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Workforce development is a set of processes that govern the identification, recruitment, assessment and training of job seekers into employment as well as the maintenance and advancement of these persons in their careers. Given the complexity of what workforce development entails, a systems approach is illustrated to ensure that the broader goal of human capital investment is met. The paper identifies the foundational assumptions of systems thinking, classifies the key stakeholders in workforce development and provides brief case studies on where systems thinking has been deployed. The paper also enunciates an outcomes framework to give the metrics by which progress towards performance goals can be measured.

Education, particularly at the post-secondary level, does not come cheaply in the USA, with the increase in annual tuition costs far outpacing the inflation rate during the same time period. A core tenet of US President Obama's domestic policy agenda is the belief that increased educational attainment can potentially lead to better economic prospects. As a result of the financial hardship that higher education brings to low-income and middle-income individuals and families, access to these educational opportunities and their benefits are not then fully realized. In response, President Obama has called for a "universal community college," where tuition costs are reduced to zero. The intent and effect of the "universal community college" initiative are identified and this commentary also suggests that additional scrutiny is needed with four questions to ensure that the programme design will later translate into meaningful outcomes, if this policy were to pass in Congress.

The broken links in the U.S. workforce development system is that it focuses largely on bringing economic actors together to invest in education and training as inputs and to generate job match results as outputs in an employers' market. Integrating Anthony Giddens's structuration theory with psychological self-sufficiency (PSS) as a bottom-up system recreating process through productive practices of human actors is examined. The purpose of the study was to examine how the change in PSS affects one's later stage economic self-sufficiency (ESS) outcome in workforce development. The study sample consisted of 350 low-income jobseekers from a U.S. federally funded health care career pathway education and training program called the Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG). A multiple regression analysis found that PSS positively affects ESS while controlling for other sociodemographic variables. These findings guide the policymakers and service providers to invest more resources in building a culture of PSS to relink the workforce development system. We develop a case for assessing PSS to inform humanistic human resource development and management in helping individuals to switch from barriers to hope to achieve career goals in their lives. We propose further agenda for PSS research to be applied in industry-based employee engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultraviolet-vis studies of meso-Tetrakis(5-trimethylammoniopentyl)porphyrin (TMAP) that was encapsulated in MCM-41 during a hydrothermal synthesis showed that porphyrin molecules remained isolated from each other. The spectral intensities and peak widths of the porphyrin molecules were found to resemble those in dilute porphyrin solutions, displaying little perturbation by the host or by neighboring porphyrin molecules. Catalytic studies showed that the stability of porphyrin displays the largest catalytic activity when there is a low concentration of TMAP molecules.

The synthesis of ordered nonlamellar mesoporous aluminophosphates was undertaken with the introduction of phosphate linking groups to cluster/surfactant salts of prearranged A10sub4A1sub12(OH)sub24(Hsub20)sub12super7+(A1sub13) and Ga0sub4A1sub12(OH)sub24(Hsub20)sub12super7+(GaA1sub12) tridecamers. Cluster layers were transformed into a nonlayered, almost hexagonal mesoscopic phase upon reaction with a buffered hydrogen phosphate/dihydrogen phosphate solution.

Racism in football has attracted considerable media attention, but little research has been undertaken into its causes. Racial harassment manifests itself in many different ways in and around football grounds, and can be particularly distressing for people from ethnic minorities who live near football grounds. It is clear that public policy must now focus on creating a better atmosphere in and around football grounds.

While evidence exists supporting the potential for aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the infectious dose by inhalation remains unknown. In the present study, the probability of infection following inhalation of SARS-CoV-2 was dose-dependent in a nonhuman primate model of inhalational COVID-19. The median infectious dose, assessed by seroconversion, was 52 TCID50 (95% CI: 23–363 TCID50), and was significantly lower than the median dose for fever (256 TCID50, 95% CI: 102–603 TCID50), resulting in a group of animals that developed an immune response post-exposure but did not develop fever or other clinical signs of infection. In a subset of these animals, virus was detected in nasopharyngeal and/or oropharyngeal swabs, suggesting that infected animals without signs of disease are able to shed virus and may be infectious, which is consistent with reports of asymptomatic spread in human cases of COVID-19. These results suggest that differences in exposure dose may be a factor influencing disease presentation in humans, and reinforce the importance of public health measures that limit exposure dose, such as social distancing, masking, and increased ventilation. The dose-response data provided by this study are important to inform disease transmission and hazard modeling, and, ultimately, mitigation strategies. Additionally, these data will be useful to inform dose selection in future studies examining the efficacy of therapeutics and vaccines against inhalational COVID-19, and as a baseline in healthy, young adult animals for assessment of the importance of other factors, such as age, comorbidities, and viral variant, on the infectious dose and disease presentation. Author summary: SARS-CoV-2 infection and subsequent disease presentation are dependent on exposure dose in a nonhuman primate model of inhalational COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]