Generational Stages in Family Firms: Expanding the Database - Kosovo

Expanding the authors’ international database of family businesses, this investigation compared first, second and third-generation family businesses in a sample from Kosovo. Both supporting and challenging the existing literature, the findings indicate that, as family businesses move from first to second to third generation, almost all managerial characteristics, activities and practices remain the same. Implications are presented for theory development, for further research, and for those who manage or advise family businesses

A family of thermostable fungal cellulases created by structure-guided recombination

SCHEMA structure-guided recombination of 3 fungal class II cellobiohydrolases (CBH II cellulases) has yielded a collection of highly thermostable CBH II chimeras. Twenty-three of 48 genes sampled from the 6,561 possible chimeric sequences were secreted by the Saccharomyces cerevisiae heterologous host in catalytically active form. Five of these chimeras have half-lives of thermal inactivation at 63°C that are greater than the most stable parent, CBH II enzyme from the thermophilic fungus Humicola insolens, which suggests that this chimera collection contains hundreds of highly stable cellulases. Twenty-five new sequences were designed based on mathematical modeling of the thermostabilities for the first set of chimeras. Ten of these sequences were expressed in active form; all 10 retained more activity than H. insolens CBH II after incubation at 63°C. The total of 15 validated thermostable CBH II enzymes have high sequence diversity, differing from their closest natural homologs at up to 63 amino acid positions. Selected purified thermostable chimeras hydrolyzed phosphoric acid swollen cellulose at temperatures 7 to 15°C higher than the parent enzymes. These chimeras also hydrolyzed as much or more cellulose than the parent CBH II enzymes in long-time cellulose hydrolysis assays and had pH/activity profiles as broad, or broader than, the parent enzymes. Generating this group of diverse, thermostable fungal CBH II chimeras is the first step in building an inventory of stable cellulases from which optimized enzyme mixtures for biomass conversion can be formulated

Antiferromagnetism and Superconductivity in UPt_3

The short ranged antiferromagnetism recently seen in UPt_3 is proved incompatible with two dimensional (2D) order parameter models that take the antiferromagnetism as a symmetry breaking field. To adjust to the local moment direction, the order parameter twists over very long length scales as per the Imry-Ma argument. A variational solution to the Ginzburg-Landau equations is used to study the nature of the short ranged order. Although there are still two transitions, the lower one is of first order -- in contradiction to experiments. It is shown that the latent heat predicted by the 2D models at the lower transition is too large not to have been seen. A simple periodic model is numerically studied to show that the lower transition can not be a crossover either.Comment: To appear in Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. 9 pages, 2 figure

Spin-Peierls and Antiferromagnetic Phases in Cu{1-x}Zn{x}GeO{3}: A Neutron Scattering Study

Comprehensive neutron scattering studies were carried out on a series of high-quality single crystals of Cu_{1-x}Zn_xGeO_3. The Zn concentration, x, was determined for each sample using Electron Probe Micro-Analysis. The measured Zn concentrations were found to be 40-80% lower than the nominal values. Nevertheless the measured concentrations cover a wide range which enables a systematic study of the effects due to Zn-doping. We have confirmed the coexistence of spin-Peierls (SP) and antiferromagnetic (AF) orderings at low temperatures and the measured phase diagram is presented. Most surprisingly, long-range AF ordering occurs even in the lowest available Zn concentration, x=0.42%, which places important constraints on theoretical models of the AF-SP coexistence. Magnetic excitations are also examined in detail. The AF excitations are sharp at low energies and show no considerable broadening as x increases indicating that the AF ordering remains long ranged for x up to 4.7%. On the other hand, the SP phase exhibits increasing disorder as x increases, as shown from the broadening of the SP excitations as well as the dimer reflection peaks.Comment: 17 preprint style pages, 9 postscript files included. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. Also available from http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu/~mmartin/pubs.htm

Possible Pairing Symmetry of Three-dimensional Superconductor UPt3_3 -- Analysis Based on a Microscopic Calculation --

Stimulated by the anomalous superconducting properties of UPt$_3$, we investigate the pairing symmetry and the transition temperature in the two-dimensional(2D) and three-dimensional(3D) hexagonal Hubbard model. We solve the Eliashberg equation using the third order perturbation theory with respect to the on-site repulsion $U$. As results of the 2D calculation, we obtain distinct two types of stable spin-triplet pairing states. One is the $f$-wave(B$_1$) pairing around $n = 1.2$ and in a small $U$ region, which is caused by the ferromagnetic fluctuation. Then, the other is the $p_x$(or $p_y$)-wave(E$_1$) pairing in large $U$ region far from the half-filling ($n = 1$) which is caused by the vertex corrections only. However, we find that the former $f$-wave pairing is destroyed by introduced 3D dispersion. This is because the 3D dispersion breaks the favorable structures for the $f$-wave pairing such as the van Hove singularities and the small pocket structures. Thus, we conclude that the ferromagnetic fluctuation mediated spin-triplet state can not explain the superconductivity of UPt$_3$. We also study the case of the pairing symmetry with a polar gap. This $p_z$-wave(A$_1$) is stabilized by the large hopping integral along c-axis $t_z$. It is nearly degenerate with the suppressed $p_x$(or $p_y$)-wave(E$_1$) in the best fitting parameter region to UPt$_3$ ($1.3 \le t_z \le 1.5$). These two p-wave pairing states exist in the region far from the half-filling, in which the vertex correction terms play crucial roles like the case in Sr$_2$RuO$_4$.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figure

Selective nitrogen adsorption via backbonding in a metal-organic framework with exposed vanadium sites.

Industrial processes prominently feature π-acidic gases, and an adsorbent capable of selectively interacting with these molecules could enable important chemical separations1-4. Biological systems use accessible, reducing metal centres to bind and activate weakly π-acidic species, such as N2, through backbonding interactions5-7, and incorporating analogous moieties into a porous material should give rise to a similar adsorption mechanism for these gaseous substrates8. Here, we report a metal-organic framework featuring exposed vanadium(II) centres capable of back-donating electron density to weak π acids to successfully target π acidity for separation applications. This adsorption mechanism, together with a high concentration of available adsorption sites, results in record N2 capacities and selectivities for the removal of N2 from mixtures with CH4, while further enabling olefin/paraffin separations at elevated temperatures. Ultimately, incorporating such π-basic metal centres into porous materials offers a handle for capturing and activating key molecular species within next-generation adsorbents