Paid Sick Days Legislation: A Legislator's Guide

Unlike most of the nations of the world, the U.S. has no national paid sick days policy. But lawmakers are starting to address the issue at the local and state levels. This guide, a joint publication of CLASP and the Women Legislators' Lobby, is intended to help legislators think through the provisions that make up paid sick days legislation. It identifies ten primary issues to consider when moving from a hypothetical idea to concrete legislation, and it offers several possible options for addressing each. 15 pages

WECOF: A new project developing enhanced weed control through improved crop and plant architecture

A primary objective of the EU-funded WECOF project is to optimise the natural competitiveness of winter wheat in reducing weed growth, and thus reduce the need for direct weed control interventions. Crops are characterised by ranking the relative importance of key plant and crop factors in shading weed growth. A series of core trials have been established in Germany, Scotland, Poland and Spain comparing plant structure by the use of different varieties and crop architectural factors by the use of different sowing row widths and direction. Variety trials have also been established in Scotland with constant row width and sowing direction to give more detailed varietal comparisons. Results from the first set of trials in Scotland are described. There are clear varietal differences in weed suppression; row-width has a bigger effect than sowing direction. Results will be used to develop models to assist breeders in producing improved crop ideotypes for organic production, and in production of a decision support system to assist farmers and advisers in variety selection and management for improved weed suppression. WECOF also includes work on allelopathy and photocontrol, and on the related economic factors

The Archaeology of World War II Japanese Stragglers on the Island of Guam and the Bushido Code

The U.S. invasion of the Micronesian island of Guam in July of 1944 ended the three-year Japanese occupation of this American possession, and by August 10 all formal resistance was over. However, two companies of approximately 60 Japanese infantry still under military command were ordered by their officers to conduct guerilla warfare against American forces, while smaller groups of stragglers escaped into the rugged interior of the island to avoid combat. Recent archaeological surveys of the U.S. Naval Ordnance Annex revealed evidence of occupation of limestone rockshelters and caverns by one of these companies, who often utilized or modified items of American manufacture recovered from U.S. military dumps for their daily survival. The company’s military commander eventually surrendered upon orders of the Emperor of Japan on September 4, 1945, but other stragglers on Guam survived for decades after World War II, the last being captured in 1972. The disciplined survival of organized World War II Japanese soldiers across the Pacific reflected the spirit of Bushido or Way of the Warrior, a feudal code of conduct embracing not only military behavior during battle, but the conduct of soldiers in all aspects of life

Developing tools for assessing the fluid structure interaction of passive adaptive composite foils

The study presents an experimental and numerical evaluation of bend-twist elastic coupling in composite passive-adaptive structures. Due to the lack of experimental validation in Fluid Structure Inter-action (FSI) investigations, a full-field deformation of an aerofoil-shaped section under wind loading is measured. The experimental analysis is carried out at the University of Southampton 3.5 m x 2.4 m R. J. Mitchell wind tunnel and involves the use of full-field non-contact measurement techniques such as high speed three dimensional Digital Image Correlation (DIC) and stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV).After assessing the validity and repeatability of the experiments, the study focuses on the development of a numerical FSI investigation that involves the use of a structural and a fluid solver to simulate the aero-elastic behaviour of composite tailored structures with different lay-up arrangements. The numerical analysis is developed as a design tool to allow the structure investigated to maximise bend-twist coupling under increased aerodynamic loading

Living and Learning With New Media: Summary of Findings From the Digital Youth Project

Summarizes findings from a three-year study of how new media have been integrated into youth behaviors and have changed the dynamics of media literacy, learning, and authoritative knowledge. Outlines implications for educators, parents, and policy makers

Simulating thick atmospheric turbulence in the lab with application to orbital angular momentum communication

We describe a procedure by which a long ($\gtrsim 1\,\mathrm{km}$) optical path through atmospheric turbulence can be experimentally simulated in a controlled fashion and scaled down to distances easily accessible in a laboratory setting. This procedure is then used to simulate a 1-km-long free-space communication link in which information is encoded in orbital angular momentum (OAM) spatial modes. We also demonstrate that standard adaptive optics methods can be used to mitigate many of the effects of thick atmospheric turbulence.Comment: Rewritten abstract and introductory section to emphasize the importance of the work and to make it accessible to a more general audience. Section 2 was expanded to include some background on the physics of turbulence to allow the paper to be self-contained and understood by nonspecialist

The binaural masking level difference: cortical correlates persist despite severe brain stem atrophy in progressive supranuclear palsy.

Under binaural listening conditions, the detection of target signals within background masking noise is substantially improved when the interaural phase of the target differs from that of the masker. Neural correlates of this binaural masking level difference (BMLD) have been observed in the inferior colliculus and temporal cortex, but it is not known whether degeneration of the inferior colliculus would result in a reduction of the BMLD in humans. We used magnetoencephalography to examine the BMLD in 13 healthy adults and 13 patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). PSP is associated with severe atrophy of the upper brain stem, including the inferior colliculus, confirmed by voxel-based morphometry of structural MRI. Stimuli comprised in-phase sinusoidal tones presented to both ears at three levels (high, medium, and low) masked by in-phase noise, which rendered the low-level tone inaudible. Critically, the BMLD was measured using a low-level tone presented in opposite phase across ears, making it audible against the noise. The cortical waveforms from bilateral auditory sources revealed significantly larger N1m peaks for the out-of-phase low-level tone compared with the in-phase low-level tone, for both groups, indicating preservation of early cortical correlates of the BMLD in PSP. In PSP a significant delay was observed in the onset of the N1m deflection and the amplitude of the P2m was reduced, but these differences were not restricted to the BMLD condition. The results demonstrate that although PSP causes subtle auditory deficits, binaural processing can survive the presence of significant damage to the upper brain stem.This work has been supported by the Wellcome Trust (Grants 088324 and 088263); Medical Research Council (G0700503 to B. C. P. Ghosh); Guarantors of Brain (to B. C. P. Ghosh); Raymond and Beverley Sackler Trust (to B. C. P. Ghosh); and National Institute of Health Research Cambridge Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre including the CambridgeBrain Bank.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from American Physiological Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1152/jn.00062.201