An Empirical Investigation of the Predictors of Executive Career Success

The present study examined the degree to which demographic, human capital,motivational, organizational, and industry/region variables predicted executive career success. Career success was assumed to comprise objective (pay, ascendancy) and subjective (job satisfaction, career satisfaction) elements. Results obtained from a sample of 1,388 U.S.executives suggested that demographic, human capital, motivational, and organizational variables explained significant variance in objective career success and in career satisfaction. Particularly interesting were findings that educational level, quality, prestige, and degree type all predicted financial success. In contrast, only the motivational and organizational variables explained significant amounts of variance in job satisfaction. These findings suggest that the variables that lead to objective career success often are quite different from those that lead to subjectively defined success

Getting into hot water:sick guppies frequent warmer thermal conditions

Ectotherms depend on the environmental temperature for thermoregulation and exploit thermal regimes that optimise physiological functioning. They may also frequent warmer conditions to up-regulate their immune response against parasite infection and/or impede parasite development. This adaptive response, known as ‘behavioural fever’, has been documented in various taxa including insects, reptiles and fish, but only in response to endoparasite infections. Here, a choice chamber experiment was used to investigate the thermal preferences of a tropical freshwater fish, the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata), when infected with a common helminth ectoparasite Gyrodactylus turnbulli, in female-only and mixed-sex shoals. The temperature tolerance of G. turnbulli was also investigated by monitoring parasite population trajectories on guppies maintained at a continuous 18, 24 or 32 °C. Regardless of shoal composition, infected fish frequented the 32 °C choice chamber more often than when uninfected, significantly increasing their mean temperature preference. Parasites maintained continuously at 32 °C decreased to extinction within 3 days, whereas mean parasite abundance increased on hosts incubated at 18 and 24 °C. We show for the first time that gyrodactylid-infected fish have a preference for warmer waters and speculate that sick fish exploit the upper thermal tolerances of their parasites to self medicate

Concept definition study for recovery of tumbling satellites. Volume 1: Executive summary, study results

The first assessment is made of the design requirements and conceptual definition of a front end kit to be transported on the currently defined Orbital Maneuvering Vehicle (OMV) and the Space Transportation System Shuttle Orbiter, to conduct remote, teleoperated recovery of disabled and noncontrollable, tumbling satellites. Previous studies did not quantify the dynamic characteristics of a tumbling satellite, nor did they appear to address the full spectrum of Tumbling Satellite Recovery systems requirements. Both of these aspects are investigated with useful results

Concept definition study for recovery of tumbling satellites. Volume 2: Supporting research and technology report

A number of areas of research and laboratory experiments were identified which could lead to development of a cost efficient remote, disable satellite recovery system. Estimates were planned of disabled satellite motion. A concept is defined as a Tumbling Satellite Recovery kit which includes a modular system, composed of a number of subsystem mechanisms that can be readily integrated into varying combinations. This would enable the user to quickly configure a tailored remote, disabled satellite recovery kit to meet a broad spectrum of potential scenarios. The capability was determined of U.S. Earth based satellite tracking facilities to adequately determine the orientation and motion rates of disabled satellites

Physics design and scaling of recirculating induction accelerators: from benchtop prototypes to drivers

Recirculating induction accelerators (recirculators) have been investigated as possible drivers for inertial fusion energy production because of their potential cost advantage over linear induction accelerators. Point designs were obtained and many of the critical physics and technology issues that would need to be addressed were detailed. A collaboration involving Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers is now developing a small prototype recirculator in order to demonstrate an understanding of nearly all of the critical beam dynamics issues that have been raised. We review the design equations for recirculators and demonstrate how, by keeping crucial dimensionless quantities constant, a small prototype recirculator was designed which will simulate the essential beam physics of a driver. We further show how important physical quantities such as the sensitivity to errors of optical elements (in both field strength and placement), insertion/extraction, vacuum requirements, and emittance growth, scale from small-prototype to driver-size accelerator

Evaluating policy as argument: the public debate over the first UK austerity budget

This article aims to make a methodological contribution to the ‘argumentative turn’ in policy analysis and to the understanding of the public debate on the UK Government's austerity policies. It suggests that policy arguments are practical arguments from circumstances, goals and means–goal relations to practical conclusions (proposals) that can ground decision and action. Practical proposals are evaluated in light of their potential consequences. This article proposes a deliberation scheme and a set of critical questions for the evaluation of deliberation and decision-making in conditions of incomplete knowledge (uncertainty and risk). It illustrates these questions by analysing a corpus of articles from five newspapers over the two months following the adoption of the first austerity budget in June 2010. It also suggests how analysis of ‘frames’ and ‘framing’ can be integrated with the evaluation of deliberation and decision-making

