367 research outputs found
Putting Ethics on the Agenda for Real Estate Agents
This article uses sociological role theory to
help understand ethical challenges faced by Norwegian
real estate agents. The article begins with an introductory
case, and then briefly examines the strengths and limitations
of using legal definitions and rules for understanding
real estate agency and real estate agent ethics. It goes on to
argue that the ethical challenges of real estate agency can
be described and understood as a system of conflicting
roles with associated rights and duties, in particular sales
agent, intermediary and adviser sub-roles. The arguments
are developed using exploratory findings from a survey of
Norwegian real estate agents and from several focus
groups. The article then suggests the use of various
intranet tools as a kind of action research aimed at putting
ethics on the real estate agentsā agenda, working to
develop a collective conscience and collective selfcriticism
among the agents, and, in doing so, building
bridges between academic research and the practical
working world of the agents
Mechanisms of Crustal Anatexis: a Geochemical Study of Partially Melted Metapelitic Enclaves and Host Dacite, SE Spain
To shed light on the mechanisms of crustal anatexis, a detailed geochemical study has been conducted on minerals and glasses of quenched anatectic metapelitic enclaves and their host peraluminous dacites at El Hoyazo, SE Spain. Anatectic enclaves, composed of plagioclase Ć¾ biotite Ć¾ sillimanite Ć¾ garnet Ć¾ glass K-feldspar cordierite Ć¾ graphite, formed during the rapid heating and overstepped melting of a greenschist-facies metapelite, and finally equilibrated at 850 508C and 5^7 kbar. Glass appears as melt inclusions within all mineral phases and in the matrix of the enclaves, and has a major element composition similar to that of peraluminous leucogranites. Melt inclusions and matrix glasses have normative quartz^orthoclase^albite compositions that plot in the vicinity of H2O-undersaturated haplogranite eutectics. Melt inclusions show some compositional variability, with high Li, Cs and B, low Y, first row transition elements (FRTE) and rare earth elements (REE), and zircon and monazite saturation temperatures of 665^7508C.They are interpreted as melts produced by muscovitebreakdown melting reactions at the onset of the process of rapid melting and mostly under H2O-undersaturated conditions. Compared with melt inclusions, matrix glasses show less compositional variability, lower large ion lithophile element contents, higher Y, FRTE and REE, and higher zircon and monazite saturation temperatures ( 695^8158C).They are interpreted as former melts recording the onset of biotite dehydration-melting. Matrix glasses in the dacite are compositionally different from glasses in the enclaves, hence the genetic connection between metasedimentary enclaves and dacite is not as straightforward as previous petrographic and bulk major element data suggest; this opens the possibility for some alternative interpretation. This study shows the following: (1) melt inclusions provide a window of information into the prograde evolution of anatexis in the enclaves; (2) melting occurred for the most part under H2O-undersaturated conditions even if, because of the rapid heating, the protolith preserved most of the structurally bound H2O contained at greenschist facies up to the beginning of anatexis, such that the excess H2O maximized the amount of H2O-undersaturated melt generated during anatexis; (3) although a large proportion of accessory minerals are currently shielded within major mineral phases, they have progressively dissolved to a considerable extent into the melt phase along the prograde anatectic path, as indicated by the relative clustering of accessory mineral saturation temperatures and closeness of these temperatures to those of potential melting reactions; (4) the dacite magma was probably produced by coalescence of melt
Organisational structures and processes for health and well-being: insights from work integration social enterprise
Background: Previous research on employee well-being for those who have experienced social and economic disadvantage and those with previous or existing mental health conditions has focused mainly on programmatic interventions. The purpose of this research was to examine how organisational structures and processes (such as policies and culture) influence well-being of employees from these types of backgrounds. Methods: A case study ethnographic approach which included in-depth qualitative analysis of 93 semi-structured interviews of employees, staff, and managers, together with participant observation of four social enterprises employing young people. Results: The data revealed that young people were provided a combination of training, varied work tasks, psychosocial support, and encouragement to cultivate relationships among peers and management staff. This was enabled through the following elements: structure and space; funding, finance and industry orientation; organisational culture; policy and process; and fostering local service networks. The findings further illustrate how organisational structures at these workplaces promoted an inclusive workplace environment in which participants self-reported a decrease in anxiety and depression, increased self-esteem, increased self-confidence and increased physical activity. Conclusions: Replicating these types of organisational structures, processes, and culture requires consideration of complex systems perspectives on implementation fidelity which has implications for policy, practice and future research
Drake Equation for the Multiverse: From the String Landscape to Complex Life
It is argued that selection criteria usually referred to as "anthropic
conditions" for the existence of intelligent (typical) observers widely adopted
in cosmology amount only to preconditions for primitive life. The existence of
life does not imply in the existence of intelligent life. On the contrary, the
transition from single-celled to complex, multi-cellular organisms is far from
trivial, requiring stringent additional conditions on planetary platforms. An
attempt is made to disentangle the necessary steps leading from a selection of
universes out of a hypothetical multiverse to the existence of life and of
complex life. It is suggested that what is currently called the "anthropic
principle" should instead be named the "prebiotic principle."Comment: 6 pages, RevTeX, in press, Int. J. Mod. Phys.
