Support and power plant documentation for the gas turbine powered bus demonstration program

The operational experience obtained for the GT404-4 gas turbine engines in the intercity and intracity Bus Demonstration Programs is described for the period January 1980 through September 1981. Support for the engines and automatic transmissions involved in this program provided engineering and field service, spare parts and tools, training, and factory overhauls. the Greyhound (intercity) coaches accumulated 183,054 mi (294,595 km) and 5154 hr of total operation. The Baltimore Transit (intracity) coaches accumulated 40,567 mi (65,285 km) and 1840 hr of total operation. In service, the turbine powered Greyhound and Transit coaches achieved approximately 25% and 40% lower fuel mileage, respectively, than did the production diesel powered coaches. The gas turbine engine will require the advanced ceramic development currently being sponsored by the DOE and NASA to achieve fuel economy equivalent not only to that of today's diesel engines but also to the projected fuel economy of the advanced diesel engines of the 1990s. Sufficient experience was not achieved with the coaches prior to the start of service to identify and eliminate many of the problems associated with the startup of new equipment. Because of these problems, the mean miles between incident were unacceptably low. The future gas turbine system should be developed sufficiently to establish satisfactory durability prior to evaluation in revenue service. Commercialization of the gas turbine bus engine remains a viable goal for the future

Integrals of Motion for Critical Dense Polymers and Symplectic Fermions

We consider critical dense polymers ${\cal L}(1,2)$. We obtain for this model the eigenvalues of the local integrals of motion of the underlying Conformal Field Theory by means of Thermodynamic Bethe Ansatz. We give a detailed description of the relation between this model and Symplectic Fermions including the indecomposable structure of the transfer matrix. Integrals of motion are defined directly on the lattice in terms of the Temperley Lieb Algebra and their eigenvalues are obtained and expressed as an infinite sum of the eigenvalues of the continuum integrals of motion. An elegant decomposition of the transfer matrix in terms of a finite number of lattice integrals of motion is obtained thus providing a reason for their introduction.Comment: 53 pages, version accepted for publishing on JSTA

A real options based model to select a balanced R&D portfolio

The R&D process in the pharmaceutical industry has a long and dynamic life then it is an ideal field of application for ROA. Actually, ROA implementation, as widely demonstrated in literature, is narrowed to very limited cases because its perceived complexity. This research wants to suggest a simplified method, respect the ones available in literature, that could foster the use of ROA: we built up an integer linear programming model, based on a model available in literature, useful for selecting a balanced R&D portfolio from a set of candidate drugs. The model has been tested through a case study

Evidence of a new low field cross-over in the vortex critical velocity of type-II superconducting thin films

We measure current-voltage characteristics as function of magnetic field and temperature in Nb strips of different thickness and width. The instability voltage of the flux flow state related to the vortex critical velocity v* is studied and compared with the Larkin-Ovchinnikov theory. Beside the usual power-law dependence v* ~ B^-1/2, in the low field range a new cross-over field, Bcr1, is observed below which v* decreases by further lowering the external magnetic field B. We ascribe this unexpected cross-over to vortex channeling due to a fan-like penetration of the applied magnetic field as confirmed by magneto-optic imaging. The observation of Bcr1 becomes a direct evidence of a general feature in type-II superconducting films at low fields, that is a channel-like vortex motion induced by the inhomogeneous magnetic state caused by the relatively strong pinning

Dealing With Workplace Violence in Georgia’s Cities and Counties

Using the fears of workplace violence expressed by public employees as a reference point, this analysis examines the responses of city and county governments in the State of Georgia to the threat of external and internal violence. As a preliminary assessment of the responsiveness of city and county governments to the problem of workplace violence, officials in Georgia local governments with populations of 50,000 or higher were asked about both their perceptions of the threat and the specific actions taken by their governments to address it. While personal concerns and preparations were described, few officials indicated that their governments have formulated policies and implemented programs to address the problem. High percentages of officials, however, indicated that they expect more violence on a scale similar to the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma City and that public employees are at greater risk than private sector employees

Speed limit to the Abrikosov lattice in mesoscopic superconductors

We study the instability of the superconducting state in a mesoscopic geometry for the low pinning material Mo$_3$Ge characterized by a large Ginzburg-Landau parameter. We observe that in the current driven switching to the normal state from a nonlinear region of the Abrikosov flux flow, the mean critical vortex velocity reaches a limiting maximum velocity as a function of the applied magnetic field. Based on time dependent Ginzburg-Landau simulations we argue that the observed behavior is due to the high velocity vortex dynamics confined on a mesoscopic scale. We build up a general phase diagram which includes all possible dynamic configurations of Abrikosov lattice in a mesoscopic superconductor.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Open innovation: A real option to restore value to the biopharmaceutical R&D

The pharmaceutical landscape has changed, and new business models, based on alliances, are increasingly being adopted in this industry. Biotechnology advances have pushed this development, and pooling complementary resources coming from incumbents and newcomers is a key skill to succeed: these are the premises for a quick spread of the open innovation (OI) paradigm in this industry. R&D portfolio selection needs R&D project evaluation, and Real Options Analysis (ROA) is acknowledged as a powerful tool to evaluate uncertain projects that have an intrinsic flexibility. The present research aims to foster the use of ROA in the OI field in order to encourage firms to undertake this innovation model; to achieve this goal the authors propose a closed-form model that is easy to implement, to evaluate the OI initiative for selecting an optimal R&D portfolio. The study wants to support managers in optimal R&D portfolio construction in terms of choosing the most promising products, the means by which the related project has to be undertaken (in an open or closed manner; i.e. licensing-in or not) and the self-financing policy. The proposed model can be easily implemented into a spreadsheet, and the inputs needed to run it are usually requested to evaluate projects using the most used net-present-value-based methods. Moreover, some parameters of the model allow strategic aspects to be considered: for example the nature of the project (core/non-core), the impending project phase, and the risk-sharing opportunity. The results of the developed numerical example show that the selected portfolio is well balanced in terms of development stages, core/non-core therapeutic areas and, licensing-in (an inbound open innovation solution), is preferred in the case of products at their early stages of developmen