Social Responsibility and Altruism in Smalland Medium-Sized Innovative Businesses

This study examines the interview narratives of owners of 73 small and medium-sized businesses from a large metropolitan area located in the southwestern U.S. Our analysis focuses on owner discussions of their motivations and goals for starting and running their own businesses. Our findings reveal three central motivational narrative themes: (1) traditional business-centered success outcomes—a category we refer to as “Business is Business”; (2) owners’ personal and family well-being and fulfillment, labeled as “Business is Personal”; and (3) social responsibility concerns directed toward the betterment of other people and society more generally that we labeled as “Business is Doing Good.” Owner narratives typically referenced motives in more than one of these three realms. However, relatively, they expended considerably more time and energy discussing altruistic or social responsibility goals compared to strictly business or personal motives. Our study reveals the importance of norms of social responsibility in the discursive constructions of small and medium-sized businesses

The effect of phase-correlated returns and spatial smoothing on the accuracy of radar refractivity retrievals

Radar refractivity retrievals have the potential to accurately capture near-surface humidity fields from the phase change of ground clutter returns. In practice, phase changes are very noisy and the required smoothing will diminish large radial phase change gradients, leading to severe underestimates of large refractivity changes (ΔN). To mitigate this, the mean refractivity change over the field (ΔNfield) must be subtracted prior to smoothing. However, both observations and simulations indicate that highly correlated returns (e.g., when single targets straddle neighboring gates) result in underestimates of ΔNfield when pulse-pair processing is used. This may contribute to reported differences of up to 30 N units between surface observations and retrievals. This effect can be avoided if ΔNfield is estimated using a linear least squares fit to azimuthally averaged phase changes. Nevertheless, subsequent smoothing of the phase changes will still tend to diminish the all-important spatial perturbations in retrieved refractivity relative to ΔNfield; an iterative estimation approach may be required. The uncertainty in the target location within the range gate leads to additional phase noise proportional to ΔN, pulse length, and radar frequency. The use of short pulse lengths is recommended, not only to reduce this noise but to increase both the maximum detectable refractivity change and the number of suitable targets. Retrievals of refractivity fields must allow for large ΔN relative to an earlier reference field. This should be achievable for short pulses at S band, but phase noise due to target motion may prevent this at C band, while at X band even the retrieval of ΔN over shorter periods may at times be impossible

Normal Ribosomal Biogenesis but Shortened Protein Synthetic Response to Acute Eccentric Resistance Exercise in Old Skeletal Muscle.

Anabolic resistance to feeding in aged muscle is well-characterized; however, whether old skeletal muscle is intrinsically resistant to acute mechanical loading is less clear. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of aging on muscle protein synthesis (MPS), ribosome biogenesis, and protein breakdown in skeletal muscle following a single bout of resistance exercise. Adult male F344/BN rats aged 10 (Adult) and 30 (Old) months underwent unilateral maximal eccentric contractions of the hindlimb. Precursor rRNA increased early post-exercise (6-18 h), preceding elevations in ribosomal mass at 48 h in Adult and Old; there were no age-related differences in these responses. MPS increased early post-exercise in both Adult and Old; however, at 48 h of recovery, MPS returned to baseline in Old but not Adult. This abbreviated protein synthesis response in Old was associated with decreased levels of IRS1 protein and increased BiP, CHOP and eIF2α levels. Other than these responses, anabolic signaling was similar in Adult and Old muscle in the acute recovery phase. Basal proteasome activity was lower in Old, and resistance exercise did not increase the activity of either the ATP-dependent or independent proteasome, or autophagy (Cathepsin L activity) in either Adult or Old muscle. We conclude that MPS and ribosome biogenesis in response to maximal resistance exercise in old skeletal muscle are initially intact; however, the MPS response is abbreviated in Old, which may be the result of ER stress and/or blunted exercise-induced potentiation of the MPS response to feeding

Age-related deficits in skeletal muscle recovery following disuse are associated with neuromuscular junction instability and ER stress, not impaired protein synthesis.

