199 research outputs found
Confessions of a Serial Productivity Researcher
No full textWith an ageing population and declining labour force growth productivity is becoming increasingly important as a source of economic growth. Despite this importance, governments fear the productivity word because of public misunderstanding of its meaning. For many years the author believed that Canada’s weak productivity performance reflected inappropriate public policy. Despite most of the public policy agenda that was put forward to improve productivity being implemented, productivity growth in this country since 2000 has actually deteriorated. This suggests that the private sector bears more responsiblity for Canada’s productivity malaise than previous thought. A research agenda with a focus on firm behaviour from a micro approach is needed to obtain a deeper understanding of Canadaès terrible productivity record and to develop actions to boost productivity growth.
Co-operatives, Closures, or Wage Cuts: The Choices Facing Workers in an Ailing Firm.
No full textWorkers faced with the prospect of the closure of their workplace have a limited range of alternatives. They can accept the closure, they can accept wage cuts, or they can take over the firm and form a cooperative. The author finds that if wages are determined in each period in a spot market, then there are circumstances in which workers prefer the latter option. In particular, he finds that workers in an ailing firm may well prefer the cooperative option to closure of their workplace.
Exploring new bioprocess considerations for cardiomyogenesis of embryonic stem cells
No full textEx vivo cardiomyocytes production from pluripotent stem cells is highly attractive as a future clinical therapy for cardiovascular diseases. Scaled-up 3-dimensional cell culture can be used to produce clinically relevant cell numbers but requires numerous bioprocess design considerations. In this thesis, we employed hydrogel encapsulation of mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) to study various novel design parameters that could be used for large-scale cardiomyocyte production. First, we demonstrated that our novel rotary, perfused bioreactor provided a dynamic and perfused environment that was superior to a commercial rotary wall bioreactor and conventional tissue culture vessels in terms of cell numbers and cardiac differentiation. With this novel bioreactor, we had also investigated the effects of pH on cardiomyogenesis. Cardiomyogenesis was found to be sensitive to different pH values, where slight fluctuations could cause significant changes to cell proliferation and cardiac differentiation. Last but not least, we utilised ultrasound as a novel mechanical stimulus for cardiac differentiation of mESCs and demonstrated its benefits in improving cardiomyocyte yield.Open Acces
Enhancement of cardiomyogenesis in stem cells by low intensity pulsed ultrasound
No full textLow intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) has been shown to enhance bone and cartilage regeneration from stem cells. Gene expression of angiotensin II type 1 (AT1) receptor can be increased in LIPUS-treated osteoblasts. The AT1 receptor is a known mechanoreceptor in cardiomyocytes. It suggests that LIPUS may enhance cardiomyogenesis via mechanotransduction by increasing AT1 expression. Murine embryonic stem cells (ESCs) were treated daily by 10-min 1MHz LIPUS at spatial-average temporal-peak acoustic intensities of 30 mW/cm2 and 300 mW/cm2 in both continuous and pulsed wave (20% duty cycle) for 10 days. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR), immunocytochemistry, and beating rate were used to evaluate the cardiac viability quantitatively. After the treatment of LIPUS, beating rate of contractile areas and cardiac gene expression, such as α- and β-myosin heavy chain, were improved. Furthermore, no deleterious effects to the development of cardiac proteins were observed. All results suggest that LIPUS stimulation has the capacity of enhancing cardiomyogenesis from embryonic stem cells. With the benefit and the ease in incorporating LIPUS into various culture platforms, LIPUS has the potential to produce cardiomyocytes for clinical use in the future.Published versio
Fallen City, Fallen Women, Fallen Masks: Zhang Ailing, The Dream of the Red Chamber, and the Aestheticism of Disaster
No full textIn Fallen City, Fallen Women, Fallen Masks, author Alex Stevens compares the works of Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) with the 1791 masterpiece Hong Lou Meng (The Dream of the Red Chamber) to examine and uncover how the two perceive gender, society and history in order to understand how the past and present thematically feed off of each other. A central theme to this comparative analysis will be the term historical degeneration, or the idea that society, rather than progressing towards an ideal, is actually degenerating due to such destructive forces as corruption and violence - this is the Fallen City. The Fallen Women analyzes the role of women in both The Dream of the Red Chamber and how they are affected by historical degeneration, or The Fallen City. In both texts, they are infected by the Fallen City and are torn between binary oppositions: For The Dream of the Red Chamber, the women are torn between their transcendent and secular selves, while the women in Zhang Ailing\u27s short stories are torn between old and new China. Gender Travesty is also scrutinized as a symbol of the transition from a heavily patriarchal, Confucianist society during the Qing Dynasty to the destructive matriarchy found in Zhang\u27s short story The Golden Cangue. Amidst the backdrop of both historical and moral degeneration, the Fallen Mask is a fleeting instance of ecstatic beauty found in Zhang Ailing\u27s use of aestheticism. In these moments, the false masks previously donned by characters are cast aside in a blissful, beautiful episode of genuine human experience. Through her juxtaposition of a vibrant, colorful exterior cast over a deathly base, she uses her Western aesthetic influences to expose the decadence and disaster largely ignored in The Dream of the Red Chamber. To sum it up in one sentence, Zhang Ailing deserved both a Nobel Prize and international recognition because she is a symbol of preserving classical sensibilities in a contemporary society, in other words, she retained the antiquated presence of Dream of the Red Chamber in an entirely modern context. Accomplishing the immensely difficult task of simultaneously looking backwards towards the past and forwards towards the future, she uncovered the tensions of living in a secular society. She took an antiquated style of language and poetic creativity that were perceived as dead and recreated them in a context enriched with a Western aesthetic and sensibilities, this demonstrates her brilliance
Literature or autobiography? The author and the narrator in the short stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
No full textThe aim of this article is to show the relation between the author and the narrator in the short stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. The roles, in which the storyteller presents himself (the polish emigrant, the writer, the journalist and the ailing old man) as well as the characters introduced to the stories have their origin in the author’s biography. They enable to identify (obviously not quite fully) the narrator with its empirical author. Herling perceives this space of his creative activity as a substitute for autobiography. This, in turn, allows not only to select the biographical material but also to discover behind the curtain of literary fiction
What's ailing your aspen?
