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Hook the front line on the performance improvement habit
How service organizations can improve financial performance, raise customer loyalty and spark employee engagement.
By Jeff Melton, Jolyon Dove and John Norton
The operations of energy utilities, retail banks and telecommunications providers are, on the surface, quite different, but what they have in common is the requirement that large numbers of frontline staff "do the right thing" within an operating environment that affords a certain level of autonomy. That poses a major operational challenge, yet we have observed companies in these industries and others that were able to create substantial improvement in performance using a common approach.
These companies have seen dramatic results in the form of more loyal customers, fulfilled and engaged employees and better economics. The results have been sustained and even improved over time, as the companies developed the capability to continuously enhance their operations.
At the heart of this approach, which we call the High Velocity Performance System®, is the premise that for any transformational change to succeed, employee behavior must change. In service-intensive industries, it is the discretionary effort of people throughout the organization that improves operational and financial performance. Unleashing discretionary effort is only possible when companies provide people with a compelling purpose for the work they do.
Jeff Melton, practice leader for Bain's Performance Improvement practice in the Asia-Pacific region, explains how the speed and efficacy of feedback to frontline employees can dramatically improve service operations. Using a High Velocity Performance System®, companies can combine the lean principles, behavioral science and digital technology to boost performance.
The high velocity performance system accomplishes this by combining three elements:
• Lean principles to identify the sources of value and eliminate sources of waste
• Behavioral science techniques that make it easy and fulfilling for people to do the right things
• Applied digital technologies to implement process improvements and behavioral change on a large scale
Together, these elements allow employees to see, in real time, how their actions contribute to the greater good.
Lean principles for service operations
Despite the long-term rise of the service sector in most economies, the dominant paradigm for performance improvement still tends to derive from the world of manufacturing, particularly Lean techniques, which originated half a century ago in automotive factories. Lean has proven quite successful in manufacturing settings, and Lean principles do apply to service companies or service-oriented units within manufacturers as well.
Many service organizations, however, have difficulty creating results that they can sustain and improve over time. They may try to import a version of the Toyota Production System without adequately adjusting for a different service environment. Or they may focus ex-clusively on installing an initial set of processes and tools without creating the mechanisms to scale up for continuous improvement across the entire company.
Our work with many service organizations has allowed us to develop an approach designed to make Lean stick. Using this approach, we have helped companies achieve remarkable results across three dimensions:
Improving financial performance. Companies lower costs, for example, by eliminating waste from operations and getting customer interactions right the first time, reducing rework and shortening decision cycle time.
Raising customer loyalty. Customer loyalty pays off in growth and profitability, because loyal customers buy more, stay longer and recommend the company to others. More efficient, first-time-right processes tend to delight customers and make them advocates for the company.
Unlocking discretionary effort by employees. People with clarity about their mission, who receive positive reinforcement for doing the right thing, go the extra mile to deliver. Here again, the high velocity performance system provides the means for engaged employees to direct their energy toward the tasks and outcomes that actually matter. It reinforces a sense of purpose and shifts resources and attention to those things that matter most to customers.
The high velocity performance system allows companies to achieve these three outcomes simultaneously—a "triple play" of performance improvement—as each dimension reinforces the others. Engaged employees are more motivated to devise better ways to do their jobs and thus create better experiences for customers. This, in turn, increases customer loyalty, removes waste and improves business economics. (See below, "How an Asian telecommunications provider turned around its field service performance.")
The heart of performance improvement involves changing behavior on the front lines—an imperative that many senior executives intuitively understand. A recent survey of nearly 300 executives by Bain & Company and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found that roughly 75% of respondents rate behavioral change on the front lines as "very important" or "important" for realizing targeted cost savings, their top priority. At the same time, about 45% of executives cite changing frontline behavior—the leading challenge cited—as "extremely difficult" or "difficult" in achieving and sustaining cost savings.
The senior manager's role
What specifically are senior managers in leading companies doing to change behavior on the front line? Let's look at the interlocking disciplines of the high velocity performance system in more detail.
Make clarity of purpose a reality for employees. Performance metrics serve as a magnifying glass on priorities. Yet in many service organizations, metrics are disconnected from, or even at odds with, the fundamental purpose of the job.
Consider a call-center agent who applied for the job because she enjoys helping people with their problems. Every day she talks to customers who are frustrated about the company's products, processes or communication. She does her best to help, but feels constrained by the metrics on which she is evaluated. Every hour she receives an email from her team leader with her average call handling time and call transfer rate, metrics that are supposed to gauge productivity, but which, in fact, do not. To the agent, these metrics clash with the purpose of her job—providing excellent service with a smile. No wonder she becomes disillusioned over time and stops applying discretionary effort.
It is only when performance metrics are simply stated, few in number and linked to the fundamental purpose of the job that employees care about the outcomes of the measurements and apply discretionary effort to improve. These "catalyzing metrics" influence behavior when communicated to employees at high velocity—quickly and frequently. High velocity spurs innovation by stimulating new ideas and encouraging experiments. Ongoing improvements come from seeing what works and doing more of it. High velocity also spurs motivation by making clear what matters, establishing a causal link between actions and outcomes.
Catalyzing metrics can take several forms, such as those targeting actions that will improve customer loyalty. At a telecommunications provider in Western Europe, the call center had emphasized the metric of average handling time. It added two metrics, one on customer advocacy and another on resolving the issue on the first call. At the same time, it diminished the importance of average handling time. Call-center agents now had a daily view of their performance across a small set of metrics that were aligned with the core purpose of their jobs.
The new approach helped to reduce the overall volume of calls by 20% and raise the level of customer loyalty. Employee engagement improved, moreover, as agents felt they were being asked to help customers rather than get them off the phone as quickly as possible.
An energy provider in the UK dealt with different issues that centered on productivity. The performance of its field engineers showed significant variability across and within districts. The company also had a high rate of "bad service calls," in which engineers' home-service visits failed to resolve customers' problems.
The energy company realigned its field engineers around metrics tied directly to productivity, including number of visits plus visit success rate, which reflected the purpose of the job. These metrics and individual performance indicators were sent by text message weekly to each engineer. A year after the program's implementation, the company had achieved an 18% increase in same-day service, a 17% decrease in revisits to customers' homes, a 10-percentage-point rise in customer loyalty scores and significant reductions in customer complaints and defections to competitors.
Foster a discipline of learning and experimentation. With the catalyzing metrics in place and presented at high velocity, people throughout the organization will start asking questions about how to improve performance in keeping with those metrics. In many instances, we have seen an intense spike in curiosity. A proven means of channeling curiosity into tangible improvements is to cycle it into what we call high-velocity learning loops (see Figure 1).
The effective application of learning loops can improve overall financial performance. Among the nearly 380 executives from numerous industries worldwide that Bain and the EIU surveyed, 68% of the high-performing companies said they have an effective process for closed-loop learning, vs. 40% of the average performers and 10% of the low performers.
Having people all across the organization, from the front line to the executive suite, taking the right action quickly can have a powerful cumulative effect. To sustain that effect over and over again, people need rapid feedback on how they are performing in terms of meaningful metrics and in terms of criteria that differentiate between superior and average performance. This critical information needs to be presented quickly, frequently and unambiguously—much like a fighter pilot's heads-up display.
High velocity is essential, because an employee will vividly remember the circumstances that generated information shared the same or the next day. High frequency offers 365 cycles of potential improvement via daily reports, compared with just 12 cycles via monthly reports.
