Altruistic CEOs can be as risky as greedy ones

The most successful leaders exhibit moderate self-interest, argue Katalin Takacs-Haynes, Matthew Josefy and Michael A. Hit

Numerical Simulations of Instabilities in Single-Hole Office Elements

An orifice element is commonly used in liquid rocket engine test facilities either as a flow metering device, a damper for acoustic resonance or to provide a large reduction in pressure over a very small distance in the piping system. While the orifice as a device is largely effective in stepping down pressure, it is also susceptible to a wake-vortex type instability that generates pressure fluctuations that propagate downstream and interact with other elements of the test facility resulting in structural vibrations. Furthermore in piping systems an unstable feedback loop can exist between the vortex shedding and acoustic perturbations from upstream components resulting in an amplification of the modes convecting downstream. Such was the case in several tests conducted at NASA as well as in the Ariane 5 strap-on P230 engine in a static firing test where pressure oscillations of 0.5% resulted in 5% thrust oscillations. Exacerbating the situation in cryogenic test facilities, is the possibility of the formation of vapor clouds when the pressure in the wake falls below the vapor pressure leading to a cavitation instability that has a lower frequency than the primary wake-vortex instability. The cavitation instability has the potential for high amplitude fluctuations that can cause catastrophic damage in the facility. In this paper high-fidelity multi-phase numerical simulations of an orifice element are used to characterize the different instabilities, understand the dominant instability mechanisms and identify the tonal content of the instabilities

Army Decade in Space

In the twelve short years since the announcement of the SMDC-ONE satellite initiative by Lieutenant General Kevin Campbell, then Commanding General of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), SMDC has put in place an active program of satellite technology development and a Low Earth Orbit Investment Strategy that holds great promise for providing low-cost, responsive data from space as the next major evolution in technology to enable Multi-Domain Operations for the Army of 2028 and beyond. The first fruits of that initiative were seen ten years ago with launch and successful mission of the first SMDC-ONE satellite. This small satellite strategy has gained traction with Army and DoD leadership who embrace the small satellite paradigm. This paper discusses Army progress and lessons learned in the past ten years of small satellite efforts, discusses relationships with other organizations and looks forward to potential capabilities enabled by technology advancements and innovative partnerships

Cosmic-ray soil water monitoring: the development, status & potential of the COSMOS-India network

Soil moisture (SM) plays a central role in the hydrological cycle and surface energy balance and represents an important control on a range of land surface processes. Knowledge of the spatial and temporal dynamics of SM is important for applications ranging from numerical weather and climate predictions, the calibration and validation of remotely sensed data products, as well as water resources, flood and drought forecasting, agronomy and predictions of greenhouse gas fluxes. Since 2015, the Centre for Ecology and Ecology has been working in partnership with several Indian Research Institutes to develop COSMOS-India, a new network of SM monitoring stations that employ cosmic-ray soil moisture sensors (CRS) to deliver high temporal frequency, near-real time observations of SM at field scale. CRS provide continuous observations of near-surface (top 0.1 to 0.2 m) soil volumetric water content (VWC; m3 m-3) that are representative of a large footprint area (approximately 200 m in radius). To date, seven COSMOS-India sites have been installed and are operational at a range of locations that are characterised by differences in climate, soil type and land management. In this presentation, the development, current status and future potential of the COSMOS-India network will be discussed. Key results from the COSMOS-India network will be presented and analysed

COSMOS-UK user guide: users’ guide to sites, instruments and available data (version 2.10)

The COSMOS-UK User Guide is a comprehensive guide to the data collected by COSMOS-UK, including the near-real time soil moisture data derived from counts of netrons derived from cosmic rays. The User Guide contains: i) information about the sites, their locations and other meta data. ii) Details of the instruments deployed at each site. iii) Background information about the cosmic ray neutron counter which is used to derive soil moisture within a 12 hectare footprint. iv) Descriptions of data and information products that are available from COSMOS-UK

Replication Data for: Measuring Precedent in a Judicial Hierarchy

Replication data and code (Stata 13.1) for: Hitt, Matthew P. 2016. "Measuring Precedent in a Judicial Hierarchy." Law & Society Review 50 (1): 57-81

Presidential Success in Supreme Court Appointments: Informational Effects and Institutional Constraints

Spatial models of Supreme Court appointments assume that the president knows the preferences of nominees and is constrained only by the ideology of the Senate. However, nominees vary in the amount of available information that can be used to determine their preferences. I find that justices who offered more information in the form of relevant professional experience at the time of nomination are more congruent with their appointing president. Institutional factors, such as polarization between the Senate and president, exert less influence on congruence. The president is, however, constrained from appointing highly experienced justices if the Senate and president are distant ideologically

How voters think about the electoral relevance of the Supreme Court

Despite sporadic claims that elections may serve as a referendum on the Supreme Court, prevailing theories of diffuse support imply that voters mostly ignore the Court. This paper tests that thesis. Using recent, nationally-representative survey data, Study 1 shows that, despite the Supreme Court being ranked as a middling issue of importance, high levels of diffuse support increase its perceived electoral relevance. Study 2 deploys a survey experiment, which illustrates that candidates who support (oppose) reform are viewed as stronger candidates among Democrats (Republicans), as well as more prototypically liberal (conservative). The sorting of demand for reform along partisan lines dovetails with a sorting of diffuse support, which presents an inherent irony for the prospects of reform: while low-legitimacy Democrats may support reform, lower levels of diffuse support are also linked to weaker perceptions of reform’s electoral relevance – providing mixed signals to candidates about the demand for reform