Capital Budgeting and Sustainable Enterprises: Ethical Implications

This article focuses upon the growing, universal influence of social, environmental, and economic factors in business decision-making and the possibility of developing sustainable enterprises through a triple-bottom-line, capital budgeting approach

On an unverified nuclear decay and its role in the DAMA experiment

The rate of the direct decay of 40K to the ground state of 40Ar through electron capture has not been experimentally reported. Aside from its inherent importance for the theory of electron capture as the only such decay known of its type (unique third-forbidden), this decay presents an irreducible background in the DAMA experiment. We find that the presence of this background, as well as others, poses a challenge to any interpretation of the DAMA results in terms of a Dark Matter model with a small modulation fraction. A 10ppb contamination of natural potassium requires a 20% modulation fraction or more. A 20ppb contamination, which is reported as an upper limit by DAMA, disfavors any Dark Matter origin of the signal. This conclusion is based on the efficiency of detecting 40K decays as inferred from simulation. We propose measures to help clarify the situation.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures; v2 - published version; results unchanged; an addendum can be found in http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1210.754

Variational Symmetries and Conservation Laws in Linearized Gravity

The methods of symmetry group analysis are applied to the action functional of linearized gravity to derive necessary conditions for the existence of variational symmetries. Two classes of variational symmetries of linearized gravity are discussed, and the local conservation laws associated with these variational symmetries are presented by applying Noether\u27s theore

Engineering of GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase for production of highly phosphorylated lysosomal enzymes for enzyme replacement therapy

Several lysosomal enzymes currently used for enzyme replacement therapy in patients with lysosomal storage diseases contain very low levels of mannose 6-phosphate, limiting their uptake via mannose 6-phosphate receptors on the surface of the deficient cells. These enzymes are produced at high levels by mammalian cells and depend on endogenous GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase α/β precursor to phosphorylate the mannose residues on their glycan chains. We show that co-expression of an engineered truncated GlcNAc-1-phosphotransferase α/β precursor and the lysosomal enzyme of interest in the producing cells resulted in markedly increased phosphorylation and cellular uptake of the secreted lysosomal enzyme. This method also results in the production of highly phosphorylated acid β-glucocerebrosidase, a lysosomal enzyme that normally has just trace amounts of this modification

Designing and Implementing a De-Escalation Toolkit to Improve Staff Education and Competency on De-Escalation within a Mental Health Outpatient Setting

Background: The purpose of this study is to develop and implement a de-escalation toolkit to help improve memory, retention, and utility of de-escalation techniques within an outpatient mental health crisis stabilization unit. Problem: The aforementioned crisis stabilization unit has elevated rates of patient aggression/violence and staff present with difficulty recalling de-escalation techniques due to the lapse in memory and/or retention. Methods: The project was introduced to the stakeholders of the crisis stabilization unit and input was obtained on the design and components of the toolkit. Various analyses were conducted to ensure the appropriate implementation of the project. Intervention: A de-escalation toolkit was developed and implemented within the crisis stabilization unit to help increase de-escalation technique utility and increase staff competency of techniques. Results: Staff responded positively to the implementation of the de-escalation toolkit and found it to be beneficial in their practice. Moreover, staff education and perception regarding de-escalation techniques was improved and technique utility due to the toolkit was also prevalent. Conclusions: The de-escalation toolkit was helpful in improving de-escalation technique utility and improving memory and retention of techniques. The toolkit can continue to be improved in the future and used at other sites with benefit as well. Keywords: de-escalation, de-escalation techniques, de-escalation toolkit, mental health, mental health outpatient setting, aggression/violence, staff education/training

Analysis the Unpowered Freewheeling Propeller Impact in Quadcopter for Energy Harvesting Process

This research investigates the impact of freewheeling propellers in the Quadcopter for the purpose of harvesting energy. The main part of the Quadcopter is the propeller. In the arm of the Quadcopter, if the Unpowered freewheeling propeller is connected along with the main propeller at the time of Energy Harvesting (EH) process, the induced-flow caused by both propellers may interfere with the Quadcopter’s aerodynamics. Consideration of the aerodynamic point of view to place the freewheeling propeller at a particular distance and place from the main propeller is very important. In this study, in terms of propeller diameter, two different types of freewheeling propeller designs are taken to investigation: Case 1- same size propellers and Case 2- different size propellers. Three distances between the main and freewheeling propellers are defined using the primary test setup as 8, 10, and 12 cm are taken to the software analyses using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) ANSYS 18.1 / FLUENT simulation. The propeller airflow characteristics of pressure, force, and velocity variation between both cases are analysed using the graphical contour representation and measured values. The CFD simulation result showed that, Case 2-different size propellers got better force variation compared with the Case1-Same size propellers and 10 cm distance between the propellers in both the Cases seems good results compared with the other distances of 8 cm and 12 cm. This is an interesting design feature that can be used to locate the freewheeling propeller in the Quadcopter for Energy Harvesting purpose

Automated Accident Detection In Intersections Via Digital Audio Signal Processing

The aim of this thesis is to design a system for automated accident detection in intersections. The input to the system is a three-second audio signal. The system can be operated in two modes: two-class and multi-class. The output of the two-class system is a label of ?crash? or ?non-crash?. In the multi-class system, the output is the label of ?crash? or various non-crash incidents including ?pile drive?, ?brake?, and ?normal-traffic? sounds. The system designed has three main steps in processing the input audio signal. They are: feature extraction, feature optimization and classification. Five different methods of feature extraction are investigated and compared; they are based on the discrete wavelet transform, fast Fourier transform, discrete cosine transform, real cepstrum transform and Mel frequency cepstral transform. Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) is used to optimize the features obtained in the feature extraction stage by linearly combining the features using different weights. Three types of statistical classifiers are investigated and compared: the nearest neighbor, nearest mean, and maximum likelihood methods. Data collected from Jackson, MS and Starkville, MS and the crash signals obtained from Texas Transportation Institute crash test facility are used to train and test the designed system. The results showed that the wavelet based feature extraction method with LDA and maximum likelihood classifier is the optimum design. This wavelet-based system is computationally inexpensive compared to other methods. The system produced classification accuracies of 95% to 100% when the input signal has a signal-to-noise-ratio of at least 0 decibels. These results show that the system is capable of effectively classifying ?crash? or ?non-crash? on a given input audio signal