The Role of Entrepreneurship and Spirituality in the Provision of Elective Social Enterprise Courses in Business Schools

The final chapter in this section, chapter ten, Cherry Cheung, Sujun Fieldhouse and Caleb Kwong examine the extent to which the spirituality of a university may impact its decision to offer social enterprise courses as part of their business curriculum. Universities face increasing pressures from stakeholders to produce moral, civically aware and socially responsible citizens who will create positive change in their societies. Because of their concern and focus on social, economic, environmental and now spiritual ‘bottom-lines’, social enterprises courses are seen as one way of engaging in the conversations to examine transformational shifts in society. Using data from 494 business schools accredited by AACSB in the US, Cheung, Fieldhouse and Kwong found that, alongside structural differences, universities with higher entrepreneurship orientation, as well as the presence of spirituality markers, such as sustainability, diversity and religious orientations, are more likely to be offering social enterprise courses for business students, after controlling for other factors. This is an important finding, confirming that spirituality has a role to play in supporting a broader education experience that has the potential to develop socially responsible citizens who have the awareness to create transformational social changes. Thus, the study alerts the wider academic community of the contributions that social enterprise courses can make in creating social change, particularly for those without a strong emphasis of spirituality that may struggle to see the need to offer such courses

Selective Laser Sintered CastForm™ Polystyrene with Controlled Porosity and Its Infiltration Characteristics by Red Wax

This paper focuses on the manufacture of polymer-based components with controlled porosity using selective laser sintering (SLS) and on their infiltration characteristics by red wax. CastFormTM Polystyrene (CF) samples with various densities were created by controlling the laser energy density. Wax was then infiltrated into the sintered specimens at around 638C to 648C. The microstructures of the sintered specimens were examined using scanning electron microscopy. The physical density was found to increase with increasing energy density and it reached a maximum at energy density of 0.11 J/mm2 . The infiltration rate and mass of infiltrant absorbed in a given time were found to increase with increasing porosity. However, none of the specimens could be fully infiltrated and about 10 – 20 % of porosity still remained regardless of energy density used for the sintering process. Finally, the potential applications of SLS parts with controlled porosity will be discussed.This paper describes a project funded by the Research Grants Council on ‘Functionally graded part fabrication based on the SLS process’.Mechanical Engineerin

The Generic Supersymmetric Standard Model as the Complete Theory of Supersymmetry without R-parity

The generic supersymmetric standard model is a model built from a supersymmetrized standard model field spectrum the gauge symmetries only. The popular minimal supersymmetric standard model differs from the generic version in having R-parity imposed by hand. We review an efficient formulation of the model in which all the admissible R-parity violating terms are incorporated without bias. The model gives many new interesting R-parity violating phenomenological features only started to be studied recently. Some of our recent results will be discussed, including newly identified 1-loop contributions to neutrino masses and electric dipole moments of neutron and electron. This is related to the largely overlooked R-parity violating contributions to squark and slepton mixings, which we also present in detail.Comment: 10 pages latex using espcrc2.sty (included) with a latex table and 3 eps- figure files incoporated, typos in a couple of expressions fixe

Trajectory of functional outcome and health status after moderate-to-major trauma in Hong Kong: A prospective 5 year cohort study

Background Trauma care systems in Asia have been developing in recent years, but there has been little long-term outcome data from injured survivors. This study aims to evaluate the trajectory of functional outcome and health status up to five years after moderate to major trauma in Hong Kong. Methods We report the five year follow up results of a multicentre, prospective cohort from the trauma registries of three regional trauma centres in Hong Kong. The original cohort recruited 400 adult trauma patients with ISS ≥ 9. Telephone follow up was conducted longitudinally at seven time points, and the extended Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOSE) and Short-Form 36 (SF36) were tracked. Results 119 out of 309 surviving patients (39%) completed follow up after 5 years. The trajectory of GOSE, PCS and MCS showed gradual improvements over the seven time points. 56/119 (47.1%) patients reported a GOSE = 8 (upper good recovery), and the mean PCS and MCS was 47.8 (95% CI 45.8, 49.9) and 55.8 (95% CI 54.1, 57.5) respectively at five years. Univariate logistic regression showed change in PCS - baseline to 1 year and 1 year to 2 years, and change in MCS - baseline to 1 year were associated with GOSE = 8 at 5 years. Linear mixed effects model showed differences in PCS and MCS were greatest between 1-month and 6-month follow up. Conclusions After injury, the most rapid improvement in PCS and MCS occurred in the first six to 12 months, but further recovery was still evident for MCS in patients aged under 65 years for up to five years

Z decays into light gluinos: a calculation based on unitarity

The Z boson can decay to a pair of light gluinos through loop-mediated processes. Based on unitarity of the S-matrix, the imaginary part of the decay amplitude is computed in the presence of a light bottom squark. This imaginary part can provide useful information on the full amplitude. Implications are discussed for a recently proposed light gluino and light bottom squark scenario.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Resumming the color-octet contribution to e+ e- -> J/psi + X

