amplifier, and an analog memory followed by an ADC and double correlated sampling implemented in software. The integrating amplifier is designed for a nominal full scale input of 160 pC with a gain of 20 mV/pC and a dynamic range of 1000:1. The VGA is used for equalizing gains prior to forming analog sums for trigger purposes. The gain of the VGA is variable over a 3:1 range using a 5 bits digital control, and the risetime is held to approximately 20 ns using switched compensation in the VGA. Details of the design and results from several prototype devices fabricated in 1.2 microm Orbit CMOS are presented. A complete noise analysis of the integrating amplifier and the correlated sampling process is included as well as a comparison of calculated, simulated and measured results

  1. A CMOS Integrating Amplifier for the PHENIX Ring Imaging Cherenkov detector

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Wintenberg, A.L.; Jones, J.P. Jr.; Young, G.R. [Oak Ridge National Lab., TN (United States); Moscone, C.G. [Tennessee Univ., Knoxville, TN (United States)

    1997-11-01

    A CMOS integrating amplifier has been developed for use in the PHENIX Ring Imaging Cherenkov (RICH) detector. The amplifier, consisting of a charge-integrating amplifier followed by a variable gain amplifier (VGA), is an element of a photon measurement system comprising a photomultiplier tube, a wideband, gain of 10 amplifier, the integrating amplifier, and an analog memory followed by an ADC and double correlated sampling implemented in software. The integrating amplifier is designed for a nominal full scale input of 160 pC with a gain of 20 mV/pC and a dynamic range of 1000:1. The VGA is used for equalizing gains prior to forming analog sums for trigger purposes. The gain of the VGA is variable over a 3:1 range using a 5 bits digital control, and the risetime is held to approximately 20 ns using switched compensation in the VGA. Details of the design and results from several prototype devices fabricated in 1.2 {micro}m Orbit CMOS are presented. A complete noise analysis of the integrating amplifier and the correlated sampling process is included as well as a comparison of calculated, simulated and measured results.

  2. Should I Gain Weight?

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Videos for Educators Search English Español Should I Gain Weight? KidsHealth / For Teens / Should I Gain Weight? ... something about it. Why Do People Want to Gain Weight? Some of the reasons people give for ...

  3. Evaluating the employment-generating impact of rural roads in Nicaragua

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rand, John

    2011-01-01

    This paper analyses the employment-generating impact of a tertiary road project in Nicaragua, applying a matched double-difference approach to control for initial conditions and time variant factors that simultaneously influence the placement of roads and subsequent employment growth rates. Results......, more integrated road networks....

  4. Occupational change, employer change, internal migration, and earnings.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krieg, R G

    1997-02-01

    "In this paper I use microdata from the [U.S.] Panel Study of Income Dynamics to measure the financial returns to intercounty and interstate migration for individuals in a temporal framework accounting for gains that accrue over time.... To account for the indirect effects of migration on earnings, explanatory variables are created by interacting migration status with: (1) occupational change, (2) employer change and (3) changes in both occupation and employer. These interaction terms are then included in the earnings functions. Earnings are estimated for three years subsequent to the migration decision to account for the financial returns to migration accruing over time. Results indicate that, when estimating earnings, the use of a simple migration dummy variable will mask the indirect effects of migration on earnings." excerpt

  5. Weight Gain in Children with Cleft Lip and Palate without Use of Palatal Plates

    Science.gov (United States)

    da Silva Freitas, Renato; Lopes-Grego, Andrey Bernardo; Dietrich, Helena Luiza Douat; Cerchiari, Natacha Regina de Moraes; Nakakogue, Tabatha; Tonocchi, Rita; Gabardo, Juarez; da Silva, Éder David Borges; Forte, Antonio Jorge

    2012-01-01

    Goals/Background. To evaluate children's growth in the first year of life, who have cleft palate and lip, without the use of palatal plates. Materials/Method. Chart review was conducted, retrospectively, in the Center for Integral Assistance of Cleft Lip and Palate (CAIF), in Brazil, between 2008 and 2009. Results for both genders were compared to the data published by the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding average weight gain in children during their first year of life. Results. Patients with syndromic diagnosis and with cleft classified as preforamen were excluded, resulting in a final number of 112 patients: 56 male and 56 female. Similar patterns were seen comparing the two genders. Although it was observed weight gain below the average until the 11th month in male patients and until 9 months in female patients, both genders remained at the 50th percentile (p50) and improved after the 4th month of age for boys and the 9th month of age for girls. Conclusion. Children with cleft palate weigh less than regular children during their first months of life. At the end of the first year, weight gain is similar comparing normal and affected children. However, factors that optimized weight gain included choosing the best treatment for each case, proper guidance, and multiprofessional integrated care. PMID:23304489

  6. Developmental gains in visuospatial memory predict gains in mathematics achievement.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yaoran Li

    Full Text Available Visuospatial competencies are related to performance in mathematical domains in adulthood, but are not consistently related to mathematics achievement in children. We confirmed the latter for first graders and demonstrated that children who show above average first-to-fifth grade gains in visuospatial memory have an advantage over other children in mathematics. The study involved the assessment of the mathematics and reading achievement of 177 children in kindergarten to fifth grade, inclusive, and their working memory capacity and processing speed in first and fifth grade. Intelligence was assessed in first grade and their second to fourth grade teachers reported on their in-class attentive behavior. Developmental gains in visuospatial memory span (d = 2.4 were larger than gains in the capacity of the central executive (d = 1.6 that in turn were larger than gains in phonological memory span (d = 1.1. First to fifth grade gains in visuospatial memory and in speed of numeral processing predicted end of fifth grade mathematics achievement, as did first grade central executive scores, intelligence, and in-class attentive behavior. The results suggest there are important individual differences in the rate of growth of visuospatial memory during childhood and that these differences become increasingly important for mathematics learning.

  7. Developmental gains in visuospatial memory predict gains in mathematics achievement.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yaoran; Geary, David C

    2013-01-01

    Visuospatial competencies are related to performance in mathematical domains in adulthood, but are not consistently related to mathematics achievement in children. We confirmed the latter for first graders and demonstrated that children who show above average first-to-fifth grade gains in visuospatial memory have an advantage over other children in mathematics. The study involved the assessment of the mathematics and reading achievement of 177 children in kindergarten to fifth grade, inclusive, and their working memory capacity and processing speed in first and fifth grade. Intelligence was assessed in first grade and their second to fourth grade teachers reported on their in-class attentive behavior. Developmental gains in visuospatial memory span (d = 2.4) were larger than gains in the capacity of the central executive (d = 1.6) that in turn were larger than gains in phonological memory span (d = 1.1). First to fifth grade gains in visuospatial memory and in speed of numeral processing predicted end of fifth grade mathematics achievement, as did first grade central executive scores, intelligence, and in-class attentive behavior. The results suggest there are important individual differences in the rate of growth of visuospatial memory during childhood and that these differences become increasingly important for mathematics learning.

  8. Developmental Gains in Visuospatial Memory Predict Gains in Mathematics Achievement

    Science.gov (United States)

    Li, Yaoran; Geary, David C.

    2013-01-01

    Visuospatial competencies are related to performance in mathematical domains in adulthood, but are not consistently related to mathematics achievement in children. We confirmed the latter for first graders and demonstrated that children who show above average first-to-fifth grade gains in visuospatial memory have an advantage over other children in mathematics. The study involved the assessment of the mathematics and reading achievement of 177 children in kindergarten to fifth grade, inclusive, and their working memory capacity and processing speed in first and fifth grade. Intelligence was assessed in first grade and their second to fourth grade teachers reported on their in-class attentive behavior. Developmental gains in visuospatial memory span (d = 2.4) were larger than gains in the capacity of the central executive (d = 1.6) that in turn were larger than gains in phonological memory span (d = 1.1). First to fifth grade gains in visuospatial memory and in speed of numeral processing predicted end of fifth grade mathematics achievement, as did first grade central executive scores, intelligence, and in-class attentive behavior. The results suggest there are important individual differences in the rate of growth of visuospatial memory during childhood and that these differences become increasingly important for mathematics learning. PMID:23936154

  9. Work, employment, and mental illness: expanding the domain of Canadian social work.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shankar, Janki; Barlow, Constance A; Khalema, Ernest

    2011-01-01

    Despite established evidence that work and employment are an important component of recovery for people who experience mental illness, social work education in Canada seldom offers graduate training or courses on the significance of work in peoples' lives or on the practices involved in helping to gain and retain employment for these individuals. In this article the authors argue that the high levels of unemployment among people who experience mental illness, and the rising incidence of mental health and addictions issues in workplaces, offer the opportunity, as well as the mandate, for social work educators to provide professional education in the area of employment support and assistance.

  10. Detective quantum efficiency gains compared with speed gains for hypersensitized astronomical plates

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kaye, A.L.

    1977-01-01

    It is reasonable to assume that gains in detective quantum efficiency (DQE) are far better criteria for assessing the performance of hypersensitizing techniques than gains in speed. It is shown here that gains in speed can be misleading, for some methods of hypersensitization give plates of increased speed but reduced detective quantum efficiency. (author)

  11. 3D Inkjet Printed Helical Antenna with Integrated Lens

    KAUST Repository

    Farooqui, Muhammad Fahad

    2016-08-30

    The gain of an antenna can be enhanced through the integration of a lens, although this technique has traditionally been restricted to planar antennas due to fabrication limitations of standard manufacturing processes. Here, through a unique combination of 3D and 2D inkjet printing of dielectric and metallic inks respectively, we demonstrate a lens that has been monolithically integrated to a non-planar antenna (helix) for the first time. Antenna measurements show that the integration of a Fresnel lens enhances the gain of a 2-turn helix by around 4.6 dB, which provides a peak gain of about 12.9 dBi at 8.8 GHz. The 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of the antenna with the lens is 5.5%. This work also reports the complete characterization of this new process in terms of minimum features sizes and achievable conductivities. Due to monolithic integration of the lens through a fully printed process, this antenna configuration offers high gain performance by using a low cost and rapid fabrication technique. © 2016 IEEE.

  12. Preventing Weight Gain

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Local Programs Related Topics Diabetes Nutrition Preventing Weight Gain Language: English (US) Español (Spanish) Recommend on Facebook ... cancer. Choosing an Eating Plan to Prevent Weight Gain So, how do you choose a healthful eating ...

  13. Application of automatic gain control for radiometer diagnostic in SST-1 tokamak.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Makwana, Foram R; Siju, Varsha; Edappala, Praveenlal; Pathak, S K

    2017-12-01

    This paper describes the characterisation of a negative feedback type of automatic gain control (AGC) circuit that will be an integral part of the heterodyne radiometer system operating at a frequency range of 75-86 GHz at SST-1 tokamak. The developed AGC circuit is a combination of variable gain amplifier and log amplifier which provides both gain and attenuation typically up to 15 dB and 45 dB, respectively, at a fixed set point voltage and it has been explored for the first time in tokamak radiometry application. The other important characteristics are that it exhibits a very fast response time of 390 ns to understand the fast dynamics of electron cyclotron emission and can operate at very wide input RF power dynamic range of around 60 dB that ensures signal level within the dynamic range of the detection system.

  14. Africa's Changing Farm Structure and Employment Challenge

    OpenAIRE

    Jayne, T.S.; Chapoto, A.; Sitko, N.; Muyanga, M.; Nkonde, C.; Chamberlin, J.

    2014-01-01

    Even under optimistic assumptions about the rate of urbanization and growth of non-farm employment, agriculture will still be the main source of livelihood for the majority of Africans for at least the next several decades (Losch 2012). Non-farm wage jobs in Sub-Saharan Africa will be able to absorb between 40 to 65 percent of the additional 122 million workers estimated to enter the labor force before 2020 (Fine et al. 2012). This means that farming will be called upon to provide gainful emp...

  15. Membrane voltage fluctuations reduce spike frequency adaptation and preserve output gain in CA1 pyramidal neurons in a high conductance state

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandez, Fernando R.; Broicher, Tilman; Truong, Alan; White, John A.

    2011-01-01

    Modulating the gain of the input-output function of neurons is critical for processing of stimuli and network dynamics. Previous gain control mechanisms have suggested that voltage fluctuations play a key role in determining neuronal gain in vivo. Here we show that, under increased membrane conductance, voltage fluctuations restore Na+ current and reduce spike frequency adaptation in rat hippocampal CA1 pyramidal neurons in vitro. As a consequence, membrane voltage fluctuations produce a leftward shift in the f-I relationship without a change in gain, relative to an increase in conductance alone. Furthermore, we show that these changes have important implications for the integration of inhibitory inputs. Due to the ability to restore Na+ current, hyperpolarizing membrane voltage fluctuations mediated by GABAA-like inputs can increase firing rate in a high conductance state. Finally, our data show that the effects on gain and synaptic integration are mediated by voltage fluctuations within a physiologically relevant range of frequencies (10–40 Hz). PMID:21389243

  16. The impact of attitudes and work preferences on Dutch mothers' employment patterns

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ruitenberg, J.; de Beer, P.

    2012-01-01

    In the last decades, preference theory has gained significance in the academic literature on the determinants of female employment patterns. Mostly, within these studies gender and work attitudes and work preferences (the number of hours a woman prefers to work) are treated as one concept. However,

  17. Outcomes of home-based employment service programs for people with disabilities and their related factors--a preliminary study in Taiwan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lin, Yi-Jiun; Huang, I-Chun; Wang, Yun-Tung

    2014-01-01

    The aim of this exploratory study is to gain an understanding of the outcomes of home-based employment service programs for people with disabilities and their related factors in Taiwan. This study used survey method to collect 132 questionnaires. Descriptive and two-variable statistics including chi-square (χ(2)), independent sample t-test and analysis of variance were employed. The results found that 36.5% of the subjects improved their employment status and 75.8% of them improved in employability. Educational level and and vocational categories including "web page production", "e-commerce", "internet marketing", "on-line store" and "website set-up and management" were significantly "positively" associated with either of the two outcome indicators - change of employment status and employability. This study is the first evidence-based study about the outcomes of home-based employment service programs and their related factors for people with disabilities in Taiwan. The outcomes of the home-based employment service programs for people with disabilities were presented. Implications for Rehabilitation Home-based rehabilitation for people with disabilities can be effective. A programme of this kind supports participants in improving or gaining employment status as well as developing employability skills. Further consideration should be given to developing cost-effective home-based programmes and evaluating their effectiveness.

  18. The expansion of renewable energies and employment effects in Germany

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hillebrand, Bernhard; Buttermann, Hans Georg; Behringer, Jean Marc; Bleuel, Michaela

    2006-01-01

    The promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy is a high priority of the European Union, as well of its member states. The German government wants to increase the share of renewable energies from about 5% to 12% by 2010. To attain this goal, the German government has introduced compulsory compensation schemes for electricity produced from renewable energy fed into the public grid. This paper examines the economic impact of this policy employing an econometric model. Particular emphasis was given to employment effects. In general, we distinguish two effects: (1) an expansive effect resulting from additional investments and (2) a contractive effect resulting from an increase in the production cost of power. The first effect will dominate during the first years and lead to an increase in employment of approximately 33,000 new jobs. However, the contractive effect will offset these gains and lead to a slightly negative employment balance by 2010

  19. Novel horizontal and vertical integrated bioethics curriculum for medical courses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    D'Souza, Russell F; Mathew, Mary; D'Souza, Derek S J; Palatty, Princy

    2018-02-28

    Studies conducted by the University of Haifa, Israel in 2001, evaluating the effectiveness of bioethics being taught in medical colleges, suggested that there was a significant lack of translation in clinical care. Analysis also revealed, ineffectiveness with the teaching methodology used, lack of longitudinal integration of bioethics into the undergraduate medical curriculum, and the limited exposure to the technology in decision making when confronting ethical dilemmas. A modern novel bioethics curriculum and innovative methodology for teaching bioethics for the medical course was developed by the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics, Haifa. The horizontal (subject-wise) curriculum was vertically integrated seamlessly through the entire course. An innovative bioethics teaching methodology was employed to implement the curriculum. This new curriculum was piloted in a few medical colleges in India from 2011 to 2015 and the outcomes were evaluated. The evaluation confirmed gains over the earlier identified translation gap with added high student acceptability and satisfaction. This integrated curriculum is now formally implemented in the Indian program's Health Science Universities which is affiliated with over 200 medical schools in India. This article offers insights from the evaluated novel integrated bioethics curriculum and the innovative bioethics teaching methodology that was used in the pilot program.

  20. Modelling NO2 concentrations at the street level in the GAINS integrated assessment model: projections under current legislation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kiesewetter, G.; Borken-Kleefeld, J.; Schöpp, W.; Heyes, C.; Thunis, P.; Bessagnet, B.; Terrenoire, E.; Gsella, A.; Amann, M.

    2014-01-01

    NO2 concentrations at the street level are a major concern for urban air quality in Europe and have been regulated under the EU Thematic Strategy on Air Pollution. Despite the legal requirements, limit values are exceeded at many monitoring stations with little or no improvement in recent years. In order to assess the effects of future emission control regulations on roadside NO2 concentrations, a downscaling module has been implemented in the GAINS integrated assessment model. The module follows a hybrid approach based on atmospheric dispersion calculations and observations from the AirBase European air quality database that are used to estimate site-specific parameters. Pollutant concentrations at every monitoring site with sufficient data coverage are disaggregated into contributions from regional background, urban increment, and local roadside increment. The future evolution of each contribution is assessed with a model of the appropriate scale: 28 × 28 km grid based on the EMEP Model for the regional background, 7 × 7 km urban increment based on the CHIMERE Chemistry Transport Model, and a chemical box model for the roadside increment. Thus, different emission scenarios and control options for long-range transport as well as regional and local emissions can be analysed. Observed concentrations and historical trends are well captured, in particular the differing NO2 and total NOx = NO + NO2 trends. Altogether, more than 1950 air quality monitoring stations in the EU are covered by the model, including more than 400 traffic stations and 70% of the critical stations. Together with its well-established bottom-up emission and dispersion calculation scheme, GAINS is thus able to bridge the scales from European-wide policies to impacts in street canyons. As an application of the model, we assess the evolution of attainment of NO2 limit values under current legislation until 2030. Strong improvements are expected with the introduction of the Euro 6 emission standard

  1. Mobilität der Solo-Selbständigen im europäischen Vergleich (The employment status mobility of the solo-self-employed and their social protection in a European comparison)

    OpenAIRE

    Schulze Buschoff, Karin; Schmidt, Claudia

    2005-01-01

    "In the past decades self-employment has gained in importance in the majority of EU Member States. In particular the proportion of small and one-person businesses shows an increasing trend. In contrast to the classical research into business start-ups, which usually focuses on sustainability in the sense of the longest possible survival of the enterprises, this paper determinedly goes into the dynamics and flexibility on the labour market of solo-self-employment. In the context of the theory ...

  2. Mental illness and employment discrimination.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stuart, Heather

    2006-09-01

    Work is a major determinant of mental health and a socially integrating force. To be excluded from the workforce creates material deprivation, erodes self-confidence, creates a sense of isolation and marginalization and is a key risk factor for mental disability. This review summarizes recent evidence pertaining to employment-related stigma and discrimination experienced by people with mental disabilities. A broad understanding of the stigmatization process is adopted, which includes cognitive, attitudinal, behavioural and structural disadvantages. Stigma is both a proximate and a distal cause of employment inequity for people with a mental disability who experience direct discrimination because of prejudicial attitudes from employers and workmates and indirect discrimination owing to historical patterns of disadvantage, structural disincentives against competitive employment and generalized policy neglect. Against this background, modern mental health rehabilitation models and legislative philosophies, which focus on citizenship rights and full social participation, are to be welcomed. Yet, recent findings demonstrate that the legislation remains vulnerable to the very prejudicial attitudes they are intended to abate. Research conducted during the past year continues to highlight multiple attitudinal and structural barriers that prevent people with mental disabilities from becoming active participants in the competitive labour market.

  3. Effect of multipulse waveform on gains of soft X-ray lines of lithium-like aluminum ions in recombining plasmas

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Okasaka, Kazunobu; Hara, Tamio; Yamaguchi, Naohiro; Ando, Kozo; Kawachi, Tetsuya; Oyama, Hitoshi

    2000-01-01

    Using the recombination plasma scheme, we investigated the amplified spontaneous emissions (ASE) from lithium-like aluminum plasmas produced by multipulse laser irradiation. Three types of multipulse waveforms of Nd-glass laser beam were treated. We measured the time-integrated intensities of the 3d-4f (15.5 nm) and the 3d-5f (10.6 nm) lines of lithium-like aluminum ions for 2.5-cm-long and 1.25-cm-long plasmas. The effective time-averaged gains estimated from these time-integrated intensities varied with the multipulse waveforms. using a hydrodynamic simulation, we discussed the time history of plasma parameters in the recombining plasma. We concluded that the modifying multipulse waveform contributed to the effective time-averaged gain by maintaining the helium-like ion density until the gain was generated. (author)

  4. Influences of finite gain bandwidth on pulse propagation in parabolic fiber amplifiers with distributed gain profiles

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhao Jia-Sheng; Li Pan; Chen Xiao-Dong; Feng Su-Juan; Mao Qing-He

    2012-01-01

    The evolutions of the pulses propagating in decreasing and increasing gain distributed fiber amplifiers with finite gain bandwidths are investigated by simulations with the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The results show that the parabolic pulse propagations in both the decreasing and the increasing gain amplifiers are restricted by the finite gain bandwidth. For a given input pulse, by choosing a small initial gain coefficient and gain variation rate, the whole gain for the pulse amplification limited by the gain bandwidth may be higher, which is helpful for the enhancement of the output linearly chirped pulse energy. Compared to the decreasing gain distributed fiber amplifier, the increasing gain distributed amplifier may be more conducive to suppress the pulse spectral broadening and increase the critical amplifier length for achieving a larger output linearly chirped pulse energy

  5. The concept of `work ability' from the view point of employers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jansson, Inger; Björklund, Anita; Perseius, Kent-Inge; Gunnarsson, A Birgitta

    2015-01-01

    Since work ability is manifested in working life and ``bought'' by employers, employers perceptions of the concept are important to understand. Studies have shown that people with health problems want to take part in the labour market, but experience difficulties in gaining access. Additionally, studies have demonstrated the doubt felt by employers when they consider hiring a person with a disability. The aim was to identify and characterise employers' conceptions of work ability. The study design was qualitative with a phenomenographic approach. Six male and six female employers from various workplaces and geographical areas in Sweden were interviewed. Three domains were identified: employees' contributions to work ability, employers' contributions to work ability and circumstances with limited work ability. Work ability was regarded as a tool in production and its output, production, was the main issue. The employees' commitment and interest could bridge other shortcomings. The employers highlighted their own contributions in shaping work ability in order to fit with work circumstances. Health problems were not the only limiting issues; other circumstances, such as individual characteristics and contextual factors, could limit work ability too. Knowing the importance of commitment and interest is valuable in work rehabilitation.

  6. Low-Gain, Low-Noise Integrated Neuronal Amplifier for Implantable Artifact-Reduction Recording System

    OpenAIRE

    Zbrzeski, Adeline; Lewis, Noëlle; Rummens, Francois; Jung, Ranu; N'Kaoua, Gilles; Benazzouz, Abdelhamid; Renaud, Sylvie

    2013-01-01

    Brain neuroprostheses for neuromodulation are being designed to monitor the neural activity of the brain in the vicinity of the region being stimulated using a single macro-electrode. Using a single macro-electrode, recent neuromodulation studies show that recording systems with a low gain neuronal amplifier and successive amplifier stages can reduce or reject stimulation artifacts. These systems were made with off-the-shelf components that are not amendable for future implant design. A low-g...

  7. A 3D printed helical antenna with integrated lens

    KAUST Repository

    Farooqui, Muhammad Fahad

    2015-10-26

    A novel antenna configuration comprising a helical antenna with an integrated lens is demonstrated in this work. The antenna is manufactured by a unique combination of 3D printing of plastic material (ABS) and inkjet printing of silver nano-particle based metallic ink. The integration of lens enhances the gain by around 7 dB giving a peak gain of about 16.4 dBi at 9.4 GHz. The helical antenna operates in the end-fire mode and radiates a left-hand circularly polarized (LHCP) pattern. The 3-dB axial ratio (AR) bandwidth of the antenna with lens is 3.2 %. Due to integration of lens and fully printed processing, this antenna configuration offers high gain performance and requires low cost for manufacturing.

  8. Swarm intelligence algorithms for integrated optimization of piezoelectric actuator and sensor placement and feedback gains

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dutta, Rajdeep; Ganguli, Ranjan; Mani, V

    2011-01-01

    Swarm intelligence algorithms are applied for optimal control of flexible smart structures bonded with piezoelectric actuators and sensors. The optimal locations of actuators/sensors and feedback gain are obtained by maximizing the energy dissipated by the feedback control system. We provide a mathematical proof that this system is uncontrollable if the actuators and sensors are placed at the nodal points of the mode shapes. The optimal locations of actuators/sensors and feedback gain represent a constrained non-linear optimization problem. This problem is converted to an unconstrained optimization problem by using penalty functions. Two swarm intelligence algorithms, namely, Artificial bee colony (ABC) and glowworm swarm optimization (GSO) algorithms, are considered to obtain the optimal solution. In earlier published research, a cantilever beam with one and two collocated actuator(s)/sensor(s) was considered and the numerical results were obtained by using genetic algorithm and gradient based optimization methods. We consider the same problem and present the results obtained by using the swarm intelligence algorithms ABC and GSO. An extension of this cantilever beam problem with five collocated actuators/sensors is considered and the numerical results obtained by using the ABC and GSO algorithms are presented. The effect of increasing the number of design variables (locations of actuators and sensors and gain) on the optimization process is investigated. It is shown that the ABC and GSO algorithms are robust and are good choices for the optimization of smart structures

  9. Employing Model-Based Reasoning in Interdisciplinary Research Teams: Evidence-Based Practices for Integrating Knowledge Across Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pennington, D. D.; Vincent, S.

    2017-12-01

    The NSF-funded project "Employing Model-Based Reasoning in Socio-Environmental Synthesis (EMBeRS)" has developed a generic model for exchanging knowledge across disciplines that is based on findings from the cognitive, learning, social, and organizational sciences addressing teamwork in complex problem solving situations. Two ten-day summer workshops for PhD students from large, NSF-funded interdisciplinary projects working on a variety of water issues were conducted in 2016 and 2017, testing the model by collecting a variety of data, including surveys, interviews, audio/video recordings, material artifacts and documents, and photographs. This presentation will introduce the EMBeRS model, the design of workshop activities based on the model, and results from surveys and interviews with the participating students. Findings suggest that this approach is very effective for developing a shared, integrated research vision across disciplines, compared with activities typically provided by most large research projects, and that students believe the skills developed in the EMBeRS workshops are unique and highly desireable.

  10. Infant weight gain and adolescent body mass index: comparison across two British cohorts born in 1946 and 2001.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnson, William; Bann, David; Hardy, Rebecca

    2018-04-19

    To investigate how the relationship of infant weight gain with adolescent body mass index (BMI) differs for individuals born during and before the obesity epidemic era. Data from two British birth cohorts, the 1946 National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD, n=4199) and the 2001 Millennium Cohort Study (MCS, n=9417), were used to estimate and compare associations of infant weight gain between ages 0 and 3 years with adolescent outcomes. BMI Z-scores and overweight/obesity at ages 11 and 14 years. Infant weight gain, in Z-scores, was positively associated with adolescent BMI Z-scores in both cohorts. Non-linearity in the MCS meant that associations were only stronger than in the NSHD when infant weight gain was above -1 Z-score. Using decomposition analysis, between-cohort differences in association accounted for 20%-30% of the differences (secular increases) in BMI Z-scores, although the underlying estimates were not precise with 95% CIs crossing 0. Conversely, between-cohort differences in the distribution of infant weight gain accounted for approximately 9% of the differences (secular increases) in BMI Z-scores, and the underlying estimates were precise with 95% CI not crossing 0. Relative to normal weight gain (change of -0.67 to +0.67 Z-scores between ages 0 and 3 years), very rapid infant weight gain (>1.34), but not rapid weight gain (+0.67 to +1.34), was associated with higher BMI Z-scores more strongly in the MCS (β=0.790; 95% CI 0.717 to 0.862 at age 11 years) than in the NSHD (0.573; 0.466 to 0.681) (pgain (gain was not, however, more strongly associated with increased risk of adolescent overweight/obesity or thinness, respectively, in the more recently born cohort. Greater infant weight gain, at the middle/upper end of the distribution, was more strongly associated with higher adolescent BMI among individuals born during (compared with before) the obesity epidemic. Combined with a secular change towards greater infant weight gain, these

  11. 26 CFR 1.1250-1 - Gain from dispositions of certain depreciable realty.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... property, Shall be treated as gain from the sale or exchange of property which is neither a capital asset... (or contiguous tracts or parcels) of land are operated as an integrated unit (as evidenced by their... straight line (as computed under section 1250(b) and paragraph (b) of § 1.1250-2). (6) Allocation rules. (i...

  12. Virtual reality for employability skills

    OpenAIRE

    Minocha, Shailey; Tudor, Ana-Despina

    2017-01-01

    We showed a variety of virtual reality technologies, and through examples, we discussed how virtual reality technology is transforming work styles and workplaces. Virtual reality is becoming pervasive in almost all domains starting from arts, environmental causes to medical education and disaster management training, and to supporting patients with Dementia. Thus, an awareness of the virtual reality technology and its integration in curriculum design will provide and enhance employability ski...

  13. Integration Becoming Business: Marketisation of Integration Training for Immigrants

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kurki, Tuuli; Masoud, Ameera; Niemi, Anna-Maija; Brunila, Kristiina

    2018-01-01

    Today, education is massively affected by marketisation and the drastic demands of the global economy. Integration training for immigrants has fallen prey to that; immigrants are employed to serve market needs, which has been attributed to the creation of "integration as business." In the article, the authors examine how integration…

  14. A high gain wide dynamic range transimpedance amplifier for optical receivers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu Lianxi; Zou Jiao; Liu Shubin; Niu Yue; Zhu Zhangming; Yang Yintang; En Yunfei

    2014-01-01

    As the front-end preamplifiers in optical receivers, transimpedance amplifiers (TIAs) are commonly required to have a high gain and low input noise to amplify the weak and susceptible input signal. At the same time, the TIAs should possess a wide dynamic range (DR) to prevent the circuit from becoming saturated by high input currents. Based on the above, this paper presents a CMOS transimpedance amplifier with high gain and a wide DR for 2.5 Gbit/s communications. The TIA proposed consists of a three-stage cascade pull push inverter, an automatic gain control circuit, and a shunt transistor controlled by the resistive divider. The inductive-series peaking technique is used to further extend the bandwidth. The TIA proposed displays a maximum transimpedance gain of 88.3 dBΩ with the −3 dB bandwidth of 1.8 GHz, exhibits an input current dynamic range from 100 nA to 10 mA. The output voltage noise is less than 48.23 nV/√Hz within the −3 dB bandwidth. The circuit is fabricated using an SMIC 0.18 μm 1P6M RFCMOS process and dissipates a dc power of 9.4 mW with 1.8 V supply voltage. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  15. Integral equations

    CERN Document Server

    Moiseiwitsch, B L

    2005-01-01

    Two distinct but related approaches hold the solutions to many mathematical problems--the forms of expression known as differential and integral equations. The method employed by the integral equation approach specifically includes the boundary conditions, which confers a valuable advantage. In addition, the integral equation approach leads naturally to the solution of the problem--under suitable conditions--in the form of an infinite series.Geared toward upper-level undergraduate students, this text focuses chiefly upon linear integral equations. It begins with a straightforward account, acco

  16. 26 CFR 1.988-0 - Taxation of gain or loss from a section 988 transaction; Table of Contents.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... reflection on the books of the taxpayer or qualified business unit. (c) Effectively connected exchange gain...) Definition of integrated economic transaction. (6) Special rules for legging in and legging out of integrated...) References to this paragraph (b). (c) Hedges of period between trade date and settlement date on purchase or...