No full textThis is a poster describing common insects and diseases of aspen
Literature or autobiography? The author and the narrator in the short stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
No full textThe aim of this article is to show the relation between the author and the narrator in the
short stories of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński. The roles, in which the storyteller presents himself
(the polish emigrant, the writer, the journalist and the ailing old man) as well as the characters
introduced to the stories have their origin in the author’s biography. They enable to identify
(obviously not quite fully) the narrator with its empirical author. Herling perceives this space of
his creative activity as a substitute for autobiography. This, in turn, allows not only to select the
biographical material but also to discover behind the curtain of literary fiction.Zadanie pt. „Digitalizacja i udostępnienie w Cyfrowym Repozytorium Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego kolekcji czasopism naukowych wydawanych przez Uniwersytet Łódzki” nr 885/P-DUN/2014 zostało dofinansowane ze środków MNiSW w ramach działalności upowszechniającej nauk
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Bedwritten: Middle English Medicine and the Ailing Author
No full textThis dissertation explores the intersection of medical care and authorial self-representation in Middle English literature, reading canonical literary works and medical texts alongside one another to reveal the shaping influence that healthcare practices and literary production exerted on each other. Informed by medical humanities methodologies, this dissertation argues that just as popular medical texts made use of literary techniques and conventions, so too did literary authors turn to medical discourses in their efforts to communicate experiences of illness or impairment. Approaching these two practices as inextricable makes possible an exploration of medieval authorship that accounts for the entangled nature of cultural care and medical cure.An introductory chapter provides an overview of medical practice in late medieval England, paying particular attention to the relationships between practitioners and patients and to the texts that record popular experiences of healthcare, such as remedy collections and autobiographical accounts. Figuring the patient not simply as a collection of symptoms and diagnoses but as embedded in a particular cultural and historical network of relations, the next two chapters redefine “embodied writing” in order to account for both the body itself and for the processes of maintenance and repair that define life within it. Chapter One suggests that the devotional verse of the fifteenth-century priest John Audelay, produced while its author was blind, deaf, and bedridden, forwards a poetics marked by the incremental forms of medical care he received. Chapter Two demonstrates that Julian of Norwich’s account of her obstructed revelatory Shewings utilizes medical figurations of visual impairment to conceptualize alternative forms of connection to the divine. In its second half, the dissertation reverses the paradigm that defines Chapters One and Two, exploring how medical writers drew on literary practices in their constructions of professional authority and personal experience. Genres like the almanac (Chapter Three) and the medical miscellany (Chapter Four) afforded unique spaces for literary experimentation and didactic connection. These chapters also move the dissertation into the fifteenth century in their consideration of how the transmission of medical knowledge shifted with the introduction of print
Thai economic crisis and its impact on the Thai stock market trends
No full textPlan BThe Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) was first established in 1961 as part of Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Plan for the purpose of enhancing the country’s economic growth. The operating performance of the SET grew steadily until the first boom years of 1986-1989, which made the market capitalization changed much higher in its value. This remarkable rate of growth fascinated both local and foreign stock investors who invested their money heavily in the stock market since then. In late 1996, Thailand suffered a decrease in exports, which led to high deficit in the balance of payment. Furthermore, the financial sector started to have problems in increasing foreign debts. In 1997, the economic problems followed the devaluation of the Thai currency and the increase in volume of non-performing loans, which made the performance outcome of the listed member companies of the SET went down. These problems directly and strongly impacted the stock investors’ confidence, led to the decline in the Thai stock market trading volume and caused the SET Index hit the lowest point in its history in September 1998. The stock market has an important role not only in helping the country to accelerate its economic growth, but also being an important indicator that can reflect the current economic performance of that country. The country’s economic performance can be shown through the changing of the stock market index, which is crucial regarding to the decisions making and confidence of the investors. The primary aim of this research is to analyze the Thai stock market trends as Thailand moves into the twenty-first century after facing the peak of economic crisis. Most data provided are the comparison of the economic data from the years 1996-2000 which can reflect the success level of the Thai governments’ measures in an effort to resolve the economic problems and encourage economic recovery in order to bring back public confidence
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