Influence of Mediation on Estate Planning Decisions: Evidence from Indian Survey Data

Background: Intestate death can lead to the distribution of assets against the personal wishes of the deceased and is a problem in India, as 80% of Indians die without making a last will. Following the concepts of decision theory (i.e., the theory of choice), stewardship theory, agency theory, and signaling theory, the purpose of this study is to examine the influence of meditation on estate planning decisions. This study also seeks to extend previous findings on the influence of religious beliefs on the estate planning decisions of Canadians to that of Indians. Methods: Employed and self-employed individuals from India were surveyed regarding their perceptions of meditation and estate planning decisions. Results: The survey indicates that mediation positively influences the estate planning decisions while individuals who practice meditation have greater preferences for estate planning compared with those who do not. The findings suggest that individual assets, family size, and education positively influence the estate planning decisions of Indians. Conclusion: Reported meditation, individual assets, family size, location, education, and gender are positively correlated with the estate planning decisions of Indians

Ground state and constrained domain walls in Gd/Fe multilayers

The magnetic ground state of antiferromagnetically coupled Gd/Fe multilayers and the evolution of in-plane domain walls is modelled with micromagnetics. The twisted state is characterised by a rapid decrease of the interface angle with increasing magnetic field. We found that for certain ratios M(Fe):M(Gd), the twisted state is already present at low fields. However, the magnetic ground state is not only determined by the ratio M(Fe):M(Gd) but also by the thicknesses of the layers, that is the total moments of the layer. The dependence of the magnetic ground state is explained by the amount of overlap of the domain walls at the interface. Thicker layers suppress the Fe aligned and the Gd aligned state in favour of the twisted state. Whereas ultrathin layers exclude the twisted state, since wider domain walls can not form in these ultrathin layers

Factors Affecting Ethical Sources of External Debt Financing for Indian Agribusiness Firms

Majority of the Indian farmers are financially constrained and pay very high interest rate to private moneylenders which has a negative impact on the survivability and growth of agribusiness firms. Because of less strict debt financing requirements farmers become prey to predatory lenders from private lending institutions that are not controlled by the central bank and may not behave in an ethical way. The study investigates factors affecting ethical sources of external debt financing by taking a sample of Indian agribusiness firms. Owners of agribusiness firms were interviewed through personal visits and telephone calls regarding the factors affecting ethical sources of external debt financing. The findings show that several factors affect ethical sources of external debt financing for agribusiness firms in India. This study contributes to the literature on the factors that affect ethical sources of external debt financing. This study also provides recommendations to improve access to ethical sources of external debt financing. The findings may be useful for agribusiness owners (farmers), financial managers, investors, agribusiness management consultants, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders

Structural, magnetic, and electrical properties of Bi1-xLaxMnO3 (x=0.0, 0.1, and 0.2) solid solutions

Possible ferromagnetic and ferroelectric orders in ceramic Bi1–xLaxMnO3 (x = 0.0, 0.1, and 0.2) samples prepared under 3–6 GPa pressure have been investigated. Rietveld fits to powder neutron diffraction data show that BiMnO3 and Bi0.9La0.1MnO3 adopt a monoclinic C2/c perovskite superstructure whereas Bi0.8La0.2MnO3 has orthorhombic Pnma symmetry. Both structural analysis and Curie–Weiss fits to magnetic susceptibility data show that high spin d4 Mn3+ is present with no significant Bi deficiency or Mn4+ content apparent. La substitution suppresses the magnetic Curie temperature of the monoclinic phase from 105 K for x = 0 to 94 K at x = 0.1, but the x = 0.2 material shows antiferromagnetic order similar to that of LaMnO3. Impedance spectroscopy and dielectric measurements on the x = 0.1 and 0.2 materials show modest bulk permittivity values (45–80) down to 50 K, and there is no strong evidence for ferroelectric behavior. The two samples have thermally activated conductivities with activation energies of 0.21–0.24 eV.PostprintPeer reviewe

Multicaloric materials and effects

Multicaloric materials show thermal changes that can be driven simultaneously or sequentially by more than one type of external field, and the resulting multicaloric effects can be large in multiferroic materials. The use of more than one driving field can permit access to larger thermal changes, with smaller field magnitudes, over wider ranges of operating temperature, while manipulating hysteresis. The thermodynamics behind multicaloric effects is well established, but only a small number of multicaloric effects have been experimentally studied to date. Here we describe the fundamentals of multicaloric effects, and discuss the performance of representative multicaloric materials. Exploiting multicaloric effects could aid the future development of cooling devices, where key challenges include energy efficiency and operating temperature span

Ferroelectric precursor behavior in PbSc0.5Ta0.5O3 detected by field-induced resonant piezoelectric spectroscopy

