Judge Learning Solutions Receives the Brandon Hall Group Gold Award for Excellence in Learning in 2020

| Source: The Judge Group

WAYNE, Pa., Sept. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Judge Group is pleased to announce that its learning division has again been recognized for its exceptional training development, this year winning a Gold Brandon Hall Group Award for the Best Learning Program Supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy. The Judge Group is a leading professional services firm specializing in talent, technology, and learning solutions. 

Judge received recognition for the program they designed for a leading North American retailer. To support the client’s opening of 100+ new distribution centers, a less labor-intensive approach to training was required. Judge Learning Solutions conducted Job Task Analysis for three key roles, then designed and developed a comprehensive training curriculum to support the roll-out. The program developed by Judge also allowed the client to pilot two new technologies that would bring just-in-time learning to the users. The program was designed to determine the performance expectations of future employees, ensure proper operational execution by providing training focused on best practices, and reduce the amount of training time and internal training staff necessary.

Award entries were evaluated by a panel of veteran, independent senior industry experts, Brandon Hall Group analysts and executives based upon the following criteria: fit the need, design of the program, functionality, innovation, and overall measurable benefits.

“Brandon Hall Group Awards are considered one of the most prestigious awards in learning, and for Judge to be recognized with a Gold Award is a validation of the team and their hard work,” said Pete Pedone, President of Judge Learning Solutions. “This project was a six-month effort that included hundreds of hours of analysis, design, and development. I am very proud of the entire Judge Learning team and the innovation and focus they put into this project to make sure our client had a unique solution that met their learning needs while exceeding their expectations.”

“Organizations around the world highly value Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards – so much so that we received a record number of applications in the middle of a global pandemic,” said Rachel Cooke, Brandon Hall Group COO, and leader of the HCM Excellence Awards Program. “The awards provide valuable recognition and validation of best practices in all areas of HCM at a time when they have never been more important to both employers and employees.”

This year’s Gold Awards marks Judge Learning Solutions’ eighth Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award. Previous wins include a silver award for Best Use of Mobile Learning (2019), bronze awards for Best Advance in Compliance Training (2018), Best Results of a Learning Program (2018), Best Advance in Competencies and Skill Development (2017), Best Certification Program (2015), Best in Leadership (2013), and a silver award for Best in Competencies and Skill Development (2013).

Judge Learning Solutions is headquartered in suburban Philadelphia at 151 South Warner Road, Suite 100, Wayne, PA 19087. They can be reached at 1-800-650-0035 or by visiting www.judge.com.

About The Judge Group:

The Judge Group, celebrating its 50th anniversary, is a leading professional services firm specializing in talent, technology, and learning solutions. We consult, staff, train, and solve. Through our work we make people and organizations better. Our services are successfully delivered through a network of more than 30 offices in the United States, Canada, and India. The Judge Group serves more than 50 of the Fortune 100 and is responsible for over 9,000 professionals on assignment annually across a wide range of industries.

Working at the crossroads of people and transformative technologies, The Judge Group delivers innovative business solutions – powered by top talent – to help organizations reach their strategic goals and realize opportunities now and in the future.

About Brandon Hall Group:

Brandon Hall Group is an HCM research and advisory services firm that provides insights around key performance areas, including Learning and Development, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition, and HR/Workforce Management. 

With more than 10,000 clients globally and 25 years of delivering world-class research and advisory services, Brandon Hall Group is focused on developing research that drives performance in emerging and large organizations, and provides strategic insights for executives and practitioners responsible for growth and business results (www.brandonhall.com).

Press Contact for The Judge Group:

Ryan Miller
Marketing Manager                            
(610) 667-7700
rmiller@judge.com


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Judge Learning Solutions Receives the Brandon Hall Group Gold Award for Excellence in Learning in 2020

Lok Sabha Passes Bill To Cut Salaries Of MPs By 30% Amid Cost Cuts Over COVID-19

Lok Sabha Passes Bill To Cut Salaries Of MPs By 30% Amid Cost Cuts Over COVID-19

The Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was introduced in the Lower House on Monday. It will replace the Salary, Allowances And Pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.

Lok Sabha Passes Bill To Cut Salaries Of MPs By 30% Amid Cost Cuts Over COVID-19

Lok Sabha passed a bill to reduce MPs' salaries by 30% for a year due to cost cuts over Covid

New Delhi:

Lok Sabha has passed a bill to reduce for one year the salaries of MPs by 30 per cent "to meet the exigencies" arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Salary, Allowances and Pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Bill, 2020 was introduced in the Lower House on Monday. It will replace the Salary, Allowances And Pension of Members of Parliament (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020.