  17. Impact of cancer on employment: A qualitative study exploring employment changes and financial coping strategies following breast cancer

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yek-Ching Kong

    2017-12-01

    Full Text Available Background: Few studies have examined the impact of cancer diagnosis on employment among breast cancer patients. We aim to gain an in-depth understanding on the employment issues faced by breast cancer patients as well as their financial coping strategies in a multi-ethnic Asian setting. Methods: Six focus group discussions (FGDs were carried out with breast cancer patients, representing various ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds, who were recruited from Hospital Kuala Lumpur, a public hospital, and University Malaya Medical Centre, a public academic hospital. All FGDs were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Thematic content analysis was carried out using the NVivo software. Results: Majority of breast cancer patients quitted their jobs upon diagnosis of breast cancer, with many describing that their bosses were not understanding in terms of their cancer diagnosis. Those who were self-employed meanwhile reported less productivity. Patterns of financial coping strategies due to employment changes were diverse. Some patients chose to do light weight part time jobs, while others described the important role of husbands and relatives in coping with income loss. There were mixed responses regarding return to work, in which money was the major reason to return to work, while stress was cited as a barrier to not return to work. However, many reported barriers in finding a job after cancer due to discrimination against their cancer and their age. Conclusion: It is evident that a breast cancer diagnosis brings about adverse impact on employment. Multidisciplinary interventions are urgently required in Malaysia to improve the employment status of our cancer survivors including legislative reforms to prevent discrimination. This study was funded by AIA Bhd. NMRR ID: NMRR-16-2054-32802 

  18. Interaural Level Difference Dependent Gain Control and Synaptic Scaling Underlying Binaural Computation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xiong, Xiaorui R.; Liang, Feixue; Li, Haifu; Mesik, Lukas; Zhang, Ke K.; Polley, Daniel B.; Tao, Huizhong W.; Xiao, Zhongju; Zhang, Li I.

    2013-01-01

    Binaural integration in the central nucleus of inferior colliculus (ICC) plays a critical role in sound localization. However, its arithmetic nature and underlying synaptic mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we showed in mouse ICC neurons that the contralateral dominance is created by a “push-pull”-like mechanism, with contralaterally dominant excitation and more bilaterally balanced inhibition. Importantly, binaural spiking response is generated apparently from an ipsilaterally-mediated scaling of contralateral response, leaving frequency tuning unchanged. This scaling effect is attributed to a divisive attenuation of contralaterally-evoked synaptic excitation onto ICC neurons with their inhibition largely unaffected. Thus, a gain control mediates the linear transformation from monaural to binaural spike responses. The gain value is modulated by interaural level difference (ILD) primarily through scaling excitation to different levels. The ILD-dependent synaptic scaling and gain adjustment allow ICC neurons to dynamically encode interaural sound localization cues while maintaining an invariant representation of other independent sound attributes. PMID:23972599

  19. A national quitline service and its promotion in the mass media: modelling the health gain, health equity and cost-utility.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nghiem, Nhung; Cleghorn, Christine L; Leung, William; Nair, Nisha; Deen, Frederieke S van der; Blakely, Tony; Wilson, Nick

    2017-07-24

    Mass media campaigns and quitlines are both important distinct components of tobacco control programmes around the world. But when used as an integrated package, the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness are not well described. We therefore aimed to estimate the health gain, health equity impacts and cost-utility of the package of a national quitline service and its promotion in the mass media. We adapted an established Markov and multistate life-table macro-simulation model. The population was all New Zealand adults in 2011. Effect sizes and intervention costs were based on past New Zealand quitline data. Health system costs were from a national data set linking individual health events to costs. The 1-year operation of the existing intervention package of mass media promotion and quitline service was found to be net cost saving to the health sector for all age groups, sexes and ethnic groups (saving $NZ84 million; 95%uncertainty interval 60-115 million in the base-case model). It also produced greater per capita health gains for Māori (indigenous) than non-Māori (2.2 vs 0.73 quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) per 1000 population, respectively). The net cost saving of the intervention was maintained in all sensitivity and scenario analyses for example at a discount rate of 6% and when the intervention effect size was quartered (given the possibility of residual confounding in our estimates of smoking cessation). Running the intervention for 20 years would generate an estimated 54 000 QALYs and $NZ1.10 billion (US$0.74 billion) in cost savings. The package of a quitline service and its promotion in the mass media appears to be an effective means to generate health gain, address health inequalities and save health system costs. Nevertheless, the role of this intervention needs to be compared with other tobacco control and health sector interventions, some of which may be even more cost saving. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise

  20. Active rc filter permits easy trade-off of amplifier gain and sensitivity to gain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kerwin, W. J.; Shaffer, C. V.

    1968-01-01

    Passive RC network was designed with zeros of transmission in the right half of the complex frequency plane in the feedback loop of a simple negative-gain amplifier. The proper positioning provides any desired trade-off between amplifier gain and sensitivity to amplifier gain.

  1. A Functional Model for the Integration of Gains and Losses under Risk: Implications for the Measurement of Subjective Value

    Science.gov (United States)

    Viegas, Ricardo G.; Oliveira, Armando M.; Garriga-Trillo, Ana; Grieco, Alba

    2012-01-01

    In order to be treated quantitatively, subjective gains and losses (utilities/disutilities) must be psychologically measured. If legitimate comparisons are sought between them, measurement must be at least interval level, with a common unit. If comparisons of absolute magnitudes across gains and losses are further sought, as in standard…

  2. Employability of genetic counselors with a PhD in genetic counseling.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wallace, Jody P; Myers, Melanie F; Huether, Carl A; Bedard, Angela C; Warren, Nancy Steinberg

    2008-06-01

    The development of a PhD in genetic counseling has been discussed for more than 20 years, yet the perspectives of employers have not been assessed. The goal of this qualitative study was to gain an understanding of the employability of genetic counselors with a PhD in genetic counseling by conducting interviews with United States employers of genetic counselors. Study participants were categorized according to one of the following practice areas: academic, clinical, government, industry, laboratory, or research. All participants were responsible for hiring genetic counselors in their institutions. Of the 30 employers interviewed, 23 envisioned opportunities for individuals with a PhD degree in genetic counseling, particularly in academic and research settings. Performing research and having the ability to be a principal investigator on a grant was the primary role envisioned for these individuals by 22/30 participants. Employers expect individuals with a PhD in genetic counseling to perform different roles than MS genetic counselors with a master's degree. This study suggests there is an employment niche for individuals who have a PhD in genetic counseling that complements, and does not compete with, master's prepared genetic counselors.

  3. How architecture students gain and apply knowledge of sustainable architecture

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Donovan, Elizabeth; Holder, Anna

    2016-01-01

    understandings of how architects synthesise different types of knowledge while designing, raising questions about the ‘match’ between educational experiences and subsequent behaviours in practice. Taking an example from Denmark, we outline the approach of Aarhus School of Architecture, where sustainability...... teaching is partially integrated within the design studio courses. We compare the institution’s philosophy for sustainability with pedagogical approaches as practiced within the school. An empirical study was made of 2nd year architecture student experiences of a one-month introduction course to ‘Reuse...... to be supported in gaining different types of knowledge (ie. propositional, experiential, applied) through different modes of learning. There are gaps to be bridged in education in order for the sustainability agenda to be fully integrated in architectural practice....

  4. Optical gain of LaF3:Nd nanoparticle doped polymers for active integrated optical devices

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Stouwdam, J.W.; Klunder, D.J.W.; Borreman, A.; Diemeer, Mart; Worhoff, Kerstin; Driessen, A.; de Ridder, R.M.; de Ridder, R.M; Altena, G; Altena, G.; Geuzebroek, D.H.; Dekker, R; Dekker, R.

    2003-01-01

    We report on rare earth doped LaF3 nanoparticles dispersed in PMMA and SU-8 photosensitive polymers. We observed optical gain after we applied these materials for waveguides. Experimental results on various samples will be discussed. We theoretically discuss the improvements that can be obtained and

  5. Receptiveness to Flexible Employment at Hungarian SMEs

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ákos Essősy

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, only companies that are adaptable and flexible in their structure and processes can survive. The basis for a motivated company aiming for peak performance is organisational innovation. Hungary is one of the less innovative countries in Europe. Only organisations that can integrate new solutions smoothly into their everyday operations will remain truly competitive. The Government of Hungary, in its Partnership Agreement with the European Union, set out the goals for improving and supporting the adaptability of enterprises, the promotion of flexible and family-friendly workplace practices and services, and the employment of women with young children. The aim of this study is to demonstrate, through a Hungarian example, the receptiveness of Hungarian small and medium-sized enterprises to flexible forms of employment. The effect of flexible employment on economic adaptability and competitiveness through workforce efficiency and retention is examined. Its aim is the raise the awareness of options to increase employment among Hungarian SME managers.

  6. Biodiversity gains from efficient use of private sponsorship for flagship species conservation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bennett, Joseph R; Maloney, Richard; Possingham, Hugh P

    2015-04-22

    To address the global extinction crisis, both efficient use of existing conservation funding and new sources of funding are vital. Private sponsorship of charismatic 'flagship' species conservation represents an important source of new funding, but has been criticized as being inefficient. However, the ancillary benefits of privately sponsored flagship species conservation via actions benefiting other species have not been quantified, nor have the benefits of incorporating such sponsorship into objective prioritization protocols. Here, we use a comprehensive dataset of conservation actions for the 700 most threatened species in New Zealand to examine the potential biodiversity gains from national private flagship species sponsorship programmes. We find that private funding for flagship species can clearly result in additional species and phylogenetic diversity conserved, via conservation actions shared with other species. When private flagship species funding is incorporated into a prioritization protocol to preferentially sponsor shared actions, expected gains can be more than doubled. However, these gains are consistently smaller than expected gains in a hypothetical scenario where private funding could be optimally allocated among all threatened species. We recommend integrating private sponsorship of flagship species into objective prioritization protocols to sponsor efficient actions that maximize biodiversity gains, or wherever possible, encouraging private donations for broader biodiversity goals. © 2015 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

  7. German Dual Curricula to Improve School to Employment Transition: A Case Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Stephens, Maria Cecilia Noche

    2015-01-01

    The German Dual System is a model educational and employment approach that other nations could emulate. The ability of young apprentices to work and study at the same time to gain both practical and theoretical skills leads to more meaningful education and decreased dropout and youth unemployment rates. The collaboration of the government,…

  8. Product market integration, rents and wage inequality

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Torben M.; Sørensen, Allan

    "protection" and "specialization" rents. In particular, wage inequality among similar workers (residual wage inequality) may be U-shaped, at first decreasing and then increasing in the process of product market integration. Consequently, there may be gains in both the efficiency and the equity dimension until......Globalization in the form of product market integration affects labour markets and produces winners and losers. While there are aggregate gains, it is in general ambiguous how inequality is affected. We explore this issue in a Ricardian model and show that it depends on the balance between...

  9. 78 FR 42537 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Online Survey of Web Services Employers; New...

    Science.gov (United States)

    2013-07-16

    ...-NEW] Agency Information Collection Activities: Online Survey of Web Services Employers; New... sector. It is necessary that USCIS obtains data on the E-Verify Program Web Services. Gaining an understanding of the Web Services process should enable USCIS to identify programmatic improvements to better...

  10. Effect of integrated care for sick listed patients with chronic low back pain: economic evaluation alongside a randomised controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lambeek, Ludeke C; Bosmans, Judith E; Van Royen, Barend J; Van Tulder, Maurits W; Van Mechelen, Willem; Anema, Johannes R

    2010-11-30

    To evaluate the cost effectiveness, cost utility, and cost-benefit of an integrated care programme compared with usual care for sick listed patients with chronic low back pain. Economic evaluation alongside a randomised controlled trial with 12 months' follow-up. Primary care (10 physiotherapy practices, one occupational health service, one occupational therapy practice) and secondary care (five hospitals) in the Netherlands, 2005-9. 134 adults aged 18-65 sick listed because of chronic low back pain: 66 were randomised to integrated care and 68 to usual care. Integrated care consisted of a workplace intervention based on participatory ergonomics, with involvement of a supervisor, and a graded activity programme based on cognitive behavioural principles. Usual care was provided by general practitioners and occupational physicians according to Dutch guidelines. The primary outcome was duration until sustainable return to work. The secondary outcome was quality adjusted life years (QALYs), measured using EuroQol. Total costs in the integrated care group (£13 165, SD £13 600) were significantly lower than in the usual care group (£18 475, SD £13 616). Cost effectiveness planes and acceptability curves showed that integrated care was cost effective compared with usual care for return to work and QALYs gained. The cost-benefit analyses showed that every £1 invested in integrated care would return an estimated £26. The net societal benefit of integrated care compared with usual care was £5744. Implementation of an integrated care programme for patients sick listed with chronic low back pain has a large potential to significantly reduce societal costs, increase effectiveness of care, improve quality of life, and improve function on a broad scale. Integrated care therefore has large gains for patients and society as well as for employers.

  11. Gain attenuation of gated framing camera

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Xiao Shali; Liu Shenye; Cao Zhurong; Li Hang; Zhang Haiying; Yuan Zheng; Wang Liwei

    2009-01-01

    The theoretic model of framing camera's gain attenuation is analyzed. The exponential attenuation curve of the gain along the pulse propagation time is simulated. An experiment to measure the coefficient of gain attenuation based on the gain attenuation theory is designed. Experiment result shows that the gain follows an exponential attenuation rule with a quotient of 0.0249 nm -1 , the attenuation coefficient of the pulse is 0.00356 mm -1 . The loss of the pulse propagation along the MCP stripline is the leading reason of gain attenuation. But in the figure of a single stripline, the gain dose not follow the rule of exponential attenuation completely, instead, there is a gain increase at the stripline bottom. That is caused by the reflection of the pulse. The reflectance is about 24.2%. Combining the experiment and theory, which design of the stripline MCP can improved the gain attenuation. (authors)

  12. A Wide-Band High-Gain Compact SIS Receiver Utilizing a 300-μW SiGe IF LNA

    Science.gov (United States)

    Montazeri, Shirin; Grimes, Paul K.; Tong, Cheuk-Yu Edward; Bardin, Joseph C.

    2017-06-01

    Low-power low-noise amplifiers integrated with superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) mixers are required to enable implementation of large-scale focal plane arrays. In this work, a 220-GHz SIS mixer has been integrated with a high-gain broad-band low-power IF amplifier into a compact receiver module. The low noise amplifier (LNA) was specifically designed to match to the SIS output impedance and contributes less than 7 K to the system noise temperature over the 4-8 GHz IF frequency range. A receiver noise temperature of 30-45 K was measured for a local oscillator frequency of 220 GHz over an IF spanning 4-8 GHz. The LNA power dissipation was only 300-μW. To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the lowest power consumption reported for a high-gain wide-band LNA directly integrated with an SIS mixer.

  13. Improvement of Students’ Environmental Literacy by Using Integrated Science Teaching Materials

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suryanti, D.; Sinaga, P.; Surakusumah, W.

    2018-02-01

    This study aims to determine the improvement of student environmental literacy through the use of integrated science teaching materials on pollution topics. The research is used weak experiment method with the one group pre-test post-test design. The sample of the study were junior high school students in Bandung amounted to 32 people of 7th grade. Data collection in the form of environmental literacy test instrument consist of four components of environmental literacy that is (1) Knowledge, (2) Competencies (Cognitive Skill), (3) Affective and (4) Environmentally Responsible Behavior. The results show that the student’s environmental literacy ability is improved after using integrated science teaching materials. An increase in the medium category is occurring in the knowledge (N-gain=46%) and cognitive skill (N-gain=31%), while the increase in the low category occurs in the affective component (N-gain=25%) and behaviour (N-gain=24%). The conclusions of this study as a whole the improvement of students’ environmental literacy by using integrated science teaching material is in the medium category (N-gain=34%).

  14. Gain enhancement of low profile on-chip dipole antenna via Artificial Magnetic Conductor at 94 GHz

    KAUST Repository

    Nafe, Mahmoud

    2015-04-13

    The bottleneck for realizing high efficiency System-on-Chip is integrating the antenna on the lossy silicon substrate. To shield the antenna from the silicon, a ground plane can be used. However, the ultra-thin oxide does not provide enough separation between the antenna and the ground plane. In this work, we demonstrate one of the highest reported gains to date for low profile 94 GHz on-chip dipole antenna while the ground plane is in the lowest metal in the oxide (M1). This is achieved by optimizing an Artificial Magnetic Conductor (AMC) structure midway the antenna and M1. The dipole antenna without the AMC has a gain of − 11 dBi while with the AMC structure a gain of + 4.8 dBi and hence achieving a gain enhancement of + 15.8 dB.

  15. Weight Gain during Pregnancy

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... Global Map Premature Birth Report Cards Careers Archives Pregnancy Before or between pregnancies Nutrition, weight & fitness Prenatal ... fitness > Weight gain during pregnancy Weight gain during pregnancy E-mail to a friend Please fill in ...

  16. Employability of People with Disabilities in the Northern States of Peninsular Malaysia: Employers’ Perspective

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Khoo Suet Leng

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: This study investigates employers’ perspective towards employing people with disabilities  in the northern states of Peninsular Malaysia. The research also endeavoured to identify factors that promote or hinder gainful employment of people with disabilities in Malaysia.Method: The data was collected through postal questionnaires distributed to several types of industries in the northern region of Malaysia.Results: The results indicated that most of the employers are in favour of employing persons with disabilities. However, very few have such enabling policies, or a mechanism to handle issues related to persons with disabilities, or a built environment which is fully accessible to persons with disabilities.  They are also concerned about the  ability of workers with disabilities to comprehend and follow orders, as well as the costs involved in employing and training them. These results imply that if employers  want to fulfil their intentions of recruiting persons with disabilities, a lot has to be done to employ and sustain them in their jobs.Key words: Employment, People with Disabilities, Malaysiadoi 10.5463/DCID.v22i2.28

  17. Atmospheric aerosol measurements by employing a polarization scheimpflug lidar system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mei, Liang; Guan, Peng; Yang, Yang

    2018-04-01

    A polarization Scheimpflug lidar system based on the Scheimpflug principle has been developed by employing a compact 808-nm multimode highpower laser diode and two highly integrated CMOS sensors in Dalian University of Technology (DLUT), Dalian, China. The parallel and orthogonal polarized backscattering signal are recorded by two 45 degree tilted image sensors, respectively. Atmospheric particle measurements were carried out by employing the polarization Scheimpflug lidar system.

  18. Employment status, employment functioning, and barriers to employment among VA primary care patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zivin, Kara; Yosef, Matheos; Levine, Debra S; Abraham, Kristen M; Miller, Erin M; Henry, Jennifer; Nelson, C Beau; Pfeiffer, Paul N; Sripada, Rebecca K; Harrod, Molly; Valenstein, Marcia

    2016-03-15

    Prior research found lower employment rates among working-aged patients who use the VA than among non-Veterans or Veterans who do not use the VA, with the lowest reported employment rates among VA patients with mental disorders. This study assessed employment status, employment functioning, and barriers to employment among VA patients treated in primary care settings, and examined how depression and anxiety were associated with these outcomes. The sample included 287 VA patients treated in primary care in a large Midwestern VA Medical Center. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were conducted examining associations between socio-demographic and clinical predictors of six employment domains, including: employment status, job search self-efficacy, work performance, concerns about job loss among employed Veterans, and employment barriers and likelihood of job seeking among not employed Veterans. 54% of respondents were employed, 36% were not employed, and 10% were economically inactive. In adjusted analyses, participants with depression or anxiety (43%) were less likely to be employed, had lower job search self-efficacy, had lower levels of work performance, and reported more employment barriers. Depression and anxiety were not associated with perceived likelihood of job loss among employed or likelihood of job seeking among not employed. Single VA primary care clinic; cross-sectional study. Employment rates are low among working-aged VA primary care patients, particularly those with mental health conditions. Offering primary care interventions to patients that address mental health issues, job search self-efficacy, and work performance may be important in improving health, work, and economic outcomes. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  19. Opening the Black-Box in Lifelong E-Learning for Employability: A Framework for a Socio-Technical E-Learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Juan-Francisco Martínez-Cerdá

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Human beings must develop many skills to cope with the large amount of challenges that currently exist in the world: media empowerment for an active and democratic citizenship, knowledge acquisition and conversion for lifelong and life-wide learning, 21st century skills for matching demand and supply in labor markets, and dispositional employability for unpredictable future career success. One of the tools for achieving these is online education, in which students have the chance to manage their own time, content, and goals. Thus, this paper analyzes these issues from the perspective of skills gained through e-learning and validates the Socio-Technical E-learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM framework. The research was carried out with former students of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses validate several consistent and reliable scales in two areas: (i employability, based on educational social capital, media empowerment, knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, literacy, digitalness, collaboration, resilience, proactivity, identity, openness, motivation, organizational culture, and employment security; and (ii socio-technical systems existing in this open online university, based on its information and communications technology (ICT, learning tasks, as well as student-centered and organizational approaches. The research provides two new psychometrical scales that are useful for the evaluation, monitoring, and assessment of relationships and influences between socio-technical e-learning organizations and employability skills development, and proposes a set of indicators related to human and social capital, valid in employability contexts.

  20. Becoming Overweight Without Gaining a Pound: Weight Evaluations and the Social Integration of Mexicans in the United States.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Altman, Claire E; Van Hook, Jennifer; Gonzalez, Jonathan

    2017-01-01

    Mexican women gain weight with increasing duration in the United States. In the United States, body dissatisfaction tends to be associated with depression, disordered eating, and incongruent weight evaluations, particularly among white women and women of higher socioeconomic status. However, it remains unclear how overweight and obesity is interpreted by Mexican women. Using comparable data of women ages 20-64 from both Mexico (the 2006 Encuesta Nacional de Salud y Nutricion; N=17,012) and the United States (the 1999-2009 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys; N=8,487), we compare weight status evaluations among Mexican nationals, Mexican immigrants, U.S.-born Mexicans, U.S.-born non-Hispanic Whites, and U.S.-born non-Hispanic blacks. Logistic regression analyses, which control for demographic and social-economic variables and measured body mass index and adjust for the likelihood of migration for Mexican nationals, indicate that the tendency to self-evaluate as overweight among Mexicans converges with levels among non-Hispanic whites and diverges from blacks over time in the United States. Overall, the results suggest a U.S. integration process in which Mexican-American women's less critical self-evaluations originate in Mexico but fade with time in the United States as they gradually adopt U.S. white norms for thinner body sizes. These results are discussed in light of social comparison and negative health assimilation.

  1. Hamiltonian formulation of systems with balanced loss-gain and exactly solvable models

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ghosh, Pijush K.; Sinha, Debdeep

    2018-01-01

    A Hamiltonian formulation of generic many-body systems with balanced loss and gain is presented. It is shown that a Hamiltonian formulation is possible only if the balancing of loss and gain terms occurs in a pairwise fashion. It is also shown that with the choice of a suitable co-ordinate, the Hamiltonian can always be reformulated in the background of a pseudo-Euclidean metric. If the equations of motion of some of the well-known many-body systems like Calogero models are generalized to include balanced loss and gain, it appears that the same may not be amenable to a Hamiltonian formulation. A few exactly solvable systems with balanced loss and gain, along with a set of integrals of motion are constructed. The examples include a coupled chain of nonlinear oscillators and a many-particle Calogero-type model with four-body inverse square plus two-body pair-wise harmonic interactions. For the case of nonlinear oscillators, stable solution exists even if the loss and gain parameter has unbounded upper range. Further, the range of the parameter for which the stable solutions are obtained is independent of the total number of the oscillators. The set of coupled nonlinear equations are solved exactly for the case when the values of all the constants of motions except the Hamiltonian are equal to zero. Exact, analytical classical solutions are presented for all the examples considered.

  2. Can Beta Blockers Cause Weight Gain?

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... cause weight gain? Can beta blockers cause weight gain? Answers from Sheldon G. Sheps, M.D. Yes. Weight gain can occur as a side effect of some ... and metoprolol (Lopressor, Toprol-XL). The average weight gain is about 2.6 pounds (about 1.2 ...

  3. Soldiers’ employment attitude and employability: An exploratory study

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peng Gao

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: Nowadays it is very difficult for Chinese retired soldiers to find proper jobs, and the primary reason is the significant gap between job requirements and soldiers owned job skills. Therefore, it is very important to improve the soldiers’ job skills and enhance their understanding of employment.Design/methodology/approach: This paper expands the study scope from the soldiers’ job skills to the employability, initiatively introduces the employment attitude which has obvious impact on the employment of soldiers, and analyses the influence that employment attitude can play on employability. At last, this paper develops statistical method to find the relationship between soldiers’ employment attitude and employability.Findings: The empirical analysis shows that soldiers’ employment attitude has the positive linkage with employability, which makes the employment attitude a measurable variable for the employability rather than an absolute standard.Research limitations/implications: According to the research purpose, more variables should be considered in the model, consequently, there are only three indicators to describe solders’ employment attitude and four indicators to describe solders’ employability.Originality/value: This paper takes research on soldiers’ employability in a new perspective. The soldiers’ employment attitude is served as the entry point, showing the influence that soldiers’ employment attitude has on employability.

  4. Analyzing Student and Employer Satisfaction with Cooperative Education through Multiple Data Sources

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jiang, Yuheng Helen; Lee, Sally Wai Yin; Golab, Lukasz

    2015-01-01

    This paper reports on the analysis of three years research of undergraduate cooperative work term postings and employer and employee evaluations. The objective of the analysis was to determine the factors affecting student and employer success and satisfaction with the work-integrated learning experience. It was found that students performed…

  5. Estimating the potential gains from mergers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bogetoft, Peter; Wang, Dexiang

    2005-01-01

    We introduce simple production economic models to estimate the potential gains from mergers. We decompose the gains into technical ef¿ciency, size (scale) and harmony (mix) gains, and we discuss alternative ways to capture these gains. We propose to approximate the production processes using...... the non-parametric. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach, and we use the resulting operational approach to estimate the potential gains from merging agricultural extension of¿ces in Denmark....

  6. Comparison of gradient methods for gain tuning of a PD controller applied on a quadrotor system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jinho; Wilkerson, Stephen A.; Gadsden, S. Andrew

    2016-05-01

    Many mechanical and electrical systems have utilized the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) control strategy. The concept of PID control is a classical approach but it is easy to implement and yields a very good tracking performance. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are currently experiencing a significant growth in popularity. Due to the advantages of PID controllers, UAVs are implementing PID controllers for improved stability and performance. An important consideration for the system is the selection of PID gain values in order to achieve a safe flight and successful mission. There are a number of different algorithms that can be used for real-time tuning of gains. This paper presents two algorithms for gain tuning, and are based on the method of steepest descent and Newton's minimization of an objective function. This paper compares the results of applying these two gain tuning algorithms in conjunction with a PD controller on a quadrotor system.

  7. Employment after childbearing and women's subsequent labour force participation: evidence from the British 1958 birth cohort.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joshi, H; Macran, S; Dex, S

    1996-01-01

    "Data on women from the British 1958 Cohort Study is used as evidence on the determinants of their labour force participation at age 33. A conventional cross-sectional model of full or part-time employment makes use of some longitudinal material not normally included in such models. Whether the woman made the hitherto customary break from employment at the time of the first maternity is included in recognition that this cohort was among the first generation to be offered Statutory Maternity Leave. Results suggest that the presence of children (still) inhibits full-time employment and raises the probability of part-time employment; that income effects on participation have continued to weaken while wage elasticity for full-time employment is high. Continuity of employment straight after childbearing raises the chances of subsequent full-time employment, but by no means guarantees it. Gains from maternity leave and other family friendly employment policies have been far from uniform." excerpt

  8. Towards on-chip integration of brain imaging photodetectors using standard CMOS process.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kamrani, Ehsan; Lesage, Frederic; Sawan, Mohamad

    2013-01-01

    The main effects of on-chip integration on the performance and efficiency of silicon avalanche photodiode (SiAPD) and photodetector front-end is addressed in this paper based on the simulation and fabrication experiments. Two different silicon APDs are fabricated separately and also integrated with a transimpedance amplifier (TIA) front-end using standard CMOS technology. SiAPDs are designed in p+/n-well structure with guard rings realized in different shapes. The TIA front-end has been designed using distributed-gain concept combined with resistive-feedback and common-gate topology to reach low-noise and high gain-bandwidth product (GBW) characteristics. The integrated SiAPDs show higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), sensitivity and detection efficiency comparing to the separate SiAPDs. The integration does not show a significant effect on the gain and preserves the low power consumption. Using APDs with p-well guard-ring is preferred due to the higher observed efficiency after integration.

  9. Inkjet printing of novel wideband and high gain antennas on low-cost paper substrate

    KAUST Repository

    Cook, Benjamin Stassen

    2012-09-01

    A complete characterization of the inkjet printing process using metallic nanoparticle inks on a paper substrate for microwave frequencies up to 12.5 GHz as well as its application to low-cost, high gain and wideband antenna design are demonstrated in this work. Laser and heat sintering of metallic nanoparticles are compared on paper substrate for the first time which demonstrate immense cost and time benefits of laser sintering. The antennas fabricated using the characterized process include a Vivaldi for the UWB band which exhibits a significantly higher gain of up to 8 dBi as compared to the currently published inkjet printed antennas, and a novel slow-wave log periodic dipole array which employs a new miniaturization technique to show 20% width reduction. © 1963-2012 IEEE.

  10. A current mode feed-forward gain control system for a 0.8 V CMOS hearing aid

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Li Fanyang; Yang Haigang; Liu Fei; Yin Tao, E-mail: yanghg@mail.ie.ac.cn [Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080 (China)

    2011-06-15

    A current mode feed-forward gain control (CMFGC) technique is presented, which is applied in the front-end system of a hearing aid chip. Compared with conventional automatic gain control (AGC), CMFGC significantly improves the total harmonic distortion (THD) by digital gain control. To attain the digital gain control codes according to the extremely weak output signal from the microphone, a rectifier and a state controller implemented in current mode are proposed. A prototype chip has been designed based on a 0.13 {mu}m standard CMOS process. The measurement results show that the supply voltage can be as low as 0.6 V. And with the 0.8 V supply voltage, the THD is improved and below 0.06% (-64 dB) at the output level of 500 mV{sub p-p}, yet the power consumption is limited to 40 {mu}W. In addition, the input referred noise is only 4 {mu}V{sub rms} and the maximum gain is maintained at 33 dB. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  11. A current mode feed-forward gain control system for a 0.8 V CMOS hearing aid

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Li Fanyang; Yang Haigang; Liu Fei; Yin Tao

    2011-01-01

    A current mode feed-forward gain control (CMFGC) technique is presented, which is applied in the front-end system of a hearing aid chip. Compared with conventional automatic gain control (AGC), CMFGC significantly improves the total harmonic distortion (THD) by digital gain control. To attain the digital gain control codes according to the extremely weak output signal from the microphone, a rectifier and a state controller implemented in current mode are proposed. A prototype chip has been designed based on a 0.13 μm standard CMOS process. The measurement results show that the supply voltage can be as low as 0.6 V. And with the 0.8 V supply voltage, the THD is improved and below 0.06% (-64 dB) at the output level of 500 mV p-p , yet the power consumption is limited to 40 μW. In addition, the input referred noise is only 4 μV rms and the maximum gain is maintained at 33 dB. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  12. Non-standard Employment in the Nordics – towards precarious work?

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rasmussen, Stine; Nätti, Jouko; Larsen, Trine Pernille

    2018-01-01

    This article examines non-standard employment and precariousness in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway). Drawing on data from the Labour Force Survey from 1995-2015, the article investigates and compares recent developments of non-standard employment in the countries and w...... to be largely integrated in the Nordic labour markets, it still entails precarious elements in certain countries. Norway and Denmark stand out as less insecure labour markets, while Finland and Sweden have more precariousness associated with non-standard employment.......This article examines non-standard employment and precariousness in four Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway). Drawing on data from the Labour Force Survey from 1995-2015, the article investigates and compares recent developments of non-standard employment in the countries...... and whether fixed-term contracts, temporary agency work, marginal part-time work and solo self-employment have precarious elements (income or job insecurity). We conclude that non-standard employment has remained rather stable in all four countries over time. However, although non-standard employment seems...