Simply presenting motivated employees with frequent performance information triggers curiosity about why something happened. A crucial part of a manager's role, then, is to create an environment that not only supports systematic learning, but also provides appropriate consequences for learning and experimenting with new ideas and initiatives. High-velocity reporting makes it easier to conduct controlled experiments because you can test a process change, a new call script or new software settings and gauge the results almost immediately, and subsequently either abandon the test or tweak it for further improvements.
Recently, learning loops have become more cost-effective and accessible in service organizations because of recent advances in digital technology, such as tiny sensors, GPS trackers, Web-based applications, real-time data processing, and associated extract, transform and load (ETL) and analytical tools. These technologies make it easier and cheaper for service organizations to expand their learning loops on a large scale.
One US electric utility used high-velocity learning loops to raise the productivity of its field operations at a crucial turning point in its business. The utility's local power distribution business forecast a doubling of work volume over the coming decade, but the field workforce was not prepared to handle that projected increase. The company had no consistent measure of productivity for field work because crews were monitored mainly for their ability to meet safety and compliance requirements. Work-order errors were common, but field accountants would not find them for many months after they occurred, long after a foreman had forgotten about the job.
The utility identified a new set of metrics for catalyzing behavior to raise technician productivity and equipped them with a real-time, weekly "stoplight" scorecard to gauge how each local district was performing. The company then created learning loops in which local process owners undertook root-cause analysis to understand where improvements could be made. It became clear, for example, that work-order time estimates needed to be more accurate and that the field force needed closer coordination with schedulers. The results of these changes were immediately visible in weekly reporting of the new productivity metrics.
At the same time, field accounting organized around a new metric of successful work orders empowered accountants to send back an incomplete or inaccurate field order to the responsible foreman, which significantly reduced costly rework and late work-order processing. The accounting teams tracked individual and team stoplight scorecards, tailored to the work-order metric, which in turn sparked their own learning loops.
Using the high velocity performance system, this utility has seen dramatic results since 2010. Throughput (a measure of efficiency in completing a task) rose from 61% to more than 80%. The work-order error rate dropped from 15% to 1%. Field accounting productivity rose 90% among a unionized workforce, and both order backlog and overtime have decreased.
Behind these positive numbers lies a more motivated and engaged workforce. As one field accountant said, "It's great knowing what's expected of me and feeling a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, rather than just a mountain of work orders that I'm constantly trying to plow through."
Invest to help employees succeed. Even with learning loops and catalyzing metrics in place, managers will have to help people succeed. By and large, employees want to perform well at their jobs. But improvements will be slow or nonexistent if people constantly battle outdated practices and policies that hinder them from delivering optimal performance.
At banks, for example, a clunky Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system interface, harsh penalty fees and rigid policies that lock customers into unsuitable products make it nearly impossible for branch tellers to provide great customer service. A teller in that situation will likely receive poor customer comments and lose trust in management for expecting her to do the impossible.
By contrast, high-performing organizations use applied behavioral science techniques to make it easy and fulfilling for people to do the right thing (see Figure 2). Applied behavioral science has proven remarkably powerful over the past half century in enabling people to gradually and permanently alter all kinds of behavior, from losing weight to staying sober to reducing energy usage. When a person who is prompted to perform a certain behavior is equipped with the necessary tools and capability, and when that behavior is reinforced with positive consequences, that person is more likely to perform and repeat the behavior.
Applied behavioral methods can change service operations, where high performance depends on people exhibiting certain behaviors. In our experience, the most effective application of after-the-fact consequences is about 80% positive and 20% negative, because positive consequences reinforce desired behaviors. That means management needs to develop many more reliable, positive consequences, at a high frequency. Using digital technologies, companies can automate high-velocity capture and communication of performance data to employees, creating a "consequence engine" that greatly increases the desired behaviors (see Figure 3).
The choice of consequences will depend on the types of employee groups and the specific operational challenges being addressed. In most cases, the knowledge that an employee has done a job well is one of the most powerful positive consequences. As one call-center representative told us about the customer comments reported to him on a daily basis, "Verbatims are the spice of my life!"
Improvements today, the ability to improve again tomorrow
The experiences of select telecommunications providers, utilities, banks and other service organizations illustrate how a high velocity performance system can deliver three valuable outcomes simultaneously—improved financial performance, enhanced customer loyalty and increased employee engagement.
The approach helps embed Lean techniques and tools throughout the entire organization, so that a service organization can achieve rapid, reliable and repeatable performance improvements. It unleashes discretionary effort by giving people high-velocity feedback on the catalyzing metrics, thereby triggering learning, experimentation and demand for action to improve performance.
Each element of this system depends on and reinforces the others. Doing just part of the work often yields none of the results. It does little good, for instance, to select a vital few metrics without also making them visible at high velocity and installing learning loops that enable experimentation and rapid improvement. Full-bore commitments, on the other hand, engender deeper trust among employees so that they will steadily raise performance levels.
Ultimately, this approach enhances a company's ability to improve. This improvement habit is often a decisive factor for service organizations as they strive to outperform competitors.
Jeff Melton co-leads Bain & Company's Performance Improvement practice in Asia and is based in Melbourne. Jolyon Dove is a partner in London. John Norton is a partner in Dallas.
How an Asian telecommunications provider turned around its field service performance
Telco, an Asian telecommunications company, was under pressure to significantly improve its financial performance and, at the same time, meet customers' demands for faster and more reliable service. Senior management decided to focus improvement efforts on the field service organization.
Field service work had become increasingly complex, and the volume was growing steadily each year, while technician performance was erratic and vastly below its potential. Telco's large-scale Six Sigma program had failed to deliver the desired results. Morale suffered among field technicians, who got little feedback about whether they'd done a good or bad job. They also perceived the lack of the company's investment in better tools for their trade as a sign that their work was not valued.
Senior managers corrected the situation by doing two things. First, they sought a better understanding of how to gauge value, by identifying those elements of performance that really matter—a central Lean concept. Second, management invested in specific tools and training that would help technicians successfully perform newer types of jobs.
With a better understanding of value and a technician workforce now open to change, Telco selected three metrics to catalyze performance: one for productivity, one for service quality and one for service timeliness. The choice of these three metrics clearly signaled to employees what did and did not matter.
The results were reported the next day directly to the technicians' mobile phones. Managers received daily performance reports ranking all teams and regions across the three metrics.
Now that managers and technicians could clearly see, at high velocity, the link between an action and its outcome, their curiosity intensified. They experimented with process improvements to remove unnecessary steps. For example, they delivered work orders electronically to technicians who could go directly to customers without having to report in at the depot. Experimentation with new settings in the scheduling software also led to shorter travel times.
By focusing on value, identifying a handful of catalyzing metrics and embedding high-velocity learning loops, Telco has realized major performance improvements (see Figure). Over four years, service quality has improved more than 25% and productivity has increased more than 70%. For the past six years, Telco has realized a cumulative 24% savings in its total cost base by eliminating waste. At the same time, employee engagement scores have risen steadily despite a shrinking workforce.
Bain Lean Six Sigma
Service Design & Operations
Jeff Melton
Partner, Melbourne
Partner, Houston
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SNES Gradius III (USA) in 28:24.0 by Krocketneo.
That being said, the author aims to please in his attempt to surpass both preceding movies. He manages to kill almost every enemy through more efficient use of the options and faster boss fights, as well as the much needed lag reduction.


Coxiban is used for the prevention of coccidiosis in broilers and replacement pullets (maximum 12 weeks of age).
Coxiban is a remedy to improve mass gain and feed conversion in ruminants and pigs, and to prevent coccidiosis in sheep, goats, calves and pigs.
Mix 500 g COXIBAN in 1,000 kg of balanced feed for a concentration of 60 ppm.
Mix 417 g COXIBAN in 1,000 kg balanced feed for a concentration of 50ppm up to age 12 weeks.
Note: Actual levels in the lick must be calculated according to intake.
Mix 417 g COXIBAN premix per ton of feed for growing pigs and 750 g of COXIBAN premix per ton of feed in creep rations for suckling pigs. Feed whenever necessary in creep and growing rations.
For further information regarding warnings and withdrawal times please refer to the Product Package Insert and for product safety information refer to the Material Safety Data Sheet.
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Ableton Electronic Music Production Program / Advanced Ableton Electronic Music Production Program / Advanced Audio & Music Production Program / Audio Engineering & Music Production Program / Hip Hop & Beat Making Program / Learning 101 / Logic Pro Electronic Music Production Program / Research 201
How to Start Producing Beats
by Liya Swift · Published March 2, 2020 · Updated May 26, 2020
"It's a trip it's got a funky beat and I can bug out to it."
– "B-Boy Bouillabaisse" sample from the Beastie Boys' album Paul's Boutique.
While harmonies, melodies, and structure are all important in music, nothing drives the music of today like the beat. Setting the tempo, the beat drives a song along, providing a backbone for all other elements to grab onto. Fast or slow, it's what audiences tap their foot or nod their head to when listening in the car, at work, or while chilling at home.
The music of today is heavily influenced by the sounds brought to the masses by hip hop in the early '90s. Pop, rock, R&B, jazz, and even country-western use recognizable beats that stick with their listeners. An entire genre of music – electronic dance music and its multitudes of descendants – are dominated by beats.
So why has the beat become so important? Technology. Thanks to home computer explosion of the '80s, and the musical hardware and software that came along shortly thereafter, beat making was no longer left to the pros. Anyone with a powerful enough computer could start making music on their own.
Prices dropped, more people owned computers, and software blossomed. With smart technology and mobile devices, we all carry a potential mini-studio in the palm of our hands. With that kind of access, experimentations, variations, and mutations become more commonplace.
Found you're ready to put your stamp on the scene? You have the computer, access to the internet, and a beat in your head you can't wait to unleash. So what comes next? You'll need to learn the tools of the trade, obviously, but you'll also need to understand what makes a beat, a beat.
To Gear or Not to Gear
There are two schools of thought on the best way to start making beats or upping your beat game: Spend the cash to get the gear the pros use? Or start with the bare minimum and just work on your craft? Is there a right or wrong answer? Not necessarily.
After all, the hip hop masters of the late '70s had about .01% of the gear available today when you consider all the software and electronics at our disposal. And they certainly didn't have the mobile sound studios that are found on the most recent and powerful laptops. But what they had started a revolution.
To be fair, that revolution was armed with a Roland TR-808, a drum machine that was the first of its kind in the early '80s. Although it wasn't commercially successful – often criticized for it's "unnatural" sound – the hip hop community fully embraced it and many still do today.
Which isn't to say a studio setup full of midi keyboards, studio monitors, boards to mix and master, and more, is a waste of money. Many music producers around the world use just as much of the equipment and software as is available because they work with a wide range of artists with varying needs, tastes, and sounds.
If you're just starting to produce beats it makes sense to start small. Take the time it takes to learn the craft. Outside of a laptop with a capable sound card and headphones, the only gear you really need is a digital audio workstation (DAW). As a beginning beat maker, a DAW has everything you need to start learning how to make hip hop beats.
Ableton, Pro Tools, Logic Pro, FL Studio ("Fruity Loops"), and Cubase are a few of the most popular DAWs on the market. Midi controllers and other beat making software come with virtual instruments, faders, track stage, and other features in a wide variety of prices, from free versions of Ableton and Pro Tools to the pro versions which cost hundreds of dollars. Hence, once you know you want to give it a try, you'll have to figure out how much time you have to spend on it and what you can afford. It's really a chicken/egg question. Don't get the gear until you understand how to make rap beats and fully understand what a "beat" is. As your experience grows, then you can start thinking about what kind of equipment you'll need.
Before you fire up the DAW, open a browser window first and investigate what beats are. Figure out the beats per minute (BPM), the time signature, and the distinction between downbeats, backbeats, and breakbeats of the music you listen to. If you've ever played an instrument, you've given yourself a bit of a head start.
If not, you'll have to do some homework. Learn about what a beat is, how it's used in electronic music (including hip hop) and why it's so important to music as a whole. As you start to understand the makeup of a beat, put that knowledge to work with your DAW.
Are you thinking about making music production and beat making something more than a hobby? You'll need to spend more than an hour here or there playing around with your DAW. Otherwise, you won't really retain any of the information or techniques you're reading about (if you're doing any research at all).
There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Seriously – if everybody could make killer beats, everybody would be making killer beats. However, if you find yourself devouring music theory, spending hours after work learning how instruments sound together, or simply find yourself tapping out or hearing beats and are hungering for more, Recording Connection might be able to help.
Our unique programs and workshops place you with an experienced mentor in their environment: the studio. Instead of guessing what you'll need to know, your mentor will show you. Instead of hoping those online tutorials know what they're talking about, your mentor is a proven resource. Instead of wishing your questions could be answered by a YouTube video, your mentor is ready to be asked and talk to you about it, explain it through conversation not diagrams or just words in a book.
In addition to the Recording Connection Hip Hop and Beat Making Program, we offer several other programs geared towards giving you a solid foundation in the music-making marketplace. This includes Ableton and Logic Pro Electronic Music Production, Audio Engineering and Music Production Programs. We even have a music business program.
We also offer other advantages 4-year universities, community colleges, or trade schools just can't offer. This includes shorter programs (ranging from six to nine months), less tuition (on average), and potential opportunities to work with local legends and traveling artists. You'll save time and money while learning to make beats the right way.
There are no guarantees. Your success depends on how much work you do both inside the studio and out of it. The responsibility and willingness to learn all you can and to aquire the many skills and techniques it takes to make music on a professional level comes down to you.
Ready for a seat at the table? Apply to Recording Connection today.
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by Liya Swift · Published November 12, 2019 · Last modified September 12, 2019
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Nursing homes struggle financially in wake of COVID
The expected consolidation wave comes amid an outbreak that has sickened about 80,000 residents at long-term care facilities in Illinois and killed more than 10,000. Though vaccines and infection control measures have lately helped prevent the sort of outbreaks that marked the darkest days of the lockdown era, health care providers are now grappling with a new and more contagious COVID variant. Add in the lingering fear of contagion among families weighing the pros and cons of caring for elder loved ones at home versus in a facility, and it's little wonder that nursing homes report that they are on life support.
"Our census is recovering, but it's recovering so slowly," says Donna Sroczynski, president of operations at Symphony Care Network, which has 28 facilities in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Sroczynski says the average number of people that Symphony serves per day is down about 20 percent, compared with pre-pandemic levels. At the same time, expenses are up at least 30 percent due to hiring additional staff, testing requirements and securing personal protective equipment.
"It's a recipe for disaster," Sroczynski says.
While COVID-19 brought new challenges, it also exacerbated long-standing issues facing an industry tasked with caring for some of the nation's most vulnerable residents.
In fact, only one-quarter of nursing homes and assisted living communities nationwide are confident they'll last a year or more, according to a recent survey of 738 facilities by the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living. While most nursing home operators are privately held and therefore keep their revenue and profit margins under wraps, more than half of those who responded to this survey reported they are operating at a loss.
According to a separate analysis by the trade groups, the nursing home industry has projected that it will lose $22.6 billion in revenue this year and that 1,670 facilities will close or merge.
Meanwhile, publicly traded Brookdale Senior Living posted a net loss of $108 million during the first quarter of 2021, compared with net income of $369 million during the same period a year earlier. And revenue fell 26 percent to $749 million in the quarter. Brentwood, Tenn.-based Brookdale is the largest senior living company in the country, with about 700 assisted living, skilled nursing and other locations in 41 states, including 11 communities in the Chicago area.
Occupancy rates at nursing homes have steadily declined for decades, as assisted living facilities and home health have become more popular among individuals requiring a lower level of care. But nursing home occupancy dropped sharply during the pandemic as hospitals postponed elective surgeries, which meant fewer referrals for post-acute care.
Meanwhile, to prevent outbreaks when COVID tests were scarce, many nursing homes refused to admit people who might have been exposed to the virus during a hospital stay. And people with access to home-based services avoided high-risk congregate living settings for fear of infection.
Even before COVID-19 started spreading, the number of long-term care facilities in Illinois had declined nearly 10 percent to 913—alongside a 14 percent drop in admissions—from 2015 to 2019, according to the latest state data.
Today, nursing homes in Illinois are 63 percent full on average—about 10 percentage points below pre-pandemic levels, says Matt Hartman, executive director of the Illinois Health Care Association, which represents about 500 senior care facilities in the state.
Hartman says that four association members have shuttered in the last few months alone and that even more facilities are expected to close through the end of 2021, particularly as federal COVID relief funds run out.
Further complicating matters for nursing home operators is a nationwide staffing shortage. During the pandemic, nursing homes saw workers leave the industry in search of higher-paying jobs with less exposure risk.
The shortage has created a bidding war for talent. To attract Chicago-area workers, some nursing home operators say they're raising pay and offering signing bonuses.
"The pandemic really sort of laid bare just how problematic the staffing shortage in nursing homes is because it has been there for decades, but it just got worse during COVID," says Tamara Konetzka, a health economist at the University of Chicago. The "physically and emotionally demanding" jobs often come with no benefits or sick pay, she adds.
Many operators say they're having to dig deep to incentivize workers, noting that low Medicaid rates don't cover the cost of doing business. However, lawmakers and advocacy groups have called for more transparency during the pandemic around just how much facilities are spending on staffing and quality. For example, many nursing homes keep operations under a separate entity than real estate and other valuable assets, which can shield the companies from liability.
To prevent nursing homes from profiting while staffing levels remain low and three or more residents are packed into each room, lawmakers are looking to link new funding to specific safety and quality metrics that benefit residents and reduce racial health disparities.
The Illinois Department of Healthcare & Family Services, which spends more than $2.5 billion annually on nursing home services for about 45,000 Medicaid beneficiaries, supports the proposal. The government health insurance program for the poor and disabled covers the majority—about 60 percent—of nursing home care provided in the state each year.
Nursing home operators are also bracing for a flood of COVID-related lawsuits.
Law firm Levin & Perconti is representing families affected by the COVID-19 outbreak at the state-run LaSalle Veterans' Home late last year, during which more than 200 veterans and staff tested positive for the virus and 36 veterans died, according to an April report by the Illinois Department of Human Services' Office of the Inspector General.
And an estimated 1,000 lawsuits against nursing homes are in the works, according to Healthcare Heroes Illinois, an advocacy group raising awareness around immunity and liability issues.
"This is an existential threat to the industry," says Healthcare Heroes spokesman Paul Gaynor. "And the pandemic isn't over."
Sroczynski declines to say whether any lawsuits have been filed against Symphony, which is among operators that experienced outbreaks during the pandemic. But she notes that "the whole industry in Illinois is being stalked by predatory lawyers."
Amid all the uncertainty, COVID relief funds have been a lifeline for nursing home operators during the pandemic.
HFS last year distributed $359 million in CARES Act funding to long-term care facilities, which also got about $520 million directly from the federal government. And an additional $75 million was recently allocated to the facilities.
"As those dollars run out, you'll start to see more operators close their doors," says Hartman. Even though pre-pandemic occupancy rates in Illinois hover below the national average, facility closures in certain areas prevent residents from getting care close to home and family, he says.
Some struggling facilities will look to find a partner that can help keep them afloat. For example, Kevin McGee, CEO of two-community Smith Senior Living, says the company has been approached by two local facilities looking for a buyer.
At Smith Village and Smith Crossing, "we have support for nursing at the corporate level, we have support for purchasing, we have support for business office functions," McGee says. "Those single-site organizations that are by themselves, they're putting their hands up and saying, 'We can't do this again. We need to join a system.' "


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Journal of Nematology
Society of Nematologists
Subject: Life Sciences
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VOLUME 52 > List of articles
Effect of seed-applied fluopyram on Meloidogyne incognita infection and maturity in cotton and soybean
Tracy Hawk / Travis R. Faske *
Keywords : Abamectin, Behavior, Management, Seed treatment
Citation Information : Journal of Nematology. Volume 52, Pages 1-7, DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/jofnem-2020-083
License : (CC-BY-4.0)
Received Date : 08-April-2020 / Published Online: 25-August-2020
Fluopyram is being used to manage plant-parasitic nematodes in cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) and soybean (Glycine max), but the duration and depth of root protection from Meloidogyne incognita by seed-applied fluopyram is unknown. Both M. incognita susceptible cotton, Stoneville 'ST 4848 GLT', and soybean, Delta Grow 'DG 4880 GLY', cultivars were treated with fluopyram or abamectin and inoculated with second-stage juveniles in two greenhouse studies. Root penetration by M. incognita was suppressed from 7 to 21 d after planting by seed-applied fluopyram in soybean, while a similar trend in suppression was observed in cotton. Fewer nematodes per root system by fluopyram contributed to a reduction in root gall counts and nematode reproduction at 28 and 35 d after planting in both crops. Based on nematode developmental stages from 7 to 21 d after planting, fluopyram had no effect on nematode maturity. Root penetration by M. incognita was suppressed at 7 d after planting by fluopyram at a depth up to 5.0 cm in cotton and 2.5 cm in soybean. These results were similar to that of abamectin-treated seed. Seed-applied fluopyram and abamectin were most effective at suppressing nematode root entry rather than nematode maturity in cotton and soybean.
The southern root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne incognita (Kofoid and White) Chitwood race 3, is an important yield-limiting pest of cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) and soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) in the southern USA (Thomas and Kirkpatrick, 2001; Koenning, 2015). Furthermore, it is the most prevalent species of root-knot nematode in Arkansas (Ye et al., 2019). Seed cotton losses in 2018 were estimated at 2.4% (966,600 bales) across the US Cotton Belt (Lawrence et al., 2019). While non-soybean cyst nematodes (including Meloidogyne spp.) were the second most destructive pathogen on soybean in 2014 in the southern USA, with an estimated grain yield loss of 18 million bushels (Allen et al., 2017).
Root-knot nematode management includes a combination of resistant cultivars, crop rotation, and nematicides. Currently, a few soybean and cotton cultivars are available with a moderate magnitude of resistance to M. incognita (Emerson et al., 2018; Wheeler et al., 2018). However, because of limited availability to a specific herbicide technology, maturity group, or lack of a competitive yield potential these M. incognita-resistant cultivars are often underutilized. Crop rotation with a non-host crop is an effective tool to manage M. incognita population densities. Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is the only non-host crop grown in the Mid-South and is currently produced on a limited number of acres compared to that of cotton and soybean (USDA-NASS, 2018).
During the past 15 years, the availability and use of seed-applied nematicides have increased in row crop agriculture. One of the more recent nematicides registered (2014) for use in cotton and soybean is fluopyram (Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 2014). Fluopyram is a succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor fungicide that has been reported to affect the motility of M. incognita and other plant-parasitic nematodes (Faske and Hurd, 2015; Heiken, 2017; Beeman and Tylka, 2018). However, the field efficacy of fluopyram has been variable in M. incognita suppression and protecting cotton lint and soybean grain yield potential (Lawrence et al., 2016; Hurd et al., 2017; Jackson, et al., 2017; Faske et al., 2018). Further characterization of root protection by seed-applied fluopyram is needed to understand the variability in nematode suppression.
The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effect of seed-applied fluopyram on M. incognita penetration, infection, and maturity of young cotton and soybean roots, and determine the depth of cotton and soybean root protection provided by fluopyram-treated seed.
Nematode inoculum
Cultures of Meloidogyne incognita race 3, collected from cotton (Leachville, AR) and soybean (Kerr, AR) were maintained on tomato (Solanum lycopersicum L., 'Rutgers') in a greenhouse, where ambient temperatures ranged from 26 to 33°C. Eggs were extracted from tomato roots with 0.5% NaOCl (Hussey and Barker, 1973). Eggs were placed in a hatching chamber (Vrain, 1977) in an incubator set to 28°C and second-stage juveniles (J2) were collected every 24 hr. Only 24-48-hr-old J2 were used as inoculum.
Cotton and soybean treated seed
A southern root-knot nematode susceptible cotton cultivar, Stoneville 'ST 4848 GLT' (BASF Corporation, Florham Park, NJ) was used in this study. All cotton seed treatments were applied by the manufacturer and treated with a base fungicide of 15 μg metalaxyl/seed + 5 μg penflufen/seed + 5 μg prothioconazole/seed + 3 μg myclobutanil/seed [Allegiance® FL + EverGol® Prime + Proline® 480 SC (Bayer CropScience, Research Triangle Park, NC) + Spera™ 240 FS (Nufarm Americas Inc., Alsip, IL), respectively]. Nematicide treatments included fluopyram at 200 μg/seed (Copeo® Prime 600 FS, BASF Corporation) and abamectin at 150 μg/seed (Avicta® 500 FS, Syngenta Crop Protection, Greensboro, NC) + 340 μg thiamethoxam/seed (Cruiser® 5 FS, Syngenta Crop Protection). Fungicide treated seed was used as the non-treated control.
A southern root-knot nematode susceptible soybean cultivar, Delta Grow 'DG 4880 GLY' (Delta Grow Seed Co. Inc., England, AR) was used in this study (Emerson et al., 2018). Pesticides were applied with a rotary seed treating system (UNICOAT 1200 CCS, Universal Coating Systems, Inc., Independence, OR). Fluopyram-treated seed included 150 μg fluopyram/seed (ILEVO® 600 FS, BASF Corporation) + 120 μg imidacloprid/seed (Gaucho® 600 FS, Bayer CropScience). Abamectin-treated seed received 150 μg abamectin/seed (Avicta® 500 FS, Syngenta Crop Protection) + 150 μg thiamethoxam/seed (Cruiser® 5 FS, Syngenta Crop Protection). The non-treated control seed consisted of 120 μg imidacloprid/seed (Gaucho® 600 FS, Bayer CropScience).
Time course experiments
A time course experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of seed-applied fluopyram on suppression of M. incognita infection, development, and reproduction in a greenhouse. Two seed treatments, fluopyram and abamectin, were compared in the time course experiments on cotton and soybean. The time course series consisted of roots sampled at 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 DAP. All seeds were planted in a course (< 2.0-mm-diameter) pasteurized sand (90% sand, 6% silt, 4% clay; pH 7.3; cation exchange capacity 3.6 cmol+/kg). Sand was blended with inoculum at a rate of 2 J2/cm3 soil in 164 cm3 and 656 cm3 Deepots (Stuewe and Sons, Inc, Corvallis, OR). One seed of cotton or soybean was planted at a depth of 1.75-cm per pot. To promote uniform germination and minimize water evaporation, pots were covered with a transparent plastic wrap for 3 d at 30°C until seedling emergence. Seedlings were moved onto a greenhouse bench where ambient temperatures ranged from 26 to 33°C. Plants were overhead watered daily and fertilized every 10 d with 1.85 cm3 of Osmocote 20-20-20 (Scotts Miracle-Gro, Marysville, OH). Treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with five replications per treatment per sample time. The experiment was conducted twice for cotton and soybean.
Roots sampled at 7, 14, and 21 d after planting (DAP) from small Deepots were stained with acid fuchsin (Byrd et al., 1983). Stained nematodes were enumerated using a stereomicroscope and categorized into four different maturity stages: vermiform J2, sausage-shaped juvenile, pyriform (pear-shaped) female, and gravid (eggs present) female (Fig. 1) (Karssen and Moens, 2006). Of the developmental stages assessed, the majority fell into two categories per sample time, thus only two stages are reported as a percentage of nematode maturity stages per root system. Roots sampled at 21, 28, and 35 DAP from large Deepots were assessed for number of galls and roots from 28 and 35 DAP were assessed for number of eggs per g or root. Eggs were extracted with 1% NaOCl and enumerated using a stereomicroscope. Experiments for both cotton and soybean were conducted twice.
Various life stages of Meloidogyne incognita stained with acid fuchsin. Life stages include vermiform second-stage juvenille (J2), sausage-shaped juvenile, pear-shaped female, and gravid (eggs present) female.
Depth of root protection experiments
To determine the depth of root protection provided by fluopyram-treated cotton and soybean seed, a laboratory assay was conducted. For this assay, 50-ml conical tubes (Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Waltham, MA) were filled with the sandy soil described above to a bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3. Soybean and cotton seeds were planted 2-cm deep and each tube received 5 ml of water. Seedlings were incubated at 26 to 33°C under a greenhouse bench and watered daily, as needed. Cotton and soybean roots were inoculated with 250 J2 in 200 μl of water at five DAP through a 1.5 mm-diam. hole bored into the side of tubes at a depth of 2.5, 5.0, or 7.0 cm. The treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with each treatment and inoculation depth replicated four times. The experiment was conducted twice per crop. In total, 48 hr after inoculation, roots were removed, rinsed with water, and stained with acid fuchsin (Byrd et al., 1983), and vermiform nematodes were enumerated using a stereomicroscope.
Data were analyzed using general linear mixed model analysis of variance (ANOVA) with experiment and treatment as fixed variables and replication modeled as a random variable using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 (International Business Machines Crop., Armonk, NY). Data were log transformed [log(x + 1)] to normalize for analysis and non-transformed data are reported. Mean separation were based on Tukey's honest significant difference (HSD) test at α = 0.05. Stages of nematode maturity data were subject to chi-square analysis using IBM SPSS.
In the time course experiments for cotton or soybean there was no (P > 0.05) experiment by treatment interaction for nematode root penetration, infection, or reproduction, so experiment repetitions per crop were combined for final analysis. When all developmental stages were combined, fewer (P ≤ 0.05) total nematodes were observed on cotton roots at 21 DAP with seed-applied abamectin and fluopyram compared to the non-treated control (Fig. 2A). While fewer (P ≤ 0.05) total nematodes were observed on soybean roots at 7, 14, and 21 DAP for fluopyram compared to the non-treated control (Fig. 2B). Fewer (P ≤ 0.05) galls were observed on cotton roots at 21, 28, and 35 DAP for fluopyram than the non-treated control, while inconsistent galling suppression was observed for abamectin (Fig. 3A). In soybean, no differences occurred between treatment groups at 21 DAP (Fig. 3B). Fewer (P ≤ 0.05) galls were observed at 28 and 35 DAP for fluopyram compared to the non-treated control, while inconsistent galling suppression was observed with abamectin (Fig. 3B). Nematode reproduction was lower (P ≤ 0.05) at 28 and 35 DAP for fluopyram and 35 DAP for abamectin compared to the non-treated control on cotton (Fig. 4A). In soybean, nematode reproduction was lower (P ≤ 0.05) at 28 and 35 DAP for fluopyram, but not for abamectin compared to the non-treated control (Fig. 4B).
Suppression of Meloidogyne incognita at three sample times by seed-applied nematicides in cotton (A) and soybean (B). Different letters above bars indicate significant differences at α = 0.05 according to Tukey's HSD test.
Suppression of Meloidogyne incognita root galling by seed-applied nematicides at three sample times on cotton (A) and soybean (B). Different letters above bars indicate significant differences at α = 0.05 according to Tukey's HSD test.
Reproduction of Meloidogyne incognita on cotton (A) and soybean (B) in response to seed-applied nematicides. Different letters above bars indicate significant differences at α = 0.05 according to Tukey's HSD test.
The percent of sausage-shaped juveniles and pyriform females at 14 DAP with abamectin differed (P ≤ 0.05) from that of fluopyram and the non-treated control on cotton, with more juveniles and less females in abamectin samples (Fig. 5A). However, that was the only time that nematode maturity differed in cotton. In soybean, the percent of vermiform and sausage-shaped juveniles differed (P ≤ 0.05) between abamectin and fluopyram compared to the non-treated control, with more vermiform nematodes present, however, that trend was inconsistent across sample times (Fig. 5B). Overall, neither abamectin nor fluopyram consistently affected the maturity of M. incognita in cotton or soybean. Thus, once M. incognita establishes a feeding site these nematicides have little impact on nematode maturity.
Post-infection maturity of Meloidogyne incognita on cotton (A) and soybean (B) in response to seed-applied nematicides. Different letters above bars indicate significant differences at α = 0.05 according to chi-square analysis applied in pairs of treatments within each sample time.
In the depth of root protection experiments, there was no experiment by treatment by inoculation depth interaction for cotton or soybean, however, there was an interaction (P ≤ 0.05) between treatment and inoculation depth for each crop. Fewer (P ≤ 0.05) J2 were observed in roots at 2.5 and 5.0 cm depth for fluopyram and only at 2.5 cm depth for abamectin compared to the non-treated control in cotton (Fig. 6A), whereas a similar number of J2 were observed at 7.0 cm depth for all treatments in cotton. In soybean, fewer (P ≤ 0.05) J2 were observed at 2.5 cm depth for abamectin and fluopyram compared to the non-treated control. Further, a similar number of J2 were observed at 5.0 and 7.0 cm inoculation depths for all treatments (Fig. 6B).
Suppression of Meloidogyne incognita root penetration at three inoculation depths by seed-applied nematicides in cotton (A) and soybean (B). Different letters above bars indicate significant differences according to Tukey's HSD test at α = 0.05.
These data indicate that seed-applied abamectin and fluopyram suppressed M. incognita root penetration that contributed to a reduction in root galling and nematode reproduction in cotton and soybean in the greenhouse. Given that fewer M. incognita entered the root systems, suggest that these nematicides affected nematode motility prior to root penetration. Abamectin and fluopyram at low concentrations can inhibit M. incognita motility (Faske and Starr, 2006; Faske and Hurd, 2015; Heiken, 2017) and likely impede second-stage juvenile migration or orientation toward a root in coarse sandy soil. Clay particles can affect the movement of non-fumigant nematicides (Rich et al., 2004), thus suppression of J2 infection by fluopyram may be lower in soil textures with greater percentages of clay particles. The effect of soil texture on the distribution of fluopyram may account for some of the variability in root protection by seed-applied fluopyram in cotton and soybean field trials (Kandel et al., 2017; Faske et al., 2018).
There was no suppression of M. incognita maturity by seed-applied abamectin or fluopyram in cotton and soybean. Though fewer sausage-shaped juveniles were observed at 7 d after inoculation (DAI) for fluopyram and abamectin in soybean, the percent of maturity stages at later sample times was similar to that of the control. Soil-applied abamectin at 0.6 μg/cm3 for 2 d prior to being infested with 200 J2 was reported to be effective at suppressing M. arenaria development for 8 d in tomato (Cayrol et al., 1993). Whereas soil-applied oxamyl at 6.25 µg/cm3 soil applied 2 d after being infested with 200 J2 was effective at suppressing M. incognita development for 30 d in cucumber (Wright and Womak, 1981). While suppression of nematode development has been reported in at least one non-systemic nematicide, abamectin, no suppression was observed with it as a seed treatment.
The depth of root protection against M. incognita penetration was similar between nematicides and crops. Seed-applied fluopyram suppressed J2 entry up to 5.0 cm in cotton and 2.5 cm in soybean. Fluopyram as a seed treatment was reported to suppress root penetration of the soybean cyst nematode, Heterodera glycines, up to 2.5 cm depth (Beeman et al., 2019). Seed-applied abamectin conferred protection at the 2.5-cm depth in cotton and soybean. Similarly, seed-applied abamectin was reported to suppress M. incognita nematode infection at a 5 cm depth on a cotton taproot (Faske and Starr, 2007). These data indicate that suppression of M. incognita penetration is greatest within close proximity to the seed and decreases with increasing distance from the seed.
Fluopyram has a greater impact on plant-parasitic nematodes in the soil prior to root penetration rather than on nematode development inside the root in cotton and soybean. Thus, the movement of fluopyram from the seed coat into the nearby soil affects the depth of root protection from plant-parasitic nematode. These observations contribute the understanding of the variability in suppression of plant-parasitic nematodes by seed-applied fluopyram.
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Hawk,T., & Faske,T.R.(2020).Effect of seed-applied fluopyram on Meloidogyne incognita infection and maturity in cotton and soybean.Journal of Nematology, 52(i_current), 1-7.doi:10.21307/jofnem-2020-083.
Hawk,Tracy., and Travis R. Faske"Effect of seed-applied fluopyram on Meloidogyne incognita infection and maturity in cotton and soybean"Journal of Nematology 52,no.i_current(2020):1-7doi:10.21307/jofnem-2020-083.
Hawk,Tracy., and Travis R. Faske"Effect of seed-applied fluopyram on Meloidogyne incognita infection and maturity in cotton and soybean"Journal of Nematology 52.no.i_current(2020):1-7doi:10.21307/jofnem-2020-083.
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#define Z3DVOLUMERAYCASTER_H

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#include "z3dcameraparameter.h"
#include "znumericparameter.h"
#include "z3dvolume.h"
#include "z3dmesh.h"
#include "zlinesegment.h"

#include "zwidgetsgroup.h"

class Z3DVolumeRaycasterRenderer;
class Z3DTextureCoordinateRenderer;
class Z3DTextureCopyRenderer;
class Z3DVolumeSliceRenderer;
class Z3DImage2DRenderer;
class Z3DTriangleList;
class Z3DLineRenderer;

class Z3DVolumeRaycaster : public Z3DRenderProcessor
{
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  inline int zCutMin() { return m_zCut.minimum(); }
  inline int zCutMax() { return m_zCut.maximum(); }

  inline void setXCutLower(int v) { m_xCut.setLowerValue(v); }
  inline void setXCutUpper(int v) { m_xCut.setUpperValue(v); }
  inline void setYCutLower(int v) { m_yCut.setLowerValue(v); }
  inline void setYCutUpper(int v) { m_yCut.setUpperValue(v); }
  inline void setZCutLower(int v) { m_zCut.setLowerValue(v); }
  inline void setZCutUpper(int v) { m_zCut.setUpperValue(v); }

  /*!
   * \brief Get the image-space ray of a screen point
   *
   * The ray passes the screen point (\a x, \a y) with the direction into the
   * screen.
   */
  ZLineSegment getScreenRay(int x, int y, int width, int height);

signals:
  void pointInVolumeLeftClicked(QPoint pt, glm::ivec3 pos3D,
                                Qt::KeyboardModifiers modifiers);
  void pointInVolumeRightClicked(QPoint pt, glm::ivec3 pos3D,
                                 Qt::KeyboardModifiers modifiers);

protected slots:
  void adjustWidget();
  void leftMouseButtonPressed(QMouseEvent *e, int w, int h);
  void updateBoundBoxLineColors();

  void invalidateFRVolumeZSlice();
  void invalidateFRVolumeYSlice();
  void invalidateFRVolumeXSlice();
  void invalidateFRVolumeZSlice2();
  void invalidateFRVolumeYSlice2();
  void invalidateFRVolumeXSlice2();

  void updateCubeSerieSlices();

private:
  // check success before using the returned value
  // if first hit 3d position is in volume, success will be true,
  // otherwise don't use the returned value
  glm::vec3 getFirstHit3DPosition(
      int x, int y, int width, int height, bool &success);
  // use first channel intensity
  glm::vec3 getMaxInten3DPositionUnderScreenPoint(
      int x, int y, int width, int height, bool &success);
  //get 3D position from 2D screen position
  glm::vec3 get3DPosition(glm::ivec2 pos2D, int width, int height, Z3DRenderOutputPort &port);
  //get 3D position from 2D screen position and depth
  glm::vec3 get3DPosition(glm::ivec2 pos2D, double depth, int width, int height);

  void clearFRVolumeSlices();

  // based on context, prepare minimum necessary data and send to raycasterrenderer
  void prepareDataForRaycaster(Z3DVolume *volume, Z3DEye eye);

protected:
  void process(Z3DEye eye);

  void initialize();

  void deinitialize();

  void invalidateAllFRVolumeSlices();

  ZIntParameter m_interactionDownsample;      // screen space downsample during interaction

  Z3DInputPort<Z3DVolume> m_volumes;
  Z3DInputPort<ZStack> m_stackInputPort;
  Z3DRenderOutputPort m_entryPort;
  Z3DRenderOutputPort m_exitPort;
  Z3DRenderOutputPort m_tmpPort;

  Z3DRenderOutputPort m_outport;
  Z3DRenderOutputPort m_leftEyeOutport;
  Z3DRenderOutputPort m_rightEyeOutport;

  Z3DVolumeRaycasterRenderer *m_volumeRaycasterRenderer;
  Z3DVolumeSliceRenderer *m_volumeSliceRenderer;
  Z3DTextureCoordinateRenderer *m_textureCoordinateRenderer;
  Z3DTextureCopyRenderer *m_textureCopyRenderer;
  std::vector<Z3DImage2DRenderer*> m_image2DRenderers;
  Z3DLineRenderer *m_boundBoxRenderer;

  static const size_t m_maxNumOfFullResolutionVolumeSlice;
  // each channel is represented by a Z3DVolume
  std::vector<std::vector<Z3DVolume*> > m_FRVolumeSlices;
  std::vector<bool> m_FRVolumeSlicesValidState;
  ZBoolParameter m_useFRVolumeSlice;
  ZBoolParameter m_showXSlice;
  ZIntParameter m_xSlicePosition;
  ZBoolParameter m_showYSlice;
  ZIntParameter m_ySlicePosition;
  ZBoolParameter m_showZSlice;
  ZIntParameter m_zSlicePosition;
  ZBoolParameter m_showXSlice2;
  ZIntParameter m_xSlice2Position;
  ZBoolParameter m_showYSlice2;
  ZIntParameter m_ySlice2Position;
  ZBoolParameter m_showZSlice2;
  ZIntParameter m_zSlice2Position;

  ZBoolParameter m_showBoundBox;
  ZIntParameter m_boundBoxLineWidth;
  ZVec4Parameter m_boundBoxLineColor;
  std::vector<glm::vec3> m_boundBoxLines;
  std::vector<glm::vec4> m_boundBoxLineColors;

  Z3DCameraParameter m_camera;

  ZEventListenerParameter* m_leftMouseButtonPressEvent;
  glm::ivec2 m_startCoord;

  ZWidgetsGroup *m_widgetsGroup;

  ZIntSpanParameter m_xCut;
  ZIntSpanParameter m_yCut;
  ZIntSpanParameter m_zCut;

  Z3DTriangleList m_2DImageQuad;

  std::map<std::string, Z3DTriangleList> m_cubeSerieSlices;
};

#endif // Z3DVOLUMERAYCASTER_H

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


If health restrictions have lowed your typical red meat intake, bison might be the delicious fix you've been looking for.
While it has a flavor often indistinguishable from beef, a well-refined palette will detect a richer, fuller, and sweeter flavor. It is not a "gamey" or wild tasting meat. In addition to taste is also cooked in a similar way to beef.
Unlike beef however, it doesn't have the high saturated fat, calories, and cholesterol. It is one of the leanest, protein rich meats. It's leaner than skinless chicken or turkey, and is comparable to most fish. Bison is know to be a highly nutrient dense food because of the proportion of protein, essence fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals when compared to its caloric value.
To make sure that Pencil Bison Ranch brings you the highest quality meat we never use growth hormones or antibiotics. We leave your meat just the way nature intended it to be.
Bison are the only mammal that does not develop cancer; its meat is non-allergenic; bison met has 35% more protein than beef; it has less cholesterol than skinless chicken or turkey, and is comparable to most fish; the Plains Indian was not known to develop heart disease or cancer on a bison diet; bison meat can reduce LDL by 45% over six months of eating 4oz of bison meat four to five times a week.
Check out the links below for more information on the health benefits of Buffalo.
6569 OH-55, Urbana, OH 43078.


Credit Bureau Report - And don't fall for the "you need a co-signer" line. There are other ways to overcome credit guidelines. One way is a larger deposit.
Credit Bureau Report, Another important aspect to consider is the costs of ownership involved with the car. Things such as fuel, maintenance, or insurance premiums could run up some hefty numbers on they in addition to their monthly payment. As soon as they suspect their identity had been compromised through Internet identity theft, contact the service provider. Next, get in touch with their credit reports issuer or immediately close their account. Their credit reports company will be only too happy to issue they new reports with a different account number. Ensure that their old account contain the notation "closed at consumer's request" so that there will be no harmful consequences to their credit score. Follow up free credit reporting verbal communication with their credit reports company in writing so they had a hard copy record of the transaction. At that time deciding whether to buy a home, often the first thing that needs to be considered is how much could they fated. Determining how much money they had or how much they could borrow is often a deceptively difficult question to answer. At that time they consolidate, they create the possibility of a lower interest rate. This is because sometimes opportunities arise in which they could defer or through tolerance had a chance to made that interest rate drop even more, thereby putting more of their monthly payment to the actual principle amount of the loan. Which to they means a faster payoff. If they could look to a consolidation that allows to no prepayment penalty, because they could pay off these loans quicker. As they earn more money a plan where they could prepay without punishment is ideal as having this option could bring they closer to being debt free even faster. Another benefit to consolidating student loans is tax breaks. There is a deduction that they could claim whether or not they itemize, this could reduce the amount of taxable income up to $2,500. At the latest, they also must receive intimation, before they become obligated on the account, about any limitations on how much or how often their rate may change.
Another way to hurt your credit rating is to pay your bills or bank fees late. If you do this then your credit report will show that you are unreliable, and the interest rates and fees that you are charged are likely to increase. Although it isn't always possible, try and pay your bills on time. Using an online bill paying system can help you to keep track of when you need to pay.
Credit Bureau Report, Apply for credit from creditors with whom you've done business. For example, if you had a Sears charge card from a store in New Jersey and you moved to California, apply for a Sears card from a store near your new home.
As far as poor credit tenant loans approval is concerned, it comes in a smoother way if tenants are able to convince the lender that they are in a position of paying the loan installments regularly. To convince, tenants should take a repayment plan that says a lot about actual repayment capacity, which is regular expenses subtracted from income, to the lender. Employment and past bank statements are also needed for convincing on the repaying capability. Tenant's level of poor credit also is a factor in approving the loan. If credit score has not slumped much then lenders may approve poor credit tenant loans smoothly. A credit score of 580 is considered as poor credit. Take a copy of your credit report and make sure there are no errors in it. Also pay off easy debts so that the lender has faith in you.
Credit Bureau Report - At such time credit repair seems to be the need of the hour or they need to resolve to advocate all necessary means or take up all needful measures to improve upon their credit position.
At that time they ask to their free credit report it is important to had all of the pertinent intimation they need. If they don't had this intimation it will keep they from receiving their report. They will be asked to provide their full name, address, or their social security number.
At the end of the day, perfect credit is much like the idea of me dating Angelia Jolie. It is a nice idea, but probably isn't going to happen. If you credit is blemished or a disaster, contact a mortgage broker to see if there is sub-prime lender out there that will finance you. You will probably be shocked to learn there is.
Credit Bureau Report, Bad credit debt consolidation loans provide the ideal solution to address the above issues. A debt consolidation loan can be used to pay off all the debts against your name in one go. You have to deal with just a single lender and a single loan. That makes life really easy for you!!