The ordinance was cleared by the Cabinet on April 6 and put into effect the next day.

Replying to the debate on the bill, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi said that funds are needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and "charity should begin from home".

He also said that the economy was affected due to the lockdown, and in such a situation, the government has taken important decisions to deal with the crisis.

Responding to the demand by opposition members to restore MP Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS), he said: "Whatever decision we have taken on MPLADS is temporary and only for two years".

It was decided by the government to suspend the MPLADS funds for 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.

Under the scheme, members of both Houses can recommend development programmes involving spending of Rs 5 crore every year.

The Congress and other opposition parties in Lok Sabha demanded the restoration of MPLADS funds even as they supported the government's decision to cut the salaries of members of Parliament.

Leader of the Congress party in Lok Sabha, Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, said the MPLADS funds should be restored as it is being used by the members for development works in their respective constituencies.

Everybody has called for the restoration of the funds, so "why not we pass a unanimous resolution that the fund should be restored," he said.

He said that 93 per cent of the funds have been utilised by the members and the bulk of them were used for welfare activities for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and villagers.

He said that while the government is giving tax relief to corporates, it is cutting the salaries of the MPs, and termed it as being "penny-wise and pound-foolish".

"I am appealing to the House that this fund should be restored," he added.

Members who echoed the demand included AAP's Bhagwant Mann, independent member from Maharashtra Navneet Ravi Rana, Ritesh Pandey (BSP) and AIMIM's S I Jaleel.

TMC MP Mahua Moitra said the government is doing a disservice through this decision.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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Judge Learning Solutions Receives the Brandon Hall Group Gold Award for Excellence in Learning in 2020

Successful improvement of the catalytic activity of photosynthetic CO2 fixing enzyme Rubisco -- ScienceDaily
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Successful improvement of the catalytic activity of photosynthetic CO2 fixing enzyme Rubisco

Date:
September 15, 2020
Source:
Kobe University
Summary:
A research group have succeeded in greatly increasing the catalytic activity of Rubisco, the enzyme which fixes carbon from carbon dioxide in plant photosynthesis. The research team also hypothesized the mechanism which determines the enzyme's catalytic activity. In the future, it is hoped that increasing the photosynthetic ability of agricultural crops will lead to improved yields.
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A research group consisting of Associate Professor FUKAYAMA Hiroshi (Kobe University, Graduate School of Agricultural Science) and Professor MATSUMURA Hiroyoshi (Ritsumeikan University) et al. have succeeded in greatly increasing the catalytic activity of Rubisco (*1), the enzyme which fixes carbon from CO2 in plant photosynthesis. The research team also hypothesized the mechanism which determines the catalytic activity of Rubisco, based on structural analysis of the proteins.

In the future, it is hoped that increasing the photosynthetic ability of agricultural crops will lead to increased yields.

These results were published in the international scientific journal Molecular Plant on August 31.

Main Points

  • Photosynthesis determines a plant's growth rate. The low activity of the enzyme Rubisco, which is the catalyst for the reaction that turns CO2 into organic carbon, limits the rate of photosynthesis.
  • Rubisco consists of two types of protein; large subunits (RbcL) and small subunits (RbcS). RbcS is an important factor for determining the speed of the catalyst.
  • A hybrid Rubisco consisting of rice RbcL and sorghum RbcS demonstrated a catalytic rate that was approximately 2 times higher than that of rice Rubisco. This is believed to be the first time in the world that such a large increase in Rubisco activity has been achieved.
  • The 102 amino acid found inside RbcS is isoleucine in rice and leucine in sorghum. Analysis of the protein structures indicated the possibility that the difference in amino acid type could affect the catalytic activity.
  • It is hoped that the method to improve photosynthesis demonstrated in this study could be applied to many other crops which, like rice, have low Rubisco activity such as wheat, soybean and potato.

Research Background

Growth speed in plants is mainly determined by photosynthetic ability. Thus improving photosynthesis in agricultural crops can increase their yield. In photosynthesis, Rubisco is an enzyme that acts as the initial catalyst for the reaction which turns CO2 into organic carbon. However, Rubisco has two major drawbacks which limit photosynthesis: its catalytic activity is very low, and it can be inhibited by O2 (ie. Rubisco can mistakenly fix to O2 molecules instead of CO2 molecules, creating a toxic compound that needs to be recycled by the plant).