Age-related loss of muscle mass and strength can be accelerated by impaired recovery of muscle mass following a transient atrophic stimulus. The aim of this study was to identify the mechanisms underlying the attenuated recovery of muscle mass and strength in old rats following disuse-induced atrophy. Adult (9 month) and old (29 month) male F344BN rats underwent hindlimb unloading (HU) followed by reloading. HU induced significant atrophy of the hindlimb muscles in both adult (17-38%) and old (8-29%) rats, but only the adult rats exhibited full recovery of muscle mass and strength upon reloading. Upon reloading, total RNA and protein synthesis increased to a similar extent in adult and old muscles. At baseline and upon reloading, however, proteasome-mediated degradation was suppressed leading to an accumulation of ubiquitin-tagged proteins and p62. Further, ER stress, as measured by CHOP expression, was elevated at baseline and upon reloading in old rats. Analysis of mRNA expression revealed increases in HDAC4, Runx1, myogenin, Gadd45a, and the AChRs in old rats, suggesting neuromuscular junction instability/denervation. Collectively, our data suggests that with aging, impaired neuromuscular transmission and deficits in the proteostasis network contribute to defects in muscle fiber remodeling and functional recovery of muscle mass and strength

Molecular brakes regulating mTORC1 activation in skeletal muscle following synergist ablation

The goal of the current work was to profile positive (mTORC1 activation, autocrine/paracrine growth factors) and negative [AMPK, unfolded protein response (UPR)] pathways that might regulate overload-induced mTORC1 (mTOR complex 1) activation with the hypothesis that a number of negative regulators of mTORC1 will be engaged during a supraphysiological model of hypertrophy. To achieve this, mTORC1- IRS-1/2 signaling, BiP/CHOP/IRE1, and AMPK activation were determined in rat plantaris muscle following synergist ablation (SA). SA resulted in significant increases in muscle mass of 4% per day throughout the 21 days of the experiment. The expression of the insulin-like growth factors (IGF) were high throughout the 21st day of overload. However, IGF signaling was limited, since IRS-1 and -2 were undetectable in the overloaded muscle from day 3 to day 9. The decreases in IRS-1/2 protein were paralleled by increases in GRB10 Ser501/503 and S6K1 Thr389 phosphorylation, two mTORC1 targets that can destabilize IRS proteins. PKB Ser473 phosphorylation was higher from 3– 6 days, and this was associated with increased TSC2 Thr939 phosphorylation. The phosphorylation of TSC2 Thr1345 (an AMPK site) was also elevated, whereas phosphorylation at the other PKB site, Thr1462, was unchanged at 6 days. In agreement with the phosphorylation of Thr1345, SA led to activation of AMPK1 during the initial growth phase, lasting the first 9 days before returning to baseline by day 12. The UPR markers CHOP and BiP were elevated over the first 12 days following ablation, whereas IRE1 levels decreased. These data suggest that during supraphysiological muscle loading at least three potential molecular brakes engage to downregulate mTORC1. m

Recursion relations and branching rules for simple Lie algebras

The branching rules between simple Lie algebras and its regular (maximal) simple subalgebras are studied. Two types of recursion relations for anomalous relative multiplicities are obtained. One of them is proved to be the factorized version of the other. The factorization property is based on the existence of the set of weights $\Gamma$ specific for each injection. The structure of $\Gamma$ is easily deduced from the correspondence between the root systems of algebra and subalgebra. The recursion relations thus obtained give rise to simple and effective algorithm for branching rules. The details are exposed by performing the explicit decomposition procedure for $A_{3} \oplus u(1) \to B_{4}$ injection.Comment: 15p.,LaTe

Design, analysis, and fabrication of a pressure box test fixture for tension damage tolerance testing of curved fuselage panels

A pressure box test fixture was designed and fabricated to evaluate the effects of internal pressure, biaxial tension loads, curvature, and damage on the fracture response of composite fuselage structure. Previous work in composite fuselage tension damage tolerance, performed during NASA contract NAS1-17740, evaluated the above effects on unstiffened panels only. This work extends the tension damage tolerance testing to curved stiffened fuselage crown structure that contains longitudinal stringers and circumferential frame elements. The pressure box fixture was designed to apply internal pressure up to 20 psi, and axial tension loads up to 5000 lb/in, either separately or simultaneously. A NASTRAN finite element model of the pressure box fixture and composite stiffened panel was used to help design the test fixture, and was compared to a finite element model of a full composite stiffened fuselage shell. This was done to ensure that the test panel was loaded in a similar way to a panel in the full fuselage shell, and that the fixture and its attachment plates did not adversely affect the panel