Recent observations of the spectrum of J/psi produced in e+ e- collisions at the Upsilon(4S) resonance are in conflict with fixed-order calculations using the Non-Relativistic QCD (NRQCD) effective field theory. One problem is that leading order color-octet mechanisms predict an enhancement of the cross section for J/psi with maximal energy that is not observed in the data. However, in this region of phase space large perturbative corrections (Sudakov logarithms) as well as enhanced nonperturbative effects are important. In this paper we use the newly developed Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) to systematically include these effects. We find that these corrections significantly broaden the color-octet contribution to the J/psi spectrum. Our calculation employs a one-stage renormalization group evolution rather than the two-stage evolution used in previous SCET calculations. We give a simple argument for why the two methods yield identical results to lowest order in the SCET power counting.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure

Elevated Perioperative Transaminase Level Predicts Intrahepatic Recurrence in Hepatitis B-related Hepatocellular Carcinoma After Curative Hepatectomy

OBJECTIVEWe aimed to evaluate the role of elevated perioperative alanine aminotransferase (ALT) as a surrogate marker of hepatitis activity in determining the risk of recurrence and survival in hepatitis B-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after curative hepatectomy.METHODSA retrospective review of the hepatectomy database was performed and 142 patients were found who had hepatitis B-related HCC from January 2001 to March 2006. Their ALT levels preoperatively and 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months postoperatively were recorded. The risk factors for recurrence and prognostic factors of survival were analysed.RESULTSAn elevated perioperative ALT level (p = 0.021), multiple tumour nodules in the resected specimen (p < 0.001), and a tumour size greater than 5 cm (p = 0.001) were significant independent risk factors for tumour recurrence. The latter two factors were also independent prognostic factors for overall survival and disease-free survival. An elevated ALT level was an independent prognostic factor for disease-free survival (p = 0.025).CONCLUSIONAn elevated perioperative ALT level, which reflects increased hepatitis activity, is an independent risk factor for intrahepatic recurrence of hepatitis B-related HCC. It is also associated with a poorer disease-free survival rate

A Class of Effective Field Theory Models of Cosmic Acceleration

We explore a class of effective field theory models of cosmic acceleration involving a metric and a single scalar field. These models can be obtained by starting with a set of ultralight pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons whose couplings to matter satisfy the weak equivalence principle, assuming that one boson is lighter than all the others, and integrating out the heavier fields. The result is a quintessence model with matter coupling, together with a series of correction terms in the action in a covariant derivative expansion, with specific scalings for the coefficients. After eliminating higher derivative terms and exploiting the field redefinition freedom, we show that the resulting theory contains nine independent free functions of the scalar field when truncated at four derivatives. This is in contrast to the four free functions found in similar theories of single-field inflation, where matter is not present. We discuss several different representations of the theory that can be obtained using the field redefinition freedom. For perturbations to the quintessence field today on subhorizon lengthscales larger than the Compton wavelength of the heavy fields, the theory is weakly coupled and natural in the sense of t'Hooft. The theory admits a regime where the perturbations become modestly nonlinear, but very strong nonlinearities lie outside its domain of validity.Comment: 43 pages, 2 figures; Version 3 publication versio

Behaviour of neonicotinoids in contrasting soils

Neonicotinoids are widely used to control insect pests in agriculture. Their presence in the environment can affect the health of non-target insects and aquatic animals. The behaviour of four neonicotinoids, namely imidacloprid, acetamiprid, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam, has been investigated in soils with contrasting characteristics to understand their migration in soil and ecological risk. Among the study neonicotinoids, thiamethoxam and thiacloprid were found to be the least and most sorbed neonicotinoids by all the soils, respectively (up to 186 time greater adsorption of thiacloprid), and their uptake was affected by the content of organic matter in the soil. Leaching studies in columns confirmed that thiamethoxam leached out of the soils readily, pointing out to a relatively high risk of ground water contamination with possible ecological impact when thiamethoxam is used in soils with low organic matter. In soil column studies, the soil with the lowest organic matter presents the greatest residue of neonicotinoids in the sub-surface (≤5 cm). In contrast the soil richer in organic matter presented most of the contamination deeper down in the column; a factor to be considered in the remediation from soil

On the origins of some spectroscopic properties of "purple iron" (the tetraoxoferrate(VI) ion) and its Pourbaix safe-space

In this work, the authors attempt to interpret the visible, infrared and Raman spectra of ferrate(VI) by means of theoretical physical-inorganic chemistry and historical highlights in this field of interest. In addition, the sacrificial decomposition of ferrate(VI) during water treatment will also be discussed together with a brief mention of how Rayleigh scattering caused by the decomposition of FeVIO42− may render absorbance readings erroneous. This work is not a compendium of all the instrumental methods of analysis which have been deployed to identify ferrate(VI) or to study its plethora of reactions, but mention will be made of the relevant techniques (e.g., Mössbauer Spectroscopy amongst others) which support and advance this overall discourse at appropriate junctures, without undue elaboration on the foundational physics of these techniques