Applying Stories of the Environment to Business: What Business People Can Learn From the Virtues in Environmental Narratives

The use of narrative to communicate and convey particular points of view in society has increasingly become the focus of academic attention in recent years. In particular, MacIntyre. (1985, 1988, 1990, 1999) has paid attention to the role of narrative in the conflict between different traditions when developing his virtue approach to ethics. Whilst there has been continued debate about the application of virtue approaches, some arguing that it is incompatible with business, I disagree and have already argued for a form of virtue that will focus business on society’s needs rather than better business itself. Here I continue to develop the argument in two ways. First, I will explore the predominant business narrative and offer some comment on the ‘virtues’ that it promotes. However, rather than accepting this narrative, I want to challenge it with a narrative from the environmental tradition. I consider how adopting the virtues promoted by an environmental narrative it would shape business practices and challenge current business conventions. As a second step, I will focus on how we can change managers’ perceptions of business to reflect these environmentally based virtues

Optical Galaxy Clusters in the Deep Lens Survey

We present the first sample of 882 optically selected galaxy clusters in the Deep Lens Survey (DLS), selected with the Bayesian Cluster Finder. We create mock DLS data to assess completeness and purity rates, and find that both are at least $70\%$ within 0.1$\le z \le$ 1.2 for clusters with $M_{200}\ge 1.2\times 10^{14}M_{\odot}$. We verified the integrity of the sample by performing several comparisons with other optical, weak lensing, X-ray and spectroscopic surveys which overlap the DLS footprint: the estimated redshifts are consistent with the spectroscopic redshifts of known clusters (for $z>0.25$ where saturation in the DLS is not an issue); our richness estimates in combination with a previously calibrated richness-mass relation yields individual cluster mass estimates consistent with available SHeLS dynamical mass estimates; synthetic mass maps made from the optical mass estimates are correlated ($>3\sigma$ significance) with the weak lensing mass maps; and the mass function thus derived is consistent with theoretical predictions for the CDM scenario. With the verified sample we investigated correlations between the brightest cluster galaxies (BCG) properties and the host cluster properties within a broader range in redshift (0.25 $\le z \le$ 0.8) and mass ($\ge2.4\times 10^{14}M_{\odot}$) than in previous work. We find that the slope of the BCG magnitude-redshift relation throughout this redshift range is consistent with that found at lower redshifts. This result supports an extrapolation to higher redshift of passive evolution of the BCG within the hierarchical scenario.Comment: Paper accepted for publication in MNRAS, Table 1 will be available online or under reques

The impact of future sea-level rise on the London-Penzance railway line

The coastal section of the London to Penzance railway line (Dawlish-Teignmouth) lies very close to sea level and has been susceptible to frequent closure during high seas and storm events. As the main railway connection for the southwest of England to the rest of Great Britain, it is a vital transport link for the Devon and Cornwall economy. Current understanding of future sea-level rise in the region is compromised by a lack of reliable geological data on which to establish accurate future sea-level projections. Furthermore, the impacts – in engineering and economic terms – of potential sea-level change on the long-term functioning of the main railway are unclear, and future policy making and planning are compromised by a similar gap in scientific knowledge. The central aim of this thesis is to establish the extent to which future sea-level changes will impact upon the Southwest’s main railway line. This aim carries three objectives: (1) to establish accurate sea-level trends over the last 4000 years (late Holocene) in order to validate geophysical models used in current future sea-level projections in the southwest of England; (2) to establish the likely impacts of future sea-level change on the functioning of the Dawlish-Teignmouth railway line; and (3) to integrate climate and socio-economic futures (scenarios) in an internally consistent manner for future use in regional policy debates. In addressing these objectives, we estimate that during the last 2000 years the coast of south Devon has subsided at a rate of ~1.1 mm/yr, generating a relative sea-level rise of ~0.9 mm/yr. The geophysical model (used to determine regional sea-level projections) underestimates the geologically estimated coastal subsidence rate by only 17%, which would generate an additional sea-level rise, compared to predicted values, of 0.014 m by 2100. Based on an empirical trend between increases in sea-level changes and rail functioning during the last 40 years, the corrected sea-level projections provide input for establishing future days with line restrictions due to overtopping on the Southwest Mainline. Impacts to both the Southwest economy (e.g., rail users) and the infrastructure owners have been determined, and integrating these forecasts with socio-economic scenarios (SES) has highlighted the important interaction between climate and socio-economic trends and future vulnerability. In a worst case scenario (e.g., high emissions), rail services are predicted to be disrupted (on average) for around 35% of the winter by 2060. By this stage, the cost of these disruptions will have exceeded the capital needed for constructing a new alternative inland route.Great Western Research, Network Rail, Devon and Cornwall County Council

To Bat or Not to Bat: An Examination of Contest Rules in Day-night Limited Overs Cricket

The tradition of tossing a coin to decide who bats first in a cricket match introduces a randomly-assigned advantage to one team that is unique in sporting contests. In this paper we develop previous work on this issue by examining the impact of the toss on outcomes of day-night one day international games explicitly allowing for relative team quality. We estimate conditional logit models of outcomes using data from day-night internationals played between 1979 and 2005. Other things equal, we find that winning the toss and batting increases the probability of winning by 31%. In contrast, winning the toss does not appear to confer any advantage if the team choose to bowl first.cricket, contest rules, match results, competitive balance, outcome uncertainty

A Primary Care Approach to the Diagnosis and Management of Peripheral Arterial Disease

The objectives of this work are: (1) Be able to recognize characteristic symptoms of intermittent claudication (2) Diagnose PAD on the basis of history, physical exam, and simple limb blood pressure measurements (3) Recognize the significance of peripheral artery disease as a marker for coronary or cerebrovascular atherosclerosis (4) Provide appropriate medical management of atherosclerosis risk factors-- including use of antiplatelet therapy to reduce risk of myocardial infarction, stroke and death (5) Manage symptoms of intermittent claudication with program of smoking cessation, exercise, and medication The diagnosis of intermittent claudication secondary to peripheral artery disease (PAD) can often be made on the basis of history and physical examination. Additional evaluation of PAD is multi-modal and the techniques used will vary depending on the nature and severity of the patient's presenting problem. Most patients can be appropriately managed without referral for specialized diagnostic services or interventions