Exporting Cigarettes: Do Profits Trump Ethics and International Law?

In recent years, United States cigarette manufacturers have focused their efforts on foreign markets, especially Asia, Eastern Europe, and Third World states. This Note examines the impetus behind the manufacturers\u27 strategy, as well as the ethical and legal conflicts it creates. The increase in United States cigarette exports results from a decline in the United States market, favorable market conditions abroad, and United States legislation that encourages foreign trade. While cigarette manufacturers point to the positive impact tobacco has on the United States economy, others argue that increased exportation inevitably will result in catastrophic health consequences worldwide. This Note explores the various areas of international law that potentially impose a duty on the United States to restrict its export of cigarettes. The author recommends several changes that would reconcile the domestic benefits of cigarette exportation with the individual harm incurred abroad and the potential repercussions for violating international law

Seeing the big picture : a study of Walk Thru the Bible\u27s Old Testament storyline seminar\u27s impact on the spiritual health of participants

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1400/thumbnail.jp

Academic Performance vs. Academic Persistence: A Study of Black Students\u27 Perceived Personal Competency

The present study examines the contribution of Black students\u27 perceived personal competencies to both a four-year academic persistence and freshman GPA

Surface-hopping dynamics and decoherence with quantum equilibrium structure

In open quantum systems decoherence occurs through interaction of a quantum subsystem with its environment. The computation of expectation values requires a knowledge of the quantum dynamics of operators and sampling from initial states of the density matrix describing the subsystem and bath. We consider situations where the quantum evolution can be approximated by quantum-classical Liouville dynamics and examine the circumstances under which the evolution can be reduced to surface-hopping dynamics, where the evolution consists of trajectory segments evolving exclusively on single adiabatic surfaces, with probabilistic hops between these surfaces. The justification for the reduction depends on the validity of a Markovian approximation on a bath averaged memory kernel that accounts for quantum coherence in the system. We show that such a reduction is often possible when initial sampling is from either the quantum or classical bath initial distributions. If the average is taken only over the quantum dispersion that broadens the classical distribution, then such a reduction is not always possible.Comment: 11, pages, 8 figure

A qualitative analysis of stakeholder experiences with Registered Reports Funding Partnerships

Background: Registered Reports (RRs) could be a way to increase the quality of scientific research and literature, such as by reducing publication bias and increasing the rigour of study designs. These potential benefits have led to Registered Report funding partnerships (RRFPs or partnerships for short) between research funders and academic journals who collaborate to encourage researchers to publish RRs. In this study we investigated the research question: “What are the experiences of the stakeholders (authors, reviewers, journal editors, funders) in the various partnership models?”. Our companion paper addresses a related, but separate, research question. Methods: We conducted a thematic analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews with stakeholders (funders, editors, authors, reviewers, matchmakers) from six partnerships. Results: Interviewees had highly variable perceptions and experiences, reflecting the complex and nuanced impacts of partnerships. We identified 6 themes: “Importance of communication with authors and reviewers”, “Influence on study design”, “Appropriateness of partners”, “Potential to reduce publication bias”, “Impact on reviewer workload”, and “Insufficient evidence”. Conclusions: This was the first investigation into these novel initiatives. We hope that our findings can benefit and shape current and future partnerships