The redox-active drug metronidazole and thiol-depleting garlic compounds act synergistically in the protist parasite Spironucleus vortens

Spironucleus vortens is a protozoan parasite associated with significant mortalities in the freshwater angelfish, Pterophyllum scalare. Control of this parasite is especially problematic due to restrictions on the use of the drug of choice, metronidazole (MTZ), on fish farms. Use of garlic (Allium sativum) is undergoing a renaissance following experimental validations of its antimicrobial efficiency. Ajoene ((E,Z)-4,5,9-trithiadodeca-1,6,11-triene 9-oxide), is a stable transformation product of allicin, the primary biologically active component of garlic. In the current study, an ajoene oil crude extract had a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 40 μg/ml against S. vortens. GC-MS and NMR spectroscopy revealed this ajoene extract contained a mixture of the (E) and (Z)-ajoene isomers along with diallyl disulphide (DADS) and diallyl trisulphide (DATS). The only component of the ajoene crude oil found to substantially inhibit S. vortens growth by optical density monitoring (Bioscreen C Reader) was (Z)-ajoene (MIC 16 μg/ml). Ajoene oil acted in synergy with MTZ in vitro, reducing the individual MIC of this drug (4 μg/ml) by 16-fold, and that of ajoene oil by 200-fold with a fractional inhibitory concentration (FIC) index of 0.263. This synergistic interaction was confirmed in vivo. S. vortens-infected P. scalare angelfish dosed orally with 0.5% (v/w) MTZ combined with 0.05% (v/w) ajoene displayed a significant reduction in faecal trophozoite count, whilst those fed on 0.5% MTZ flakes (half the recommended oral dose) alone did not. This study demonstrates for the first time the synergistic interaction between the synthetic drug MTZ and natural ajoene oil both in vitro and in vivo. Future work should evaluate the potential synergy of ajoene and MTZ against MTZ-resistant bacteria and protists

Phylogenetic analysis of apicomplexan parasites infecting commercially valuable species from the North-East Atlantic reveals high levels of diversity and insights into the evolution of the group

Background: The Apicomplexa from aquatic environments are understudied relative to their terrestrial counterparts, and the seminal work assessing the phylogenetic relations of fish-infecting lineages is mostly based on freshwater hosts. The taxonomic uncertainty of some apicomplexan groups, such as the coccidia, is high and many genera were recently shown to be paraphyletic, questioning the value of strict morphological and ecological traits for parasite classification. Here, we surveyed the genetic diversity of the Apicomplexa in several commercially valuable vertebrates from the NorthEast Atlantic, including farmed fish. Results: Most of the sequences retrieved were closely related to common fish coccidia of Eimeria, Goussia and Calyptospora. However, some lineages from the shark Scyliorhinus canicula were placed as sister taxa to the Isospora, Caryospora and Schellakia group. Additionally, others from Pagrus caeruleostictus and Solea senegalensis belonged to an unknown apicomplexan group previously found in the Caribbean Sea, where it was sequenced from the water column, corals, and fish. Four distinct parasite lineages were found infecting farmed Dicentrarchus labrax or Sparus aurata. One of the lineages from farmed D. labrax was also found infecting wild counterparts, and another was also recovered from farmed S. aurata and farm-associated Diplodus sargus. Conclusions: Our results show that marine fish apicomplexans are diverse, and we highlight the need for a more extensive assessment of parasite diversity in this phylum. Additionally, parasites recovered from S. canicula were recovered as basal to their piscine counterparts reflecting hosts phylogeny

ICF burn-history measurments using 17-MeV fusion gamma rays

Fusion reaction rate for inertial-confinement fusion (ICF) experiments at the Nova Laser Facility is measured with 30-ps resolution using a high-speed neutron detector. We are investigating a measurement technique based on the 16.7-MeV gamma rays that are released in deuterium-tritium fusion. Our concept is to convert gamma-ray energy into a fast burst of Cerenkov light that can be recorded with a high-speed optical detector. We have detected fusion gamma rays in preliminary experiments conducted at Nova where we used a tungsten/aerogel converter to generate Cerenkov light and an optical streak camera to record the signal

Entangled two atoms through different couplings and the thermal noise

The entanglement of two atoms is studied when the two atoms are coupled to a single-mode thermal field with different couplings. The different couplings of two atoms are in favor of entanglement preparation: it not only makes the case of absence entanglement with same coupling appear entanglement, but also enhances the entanglement with the increasing of the relative difference of two couplings. We also show that the diversity of coupling can improved the critical temperature. If the optical cavity is leaky during the time evolution, the dissipative thermal environment is benefit to produce the entanglement.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure