The Public Health Effects of Sprawl: A Compelling Case for Addressing Public Health in Transportation and Land Use Policy

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute, in conjunction with the Senate Smart Growth Task Force, held a Congressional briefing to explore the relationship between public health, transportation and land-use. New studies indicate that improvements in land use and community design could help moderate many of the chronic diseases of the 21st century -- high blood pressure, obesity, and asthma -- by providing transportation options that increase physical activity and reduce air pollution. The panel discussed the need to adequately address health considerations in transportation and land-use decisions, and the specific policy measures that could move us toward healthier land-use patterns and healthier communities. The Senate Smart Growth Task Force founded by Senators Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jim Jeffords (I-VT) co-sponsored this briefing. In her opening remarks, Kris Sarri, legislative assistant to Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a member of the Task Force, invited Senate offices to join the task force. Established in 1999, the Task Force provides Senators with a forum for education and coordination of efforts concerning sustainable growth patterns. The overall goal of the Task Force is to determine and promote ways the federal government can help states and localities to address their own growth management issues. On the date of the briefing 20 Senators or 1/5th of the Senate were listed as members of the Task Force

Exploring Communication Between Staff and Clinicians on an Inpatient Adolescent Psychiatric Unit

This dissertation explored interdisciplinary team functioning on a long-term adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit. It compared staff perceptions (MHCs, clinicians, and nurses) of interdisciplinary coherence and unit effectiveness. This study was particularly focused on understanding MHCs perceptions of team functioning and how satisfied team members are with their level of input and involvement in team decision-making. Additionally, this study explored possible barriers to effective team functioning in this setting. Eighty-four participants in this study completed the Interdisciplinary Team Process and Performance Survey (ITPPS) to assess perceptions of team functioning. Participants answered additional questions assessing barriers to communication and collaboration and levels of satisfaction with their input in the team’s decision-making process. A one-way ANOVA was conducted to compare perceptions of team cohesion and team effectiveness across occupations. Results suggest that there is a significant difference among the three occupational groups regarding their perceptions of how their team functions, with MHCs having more negative perceptions of team processes than nurses and clinicians. This team ranked the three highest barriers to communication and collaboration: (a) Differences in accountability, payment, and rewards; (b) Hierarchy; and (c) Lack of training for MHCs. Regarding levels of satisfaction, results showed that MHCs reported the lowest levels of satisfaction, while clinicians rated the highest levels of satisfaction. With these findings, recommendations were made for ways in which long-term inpatient adolescent psychiatric hospitals can work to improve their interdisciplinary team functioning to increase job satisfaction and improve patient care

Going to Scale: Principles and Policy Options for an Inclusive Asset-Building Policy

Going to Scale: Principles and Policy Options for an Inclusive Asset-Building Polic

The importance of behavioral integrity in a multicultural workplace

The notion of “behavioral integrity” describes the extent to which one person perceives that another lives by his or her word, keeps promises, and lives by professed values. Effective management leadership depends on how employees perceive their manager\u27s behavior on these points, because this drives credibility. Since most managers are neither saints nor demons, employees judge their managers’ integrity by interpreting a mixed set of managerial actions and behavior. This study examines how different employee groups might understand and react differently to cues about their manager’s consistency. We surveyed 1,944 employees at 107 hotels and found that the observer’s race affects his or her perceptions of behavioral integrity. African American employees in this study were especially sensitive to violations and affirmations of behavioral integrity. Moreover, African American employees scored their African American managers more harshly than they did their non-African American managers. The study also found that senior managers’ integrity trickles down to affect behavior and attitudes throughout the organization. These results suggest a need for executive training and vigilance focused on the issue of behavioral integrity, because managers’ integrity affects the attitudes, conduct, and loyalty of all employees

