Talking Trash: Ethics, Sustainability, And Organizational Trust

In 1960 Americans generated 88.1 million tons (2.68 lbs./person/day) of municipal solid waste (MSW), by 2012 municipal solid waste increased to 250.9 million tons (4.38 lbs./person/day). The good news is that of the total MSW 5.6 million tons was recycled in 1960 and by 2012 the amount surged to 86.6 million tons. This real-world case (to protect privacy, names have been changed) chronicles the development of a strategic supply chain decision within a heavily regulated industry that is characterized by hybrid public/private organizations. It illustrates the importance of contract compliance and quality control assessment. In addition, it is heavily imbedded within the sustainability conversation. Finally, integral elements of the case are ethics and organizational trust, which, regardless of contract obligations, is essential in reciprocal relationships and community/customer support

Measuring gender norms about relationships in early adolescence : results from the global early adolescent study

Introduction: Gender norms are increasingly recognized as drivers of health and wellbeing. While early adolescence constitutes a critical window of development, there is limited understanding about how adolescents perceive gender relations across different cultural settings. This study used a mixed-method approach, grounded in the voices of young people around the world, to construct and test a cross-cultural scale assessing the perceptions of gender norms regulating romantic relationships between boys and girls in early adolescence. Methods: The study draws on the Global Early Adolescent study (GEAS), a study focusing on gender norms and health related outcomes over the course of adolescence in urban poor settings worldwide. In-depth interviews were first conducted among approximately 200 adolescents between 10-14 years in seven sites across 4 continents to identify common scripts guiding romantic relations in early adolescence. These scripts were then transformed into a multidimensional scale. The scale was tested among 120 adolescents in each of 14 GEAS sites, followed by a second pilot among 75 adolescents in six sites. We evaluated the psychometric criteria of each subscale using principal component analysis, and parallel analysis, followed by exploratory factor analysis to guide the selection of a more parsimonious set of items. Results: Results suggested a two-factor structure, consisting of an "adolescent romantic expectations" subscale and a "Sexual Double Standard" subscale. Both subscales yielded high internal validity in each site, with polychoric Cronbach alpha values above 0.70 with the exception of Kinshasa for the adolescent romantic expectations scale (0.64) and Hanoi for the sexual double standard scale (0.61). Conclusion: This study reveals common perceptions of gendered norms about romantic engagement in early adolescence, normative for both sexes, but socially valued for boys while devaluated for girls. The findings illustrate that social hierarchies of power in romantic relationships form early in adolescence, regardless of cultural setting

Carbon and Nitrogen Isotopes in Type II Supernova Diamonds

We construct a model for the origin of the abundant nanometer diamonds found in meteorites. We interpret them as interstellar particles that were grown during the expansions of supernova interiors. The physical setting and the chemical-vapor-deposition process that we describe present clear reasons both for the small sizes (nm) of the diamonds and for their mean isotopic composition being not greatly different from solar. To delineate the isotopic requirements for collections of diamonds (which are too small for analysis individually) we present measurements of carbon and nitrogen isotopes obtained by stepped combustion of diamond collections. Our model for the growth of supernova diamonds is motivated by a series of postulates, unremarkable as single postulates, that together produce a successful calculation. The computed growth occurs in the continuously mixing envelopes of expanding Type II supernova remnants. It provides a good characterization of these facts: (1) the C isotopic composition is not far from solar; (2) both carbon and nitrogen become isotopically lighter as the diamonds are combusted; (3) the C/N ratio changes during combustion; (4) the diamonds are individually tiny; (5) collections of diamonds are carriers of Xe-HL. We show that the isotopic gradient during combustion may be interpreted in this model as either an isotopic gradient within each diamond or as a correlation between isotopic composition and size of individual diamonds contained in the bulk collections

Anchoring of a dye precursor on NiO(001) studied by non-contact atomic force microscopy

