Sustainable Growth and Ethics: a Study of Business Ethics in Vietnam Between Business Students and Working Adults

Sustainable growth is not only the ultimate goal of business corporations but also the primary target of local governments as well as regional and global economies. One of the cornerstones of sustainable growth is ethics. An ethical organizational culture provides support to achieve sustainable growth. Ethical leaders and employees have great potential for positive influence on decisions and behaviors that lead to sustainability. Ethical behavior, therefore, is expected of everyone in the modern workplace. As a result, companies devote many resources and training programs to make sure their employees live according to the high ethical standards. This study provides an analysis of Vietnamese business students’ level of ethical maturity based on gender, education, work experience, and ethics training. The results of data from 260 business students compared with 704 working adults in Vietnam demonstrate that students have a significantly higher level of ethical maturity. Furthermore, gender and work experience are significant factors in ethical maturity. While more educated respondents and those who had completed an ethics course did have a higher level of ethical maturity, the results were not statistically significant. Analysis of the results along with suggestions and implications are provided

Isolation of Unknown Genes from Human Bone Marrow by Differental Screening and Single-Pass cDNA Sequences Determination

A cDNA sequencing project was initiated to characterize gene expression in human bone marrow and develop strategies to isolate novel genes. Forty-eight random cDNAs from total human bone marrow were subjected to single-pass DNA sequence analysis to determine a limited complexity of mRNAs expressed in the bone marrow. Overall, 8 cDNAs (17%) showed no similarity to known sequences. Information from DNA sequence analysis was used to develop a differential prescreen to subtract unwanted cDNAs and to enrich for unknown cDNAs. Forty-eight cDNAs that were negative with a complex probe were subject to single-pass DNA sequence determination. Of these prescreened cDNAs, the number of unknown sequences increased to 23 (48%). Unknown cDNAs were also characterized by RNA expression analysis using 25 different human leukemic cell lines. Of 13 unknown cDNAs tested, 10 were expressed in all cell types tested and 3 revealed a hematopoietic lineage-restricted expression pattern. Interestingly, while a total of only 96 bone marrow cDNAs were sequenced, 31 of these cDNAs represent sequences from unknown genes and 12 showed significant similarities to sequences in the data bases. One cDNA revealed a significant similarity to a serine/threonine-protein kinase at the amino acid level (56% identity for 123 amino acids) and may represent a previously unknown kinase. Differential screening techniques coupled with single-pass cDNA sequence analysis may prove to be a powerful and simple technique to examine developmental gene expression

Slow light in moving media

We review the theory of light propagation in moving media with extremely low group velocity. We intend to clarify the most elementary features of monochromatic slow light in a moving medium and, whenever possible, to give an instructive simplified picture

Chronological Lifespan in Yeast Is Dependent on the Accumulation of Storage Carbohydrates Mediated by Yak1, Mck1 and Rim15 Kinases

Upon starvation for glucose or any other macronutrient, yeast cells exit from the mitotic cell cycle and acquire a set of characteristics that are specific to quiescent cells to ensure longevity. Little is known about the molecular determinants that orchestrate quiescence entry and lifespan extension. Using starvation-specific gene reporters, we screened a subset of the yeast deletion library representing the genes encoding 'signaling' proteins. Apart from the previously characterised Rim15, Mck1 and Yak1 kinases, the SNF1/AMPK complex, the cell wall integrity pathway and a number of cell cycle regulators were shown to be necessary for proper quiescence establishment and for extension of chronological lifespan (CLS), suggesting that entry into quiescence requires the integration of starvation signals transmitted via multiple signaling pathways. The CLS of these signaling mutants, and those of the single, double and triple mutants of $\textit{RIM15}$, $\textit{YAK1}$ and $\textit{MCK1}$ correlates well with the amount of storage carbohydrates but poorly with transition-phase cell cycle status. Combined removal of the glycogen and trehalose biosynthetic genes, especially $\textit{GSY2}$ and $\textit{TPS1}$, nearly abolishes the accumulation of storage carbohydrates and severely reduces CLS. Concurrent overexpression of $\textit{GSY2}$ and $\textit{TSL1}$ or supplementation of trehalose to the growth medium ameliorates the severe CLS defects displayed by the signaling mutants ($\textit{rim15Δyak1Δ}$ or $\textit{rim15Δmck1Δ}$). Furthermore, we reveal that the levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species are cooperatively controlled by Yak1, Rim15 and Mck1, and the three kinases mediate the $\textit{TOR1}$-regulated accumulation of storage carbohydrates and CLS extension. Our data support the hypothesis that metabolic reprogramming to accumulate energy stores and the activation of anti-oxidant defence systems are coordinated by Yak1, Rim15 and Mck1 kinases to ensure quiescence entry and lifespan extension in yeast.This work was sponsored by a scholarship awarded by National University of Defense Technology of China (to LC) and a scholarship from Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge (to ZQ). Reagents and tools were supported by the UNICELLSYS Collaborative Project (No. 201142) of the European Commission (awarded to SGO). NZ is grateful to the Wellcome Trust and the University of Cambridge for support and facilities

