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This chapter builds a case for understanding and analyzing the supply chain of production. It documents the value chain for northwestern Pennsylvania, a region to benefit from Marcellus and Utica Shale drilling. It also covers the beginning through the boom and bust of the sector, to address economic impacts over time, however brief the boom-bust cycle in the region has been. The chapter breaks the process down into three major phases of development and production to determine differences in industry impacts by each phase. It then relates the opportunities and constraints in supply chain development through local sourcing through all three phases. While potential development is robust, additional resources from federal manufacturing assistance programs to state and regional economic development and planning efforts can add more value to the region's potential value chain.

There is growing pressure to make efficacy experiments more useful. This requires attending to the twin goals of generalizing experimental results to those schools that will use the results...

Rickles, Heppen, Allensworth, Sorensen, and Walters (2018) compare two credit recovery programs with a null hypothesis of equal effects. Upon failing to reject the null, they implicitly accept the null. However, not rejecting the null is not equivalent to accepting the null, a confusion common to a range of research, which I highlight.

The authors explore Ireland's growing involvement in the world economy. For many years, Ireland's foreign-direct-investment-led (FDI-led) development policy was associated heavily with low-skill, dependent branch plants. However, over the past fifteen years the shift towards internationally traded services notably improved the quality of this investment. This transition allows Ireland an opportunity to alter its position within the world economy. The authors use corporate case studies to demonstrate the extent to which Irish-based affiliates of information and communication technology multinationals now assume more significant positions within their wider corporate networks. In addition, it considers the role of the emerging cadre of Irish managers in enhancing the sustainability of Ireland's FDI-led development model.

This paper examines the manner and extent to which the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) in Dublin contributes to regional development in Ireland. Since its 1987 launch, the IFSC created over 10,000 jobs and promoted urban renewal in a previously derelict section of Dublin. Although it stands as one of Ireland's most prominent development projects, empirical examination of the IFSC remains limited. This study looks specifically at issues such as the kinds of activities and employment created at the IFSC, as well as local linkage formation. Based on published data and research interviews, this paper shows that the IFSC contributed to Ireland's economic development at a time when industrial policy focused primarily on employment creation. To date the IFSC has proven to be a successful policy intervention, the routine nature of many IFSC-related activities raises questions about the IFSC's ability to become something more than a centre for back-office financial services.

This paper examines the embeddedness of multinational software firms located in the Republic of Ireland. Over the past 15 years, Ireland has emerged as a software centre of growing importance. Many leading US companies now use Ireland as a platform from which to service the European market, in turn making Ireland the world’s leading software exporter. As a result, the extent to which software multinationals become embedded within Ireland will affect future economic development. Although subject to several interpretations, the conceptualization of embeddedness offered in this paper incorporates traditional concerns with local linkages between multinational corporations and host regions as well as issues of growing interest such as affiliate evolution and expansion. In addition, it considers the wider business environment’s influence on firm embeddedness. The findings are based on published data and corporate and government interviews conducted during field research in Ireland. The paper finds that over time software multinationals are becoming somewhat more embedded within Ireland, but several issues related to the negative externalities of Dublin’s rapid growth potentially hinder future development.

Relationships of hardness removal, natural organic matter (NOM) removal, and selected chemical characteristics of NOM were explored, and the implications of the enhanced softening portion of the proposed Disinfectants/Disinfection By-products Rule were assessed. For most of the nine raw water sources examined, the amount of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) removed (both on an absolute and a percentage basis) correlated strongly with the amount of magnesium precipitated. A semilogarithmic model provided a good fit to the data for six of the nine waters (R 2 values >0.8). Greater absolute removal of DOC was achieved for raw waters with higher initial DOC concentrations. DOC removal by softening was most effective for the raw water sources with the highest percentage of hydrophobic organic carbon. Greater specific ultraviolet absorbance values also corresponded to greater DOC removal.

Jar tests were performed on 31 natural waters from a variety of sources across the United States. These tests indicate that the majority of utilities supplying samples will have difficulty meeting the Step 1 total organic carbon (TOC) removal requirements in the Disinfectants/Disinfection By-products Rule. Utilities may need the proposed point of diminishing returns alternative performance criterion to achieve compliance with the enhanced coagulation requirement. Water sources with high TOC and low alkalinity were most likely to meet the proposed Step I TOC requirements. Those with low TOC were most likely to need the alternative performance criterion.

Government, business, and the general public increasingly agree that the polluter should pay. Carbon dioxide and environmental damage are considered viable chargeable commodities. The net effect of this for data center and cloud computing operators is that they should look to "chargeback" the environmental impacts of their services to the consuming end-users. An environmental chargeback model can have a positive effect on environmental impacts by linking consumers to the indirect impacts of their usage, facilitating clearer understanding of the impact of their actions. In this paper we motivate the need for environmental chargeback mechanisms. The environmental chargeback model is described including requirements, methodology for definition, and environmental impact allocation strategies. The paper details a proof-of-concept within an operational data center together with discussion on experiences gained and future research directions.

Mutations in NEK1 in mice are causal for cystic kidneys, and model the ciliopathy polycystic kidney disease caused by abnormal ciliary structure or signaling. NEK1 has previously been shown to localize near centrosomes and to play a role in centrosomal stability and ciliogenesis. Recent data suggest that the etiology of kidney cysts involves aberrant signaling from the primary cilium to the nucleus. Here we demonstrate that NEK1 contains functional nuclear localization signals, is exported from the nucleus via a nuclear export signal-dependent pathway and that the protein cycles through the nucleus. Our data suggest that NEK1 is a candidate to transduce messages from the ciliary-basal body region to the regulation of nuclear gene expression.

Background Mutations in Nek1 (NIMA-Related Kinase 1) are causal in the murine models of polycystic kidney disease kat and kat2J. The Neks are known as cell cycle kinases, but recent work in protists has revealed that in addition to roles in the regulation of cell cycle progression, some Neks also regulate cilia. In most cells, cilia are disassembled prior to mitosis and are regenerated after cytokinesis. We propose that Neks participate in the coordination of ciliogenesis with cell cycle progression. Mammalian Nek1 is a candidate for this activity because renal cysts form in response to dysfunctional ciliary signalling. Results Here we report that over-expression of full-length mNek1 inhibited ciliogenesis without disrupting centrosomes in the murine renal epithelial cell line IMCD3. In contrast, over-expression of the kinase domain with its associated basic region, but without the acidic domain, caused loss of centrosomes. As expected, these cells also failed to grow cilia. Both defective ciliogenesis in response to too much mNek1 and disassembly of centrosomes in response to expression of the kinase lacking the presumptive regulatory domain was abrogated by kinase-inactivating mutations or by removal of the coiled-coil domain. We observed that kinase-inactive, C-terminal truncations of mNek1 retaining the coiled-coil domain localized to the cilium, and we define a ciliary targeting region within the coiled-coil domain. Conclusion Based on our data, we propose that Nek1 plays a role in centrosome integrity, affecting both ciliogenesis and centrosome stability.

Today, the study of regions is central to academic analysis and policy deliberation on how to respond to the rise of the knowledge economy. Regional Economies as Knowledge Laboratories illustrates how newer types of regional analysis – utilising scientometrics, knowledge services measures and university networks, and concepts such as knowledge life cycles, experimental knowledge creation, and knowledge ethics – are leading to a perception that regional economies increasingly resemble knowledge laboratories.

Today, the study of regions is central to academic analysis and policy deliberation on how to respond to the rise of the knowledge economy. Regional Economies as Knowledge Laboratories illustrates how newer types of regional analysis – utilising scientometrics, knowledge services measures and university networks, and concepts such as knowledge life cycles, experimental knowledge creation, and knowledge ethics – are leading to a perception that regional economies increasingly resemble knowledge laboratories.