The properties of metal oxides, such as charge transport mechanisms or optoelectronic characteristics, can be modified by functionalization with organic molecules. This kind of organic/inorganic surface is nowadays highly regarded, in particular, for the design of hybrid devices such as dye sensitized solar cells. However, a key parameter for optimized interfaces is not only the choice of the  compounds but also the properties of adsorption. Here, we investigated the deposition of an organic dye precursor molecule on a NiO(001) single crystal surface by means of non-contact atomic force microscopy at room temperature. Depending on the coverage, single molecules, groups of  adsorbates with random or recognizable shapes, or islands of closely packed molecules were identified. Single molecules and self assemblies are resolved with sub-molecular resolution showing that they are lying flat on the surface in a trans-conformation. Within the limits of our Kelvin probe microscopy setup a charge transfer from NiO to the molecular layer of 0.3 electrons per molecules was observed only in the areas, where the molecules are closed packed

‘Question Moments’: A Rolling Programme of Question Opportunities in Classroom Science

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.This naturalistic study integrates specific 'question moments' into lesson plans to increase pupils' classroom interactions. A range of teaching tools has explored students' ideas through opportunities to ask and write questions. Their oral and written outcomes provide data on individual and group misunderstandings. Changes to the schedule of lessons were introduced to discuss these questions and solve disparities. Flexible lesson planning over fourteen lessons across a four-week period of highschool chemistry accommodated students' contributions and increased student participation, promoted inquiring and individualised teaching, with each teaching strategy feeding forward into the next

Characterization of engraftment dynamics in myelofibrosis after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation including novel conditioning schemes.

INTRODUCTION Myelofibrosis (MF) is a rare hematopoietic stem cell disorder progressing to bone marrow (BM) failure or blast phase. Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) represents a potentially curative therapy for a limited subset of patients with advanced MF, who are eligible, but engraftment in MF vs. AML is delayed which promotes complications. As determinants of engraftment in MF are incompletely characterized, we studied engraftment dynamics at our center. METHODS A longitudinal cohort of 71 allogeneic HCT performed 2000-2019 with >50% after 2015 was evaluated. RESULTS Median time to neutrophil engraftment ≥0.5x109/l was +20 days post-transplant and associated with BM fibrosis, splenomegaly and infused CD34+ cell number. Engraftment dynamics were similar in primary vs. secondary MF and were independent of MF driver mutations in JAK2, CALR and MPL. Neutrophil engraftment occurred later upon haploidentical HCT with thiotepa-busulfan-fludarabine conditioning, post-transplant cyclophosphamide and G-CSF (TBF-PTCy/G-CSF) administered to 9.9% and 15.6% of patients in 2000-2019 and after 2015, respectively. Engraftment of platelets was similarly delayed, while reconstitution of reticulocytes was not affected. CONCLUSIONS Since MF is a rare hematologic malignancy, this data from a large number of HCT for MF is essential to substantiate that later neutrophil and platelet engraftment in MF relates both to host and treatment-related factors. Observations from this longitudinal cohort support that novel conditioning schemes administered also to rare entities such as MF, require detailed evaluation in larger, multi-center cohorts to assess also indicators of long-term graft function and overall outcome in patients with this infrequent hematopoietic neoplasm undergoing allogeneic transplantation

Evaluating the potential of whole-genome sequencing for tracing transmission routes in experimental infections and natural outbreaks of bovine respiratory syncytial virus

Bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) is a major cause of respiratory disease in cattle. Genomic sequencing can resolve phylogenetic relationships between virus populations, which can be used to infer transmission routes and potentially inform the design of biosecurity measures. Sequencing of short

A Simple and Practical Approach to Unit Testing: The JML and JUnit Way

Writing unit test code is labor-intensive, hence it is often not done as an integral part of programming. However, unit testing is a practical approach to increasing the correctness and quality of software; for example, the Extreme Programming approach relies on frequent unit testing. In this paper we present a new approach that makes writing unit tests easier. It uses a formal specification language\u27s runtime assertion checker to decide whether methods are working correctly, thus automating the writing of unit test oracles. These oracles can be easily combined with hand-written test data. Instead of writing testing code, the programmer writes formal specifications (e.g., pre- and postconditions). This makes the programmer\u27s task easier, because specifications are more concise and abstract than the equivalent test code, and hence more readable and maintainable. Furthermore, by using specifications in testing, specification errors are quickly discovered, so the specifications are more likely to provide useful documentation and inputs to other tools. We have implemented this idea using the Java Modeling Language (JML) and the JUnit testing framework, but the approach could be easily implemented with other combinations of formal specification languages and unit test tools