Suchergebnisse

From a financial perspective, FY2014 was a year of notable challenges and accomplishments for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The year began with an unprecedented concurrent federal government shutdown and debt ceiling crisis that threatened to suspend the Lab's operations. Working collaboratively with the Lab's research and operations units and DOE, the Lab was able to continue executing its mission during the shutdown, which was resolved by Congress on October 16, 2013. The year ended with another notable outcome, as we closed the books for the last time in our seventeen year old financial system, and prepared to Go Live with a completely re-engineered system on October 1, 2014. This project required close partnership with all of the Lab's scientific and operations divisions, and was successfully accomplished on schedule, on budget and in scope. FY2014 financial results and challenges in many ways mirrored FY2013. Berkeley Lab received a total of $784 million in new FY2014 funding, a one percent decrease from FY2013 funding. Total FY2014 spending was $785 million, a decrease of four percent from FY2013 spending. Given level funding and continued cost pressures, balancing core research and operations needs with strategic investments remained a test. Consistent with FY2013, indirect-funded operations units took cost cuts that largely mitigated cost escalation. However, a modest increase in overhead rates was also necessary to close the gap in the indirect budget. The Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) played an instrumental role in leading and achieving these notable outcomes. Our primary focus was on executing our financial stewardship responsibilities and delivering our services while implementing the new financial system. We also continued to provide practical and innovative solutions to the Laboratory Community.

Contents -- List of Tables and Figures -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Undoing the Working Definition of Race -- 3. The Multiracial Census -- 4. Multiracial Category Legislation in the States -- 5. Political Commitments -- 6. Growing Racial Diversity and the Civil Rights Future -- Appendixes -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

After a protracted national discussion about racial mixture in the early 1990s, the Office of Management and Budget made the unprecedented decision in 1997 to allow Americans to "mark one or more" racial categories on the 2000 census. A small "multiracial movement" provoked this fundamental change in the way the government collects racial data. This case study shows that even very small and modest social movements can have profound effects on public policy through their unintended consequences. In winning a redefinition of how the U.S. government defines and counts by race, the multiracial movement of the 1990s set in motion a process that has both amplified and been amplified by broader structural and cultural changes in how Americans perceive race. The modest impact of a small social movement can ultimately produce very big consequences.

AbstractIn 2010, the Alabama GOP took control of the state legislature for the first time since Reconstruction. The next year, in a sharply partisan vote, the legislature passed, and Governor Robert Bentley (R) signed into law, the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, also known as House Bill 56, the harshest immigration law in the country. This punitive state law was the impetus for Black elites in Birmingham to frame the immigration debate as a matter of civil rights and thus to see the issue in a new light. When Alabama Republicans moved to the Right on immigration, Black leaders in Birmingham moved Left. In this study, backed up by an event analysis of local newspapers, an analysis of interviews with members of the Black elite in Birmingham in 2013, who were previously interviewed in 2007, helps to substantiate this claim. In the summer of 2007, against the backdrop of an immigration debate in Washington, our Black elite study participants largely told us they had no stake in immigration. By 2013, many were willing to fight for immigrant rights at the highest level.

In the United States, cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death and disability. Suboptimal diet quality is responsible for a greater percentage of CVD‐related morbidity and mortality than any other modifiable risk factor. Further troubling are the stark racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in diet quality. This represents a major public health concern that urgently requires a coordinated effort to better characterize the barriers to healthy dietary practices in population groups disproportionally affected by CVD and poor diet quality to inform multifaceted approaches at the government (policy), community environment, sociocultural, and individual levels. This paper reviews the barriers, opportunities, and challenges involved in shifting population behaviors, especially in underserved populations, toward healthy dietary practices. It is imperative that public health policies address the social determinants of nutrition more intensively than previously in order to significantly decrease CVD on a population‐wide basis.