Monte Carlo Simulation of HERD Calorimeter

The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection (HERD) facility onboard China's Space Station is planned for operation starting around 2020 for about 10 years. It is designed as a next generation space facility focused on indirect dark matter search, precise cosmic ray spectrum and composition measurements up to the knee energy, and high energy gamma-ray monitoring and survey. The calorimeter plays an essential role in the main scientific objectives of HERD. A 3-D cubic calorimeter filled with high granularity crystals as active material is a very promising choice for the calorimeter. HERD is mainly composed of a 3-D calorimeter (CALO) surrounded by silicon trackers (TK) from all five sides except the bottom. CALO is made of 9261 cubes of LYSO crystals, corresponding to about 55 radiation lengths and 3 nuclear interaction lengths, respectively. Here the simulation results of the performance of CALO with GEANT4 and FLUKA are presented: 1) the total absorption CALO and its absorption depth for precise energy measurements (energy resolution: 1\% for electrons and gamma-rays beyond 100 GeV, 20\% for protons from 100 GeV to 1 PeV); 2) its granularity for particle identification (electron/proton separation power better than $10^{-5}$); 3) the homogenous geometry for detecting particles arriving from every unblocked direction for large effective geometrical factor ($>$3 ${\rm m}^{2}{\rm sr}$ for electron and diffuse gamma-rays, $>$2 ${\rm m}^{2}{\rm sr}$ for cosmic ray nuclei); 4) expected observational results such as gamma-ray line spectrum from dark matter annihilation and spectrum measurement of various cosmic ray chemical components

Accurate and linear time pose estimation from points and lines

The final publication is available at link.springer.comThe Perspective-n-Point (PnP) problem seeks to estimate the pose of a calibrated camera from n 3Dto-2D point correspondences. There are situations, though, where PnP solutions are prone to fail because feature point correspondences cannot be reliably estimated (e.g. scenes with repetitive patterns or with low texture). In such scenarios, one can still exploit alternative geometric entities, such as lines, yielding the so-called Perspective-n-Line (PnL) algorithms. Unfortunately, existing PnL solutions are not as accurate and efficient as their point-based counterparts. In this paper we propose a novel approach to introduce 3D-to-2D line correspondences into a PnP formulation, allowing to simultaneously process points and lines. For this purpose we introduce an algebraic line error that can be formulated as linear constraints on the line endpoints, even when these are not directly observable. These constraints can then be naturally integrated within the linear formulations of two state-of-the-art point-based algorithms, the OPnP and the EPnP, allowing them to indistinctly handle points, lines, or a combination of them. Exhaustive experiments show that the proposed formulation brings remarkable boost in performance compared to only point or only line based solutions, with a negligible computational overhead compared to the original OPnP and EPnP.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Trapped interacting two-component bosons

In this paper we solve one dimensional trapped SU(2) bosons with repulsive $\delta$-function interaction by means of Bethe-ansatz method. The features of ground state and low-lying excited states are studied by numerical and analytic methods. We show that the ground state is an isospin "ferromagnetic" state which differs from spin-1/2 fermions system. There exist three quasi-particles in the excitation spectra, and both holon-antiholon and holon-isospinon excitations are gapless for large systems. The thermodynamics equilibrium of the system at finite temperature is studied by thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. The thermodynamic quantities, such as specific heat etc. are obtained for the case of strong coupling limit.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure

Finite-Temperature Scaling of Magnetic Susceptibility and Geometric Phase in the XY Spin Chain

We study the magnetic susceptibility of 1D quantum XY model, and show that when the temperature approaches zero, the magnetic susceptibility exhibits the finite-temperature scaling behavior. This scaling behavior of the magnetic susceptibility in 1D quantum XY model, due to the quantum-classical mapping, can be easily experimentally tested. Furthermore, the universality in the critical properties of the magnetic susceptibility in quantum XY model is verified. Our study also reveals the close relation between the magnetic susceptibility and the geometric phase in some spin systems, where the quantum phase transitions are driven by an external magnetic field.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, get accepted for publication by J. Phys. A: Math. Theo

On the inertia of heat

Does heat have inertia? This question is at the core of a long-standing controversy on Eckart's dissipative relativistic hydrodynamics. Here I show that the troublesome inertial term in Eckart's heat flux arises only if one insists on defining thermal diffusivity as a spacetime constant. I argue that this is the most natural definition, and that all confusion disappears if one considers instead the space-dependent comoving diffusivity, in line with the fact that, in the presence of gravity, space is an inhomogeneous medium.Comment: 3 page