  13. Development of Femtosecond Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy: Stimulated Raman Gain via Elimination of Cross Phase Modulation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jin, Seung Min; Lee, Young Jong; Yu, Jong Wan; Kim, Seong Keun

    2004-01-01

    We have developed a new femtosecond probe technique by using stimulated Raman spectroscopy. The cross phase modulation in femtosecond time scale associated with off-resonant interaction was shown to be eliminated by integrating the transient gain/loss signal over the time delay between the Raman pump pulse and the continuum pulse. The stimulated Raman gain of neat cyclohexane was obtained to demonstrate the feasibility of the technique. Spectral and temporal widths of stimulated Raman spectra were controlled by using a narrow band pass filter. Femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy was proposed as a highly useful probe in time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy

  14. Tracing employment in business functions. A sectoral and occupational approach

    OpenAIRE

    Geurts, Karen; Ramioul, Monique

    2007-01-01

    Economic globalisation and the increased pressure on firms to outsource or relocate activities, are often perceived as primarily resulting in job losses. This perspective takes no account of the positive employment effects entailed by these developments, both in terms of new companies and of job creation in existing companies. Recently, different attempts have been made to estimate the impact of economic globalisation on job losses and job gains. The methods applied to this end differ widely,...

  15. Enhanced efficiency of internal combustion engines by employing spinning gas.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Geyko, V I; Fisch, N J

    2014-08-01

    The efficiency of the internal combustion engine might be enhanced by employing spinning gas. A gas spinning at near sonic velocities has an effectively higher heat capacity, which allows practical fuel cycles, which are far from the Carnot efficiency, to approach more closely the Carnot efficiency. A remarkable gain in fuel efficiency is shown to be theoretically possible for the Otto and Diesel cycles. The use of a flywheel, in principle, could produce even greater increases in efficiency.

  16. Simplification of integrity constraints for data integration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Christiansen, Henning; Martinenghi, Davide

    2004-01-01

    , because either the global database is known to be consistent or suitable actions have been taken to provide consistent views. The present work generalizes simplification techniques for integrity checking in traditional databases to the combined case. Knowledge of local consistency is employed, perhaps...

  17. A gain-coefficient switched Alexandrite laser

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lee, Chris J; Van der Slot, Peter J M; Boller, Klaus-J

    2013-01-01

    We report on a gain-coefficient switched Alexandrite laser. An electro-optic modulator is used to switch between high and low gain states by making use of the polarization dependent gain of Alexandrite. In gain-coefficient switched mode, the laser produces 85 ns pulses with a pulse energy of 240 mJ at a repetition rate of 5 Hz.

  18. Student employment and study effort for engineering students

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Clemmensen, Line Katrine Harder; Harder, D. E.

    2015-01-01

    more than those in studies from e.g. UK and US [3, 4, 5]. A similar trend was seen in a study from Norway [6]. Government financial support seems to limit the amount of hours spent on paid work but not the percentage of students who take on paid work. Thus, full-time studies with benefits of increased...... capabilities and experience gained through employment could be aided by proper policies. Additionally, one of the highest impacts on study activity was the perceived study environment. As the engineering students have four hours per week of interaction with an instructor for each five ECTS...... to answer if the full-time student is under demise in these settings as opposed to settings without financial support [1, 2]. The research consisted of a web-based survey amongst all students at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). The students in this survey had fewer employment hours and studied...

  19. Linking practice fields of social innovations in the domain of employment

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Oeij, P.R.A.; Dhondt, S.; Torre, W. van

    2018-01-01

    Social innovations in Employment are scattered. If social innovations want to achieve sustainable, social changes, they require integration to create more coherent ‘social innovation of employment’.

  20. Feed intake, digestibility and body weight gain of sheep fed Napier grass mixed with different levels of Sesbania sesban

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tibebu, M.; Tollera, A.; Tessema, Z.K.

    2009-01-01

    A randomized complete block design was employed to assess the feed intake, nutrient digestibility and live weight gains of hair type local sheep (~ 18.0 kg initial live weight) fed Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum) mixed with different levels of Sesbania (Sesbania sesban). The treatments were sole

  1. Integration in psychotherapy: Reasons and challenges.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernández-Álvarez, Héctor; Consoli, Andrés J; Gómez, Beatriz

    2016-11-01

    Although integration has been formally influencing the field of psychotherapy since the 1930s, its impact gained significant momentum during the 1980s. Practical, theoretical, and scientific reasons help to explain the growing influence of integration in psychotherapy. The field of psychotherapy is characterized by many challenges which integration may change into meaningful opportunities. Nonetheless, many obstacles remain when seeking to advance integration. To appreciate the strength of integration in psychotherapy we describe an integrative, comprehensive approach to service delivery, research, and training. We then discuss the role of integration in the future of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

  2. Study of gain-coupled distributed feedback laser based on high order surface gain-coupled gratings

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Feng; Qin, Li; Chen, Yongyi; Jia, Peng; Chen, Chao; Cheng, LiWen; Chen, Hong; Liang, Lei; Zeng, Yugang; Zhang, Xing; Wu, Hao; Ning, Yongqiang; Wang, Lijun

    2018-03-01

    Single-longitudinal-mode, gain-coupled distributed feedback (DFB) lasers based on high order surface gain-coupled gratings are achieved. Periodic surface metal p-contacts with insulated grooves realize gain-coupled mechanism. To enhance gain contrast in the quantum wells without the introduction of effective index-coupled effect, groove length and depth were well designed. Our devices provided a single longitudinal mode with the maximum CW output power up to 48.8 mW/facet at 971.31 nm at 250 mA without facet coating, 3dB linewidth (39 dB). Optical bistable characteristic was observed with a threshold current difference. Experimentally, devices with different cavity lengths were contrasted on power-current and spectrum characteristics. Due to easy fabrication technique and stable performance, it provides a method of fabricating practical gain-coupled distributed feedback lasers for commercial applications.

  3. 'Students-as-partners' scheme enhances postgraduate students' employability skills while addressing gaps in bioinformatics education.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mello, Luciane V; Tregilgas, Luke; Cowley, Gwen; Gupta, Anshul; Makki, Fatima; Jhutty, Anjeet; Shanmugasundram, Achchuthan

    2017-01-01

    Teaching bioinformatics is a longstanding challenge for educators who need to demonstrate to students how skills developed in the classroom may be applied to real world research. This study employed an action research methodology which utilised student-staff partnership and peer-learning. It was centred on the experiences of peer-facilitators, students who had previously taken a postgraduate bioinformatics module, and had applied knowledge and skills gained from it to their own research. It aimed to demonstrate to peer-receivers, current students, how bioinformatics could be used in their own research while developing peer-facilitators' teaching and mentoring skills. This student-centred approach was well received by the peer-receivers, who claimed to have gained improved understanding of bioinformatics and its relevance to research. Equally, peer-facilitators also developed a better understanding of the subject and appreciated that the activity was a rare and invaluable opportunity to develop their teaching and mentoring skills, enhancing their employability.

  4. Changes in job strain and subsequent weight gain: a longitudinal study, based on the Danish Nurse Cohort.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vesterlund, Gitte Kingo; Keller, Amélie Cléo; Heitmann, Berit Lilienthal

    2018-04-01

    Obesity as well as job strain is increasing, and job strain might contribute to weight gain. The objective of the current study was to examine associations between longitudinal alterations in the components of job strain and subsequent weight gain. The study was designed as a prospective cohort study with three questionnaire surveys enabling measurement of job-strain alterations over 6 years and subsequent measurements of weight gain after further 10 years of follow-up. ANCOVA and trend analyses were conducted. Job demands were measured as job busyness and speed, and control as amount of influence. Employed nurses in Denmark. We included a sub-sample of 6188 female nurses from the Danish Nurse Cohort, which consisted of the nurses who participated in surveys in 1993, 1999 and 2009. A linear trend in weight gain was seen in nurses who were often busy in 1999 between those who were rarely v. sometimes v. often busy in 1993 (P=0·03), with the largest weight gain in individuals with sustained high busyness in both years. Loss of influence between 1993 and 1999 was associated with larger subsequent weight gain than sustained high influence (P=0·003) or sustained low influence (P=0·02). For speed, no associations were found. Busyness, speed and influence differed in their relationship to subsequent weight gain. A decrease in job influence and a sustained burden of busyness were most strongly related to subsequent weight gain. Focus on job strain reduction and healthy diet is essential for public health.

  5. Safeguards operations in the integral fast reactor fuel cycle

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Goff, K.M.; Benedict, R.W.; Brumbach, S.B.; Dickerman, C.E.; Tompot, R.W.

    1994-01-01

    Argonne National Laboratory is currently demonstrating the fuel cycle for the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), an advanced reactor concept that takes advantage of the properties of metallic fuel and liquid metal cooling to offer significant improvements in reactor safety, operation, fuel-cycle economics, environmental protection, and safeguards. The IFR fuel cycle employs a pyrometallurgical process using molten salts and liquid metals to recover actinides from spent fuel. The safeguards aspects of the fuel cycle demonstration must be approved by the United States Department of Energy, but a further goal of the program is to develop a safeguards system that could gain acceptance from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and International Atomic Energy Agency. This fuel cycle is described with emphasis on aspects that differ from aqueous reprocessing and on its improved safeguardability due to decreased attractiveness and diversion potential of all process streams, including the fuel product

  6. On-chip multi-wavelength laser sources fabricated using generic photonic integration technology

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Latkowski, S.; Williams, K.A.; Bente, E.A.J.M.

    Generic photonic integration technology platforms allow for design and fabrication of large complexity application specific photonic integrated circuits. Monolithic active-passive integration on indium phosphide substrate naturally enables a reliable co-integration of optical gain elements and

  7. Weight gain following treatment of hyperthyroidism.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dale, J; Daykin, J; Holder, R; Sheppard, M C; Franklyn, J A

    2001-08-01

    Patients frequently express concern that treating hyperthyroidism will lead to excessive weight gain. This study aimed to determine the extent of, and risk factors for, weight gain in an unselected group of hyperthyroid patients. We investigated 162 consecutive hyperthyroid patients followed for at least 6 months. Height, weight, clinical features, biochemistry and management were recorded at each clinic visit. Documented weight gain was 5.42 +/- 0.46 kg (mean +/- SE) and increase in BMI was 8.49 +/- 0.71%, over a mean 24.2 +/- 1.6 months. Pre-existing obesity, Graves' disease causing hyperthyroidism, weight loss before presentation and length of follow-up each independently predicted weight gain. Patients treated with thionamides or radioiodine gained a similar amount of weight (thionamides, n = 87, 5.16 +/- 0.63 kg vs. radioiodine, n = 62, 4.75 +/- 0.57 kg, P = 0.645), but patients who underwent thyroidectomy (n = 13) gained more weight (10.27 +/- 2.56 kg vs. others, P = 0.007). Development of hypothyroidism (even transiently) was associated with weight gain (never hypothyroid, n = 102, 4.57 +/- 0.52 kg, transiently hypothyroid, n = 29, 5.37 +/- 0.85 kg, on T4, n = 31, 8.06 +/- 1.42 kg, P = 0.014). This difference remained after correcting for length of follow-up. In the whole cohort, weight increased by 3.95 +/- 0.40 kg at 1 year (n = 144) to 9.91 +/- 1.62 kg after 4 years (n = 27) (P = 0.008), representing a mean weight gain of 3.66 +/- 0.44 kg/year. We have demonstrated marked weight gain after treatment of hyperthyroidism. Pre-existing obesity, a diagnosis of Graves' disease and prior weight loss independently predicted weight gain and weight continued to rise with time. Patients who became hypothyroid, despite T4 replacement, gained most weight.

  8. Evaluating Employability Skills: Employer and Student Perceptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saunders, Venetia; Zuzel, Katherine

    2010-01-01

    Graduate employability is a key issue for Higher Education. In this two-part study student employability skills have been evaluated from the perspective of sandwich students and graduates in biomolecular science, and their employers. A strong correlation was found between employer and sandwich student/graduate perceptions of the relative…

  9. Workplace clinics: a sign of growing employer interest in wellness.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tu, Ha T; Boukus, Ellyn R; Cohen, Genna R

    2010-12-01

    Interest in workplace clinics has intensified in recent years, with employers moving well beyond traditional niches of occupational health and minor acute care to offering clinics that provide a full range of wellness and primary care services. Employers view workplace clinics as a tool to contain medical costs, boost productivity and enhance companies' reputations as employers of choice. The potential for clinics to transform primary care delivery through the trusted clinician model holds promise, according to experts interviewed for a new qualitative research study from the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Achieving that model is dependent on gaining employee trust in the clinic, as well as the ability to recruit and retain clinicians with the right qualities--a particular challenge in communities with provider shortages. Even when clinic operations are outsourced to vendors, initial employer involvement--including the identification of the appropriate scope and scale of clinic services--and sustained employer attention over time are critical to clinic success. Measuring the impact of clinics is difficult, and credible evidence on return on investment (ROI) varies widely, with very high ROI claims made by some vendors lacking credibility. While well-designed, well-implemented workplace clinics are likely to achieve positive returns over the long term, expecting clinics to be a game changer in bending the overall health care cost curve may be unrealistic.

  10. Sustainability Instruction in High Doses: Results From Incorporation of Multiple InTeGrate Modules Into an Environmental Science Class

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rademacher, L. K.

    2017-12-01

    The Interdisciplinary Teaching about Earth for a Sustainable Future (InTeGrate) community has developed extensive courses and modules designed for broad adoption into geoscience classrooms in diverse environments. I participated in a three-semester research project designed to test the efficacy of incorporating "high doses" (minimum 3 modules or 18 class periods) of InTeGrate materials into a course, in my case, an introductory environmental science class. InTeGrate materials were developed by groups of instructors from a range of institutions across the US. These materials include an emphasis on systems thinking, interdisciplinary approaches, and sustainability, and those themes are woven throughout the modules. The three semesters included a control in which no InTeGrate materials were used, a pilot in which InTeGrate materials were tested, and a treatment semesters in which tested materials were modified as needed and fully implemented into the course. Data were collected each semester on student attitudes using the InTeGrate Attitudinal Instrument (pre and post), a subset of Geoscience Literacy Exam questions (pre and post), and a series of assessments and essay exam questions (post only). Although results suggest that learning gains were mixed, changes in attitudes pre- and post-instruction were substantial. Changes in attitudes regarding the importance of sustainable employers, the frequency of self-reported individual sustainable actions, and motivation level for creating a sustainable society were observed in the control and treatment semesters, with the treatment semester showing the greatest gains. Importantly, one of the biggest differences between the control and treatment semesters is the reported impact that the course had on influencing students' sustainable behaviors. The treatment semester course impacted students' sustainable behaviors far more than the control semester.

  11. Dynamic excitatory and inhibitory gain modulation can produce flexible, robust and optimal decision-making.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ritwik K Niyogi

    Full Text Available Behavioural and neurophysiological studies in primates have increasingly shown the involvement of urgency signals during the temporal integration of sensory evidence in perceptual decision-making. Neuronal correlates of such signals have been found in the parietal cortex, and in separate studies, demonstrated attention-induced gain modulation of both excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Although previous computational models of decision-making have incorporated gain modulation, their abstract forms do not permit an understanding of the contribution of inhibitory gain modulation. Thus, the effects of co-modulating both excitatory and inhibitory neuronal gains on decision-making dynamics and behavioural performance remain unclear. In this work, we incorporate time-dependent co-modulation of the gains of both excitatory and inhibitory neurons into our previous biologically based decision circuit model. We base our computational study in the context of two classic motion-discrimination tasks performed in animals. Our model shows that by simultaneously increasing the gains of both excitatory and inhibitory neurons, a variety of the observed dynamic neuronal firing activities can be replicated. In particular, the model can exhibit winner-take-all decision-making behaviour with higher firing rates and within a significantly more robust model parameter range. It also exhibits short-tailed reaction time distributions even when operating near a dynamical bifurcation point. The model further shows that neuronal gain modulation can compensate for weaker recurrent excitation in a decision neural circuit, and support decision formation and storage. Higher neuronal gain is also suggested in the more cognitively demanding reaction time than in the fixed delay version of the task. Using the exact temporal delays from the animal experiments, fast recruitment of gain co-modulation is shown to maximize reward rate, with a timescale that is surprisingly near the

  12. Gain control mechanisms in spinal motoneurons

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael David Johnson

    2014-07-01

    Full Text Available Motoneurons provide the only conduit for motor commands to reach muscles. For many years, motoneurons were in fact considered to be little more than passive wires. Systematic studies in the past 25 years however have clearly demonstrated that the intrinsic electrical properties of motoneurons are under strong neuromodulatory control via multiple sources. The discovery of potent neuromodulation from the brainstem and its ability to change the gain of motoneurons shows that the passive view of the motor output stage is no longer tenable. A mechanism for gain control at the motor output stage makes good functional sense considering our capability of generating an enormous range of forces, from very delicate (e.g. putting in a contact lens to highly forceful (emergency reactions. Just as sensory systems need gain control to deal with a wide dynamic range of inputs, so to might motor output need gain control to deal with the wide dynamic range of the normal movement repertoire. Two problems emerge from the potential use of the brainstem monoaminergic projection to motoneurons for gain control. First, the projection is highly diffuse anatomically, so that independent control of the gains of different motor pools is not feasible. In fact, the system is so diffuse that gain for all the motor pools in a limb likely increases in concert. Second, if there is a system that increases gain, probably a system to reduce gain is also needed. In this review, we summarize recent studies that show local inhibitory circuits within the spinal cord, especially reciprocal and recurrent inhibition, have the potential to solve both of these problems as well as constitute another source of gain modulation.

  13. Google analytics integrations

    CERN Document Server

    Waisberg, Daniel

    2015-01-01

    A roadmap for turning Google Analytics into a centralized marketing analysis platform With Google Analytics Integrations, expert author Daniel Waisberg shows you how to gain a more meaningful, complete view of customers that can drive growth opportunities. This in-depth guide shows not only how to use Google Analytics, but also how to turn this powerful data collection and analysis tool into a central marketing analysis platform for your company. Taking a hands-on approach, this resource explores the integration and analysis of a host of common data sources, including Google AdWords, AdSens

  14. Implications of Nash Bargaining for Horizontal Industry Integration

    OpenAIRE

    Richard E. Just; Siddhartha Mitra; Sinaia Netanyahu

    2005-01-01

    This article shows how horizontal industry integration can arise from transferable asymmetry of technologies and endowments. The Nash bargaining solution suggests that greater technological diversity among coordinating parties yields greater gains from horizontal integration. The framework fits the case where a firm with a superior technology franchises the technology by horizontal integration. The results appear to fit hog production where integration has been primarily horizontal and, in pa...

  15. Receiver Gain Modulation Circuit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Hollis; Racette, Paul; Walker, David; Gu, Dazhen

    2011-01-01

    A receiver gain modulation circuit (RGMC) was developed that modulates the power gain of the output of a radiometer receiver with a test signal. As the radiometer receiver switches between calibration noise references, the test signal is mixed with the calibrated noise and thus produces an ensemble set of measurements from which ensemble statistical analysis can be used to extract statistical information about the test signal. The RGMC is an enabling technology of the ensemble detector. As a key component for achieving ensemble detection and analysis, the RGMC has broad aeronautical and space applications. The RGMC can be used to test and develop new calibration algorithms, for example, to detect gain anomalies, and/or correct for slow drifts that affect climate-quality measurements over an accelerated time scale. A generalized approach to analyzing radiometer system designs yields a mathematical treatment of noise reference measurements in calibration algorithms. By treating the measurements from the different noise references as ensemble samples of the receiver state, i.e. receiver gain, a quantitative description of the non-stationary properties of the underlying receiver fluctuations can be derived. Excellent agreement has been obtained between model calculations and radiometric measurements. The mathematical formulation is equivalent to modulating the gain of a stable receiver with an externally generated signal and is the basis for ensemble detection and analysis (EDA). The concept of generating ensemble data sets using an ensemble detector is similar to the ensemble data sets generated as part of ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) with exception of a key distinguishing factor. EEMD adds noise to the signal under study whereas EDA mixes the signal with calibrated noise. It is mixing with calibrated noise that permits the measurement of temporal-functional variability of uncertainty in the underlying process. The RGMC permits the evaluation of EDA by

  16. Artificial Material Integrated Ultra-wideband Tapered Slot Antenna for Gain Enhancement with Band Notch Characteristics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    R. Singha

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available The gain of the ultra-wideband tapered slot antenna (TSA is enhanced by using broadband artificial material with band notch characteristics. The proposed artificial material unit cell is designed by fabricating non-resonant three S-shaped parallel metallic line on single side of the dielectric substrate which provides a longer current path compared to the parallel-line structure. The proposed S-shaped structure is printed on the top side of the tapered slot antenna in the extended substrate periodically. The effective refractive index of the artificial material is lower than antenna substrate and phase velocity in the region of artificial material is much higher than the other region. Therefore, the proposed artificial material acts like a beam focusing lens. The band notch at 5.5 GHz is achieved by creating a split ring resonator (SRR slot near the balun. The basic and artificial material loaded TSAs are fabricated and the measurement results show that the gain of the basic antenna has been increased by 1.6 dBi. At the same time, the proposed antenna achieves a VSWR below 2 from 3 to 11 GHz except at 5.5 GHz with a notch band from 5.1 to 5.8 GHz for band rejection of wireless local area network (WLAN application.

  17. Wideband Electrostatic Vibration Energy Harvester (e-VEH) Having a Low Start-Up Voltage Employing a High-Voltage Integrated Interface

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dudka, A; Galayko, D; Basset, P; Cottone, F; Blokhina, E

    2013-01-01

    This paper reports on an electrostatic Vibration Energy Harvester (e-VEH) system, for which the energy conversion process is initiated with a low bias voltage and is compatible with wideband stochastic external vibrations. The system employs the auto-synchronous conditioning circuit topology with the use of a novel dedicated integrated low-power high-voltage switch that is needed to connect the charge pump and flyback – two main parts of the used conditioning circuit. The proposed switch is designed and implemented in AMS035HV CMOS technology. Thanks to the proposed switch device, which is driven with a low-voltage ground-referenced logic, the e-VEH system may operate within a large voltage range, from a pre-charge low voltage up to several tens volts. With such a high-voltage e-VEH operation, it is possible to obtain a strong mechanical coupling and a high rate of vibration energy conversion. The used transducer/resonator device is fabricated with a batch-processed MEMS technology. When excited with stochastic vibrations having an acceleration level of 0.8 g rms distributed in the band 110–170 Hz, up to 0.75 μW of net electrical power has been harvested with our system. This work presents an important milestone in the challenge of designing a fully integrated smart conditioning interface for the capacitive e-VEHs

  18. Turkish Women Seafarers and A Quastionnaire Study on Employment Situation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hatice Yġlmaz

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Throughout history, women have struggled to gain a place and establish their presence in social life. Mostly, they have continued their life in the position of carrying out family responsibilities. When women want to get involved in the business world, they are facing some problems arising from dogmatic thinking and prejudices, especially among the professions with "male-dominated" judiciary. Maritime profession, one of the oldest professions in the world, was also regarded as a single-gender area until the 20th century. However, in recent years, economical and political changes in the world, equal opportunity in education and incentive works of the International Maritime Organization have led women to work as seafarers. Although female seafarers constitute 2% of the world seafarers, this ratio is higher in developed countries than that of undeveloped or developing countries (URL-1. There is very little information regarding women seafarers in general, including the actual population size. Most of studies focus on passenger ships or cruise ships, not cargo ships (Sohyun, 2010. It is difficult to find relevant studies regarding women seafarers in the world, including in Turkey. In Turkey, women have played an active role and gained an apparent identity in the maritime sector since the 2000s. According to 2015 data, Turkey is ranks the 14th in the world maritime trade with more than 27,6 million deadweight tonnage and manages 1530 vessels (UNCTAD, 2015. In Turkey, many studies related to the employment of seafarers are carried out as in the whole world. However, studies on the employment of women seafarers should be paid more attention. In this study, a questionnaire was carried out with the personnel department managers in Turkish shipping companies. Employment, career, educational status of female seafarers and the general difficulties they face were revealed.

  19. A Vehicle Haptic Steering by Wire System Based on High Gain GPI Observers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    A. Rodriguez-Angeles

    2014-01-01

    Full Text Available A vehicle steering by wire (SBW haptic system based on high gain generalized proportional integral (GPI observers is introduced. The observers are considered for the estimation of dynamic perturbations that are present at the tire and steering wheel. To ensure efficient tracking between the commanded steering wheel angle and the tire orientation angle, the estimated perturbations are on line canceled. As to provide a haptic interface with the driver, the estimated dynamic effects at the steering rack are fed back to the steering wheel, yielding a master-slave haptic system with bilateral communication. For implementation purposes few sensors and minimum knowledge of the dynamic model are required, which is a major advantage compared to other approaches. Only position tracking errors are fed back, while all other signals are estimated by the high gain GPI observers. The scheme is robust to uncertainty on the input gain and cancels dynamic perturbation effects such as friction and aligning forces on the tire. Experimental results are presented on a prototype platform.

  20. Employment impacts of CDM projects in China's power sector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Wang, Can; Zhang, Weishi; Cai, Wenjia; Xie, Xi

    2013-01-01

    There are continuous debates around the question of whether CDM really contributes to sustainable development (SD) in host countries. Employment impact is an essential indicator of SD. Based on an input-out approach this research builds a quantitative assessment model to evaluate the employment impacts of CDM. Both direct and indirect jobs creation and job losses of CDM projects in the power sector registered by the end of 2011 are calculated by project types and power grids where the project is located. Results of this study show that, although the above mentioned CDM projects causes about 99,000 net direct job losses, they also create about 3.08 million indirect jobs, resulting in the gross employment of CDM to be about 2.98 million. Thereof, hydro projects induce both direct and indirect job losses, which comes to approximately 0.89 million. Solar projects have the most potential since they own the highest indirect jobs created by one GWh generation, about 104 jobs/GWh. - Highlights: • An input–output model was built for assessment of CDM projects' employment impact; • CDM projects create direct and indirect jobs while cause some losses in short. • Significant indirect job gains of CDM projects were found; • Solar projects cause 104 jobs/GWh in average, ranking as the highest contributor

  1. Energy development and urban employment creation: the case of the city of Los Angeles

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rose, A; Kolk, D; Brady, M; Kneisel, R

    1981-10-01

    This paper analyzes four energy management tactics in terms of their economic viability and ability to generate employment at the local level. They include: (1) solar water heating, (2) weatherization, (3) coal-fired electricity generation, and (4) liquified natural gas distribution. In general it was found that new energy options offer a significant number of job openings, though they are by no means a major solution to urban unemployment as some have suggested. Also, the time-path and pattern of employment gains must be evaluated carefully by policy-makers if labor force dislocations are to be avoided. 21 refs.

  2. Seeding High Gain Harmonic Generation with Laser Harmonics produced in Gases

    CERN Document Server

    Lambert, Guillaume; Couprie, Marie Emmanuelle; Garzella, David; Doria, Andrea; Giannessi, Luca; Hara, Toru; Kitamura, Hideo; Shintake, Tsumoru

    2004-01-01

    Free electron Lasers employing High Gain Harmonic generation (HGHG) schemes are very promising coherent ligth sources for the soft X-ray regime. They offer both transverse and longitudinal coherence, while Self Amplified Spontaneous Emission schemes have a longitudinal coherence limited. We propose here to seed HGHG with high harmonics produced by a Ti:Sa femtosecond laser focused on a gas jet, tuneable in the 100-10 nm spectral region. Specifities concerning the implementation of this particular laser source as a seed for HGHG are investigated. Semi analytical , numerical 1D and 3D calculations are given, for the cases of the SCSS, SPARC and ARC-EN-CIEL projects.

  3. The Effect of Intellectual Capital on A Company's Performance Moderated by ITS Governance and IT Strategy Integration Employed By Bank Listed in Indonesian Stock Exchange

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Dodi Wirawan Irawanto

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available This study investigates whether IT integration and company governance can affect the relationship between intellectual capital and company performance in the Indonesian banking sector. That could happen, as there are ever tighter and more numerous competitiveness levels in the banking sector, especially in the field of information technology (IT and the support given by the top management. This study employs data from 33 banking companies listed on the ISE (Indonesian Stock Exchange in 2013–2014. The testing was done on the elements of VAICTM (VACA, VAHU, STVA, moderated by IT strategy integration (ITSI and corporate governance (DK using the measurement of financial performance (ROA. The findings obtained show that VAHU has a positive effect on financial performance. If the VAICTM element were moderated by ITSI, then a well-integrated IT strategy would weaken the relationship between VACA and banking performance. The limitations of this study lie in the period of the data used, which is limited to 2013–2014, and in that the component used for testing was done in isolation. 

  4. Do job autonomy and negotiation self-efficacy improve employment relationships?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter R A Oeij

    2006-10-01

    Full Text Available This study investigated whether improving the employment relationship does more depend on negotiation selfefficacy or on task outonomy for a sample of employees from a Dutch telecom company. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine the effects of negotiation self-efficacy and task autonomy on integrative negotiation and the effect of integrative negotiation on psychological contract breach. Results indicate that employees negotiate more integratively when they have higher negotiation self-efficacy, compared to employees with more task autonomy. Empirical support was found for the prediction that higher negotiation self-efficacy and task autonomy correlates with less psychological contract breach.

  5. When Government Is No Longer Employer of Choice: What May the Sector Perceptions of Public Managers Be Like after the Economy Recovers?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boardman, Craig; Ponomariov, Branco

    2012-01-01

    In today's economic climate, government is now considered by many to be the "employer of choice." However, employers at all levels of government may eventually lose their recent gains in the war for talent, as the economy improves. Accordingly, it is important to explain how public sector managers viewed the relative advantages and…

  6. Integrating Sustainable Development into Operations Management Courses

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fredriksson, Peter; Persson, Magnus

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: It is widely acknowledged that aspects of sustainable development (SD) should be integrated into higher level operations management (OM) education. The aim of the paper is to outline the experiences gained at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden from integrating aspects of SD into OM courses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper…

  7. Factors affecting employment among people with mobility disabilities in South Korea.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Park, Soo-Kyung; Yoon, Jae-Young; Henderson, Terrence

    2007-03-01

    Employment provides not only income but also opportunities for social participation. This is especially important for people with disabilities, but the employment of disabled people in many countries is subject to significant barriers. This study examines the actual state of employment of people with mobility disabilities in Korea and which characteristics affect employment among people with mobility disabilities. Analysis of responses to the Community Integration Questionnaire and independent variables among the study participants showed that the rate of employment among people with mobility disabilities (34.2%) is much lower than that of the general population (60.3%), with only 13.2% in full-time positions. Gender appeared to be a statistically significant factor influencing employment. Other demographic characteristics such as age, level of education and cohabitation did not influence employment in this study, but people with less severe disability had a higher probability of being employed. Disability acceptance appeared to be a vital factor in the process of vocational rehabilitation. The use of vocational rehabilitation services did not have a significant effect on employment. These results suggest that the role of the formal services system in the employment process of disabled people is insufficient.

  8. Backward Integration: A Panacea for Rural Development in Nigeria

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rasaq Alabi Olanrewaju

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available Business is like a marathon race. It involves both mental and psychical alertness, exploring opportunities and taking chances is the strength, risk is the rule of the game and control is the price for the race. To this end, the aim of every business entity is to operate profitably in the industry it belongs, grow and possibly gain the largest share of the industry market. Among the strategies used in gaining control in the business industry is Integration which is the ability to influence or control either or both raw material input (backward integration or the distribution chain (forward integration or better still grow towards possible monopoly (conglomerate. While effort will be made to discuss other types of integration, this paper will focus more on the backward integration programme, its effect on the survival and growth of business entities, advantages and disadvantages to business operation and its role in rural development in Nigeria.

  9. Optimal weight gain in triplet pregnancies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Johnston, Robert C; Erfani, Hadi; Shamshirsaz, Amir A; Spiel, Melissa; Ravangard, Sam F; Shaman, Majid; Allaf, M Baraa; Shamshirsaz, Alireza A; Haeri, Sina

    2017-08-01

    To identify appropriate weight gain in triplet gestations, which may aid in reducing the risk of perinatal morbidity within this high-risk cohort. This retrospective cohort study evaluated all non-anomalous triplet pregnancies between 23 and 40 weeks' gestation resulting in live births at five tertiary-care medical centers between 1991 and 2011. Subjects were divided by pre-pregnancy BMI into underweight, normal-weight, overweight, and obese groups, and then stratified by low (gain (≥1.5 lbs/week). Primary outcomes included spontaneous preterm birth and preeclampsia. We included 116 mothers and 348 corresponding neonates for final analysis. The incidence of preeclampsia and preterm delivery less than 32 weeks' gestation was 37% and 41%, respectively. The incidence of preeclampsia increased with weight gain per week, but was not statistically different from subjects who gained less weight. We found no statistical correlation between weight gain per week and preterm delivery. We found no association between preeclampsia or preterm delivery and increasing weight gain in triplet pregnancies. The association with increased risk for preeclampsia was predominantly due to BMI effect. Based on the current study, recommendations for optimal weight gain in mothers with triplet gestations could not be defined.

