Explains how and why ramps and other inclined planes are used in everyday life.

This synthesis will be of interest to highway design engineers, maintenance personnel, safety and enforcement officials, traffic engineers, and others responsible for the safe operation of large trucks on highways. Information is provided on the critical aspects of site location, design criteria, and maintenance procedures, and their relationship to truck escape ramp performance. The safety of truck drivers, other road users, and occupants of roadside properties is often imperiled by the combination of heavy trucks and steep downgrades on highways. Frequently, gearing down, applying the brakes, and using the retarding power of the engine are not sufficient to control the truck, and serious crashes can result. Many states have constructed truck escape ramps to safely remove runaway trucks from the traffic stream. This report of the Transportation Research Board provides information on the location, design, construction materials, geometrics, and construction costs of truck escape ramps. Operational considerations, such as descriptions of advance warning signs, traffic control devices at the ramp, and vehicle removal procedures are described. Information on frequency and type of usage, maintenance of the ramps, and driver-related issues is also included.

With talent shortages looming over the next decade, what can companies do to attract and retain the large number of professional women who are forced off the career highway? By documenting the successful efforts of a group of cutting-edge global companies to retain talented women and reintegrate them if they’ve already left, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps answers this critical question. Working closely with companies such as Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, General Electric and others, author Sylvia Ann Hewlett identifies what works and why. Based on firsthand experience with these companies, along with extensive data that provides the most comprehensive and nuanced portrait of women's career paths, this book documents the actions forward-thinking companies must take to reverse the female brain drain and ensure their access to talent over the long term.

Nearly twenty percent of Americans live today with some sort of disability, and this number will grow in coming decades as the population ages. Despite this, the U.S. health care system is not set up to provide care comfortably, safely, and efficiently to persons with disabilities. Individuals with disabilities can therefore face significant barriers to obtaining high quality health care. Some barriers result from obvious impediments, such as doors without automatic openers and examining tables that are too high. Other barriers arise from faulty communication between patients and health care professionals, including misconceptions among clinicians about the daily lives, preferences, values, and abilities of persons with disabilities. Yet additional barriers relate to health insurance limits on items and services essential to maximizing health and independence. This book examines the health care experiences of persons who are blind, deaf, hard of hearing, or who have difficulties using their legs, arms, or hands. The book then outlines strategies for overcoming or circumventing barriers to care, starting by just asking persons with disabilities about workable solutions. Creating safe and accessible health care for persons with disabilities will likely benefit everyone at some point. This book has three parts. The first part looks at the historical roots of healthcare access for persons with disabilities in the United States. The second part discusses the current situation and the special challenges for those with disabilities. The third part looks forward to discuss the ways in which healthcare quality and access can improve.

The Social Contract -- Rousseau's famous term concerning the bond between a government and it's people -- has been sold to the highest bidder. Freedom is reserved only for markets in a society increasingly strangled by corporate of power.Empowerment is the new definition of destitution.By looking at the struggles of the disabled faced with the end of social services, Ending the Social Contract as We Know It provides a powerful warning: the disabled are as canaries in a coal mine, and their maltreatment is a harbinger of things to come for the rest of us.In a tightly woven argument, Marta Russell shows how the onslaught of corporate power facing the disabled -- from issues like genetic screening, to restricted access to health care, to welfare reform -- will shortly be faced by a much broader segment of society.

There is a fantastic array of vegetables you can grow in your garden, and not all of them are annuals. In Perennial Vegetables the adventurous gardener will find information, tips, and sound advice on less common edibles that will make any garden a perpetual, low-maintenance source of food. Imagine growing vegetables that require just about the same amount of care as the flowers in your perennial beds and borders—no annual tilling and potting and planting. They thrive and produce abundant and nutritious crops throughout the season. It sounds too good to be true, but in Perennial Vegetables author and plant specialist Eric Toensmeier (Edible Forest Gardens) introduces gardeners to a world of little-known and wholly underappreciated plants. Ranging beyond the usual suspects (asparagus, rhubarb, and artichoke) to include such "minor" crops as ground cherry and ramps (both of which have found their way onto exclusive restaurant menus) and the much sought after, anti-oxidant-rich wolfberry (also known as goji berries), Toensmeier explains how to raise, tend, harvest, and cook with plants that yield great crops and satisfaction. Perennial vegetables are perfect as part of an edible landscape plan or permaculture garden. Profiling more than 100 species, illustrated with dozens of color photographs and illustrations, and filled with valuable growing tips, recipes, and resources, Perennial Vegetables is a groundbreaking and ground-healing book that will open the eyes of gardeners everywhere to the exciting world of edible perennials.