Motion of granular particles on the wall of a model silo and the associated wall vibrations
Dynamic phenomena during discharge of a silo are not well understood. This study uses a dual approach to quantify the motion of both the particulate solid at the wall of a model silo and the wall itself. The motion of particles was recorded visually using a digital CCD camera. The particles are seen to move with an intermittent motion. Image analysis techniques were then applied to obtain quantitative measurements of the particulate velocity. In relation to the particle motion, the silo walls were observed to vibrate during discharge. These vibrations were measured using a laser vibrometer to obtain independent measurements of the radial displacement and velocity. This enabled comparisons to be made between the particulate motion and the wall vibrations. Results are presented for barley and for polyethylene terephthalate pellets
Molecular evidence of Late Archean archaea and the presence of a subsurface hydrothermal biosphere
Author Posting. Ā© National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of National Academy of Sciences of the USA for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104 (2007): 14260-14265, doi:10.1073/pnas.0610903104.Highly cracked and isomerized archaeal lipids and bacterial lipids, structurally changed
by thermal stress, are present in solvent extracts of 2,707-2,685 million year old (Ma)
metasedimentary rocks from Timmins, Ontario, Canada. These lipids appear in
conventional gas chromatograms as unresolved complex mixtures (UCMs) and include
cyclic and acyclic biphytanes, C36-C39 derivatives of the biphytanes, and C31-C35
extended hopanes. Biphytane and extended hopanes are also found in high pressure
catalytic hydrogenation (HPCH) products released from solvent-extracted sediments,indicating that archaea and bacteria were present in Late Archean sedimentary
environments. Post-depositional, hydrothermal gold mineralization and graphite
precipitation occurred prior to metamorphism (~2,665 Ma). Late Archean metamorphism
significantly reduced the kerogenās adsorptive capacity and severely restricted sediment
porosity, limiting the potential for post-Archean additions of organic matter to the
samples. Argillites exposed to hydrothermal gold mineralization have disproportionately
high concentrations of extractable archaeal and bacterial lipids relative to what is
releasable from their respective HPCH product and what is observed for argillites
deposited away from these hydrothermal settings. The addition of these lipids to the
sediments likely results from a Late Archean subsurface hydrothermal biosphere of
archaea and bacteria.This project was supported by NASA Exobiology grant #NAG5-13446 to Fabien Kenig.
SEM analysis was supported by NSF grant EAR 0318769 to Juergen Schieber. GCĆGC
analysis was supported by NSF grant IIS-0430835 and the Seaver Foundation to
Christopher M. Reddy
Characterization of xenotime from Datas (Brazil) as a potential reference material for in situ U-Pb geochronology
CITATION: Vasconcelos, A. D. et al. 2018. Characterization of xenotime from Datas (Brazil) as a potential reference material for in situ U-Pb geochronology. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 19:2262ā2282, doi:10.1029/2017GC007412.The original publication is available at https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.comThis study investigates five megacrysts of xenotime (XN01, XN02, XN03, XN04, and XN05) as potential reference materials (RMs) for UāPb geochronology. These crystals belong to a 300 g xenotime assortment, collected from alluvial deposits in SE Brazil. Electron microprobe and Laser AblationāInductively Coupled PlasmaāMass Spectrometry (LAāICPāMS) analyses show that the selected crystals are internally homogeneous for most rare earth element, (REE, except some light REE) but are relatively heterogeneous for U and Th. The xenotime REE patterns are consistent with an origin from hydrothermal quartz veins in the Datas area that cut greenschistāfacies metasediments and that locally contain other accessory phases such as rutile and monazite. Highāprecision UāPb Isotope DilutionāThermal Ionization Mass Spectrometry (IDāTIMS) analyses showed slight age heterogeneity for the XN01 crystal not observed in the XN02 sample. The two crystals have slightly different average 206Pb/238U ages of 513.4 Ā± 0.5 Ma (2 s) and 515.4 Ā± 0.2 Ma (2 s), respectively. In situ UāPb isotope data acquired via LAā(Q,SF,MC)āICPāMS are within the uncertainty of the IDāTIMS data, showing homogeneity at the 1% precision of the laser ablation (and probably ion microprobe) technique. UāPb LAā(MC, SF)āICPāMS analyses, using XN01 as a primary RM, reproduced the ages of other established RMs within less than 1% deviation. Other Datas crystals (XN03ā05) also display a reproducibility in Pb/U dates better than 1% on LAāICPāMS, making them good candidates for further testing by IDāTIMS.https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2017GC007412Publisher's versio
Western Irish Sea Nephrops Grounds (FU15) 2019 UWTV Survey Report and catch options for 2020
This report provides the main results and findings of the 17th annual underwater
television survey on the āIrish sea west Nephrops groundsā ICES assessment area,
Functional Unit 15. The survey was multi-disciplinary in nature collecting UWTV and
other ecosystem data. The 2019 design consisted of a randomised isometric grid of 100
stations at 4.5 nautical mile intervals out over the full known extent the stock. The
resulting krigged burrow abundance estimate was 4.4 billion burrows. This was a
similar result of that obtained in 2015, but a 10% lower than the abundance in 2018. In
contrast to 2017 the spatial distribution of burrows shows a high density band on the
central western area of the survey ground. The abundance remains within previously
observed ranges and is above MSY Btrigger. The CV (or relative standard error) of 3% is
in line with previous estimates and well below the upper limit of 20% recommended by
SGNEPS 2012. Total catches and landings options at various different fishing
mortalities were calculated and fishing at Fmsy in 2020 implies a total catch option at
Fmsy (=Fmax) of 10,377 tonnes estimated to result in landings of no more than 8,546
tonnes. Sea-pens were observed at 21% of stations with high densities observed in the
south-west of the ground. Trawl marks were noted at 15% of the UWTV stations
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