A novel experimental technique, resonant piezoelectric spectroscopy (RPS), has been applied to investigate polar precursor effects in highly (65%) B-site ordered PbSc0.5Ta0.5O3 (PST), which undergoes a ferroelectric phase transition near 300 K. The cubic-rhombohedral transition is weakly first order, with a coexistence interval of ∼4 K, and is accompanied by a significant elastic anomaly over a wide temperature interval. Precursor polarity in the cubic phase was detected as elastic vibrations generated by local piezoelectric excitations in the frequency range 250–710 kHz. The RPS resonance frequencies follow exactly the frequencies of elastic resonances generated by conventional resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) but RPS signals disappear on heating beyond an onset temperature, Tonset, of 425 K. Differences between the RPS and RUS responses can be understood if the PST structure in the precursor regime between Tonset and the transition point, Ttrans=300 K, has locally polar symmetry even while it remains macroscopically cubic. It is proposed that this precursor behavior could involve the development of a tweed microstructure arising by coupling between strain and multiple order parameters, which can be understood from the perspective of Landau theory. As a function of temperature the transition is driven by the polar displacement P and the order parameter for cation ordering on the crystallographic B site Qod. Results in the literature show that, as a function of pressure, there is a separate instability driven by octahedral tilting for which the assigned order parameter is Q. The two mainly displacive order parameters, P and Q, are unfavorably coupled via a biquadratic term Q2P2, and complex tweedlike fluctuations in the precursor regime would be expected to combine aspects of all the order parameters. This would be different from the development of polar nanoregions, which are more usually evoked to explain relaxor ferroelectric behavior, such as occurs in PST with a lower degree of B-site order

Stop Shackling Patients: A Petition to Humanize the Care of Incarcerated Patients at Boston Medical Center

This scholarly work, written by Neil Singh Bedi, Nisha Mathur, and Judy D. Wang, under the mentorship of Professors Sondra Crosby and George Annas, and with the support of members of the Stop Shackling Patients Coalition, compiles a series of arguments against the routine shackling of patients who are incarcerated while they receive healthcare in American hospitals. As medical students, NSB, NM, and JDW had a unique opportunity to collaborate with Boston Medical Center, their primary teaching institution, the largest trauma center in New England, and a nationally renowned health system that is dedicated towards achieving health equity, in changing their policy regarding care for patients who are incarcerated. Written and launched on the 5th of February, 2022, this petition launched a national discussion to understand and change one of the many concerns about how this patient population is treated: namely, the use of shackles as restraints in healthcare setting. In response to the robust discussion incited by this campaign, the Stop Shackling Patients Coalition (SSP) was founded. SSP is a task force and learning collaborative of health professionals, human rights advocates, and policymakers driven to raise the quality of care provided to incarcerated individuals by bringing an end to universal shackling. As of February 2023, Boston Medical Center amended its existing policy for the care of patients who are incarcerated, in response to this petition, and in collaboration with the Directors of SSP. Working directly with executive leadership, clinical leaders, the Office of the General Counsel, and public safety, authors NSB, NM, and JDW helped to develop and implement a revised policy that enables healthcare providers to not only assess whether patients who are incarcerated meet special circumstances (e.g. quadriplegia, sedation, or palliative care), but also to advocate for shackle removal

Reversible and irreversible colossal barocaloric effects in plastic crystals

The extremely large latent heat exchanged in phase transitions involving strong molecular orientational disordering has recently led to the proposal of plastic crystals as a feasible solution for solid-state barocaloric eco-friendly cooling technologies. Here we determine the reversible barocaloric response of four plastic crystals derived from neopentane [C(CH3)4]: (NH2)C(CH2OH)3 (TRIS for short), (NH2)(CH3)C(CH2OH)2 (AMP), (CH3)C(CH2OH)3 (PG) and (CH3)3C(CH2OH) (NPA). All of them display colossal entropy changes at their ordered-plastic phase transition, which is a primal requirement for competitive barocaloric materials. However, we show that it is also important to verify that the large barocaloric effects can be achieved using pressures that, while being moderate, are large enough to overcome the pressure-dependent hysteresis. From this quantity and using the quasi-direct method, we determine the minimum pressure needed to achieve reversible barocaloric effects, prev, for each compound. Specifically, we find a small and moderate prev for PG and NPA, respectively, which therefore display colossal reversible barocaloric effects comparable to harmful fluids used in current refrigerators and thus confirm the potential of plastic crystals as excellent alternatives. Instead, in TRIS and AMP, the obtained prev is excessive to yield reversible barocaloric effects useful for cyclic applications

Fingerprinting the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary impact with Zn isotopes

Numerous geochemical anomalies exist at the K-Pg boundary that indicate the addition of extraterrestrial materials; however, none fingerprint volatilization, a key process that occurs during large bolide impacts. Stable Zn isotopes are an exceptional indicator of volatility-related processes, where partial vaporization of Zn leaves the residuum enriched in its heavy isotopes. Here, we present Zn isotope data for sedimentary rock layers of the K-Pg boundary, which display heavier Zn isotope compositions and lower Zn concentrations relative to surrounding sedimentary rocks, the carbonate platform at the impact site, and most carbonaceous chondrites. Neither volcanic events nor secondary alteration during weathering and diagenesis can explain the Zn concentration and isotope signatures present. The systematically higher Zn isotope values within the boundary layer sediments provide an isotopic fingerprint of partially evaporated material within the K-Pg boundary layer, thus earmarking Zn volatilization during impact and subsequent ejecta transport associated with an impact at the K-Pg