Mission Statements: The Soul of an Organization

When a culture is created or decisions are made, the presence of a viable mission statement is critical. This document can be used as a tool to create a business environment employees are attracted to, as a model for how decisions should be made, and is an image of who the company is and what it does. This paper looks to explore the makeup of a good mission statement through scholarly articles and research and the effect it has on corporate culture through real life examples of top companies in a variety of industries, supported by first-hand experience from the young generation of business students and stories like Johnson & Johnson\u27s Tylenol setback. This paper argues that a well-written mission statement is influential in decision making and in the creation of a good corporate culture

K2 reveals pulsed accretion driven by the 2 Myr old hot Jupiter CI Tau b

CI Tau is a young (~2 Myr) classical T Tauri star located in the Taurus star forming region. Radial velocity observations indicate it hosts a Jupiter-sized planet with an orbital period of approximately 9 days. In this work, we analyze time series of CI Tau's photometric variability as seen by K2. The lightcurve reveals the stellar rotation period to be ~6.6 d. Although there is no evidence that CI Tau b transits the host star, a ~9 d signature is also present in the lightcurve. We believe this is most likely caused by planet-disk interactions which perturb the accretion flow onto the star, resulting in a periodic modulation of the brightness with the ~9 d period of the planet's orbit.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

The power of celebrity: Exploring the basis for Oprah's successful endorsement of Australia as a vacation destination

In December 2010, Tourism Australia and Tourism New South Wales (respectively, Australia’s national and Australia’s largest state tourism promotion agencies) entered into an agreement with US talk show host Oprah Winfrey (or Oprah) for Ms Winfrey to undertake a celebrity endorsement tourism marketing campaign for Australia. In executing this campaign, Oprah and 300 of what she called her ‘Ultimate Australia Adventure’ viewers visited iconic and less well-known tourism attractions around Australia. These visits were filmed and later broadcast as four episodes of the Oprah Winfrey Show in the United States, Australia, and many other countries during January 2011. Longitudinal studies of subsequent visitation (especially from the United States) showed a delayed but significant surge in tourists, leading to Australian tourism authorities to mark the campaign a success. While celebrity endorsement has commonly been discussed in a marketing context, little attention has been given to celebrity endorsement in a tourism context ( Glover (2009) Celebrity endorsement in tourism advertising: effects on destination image. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 61(1): 16–23). This article investigates this issue, in particular, focussing on a close analysis of the content of the broadcasts to explore why the approach chosen for the campaign was successful. Results indicated that Oprah’s celebrity endorsement of Australia positioned the Australian brand effectively. Oprah’s ‘brand image’ had significant value as a celebrity endorser and that Oprah had strong appeal in these roles to the Tourism Australia target market. </jats:p

Grassroots Organizing and Medicaid Expansion in Virginia: The Lee County Chapter of Virginia Organizing and Medicaid Expansion

The ability to participate in grassroots organizing derives implicitly from the Constitution’s declaration of “We the People” and explicitly from the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to petition the Government for redress. At Virginia Organizing, we take this grant of power very seriously as is evident from our recent grassroots organizing for Medicaid expansion in Virginia. Our work focused predominately on more rural parts of the Commonwealth where our chapter members have experienced the consequences of a lack of access to health care. By mobilizing individuals passionate about Medicaid expansion and those who suffer from the lack of it and collaborating with the Healthcare for All Virginians Coalition, we were successfully able to take advantage of the changes in the House of Delegates and Senate that occurred in 2018. In part because of grassroots organizing by groups like Virginia Organizing and the Healthcare for All Virginians Coalition, in a special session in May 2018, the Virginia General Assembly voted to expand Medicaid in Virginia. Our work, though, is not complete. Now begins the task of raising public awareness of Medicaid expansion so that everyone who needs it will be able to sign up and take advantage of the program. Additionally, we must continue to work to eliminate the work requirement that might prevent thousands of people who ought to be eligible for Medicaid from receiving it. Such continuing efforts, though, are only possible because of the support of our members and other community stakeholders who also recognize the importance of grassroots organizing

The Far-Ultraviolet Spectra of TW Hya. II. Models of H2 Fluorescence in a Disk

We measure the temperature of warm gas at planet-forming radii in the disk around the classical T Tauri star (CTTS) TW Hya by modelling the H2 fluorescence observed in HST/STIS and FUSE spectra. Strong Ly-alpha emission irradiates a warm disk surface within 2 AU of the central star and pumps certain excited levels of H2. We simulate a 1D plane-parallel atmosphere to estimate fluxes for the 140 observed H2 emission lines and to reconstruct the Ly-alpha emission profile incident upon the warm H2. The excitation of H2 can be determined from relative line strengths by measuring self-absorption in lines with low-energy lower levels, or by reconstructing the Ly-alpha profile incident upon the warm H2 using the total flux from a single upper level and the opacity in the pumping transition. Based on those diagnostics, we estimate that the warm disk surface has a column density of log N(H2)=18.5^{+1.2}_{-0.8}, a temperature T=2500^{+700}_{-500} K, and a filling factor of H2, as seen by the source of Ly-alpha emission, of 0.25\pm0.08 (all 2-sigma error bars). TW Hya produces approximately 10^{-3} L_\odot in the FUV, about 85% of which is in the Ly-alpha emission line. From the H I absorption observed in the Ly-alpha emission, we infer that dust extinction in our line of sight to TW Hya is negligible.Comment: Accepted by ApJ. 26 pages, 17 figures, 6 table

Alternative Computational Protocols for Supercharging Protein Surfaces for Reversible Unfolding and Retention of Stability

Bryan S. Der, Ron Jacak, Brian Kuhlman, Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of AmericaChristien Kluwe, Aleksandr E. Miklos, Andrew D. Ellington , Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of AmericaChristien Kluwe, Aleksandr E. Miklos, George Georgiou, Andrew D. Ellington, Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of AmericaAleksandr E. Miklos, Andrew D. Ellington , Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of AmericaSergey Lyskov, Jeffrey J. Gray, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of AmericaBrian Kuhlman, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of AmericaReengineering protein surfaces to exhibit high net charge, referred to as “supercharging”, can improve reversibility of unfolding by preventing aggregation of partially unfolded states. Incorporation of charged side chains should be optimized while considering structural and energetic consequences, as numerous mutations and accumulation of like-charges can also destabilize the native state. A previously demonstrated approach deterministically mutates flexible polar residues (amino acids DERKNQ) with the fewest average neighboring atoms per side chain atom (AvNAPSA). Our approach uses Rosetta-based energy calculations to choose the surface mutations. Both protocols are available for use through the ROSIE web server. The automated Rosetta and AvNAPSA approaches for supercharging choose dissimilar mutations, raising an interesting division in surface charging strategy. Rosetta-supercharged variants of GFP (RscG) ranging from −11 to −61 and +7 to +58 were experimentally tested, and for comparison, we re-tested the previously developed AvNAPSA-supercharged variants of GFP (AscG) with +36 and −30 net charge. Mid-charge variants demonstrated ~3-fold improvement in refolding with retention of stability. However, as we pushed to higher net charges, expression and soluble yield decreased, indicating that net charge or mutational load may be limiting factors. Interestingly, the two different approaches resulted in GFP variants with similar refolding properties. Our results show that there are multiple sets of residues that can be mutated to successfully supercharge a protein, and combining alternative supercharge protocols with experimental testing can be an effective approach for charge-based improvement to refolding.This work was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (HR-0011-10-1-0052 to A.E.) and the Welch Foundation (F-1654 to A.E.), the National Institutes of Health grants GM073960 (B.K.) and R01-GM073151 (J.G. and S.L.), the Rosetta Commons (S.L.), the National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship (2009070950 to B.D.), the UNC Royster Society Pogue fellowship (B.D.), and National Institutes of Health grant T32GM008570 for the UNC Program in Molecular and Cellular Biophysics. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Center for Systems and Synthetic BiologyCellular and Molecular BiologyApplied Research LaboratoriesEmail: [email protected]

The FUV spectrum of TW Hya. I. Observations of H2_2 Fluorescence

We observed the classical T Tauri star TW Hya with \textit{HST}/STIS using the E140M grating, from 1150--1700 \AA, with the E230M grating, from 2200--2900 \AA, and with \FUSE from 900--1180 \AA. Emission in 143 Lyman-band H$_2$ lines representing 19 progressions dominates the spectral region from 1250--1650 \AA. The total H$_2$ emission line flux is $1.94 \times 10^{-12}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, which corresponds to $1.90\times10^{-4}$ $L_\odot$ at TW Hya's distance of 56 pc. A broad stellar \Lya line photoexcites the H$_2$ from excited rovibrational levels of the ground electronic state to excited electronic states. The \ion{C}{2} 1335 \AA doublet, \ion{C}{3} 1175 \AA\ multiplet, and \ion{C}{4} 1550 \AA doublet also electronically excite H$_2$. The velocity shift of the H$_2$ lines is consistent with the photospheric radial velocity of TW Hya, and the emission is not spatially extended beyond the 0\farcs05 resolution of \textit{HST}. The H$_2$ lines have an intrinsic FWHM of $11.91\pm0.16$ \kms. One H$_2$ line is significantly weaker than predicted by this model because of \ion{C}{2} wind absorption. We also do not observe any H$_2$ absorption against the stellar \Lya profile. From these results, we conclude that the H$_2$ emission is more consistent with an origin in a disk rather than in an outflow or circumstellar shell. We also analyze the hot accretion-region lines (e.g., \ion{C}{4}, \ion{Si}{4}, \ion{O}{6}) of TW Hya, which are formed at the accretion shock, and discuss some reasons why Si lines appear significantly weaker than other TR region lines.Comment: accepted by ApJ, 42 pages -- 20 text, 11 figure

Star-Crossed Lovers DI Tau A and B: Orbit Characterization and Physical Properties Determination

The stellar companion to the weak-line T Tauri star DI Tau A was first discovered by the lunar occultation technique in 1989 and was subsequently confirmed by a speckle imaging observation in 1991. It has not been detected since, despite being targeted by five different studies that used a variety of methods and spanned more than 20 years. Here, we report the serendipitous rediscovery of DI Tau B during our Young Exoplanets Spectroscopic Survey (YESS). Using radial velocity data from YESS spanning 17 years, new adaptive optics observations from Keck II, and a variety of other data from the literature, we derive a preliminary orbital solution for the system that effectively explains the detection and (almost all of the) non-detection history of DI Tau B. We estimate the dynamical masses of both components, finding that the large mass difference (q $\sim$0.17) and long orbital period ($\gtrsim$35 years) make DI Tau system a noteworthy and valuable addition to studies of stellar evolution and pre-main-sequence models. With a long orbital period and a small flux ratio (f2/f1) between DI Tau A and B, additional measurements are needed for a better comparison between these observational results and pre-main-sequence models. Finally, we report an average surface magnetic field strength ($\bar B$) for DI Tau A, of $\sim$0.55 kG, which is unusually low in the context of young active stars.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures. Accepted to Ap