  10. The Effect of Integration Policies on the Time until Regular Employment of Newly Arrived Immigrants:

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Clausen, Jens; Heinesen, Eskil; Hummelgaard, Hans

    We analyse the effect of active labour-market programmes on the hazard rate into regular employment for newly arrived immigrants using the timing-of-events duration model. We take account of language course participation and progression in destination country language skills. We use rich...... administrative data from Denmark. We find substantial lock-in effects of participation in active labour-market programmes. Post programme effects on the hazard rate to regular employment are significantly positive for wage subsidy programmes, but not for other types of programmes. For language course...... participants, improvement in language proficiency has significant and substantial positive effects on the hazard rate to employment....

  11. On the unlimited gain of a nonlinear parametric amplifier

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sorokin, Vladislav

    2014-01-01

    The present paper is concerned with analysis of the response of a nonlinear parametric amplifier in abroad range of system parameters, particularly beyond resonance. Such analysis is of particular interestfor micro- and nanosystems, since many small-scale parametric amplifiers exhibit a distinctly...... nonlinearbehavior when amplitude of their response is sufficiently large. The modified method of direct separa-tion of motions is employed to study the considered system. As the result it is obtained that steady-stateamplitude of the nonlinear parametric amplifier response can reach large values in the case...... of arbitrarilysmall amplitude of external excitation, so that the amplifier gain tends to infinity. Very large amplifiergain can be achieved in a broad range of system parameters, in particular when the amplitude of para-metric excitation is comparatively small. The obtained results clearly demonstrate that very...

  12. Vehicle Integrated Performance Analysis, the VIPA Experience: Reconnecting with Technical Integration

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGhee, David S.

    2005-01-01

    's capabilities and process can now be used to significantly enhance the development and monitoring of realizable project requirements. This is done through the use of VIPA's V-model. Starting with a given concept, VIPA's assessment validates the concept's stated performance, identifies significant issues either with the concept or the requirements, and then re-integrates these issues to determine impacts. This process is discussed along with a description of how it may be integrated into a program's insight and review process. The VIPA process has been employed successfully on several projects including SLI, Orbital Space Plane (OSP), and several heavy lift concepts for Exploration. It has also been proposed for use on the Jupiter Icy Moon (JIMO) spacecraft. The VIPA process has gained favor with both engineering and project organizations for being responsive and insightful. Selected results from these assessments will be presented.

  13. ‘Students-as-partners’ scheme enhances postgraduate students’ employability skills while addressing gaps in bioinformatics education

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mello, Luciane V.; Tregilgas, Luke; Cowley, Gwen; Gupta, Anshul; Makki, Fatima; Jhutty, Anjeet; Shanmugasundram, Achchuthan

    2017-01-01

    Abstract Teaching bioinformatics is a longstanding challenge for educators who need to demonstrate to students how skills developed in the classroom may be applied to real world research. This study employed an action research methodology which utilised student–staff partnership and peer-learning. It was centred on the experiences of peer-facilitators, students who had previously taken a postgraduate bioinformatics module, and had applied knowledge and skills gained from it to their own research. It aimed to demonstrate to peer-receivers, current students, how bioinformatics could be used in their own research while developing peer-facilitators’ teaching and mentoring skills. This student-centred approach was well received by the peer-receivers, who claimed to have gained improved understanding of bioinformatics and its relevance to research. Equally, peer-facilitators also developed a better understanding of the subject and appreciated that the activity was a rare and invaluable opportunity to develop their teaching and mentoring skills, enhancing their employability. PMID:29098185

  14. Gain transient control for wavelength division multiplexed access networks using semiconductor optical amplifiers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Gibbon, Timothy Braidwood; Osadchiy, Alexey Vladimirovich; Kjær, Rasmus

    2009-01-01

    Gain transients can severely hamper the upstream network performance in wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) access networks featuring erbium doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) or Raman amplification. We experimentally demonstrate for the first time using 10 Gb/s fiber transmission bit error rate...... measurements how a near-saturated semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) can be used to control these gain transients. An SOA is shown to reduce the penalty of transients originating in an EDFA from 2.3 dB to 0.2 dB for 10 Gb/s transmission over standard single mode fiber using a 231-1 PRBS pattern. The results...... suggest that a single SOA integrated within a WDM receiver at the metro node could offer a convenient all-optical solution for upstream transient controlin WDM access networks....

  15. Cancer and its impact on work among the self-employed: A need to bridge the knowledge gap.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharp, L; Torp, S; Van Hoof, E; de Boer, A G E M

    2017-09-01

    Self-employment-the so-called flexible layer of the economy-has gained importance following the 2007-2008 global economic and financial crisis. In Europe, the self-employed now comprise on average 15% of workers [Eurostat, Labour market and Labour force survey (LFS) statistics, 2016]. Around one-third of self-employed people also provide jobs for others [European Commission, Fact Sheet. 2015 Employment and Social Developments in Europe Review: frequently asked questions, 2016]. Moreover, this group of workers adapts quickly to changing circumstances. In the UK, for instance, recent growth in self-employment is considered to have made an important contribution to labour market recovery [Hatfield, Self-employment in Europe. London, Institute of Public Policy Research, 2015]. Across the European Union self-employment is viewed as a key enabler of sustainable economic growth and, reflecting this, the Europe 2020 strategy encourages member states both to promote self-employment and to remove measures that discourage it [Library of the European Parliament, Self-employment and social security. Effects on innovation and economic growth, 2013]. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  16. Surviving a childhood cancer: impact on education and employment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Maule, Milena; Zugna, Daniela; Migliore, Enrica; Alessi, Daniela; Merletti, Franco; Onorati, Roberta; Zengarini, Nicolás; Costa, Giuseppe; Spadea, Teresa

    2017-07-01

    Long-term consequences of childhood cancer encompass adverse psychosocial effects that may severely limit the opportunity to live a satisfying and productive life. We assessed the social integration of adults cured of a cancer in their first 14 years of life by record linkage between the population-based Childhood Cancer Registry of Piedmont and the Turin Longitudinal Study. We compared education and employment outcomes within the cohort of survivors and between the cohort of survivors and their peers in the general population through logistic regression. Individuals cured of a childhood tumour have a higher risk of not obtaining educational qualifications [odds ratio (OR) 0.67 (95% confidence interval 0.40-1.11) for compulsory school, OR 0.81 (0.61-1.07) for higher education] or employment, OR 0.66 (0.45-0.98), than the general population. This problem is particularly severe for individuals cured of a central nervous system neoplasm: OR 0.56 (0.31-1.01) for higher education and OR 0.28 (0.13-0.58) for employment. Within-cohort comparisons show that men are less likely to obtain educational goals than women, OR 0.72 (0.40-1.29), but more likely to be employed, OR 2.18 (0.90-5.28); parental education (university qualifications) is positively associated with the success of the child's education, OR 9.54 (2.60-35.02), but not with their employment status, OR 1.02 (0.21-4.85). Strategies should be put in place to mitigate the risk of adverse psychosocial effects from the beginning of treatment to cure and beyond to offer those suffering a cancer at a young age the possibility of full integration into society.

  17. Are pro-welfare state and full-employment policies possible in the era of globalization?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navarro, V

    2000-01-01

    There is a widely held belief in U.S. and European economic, political, and academic circles that economic globalization has considerably diminished states' power to follow public policies identified with the social democratic tradition, such as full-employment policies, comprehensive and universal provision of welfare state services, and state regulatory interventions in labor markets and economic policies. And large sectors of the European center-left and left parties believe that European monetary integration made expansionist and full-employment policies practically impossible, except when realized at the European continental level. This article presents empirical information that questions these positions. It documents how specific governments in Europe have been able to carry out such public policies during these years of economic globalization and monetary integration. Some countries (such as Sweden and Finland) that had carried out these policies then later weakened their implementation did so in response to political changes mostly unrelated to globalization of the economy or monetary integration. The article also analyzes and documents how countries that had followed expansionist and full-employment policies have responded to the globalization of financial markets.

  18. Weight suppression predicts total weight gain and rate of weight gain in outpatients with anorexia nervosa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carter, Frances A; Boden, Joseph M; Jordan, Jennifer; McIntosh, Virginia V W; Bulik, Cynthia M; Joyce, Peter R

    2015-11-01

    The present study sought to replicate the finding of Wildes and Marcus, Behav Res Ther, 50, 266-274, 2012 that higher levels of weight suppression at pretreatment predict greater total weight gain, faster rate of weight gain, and bulimic symptoms amongst patients admitted with anorexia nervosa. Participants were 56 women with anorexia nervosa diagnosed by using strict or lenient weight criteria, who were participating in a randomized controlled psychotherapy trial (McIntosh et al., Am J Psychiatry, 162, 741-747, 2005). Thirty-five women completed outpatient treatment and post-treatment assessment. Weight suppression was the discrepancy between highest lifetime weight at adult height and weight at pretreatment assessment. Outcome variables were total weight gain, rate of weight gain, and bulimic symptoms in the month prior to post-treatment assessment [assessed using the Eating Disorders Examination (Fairburn et al., Binge-Eating: Nature, Assessment and Treatment. New York: Guilford, 1993)]. Weight suppression was positively associated with total weight gain and rate of weight gain over treatment. Regression models showed that this association could not be explained by covariates (age at onset of anorexia nervosa and treatment modality). Weight suppression was not significantly associated with bulimic symptoms in the month prior to post-treatment assessment, regardless of whether bulimic symptoms were examined as continuous or dichotomous variables. The present study reinforces the previous finding that weight suppression predicts total weight gain and rate of weight gain amongst patients being treated for anorexia nervosa. Methodological issues may explain the failure of the present study to find that weight suppression predicts bulimic symptoms. Weight suppression at pretreatment for anorexia nervosa should be assessed routinely and may inform treatment planning. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  19. Pregnant women's perceptions of gestational weight gain: A systematic review and meta-synthesis of qualitative research.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Vanstone, Meredith; Kandasamy, Sujane; Giacomini, Mita; DeJean, Deirdre; McDonald, Sarah D

    2017-10-01

    Excess gestational weight gain has numerous negative health outcomes for women and children, including high blood pressure, diabetes, and cesarean section (maternal) and high birth weight, trauma at birth, and asphyxia (infants). Excess weight gain in pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of long-term obesity in both mothers and children. Despite a concerted public health effort, the proportion of pregnant women gaining weight in excess of national guidelines continues to increase. To understand this phenomenon and offer suggestions for improving interventions, we conducted a systematic review of qualitative research on pregnant women's perceptions and experiences of weight gain in pregnancy. We used the methodology of qualitative meta-synthesis to analyze 42 empirical qualitative research studies conducted in high-income countries and published between 2005 and 2015. With this synthesis, we provide an account of the underlying factors and circumstances (barriers, facilitators, and motivators) that pregnant women identify as important for appropriate weight gain. We also offer a description of the strategies identified by pregnant women as acceptable and appropriate ways to promote healthy weight gain. Through our integrative analysis, we identify women's common perception on the struggle to enact health behaviors and physical, social, and environmental factors outside of their control. Effective and sensitive interventions to encourage healthy weight gain in pregnancy must consider the social environment in which decisions about weight take place. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

  20. Work, family, support, and depression: employed mothers in Israel, Korea, and the United States.

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Brien, Karen M; Ganginis Del Pino, Heather V; Yoo, Sung-Kyung; Cinamon, Rachel Gali; Han, Young-Joo

    2014-07-01

    Our research revealed differences in work-family constructs for employed mothers in 3 countries, Israel (N = 105), Korea (N = 298), and the United States (N = 305). Although levels of work-family conflict were comparable, the Korean women had the lowest levels of work-family enrichment compared with the Israeli and American mothers. Moreover, Korean women reported the most depression and the least support from both spouses and employers. Spousal support mediated the relationship between work-family conflict and depression for employed mothers in Israel, Korea, and the United States. As hypothesized by conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 1998, 2001), threat of resource loss (operationalized as work-family conflict) was related to depression more strongly than was resource gain (i.e., work-family enrichment). PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

  1. Virtual Reality in education and for employability

    OpenAIRE

    Minocha, Shailey; Tudor, Ana-Despina

    2017-01-01

    Virtual reality is becoming pervasive in several domains - in arts and film-making, for environmental causes, in medical education, in disaster management training, in sports broadcasting, in entertainment, and in supporting patients with dementia. An awareness of virtual reality technology and its integration in curriculum design will provide and enhance employability skills for current and future workplaces.\\ud \\ud In this webinar, we will describe the evolution of virtual reality technolog...

  2. Integral Equation Methods for Electromagnetic and Elastic Waves

    CERN Document Server

    Chew, Weng; Hu, Bin

    2008-01-01

    Integral Equation Methods for Electromagnetic and Elastic Waves is an outgrowth of several years of work. There have been no recent books on integral equation methods. There are books written on integral equations, but either they have been around for a while, or they were written by mathematicians. Much of the knowledge in integral equation methods still resides in journal papers. With this book, important relevant knowledge for integral equations are consolidated in one place and researchers need only read the pertinent chapters in this book to gain important knowledge needed for integral eq

  3. Gain scheduling using the Youla parameterization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Niemann, Hans Henrik; Stoustrup, Jakob

    1999-01-01

    Gain scheduling controllers are considered in this paper. The gain scheduling problem where the scheduling parameter vector cannot be measured directly, but needs to be estimated is considered. An estimation of the scheduling vector has been derived by using the Youla parameterization. The use...... in connection with H_inf gain scheduling controllers....

  4. Candidate marketing takes the guessing game out of choosing employers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Russell, Judith; Havel, Stacey

    2010-01-01

    Candidate marketing builds a foundation for relationships between employers and potential employees. Additionally, candidate marketing differentiates organizations in the marketplace. Organizations using candidate marketing to communicate the employer brand can expect a higher quality of candidates, and new employees are better prepared for the work environment and culture. Today, organizations can use a variety of integrated tools and techniques to communicate and build relationships with candidates. Candidate marketing demonstrates an organization's willingness towards transparency, and ability to invite open conversations between candidates and members of the organizations.

  5. A programmable gain amplifier with a DC offset calibration loop for a direct-conversion WLAN transceiver

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lei Qianqian; Chen Zhiming [Department of Applied Electronics, Xi' an University of Technology, Xi' an 710048 (China); Lin Min; Shi Yin, E-mail: leiqianqian@163.com [Suzhou-CAS Semiconductors Integrated Technology Research Center, Suzhou 215021 (China)

    2011-04-15

    A high-linearity PGA (programmable gain amplifier) with a DC offset calibration loop is proposed. The PGA adopts a differential degeneration structure to vary voltage gain and uses the closed-loop structure including the input op-amps to enhance the linearity. A continuous time feedback based DC offset calibration loop is also designed to solve the DC offset problem. This PGA is fabricated by TSMC 0.13 {mu}m CMOS technology. The measurements show that the receiver PGA (RXPGA) provides a 64 dB gain range with a step of 1 dB, and the transmitter PGA (TXPGA) covers a 16 dB gain. The RXPGA consumes 18 mA and the TXPGA consumes 7 mA (I and Q path) under a 3.3 V supply. The bandwidth of the multi-stage PGA is higher than 20 MHz. In addition, the DCOC (DC offset cancellation) circuit shows 10 kHz of HPCF (high pass cutoff frequency) and the DCOC settling time is less than 0.45 {mu}s. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  6. Cost-effectiveness of supported employment adapted for people with affective disorders.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Saha, Sanjib; Bejerholm, Ulrika; Gerdtham, Ulf-G; Jarl, Johan

    2018-04-01

    The individual enabling and support (IES) model was effective in gaining competitive employment for people with affective disorders compared with traditional vocational rehabilitation (TVR) services in a randomized controlled trial in a Swedish setting. The object of this study is to perform a cost-effectiveness analysis of IES comparing to TVR. We considered the costs of intervention and productivity gain due to increased competitive employment. We estimated quality of life using EuroQol 5 Dimension (EQ-5D) and Manchester Short Assessment of Quality of Life (MANSA) scale. EQ-5D was translated into quality-adjusted life-years (QALY), using the UK, Danish, and Swedish tariffs. We performed the analysis from a societal perspective with a one-year timeframe. The cost of IES was €7247 lower per person per year (2014 prices) compared to TVR. There were no significant differences in QALY improvement within or between groups. However, quality of life measured by the MANSA scale significantly improved over the study period in IES. Besides the small sample size, details on the intervention costs for both IES and TVR group were unavailable and had to be obtained from external sources. Implementation of IES for people with affective disorders is most likely cost-saving and is potentially even dominating TVR, although a larger trial is required to establish this.

  7. The employment impacts of economy-wide investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency

    Science.gov (United States)

    Garrett-Peltier, Heidi

    This dissertation examines the employment impacts of investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency in the U.S. A broad expansion of the use of renewable energy in place of carbon-based energy, in addition to investments in energy efficiency, comprise a prominent strategy to slow or reverse the effects of anthropogenic climate change. This study first explores the literature on the employment impacts of these investments. This literature to date consists mainly of input-output (I-O) studies or case studies of renewable energy and energy efficiency (REEE). Researchers are constrained, however, by their ability to use the I-O model to study REEE, since currently industrial codes do not recognize this industry as such. I develop and present two methods to use the I-O framework to overcome this constraint: the synthetic and integrated approaches. In the former, I proxy the REEE industry by creating a vector of final demand based on the industrial spending patterns of REEE firms as found in the secondary literature. In the integrated approach, I collect primary data through a nationwide survey of REEE firms and integrate these data into the existing I-O tables to explicitly identify the REEE industry and estimate the employment impacts resulting from both upstream and downstream linkages with other industries. The size of the REEE employment multiplier is sensitive to the choice of method, and is higher using the synthetic approach than using the integrated approach. I find that using both methods, the employment level per $1 million demand is approximately three times greater for the REEE industry than for fossil fuel (FF) industries. This implies that a shift to clean energy will result in positive net employment impacts. The positive effects stem mainly from the higher labor intensity of REEE in relation to FF, as well as from higher domestic content and lower average wages. The findings suggest that as we transition away from a carbon-based energy system to

  8. Work Experience from Paid Employment and the Path to Entrepreneurship: Business Takeover Versus New Venture Start-Up

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    G. Xi (Guoqian); J.H. Block (Jörn); F. Lasch (Frank); F. Robert (Frank); A.R. Thurik (Roy)

    2016-01-01

    textabstractOur paper investigates how the type of work experience gained from prior paid employment influences the path to entrepreneurship. We distinguish between two distinct entrepreneurship entry modes: business takeover and new venture start-up. Using a large and rich French data set, we find

  9. High Gain Advanced GPS Receiver

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Brown, Alison; Zhang, Gengsheng

    2006-01-01

    NAVSYS High Gain Advanced GPS Receiver (HAGR) uses a digital beam-steering antenna array to enable up to eight GPS satellites to be tracked, each with up to 10 dBi of additional antenna gain over a conventional receiver solution...

  10. Determination of the STIS CCD Gain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Riley, Allyssa; Monroe, TalaWanda; Lockwood, Sean

    2016-09-01

    This report summarizes the analysis and absolute gain results of the STIS Cycle 23 special calibration program 14424 that was designed to measure the gain of amplifiers A, C and D at nominal gain settings of 1 and 4 e-/DN. We used the mean-variance technique and the results indicate a mean-variance technique.

  11. Turkish Preschool Teachers' Beliefs on Integrated Curriculum: Integration of Visual Arts with Other Activities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ozturk, Elif; Erden, Feyza Tantekin

    2011-01-01

    This study investigates preschool teachers' beliefs about integrated curriculum and, more specifically, their beliefs about integration of visual arts with other activities. The participants of this study consisted of 255 female preschool teachers who are employed in preschools in Ankara, Turkey. For the study, teachers were asked to complete…

  12. The Therapeutic Utility of Employment in Treating Drug Addiction: Science to Application

    OpenAIRE

    Silverman, Kenneth; Holtyn, August F.; Morrison, Reed

    2016-01-01

    Research on a model Therapeutic Workplace has allowed for evaluation of the use of employment in the treatment of drug addiction. Under the Therapeutic Workplace intervention, adults with histories of drug addiction are hired and paid to work. To promote drug abstinence or adherence to addiction medications, participants are required to provide drug-free urine samples or take prescribed addiction medications, respectively, to gain access to the workplace and/or to maintain their maximum rate ...

  13. Luminescent solar concentrators with a bottom-mounted photovoltaic cell: performance optimization and power gain analysis

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    Ningning Zhang; Yi Zhang; Jun Bao; Feng Zhang; Sen Yan; Song Sun; Chen Gao

    2017-01-01

    Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) plate luminescent solar concentrators with a bottom-mounted (BM-LSCs) photovoltaic (PV) cell are fabricated by using a mixture of Lumogen Red 305 and Yellow 083 fluorescent dyes and a commercial monocrystalline silicon cell.The fabricated LSC with dye concentrations of 40 ppm has the highest power gain of 1.50,which is the highest value reported for the dye-doped PMMA plate LSCs.The power gain of the LSC comes from three parts:the waveguide light,the transmitted light,and the reflected light from a white reflector,and their contributions are analyzed quantitatively.The results suggest that the BM-LSCs have great potential for future low-cost PV devices in building integrated PV applications.

  14. Nonunity gain minimal-disturbance measurement

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sabuncu, Metin; Mišta, L.; Fiurášek, J.

    2007-01-01

    We propose and experimentally demonstrate an optimal nonunity gain Gaussian scheme for partial measurement of an unknown coherent state that causes minimal disturbance of the state. The information gain and the state disturbance are quantified by the noise added to the measurement outcomes...

  15. Tensor Product Model Transformation Based Adaptive Integral-Sliding Mode Controller: Equivalent Control Method

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guoliang Zhao

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper proposes new methodologies for the design of adaptive integral-sliding mode control. A tensor product model transformation based adaptive integral-sliding mode control law with respect to uncertainties and perturbations is studied, while upper bounds on the perturbations and uncertainties are assumed to be unknown. The advantage of proposed controllers consists in having a dynamical adaptive control gain to establish a sliding mode right at the beginning of the process. Gain dynamics ensure a reasonable adaptive gain with respect to the uncertainties. Finally, efficacy of the proposed controller is verified by simulations on an uncertain nonlinear system model.

  16. An Empirical Analysis of Post-Merger Organizational Integration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Smeets, Valerie Anne Rolande; Ierulli, Kathryn; Gibbs, Michael

    2016-01-01

    existing establishments. Worker turnover is high after merger, but new hiring yields stable total employment. Target employees have higher turnover and reassignment, particularly if the target firm is small relative to the acquiring firm. These findings may suggest integration is costly, but can......We study post-merger organizational integration using linked employer-employee data. Integration is implemented by reassigning a small number of high skilled workers, especially in R&D and management. Workforce mixing is concentrated to establishments set up after merger rather than to previously...... be achieved by focusing on key employees. Alternatively, reassigning a few key employees is sufficient for achieving integration....

  17. Embedding generic employability skills in an accounting degree: development and impediments

    OpenAIRE

    Stoner, G.; Milner, M.

    2010-01-01

    This paper explores and analyses the views of, and effects on, students of a project that integrated the development of employability skills within the small group classes of two compulsory courses in the first year of an accounting degree at a UK university. The project aimed to build, deliver and evaluate course materials designed to encourage the development of a broad range of employability skills: skills needed for life-long learning and a successful business career. By analysing student...

  18. Energy gains from lattice-enabled nuclear reactions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Nagel, David J.

    2015-01-01

    The energy gain of a system is defined as the ratio of its output energy divided by the energy provided to operate the system. Most familiar systems have energy gains less than one due to various inefficiencies. By contrast, lattice-enabled nuclear reactions (LENR) offer high energy gains. Theoretical values in excess of 1000 are possible. Energy gains over 100 have already been reported. But, they have not yet been sustained for commercially significant durations. This article summarizes the current status of LENR energy gains. (author)

  19. Charge Gain, Voltage Gain, and Node Capacitance of the SAPHIRA Detector Pixel by Pixel

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pastrana, Izabella M.; Hall, Donald N. B.; Baker, Ian M.; Jacobson, Shane M.; Goebel, Sean B.

    2018-01-01

    The University of Hawai`i Institute for Astronomy has partnered with Leonardo (formerly Selex) in the development of HgCdTe linear mode avalanche photodiode (L-APD) SAPHIRA detectors. The SAPHIRA (Selex Avalanche Photodiode High-speed Infra-Red Array) is ideally suited for photon-starved astronomical observations, particularly near infrared (NIR) adaptive optics (AO) wave-front sensing. I have measured the stability, and linearity with current, of a 1.7-um (10% spectral bandpass) infrared light emitting diode (IR LED) used to illuminate the SAPHIRA and have then utilized this source to determine the charge gain (in e-/ADU), voltage gain (in uV/ADU), and node capacitance (in fF) for each pixel of the 320x256@24um SAPHIRA. These have previously only been averages over some sub-array. Determined from the ratio of the temporal averaged signal level to variance under constant 1.7-um LED illumination, I present the charge gain pixel-by-pixel in a 64x64 sub-array at the center of the active area of the SAPHIRA (analyzed separately as four 32x32 sub-arrays) to be about 1.6 e-/ADU (σ=0.5 e-/ADU). Additionally, the standard technique of varying the pixel reset voltage (PRV) in 10 mV increments and recording output frames for the same 64x64 subarray found the voltage gain per pixel to be about 11.7 uV/ADU (σ=0.2 uV/ADU). Finally, node capacitance was found to be approximately 23 fF (σ=6 fF) utilizing the aforementioned charge and voltage gain measurements. I further discuss the linearity measurements of the 1.7-um LED used in the charge gain characterization procedure.

  20. Containment integrity and leak testing. Procedures applied and experiences gained in European countries

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1987-01-01

    Containment systems are the ultimate safety barrier for preventing the escape of gaseous, liquid and solid radioactive materials produced in normal operation, not retained in process systems, and for keeping back radioactive materials released by system malfunction or equipment failure. A primary element of the containment shell is therefore its leak-tight design. The report describes the present containment concepts mostly used in European countries. The leak-testing procedures applied and the experiences gained in their application are also discussed. The report refers more particularly to pre-operational testing, periodic testing and extrapolation methods of leak rates measured at test conditions to expected leak rates at calculated accident conditions. The actual problems in periodic containment leak rate testing are critically reviewed. In the appendix to the report a summary is given of the regulations and specifications applied in different member countries

  1. Signal and noise analysis in TRION-Time-Resolved Integrative Optical Fast Neutron detector

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Vartsky, D; Feldman, G; Mor, I; Goldberg, M B; Bar, D; Dangendorf, V

    2009-01-01

    TRION is a sub-mm spatial resolution fast neutron imaging detector, which employs an integrative optical time-of-flight technique. The detector was developed for fast neutron resonance radiography, a method capable of detecting a broad range of conventional and improvised explosives. In this study we have analyzed in detail, using Monte-Carlo calculations and experimentally determined parameters, all the processes that influence the signal and noise in the TRION detector. In contrast to event-counting detectors where the signal-to-noise ratio is dependent only on the number of detected events (quantum noise), in an energy-integrating detector additional factors, such as the fluctuations in imparted energy, number of photoelectrons, system gain and other factors will contribute to the noise. The excess noise factor (over the quantum noise) due to these processes was 4.3, 2.7, 2.1, 1.9 and 1.9 for incident neutron energies of 2, 4, 7.5, 10 and 14 MeV, respectively. It is shown that, even under ideal light collection conditions, a fast neutron detection system operating in an integrative mode cannot be quantum-noise-limited due to the relatively large variance in the imparted proton energy and the resulting scintillation light distributions.

  2. The Therapeutic Utility of Employment in Treating Drug Addiction: Science to Application.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silverman, Kenneth; Holtyn, August F; Morrison, Reed

    2016-06-01

    Research on a model Therapeutic Workplace has allowed for evaluation of the use of employment in the treatment of drug addiction. Under the Therapeutic Workplace intervention, adults with histories of drug addiction are hired and paid to work. To promote drug abstinence or adherence to addiction medications, participants are required to provide drug-free urine samples or take prescribed addiction medications, respectively, to gain access to the workplace and/or to maintain their maximum rate of pay. Research has shown that the Therapeutic Workplace intervention is effective in promoting and maintaining abstinence from heroin, cocaine and alcohol and in promoting adherence to naltrexone. Three models could be used to implement and maintain employment-based reinforcement in the treatment of drug addiction: A Social Business model, a Cooperative Employer model, and a Wage Supplement model. Under all models, participants initiate abstinence in a training and abstinence initiation phase (Phase 1). Under the Social Business model, Phase 1 graduates are hired as employees in a social business and required to maintain abstinence to maintain employment and/or maximum pay. Under the Cooperative Employer model, cooperating community employers hire graduates of Phase 1 and require them to maintain abstinence to maintain employment and/or maximum pay. Under the Wage Supplement Model, graduates of Phase 1 are offered abstinence-contingent wage supplements if they maintain competitive employment in a community job. Given the severity and persistence of the problem of drug addiction and the lack of treatments that can produce lasting effects, continued development of the Therapeutic Workplace is warranted.

  3. Off-Farm Employment and Economic Crisis: Evidence from Cyprus

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Elias Giannakis

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Off-farm employment is an important strategy for complementing farm household income and maintaining rural livelihoods. A multilevel logistic regression model was applied to investigate the effect of farm-level and regional-level factors on off-farm employment in Cyprus during the recent economic crisis period. The performance of nonfarm sectors positively affects off-farm employment; a one-percent increase in the share of the secondary and tertiary sector employment increases the likelihood of off-farm work by 9.5 times. The importance of location was also identified. Farm households located in rural areas are 70% less likely to engage in off-farm work than households located in urban areas. The positive effect of educational attainment and the negative effect of farm training confirmed the importance of human capital characteristics on off-farm labour participation. Farm structural factors are also significant determinants of off-farm employment. A one-hectare increase in the farm size decreases the odds of off-farm labour participation by 50%. Operators of crop farming holdings are 4.2 times more likely to work off the farm than operators of livestock and mixed-farming holdings. The results reveal the importance of adopting a multilevel and integrated approach for the analysis of off-farm employment.

  4. Rate and predictors of employment among formerly polysubstance dependent urban individuals in recovery.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laudet, Alexandre B

    2012-01-01

    Employment is a key functioning index in addiction services and consistently emerges as a goal among individuals in recovery. Research on the employment status in the addiction field has focused on treatment populations or welfare recipients; little is known of employment rates or their predictors among individuals in recovery. This study seeks to fill this gap, capitalizing on a sample (N = 311) of urban individuals at various stages of recovery. Fewer than half (44.5%) of participants were employed; in logistic regressions, male gender and Caucasian race enhanced the odds of employment, whereas having a comorbid chronic physical or mental health condition decreased the odds by half. Implications center on the need to identify effective strategies to enhance employability among women and minorities and for integrated care for individuals with multiple chronic conditions.

  5. Weight Suppression But Not Symptom Improvement Predicts Weight Gain During Inpatient Treatment for Bulimia Nervosa.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hessler, Johannes Baltasar; Diedrich, Alice; Greetfeld, Martin; Schlegl, Sandra; Schwartz, Caroline; Voderholzer, Ulrich

    2018-03-01

    Fear of gaining weight is a common obstacle to seeking treatment for bulimia nervosa (BN). We investigated changes in body mass index (BMI) during inpatient treatment for BN in relation to treatment outcome and weight suppression (WS). Female inpatients of a specialized eating disorders clinic were grouped as deteriorated/unchanged, reliably improved, and clinically significantly improved based on Eating Disorder Inventory-2 scores. Repeated measures ANOVA was employed to examine changes in BMI between admission and discharge depending on treatment outcome and WS. One-hundred seventy-nine patients were included. Overall, the average BMI significantly increased by 0.54 kg/m 2 (SD = 1.24). Repeated measures ANOVA revealed no association of change in BMI with treatment outcome [F(df) = 1.13 (2166), p = 0.327] but with WS [F(df) = 2.76 (3166), p Bulimia nervosa can be successfully treated without causing excessive weight gain. Patients with higher WS might expect somewhat more weight gain. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

  6. Facing aliens under globalization: changing meanings of home for Taiwanese employers of foreign domestics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cheng, Shu-Ju Ada

    2005-01-01

    This paper is concerned with changing meanings of home for Taiwanese employers of foreign domestics under globalization. Shifting sense of home occurs for Taiwanese employers as well as foreign domestics in the process of labor migration. The author argues that Taiwanese employers, facing aliens at home, have adopted various rhetorical strategies to redefine their relationships with foreign domestics and deployed diverse practices of management within their households. As foreign domestics do housework at home, Taiwanese employers also do their own "homework," struggling to understand and cope with the process of becoming and being household employers. Their "homework" is an integral part of the globalization of domestic service.

  7. An employer brand predictive model for talent attraction and retention

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Annelize Botha

    2011-11-01

    Full Text Available Orientation: In an ever shrinking global talent pool organisations use employer brand to attract and retain talent, however, in the absence of theoretical pointers, many organisations are losing out on a powerful business tool by not developing or maintaining their employer brand correctly. Research purpose: This study explores the current state of knowledge about employer brand and identifies the various employer brand building blocks which are conceptually integrated in a predictive model. Motivation for the study: The need for scientific progress though the accurate representation of a set of employer brand phenomena and propositions, which can be empirically tested, motivated this study. Research design, approach and method: This study was nonempirical in approach and searched for linkages between theoretical concepts by making use of relevant contextual data. Theoretical propositions which explain the identified linkages were developed for purpose of further empirical research. Main findings: Key findings suggested that employer brand is influenced by target group needs, a differentiated Employer Value Proposition (EVP, the people strategy, brand consistency, communication of the employer brand and measurement of Human Resources (HR employer branding efforts. Practical/managerial implications: The predictive model provides corporate leaders and their human resource functionaries a theoretical pointer relative to employer brand which could guide more effective talent attraction and retention decisions. Contribution/value add: This study adds to the small base of research available on employer brand and contributes to both scientific progress as well as an improved practical understanding of factors which influence employer brand.

  8. Comparison of Video Head Impulse Test (vHIT) Gains Between Two Commercially Available Devices and by Different Gain Analytical Methods.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Sang Hun; Yoo, Myung Hoon; Park, Jun Woo; Kang, Byung Chul; Yang, Chan Joo; Kang, Woo Suk; Ahn, Joong Ho; Chung, Jong Woo; Park, Hong Ju

    2018-06-01

    To evaluate whether video head impulse test (vHIT) gains are dependent on the measuring device and method of analysis. Prospective study. vHIT was performed in 25 healthy subjects using two devices simultaneously. vHIT gains were compared between these instruments and using five different methods of comparing position and velocity gains during head movement intervals. The two devices produced different vHIT gain results with the same method of analysis. There were also significant differences in the vHIT gains measured using different analytical methods. The gain analytic method that compares the areas under the velocity curve (AUC) of the head and eye movements during head movements showed lower vHIT gains than a method that compared the peak velocities of the head and eye movements. The former method produced the vHIT gain with the smallest standard deviation among the five procedures tested in this study. vHIT gains differ in normal subjects depending on the device and method of analysis used, suggesting that it is advisable for each device to have its own normal values. Gain calculations that compare the AUC of the head and eye movements during the head movements show the smallest variance.

  9. Can LENR Energy Gains Exceed 1000?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagel, David J.

    2011-03-01

    Energy gain is defined as the energy realized from reactions divided by the energy required to produce those reactions. Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) have already been measured to significantly exceed the energy gain of 10 projected from ITER,possibly 15 years from now. Electrochemical experiments using the Pd-D system have shown energy gains exceeding 10. Gas phase experiments with the Ni-H system were reported to yield energy gains of over 100. Neither of these reports has been adequately verified or reproduced. However, the question in the title still deserves consideration. If, as thought by many, it is possible to trigger nuclear reactions that yield MeV energies with chemical energies of the order of eV, then the most optimistic expectation is that LENR gains could approach one million. Hence, the very tentative answer to the question above is yes. However, if LENR could be initiated with some energy cost, and then continue to ``burn,'' very high energy gains might be realized. Consider a match and a pile of dry logs. The phenomenon termed ``heat after death'' will be examined to see if it might be the initial evidence for nuclear ``burning.''

  10. Characterization of transient gain x-ray lasers

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dunn, J.; Osterheld, A.; Shlyaptsev, V.

    1999-01-01

    We have performed numerical simulations of the transient collisional excitation Ni-like Pd 4d → 4p J = 0 → 1 147 angstrom laser transition recently observed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The high gain ∼35 cm results from the experiment are compared with detailed modeling simulations from the 1-D RADEX code in order to better understand the main physics issues affecting the measured gain and x-ray laser propagation along the plasma column. Simulations indicate that the transient gain lifetime associated with the short pulse pumping and refraction of the x-ray laser beam out of the gain region are the main detrimental effects. Gain lifetimes of ∼7 ps(1/e decay) are inferred from the smoothly changing gain experimental observations and are in good agreement with the simulations. Furthermore, the modeling results indicate the presence of a longer-lived but lower gain later in time associated with the transition from transient to quasi-steady state excitation

  11. Controlling gain one photon at a time

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schwartz, Gregory W; Rieke, Fred

    2013-01-01

    Adaptation is a salient property of sensory processing. All adaptational or gain control mechanisms face the challenge of obtaining a reliable estimate of the property of the input to be adapted to and obtaining this estimate sufficiently rapidly to be useful. Here, we explore how the primate retina balances the need to change gain rapidly and reliably when photons arrive rarely at individual rod photoreceptors. We find that the weakest backgrounds that decrease the gain of the retinal output signals are similar to those that increase human behavioral threshold, and identify a novel site of gain control in the retinal circuitry. Thus, surprisingly, the gain of retinal signals begins to decrease essentially as soon as background lights are detectable; under these conditions, gain control does not rely on a highly averaged estimate of the photon count, but instead signals from individual photon absorptions trigger changes in gain. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.00467.001 PMID:23682314

  12. The Employer Perspective on Sustainable Employability in the Construction Industry

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tonnon, Susanne C; van der Veen, Rozan; Westerman, Marjan J; Robroek, Suzan J W; van der Ploeg, Hidde P; Van Der Beek, Allard J.; Proper, Karin I.

    OBJECTIVE: To determine the measures employers in the construction industry take to promote sustainable employability, the barriers and facilitators that influence implementation and employer needs. METHODS: Questionnaire among 499 employers and interviews with 17 employers. RESULTS: Employers

  13. Effectiveness of Integration and Re-Integration into Work Strategies for Persons with Chronic Conditions: A Systematic Review of European Strategies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carla Sabariego

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Due to low employment rates associated to chronic conditions in Europe, it is essential to foster effective integration and re-integration into work strategies. The objective of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of strategies for integration and re-integration to work for persons with chronic diseases or with musculoskeletal disorders, implemented in Europe in the past five years. A systematic search was conducted in MedLine, PsycINFO, CDR-HTA, CDR-DARE and Cochrane Systematic Reviews. Overall, 32 relevant publications were identified. Of these, 21 were considered eligible after a methodological assessment and included. Positive changes in employment status, return to work and sick leave outcomes were achieved with graded sickness-absence certificates, part-time sick leave, early ergonomic interventions for back pain, disability evaluation followed by information and advice, and with multidisciplinary, coordinated and tailored return to work interventions. Additionally, a positive association between the co-existence of active labour market policies to promote employment and passive support measures (e.g., pensions or benefits and the probability of finding a job was observed. Research on the evaluation of the effectiveness of strategies targeting integration and re-integration into work for persons with chronic health conditions needs, however, to be improved and strengthened.

  14. Effectiveness of Integration and Re-Integration into Work Strategies for Persons with Chronic Conditions: A Systematic Review of European Strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sabariego, Carla; Coenen, Michaela; Ito, Elizabeth; Fheodoroff, Klemens; Scaratti, Chiara; Leonardi, Matilde; Vlachou, Anastasia; Stavroussi, Panayiota; Brecelj, Valentina; Kovačič, Dare S; Esteban, Eva

    2018-03-19

    Due to low employment rates associated to chronic conditions in Europe, it is essential to foster effective integration and re-integration into work strategies. The objective of this systematic review is to summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of strategies for integration and re-integration to work for persons with chronic diseases or with musculoskeletal disorders, implemented in Europe in the past five years. A systematic search was conducted in MedLine, PsycINFO, CDR-HTA, CDR-DARE and Cochrane Systematic Reviews. Overall, 32 relevant publications were identified. Of these, 21 were considered eligible after a methodological assessment and included. Positive changes in employment status, return to work and sick leave outcomes were achieved with graded sickness-absence certificates, part-time sick leave, early ergonomic interventions for back pain, disability evaluation followed by information and advice, and with multidisciplinary, coordinated and tailored return to work interventions. Additionally, a positive association between the co-existence of active labour market policies to promote employment and passive support measures (e.g., pensions or benefits) and the probability of finding a job was observed. Research on the evaluation of the effectiveness of strategies targeting integration and re-integration into work for persons with chronic health conditions needs, however, to be improved and strengthened.

  15. Fixed term employment

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Durant, B.W.; Schonberner, M.J.

    1999-01-01

    A series of brief notes were included with this presentation which highlighted certain aspects of contract management. Several petroleum companies have realized the benefits of taking advantage of contract personnel to control fixed G and A, manage the impacts on their organization, contain costs, to manage termination costs, and to fill gaps in lean personnel rosters. An independent contractor was described as being someone who is self employed, often with a variety of work experiences. The tax benefits and flexibility of contractor personnel were also described. Some liability aspects of hiring an independent contractor were also reviewed. The courts have developed the following 4 tests to help determine whether an individual is an employee or an independent contractor: (1) the control test, (2) the business integration test, (3) specific result test, and (4) the economic reality test

  16. Two-dimensional photonic crystal bandedge laser with hybrid perovskite thin film for optical gain

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cha, Hyungrae [Department of Biophysics and Chemical Biology, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Inter-University Semiconductor Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Bae, Seunghwan [Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Lee, Myungjae [Inter-University Semiconductor Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Jeon, Heonsu, E-mail: hsjeon@snu.ac.kr [Department of Biophysics and Chemical Biology, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Inter-University Semiconductor Research Center, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of); Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826 (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-05-02

    We report optically pumped room temperature single mode laser that contains a thin film of hybrid perovskite, an emerging photonic material, as gain medium. Two-dimensional square lattice photonic crystal (PhC) backbone structure enables single mode laser operation via a photonic bandedge mode, while a thin film of methyl-ammonium lead iodide (CH{sub 3}NH{sub 3}PbI{sub 3}) spin-coated atop provides optical gain for lasing. Two kinds of bandedge modes, Γ and M, are employed, and both devices laser in single mode at similar laser thresholds of ∼200 μJ/cm{sup 2} in pulse energy density. Polarization dependence measurements reveal a clear difference between the two kinds of bandedge lasers: isotropic for the Γ-point laser and highly anisotropic for the M-point laser. These observations are consistent with expected modal properties, confirming that the lasing actions indeed originate from the corresponding PhC bandedge modes.

  17. Stabilization of the photomultiplier gain of a liquid scintillation counter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Alkhazov, I.D.; Dmitriev, V.D.; Kuznetsov, A.V.; Malkin, L.Z.; Petrov, B.F.; Sheremet'ev, A.K.; Shpakov, V.I.

    1987-01-01

    A stabilization system of photomultiplier gain, where light-emitting diode flashes have been used to obtain a reference signal, is described. The diode is placed just in the liquid scintilllator volume. The stabilization system contains several (according to the number of photomultipliers) identical channels, which of them consists of a colorimeter, a control trigger and an integrator with an operational amplifier. Increase of photomultiplier stability is reached by changing voltage of photomultiplier power according to the reference signal amplitude. The level of background and efficiency of neutron detection by a scintillation counter are unchanged when using the stabilization system for 10 days of measurements

  18. Synchronization and secure communication of chaotic systems via robust adaptive high-gain fuzzy observer

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hyun, Chang-Ho; Park, Chang-Woo; Kim, Jae-Hun; Park, Mignon

    2009-01-01

    This paper proposes an alternative robust adaptive high-gain fuzzy observer design scheme and its application to synchronization and secure communication of chaotic systems. It is assumed that their states are immeasurable and their parameters are unknown. The structure of the proposed observer is represented by Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model and has the integrator of the estimation error. It improves the performance of high-gain observer and makes the proposed observer robust against noisy measurements, uncertainties and parameter perturbations as well. Using Lyapunov stability theory, an adaptive law is derived to estimate the unknown parameters and the stability of the proposed observer is analyzed. Some simulation result of synchronization and secure communication of chaotic systems is given to present the validity of theoretical derivations and the performance of the proposed observer as an application.

  19. Does Adoption of Management Standards Deliver Efficiency Gain in Firms’ Pursuit of Sustainability Performance? An Empirical Investigation of Chinese Manufacturing Firms

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Xiaoling Wang

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Building on longitudinal data from 73 Chinese manufacturing firms during 2009–2012, we assess whether and how firms gain higher efficiency in achieving their sustainability goals by adopting management practice standards (ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and/or OHSAS 18001. We propose four pathways for firms to gain sustainability efficiency in their certification journey: participation, qualitative integration, quantitative expansion, and temporal accumulation. Our results confirm that firms certifying management standards gain higher efficiency in pursuing their sustainability goals than firms without these standards. We also find some support for increased efficiency effect in firms with diverse management systems over firms with only a single certificate in 2011. Finally, our results highlight the experiential and temporal accumulation effect of such efficiency gains, that is, firms with prior certification experience or having a longer certification history demonstrate higher efficiency gains in pursuing their sustainability goals.

  20. An Empirical Analysis of Post-Merger Organizational Integration

    OpenAIRE

    Smeets, Valerie Anne Rolande; Gibbs, Michael; Ierulli, Kathryn

    2015-01-01

    We study post-merger organizational integration using linked employer-employee data. Integration is implemented by reassigning a small number of high skilled workers, especially in R&D and management. Workforce mixing is concentrated to establishments set up after merger rather than to previously existing establishments. Worker turnover is high after merger, but new hiring yields stable total employment. Target employees have higher turnover and reassignment, particularly if the target fi...

  1. People into Employment: supporting people with disabilities and carers into work.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Arksey, Hilary

    2003-05-01

    Carers and people with disabilities are two disadvantaged groups at risk of social exclusion. Work is an important route to social inclusion, but carers and people with disabilities are under-represented in the work force. The present paper reports key findings from a new study that evaluated People into Employment (PIE), a pilot employment project in the north-east of England designed to support people with disabilities, carers and former carers in gaining mainstream work. The study aimed to identify what clients, partner agencies and employers perceived to be PIE's most important services, its strengths and areas where there was scope for further development. The study collected quantitative and qualitative data at the mid-point and at the end of the project through two questionnaire surveys, and interviews with PIE clients, the project development officer, partner agencies and employers. Drawing on the 'pathway model', the findings show that PIE's interventions included mobilising, matching, mediating and supporting activities. Key ingredients in PIE's success include: tailor-made job-search activities and training; adjusting the pace at which people move towards sustained employment; recognising and responding to the differing needs of people with disabilities, carers and former carers; confidence boosting; accompanying clients to job interviews; good job matching; and ongoing practical and emotional support for both clients and employers. Rudimentary calculations suggest that the cost per job to the project is less than the cost per job for large national projects. Overall, these findings illustrate how access to employment via flexible job-search services geared up to the local labour market can successfully promote social inclusion for carers and people with disabilities.

  2. Monolithically Integrated Flexible Black Phosphorus Complementary Inverter Circuits.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Yuanda; Ang, Kah-Wee

    2017-07-25

    Two-dimensional (2D) inverters are a fundamental building block for flexible logic circuits which have previously been realized by heterogeneously wiring transistors with two discrete channel materials. Here, we demonstrate a monolithically integrated complementary inverter made using a homogeneous black phosphorus (BP) nanosheet on flexible substrates. The digital logic inverter circuit is demonstrated via effective threshold voltage tuning within a single BP material, which offers both electron and hole dominated conducting channels with nearly symmetric pinch-off and current saturation. Controllable electron concentration is achieved by accurately modulating the aluminum (Al) donor doping, which realizes BP n-FET with a room-temperature on/off ratio >10 3 . Simultaneously, work function engineering is employed to obtain a low Schottky barrier contact electrode that facilities hole injection, thus enhancing the current density of the BP p-FET by 9.4 times. The flexible inverter circuit shows a clear digital logic voltage inversion operation along with a larger-than-unity direct current voltage gain, while exhibits alternating current dynamic signal switching at a record high frequency up to 100 kHz and remarkable electrical stability upon mechanical bending with a radii as small as 4 mm. Our study demonstrates a practical monolithic integration strategy for achieving functional logic circuits on one material platform, paving the way for future high-density flexible electronic applications.

  3. Low-Cost and High-Gain SIW Circularly Polarized Circular-Horn-Loaded Antenna for Broadband Millimeter-Wave Applications

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ming Du

    2017-09-01

    Full Text Available A wideband, low-cost and high-gain circularly polarized (CP circular-horn-loaded antenna based on substrate integrated waveguide (SIW technology operating at Ka band is presented. The proposed antenna, which is built on a single-layer substrate, consists of five parts: a short-ended SIW, a centro-symmetric wide slot, an L-shaped probe, a circular horn and a transition from SIW to air-filled rectangular waveguide for measurement. The slot is etched on the upper ground of the SIW, while the L-shaped probe for generating CP wave is printed inside the slot and connected to the SIW. A circular horn is also loaded on the surface of the SIW slot for high gain. Then, the proposed antenna with a dimension of 45×45×24.16 mm3 was fabricated and measured. The measured results show that the antenna has a wide impedance matching bandwidth of 28.6% from 30 to 40 GHz for |S11| ≤10 dB and a wide axial ratio (AR bandwidth of 22.8% from 31.5 to 39.6 GHz for AR ≤ 3 dB. The measured maximum gain is 15.6 dBi at 36 GHz with slight fluctuations over the 30–40-GHz frequency range. This kind of antenna merits low cost and easy integration with common differential circuits at the same time.

  4. The Darker Side of Integration Policy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Agneta Moulettes

    2015-04-01

    Full Text Available Despite its remarkable receptivity to immigrants entering the country, Sweden has one of the worst track records in Europe in terms of employing immigrants. However, although there are various studies devoted to integration issues, little scholarly attention has been directed toward public employment officers and their role as professional mediators in the integration process. By investigating the language used by public employment officers when they explain how they assist female immigrants in the process of entering the Swedish labor market, this study attempts to add to our knowledge of these officers and their role. It uses ideas from postcolonial theory and critical discourse analysis to show (a how public employment officers make use of prevailing discourses to transform female immigrants from passive welfare beneficiaries into active and responsible job seekers, (b how prevailing discourses contribute to the reproduction of culture and gender differences reminiscent of colonial discourses, and (c how unequal power relations may favor the segregation of mainstream and alternative cultures.

  5. How can the digital library contribute to employability?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Karen Harbo

    2016-12-01

    Full Text Available The DEFF project, E-learning, Information literacy and Library services, supports the education policy ambition of enhancing links between education and employment. The project consortium includes libraries from all Danish universities, university colleges and one business academy. Timeframe for the project is 2014-16. The project understands employability as: In close cooperation with study programmes libraries will strengthen students’ ability to perform independently and critically in a professional context by being able to identify, collect, evaluate, organize and present information via digital platforms. A partnership is made between the digital library (partner libraries involved and the virtual learning environment (educational institutions, based on the above definition of employability. This is done within the framework of Learning Management Systems (LMS and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs. The libraries and academic programmes will collaborate to create e-learning objects based on the relevant digital library systems and information resources. Departments from three Danish universities will contribute by strengthening the project participants’ skills in e-didactics and the development of e-learning objects (SDUUP, University of Southern Denmark, developing a range of flexible concepts for the integration of the virtual library into learning environments (IVA, Copenhagen University and evaluating the project’s activities (E-Learning Lab, Aalborg University. Sustainable results include the training of library staff to work together with academic programmes via the virtual learning environments, the development of flexible concepts for integrating the virtual library with study environments and knowledge on how inputs, created by the project for each study programme, should function.

  6. Is Self-Employment Really a Bad Experience? The Effects of Previous Self-Employment on Subsequent Wage-Employment Wages

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kaiser, Ulrich; Malchow-Møller, Nikolaj

    2011-01-01

    of self-employment is associated with lower hourly wages compared to workers who were consecutively wage-employed. We also show, however, that this effect disappears—and even becomes positive in some settings—for formerly self-employed who find dependent employment in the same sector as their self......-employment sector. Hence, the on average negative effect of self-employment is rather caused by sector switching than by the self-employment experience per se. Moreover, formerly self-employed who either enjoyed a high income or hired at least one worker during their self-employment spell receive wages...... in subsequent dependent employment that are at least as high as for individuals who have been consecutively wage-employed....

  7. Employing Electron Microscopy integrated with X-ray Spectroscopy for Kuntawa Landslide Assessment

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dikedi, P. N.

    2016-12-01

    This work centres on Kuntawa landslide assessment owing to the enigmatic nature of a 2003 landslide which buried 4 people and a truck in Kuntawa village, of Nigeria. A Phenom ProX Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) integrated with Energy dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Particlemetric software was employed to generate the morphology, particle size data, elemental identification data and topography (at 3500x) of earth samples scooped from the landslide site. For a core sample 1 at depth, d=3.75m, average circle equivalent diameter dav, area a and volume by area Va of 11.5 µm, 249 µm² and 3680µm³ were generated respectively; at d=3.785m, dav , a and Va of 6.19µm, 30.1µm² and 124µm³ were generated respectively; at d=3.82m, dav , a and Va of 11.5 µm, 130 µm² and 1380µm³ were generated respectively. For a core sample 2, at d=3.75m, dav, a and Va of 5.54 µm, 26 µm² and 108µm³ were generated respectively; at d=3.82m, dav , a and Va of 19.4µm, 338µm² and 5240µm³ were generated respectively; a total of 243 particles were scanned. One of the results from specific surface for samples 1 and 2, reveals that it would take twice and four times the amount of water needed to wet an entire surface both at d=3.82m than at d=3.785m and d=3.75m respectively. Additional laboratory facilities reveal that soil water content Š, volumetric water content Vwc, porosity Φ, soil water-filled pore space Wps, increased with increasing d; bulk density ρb, decreased with increasing d. Elemental composition at the landslide site were generated from the EDS: oxygen (O), Silicon (Si), Bromine (Br), iron (Fe), Carbon (C) and Aluminium (Al). O and C had the highest and lowest concentration of elemental compositions of 68.5% at 3.75m depth and 1% at 3.82m depth for samples 1 and 2, respectively. Keywords: EDS, Particlemetric, SEM.

  8. Predictive Variable Gain Iterative Learning Control for PMSM

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Huimin Xu

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available A predictive variable gain strategy in iterative learning control (ILC is introduced. Predictive variable gain iterative learning control is constructed to improve the performance of trajectory tracking. A scheme based on predictive variable gain iterative learning control for eliminating undesirable vibrations of PMSM system is proposed. The basic idea is that undesirable vibrations of PMSM system are eliminated from two aspects of iterative domain and time domain. The predictive method is utilized to determine the learning gain in the ILC algorithm. Compression mapping principle is used to prove the convergence of the algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate that the predictive variable gain is superior to constant gain and other variable gains.

  9. Weight gain - unintentional

    Science.gov (United States)

    ... diabetes Hormone changes or medical problems can also cause unintentional weight gain. This may be due to: Cushing syndrome Underactive thyroid, or low thyroid (hypothyroidism) Polycystic ovary syndrome Menopause Pregnancy Bloating, or swelling ...

  10. Graduate Employability: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Employers' Perceptions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cai, Yuzhuo

    2013-01-01

    This study provides a conceptual framework for understanding what employers think about the value of graduates with similar educational credentials in the workplace (their employability), using insights from the new institutionalism. In this framework, the development of employers' beliefs about graduates' employability is broken into a number of…

  11. Equality of employment opportunities for nurses at the point of qualification: an exploratory study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harris, Ruth; Ooms, Ann; Grant, Robert; Marshall-Lucette, Sylvie; Chu, Christine Sek Fun; Sayer, Jane; Burke, Linda

    2013-03-01

    Securing employment after qualification is of utmost importance to newly qualified nurses to consolidate knowledge and skills. The factors that influence success in gaining this first post are not known. The study aimed to describe the first post gained after qualification in terms of setting, nature of employment contract and geographical distribution and explore the relationship between a range of factors (including ethnicity) and employment at the point of qualification. An exploratory study using structured questionnaires and secondary analysis of data routinely collected by the universities about students and their progress during their course. The study was conducted in eight universities within a large, multicultural city in the UK as part of the 'Readiness for Work' research programme. Eight hundred and four newly qualified nurses who had successfully completed a diploma or degree from one of the universities; a response rate of 77% representing 49% of all graduating students in the study population. Data were collected by self-completed semi-structured questionnaires administered to students at the time of qualification and at three months post-qualification. Routinely collected data from the universities were also collected. Fifty two percent of participants had been offered a job at the point of qualification (85% of those who had applied and been interviewed). Of these, 99% had been offered a nursing post, 88% in the city studied, 67% in the healthcare setting where they had completed a course placement. 44% felt "confident" and 32% "very confident" about their employment prospects. Predictors of employment success included ethnicity, specialty of nursing and university attended. Predictors of confidence and preparedness for job seeking included ethnicity, nursing specialty, gender and grade of degree. Newly qualified nurses from non-White/British ethnic groups were less likely to get a job and feel confident about and prepared for job seeking. This

  12. A cortical edge-integration model of object-based lightness computation that explains effects of spatial context and individual differences

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudd, Michael E.

    2014-01-01

    Previous work has demonstrated that perceived surface reflectance (lightness) can be modeled in simple contexts in a quantitatively exact way by assuming that the visual system first extracts information about local, directed steps in log luminance, then spatially integrates these steps along paths through the image to compute lightness (Rudd and Zemach, 2004, 2005, 2007). This method of computing lightness is called edge integration. Recent evidence (Rudd, 2013) suggests that human vision employs a default strategy to integrate luminance steps only along paths from a common background region to the targets whose lightness is computed. This implies a role for gestalt grouping in edge-based lightness computation. Rudd (2010) further showed the perceptual weights applied to edges in lightness computation can be influenced by the observer's interpretation of luminance steps as resulting from either spatial variation in surface reflectance or illumination. This implies a role for top-down factors in any edge-based model of lightness (Rudd and Zemach, 2005). Here, I show how the separate influences of grouping and attention on lightness can be modeled in tandem by a cortical mechanism that first employs top-down signals to spatially select regions of interest for lightness computation. An object-based network computation, involving neurons that code for border-ownership, then automatically sets the neural gains applied to edge signals surviving the earlier spatial selection stage. Only the borders that survive both processing stages are spatially integrated to compute lightness. The model assumptions are consistent with those of the cortical lightness model presented earlier by Rudd (2010, 2013), and with neurophysiological data indicating extraction of local edge information in V1, network computations to establish figure-ground relations and border ownership in V2, and edge integration to encode lightness and darkness signals in V4. PMID:25202253

  13. A Cortical Edge-integration Model of Object-Based Lightness Computation that Explains Effects of Spatial Context and Individual Differences

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Michael E Rudd

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Previous work demonstrated that perceived surface reflectance (lightness can be modeled in simple contexts in a quantitatively exact way by assuming that the visual system first extracts information about local, directed steps in log luminance, then spatial integrates these steps along paths through the image to compute lightness (Rudd & Zemach, 2004, 2005, 2007. This method of computing lightness is called edge integration. Recent evidence (Rudd, 2013 suggests that the human vision employs a default strategy to integrate luminance steps only along paths from a common background region to the targets whose lightness is computed. This implies a role for gestalt grouping in edge-based lightness computation. Rudd (2010 further showed the perceptual weights applied to edges in lightness computation can be influenced by the observer’s interpretation of luminance steps as resulting from either spatial variation in surface reflectance or illumination. This implies a role for top-down factors in any edge-based model of lightness (Rudd & Zemach, 2005. Here, I show how the separate influences of grouping and attention on lightness can be together modeled by a cortical mechanism that first employs top-down signals to spatially select regions of interest for lightness computation. An object-based network computation, involving neurons that code for border-ownership, then automatically sets the neural gains applied to edge signals surviving the earlier spatial selection stage. Only the borders that survive both processing stages are spatially integrated to compute lightness. The model assumptions are consistent with those of the cortical lightness model presented earlier by Rudd (2010, 2013, and with neurophysiological data indicating extraction of local edge information in V1, network computations to establish figure-ground relations and border ownership in V2, and edge integration to encode lightness and darkness signals in V4.

  14. A cortical edge-integration model of object-based lightness computation that explains effects of spatial context and individual differences.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rudd, Michael E

    2014-01-01

    Previous work has demonstrated that perceived surface reflectance (lightness) can be modeled in simple contexts in a quantitatively exact way by assuming that the visual system first extracts information about local, directed steps in log luminance, then spatially integrates these steps along paths through the image to compute lightness (Rudd and Zemach, 2004, 2005, 2007). This method of computing lightness is called edge integration. Recent evidence (Rudd, 2013) suggests that human vision employs a default strategy to integrate luminance steps only along paths from a common background region to the targets whose lightness is computed. This implies a role for gestalt grouping in edge-based lightness computation. Rudd (2010) further showed the perceptual weights applied to edges in lightness computation can be influenced by the observer's interpretation of luminance steps as resulting from either spatial variation in surface reflectance or illumination. This implies a role for top-down factors in any edge-based model of lightness (Rudd and Zemach, 2005). Here, I show how the separate influences of grouping and attention on lightness can be modeled in tandem by a cortical mechanism that first employs top-down signals to spatially select regions of interest for lightness computation. An object-based network computation, involving neurons that code for border-ownership, then automatically sets the neural gains applied to edge signals surviving the earlier spatial selection stage. Only the borders that survive both processing stages are spatially integrated to compute lightness. The model assumptions are consistent with those of the cortical lightness model presented earlier by Rudd (2010, 2013), and with neurophysiological data indicating extraction of local edge information in V1, network computations to establish figure-ground relations and border ownership in V2, and edge integration to encode lightness and darkness signals in V4.

  15. Integrated reporting and board features

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rares HURGHIS

    2017-02-01

    Full Text Available In the last two decades the concept of sustainability reporting gained more importance in the companies’ annual reports, a trend which is embedded also in integrated reporting. Issuing an integrated report became a necessity, because the report explains to the investors how the organization creates value over time. The governance structure, more exactly the board of directors, decides whether or not the company will issue an integrated report. Thus, are there certain features of the board that might influence the issue of an integrated report? Do the companies which issue an integrated report have certain features of the governance structure? Looking for an answer to these questions, we seek for any possible correlations between a disclosure index and the corporate governance structure characteristics, on a sample from the companies participating at the International Integrated Reporting Council Examples Database. The results highlight that only the size of the board influences the extent to which the issued integrated report is in accordance with the International Framework.

  16. Employing Discourse: Universities and Graduate "Employability"

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boden, Rebecca; Nedeva, Maria

    2010-01-01

    What constitutes graduate employability is discursively framed. In this paper we argue that whilst universities in the UK have long had an involvement in producing useful and productive citizens, the ongoing neoliberalisation of higher education has engendered a discursive shift in definitions of employability. Traditionally, universities regarded…

  17. CONDITIONS FOR CSR MICROBUNCHING GAIN SUPPRESSION

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tsai, Cheng Ying [Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States); Douglas, David R. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Li, Rui [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); Tennant, Christopher D. [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), Newport News, VA (United States); di Mitri, Simone [Elettra–Sincrotrone Trieste, 34149 Basovizza, Trieste, Italy

    2016-05-01

    The coherent synchrotron radiation (CSR) of a high brightness electron beam traversing a series of dipoles, such as transport arcs, may result in phase space degradation. On one hand, the CSR can perturb electron transverse motion in dispersive regions along the beamline, causing emittance growth. On the other hand, the CSR effect on the longitudinal beam dynamics could result in microbunching gain enhancement. For transport arcs, several schemes have been proposed* to suppress the CSR-induced emittance growth. Similarly, several scenarios have been introduced** to suppress CSR-induced microbunching gain, which however mostly aim for linac-based machines. In this paper we try to provide sufficient conditions for suppression of CSR-induced microbunching gain along a transport arc, analogous to*. Several example lattices are presented, with the relevant microbunching analyses carried out by our semi-analytical Vlasov solver***. The simulation results show that lattices satisfying the proposed conditions indeed have microbunching gain suppressed. We expect this analysis can shed light on lattice design approach that could suppress the CSR-induced microbunching gain.

  18. Enabling Integration in Sports for Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grandisson, Marie; Tetreault, Sylvie; Freeman, Andrew R.

    2012-01-01

    Background: Promoting the health and social participation of adolescents with intellectual disability is important as they are particularly vulnerable to encountering difficulties in those areas. Integration of these individuals in integrated sports is one strategy to address this issue. Methods: The main objective of this study was to gain a…

  19. FEL gain optimisation and spontaneous radiation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Bali, L.M.; Srivastava, A.; Pandya, T.P. [Lucknow Univ. (India)] [and others

    1995-12-31

    Colson have evaluated FEL gains for small deviations from perfect electron beam injection, with radiation of the same polarisation as that of the wiggler fields. We find that for optimum gain the polarisation of the optical field should be the same as that of the spontaneous emission under these conditions. With a helical wiggler the axial oscillations resulting from small departures from perfect electron beam injection lead to injection dependent unequal amplitudes and phases of the spontaneous radiation in the two transverse directions. Viewed along the axis therefore the spontaneous emission is elliptically polarised. The azimuth of the ellipse varies with the difference of phase of the two transverse components of spontaneous emission but the eccentricity remains the same. With planar wigglers the spontaneous emission viewed in the axial direction is linearly polarised, again with an injection dependent azimuth. For optimum coherent gain of a radiation field its polarisation characteristics must be the same as those of the spontaneous radiation with both types of wiggler. Thus, with a helical wiggler and the data reported earlier, an increase of 10% in the FEL gain at the fundamental frequency and of 11% at the fifth harmonic has been calculated in the small gain per pass limit. Larger enhancements in gain may result from more favourable values of input parameters.

  20. The Effects of Part-Time MBA Programs on Students: The Relationships between Students and Their Employers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prince, Melvin; Burns, David J.; Manolis, Chris

    2014-01-01

    The authors explore how the relationship between part-time master of business administration (MBA) students and their employers changes as students proceed through their MBA program by examining the degree to which students are integrated into their employer organizations. Significant positive relationships observed between students' progress…

  1. The two-loop master integrals for qq-bar→VV

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gehrmann, Thomas; Manteuffel, Andreas von; Tancredi, Lorenzo; Weihs, Erich

    2014-01-01

    We compute the full set of two-loop Feynman integrals appearing in massless two-loop four-point functions with two off-shell legs with the same invariant mass. These integrals allow to determine the two-loop corrections to the amplitudes for vector boson pair production at hadron colliders, qq-bar→VV, and thus to compute this process to next-to-next-to-leading order accuracy in QCD. The master integrals are derived using the method of differential equations, employing a canonical basis for the integrals. We obtain analytical results for all integrals, expressed in terms of multiple polylogarithms. We optimize our results for numerical evaluation by employing functions which are real valued for physical scattering kinematics and allow for an immediate power series expansion

  2. Urban development and employment in Abidjan.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Joshi, H; Lubell, H; Mouly, J

    1975-04-01

    The city of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast has grown physically, economically, and demographically at rates exceeding all reasonable expectation. Yet, as in many other development nations, the employment generated by Abidjan's rapid economic expansion has failed to keep pace with the increase in working population it has attracted. Consequently, economic success has been accompanied by a variety of social strains. Some of these have been discussed in earlier issues of the "International Labour Review" by Louis Roussel. This discussion expands on Roussel's earlier treatment by focusing more specifically on several facets of the urban employment problem created by the rapid growth of Abidjan. Attention is directed to labor supply and employment, factors affecting migration, foreign Africans in the Ivory Coast labor force; the urban informal sector; urban infrastructure and development; social problems of population pressure; employment policy options (current government policies and other policy options); and general issues and policy alternatives (motivations for rural urban migration, smaller urban centers as alternative growth poles, and distributing the gains from development). Several essential features of the employment problem stem from the rural urban distribution of the workforce. The rural labor force, including temporary seasonal workers from the savannah countries to the north, remains more or less in balance with increasing rural employment opportunities, since the migration of Ivory Coast nationals to the cities is balanced by the inflow of foreign workers. In contrast, the influx of migrants into urban areas has led to a more rapid increase in the urban labor force than in urban employment, with a consequent rise in unemployment. In 1970 the Abidjan rate of open unemployment was probably around 20%. At this time, most people's idea of a desirable job is one in the formal sector of the urban economy. If there is to be any hope of an eventual balance between

  3. Employment Effects of Spatial Dispersal of Refugees

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Damm, Anna Piil; Rosholm, Michael

    Spatial dispersal policies may influence labour market integration of refugees through two mechanisms. First, it may affect the local job offer arrival rate, and second, it may affect place utility. We investigate the second mechanism theoretically by formulating a partial search model in which a...... due to large local reservation wage effects. We investigate both mechanisms empirically and test the predictions of the theoretical model by evaluating the employment effects of the Danish spatial dispersal policy carried out 1986-1998....

  4. Semipolar InGaN quantum-well laser diode with integrated amplifier for visible light communications

    KAUST Repository

    Shen, Chao

    2018-02-14

    GaN-based semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and its integration with laser diode (LD) is an essential building block yet to be demonstrated for III-nitride photonic integrated circuits (PICs) at visible wavelength. This paper presents the InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) based dual-section LD consisting of integrated amplifier and laser gain regions fabricated on a semipolar GaN substrate. The threshold current in the laser gain region was favorably reduced from 229mA to 135mA at SOA driving voltages, VSOA, of 0V and 6.25V, respectively. The amplification effect was measured based on a large gain of 5.7 dB at VSOA = 6.25V from the increased optical output power of 8.2 mW to 30.5 mW. Such integrated amplifier can be modulated to achieve Gbps data communication using on-off keying technique. The monolithically integrated amplifier-LD paves the way towards the III-nitride on-chip photonic system, providing a compact, low-cost, and multi-functional solution for applications such as smart lighting and visible light communications.

  5. Semipolar InGaN quantum-well laser diode with integrated amplifier for visible light communications

    KAUST Repository

    Shen, Chao; Ng, Tien Khee; Lee, Changmin; Nakamura, Shuji; Speck, James S.; DenBaars, Steven P.; Alyamani, Ahmed Y.; El-Desouki, Munir M.; Ooi, Boon S.

    2018-01-01

    GaN-based semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) and its integration with laser diode (LD) is an essential building block yet to be demonstrated for III-nitride photonic integrated circuits (PICs) at visible wavelength. This paper presents the InGaN/GaN quantum well (QW) based dual-section LD consisting of integrated amplifier and laser gain regions fabricated on a semipolar GaN substrate. The threshold current in the laser gain region was favorably reduced from 229mA to 135mA at SOA driving voltages, VSOA, of 0V and 6.25V, respectively. The amplification effect was measured based on a large gain of 5.7 dB at VSOA = 6.25V from the increased optical output power of 8.2 mW to 30.5 mW. Such integrated amplifier can be modulated to achieve Gbps data communication using on-off keying technique. The monolithically integrated amplifier-LD paves the way towards the III-nitride on-chip photonic system, providing a compact, low-cost, and multi-functional solution for applications such as smart lighting and visible light communications.

  6. Age and disability employment discrimination: occupational rehabilitation implications.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bjelland, Melissa J; Bruyère, Susanne M; von Schrader, Sarah; Houtenville, Andrew J; Ruiz-Quintanilla, Antonio; Webber, Douglas A

    2010-12-01

    As concerns grow that a thinning labor force due to retirement will lead to worker shortages, it becomes critical to support positive employment outcomes of groups who have been underutilized, specifically older workers and workers with disabilities. Better understanding perceived age and disability discrimination and their intersection can help rehabilitation specialists and employers address challenges expected as a result of the evolving workforce. Using U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Integrated Mission System data, we investigate the nature of employment discrimination charges that cite the Americans with Disabilities Act or Age Discrimination in Employment Act individually or jointly. We focus on trends in joint filings over time and across categories of age, types of disabilities, and alleged discriminatory behavior. We find that employment discrimination claims that originate from older or disabled workers are concentrated within a subset of issues that include reasonable accommodation, retaliation, and termination. Age-related disabilities are more frequently referenced in joint cases than in the overall pool of ADA filings, while the psychiatric disorders are less often referenced in joint cases. When examining charges made by those protected under both the ADA and ADEA, results from a logit model indicate that in comparison to charges filed under the ADA alone, jointly-filed ADA/ADEA charges are more likely to be filed by older individuals, by those who perceive discrimination in hiring and termination, and to originate from within the smallest firms. In light of these findings, rehabilitation and workplace practices to maximize the hiring and retention of older workers and those with disabilities are discussed.

  7. An evaluation of an employment pilot to support forensic mental health service users into work and vocational activities.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Samele, Chiara; Forrester, Andrew; Bertram, Mark

    2018-02-01

    Few employment programmes exist to support forensic service users with severe mental health problems and a criminal history. Little is known about how best to achieve this. The Employment and Social Inclusion Project (ESIP) was developed and piloted to support forensic service users into employment and vocational activities. This pilot service evaluation aimed to assess the number of service users who secured employment/vocational activities and explored services users' and staff experiences. Quantitative data were collected to record the characteristics of participating service users and how many secured employment and engaged in vocational activities. Eighteen qualitative interviews were conducted with service users and staff. Fifty-seven service users engaged with the project, most were men (93.0%) and previously employed (82.5%). Four service users (7.0%) secured paid competitive employment. Eight (14.0%) gained other paid employment. Tailored one-to-one support to increase skills and build confidence was an important feature of the project. Creation of a painting and decorating programme offered training and paid/flexible work. This exploratory project achieved some success in assisting forensic service users into paid employment. Further research to identify what works well for this important group will be of great value.

  8. Product Market Integration, Comparative Advantages and Labour Market Performance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Andersen, Torben M.; Rose Skaksen, Jan

    2003-01-01

    Product Market Integration, Comparative Advantages andLabour Market Performance@*In a two-country model with trade driven by comparative advantages, it is considered howimperfectly competitive labour markets are affected by lower frictions in international goodstrade. Easier goods trading...... is equivalent to increased mobility of employment acrosscountries and thus a change in the trade-off between wages and employment faced by wagesetters. While the effects of product market integration on the trade-off between wages andemployment in general is ambiguous, it is shown that product market...... integration works like ageneral improvement in productivity via the specialization it allows through trade.Unambiguously, real wages and employment and welfare improve upon reductions in tradefrictions, and therefore workers are better off irrespective of whether the market power ofunions is enhanced or muted...

  9. A Voltage Gain-Controlled Modified CFOA And Its Application in Electronically Tunable Four-Mode All-Pass Filter Design

    OpenAIRE

    Norbert Herencsar; Jaroslav Koton; Abhirup Lahiri; Bilgin Metin; Kamil Vrba

    2012-01-01

    This paper presents a new active building block (ABB) called voltage gain-controlled modified current feedback amplifier (VGC-MCFOA) based on bipolar junction transistor technology. The versatility of the new ABB is demonstrated in new first-order all-pass filter structure design employing single VGC-MCFOA, single grounded capacitor, and three resistors. Introduced circuit provides all four possible transfer functions at the same configuration, namely current-mode, transimpedance-mode, transa...

  10. Mechanism of lumen gain with a novel rotational aspiration atherectomy system for peripheral arterial disease: examination by intravascular ultrasound.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hassan, Ali H M; Ako, Junya; Waseda, Katsuhisa; Honda, Yasuhiro; Zeller, Thomas; Leon, Martin B; Fitzgerald, Peter J

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to evaluate the mechanism of luminal gain with a novel atheroablation system (Pathway PV) for the treatment of peripheral artery disease using intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). The atherectomy system is a rotational atherectomy device, which employs expandable rotating blades with ports that allow flushing and aspiration of the plaque material or thrombus. In this first-in-man clinical study, IVUS analysis was available in 6 patients with lower limb ischemia treated with this device. The treatment results were assessed using IVUS at pre and post atherectomy. Lumen beyond burr size (LBB) was defined as lumen gain divided by the estimated burr area determined by the burr-size. IVUS analysis was available in six patients (superficial femoral artery n=3, popliteal artery n=2, posterior tibial artery n=1). Atheroablation achieved a significant increase in lumen area (LA) (preintervention 3.9+/-0.4, postatheroablation 8.0+/-1.7 mm(2), Patherectomy device achieved significant luminal gain by debulking in the absence of vessel stretching. The LA was greater than burr-sized lumen expectancy at cross-sections along the treated segments, suggesting a complimentary role of aspiration in luminal gain in atherosclerotic peripheral artery lesions.

  11. Low-cost access to development and manufacturing of photonic integrated circuits

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Smit, M.K.

    2014-01-01

    Generic photonic integration technology is rapidly gaining popularity. It applies the methodology that is so successful in microelectronics (CMOS technology) to the domain of photonics: providing lowcost access to highly standardized high-performance processes that support integration in a single

  12. A novel robust proportional-integral (PI) adaptive observer design for chaos synchronization

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Pourgholi Mahdi; Majd Vahid Johari

    2011-01-01

    In this paper, chaos synchronization in the presence of parameter uncertainty, observer gain perturbation and exogenous input disturbance is considered. A nonlinear non-fragile proportional-integral (PI) adaptive observer is designed for the synchronization of chaotic systems; its stability conditions based on the Lyapunov technique are derived. The observer proportional and integral gains, by converting the conditions into linear matrix inequality (LMI), are optimally selected from solutions that satisfy the observer stability conditions such that the effect of disturbance on the synchronization error becomes minimized. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, simulation results for the synchronization of a Lorenz chaotic system with unknown parameters in the presence of an exogenous input disturbance and abrupt gain perturbation are reported. (general)

  13. 24 CFR 3280.507 - Comfort heat gain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... 24 Housing and Urban Development 5 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Comfort heat gain. 3280.507 Section... gain. Information necessary to calculate the home cooling load shall be provided as specified in this part. (a) Transmission heat gains. Homes complying with this section shall meet the minimum heat loss...

  14. From Landscape Research to Landscape Planning : Aspects of Integration, Education and Application

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Tress, B.; Tress, G.; Fry, G.; Opdam, P.F.M.

    2006-01-01

    Research policy favours projects that integrate disciplinary knowledge and involve non-academic stakeholders. Consequently, integrative concepts - interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity - are gaining currency in landscape research and planning. Researchers are excited by the prospect of merging

  15. Pentaho data integration cookbook

    CERN Document Server

    Meadows, Alex

    2013-01-01

    Pentaho Data Integration Cookbook Second Edition is written in a cookbook format, presenting examples in the style of recipes.This allows you to go directly to your topic of interest, or follow topics throughout a chapter to gain a thorough in-depth knowledge.Pentaho Data Integration Cookbook Second Edition is designed for developers who are familiar with the basics of Kettle but who wish to move up to the next level.It is also aimed at advanced users that want to learn how to use the new features of PDI as well as and best practices for working with Kettle.

  16. Processes of fungal proteome evolution and gain of function: gene duplication and domain rearrangement

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Cohen-Gihon, Inbar; Nussinov, Ruth; Sharan, Roded

    2011-01-01

    During evolution, organisms have gained functional complexity mainly by modifying and improving existing functioning systems rather than creating new ones ab initio. Here we explore the interplay between two processes which during evolution have had major roles in the acquisition of new functions: gene duplication and protein domain rearrangements. We consider four possible evolutionary scenarios: gene families that have undergone none of these event types; only gene duplication; only domain rearrangement, or both events. We characterize each of the four evolutionary scenarios by functional attributes. Our analysis of ten fungal genomes indicates that at least for the fungi clade, species significantly appear to gain complexity by gene duplication accompanied by the expansion of existing domain architectures via rearrangements. We show that paralogs gaining new domain architectures via duplication tend to adopt new functions compared to paralogs that preserve their domain architectures. We conclude that evolution of protein families through gene duplication and domain rearrangement is correlated with their functional properties. We suggest that in general, new functions are acquired via the integration of gene duplication and domain rearrangements rather than each process acting independently

  17. MICRO FRANCHISING AS A TOOL FOR INCREASING SELF-EMPLOYMENT AND COMPETITIVENESS: CROATIAN EXAMPLES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ljiljana Kukec

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Franchising has been present in the global economy in its current format for more than a hundred years. Companies have used franchising for growing their business and geographical expansion by bridging the distance in partnership with local entrepreneurs. Micro franchising provides a proven business model and a chance for self-employment by exploiting all advantages of franchising on a far smaller scale than traditional franchising. This model also helps potential entrepreneurs with low income to cross certain barriers, establish a sustainable business and create opportunities for new employment with the mentorship of the franchisor. With micro franchising, franchise systems could open locations where franchising in the traditional format would (could not work and by doing so it could expand their business and gain competitiveness on the market, while at the same time enhancing employment and the development of entrepreneurship. This paper examines the micro-franchising situation in Croatia and checks if this model of growing business can help in increasing competitiveness of a company and at the same time enhance self-employment. Due to their pioneer work in the field of micro franchising in Croatia, Body Creator and Surf’n’Fries were chosen as practical examples.

  18. Spontaneous indices are inconsistent with arterial baroreflex gain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lipman, Ruth D; Salisbury, Julie K; Taylor, J Andrew

    2003-10-01

    Spontaneously occurring, parallel fluctuations in arterial pressure and heart period are frequently used as indices of baroreflex function. Despite the convenience of spontaneous indices, their relation to the arterial baroreflex remains unclear. Therefore, in 97 volunteers, we derived 5 proposed indices (sequence method, alpha-index, transfer function, low-frequency transfer function, and impulse response function), compared them with arterial baroreflex gain (by the modified Oxford pharmacologic technique), and examined their relation to carotid distensibility and respiratory sinus arrhythmia. The subjects comprised men and women (n=41) aged 25 to 86 years, 30% of whom had established coronary artery disease. Generally, the indices were correlated with each other (except alpha-index and low-frequency transfer function) and with baroreflex gain. However, the Bland-Altman method demonstrated that the spontaneous indices had limits of agreement as large as the baroreflex gain itself. Even in individuals within the lowest tertile of baroreflex gain for whom baroreflex gain appears to be the most clinically relevant, spontaneous indices failed to relate to baroreflex gain. In fact, for these individuals, there was no correlation between any index and baroreflex gain. Forward stepwise linear regression showed that all spontaneous indices and baroreflex gain were related to respiratory sinus arrhythmia, but only baroreflex gain was related to carotid distensibility. Therefore, these data suggest that spontaneous indices are inadequate estimates of gain and are inconsistent with arterial baroreflex function.

  19. THE MODIFICATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT ASSUMING UNPREDICTABILITY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ana Vidat

    2012-11-01

    Full Text Available Adapting a gainful occupation to technological or economical development may require the amendment of individual labor contract under which the activity is performed, taking into account the intrinsic dynamics of employment. If the parties, by agreement, determine the content of the individual labor contract, all in agreement, may agree at any time to amend it according to art. 41 para. 1 of the Labour Code. And trough the provisions of civil law – common law for the employment law – are established legal the review of the effects of the legal actdue because of the breakage contractual balance due to change in the circumstances envisaged by the parties in the moment of conclusion of the legal act (the so-called theory of unpredictability, rebus sic stantibus – exception to the principle "pacta sunt servanda". Recourse to the legal document review because its effects are other than the parties agreed to establish and be binding in the moment of conclusion of that agreement. In the present paper we will refer to administrative contracts, given the subject of this paper – namely that the common law for individual employment contract is the civil law rules applicable to civil contracts. So in this paper does not refer to former commercial contracts, since the new Civil Code was achieved unification of private law matter – giving up the commercial contracts.

  20. Could LC-NE-Dependent Adjustment of Neural Gain Drive Functional Brain Network Reorganization?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carole Guedj

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available The locus coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE system is thought to act at synaptic, cellular, microcircuit, and network levels to facilitate cognitive functions through at least two different processes, not mutually exclusive. Accordingly, as a reset signal, the LC-NE system could trigger brain network reorganizations in response to salient information in the environment and/or adjust the neural gain within its target regions to optimize behavioral responses. Here, we provide evidence of the co-occurrence of these two mechanisms at the whole-brain level, in resting-state conditions following a pharmacological stimulation of the LC-NE system. We propose that these two mechanisms are interdependent such that the LC-NE-dependent adjustment of the neural gain inferred from the clustering coefficient could drive functional brain network reorganizations through coherence in the gamma rhythm. Via the temporal dynamic of gamma-range band-limited power, the release of NE could adjust the neural gain, promoting interactions only within the neuronal populations whose amplitude envelopes are correlated, thus making it possible to reorganize neuronal ensembles, functional networks, and ultimately, behavioral responses. Thus, our proposal offers a unified framework integrating the putative influence of the LC-NE system on both local- and long-range adjustments of brain dynamics underlying behavioral flexibility.

  1. Insulin detemir attenuates food intake, body weight gain and fat mass gain in diet-induced obese Sprague-Dawley rats.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rojas, J M; Printz, R L; Niswender, K D

    2011-07-04

    Initiation and intensification of insulin therapy commonly causes weight gain, a barrier to therapy. A contrasting body of evidence indicates that insulin functions as an adiposity negative feedback signal and reduces food intake, weight gain and adiposity via action in the central nervous system. Basal insulin analogs, detemir (Det) and glargine (Glar), have been associated with less hypoglycemia compared with neutral protamine hagedorn insulin, and Det with less weight gain, especially in patients with higher body mass index (BMI). We sought to determine whether insulin therapy per se causes body weight and fat mass gain when delivered via a clinically relevant subcutaneous (SC) route in the absence of hypoglycemia and glycosuria in non-diabetic lean and diet-induced obese rats. Rats were exposed to either a low-fat diet (LFD; 13.5% fat) or high-fat diet (HFD; 60% fat), and received Det (0.5 U kg(-1)), Glar (0.2 U kg(-1)) or vehicle (Veh) SC once daily for 4 weeks. These dosages of insulin were equipotent in rats with respect to blood-glucose concentration and did not induce hypoglycemia. As predicted by current models of energy homeostasis, neither insulin Det nor Glar therapy affected food intake and weight gain in LFD rats. Det treatment significantly attenuated food intake, body weight gain and fat mass gain relative to the Glar and Veh in high-fat fed animals, mirroring observations in humans. That neither insulin group gained excess weight, suggests weight gain with SC basal insulin therapy may not be inevitable. Our data further suggest that Det possesses a unique property to attenuate the development of obesity associated with a HFD.

  2. How closely does stem growth of adult beech (Fagus sylvatica) relate to net carbon gain under experimentally enhanced ozone stress?

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kitao, Mitsutoshi; Winkler, J. Barbro; Löw, Markus; Nunn, Angela J.; Kuptz, Daniel; Häberle, Karl-Heinz; Reiter, Ilja M.; Matyssek, Rainer

    2012-01-01

    The hypothesis was tested that O 3 -induced changes in leaf-level photosynthetic parameters have the capacity of limiting the seasonal photosynthetic carbon gain of adult beech trees. To this end, canopy-level photosynthetic carbon gain and respiratory carbon loss were assessed in European beech (Fagus sylvatica) by using a physiologically based model, integrating environmental and photosynthetic parameters. The latter were derived from leaves at various canopy positions under the ambient O 3 regime, as prevailing at the forest site (control), or under an experimental twice-ambient O 3 regime (elevated O 3 ), as released through a free-air canopy O 3 fumigation system. Gross carbon gain at the canopy-level declined by 1.7%, while respiratory carbon loss increased by 4.6% under elevated O 3 . As this outcome only partly accounts for the decline in stem growth, O 3 -induced changes in allocation are referred to and discussed as crucial in quantitatively linking carbon gain with stem growth. - Highlights: ► We model O 3 -induced changes in the photosynthetic carbon gain of adult beech trees. ► Elevated O 3 decreases gross carbon gain but increases respiratory carbon loss. ► Reduction in net carbon gain only partly accounts for the decline in stem growth. ► O 3 effects on the whole-tree allocation is crucial in addition to carbon gains. - Reduction in net carbon gain at the canopy level only partly accounts for the decline in stem growth under elevated ozone.

  3. Consistency of differential and integral thermonuclear neutronics data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Reupke, W.A.

    1978-01-01

    To increase the accuracy of the neutronics analysis of nuclear reactors, physicists and engineers have employed a variety of techniques, including the adjustment of multigroup differential data to improve consistency with integral data. Of the various adjustment strategies, a generalized least-squares procedure which adjusts the combined differential and integral data can significantly improve the accuracy of neutronics calculations compared to calculations employing only differential data. This investigation analyzes 14 MeV neutron-driven integral experiments, using a more extensively developed methodology and a newly developed computer code, to extend the domain of adjustment from the energy range of fission reactors to the energy range of fusion reactors

  4. PEPFAR Funding Associated With An Increase In Employment Among Males in Ten Sub-Saharan African Countries.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wagner, Zachary; Barofsky, Jeremy; Sood, Neeraj

    2015-06-01

    The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has provided billions of US tax dollars to expand HIV treatment, care, and prevention programs in sub-Saharan Africa. This investment has generated significant health gains, but much less is known about PEPFAR's population-level economic effects. We used a difference-in-differences approach to compare employment trends between ten countries that received a large amount of PEPFAR funding (focus countries) and eleven countries that received little or no funding (control countries). We found that PEPFAR was associated with a 13 percent differential increase in employment among males in focus countries, compared to control countries. However, we observed no change in employment among females. In addition, we found that increasing PEPFAR per capita funding by $100 was associated with a 9.1-percentage-point increase in employment among males. This rise in employment generates economic benefits equal to half of PEPFAR's cost. These findings suggest that PEPFAR's economic impact should be taken into account when making aid allocation decisions. Project HOPE—The People-to-People Health Foundation, Inc.

  5. Employment of people with disabilities: Implications for HR management practices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    P. Gida

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to, firstly, present the findings of an empirical study in which the human resource management practices associated with the employment of people with disabilities were investigated. The human resource management challenges related to employment of people with disabilities were also identified in the empirical study and are presented in this paper. A further purpose of this paper is to propose a number of recommendations focused on human resource management practices and principles aimed at assisting managers and human resource management specialists in their endeavours to effectively deal with the employment of people with disabilities. Design/Methodology/Approach: This paper is based on an empirical study in which interviews were conducted with respondents from 19 different organisations identified in the Financial Mail's 'Top 100 Organisations in South Africa' list. Findings: The findings from the empirical study suggest that very few organisations are dealing with the employment of people with disabilities as a priority in their equity strategies. Where attention is being given to this issue, respondents seem to either address it as a legal compliance issue or a social responsibility 'project'. Furthermore, very little has been done to review current human resource management practices to determine whether they are discriminatory towards people with disabilities. Based on the insights gained from these findings and in line with best practice principles identified in the relevant literature, a number of recommendations focusing on human resource management practices and principles in relation to the employment of people with disabilities are proposed. Implications: This paper provides a number of practical steps to consider as part of an organisation's response to equity strategies related to the employment of people with disabilities. Originality/Value: In the Employment Equity Commission's Annual Report

  6. In Tight Employment Market, Career Services Gain Clout

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lipka, Sara

    2008-01-01

    Today, more and more students and parents are asking whether college is about getting education or getting a job. The stakes these days are especially high. Tuition and student-loan debt have risen to record levels, while the economy has slowed. In a competitive market, a college degree is no longer the golden ticket to a professional career. Due…

  7. The Vehicle Integrated Performance Analysis Experience: Reconnecting With Technical Integration

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGhee, D. S.

    2006-01-01

    Very early in the Space Launch Initiative program, a small team of engineers at MSFC proposed a process for performing system-level assessments of a launch vehicle. Aimed primarily at providing insight and making NASA a smart buyer, the Vehicle Integrated Performance Analysis (VIPA) team was created. The difference between the VIPA effort and previous integration attempts is that VIPA a process using experienced people from various disciplines, which focuses them on a technically integrated assessment. The foundations of VIPA s process are described. The VIPA team also recognized the need to target early detailed analysis toward identifying significant systems issues. This process is driven by the T-model for technical integration. VIPA s approach to performing system-level technical integration is discussed in detail. The VIPA process significantly enhances the development and monitoring of realizable project requirements. VIPA s assessment validates the concept s stated performance, identifies significant issues either with the concept or the requirements, and then reintegrates these issues to determine impacts. This process is discussed along with a description of how it may be integrated into a program s insight and review process. The VIPA process has gained favor with both engineering and project organizations for being responsive and insightful

  8. Investigation of properties of novel silicon pixel assemblies employing thin n-in-p sensors and 3D-integration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Weigell, Philipp

    2013-01-01

    Until the end of the 2020 decade the LHC programme will be defining the high energy frontier of particle physics. During this time, three upgrade steps of the accelerator are currently planned to further increase the luminosity and energy reach. In the course of these upgrades the specifications of several parts of the current LHC detectors will be exceeded. Especially, the innermost tracking detectors are challenged by the increasing track densities and the radiation damage. This thesis focuses on the implications for the ATLAS experiment. Here, around 2021/2, after having collected an integrated luminosity of around 300 fb -1 , the silicon and gas detector components of the inner tracker will reach the end of their lifetime and will need to be replaced to ensure sufficient performance for continued running - especially if the luminosity is raised to about 5 x 10 35 cm -2 s -1 as currently planned. An all silicon inner detector is foreseen to be installed. This upgrade demands cost effective pixel assemblies with a minimal material budget, a larger active area fraction as compared to the current detectors, and a higher granularity. Furthermore, the assemblies must be able to withstand received fluences up to 2 . 10 16 n eq /cm 2 . A new pixel assembly concept answering the challenges posed by the high instantaneous luminosities is investigated in this thesis. It employs five novel technologies, namely n-in-p pixel sensors, thin pixel sensors, slim edges with or without implanted sensor sides, and 3D-integration incorporating a new interconnection technology, named Solid Liquid InterDiffusion (SLID) as well as Inter-Chip-Vias (ICVs). n-in-p sensors are cost-effective, since they only need patterned processing on one side. Their performance before and after irradiation is investigated and compared to results obtained with currently used n-in-n sensors. Reducing the thickness of the sensors lowers the amount of multiple scattering within the tracking system and leads

  9. Investigation of properties of novel silicon pixel assemblies employing thin n-in-p sensors and 3D-integration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Weigell, Philipp

    2013-01-15

    Until the end of the 2020 decade the LHC programme will be defining the high energy frontier of particle physics. During this time, three upgrade steps of the accelerator are currently planned to further increase the luminosity and energy reach. In the course of these upgrades the specifications of several parts of the current LHC detectors will be exceeded. Especially, the innermost tracking detectors are challenged by the increasing track densities and the radiation damage. This thesis focuses on the implications for the ATLAS experiment. Here, around 2021/2, after having collected an integrated luminosity of around 300 fb{sup -1}, the silicon and gas detector components of the inner tracker will reach the end of their lifetime and will need to be replaced to ensure sufficient performance for continued running - especially if the luminosity is raised to about 5 x 10{sup 35} cm{sup -2}s{sup -1} as currently planned. An all silicon inner detector is foreseen to be installed. This upgrade demands cost effective pixel assemblies with a minimal material budget, a larger active area fraction as compared to the current detectors, and a higher granularity. Furthermore, the assemblies must be able to withstand received fluences up to 2 . 10{sup 16} n{sub eq}/cm{sup 2}. A new pixel assembly concept answering the challenges posed by the high instantaneous luminosities is investigated in this thesis. It employs five novel technologies, namely n-in-p pixel sensors, thin pixel sensors, slim edges with or without implanted sensor sides, and 3D-integration incorporating a new interconnection technology, named Solid Liquid InterDiffusion (SLID) as well as Inter-Chip-Vias (ICVs). n-in-p sensors are cost-effective, since they only need patterned processing on one side. Their performance before and after irradiation is investigated and compared to results obtained with currently used n-in-n sensors. Reducing the thickness of the sensors lowers the amount of multiple scattering

  10. Solution-processed p-type copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) for low-voltage flexible thin-film transistors and integrated inverter circuits

    KAUST Repository

    Petti, Luisa

    2017-03-17

    We report on low operating voltage thin-film transistors (TFTs) and integrated inverters based on copper(I) thiocyanate (CuSCN) layers processed from solution at low temperature on free-standing plastic foils. As-fabricated coplanar bottom-gate and staggered top-gate TFTs exhibit hole-transporting characteristics with average mobility values of 0.0016 cm2 V−1 s−1 and 0.013 cm2 V−1 s−1, respectively, current on/off ratio in the range 102–104, and maximum operating voltages between −3.5 and −10 V, depending on the gate dielectric employed. The promising TFT characteristics enable fabrication of unipolar NOT gates on flexible free-standing plastic substrates with voltage gain of 3.4 at voltages as low as −3.5 V. Importantly, discrete CuSCN transistors and integrated logic inverters remain fully functional even when mechanically bent to a tensile radius of 4 mm, demonstrating the potential of the technology for flexible electronics.

  11. The limitations of employment as a tool for social inclusion

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Broom Dorothy H

    2010-10-01

    Full Text Available Abstract Background One important component of social inclusion is the improvement of well-being through encouraging participation in employment and work life. However, the ways that employment contributes to wellbeing are complex. This study investigates how poor health status might act as a barrier to gaining good quality work, and how good quality work is an important pre-requisite for positive health outcomes. Methods This study uses data from the PATH Through Life Project, analysing baseline and follow-up data on employment status, psychosocial job quality, and mental and physical health status from 4261 people in the Canberra and Queanbeyan region of south-eastern Australia. Longitudinal analyses conducted across the two time points investigated patterns of change in employment circumstances and associated changes in physical and mental health status. Results Those who were unemployed and those in poor quality jobs (characterised by insecurity, low marketability and job strain were more likely to remain in these circumstances than to move to better working conditions. Poor quality jobs were associated with poorer physical and mental health status than better quality work, with the health of those in the poorest quality jobs comparable to that of the unemployed. For those who were unemployed at baseline, pre-existing health status predicted employment transition. Those respondents who moved from unemployment into poor quality work experienced an increase in depressive symptoms compared to those who moved into good quality work. Conclusions This evidence underlines the difficulty of moving from unemployment into good quality work and highlights the need for social inclusion policies to consider people's pre-existing health conditions and promote job quality.

  12. A high gain energy amplifier operated with fast neutrons

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Rubbia, C. [CERN, Geneva (Switzerland)

    1995-10-01

    The basic concept and the main practical considerations of an Energy Amplifier (EA) have been exhaustively described elsewhere. Here the concept of the EA is further explored and additional schemes are described which offer a higher gain, a larger maximum power density and an extended burn-up. All these benefits stem from the use of fast neutrons, instead of thermal or epithermal ones, which was the case in the original study. The higher gain is due both to a more efficient high energy target configuration and to a larger, practical value of the multiplication factor. The higher power density results from the higher permissible neutron flux, which in turn is related to the reduced rate of {sup 233}Pa neutron captures (which, as is well known, suppress the formation of the fissile {sup 233}U fuel) and the much smaller k variations after switch-off due to {sup 233}Pa decays for a given burn-up rate. Finally a longer integrated burn-up is made possible by reduced capture rate by fission fragments of fast neutrons. In practice a 20 MW proton beam (20 mA @ 1 GeV) accelerated by a cyclotron will suffice to operate a compact EA at the level of {approx} 1 GW{sub e}. The integrated fuel burn-up can be extended in excess of 100 GW d/ton, limited by the mechanical survival of the fuel elements. Radio-Toxicity accumulated at the end of the cycle is found to be largely inferior to the one of an ordinary Reactor for the same energy produced. Schemes are proposed which make a {open_quotes}melt-down{close_quotes} virtually impossible. The conversion ratio, namely the rate of production of {sup 233}U relative to consumption is generally larger than unity, which permits production of fuel for other uses. Alternatively the neutron excess can be used to transform unwanted {open_quotes}ashes{close_quotes} into more acceptable elements.

  13. Development and Integration of Professional Core Values Among Practicing Clinicians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGinnis, Patricia Quinn; Guenther, Lee Ann; Wainwright, Susan F

    2016-09-01

    The physical therapy profession has adopted professional core values, which define expected values for its members, and developed a self-assessment tool with sample behaviors for each of the 7 core values. However, evidence related to the integration of these core values into practice is limited. The aims of this study were: (1) to gain insight into physical therapists' development of professional core values and (2) to gain insight into participants' integration of professional core values into clinical practice. A qualitative design permitted in-depth exploration of the development and integration of the American Physical Therapy Association's professional core values into physical therapist practice. Twenty practicing physical therapists were purposefully selected to explore the role of varied professional, postprofessional, and continuing education experiences related to exposure to professional values. The Core Values Self-Assessment and résumé sort served as prompts for reflection via semistructured interviews. Three themes were identified: (1) personal values were the foundation for developing professional values, which were further shaped by academic and clinical experiences, (2) core values were integrated into practice independent of practice setting and varied career paths, and (3) participants described the following professional core values as well integrated into their practice: integrity, compassion/caring, and accountability. Social responsibility was an area consistently identified as not being integrated into their practice. The Core Values Self-Assessment tool is a consensus-based document developed through a Delphi process. Future studies to establish reliability and construct validity of the tool may be warranted. Gaining an in-depth understanding of how practicing clinicians incorporate professional core values into clinical practice may shed light on the relationship between core values mastery and its impact on patient care. Findings may

  14. Educational Pathways to Remote Employment in Isolated Communities

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    David Denkenberger

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available Those who live in isolated communities often lack reliable, skilled employment opportunities, which fundamentally undermines their human security. For individuals who wish to remain in their isolated communities for family, religious, philosophical or other reasons, their attachment to their communities creates a disincentive for higher education. This promotes low educational achievement, which in turn results in low socioeconomic status, lack of social mobility, and a generational cycle of poverty. The human misery that results from such a feedback loop is observed in isolated communities throughout North America, including aboriginal communities in Canada. Fortunately, maturation of information and communication technologies now offers individuals the potential to gain high-skilled employment while living in an isolated community, using both (i virtual work/remote work and (ii remote training and education. To examine that potential, this study: 1 categorizes high-skill careers that demand a higher education and are widely viable for remote work, 2 examines options for obtaining the required education remotely, and 3 performs an economic analysis of investing in remote education, quantifying the results in return on investment. The results show that the Internet has now opened up the possibility of both remote education and remote work. Though the investment in college education is significant, there are loans available and the return on investment is generally far higher than the interest rate on the loans. The results identified several particularly promising majors and dozens of high-income careers. The ability to both obtain an education and employment remotely offers the potential to lift many people living in isolated communities out of poverty, reduce inequality overall, and provide those living in isolated communities with viable means of employment security, which not only allows personal sustainability, but also the potential for

  15. Integrating Employability into Degree Programmes Using Consultancy Projects as a Form of Enterprise

    Science.gov (United States)

    O'Leary, Simon

    2015-01-01

    This paper reports on an assessment of how enterprise initiatives develop graduate employability attributes, exploring the use of client consultancy projects as a platform for such enterprise provision in higher education. The study was based on reviews of recent literature and an appraisal of an institutional initiative using live projects as an…

  16. Information Integration Architecture Development

    OpenAIRE

    Faulkner, Stéphane; Kolp, Manuel; Nguyen, Duy Thai; Coyette, Adrien; Do, Thanh Tung; 16th International Conference on Software Engineering and Knowledge Engineering

    2004-01-01

    Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) architectures are gaining popularity for building open, distributed, and evolving software required by systems such as information integration applications. Unfortunately, despite considerable work in software architecture during the last decade, few research efforts have aimed at truly defining patterns and languages for designing such multiagent architectures. We propose a modern approach based on organizational structures and architectural description lan...

  17. An offset tone based gain stabilization technique for mixed-signal RF measurement systems

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Joshi, Gopal, E-mail: gjos@barc.gov.in [BARC, Mumbai 400085 (India); Motiwala, Paresh D.; Randale, G.D.; Singh, Pitamber [BARC, Mumbai 400085 (India); Agarwal, Vivek; Kumar, Girish [IIT Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076 (India)

    2015-09-21

    This paper describes a gain stabilization technique for a RF signal measurement system. A sinusoidal signal of known amplitude, phase and close enough in frequency is added to the main, to be measured RF signal at the input of the analog section. The system stabilizes this offset tone in the digital domain, as it is sampled at the output of the analog section. This process generates a correction factor needed to stabilize the magnitude of the gain of the analog section for the main RF signal. With the help of a simple calibration procedure, the absolute amplitude of the main RF signal can be measured. The technique is especially suited for a system that processes signals around a single frequency, employs direct signal conversion into the digital domain, and processes subsequent steps in an FPGA. The inherent parallel signal processing in an FPGA-based implementation allows a real time stabilization of the gain. The effectiveness of the technique is derived from the fact, that the gain stabilization stamped to the main RF signal measurement branch requires only a few components in the system to be inherently stable. A test setup, along with experimental results is presented from the field of RF instrumentation for particle accelerators. Due to the availability of a phase synchronized RF reference signal in these systems, the measured phase difference between the main RF and the RF reference is also stabilized using this technique. A scheme of the signal processing is presented, where a moving average filter has been used to filter out not only the unwanted frequencies, but also to separate the main RF signal from the offset tone signal. This is achieved by a suitable choice of sampling and offset tone frequencies. The presented signal processing scheme is suitable to a variety of RF measurement applications.

  18. The effect of holiday weight gain on body weight.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schoeller, Dale A

    2014-07-01

    The topic of holiday weight gain has been a frequent subject of the lay media; however, scientific interest has only been recent. Multiple studies in Western societies have reported average weight gains among adults during the period between mid-November and mid-January that were about 0.5 kg. The range in individual weight changes was large, however, and the already overweight and obese gain more weight than those who are healthy weight. When the average gain across the year was also measured, the holiday weight was the major contributor to annual excess weight gain. Efforts patterned to increase awareness to energy balance and body weight have been shown to be successful at reducing such gain. An exception to holiday weight gain being a major contributor to annual excess gain has been children, in whom summer weight gains have been observed to be the major contributor to average excess weight gain. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  19. Design of a low noise distributed amplifier with adjustable gain control in 0.15 μm GaAs PHEMT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zhang Ying; Wang Zhigong; Xu Jian; Luo Yin

    2012-01-01

    A low noise distributed amplifier consisting of 9 gain cells is presented. The chip is fabricated with 0.15-μm GaAs pseudomorphic high electron mobility transistor (PHEMT) technology from Win Semiconductor of Taiwan. A special optional gate bias technique is introduced to allow an adjustable gain control range of 10 dB. A novel cascode structure is adopted to extend the output voltage and bandwidth. The measurement results show that the amplifier gives an average gain of 15 dB with a gain flatness of ±1 dB in the 2–20 GHz band. The noise figure is between 2 and 4.1 dB during the band from 2 to 20 GHz. The amplifier also provides 13.8 dBm of output power at a 1 dB gain compression point and 10.5 dBm of input third order intercept point (IIP3), which demonstrates the excellent performance of linearity. The power consumption is 300 mW with a supply of 5 V, and the chip area is 2.36 × 1.01 mm 2 . (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  20. 75 FR 3168 - Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program-Self-Employment

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-01-20

    ... Employment Program--Self-Employment AGENCY: Department of Veterans Affairs. ACTION: Final rule. SUMMARY: This document amends the vocational rehabilitation and employment regulations of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concerning self-employment for individuals with qualifying disabilities. We are making...

  1. Gaining Access to Hidden Populations: Strategies for Gaining Cooperation of Drug Sellers/Dealers and Their Families in Ethnographic Research

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dunlap, Eloise; Johnson, Bruce D.

    2009-01-01

    Summary This article examines strategies for gaining the cooperation of drug sellers and their families in order to conduct ethnographic research. The strategies were developed during an eight year study of drug dealers in New York City. A key element in gaining the ability to talk with and observe drug dealers and their family members was the availability of funds to compensate respondents for interviews and other expenses associated with building and maintaining rapport. Access to more successful crack sellers and dealers rested upon the right contacts. The “right contact” is a critical element. Locating a trusted “go-between” was adapted from strategies employed by cocaine sellers to arrange transactions involving large quantities of drugs. Such transactions rely upon a trusted associate of a dealer, the “go-between,” who performs various roles and assumes risks the dealer wishes to avoid. The role of the go-between became important when ethnographers attempted to reach drug dealers for research purposes. Favors and trust are central components in the equation of access to the dealer and his family. Favors are a part of drug dealers' interaction patterns: everyone owes someone else a favor. Such reciprocity norms exist independently of the amount of drugs involved and outlast any particular transaction. Reputations and favors are related. This framework of favors, trust, and reciprocity provides a basis for the ethnographer to gain an introduction to dealers and sellers. The “go-between” is critical because he/she explains the ethnographer's role to the dealer and helps arrange an initial meeting between the ethnographer and the seller. Once the go-between has provided an initial introduction, the ethnographer marshals the communication skills necessary to convince the dealer to allow further contact and conversations. This article examines the ritual of initial conversation within its cultural framework. Developing rapport requires showing

  2. Personality type influence the gestational weight gain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Franik, Grzegorz; Lipka, Nela; Kopyto, Katarzyna; Kopocińska, Joanna; Owczarek, Aleksander; Sikora, Jerzy; Madej, Paweł; Chudek, Jerzy; Olszanecka-Glinianowicz, Magdalena

    2017-08-01

    Pregnancy is frequently followed by the development of obesity. Aside from psychological factors, hormonal changes influence weight gain in pregnant women. We attempted to assess the potential association between personality type and the extent of gestational weight gain. The study group involved 773 women after term delivery (age 26.3 ± 3.9 years, body mass before pregnancy 61.2 ± 11.1 kg). Weight gain during pregnancy was calculated by using self-reported body mass prior to and during the 38th week of pregnancy. Personality type was assessed using the Polish version of the Framingham Type A Behavior Patterns Questionnaire (adapted by Juczynski). Two hundred forty-six (31.8%) study subjects represented type A personalities, 272 (35.2%) type B and 255 (33.0%) an indirect type. Gestational weight gain was related to the behavior patterns questionnaire score and age. In women gain was higher than in women with type B behavior of the same age. In women >30, the gestational weight gain was larger for type B personalities. Type A personality and increased urgency in younger pregnant women increases the risk of developing obesity during pregnancy in women below 30 years old. A higher level of competitiveness demonstrates a risk factor of excessive weight gain during pregnancy regardless of age.

  3. Intrinsic gain modulation and adaptive neural coding.

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sungho Hong

    2008-07-01

    Full Text Available In many cases, the computation of a neural system can be reduced to a receptive field, or a set of linear filters, and a thresholding function, or gain curve, which determines the firing probability; this is known as a linear/nonlinear model. In some forms of sensory adaptation, these linear filters and gain curve adjust very rapidly to changes in the variance of a randomly varying driving input. An apparently similar but previously unrelated issue is the observation of gain control by background noise in cortical neurons: the slope of the firing rate versus current (f-I curve changes with the variance of background random input. Here, we show a direct correspondence between these two observations by relating variance-dependent changes in the gain of f-I curves to characteristics of the changing empirical linear/nonlinear model obtained by sampling. In the case that the underlying system is fixed, we derive relationships relating the change of the gain with respect to both mean and variance with the receptive fields derived from reverse correlation on a white noise stimulus. Using two conductance-based model neurons that display distinct gain modulation properties through a simple change in parameters, we show that coding properties of both these models quantitatively satisfy the predicted relationships. Our results describe how both variance-dependent gain modulation and adaptive neural computation result from intrinsic nonlinearity.

  4. A Wideband High-Gain Dual-Polarized Slot Array Patch Antenna for WiMAX Applications in 5.8 GHz

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amir Reza Dastkhosh

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available A low-cost, easy-to-fabricate, wideband and high-gain dual-polarized array antenna employing an innovative microstrip slot patch antenna element is designed and fabricated. The design parameters of the antenna are optimized using commercial softwares (Microwave Office and Zeland IE3D to get the suitable -parameters and radiation patterns. Finally, the simulation results are compared to the experimental ones and a good agreement is demonstrated. The antenna has an approximately bandwidth of 14% (5.15–5.9 GHz which covers Worldwide Interoperability Microwave Access (WiMAX/5.8. It also has the peak gain of 26 dBi for both polarizations and high isolation between two ports over a wide bandwidth.

  5. Employment specialist competencies for supported employment programs

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Corbière, M.; Brouwers, E.P.M.; Lanctôt, N.; van Weeghel, J.

    2014-01-01

    Purpose Supported employment (SE) programs are evidence-based programs offered to people with severe mental illness to facilitate obtaining and keeping competitive work. However, significant variations in individuals’ vocational success may be partly explained by differences in their employment

  6. IQ Gains in Argentina between 1964 and 1998

    Science.gov (United States)

    Flynn, James R.; Rossi-Case, Lilia

    2012-01-01

    The literature on IQ gains in Latin America is sparse. We estimate gains on Raven's Progressive Matrices in the city of La Plata (Argentina) between 1964 and 1998. The gains are robust at the top of the curve as well as at the bottom. Therefore, they are contrary to the hypothesis that nutrition played a major role in recent Argentine IQ gains.…

  7. The Role of Embeddedness for Resource Integration

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Laud, Gaurangi; Karpen, Ingo O.; Muyle, Rajendra

    2015-01-01

    Marketing research highlights the importance of actors’ relationships as mechanisms for integrating resources. With its roots in sociology, the concept of embeddedness has gained prominence in the literature on organizations, providing in-depth insight into how relational structures regulate...

  8. Loss restlessness and gain calmness: durable effects of losses and gains on choice switching.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yechiam, Eldad; Zahavi, Gal; Arditi, Eli

    2015-08-01

    While the traditional conceptualization of the effect of losses focuses on bias in the subjective weight of losses compared with respective gains, some accounts suggest more global task-related effects of losses. Based on a recent attentional theory, we predicted a positive after-effect of losses on choice switching in later tasks. In two experimental studies, we found increased choice switching rates in tasks with losses compared to tasks with no losses. Additionally, this heightened shifting behavior was maintained in subsequent tasks that do not include losses, a phenomenon we refer to as "loss restlessness." Conversely, gains were found to have an opposite "calming" effect on choice switching. Surprisingly, the loss restlessness phenomenon was observed following an all-losses payoff regime but not after a task with symmetric mixed gains and losses. This suggests that the unresolved mental account following an all-losses regime increases search behavior. Potential implications to macro level phenomena, such as the leverage effect, are discussed.

  9. Breastfeeding and employment: an assessment of employer attitudes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Libbus, M Kay; Bullock, Linda F C

    2002-08-01

    Both research and anecdotal reports suggest that maternal employment is associated with failure to initiate breastfeeding and early breastfeeding attrition. The objective of this study was to describe the experience with and attitudes toward breastfeeding of a sample of employers in a small Midwestern city in the United States. Based on an analysis of 85 mail-out questionnaires, we found that less than half of the employers had personal experience with breastfeeding. A large percentage of the sample, however, indicated that they would be willing to facilitate women who wished to breastfeed or express milk in the workplace. However, these employers also stated that they saw little value to their business of supporting breastfeeding in the work environment. Thus, enhancement of breastfeeding opportunity in the work environment may come as a result of public and employer education but, more likely, will require some type of directive from official sources.

  10. A participatory supportive return to work program for workers without an employment contract, sick-listed due to a common mental disorder: an economic evaluation alongside a randomized controlled trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lammerts, Lieke; van Dongen, Johanna M; Schaafsma, Frederieke G; van Mechelen, Willem; Anema, Johannes R

    2017-02-02

    Mental disorders are associated with high costs for productivity loss, sickness absence and unemployment. A participatory supportive return to work (RTW) program was developed in order to improve RTW among workers without an employment contract, sick-listed due to a common mental disorder. The program contained a participatory approach, integrated care and direct placement in a competitive job. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness and cost-utility of this new program, compared to usual care. In addition, its return on investment was evaluated. An economic evaluation was conducted alongside a 12-month randomized controlled trial. A total of 186 participants was randomly allocated to the new program (n = 94) or to usual care (n = 92). Effect measures were the duration until sustainable RTW in competitive employment and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained. Costs included intervention costs, medical costs and absenteeism costs. Registered data of the Dutch Social Security Agency were used to assess the duration until sustainable RTW, intervention costs and absenteeism costs. QALYs and medical costs were assessed using three- or six-monthly questionnaires. Missing data were imputed using multiple imputations. Cost-effectiveness analysis and cost-utility analysis were conducted from the societal perspective. A return on investment analysis was conducted from the social insurer's perspective. Various sensitivity analyses were performed to assess the robustness of the results. The new program had no significant effect on the duration until sustainable RTW and QALYs gained. Intervention costs and medical costs were significantly higher in the intervention group. From the societal perspective, the maximum probability of cost-effectiveness for duration until sustainable RTW was 0.64 at a willingness to pay of about €10 000/day, and 0.27 for QALYs gained, regardless of the willingness to pay. From the social insurer's perspective, the

  11. Fluorescence-enhanced optical imaging in large tissue volumes using a gain-modulated ICCD camera

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Godavarty, Anuradha; Eppstein, Margaret J; Zhang, Chaoyang; Theru, Sangeeta; Thompson, Alan B; Gurfinkel, Michael; Sevick-Muraca, Eva M

    2003-01-01

    A novel image-intensified charge-coupled device (ICCD) imaging system has been developed to perform 3D fluorescence tomographic imaging in the frequency-domain using near-infrared contrast agents. The imager is unique since it (i) employs a large tissue-mimicking phantom, which is shaped and sized to resemble a female breast and part of the extended chest-wall region, and (ii) enables rapid data acquisition in the frequency-domain by using a gain-modulated ICCD camera. Diffusion model predictions are compared to experimental measurements using two different referencing schemes under two different experimental conditions of perfect and imperfect uptake of fluorescent agent into a target. From these experimental measurements, three-dimensional images of fluorescent absorption were reconstructed using a computationally efficient variant of the approximate extended Kalman filter algorithm. The current work represents the first time that 3D fluorescence-enhanced optical tomographic reconstructions have been achieved from experimental measurements of the time-dependent light propagation on a clinically relevant breast-shaped tissue phantom using a gain-modulated ICCD camera

  12. The s-Ordered Fock Space Projectors Gained by the General Ordering Theorem

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shähandeh Farid; Bazrafkan Mohammad Reza; Ashrafi Mahmoud

    2012-01-01

    Employing the general ordering theorem (GOT), operational methods and incomplete 2-D Hermite polynomials, we derive the t-ordered expansion of Fock space projectors. Using the result, the general ordered form of the coherent state projectors is obtained. This indeed gives a new integration formula regarding incomplete 2-D Hermite polynomials. In addition, the orthogonality relation of the incomplete 2-D Hermite polynomials is derived to resolve Dattoli's failure

  13. Teachers' Perceptions of Technology Integration in a Unified School District

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bloodman, Suzette L.

    2014-01-01

    A unified school district (USD) continues to invest millions of dollars into its technology integration initiatives with minimal academic gains. Since teachers are essential to effective technology integration, the purpose of this phenomenological study was to analyze the perceptions of 13 teachers within the USD relative to how they could more…

  14. Boost Converter with Three-State Switching Cell and Integrated Magnetics

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Klimczak, Pawel; Munk-Nielsen, Stig

    2009-01-01

    Fuel cell systems often require high voltage gain and dc-dc step-up converter is a critical part. Scope of this paper is integration of inductor and transformer on a single core. Usage of integrated magnetics improves utilization of magnetic core and thus size and weight of the converter may...

  15. Central gain control in tinnitus and hyperacusis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Benjamin D Auerbach

    2014-10-01

    Full Text Available Sensorineural hearing loss induced by noise or ototoxic drug exposure reduces the neural activity transmitted from the cochlea to the central auditory system. Despite a reduced cochlear output, neural activity from more central auditory structures is paradoxically enhanced at suprathreshold intensities. This compensatory increase in the central auditory activity in response to the loss of sensory input is referred to as central gain enhancement. Enhanced central gain is hypothesized to be a potential mechanism that gives rise to hyperacusis and tinnitus, two debilitating auditory perceptual disorders that afflict millions of individuals. This review will examine the evidence for gain enhancement in the central auditory system in response to cochlear damage. Further, it will address the potential cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this enhancement and discuss the contribution of central gain enhancement to tinnitus and hyperacusis. Current evidence suggests that multiple mechanisms with distinct temporal and spectral profiles are likely to contribute to central gain enhancement. Dissecting the contributions of these different mechanisms at different levels of the central auditory system is essential for elucidating the role of central gain enhancement in tinnitus and hyperacusis and, most importantly, the development of novel treatments for these disorders.

  16. Central Gain Control in Tinnitus and Hyperacusis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Auerbach, Benjamin D.; Rodrigues, Paulo V.; Salvi, Richard J.

    2014-01-01

    Sensorineural hearing loss induced by noise or ototoxic drug exposure reduces the neural activity transmitted from the cochlea to the central auditory system. Despite a reduced cochlear output, neural activity from more central auditory structures is paradoxically enhanced at suprathreshold intensities. This compensatory increase in the central auditory activity in response to the loss of sensory input is referred to as central gain enhancement. Enhanced central gain is hypothesized to be a potential mechanism that gives rise to hyperacusis and tinnitus, two debilitating auditory perceptual disorders that afflict millions of individuals. This review will examine the evidence for gain enhancement in the central auditory system in response to cochlear damage. Further, it will address the potential cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this enhancement and discuss the contribution of central gain enhancement to tinnitus and hyperacusis. Current evidence suggests that multiple mechanisms with distinct temporal and spectral profiles are likely to contribute to central gain enhancement. Dissecting the contributions of these different mechanisms at different levels of the central auditory system is essential for elucidating the role of central gain enhancement in tinnitus and hyperacusis and, most importantly, the development of novel treatments for these disorders. PMID:25386157

  17. Planar-integrated single-crystalline perovskite photodetectors

    KAUST Repository

    Saidaminov, Makhsud I.

    2015-11-09

    Hybrid perovskites are promising semiconductors for optoelectronic applications. However, they suffer from morphological disorder that limits their optoelectronic properties and, ultimately, device performance. Recently, perovskite single crystals have been shown to overcome this problem and exhibit impressive improvements: low trap density, low intrinsic carrier concentration, high mobility, and long diffusion length that outperform perovskite-based thin films. These characteristics make the material ideal for realizing photodetection that is simultaneously fast and sensitive; unfortunately, these macroscopic single crystals cannot be grown on a planar substrate, curtailing their potential for optoelectronic integration. Here we produce large-area planar-integrated films made up of large perovskite single crystals. These crystalline films exhibit mobility and diffusion length comparable with those of single crystals. Using this technique, we produced a high-performance light detector showing high gain (above 104 electrons per photon) and high gain-bandwidth product (above 108 Hz) relative to other perovskite-based optical sensors.

  18. Integrated Microwave Photonics

    OpenAIRE

    Marpaung, David; Roeloffzen, Chris; Heideman, René; Leinse, Arne; Sales Maicas, Salvador; Capmany Francoy, José

    2013-01-01

    Microwave photonics (MWP) is an emerging field in which radio frequency (RF) signals are generated, distributed, processed and analyzed using the strength of photonic techniques. It is a technology that enables various functionalities which are not feasible to achieve only in the microwave domain. A particular aspect that recently gains significant interests is the use of photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology in the MWP field for enhanced functionalities and robustness as well as the r...

  19. Fast Estimation of Expected Information Gain for Bayesian Experimental Design Based on Laplace Approximation

    KAUST Repository

    Long, Quan; Scavino, Marco; Tempone, Raul; Wang, Suojin

    2014-01-01

    Shannon-type expected information gain is an important utility in evaluating the usefulness of a proposed experiment that involves uncertainty. Its estimation, however, cannot rely solely on Monte Carlo sampling methods, that are generally too computationally expensive for realistic physical models, especially for those involving the solution of stochastic partial differential equations. In this work we present a new methodology, based on the Laplace approximation of the posterior probability density function, to accelerate the estimation of expected information gain in the model parameters and predictive quantities of interest. Furthermore, in order to deal with the issue of dimensionality in a complex problem, we use sparse quadratures for the integration over the prior. We show the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method via several nonlinear numerical examples, including a single parameter design of one dimensional cubic polynomial function and the current pattern for impedance tomography.

  20. Fast Estimation of Expected Information Gain for Bayesian Experimental Design Based on Laplace Approximation

    KAUST Repository

    Long, Quan

    2014-01-06

    Shannon-type expected information gain is an important utility in evaluating the usefulness of a proposed experiment that involves uncertainty. Its estimation, however, cannot rely solely on Monte Carlo sampling methods, that are generally too computationally expensive for realistic physical models, especially for those involving the solution of stochastic partial differential equations. In this work we present a new methodology, based on the Laplace approximation of the posterior probability density function, to accelerate the estimation of expected information gain in the model parameters and predictive quantities of interest. Furthermore, in order to deal with the issue of dimensionality in a complex problem, we use sparse quadratures for the integration over the prior. We show the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed method via several nonlinear numerical examples, including a single parameter design of one dimensional cubic polynomial function and the current pattern for impedance tomography.

  1. Variable Structure PID Control to Prevent Integrator Windup

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hall, C. E.; Hodel, A. S.; Hung, J. Y.

    1999-01-01

    PID controllers are frequently used to control systems requiring zero steady-state error while maintaining requirements for settling time and robustness (gain/phase margins). PID controllers suffer significant loss of performance due to short-term integrator wind-up when used in systems with actuator saturation. We examine several existing and proposed methods for the prevention of integrator wind-up in both continuous and discrete time implementations.

  2. LABOUR MARKET INTEGRATION ISSUES RELATED TO MIGRANTS ARRIVING TO HUNGARY

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Miklos Komives

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available The migration flows appearing in the recent years have gained central relevance in Hungary. Previously people were having no opinion about the current situation of issues related to migration but the increased media attention lead to the development of mixed attitudes among people. Some people feel sorry for the families who are coming from the war zones and lost their homes, others have fear of losing their position at work, or their families because of the acts they have heard from the media and they are hostile to the issue of integration whether it is about education or the labour market. According to the statistical data; in the third quarter of 2015, more than hundred thousand asylum-seekers arrived to Hungary, which dropped drastically in the fourth quarter caused by the significant transformation of the asylum process. This study is intended to serve two objectives: first describe the comprehensive picture of labour market attitudes towards migrants and secondly to identify factors that affect the employment of foreigners in Hungary using secondary data sources. Based on this analysis those questions can be formulated, which may constitute a basis for further labour market researches for the integration of migrants. From our point of view there are vital aspects of the migrants’ successful social integration; we have to integrate the migrants who are coming to our country and plan to stay for a longer time to the field of education and the labour market. The social integration of migrants in a country is closely linked to employment, to the integration into the labour market, and in many cases one of the obstacles in this regard is the prejudiced behaviour and negative attitudes towards migrants which manifests itself as the discrimination in the labour market. The results of the European Commission confirm that in Hungary the ethnicity as a variable appears to be the second on the list of the most serious discrimination factors

  3. Multi-level multi-thermal-electron FDTD simulation of plasmonic interaction with semiconducting gain media: applications to plasmonic amplifiers and nano-lasers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, X; Bhola, B; Huang, Y; Ho, S T

    2010-08-02

    Interactions between a semiconducting gain medium and confined plasmon-polaritons are studied using a multilevel multi-thermal-electron finite-difference time-domain (MLMTE-FDTD) simulator. We investigated the amplification of wave propagating in a plasmonic metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) waveguide filled with semiconductor gain medium and obtained the conditions required to achieve net optical gain. The MSM gain waveguide is used to form a plasmonic semiconductor nano-ring laser(PSNRL) with an effective mode volume of 0.0071 microm3, which is about an order of magnitude smaller than the smallest demonstrated integrated photonic crystal based laser cavities. The simulation shows a lasing threshold current density of 1kA/cm2 for a 300 nm outer diameter ring cavity with 80 nm-wide ring. This current density can be realistically achieved in typical III-V semiconductor, which shows the experimental feasibility of the proposed PSNRL structure.

  4. Interviews, Disclosures, and Misperceptions: Autistic Adults' Perspectives on Employment Related Challenges

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jennifer Sarrett

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available As increasing numbers of autistic adults are seeking and gaining employment, the experiences of autistic adults in the workplace is critical to consider. Autistic adults encounter a range of challenges in obtaining and keeping employment and often report a range of negative experiences in the workplace. The current research reports the results from a large, national exploratory study on the experiences of autistic adults in the workplace as well as their thoughts on how to improve these experiences for the autism community. In particular, participants reported challenges with the interviewing process, which requires very specific and consistent social behaviors, as well as with feeling comfortable disclosing one's autistic status at work. These challenges are often connected with public misperceptions about autism. The article discusses these challenges as well as strategies to improve autism-related understanding and awareness in the workplace. This work is critical to conversations about diversity in the workplace.

  5. Measured stimulated Raman gain in methane

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lopert, R.B.

    1983-01-01

    This report is about the stimulated Raman effect in methane due to the nu 1 vibration. For various gas pressures between 150 torr and 30 atm, the Raman lineshape function was both experimentally measured and synthesized using a computer model. The stimulated Raman gain was measured by sending a pump laser beam provided by an argon-ion laser and a weak probe beam provided by a tunable dye laser through a cell of methane gas. The stimulated Raman effect caused some of the energy from the pump beam to be transferred to the probe beam. The intensity of the pump beam was low so the gain of the probe beam was on the order of parts per million. A two detector arrangement and a differential amplifier system that had a feedback loop to balance the detectors was constructed to measure the small gains. A detailed description of this detection system that was able to measure gains as small as 0.2 parts per million is provided

  6. Forecasting Construction Tender Price Index in Ghana using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average with Exogenous Variables Model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Ernest Kissi

    2018-03-01

    Full Text Available Prices of construction resources keep on fluctuating due to unstable economic situations that have been experienced over the years. Clients knowledge of their financial commitments toward their intended project remains the basis for their final decision. The use of construction tender price index provides a realistic estimate at the early stage of the project. Tender price index (TPI is influenced by various economic factors, hence there are several statistical techniques that have been employed in forecasting. Some of these include regression, time series, vector error correction among others. However, in recent times the integrated modelling approach is gaining popularity due to its ability to give powerful predictive accuracy. Thus, in line with this assumption, the aim of this study is to apply autoregressive integrated moving average with exogenous variables (ARIMAX in modelling TPI. The results showed that ARIMAX model has a better predictive ability than the use of the single approach. The study further confirms the earlier position of previous research of the need to use the integrated model technique in forecasting TPI. This model will assist practitioners to forecast the future values of tender price index. Although the study focuses on the Ghanaian economy, the findings can be broadly applicable to other developing countries which share similar economic characteristics.

  7. The Role of Part-Time Employment among Young People with a Non-University Education in Spain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Corrales-Herrero, Helena; Rodríguez-Prado, Beatriz

    2016-01-01

    For some people, a part-time job is merely an intermediate state that serves as a "stepping stone" to further employment and makes labour market integration easier. Yet, part-time work also appears in highly unstable careers. The present research aims to determine the role of part-time employment for young people with non-university…

  8. Whites but Not Blacks Gain Life Expectancy from Social Contacts

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shervin Assari

    2017-10-01

    Full Text Available Background. Recent research suggests that the health gain from economic resources and psychological assets may be systematically larger for Whites than Blacks. Aim. This study aimed to assess whether the life expectancy gain associated with social contacts over a long follow up differs for Blacks and Whites. Methods. Data came from the Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL Study, 1986–2011. The sample was a nationally representative sample of American adults 25 and older, who were followed for up to 25 years (n = 3361. Outcome was all-cause mortality. The main predictor was social contacts defined as number of regular visits with friends, relatives, and neighbors. Baseline demographics (age and gender, socioeconomic status (education, income, and employment, health behaviors (smoking and drinking, and health (chronic medical conditions, obesity, and depressive symptoms were controlled. Race was the focal moderator. Cox proportional hazard models were used in the pooled sample and based on race. Results. More social contacts predicted higher life expectancy in the pooled sample. A significant interaction was found between race and social contacts, suggesting that the protective effect of more social contacts is smaller for Blacks than Whites. In stratified models, more social contacts predicted an increased life expectancy for Whites but not Blacks. Conclusion. Social contacts increase life expectancy for White but not Black Americans. This study introduces social contacts as another social resource that differentially affects health of Whites and Blacks.

  9. Family welfare programme calls for an integrated approach.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Singh, P N

    3 phases can be identified in India's family planning program in the 4 decades since the country achieved its independence: a stage designed to improve the infrastructure of family planning; a phase of integration of different health and family welfare services; and an attempt of community involvement and universal coverage. At this time there is a widespread infrastructure and a growing awareness of family planning services. The birthrate has declined from 41.2/1000 in the 1960s to 33.3/1000 in the 1980s; the mortality rate declined from 27.4 to 14.2. The current facilities of family welfare services are inadequate, particularly in rural areas. The present provision of auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMS) at the rate of 1/5000 can cover effectively only 1/3 of eligible couples. Further, in rural areas, communication and motivational efforts are lacking as well as easy availability of personnel and medical supplies. Finally, about 40% of the rural population lives below the poverty line and have not reached the economic threshold which is essential for adoption of the small family norm. The primary issue is to deal with the problem of social development. The emphasis needs to be on an integrated and package approach to economic progress and social transformation coupled with the family planning program. The best way to bring about the needed socioeconomic change is to provide educational and gainful employment opportunities.

  10. Tuning and performance evaluation of PID controller for superheater steam temperature control of 200 MW boiler using gain phase assignment algorithm

    Science.gov (United States)

    Begum, A. Yasmine; Gireesh, N.

    2018-04-01

    In superheater, steam temperature is controlled in a cascade control loop. The cascade control loop consists of PI and PID controllers. To improve the superheater steam temperature control the controller's gains in a cascade control loop has to be tuned efficiently. The mathematical model of the superheater is derived by sets of nonlinear partial differential equations. The tuning methods taken for study here are designed for delay plus first order transfer function model. Hence from the dynamical model of the superheater, a FOPTD model is derived using frequency response method. Then by using Chien-Hrones-Reswick Tuning Algorithm and Gain-Phase Assignment Algorithm optimum controller gains has been found out based on the least value of integral time weighted absolute error.

  11. Is judicial integrity a norm?
    An inquiry into the concept of judicial integrity in England and the Netherlands

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Jonathan Soeharno

    2007-06-01

    Full Text Available Much effort is being made to safeguard judicial integrity – but what is it? In this article, two discourses on judicial integrity will be outlined: one in which judicial integrity is said to be at stake and one in which the emphasis lies on safeguarding judicial integrity. These discourses are by no means homogeneous. Not only are there considerable differences between the English and the Dutch discourses, there are also differences within each discourse regarding the use and meaning of integrity. In order to gain a better understanding of the concept, normative theory is consulted. From a rule of law perspective, integrity as the proper professional character of an official appears to be a presupposed norm. From the perspective of democracy, integrity appears as the norm that correlates with public trust. Expounding on these norms – integrity as professional character and integrity as external accountability – enables a better understanding of the discourses on judicial integrity.

  12. Temporary Employment and Perceived Employability: Mediation by Impression Management

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Cuyper, Nele; De Witte, Hans

    2010-01-01

    Perceived employability (PE) has been advanced as the upcoming resource for career development, particularly for temporary workers. The question is how temporary workers become employable. Our hypothesis is that temporary workers more than permanent workers use impression management to become employable, both on the internal and the external labor…

  13. Hospital-physician collaboration: landscape of economic integration and impact on clinical integration.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burns, Lawton Robert; Muller, Ralph W

    2008-09-01

    Hospital-physician relationships (HPRs) are an important area of academic research, given their impact on hospitals' financial success. HPRs also are at the center of several federal policy proposals such as gain sharing, bundled payments, and pay-for-performance (P4P). This article analyzes the HPRs that focus on the economic integration of hospitals and physicians and the goals that HPRs are designed to achieve. It then reviews the literature on the impact of HPRs on cost, quality, and clinical integration. The goals of the two parties in HPRs overlap only partly, and their primary aim is not reducing cost or improving quality. The evidence base for the impact of many models of economic integration is either weak or nonexistent, with only a few models of economic integration having robust effects. The relationship between economic and clinical integration also is weak and inconsistent. There are several possible reasons for this weak linkage and many barriers to further integration between hospitals and physicians. Successful HPRs may require better financial conditions for physicians, internal changes to clinical operations, application of behavioral skills to the management of HPRs, changes in how providers are paid, and systemic changes encompassing several types of integration simultaneously.

  14. Ricardian Productivity Differences and the Gains from Trade

    OpenAIRE

    Andrei A. Levchenko; Jing Zhang

    2013-01-01

    This paper evaluates the role of sectoral heterogeneity in determining the gains from trade. We first show analytically that in the presence of sectoral Ricardian comparative advantage, a one- sector sufficient statistic formula that uses total trade volumes as a share of total absorption systematically understates the true gains from trade. Greater relative sectoral productivity differences lead to larger disparities between the gains implied by the one-sector formula and the true gains. Usi...

  15. Active Microwave Metamaterials Incorporating Ideal Gain Devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hao Xin

    2010-12-01

    Full Text Available Incorporation of active devices/media such as transistors for microwave and gain media for optics may be very attractive for enabling desired low loss and broadband metamaterials. Such metamaterials can even have gain which may very well lead to new and exciting physical phenomena. We investigate microwave composite right/left-handed transmission lines (CRLH-TL incorporating ideal gain devices such as constant negative resistance. With realistic lumped element values, we have shown that the negative phase constant of this kind of transmission lines is maintained (i.e., left-handedness kept while gain can be obtained (negative attenuation constant of transmission line simultaneously. Possible implementation and challenging issues of the proposed active CRLH-TL are also discussed.

  16. How Afterschool Programs Can Support Employability through Social and Emotional Learning: A Planning Tool. Beyond the Bell: Research to Practice in the Afterschool and Expanded Learning Field

    Science.gov (United States)

    American Institutes for Research, 2015

    2015-01-01

    For educators and employers, understanding the knowledge, attitudes, and skills that ultimately contribute to success in school, work, and life is a priority. Although young people need many skills to be successful in the workplace, one aspect of employability has gained attention in recent years--the need for workers to have strong social and…

  17. Nucleus accumbens response to gains in reputation for the self relative to gains for others predicts social media use.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Meshi, Dar; Morawetz, Carmen; Heekeren, Hauke R

    2013-01-01

    Our reputation is important to us; we've experienced natural selection to care about our reputation. Recently, the neural processing of gains in reputation (positive social feedback concerning one's character) has been shown to occur in the human ventral striatum. It is still unclear, however, how individual differences in the processing of gains in reputation may lead to individual differences in real-world behavior. For example, in the real-world, one way that people currently maintain their reputation is by using social media websites, like Facebook. Furthermore, Facebook use consists of a social comparison component, where users observe others' behavior and can compare it to their own. Therefore, we hypothesized a relationship between the way the brain processes specifically self-relevant gains in reputation and one's degree of Facebook use. We recorded functional neuroimaging data while participants received gains in reputation, observed the gains in reputation of another person, or received monetary reward. We demonstrate that across participants, when responding to gains in reputation for the self, relative to observing gains for others, reward-related activity in the left nucleus accumbens predicts Facebook use. However, nucleus accumbens activity in response to monetary reward did not predict Facebook use. Finally, a control step-wise regression analysis showed that Facebook use primarily explains our results in the nucleus accumbens. Overall, our results demonstrate how individual sensitivity of the nucleus accumbens to the receipt of self-relevant social information leads to differences in real-world behavior.

  18. GPR and GPS data integration: examples of application in Antarctica

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Gandolfi

    2001-06-01

    Full Text Available Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR and Global Positioning System (GPS techniques were employed in snow accumulation studies during the Italian leg of the International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (ITASE. The acquired data were useful both for glaciological and climatological studies. This paper presents some results obtained by GPR and GPS data integration employed to determine accumulation/ablation processes along the profile of the traverse that show how the snow-sublayer thickness can vary quickly in just a few kilometres. Some examples of data integration employed in detection and characterisation of buried crevasses are also presented.

  19. It's Hard Work Learning Soft Skills: Can Client Based Projects Teach the Soft Skills Students Need and Employers Want?

    Science.gov (United States)

    McCale, Christina

    2008-01-01

    The importance of business relevance in academia coupled with an increasingly challenging job market magnifies the importance for students to be better prepared for the marketplace. Client-based projects have been lauded for helping students gain the soft skills employers look for in entry-level employees, but little research supports this…

  20. Exploring Individual and Structural Factors Associated with Employment Among Young Transgender Women of Color Using a No-Cost Transgender Legal Resource Center.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hill, Brandon J; Rosentel, Kris; Bak, Trevor; Silverman, Michael; Crosby, Richard; Salazar, Laura; Kipke, Michele

    2017-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to explore individual and structural factors associated with employment among young transgender women (TW) of color. Sixty-five trans women of color were recruited from the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund to complete a 30-min interviewer-assisted survey assessing sociodemographics, housing, workplace discrimination, job-seeking self-efficacy, self-esteem, perceived public passability, and transactional sex work. Logistic regression models revealed that stable housing (structural factor) and job-seeking self-efficacy (individual factor) were significantly associated with currently being employed. Our findings underscore the need for multilevel approaches to assist TW of color gain employment.

  1. A novel analog/digital reconfigurable automatic gain control with a novel DC offset cancellation circuit

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    He Xiaofeng; Ye Tianchun [Institute of Microelectronics, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing 100029 (China); Mo Taishan; Ma Chengyan, E-mail: hexiaofeng@casic.ac.cn [Hangzhou Zhongke Microelectronics Co, Ltd, Hangzhou 310053 (China)

    2011-02-15

    An analog/digital reconfigurable automatic gain control (AGC) circuit with a novel DC offset cancellation circuit for a direct-conversion receiver is presented. The AGC is analog/digital reconfigurable in order to be compatible with different baseband chips. What's more, a novel DC offset cancellation (DCOC) circuit with an HPCF (high pass cutoff frequency) less than 10 kHz is proposed. The AGC is fabricated by a 0.18 {mu}m CMOS process. Under analog control mode, the AGC achieves a 70 dB dynamic range with a 3 dB-bandwidth larger than 60 MHz. Under digital control mode, through a 5-bit digital control word, the AGC shows a 64 dB gain control range by 2 dB each step with a gain error of less than 0.3 dB. The DC offset cancellation circuits can suppress the output DC offset voltage to be less than 1.5 mV, while the offset voltage of 40 mV is introduced into the input. The overall power consumption is less than 3.5 mA, and the die area is 800 x 300 {mu}m{sup 2}. (semiconductor integrated circuits)

  2. On-chip photonic memory elements employing phase-change materials.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rios, Carlos; Hosseini, Peiman; Wright, C David; Bhaskaran, Harish; Pernice, Wolfram H P

    2014-03-05

    Phase-change materials integrated into nanophotonic circuits provide a flexible way to realize tunable optical components. Relying on the enormous refractive-index contrast between the amorphous and crystalline states, such materials are promising candidates for on-chip photonic memories. Nonvolatile memory operation employing arrays of microring resonators is demonstrated as a route toward all-photonic chipscale information processing. © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

  3. Effect of employment planning with professional education on expectation and personal development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Suat Aşkın

    2013-12-01

    Full Text Available In recent years in Turkey, it has been observed that workforce education programs within the active workforce marketing policies implemented by the Turkish Labour Institution especially towards the disadvantaged groups such as the women, the long term unemployed, the youth with low skill levels in the workforce market are increasingly gaining importance by the support of European Union. In today’s world, one of the most important points to be considered is the high-quality education. For a quality education, it is necessary to understand very well the expectations and perceptions of trainees who receive training services. Thus, expectations would be met and employment planning related to the vocational training services received would be increased. The main objective of this study is to increase the employment rate of the trainees who have received vocational training services and to be able to analyse its effect on their personal developments.

  4. Value of social media in reaching and engaging employers in Total Worker Health.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hudson, Heidi; Hall, Jennifer

    2013-12-01

    To describe the initial use of social media by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Total Worker Health™ (TWH) Program and the University of Iowa Healthier Workforce Center for Excellence (HWCE) Outreach Program. Social media analytics tools and process evaluation methods were used to derive initial insights on the social media strategies used by the NIOSH and the HWCE. The on-line community size for the NIOSH TWH Program indicated 100% growth in 6 months; however, social media platforms have been slow to gain participation among employers. The NIOSH TWH Program and the HWCE Outreach Program have found social media tools as an effective way to expand reach, foster engagement, and gain understanding of audience interests around TWH concepts. More needs to be known about how to best use social media to reach and engage target audiences on issues relevant to TWH.

  5. Gender, social class, and women's employment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    McGinn, Kathleen L; Oh, Eunsil

    2017-12-01

    People in low-power positions, whether due to gender or class, tend to exhibit other-oriented rather than self-oriented behavior. Women's experiences at work and at home are shaped by social class, heightening identification with gender for relatively upper class women and identification with class for relatively lower class women, potentially mitigating, or even reversing, class-based differences documented in past research. Gender-class differences are reflected in women's employment beliefs and behaviors. Research integrating social class with gendered experiences in homes and workplaces deepens our understanding of the complex interplay between sources of power and status in society. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  6. Efficient power allocation for fixed-gain amplify-and-forward relaying in rayleigh fading

    KAUST Repository

    Zafar, Ammar

    2013-06-01

    In this paper, we study power allocation strategies for a fixed-gain amplify-and-forward relay network employing multiple relays. We consider two optimization problems for the relay network: 1) optimal power allocation to maximize the end-to-end signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and 2) minimizing the total consumed power while maintaining the end-to-end SNR over a threshold value. We assume that the relays have knowledge of only the channel statistics of all the links. We show that the SNR maximization problem is concave and the power minimization problem is convex. Hence, we solve the problems through convex programming. Numerical results show the benefit of allocating power optimally rather than uniformly. © 2013 IEEE.

  7. Enhanced intrinsic voltage gain in artificially stacked bilayer CVD graphene field effect transistors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Pandey, Himadri; Kataria, Satender [RWTH Aachen University, Chair for Electronic Devices, Aachen (Germany); University of Siegen, School of Science and Technology, Siegen (Germany); Aguirre-Morales, Jorge-Daniel; Fregonese, Sebastien; Zimmer, Thomas [IMS Laboratory, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Bordeaux, Talence (France); Passi, Vikram [University of Siegen, School of Science and Technology, Siegen (Germany); AMO GmbH, Advanced Microelectronics Center Aachen (Germany); Iannazzo, Mario; Alarcon, Eduard [Technical University of Catalonia, Department of Electronics Engineering, UPC, Barcelona (Spain); Lemme, Max C. [RWTH Aachen University, Chair for Electronic Devices, Aachen (Germany); University of Siegen, School of Science and Technology, Siegen (Germany); AMO GmbH, Advanced Microelectronics Center Aachen (Germany)

    2017-11-15

    We report on electronic transport in dual-gate, artificially stacked bilayer graphene field effect transistors (BiGFETs) fabricated from large-area chemical vapor deposited (CVD) graphene. The devices show enhanced tendency to current saturation, which leads to reduced minimum output conductance values. This results in improved intrinsic voltage gain of the devices when compared to monolayer graphene FETs. We employ a physics based compact model originally developed for Bernal stacked bilayer graphene FETs (BSBGFETs) to explore the observed phenomenon. The improvement in current saturation may be attributed to increased charge carrier density in the channel and thus reduced saturation velocity due to carrier-carrier scattering. (copyright 2017 by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

  8. Valuing the human asset - the impact of university placements on academic performance and graduate employment amongst management students

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brooks, R.

    2012-05-01

    The employment market for graduates is competitive with employers requiring appropriate work experience in addition to academic qualifications. Sandwich courses, where up to a year is spent in industry, provide an opportunity for structured work experience to be gained alongside studying. Benefits of placements include improved academic performance and the development of transferable skills to increase employability. This paper evaluates the impact of placements on academic performance and graduate employment among management students. Analysing performance data and graduate destinations data, results indicate that management students completing a placement are more likely to perform better academically with improvements in their personal grades between year 2 and the final year. Additionally, a qualitative themed analysis of student experiences indicates placement students feel more confident in engaging with the graduate recruitment process, with a better understanding of their personal skills and an ability to articulate their experience in relation to the workplace.

  9. BRIDGING THE COMPETING VIEWS OF EUROPEAN CULTURAL INTEGRATION: THE TRANSFORMATIVE VIEW OF CULTURE AS A MEANS TO PROMOTE GROWTH, EMPLOYMENT AND SOCIAL COHESION

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    María Luz SUÁREZ CASTIÑEIRA

    2018-05-01

    Full Text Available The concept of a European culture became very complex with the enlargement of 2004 towards the East, when the EU, as Delanty pointed out, moved “beyond postnationality to an encounter with multiple civilizational forms,” multiple histories and competing visions of European integration. The “unity-in-diversity” paradigm turned into a huge challenge for the European institutions. On the one hand, achieving a European image of cultural unity without excluding all the local, regional and national cultures is a very complex, if not impossible, task. On the othe hand, culture remains an ambiguous term in European institutions due to the lack of a full-fledged European cultural policy. This paper focuses first on how in the early 1970s the EC/EU started to be concerned with defining the role of culture, and second on how since the year 2000 culture has progressively acquired a new status with potentially transformative powers to bridge the competing views of cultural integration. Programmes, such as the “2014-2020 Creative Europe” programme, focus on culture as a creative accelerator and promotor of different forms of cultural participation and production. Culture generates “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”, and contributes to “high employment, high productivity, and high social cohesion.”

  10. Brillouin gain enhancement in nano-scale photonic waveguide

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nouri Jouybari, Soodabeh

    2018-05-01

    The enhancement of stimulated Brillouin scattering in nano-scale waveguides has a great contribution in the improvement of the photonic devices technology. The key factors in Brillouin gain are the electrostriction force and radiation pressure generated by optical waves in the waveguide. In this article, we have proposed a new scheme of nano-scale waveguide in which the Brillouin gain is considerably improved compared to the previously-reported schemes. The role of radiation pressure in the Brillouin gain was much higher than the role of the electrostriction force. The Brillouin gain strongly depends on the structural parameters of the waveguide and the maximum value of 12127 W-1 m-1 is obtained for the Brillouin gain.

  11. Method and system for edge cladding of laser gain media

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bayramian, Andrew James; Caird, John Allyn; Schaffers, Kathleen Irene

    2014-03-25

    A gain medium operable to amplify light at a gain wavelength and having reduced transverse ASE includes an input surface and an output surface opposing the input surface. The gain medium also includes a central region including gain material and extending between the input surface and the output surface along a longitudinal optical axis of the gain medium. The gain medium further includes an edge cladding region surrounding the central region and extending between the input surface and the output surface along the longitudinal optical axis of the gain medium. The edge cladding region includes the gain material and a dopant operable to absorb light at the gain wavelength.

  12. A 547 GHz SIS Receiver Employing a Submicron Nb Junction with an Integrated Matching Circuit

    Science.gov (United States)

    Febvre, P.; McGrath, W.; Leduc, H.; Batelaan, P.; Frerking, M.; Hernichel, J.; Bumble, B.

    1993-01-01

    The most sensitive heterodyne receivers used for millimeter wave and submillimeter wave radioastronomy employ superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) tunnel junctions as the nonlinear mixing element.

  13. Reduction of pattern effects in SOA-based all-optical switches by using cross-gain modulated holding signal

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bischoff, Svend; Mørk, Jesper

    2002-01-01

    The effective carrier lifetime of SOAs is typically shortened by an intense Continuous Wave (CW) holding signal. However, the SOA gain is reduced by the holding signal resulting in smaller gain and refractive index changes induced by the data signal. Accordingly, an optimum exists for the CW...... and data signal power. Here, we demonstrate that the modulation bandwidth (amplitude jitter) is significantly improved (reduced) by replacing the CW holding beam with a signal, which is low-pass filtered and inverted with respect to the data signal. Such a holding beam can be generated by XGM WC in an SOA......, and reduces the fluctuations of the total energy injected into the interferometer within a bit-slot. Thus, we demonstrate a technique for reducing pattern effects in SOAs by employing a partially inverted holding beam. The method should be useful for increasing the data rates of all-optical switches....

  14. An I/Q mixer with an integrated differential quadrature all-pass filter for on-chip quadrature LO signal generation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Amin, Najam Muhammad; Wang Zhigong; Li Zhiqun

    2015-01-01

    A down-conversion in-phase/quadrature (I/Q) mixer employing a folded-type topology, integrated with a passive differential quadrature all-pass filter (D-QAF), in order to realize the final down-conversion stage of a 60 GHz receiver architecture is presented in this work. Instead of employing conventional quadrature generation techniques such as a polyphase filter or a frequency divider for the local oscillator (LO) of the mixer, a passive D-QAF structure is employed. Fabricated in a 65 nm CMOS process, the mixer exhibits a voltage gain of 7–8 dB in an intermediate frequency (IF) band ranging from 10 MHz–1.75 GHz. A fixed LO frequency of 12 GHz is used to down-convert a radio frequency (RF) band of 10.25–13.75 GHz. The mixer displays a third order input referred intercept point (IIP 3 ) ranging from −8.75 to −7.37 dBm for a fixed IF frequency of 10 MHz and a minimum single-sideband noise figure (SSB-NF) of 11.3 dB. The mixer draws a current of 6 mA from a 1.2 V supply voltage dissipating a power of 7.2 mW. (paper)

  15. Characterizing Protein Interactions Employing a Genome-Wide siRNA Cellular Phenotyping Screen

    Science.gov (United States)

    Suratanee, Apichat; Schaefer, Martin H.; Betts, Matthew J.; Soons, Zita; Mannsperger, Heiko; Harder, Nathalie; Oswald, Marcus; Gipp, Markus; Ramminger, Ellen; Marcus, Guillermo; Männer, Reinhard; Rohr, Karl; Wanker, Erich; Russell, Robert B.; Andrade-Navarro, Miguel A.; Eils, Roland; König, Rainer

    2014-01-01

    Characterizing the activating and inhibiting effect of protein-protein interactions (PPI) is fundamental to gain insight into the complex signaling system of a human cell. A plethora of methods has been suggested to infer PPI from data on a large scale, but none of them is able to characterize the effect of this interaction. Here, we present a novel computational development that employs mitotic phenotypes of a genome-wide RNAi knockdown screen and enables identifying the activating and inhibiting effects of PPIs. Exemplarily, we applied our technique to a knockdown screen of HeLa cells cultivated at standard conditions. Using a machine learning approach, we obtained high accuracy (82% AUC of the receiver operating characteristics) by cross-validation using 6,870 known activating and inhibiting PPIs as gold standard. We predicted de novo unknown activating and inhibiting effects for 1,954 PPIs in HeLa cells covering the ten major signaling pathways of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes, and made these predictions publicly available in a database. We finally demonstrate that the predicted effects can be used to cluster knockdown genes of similar biological processes in coherent subgroups. The characterization of the activating or inhibiting effect of individual PPIs opens up new perspectives for the interpretation of large datasets of PPIs and thus considerably increases the value of PPIs as an integrated resource for studying the detailed function of signaling pathways of the cellular system of interest. PMID:25255318

  16. Incentives for vertical integration in healthcare: the effect of reimbursement systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Byrne, M M; Ashton, C M

    1999-01-01

    In the United States, many healthcare organizations are being transformed into large integrated delivery systems, even though currently available empirical evidence does not provide strong or unequivocal support for or against vertical integration. Unfortunately, the manager cannot delay organizational changes until further research has been completed, especially when further research is not likely to reveal a single, correct solution for the diverse healthcare systems in existence. Managers must therefore carefully evaluate the expected effects of integration on their individual organizations. Vertical integration may be appropriate if conditions facing the healthcare organization provide opportunities for efficiency gains through reorganization strategies. Managers must consider (1) how changes in the healthcare market have affected the dynamics of production efficiency and transaction costs; (2) the likelihood that integration strategies will achieve increases in efficiency or reductions in transaction costs; and (3) how vertical integration will affect other costs, and whether the benefits gained will outweigh additional costs and efficiency losses. This article presents reimbursement systems as an example of how recent changes in the industry may have changed the dynamics and efficiency of production. Evaluation of the effects of vertical integration should allow for reasonable adjustment time, but obviously unsuccessful strategies should not be followed or maintained.

  17. Predictors of employment in schizophrenia: The importance of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Reddy, L Felice; Llerena, Katiah; Kern, Robert S

    2016-10-01

    Unemployment is a primary functional deficit for the majority of adults with schizophrenia. Research indicates that over two-thirds of adults living in the community with schizophrenia are unemployed. Despite effective programs to assist with job identification and placement, the ability to attain and maintain employment remains a pressing concern. A contributing factor that may be relevant but has received little attention in the work rehabilitation literature is motivation. People with schizophrenia show marked deficits in both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation but these deficits have not been directly examined in relation to work outcomes. The present study sought to examine the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and work outcome among a sample of 65 adults with schizophrenia enrolled in a supported employment program. One-third of the participants in the study obtained work. Intrinsic motivation related to valuing and feeling useful in a work role significantly predicted who would obtain employment. Extrinsic motivation related to gaining rewards and avoiding obstacles showed a non-significant trend-level relationship such that workers had higher extrinsic motivation than nonworkers. These findings highlight the importance of considering both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in work-related interventions and supported employment for individuals with schizophrenia. The results are discussed in terms of clinical implications for improving rehabilitation and occupational outcomes in schizophrenia. Published by Elsevier B.V.

  18. Optical gain for the interband optical transition in InAsP/InP quantum well wire in the influence of laser field intensity

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Saravanan, S. [Dept.of Physics, GTN Arts College, Dindigul-624 005. India (India); Peter, A. John, E-mail: a.john.peter@gmail.com [P.G & Research Dept.of Physics, Government Arts College, Melur-625 106. Madurai. India (India)

    2016-05-23

    Intense high frequency laser field induced electronic and optical properties of heavy hole exciton in the InAs{sub 0.8}P{sub 0.2}/InP quantum wire is studied taking into account the geometrical confinement effect. Laser field related exciton binding energies and the optical band gap in the InAs{sub 0.8}P{sub 0.2}/InP quantum well wire are investigated. The optical gain, for the interband optical transition, as a function of photon energy, in the InAs{sub 0.8}P{sub 0.2}/InP quantum wire, is obtained in the presence of intense laser field. The compact density matrix method is employed to obtain the optical gain. The obtained optical gain in group III-V narrow quantum wire can be applied for achieving the preferred telecommunication wavelength.

  19. When lives are put on hold: Lengthy asylum processes decrease employment among refugees.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hainmueller, Jens; Hangartner, Dominik; Lawrence, Duncan

    2016-08-01

    European governments are struggling with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, but there exists little evidence regarding how the management of the asylum process affects the subsequent integration of refugees in the host country. We provide new causal evidence about how one central policy parameter, the length of time that refugees wait in limbo for a decision on their asylum claim, affects their subsequent economic integration. Exploiting exogenous variation in wait times and registry panel data covering refugees who applied in Switzerland between 1994 and 2004, we find that one additional year of waiting reduces the subsequent employment rate by 4 to 5 percentage points, a 16 to 23% drop compared to the average rate. This deleterious effect is remarkably stable across different subgroups of refugees stratified by gender, origin, age at arrival, and assigned language region, a pattern consistent with the idea that waiting in limbo dampens refugee employment through psychological discouragement, rather than a skill atrophy mechanism. Overall, our results suggest that marginally reducing the asylum waiting period can help reduce public expenditures and unlock the economic potential of refugees by increasing employment among this vulnerable population.

  20. When lives are put on hold: Lengthy asylum processes decrease employment among refugees

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hainmueller, Jens; Hangartner, Dominik; Lawrence, Duncan

    2016-01-01

    European governments are struggling with the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, but there exists little evidence regarding how the management of the asylum process affects the subsequent integration of refugees in the host country. We provide new causal evidence about how one central policy parameter, the length of time that refugees wait in limbo for a decision on their asylum claim, affects their subsequent economic integration. Exploiting exogenous variation in wait times and registry panel data covering refugees who applied in Switzerland between 1994 and 2004, we find that one additional year of waiting reduces the subsequent employment rate by 4 to 5 percentage points, a 16 to 23% drop compared to the average rate. This deleterious effect is remarkably stable across different subgroups of refugees stratified by gender, origin, age at arrival, and assigned language region, a pattern consistent with the idea that waiting in limbo dampens refugee employment through psychological discouragement, rather than a skill atrophy mechanism. Overall, our results suggest that marginally reducing the asylum waiting period can help reduce public expenditures and unlock the economic potential of refugees by increasing employment among this vulnerable population. PMID:27493995