Dell Technologies (NYSE: DVMT) announces its fiscal 2017 fourth quarter and full year results, which reflect the growth and impact of the EMC transaction.
For the fourth quarter, consolidated revenue from continuing operations was $20.1 billion and non-GAAP revenue from continuing operations was $20.6 billion. During the quarter, the company generated an operating loss of $1.7 billion, with a non-GAAP operating income of $1.8 billion.
For the full year, consolidated revenue from continuing operations was $61.6 billion and non-GAAP revenue from continuing operations was $62.8 billion. The company generated an operating loss of $3.3 billion, with a non-GAAP operating income of $5.1 billion.
Due to the EMC transaction as well as the Dell going-private transaction, significant non-cash bridging items will remain between GAAP and non-GAAP results for the next few years. Prior-year historical Dell Technologies financials do not include EMC historical results, thereby impacting any year-over-year comparisons.
"I'm pleased with our overall fiscal 2017 performance, with growth in our client business and positive momentum from investments we're making in our infrastructure business," said Tom Sweet, chief financial officer, Dell Technologies Inc. "In our fiscal year 2018, we'll drive that momentum forward, beginning with our new sales go-to-market capabilities, and continue to target identified revenue and cost synergies while investing in our broad portfolio of solutions."
The company ended the year with a cash and investments balance of $15.3 billion, an increase of $287 million from the third quarter.
Since closing the EMC transaction, Dell Technologies has paid down approximately $7 billion in debt and repurchased $824 million of Class V Common Stock under the previously announced Class V Common Stock repurchase programs.
Today the company also announced the board has approved an amendment to its existing Class V Group Repurchase Program for up to an additional $300 million over six months. The amount will be funded solely through a new VMware Class A Stock Purchase Agreement with VMware.
Dell Technologies' fiscal year 2017 included an additional week, which is incorporated into the company's fourth quarter results.
Client Solutions Group continued to outgrow the market worldwide for units in both commercial and consumer product categories on a calendar year basis. Revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter was $9.8 billion, up 11 percent versus the fourth quarter of last year, and revenue for the full year was $36.8 billion, up 2 percent year over fiscal year 2016. Operating income was $342 million for the quarter, and $1.8 billion for the full year.
Infrastructure Solutions Group generated $8.4 billion of revenue in the fourth quarter, which includes $3.6 billion in servers and networking and $4.8 billion in storage, and an operating income of $1 billion.
VMware revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.9 billion, with operating income of $565 million, or 29.2 percent of revenue.
As previously announced, the company will hold a conference call to discuss its fourth quarter and full-year performance today at 7 a.m. CDT. The conference call will be broadcast live over the internet and can be accessed at investors.delltechnologies.com. For those unable to listen to the live broadcast, an archived version will be available at the same location for 30 days.
Dell Technologies will host a meeting for investors April 5, 2017, at 1:30 p.m. EDT in New York. The meeting will feature discussions from Chief Financial Officer Tom Sweet, Infrastructure Solutions Group President David Goulden, and Treasurer Tyler Johnson with a focus on the company's strategy, integration efforts and capital structure. Due to limited seating, onsite attendance is by invitation only. A live webcast and replay of the meeting will be available on the event page of Dell Technologies Investor Relations website at investors.delltechnologies.com.
Join us May 8-11, 2017 at Dell EMC World in Las Vegas, Dell Technologies' flagship event, bringing together technology and business professionals to network, share ideas and help co-create a better future. This is the first time the Dell Technologies family of brands will be all in one place, at one conference. Meet our experts and more than 12,000 IT practitioners and business leaders who are making Digital Transformation a reality. Learn more at www.dellemcworld.com and follow #DellEMCWorld on Twitter.
Copyright © 2017 Dell Inc. or its subsidiaries. All Rights Reserved. Dell, Dell EMC, Dell Inc. and the Dell logo are trademarks of Dell Technologies in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.
The press release presents information about the Company's non-GAAP net revenue, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating expenses, non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income from continuing operations, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP financial measures provided as a supplement to the results provided in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America ("GAAP"). A reconciliation of each of the foregoing historical non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable historical GAAP financial measures is provided in the attached tables for each of the fiscal periods indicated.
Dell Technologies' results or events in future periods could differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements because of risks, uncertainties, and other factors that include, but are not limited to, the following: competitive pressures; Dell Technologies' reliance on third-party suppliers for products and components, including reliance on single-source or limited-source suppliers; Dell Technologies' ability to achieve favorable pricing from its vendors; adverse global economic conditions and instability in financial markets; Dell Technologies' execution of its growth, business and acquisition strategies; the success of Dell Technologies' cost efficiency measures; Dell Technologies' ability to manage solutions and products and services transitions in an effective manner; Dell Technologies' ability to deliver high-quality products and services; Dell Technologies' foreign operations and ability to generate substantial non-U.S.net revenue; Dell Technologies' product, customer, and geographic sales mix, and seasonal sales trends; the performance of Dell Technologies' sales channel partners; access to the capital markets by Dell Technologies or its customers; weak economic conditions and additional regulation; counterparty default risks; the loss by Dell Technologies of any services contracts with its customers, including government contracts, and its ability to perform such contracts at its estimated costs; Dell Technologies' ability to develop and protect its proprietary intellectual property or obtain licenses to intellectual property developed by others on commercially reasonable and competitive terms; infrastructure disruptions, cyberattacks, or other data security breaches; Dell Technologies' ability to hedge effectively its exposure to fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates and interest rates; expiration of tax holidays or favorable tax rate structures, or unfavorable outcomes in tax audits and other tax compliance matters; impairment of portfolio investments; unfavorable results of legal proceedings; increased costs and additional regulations and requirements as a result of Dell Technologies becoming a newly public company; Dell Technologies' ability to develop and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting; compliance requirements of changing environmental and safety laws; the effect of armed hostilities, terrorism, natural disasters, and public health issues; the costs, time, and effort required to be dedicated to the integration of the Dell and EMC businesses; the ability to realize the anticipated synergies from the merger with EMC; the ability to integrate EMC's technology, solutions, products, and services with those of Dell in an effective manner; the impact of the financial performance of VMware; and the market volatility of Dell Technologies' pension plan assets.
This list of risks, uncertainties, and other factors is not complete. Dell Technologies discusses some of these matters more fully, as well as certain risk factors that could affect the Dell Technologies' business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects, in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Dell Technologies' annual report on Form 10-K, which we expect to file on March 31, 2017, and current reports on Form 8-K. These filings are available for review through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at www.sec.gov. Any or all forward-looking statements Dell Technologies makes may turn out to be wrong and can be affected by inaccurate assumptions Dell Technologies might make or by known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, including those identified in this press release. Accordingly, you should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements made in this press release, which speak only as of its date. Dell Technologies does not undertake to update, and expressly disclaims any duty to update, its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of circumstances or events that arise after the date they are made, new information, or otherwise.
On March 27, 2016, Dell entered into a definitive agreement with NTT Data International L.L.C. to sell substantially all of Dell Services for cash consideration of approximately $3.0 billion. On June 19, 2016, Dell entered into a definitive agreement with Francisco Partners and Elliot Management Corporation to sell substantially all of Dell Software Group for cash consideration of approximately $2.4 billion. On Sept. 12, 2016, EMC Corporation entered into a definitive agreement with OpenText to divest the Dell EMC Enterprise Content Division, or ECD, for cash consideration of approximately $1.6 billion. Accordingly, the results of operations of Dell Services, Dell Software Group and ECD have been excluded from the results of continuing operations and from segment results. On October 31, 2016, Dell completed the sale of Dell Software Group. On November 2, 2016, Dell completed substantially all of the sale of Dell Services. The remainder of the Dell Services transaction closed subsequent to the fiscal year ended February 3, 2017. On January 23, 2017, Dell Technologies completed the sale of ECD.
(a) Other businesses consist of RSA Information Security, SecureWorks, Pivotal, and Boomi offerings, and do not constitute a reportable segment, either individually or collectively, as the results of the businesses are not material to the Company's overall results and the businesses do not meet the criteria for reportable segments.
(c) Impact of purchase accounting includes non-cash purchase accounting adjustments that are primarily related to the EMC merger transaction, as well as the going-private transaction.
(d) Transaction-related expenses includes acquisition and integration-related costs.
These tables present information about the Company's non-GAAP net revenue, non-GAAP gross margin, non-GAAP operating expenses, non-GAAP operating income, non-GAAP net income from continuing operations, EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA, which are non-GAAP financial measures provided as a supplement to the results provided in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America ("GAAP"). A detailed discussion of Dell Technologies' reasons for including these non-GAAP financial measures, the limitations associated with these measures, the items excluded from these measures, and our reason for excluding those items are presented in "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations - Non-GAAP Financial Measures" in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. Dell Technologies encourages investors to review the non-GAAP discussion in conjunction with the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures.


text:
Zach Johnson Named Ryder Cup Vice Captain
Ross Kinnaird, Getty Images
Another honor for Cedar Rapids native Zach Johnson. The two-time major winner has been named as a vice-captain for this year's Ryder Cup even held in Kohler, Wisconsin September 25th through the 27th.
The Gazette reports that U.S. captain Steve Stricker named Johnson as a vice-captain. He'll join Davis Love III and Jimy Fyurk in the role for the Americans. Stricker said, "With the Ryder Cup it is important to surround yourself with quality individuals you can lean on and have the best interests of the team in mind."
Johnson also announced some other changes involving his annual golf tournament held in Cedar Rapids. The Gazette reports that the Zach Johnson Foundation will host a virtual fundraising gala that will be open to the public on June 6th beginning at 7 p.m. It will be streamed live on The Zach Johnson Foundation Facebook page. The changes were made due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The Zach Johnson Foundation Classic tournament will still go on as scheduled on Monday, July 27th, but will be closed to spectators, vendors, and volunteers.
The Gazette reports that funds raised from the virtual gala will go to benefit and support Kids On Course, a Zach Johnson Foundation program that serves more than 1,000 kids in the Cedar Rapids school district. Kids On Course is based at Grant, Harrison, Hoover, and Van Buren elementary schools, Roosevelt and Wilson middle schools, and Jefferson and Kennedy high schools. Cedar River Academy at Taylor Elementary will be added in August.
KEEP READING: See how sports around the world have been impacted by the coronavirus
Filed Under: foundation, gala, Ryder Cup, tournament, Zach Johnson
Categories: Local News, Sports


Pêcherie Manicouagan was the first fishing and seafood transformation company in eastern Québec to have obtained the prestigious BRC Global Standard Food Safety certification, which recognizes the quality of transformed seafood products and ensures that manufacturers fulfil their legal obligations and provide protection for end consumer. Our certification covers the products that are transformed in our plant, Les Crabiers du Nord. BRC Global Standards is a leading safety and quality certification program, used by over 22,000 certificated suppliers in 123 countries, with certification issued through a worldwide network of accredited certification bodies.


Nicholas Pappagallo interviews Tom Curley from Panasonic and Lumix about the new prototype 100-400 lens on display at the PhotoPlus Lumix booth! We also discuss the brand new Lumix GX8 4k camera with both in camera and lens stabilization. Tune in to see more!