Rubisco's catalytic activity varies depending on the type of plant. Most major crops, such as rice, wheat and soybean are C3 plants that use regular photosynthesis. C4 plants, such as corn and sugarcane, on the other hand, have acquired a mechanism to concentrate CO2 (the C4 photosynthetic pathway).

The catalytic rate is low in C3 plants, whereas in C4 plants it tends to be high. Rubisco with high catalytic activity tends to be inhibited easily by oxygen, therefore it cannot function effectively in atmospheric conditions where there is a low concentration of CO2 if the plant doesn't have a CO2-concentrating mechanism. However, as the amount of atmospheric CO2 is continuing to increase, it is believed that if C3 plants had the same highly active type of Rubisco as C4 plants then this could be utilized to improve photosynthetic ability.

Research Findings:

Rubisco is made up of two types of protein- large subunits (RbcL) and small subunits (RbcS). The sequence of the amino acids in RbcS varies greatly between species. This team has been focusing on conducting research into RbcS. They genetically modified rice (a C3 plant) by transferring RbcS from the C4 plant sorghum, successfully increasing the catalytic rate of rice Rubisco 1.5 times. This rice with sorghum RbcS inserted (SS line), produced a chimera form of Rubisco from both sorghum RbcS and rice RbcS. Next, the rice RbcS gene was knocked out in the sorghum RbcS incorporated rice plants using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing.

In this CSS line (sorghum RbcS transferred/rice RbcS knocked out), the rice RbcS was completely replaced by sorghum RbcS, producing hybrid Rubisco. This approximately doubled the catalytic rate to that which is equivalent to C4 plants. Although many researchers have been able to improve Rubisco's catalytic characteristics, there have been no examples of such a large increase being achieved. Furthermore, CSS line plants demonstrated a higher photosynthetic rate than unmodified (wild type) rice under high CO2 conditions, even though the amount of Rubisco in their leaves was over 30% less.

Subsequently, the researchers conducted x-ray crystallography (*2) in order to illuminate the mechanism by which sorghum RbcS increases Rubisco's catalytic activity. RbcL is present in Rubisco's catalytic site. Near this catalytic site, there is a structure called RbcS βC. The 102 amino acid found in βC is isoleucine in rice and leucine in sorghum. Leucine has smaller molecules than isoleucine. Therefore, it is thought that in sorghum RbcS the gaps between amino acid molecules become bigger, making the reaction site more pliable and thus increasing catalytic activity. Although further research is necessary to prove this, it is believed to be a previously unproposed ground-breaking theory for Rubisco research.

Conclusion

The CSS line produced in this study demonstrated high photosynthetic ability, however crop yield was not improved. Hopefully, it will be possible to vastly improve plant growth and productivity through appropriate control of Rubisco levels.

The current research used the C3 plant rice, however it is vital to consider the applications of this methodology and investigate whether or not the same strategy can be used to increase Rubisco's catalytic activity in other major crops, such as wheat, soybean and potato.

It is thought that the 102 amino acid is an important determinant of the catalytic activity. Further research is being carried out to investigate this; for example by replacing only the amino acid at the 102 site with another amino acid and producing Rubisco.

Glossary

1. Rubisco (Ribulose-1,5-biphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase): In photosynthesis, the enzyme Rubisco is the catalyst for the initial reaction that fixes CO2. It is not only the catalyst for the photosynthesis reaction (carboxylase reaction) but also serves as the catalyst for the oxygenase reaction where O2 is the substrate. Plants accumulate large amounts of Rubisco in their leaves to compensate for the very slow rate of the catalyst. Around half of the soluble proteins in rice plant leaves are Rubisco and it is known to be the most prevalent protein on Earth.

2. X-ray crystallography: A method to determine the spatial coordinates of the atoms that make up a crystal by analyzing the diffraction obtained from x-raying a single crystal. This is one way of determining the structural arrangement of proteins. It is necessary to produce protein crystals.

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Materials provided by Kobe University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

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Cite This Page:

Kobe University. "Successful improvement of the catalytic activity of photosynthetic CO2 fixing enzyme Rubisco." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 15 September 2020. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200915090123.htm>.
Kobe University. (2020, September 15). Successful improvement of the catalytic activity of photosynthetic CO2 fixing enzyme Rubisco. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 15, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200915090123.htm
Kobe University. "Successful improvement of the catalytic activity of photosynthetic CO2 fixing enzyme Rubisco." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200915090123.htm (accessed September 15, 2020).

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