Rotating Skyrmion Stars

In a previous paper, using an equation of state of dense matter representing a fluid of Skyrmions we constructed the corresponding non-rotating compact-star models in hydrostatic equilibrium; these are mostly fluid stars (the Skyrmion fluid) thus naming them {\it Skyrmion Stars}. Here we generalize our previous calculations by constructing equilibrium sequences of rotating Skyrmion stars in general relativity using the computer code {\it RNS} developed by Stergioulas. We calculated their masses and radii to be 0.4 \le M/M_{\odot} \le 3.45, and 13.0 {\rm km}\le R\le 23.0 {\rm km}, respectively (R being the circumferential radius of the star). The period of the maximally rotating Skyrmion stars is calculated to be 0.8 {\rm ms}\le P \le 2.0 {\rm ms}. We find that a gap (the height between the star surface and the inner stable circular orbit) starts to appear for M\sim 2.0M_{\odot}. Specifically, the Skyrmion star mass range with an existing gap is calculated to be 1.8 < M/ M_{\odot} < 3.0 with the corresponding orbital frequency 0.8 {\rm kHz} < \nu_{\rm ISCO} < 1.3 {\rm kHz}. We apply our model to the 4U 1820-30 low mass X-ray binary and suggest a plausible Skyrmion star candidate in the 4U 1636-53 system. We discuss the difficulties encountered by our model in the 4U 0614+09 case with the highest known Quasi-Periodic Oscillation frequency of 1329 Hz. A comparative study of Skyrmion stars and models of neutron stars based on recent/modern equations of state is also presented.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, revised version (accepted for publication in A&A

Absolute Objects and Counterexamples: Jones-Geroch Dust, Torretti Constant Curvature, Tetrad-Spinor, and Scalar Density

James L. Anderson analyzed the novelty of Einstein's theory of gravity as its lack of "absolute objects." Michael Friedman's related work has been criticized by Roger Jones and Robert Geroch for implausibly admitting as absolute the timelike 4-velocity field of dust in cosmological models in Einstein's theory. Using the Rosen-Sorkin Lagrange multiplier trick, I complete Anna Maidens's argument that the problem is not solved by prohibiting variation of absolute objects in an action principle. Recalling Anderson's proscription of "irrelevant" variables, I generalize that proscription to locally irrelevant variables that do no work in some places in some models. This move vindicates Friedman's intuitions and removes the Jones-Geroch counterexample: some regions of some models of gravity with dust are dust-free and so naturally lack a timelike 4-velocity, so diffeomorphic equivalence to (1,0,0,0) is spoiled. Torretti's example involving constant curvature spaces is shown to have an absolute object on Anderson's analysis, viz., the conformal spatial metric density. The previously neglected threat of an absolute object from an orthonormal tetrad used for coupling spinors to gravity appears resolvable by eliminating irrelevant fields. However, given Anderson's definition, GTR itself has an absolute object (as Robert Geroch has observed recently): a change of variables to a conformal metric density and a scalar density shows that the latter is absolute.Comment: Minor editing, small content additions, added references. Forthcoming in_Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics_, June 200

Neutron Star Structure and the Neutron Radius of 208Pb

We study relationships between the neutron-rich skin of a heavy nucleus and the properties of neutron-star crusts. Relativistic effective field theories with a thicker neutron skin in $^{208}$Pb have a larger electron fraction and a lower liquid-to-solid transition density for neutron-rich matter. These properties are determined by the density dependence of the symmetry energy which we vary by adding nonlinear couplings between isoscalar and isovector mesons. An accurate measurement of the neutron radius in $^{208}$Pb---via parity violating electron scattering---may have important implications for the structure of neutron stars.Comment: 5 pages 3 figures, added additional evidence of model independence, Phys. Rev. Letters in pres

Effect of Three-body Interaction on Phase Transition of Hot Asymmetric Nuclear Matter

The properties and the isospin dependence of the liquid-gas phase transition in hot asymmetric nuclear matter have been investigated within the framework of the finite temperature Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach extended to include the contribution of a microscopic three-body force. A typical Van der Waals structure has been observed in the calculated isotherms (of pressure) for symmetric nuclear matter implying the presence of the liquid-gas phase transition. The critical temperature of the phase transition is calculated and its dependence on the proton-to-neutron ratio is discussed. It is shown that the three-body force gives a repulsive contribution to the nuclear equation of state and reduces appreciably the critical temperature and the mechanical instable region. At fixed temperature and density the pressure of asymmetric nuclear matter increases monotonically as a function of isospin asymmetry. In addition, it turns out that the domain of mechanical instability for hot asymmetric nuclear matter gradually shrinks with increasing asymmetry and temperature. We have compared our results with the predictions of other theoretical models especially the Dirac Brueckner approach. A possible explanation for the discrepancy between the values of the critical temperature predicted by the present non-relativistic Brueckner calculations including the three-body force and the relativistic Dirac-Brueckner method is given.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure