Oxybelis aeneus

Number of Pages: 4Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Business Ethics and Ethics Education in American Business Programs

This essay presents an overview of what American business programs cover in their curricula regarding ethics and the reasons behind teaching ethics-related material to business students. Topics for the paperinclude; requirements for having ethics in the curricula, broad perspectives of what constitutes ethical business practices, and the difference between professional ethics and business ethics. Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification: M14, A2

The effects of changes in petroleum based input prices on the Tennessee fed beef industry

An analysis was made to estimate efficient adjustments the Tennessee beef industry can make to changing supply-price relations for petro-based inputs. The focus was on the economic feasibility of finishing feeder cattle produced inside the state instead of moving them to feedlots in either the Corn Belt or High Plains areas. Budgetary analysis was used to estimate costs of all vertical stages after backgrounding, including movement to feedlots, feeding, movement to slaughter points, slaughter, and movement to distribution points. The study focused on the comparative advantage of three cattle feeding areas in Tennessee located within 100 mile radii of pricing points in Knoxville, Columbia, and Memphis relative to the Corn Belt and High Plains. Cost budgets for Tennessee were based on two feeding systems - - one silage based (silage, hay, corn, and protein supplement) and the other grain based (whole shelled corn, protein supplement). These budgets were compared with the costs of feeding cattle in the Corn Belt using the system whose costs are published in the Livestock and Meat Situation as typical for that area. Comparisons were made also with the costs of custom feeding operations in the High Plains, using the system whose costs are published in the Livestock and Meat Situation. Cost estimates for the Corn Belt and Great Plains areas were adjusted to take into account increased shrinkage, transportation costs, and death losses that result from moving Tennessee feeder animals for finishing in these other two areas. Once the current total costs for feeding and transporting cattle were derived, the effects of projected increases in fuel costs of 50, 100 and 200 percent were then substituted for the current prices of transportation and feed. The results showed feeding cattle in Tennessee to be competitive with the Corn Belt and High Plains regions. Given increased fuel price situations, feeding costs in Tennessee rose less than in either the Corn Belt or the High Plains. Increased fuel costs had a much greater estimated effect on the cost of cattle feeding than on the cost of of transporting feeder steers. Within the state, the grain system offered a lower cost ration than the silage system under all fuel cost situations. Other factors which should be considered before engaging in a beef feeding enterprise in Tennessee include; price and availability of corn, initial investment costs and managerial ability. Other data gathered included slaughter costs for the three areas, estimated total beef consumption in Tennessee, and the potential number of feeder cattle in the state. Results indicated that there would be enough feeder cattle and slaughter capacity in Tennessee to meet the state beef consumption requirement without having to rely on out-of-state sources

CNEA Fresh Fuel Plate Characterization Summary Report

Characterization summary report outlining the findings of the fresh fuel examinations of the plates received from CNEA

Fuel-cladding interaction layers in irradiated U-ZR and U-PU-ZR fuel elements.

Argonne National Laboratory is developing an electrometallurgical treatment for spent nuclear fuels. The initial demonstration of this process is being conducted on U-Zr and U-Pu-Zr alloy fuel elements irradiated in the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II). The electrometallurgical treatment process extracts usable uranium from irradiated fuel elements and places residual fission products, actinides, process Zr, and cladding hulls (small segments of tubing) into two waste forms--a ceramic and a metal alloy. The metal waste form will contain the cladding hulls, Zr, and noble metal fission products, and it will be disposed of in a geologic repository. As a result, the expected composition of the waste form will need to be well understood. This report deals with the condition of the cladding, which will make up a large fraction of the metal waste form, after irradiation in EBR-II and before insertion into the electrorefiner. Specifically, it looks at layers that can be found on the inner surface of the cladding due to in-reactor interactions between the alloy fuel and the stainless steel cladding that occurs after the fuel has swelled and contacted the cladding. Many detailed examinations of fuel elements irradiated in EBR-II have been completed and are discussed in the context of interaction layer formation in irradiated cladding. The composition and thickness of the developed interaction layers are identified, along with the irradiation conditions, cladding type, and axial location on fuel elements where the thickest interaction layers can be expected to develop. It has been found that the largest interaction zones are observed at combined high power and high temperature regions of fuel elements and for fuel elements with U-Pu-Zr alloy fuel and D9 stainless steel cladding. The most prevalent, non-cladding constituent observed in the developed interaction layers are the lanthanide fission products

Structural Control of Metamaterial Oscillator Strength and Electric Field Enhancement at Terahertz Frequencies

The design of artificial nonlinear materials requires control over the internal resonant charge densities and local electric field distributions. We present a MM design with a structurally controllable oscillator strength and local electric field enhancement at terahertz frequencies. The MM consists of a split ring resonator (SRR) array stacked above an array of nonresonant closed conducting rings. An in-plane, lateral shift of a half unit cell between the SRR and closed ring arrays results in a decrease of the MM oscillator strength by a factor of 4 and a 40% change in the amplitude of the resonant electric field enhancement in the SRR capacitive gap. We use terahertz time-domain spectroscopy and numerical simulations to confirm our results and we propose a qualitative inductive coupling model to explain the observed electromagnetic reponse.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Decoupling Crossover in Asymmetric Broadside Coupled Split Ring Resonators at Terahertz Frequencies

We investigate the electromagnetic response of asymmetric broadside coupled split ring resonators (ABC-SRRs) as a function of the relative in-plane displacement between the two component SRRs. The asymmetry is defined as the difference in the capacitive gap widths (\Delta g) between the two resonators comprising a coupled unit. We characterize the response of ABC-SRRs both numerically and experimentally via terahertz time-domain spectroscopy. As with symmetric BC-SRRs (\Delta g=0 \mu m), a large redshift in the LC resonance is observed with increasing displacement, resulting from changes in the capacitive and inductive coupling. However, for ABC-SRRs, in-plane shifting between the two resonators by more than 0.375Lo (Lo=SRR sidelength) results in a transition to a response with two resonant modes, associated with decoupling in the ABC-SRRs. For increasing \Delta g, the decoupling transition begins at the same relative shift (0.375Lo), though with an increase in the oscillator strength of the new mode. This strongly contrasts with symmetric BC-SRRs which present only one resonance for shifts up to 0.75Lo. Since all BC-SRRs are effectively asymmetric when placed on a substrate, an understanding of ABC-SRR behavior is essential for a complete understanding of BC-SRR based metamaterials