1,479 research outputs found
In the Shadow of Social Stereotypes: Gender diversity on corporate boards, board chair's gender and strategic change
Against the backdrop of spirited public and academic discourse about women’s low visibility in corporate leadership positions, we examine board gender diversity’s influence on strategic change in firms. Viewing gender as an institutionalized system of social beliefs, the article makes two related arguments. First, it contends that because of gender status difference and bias, more gender diversity will result in less strategic change as a board’s decisions begin to follow the stance of a smaller but relatively more influential ‘boy’s club’. Second, it contends that should a board have a female chair as opposed to a male chair, a recession in the shadow of gender stereotypes will reverse board gender diversity’s negative effect on strategic change. Instrumental variables analysis of data from Fortune 500 firms supports the theory. We discuss the study’s contributions and implications
Representation of tropical deep convection in atmospheric models - Part 1 : Meteorology and comparison with satellite observations
Published under Creative Commons Licence 3.0. Original article can be found at : http://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net/ "The author's copyright for this publication is transferred to University of Hertfordshire".Fast convective transport in the tropics can efficiently redistribute water vapour and pollutants up to the upper troposphere. In this study we compare tropical convection characteristics for the year 2005 in a range of atmospheric models, including numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, chemistry transport models (CTMs), and chemistry-climate models (CCMs). The model runs have been performed within the framework of the SCOUT-O3 (Stratospheric-Climate Links with Emphasis on the Upper Troposphere and Lower Stratosphere) project. The characteristics of tropical convection, such as seasonal cycle, land/sea contrast and vertical extent, are analysed using satellite observations as a benchmark for model simulations. The observational datasets used in this work comprise precipitation rates, outgoing longwave radiation, cloud-top pressure, and water vapour from a number of independent sources, including ERA-Interim analyses. Most models are generally able to reproduce the seasonal cycle and strength of precipitation for continental regions but show larger discrepancies with observations for the Maritime Continent region. The frequency distribution of high clouds from models and observations is calculated using highly temporally-resolved (up to 3-hourly) cloud top data. The percentage of clouds above 15 km varies significantly between the models. Vertical profiles of water vapour in the upper troposphere-lower stratosphere (UTLS) show large differences between the models which can only be partly attributed to temperature differences. If a convective plume reaches above the level of zero net radiative heating, which is estimated to be ~15 km in the tropics, the air detrained from it can be transported upwards by radiative heating into the lower stratosphere. In this context, we discuss the role of tropical convection as a precursor for the transport of short-lived species into the lower stratosphere.Peer reviewe
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First global observations of the mesospheric potassium layer
Metal species, produced by meteoric ablation, act as useful tracers of upper atmosphere dynamics and chemistry. Of these meteoric metals, K is an enigma: at extratropical latitudes, limited available lidar data show that the K layer displays a semiannual seasonal variability, rather than the annual pattern seen in other metals such as Na and Fe. Here we present the first near-global K retrieval, where K atom number density profiles are derived from dayglow measurements made by the Optical Spectrograph and Infrared Imager System spectrometer on board the Odin satellite. This robust retrieval produces density profiles with typical layer peak errors of ±15% and a 2km vertical grid resolution. We demonstrate that these retrieved profiles compare well with available lidar data and show for the first time that the unusual semiannual behavior is near-global in extent. This new data set has wider applications for improving understanding of the K chemistry and of related upper atmosphere processes. Key Points First quantitative retrieval of the terrestrial K layer from space The unusual semiannual behavior of K is near global in extent
Efficient quantum key distribution scheme with nonmaximally entangled states
We propose an efficient quantum key distribution scheme based on
entanglement. The sender chooses pairs of photons in one of the two equivalent
nonmaximally entangled states randomly, and sends a sequence of photons from
each pair to the receiver. They choose from the various bases independently but
with substantially different probabilities, thus reducing the fraction of
discarded data, and a significant gain in efficiency is achieved. We then show
that such a refined data analysis guarantees the security of our scheme against
a biased eavesdropping strategy.Comment: 5 Pages, No Figur
The Net Global Effects of Alternative U.S. Biofuel Mandates
One of the declared objectives of U.S. biofuel policy is the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from fossil fuel combustion, but many studies have questioned whether such a reduction would actually occur and, if so, how large it would be. This report describes the global market, land use, GHG emissions, and nitrogen use impacts of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2) and several alternative biofuel policy designs, which differ in terms of mandate magnitude and feedstock composition, over the 2010-2030 period
Study of Percolative Transitions with First-Order Characteristics in the Context of CMR Manganites
The unusual magneto-transport properties of manganites are widely believed to
be caused by mixed-phase tendencies and concomitant percolative processes.
However, dramatic deviations from "standard" percolation have been unveiled
experimentally. Here, a semi-phenomenological description of Mn oxides is
proposed based on coexisting clusters with smooth surfaces, as suggested by
Monte Carlo simulations of realistic models for manganites, also briefly
discussed here. The present approach produces fairly abrupt percolative
transitions and even first-order discontinuities, in agreement with
experiments. These transitions may describe the percolation that occurs after
magnetic fields align the randomly oriented ferromagnetic clusters believed to
exist above the Curie temperature in Mn oxides. In this respect, part of the
manganite phenomenology could belong to a new class of percolative processes
triggered by phase competition and correlations.Comment: 4 pages, 4 eps figure
Genetic determinants of cellular addiction to DNA polymerase theta
Polymerase theta (Pol θ, gene name Polq) is a widely conserved DNA polymerase that mediates a microhomology-mediated, error-prone, double strand break (DSB) repair pathway, referred to as Theta Mediated End Joining (TMEJ). Cells with homologous recombination deficiency are reliant on TMEJ for DSB repair. It is unknown whether deficiencies in other components of the DNA damage response (DDR) also result in Pol θ addiction. Here we use a CRISPR genetic screen to uncover 140 Polq synthetic lethal (PolqSL) genes, the majority of which were previously unknown. Functional analyses indicate that Pol θ/TMEJ addiction is associated with increased levels of replication-associated DSBs, regardless of the initial source of damage. We further demonstrate that approximately 30% of TCGA breast cancers have genetic alterations in PolqSL genes and exhibit genomic scars of Pol θ/TMEJ hyperactivity, thereby substantially expanding the subset of human cancers for which Pol θ inhibition represents a promising therapeutic strategy
Thermal Decay of the Cosmological Constant into Black Holes
We show that the cosmological constant may be reduced by thermal production
of membranes by the cosmological horizon, analogous to a particle ``going over
the top of the potential barrier", rather than tunneling through it. The
membranes are endowed with charge associated with the gauge invariance of an
antisymmetric gauge potential. In this new process, the membrane collapses into
a black hole, thus the net effect is to produce black holes out of the vacuum
energy associated with the cosmological constant. We study here the
corresponding Euclidean configurations ("thermalons"), and calculate the
probability for the process in the leading semiclassical approximation.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures. Minor correction
Revisiting Cardassian Model and Cosmic Constraint
In this paper, we revisit the Cardassian model in which the radiation energy
component is included. It is important for early epoch when the radiation
cannot be neglected because the equation of state (EoS) of the effective dark
energy becomes time variable. Therefore, it is not equivalent to the
quintessence model with a constant EoS anymore. This situation was almost
overlooked in the literature. By using the recent released Union2 557 of type
Ia supernovae (SN Ia), the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) from Sloan Digital
Sky Survey and the WiggleZ data points, the full information of cosmic
microwave background (CMB) measurement given by the seven-year Wilkinson
Microwave Anisotropy Probe observation, we constrain the Cardassian model via
the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. A tight constraint is obtained: in regions. The
deviation of Cardassian model from quintessence model is shown in CMB
anisotropic power spectra at high l's parts due to the evolution of EoS. But it
is about the order of 0.1% which cannot be discriminated by current data sets.
The Cardassian model is consistent with current cosmic observational data sets.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, match the published versio
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