Source Reduction and Recycling Programs at a Joint Venture Automobile Assembly Plant

New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. (NUMMI) is a vehicle assembly plant in Fremont, California. NUMMI began operations in 1984 as ajoint venture of General Motors Corporation and Toyota Motor Corporation. In 1995, NUMMI produced 94,280 Geo Prizms, 135,112 Toyota Corollas, and 123,257 Toyota Tacoma trucks. NUMMI conducts its manufacturing operations using the Toyota Production System (TPS). A key element of TPS is the elimination of waste. This includes wasted energy, space, labor, and production materials. Waste reduction, i.e., source reduction, is part of NUMMI\u27s corporate culture and every team member is encouraged to continuously seek out new waste reduction opportunities. NUMMI\u27s management believes that the team members who actually do the work are the people most effective in reducing waste. To motivate team members to aggressively seek out waste reduction opportunities, NUMMI has a very liberal and generous suggestion program. Each year millions of dollars are saved by adopting team member suggestions. Management\u27s responsibility is to work with the team members to develop and implement ideas for reducing waste. Management supports the team members with the technical and financial resources necessary to successfully implement a waste reduction project. Waste reduction projects are often classic examples of labor-management teamwork in problem solving, and process improvement. Last year NUMMI and California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), San Luis Obispo, conducted a joint waste reduction study. Graduate and upper division environmental engineering students came to NUMMI to evaluate certain waste producing operations for possible reductions. The students prepared detailed analyses of the operations and suggested ways to reduce waste. The project is now at the stage where NUMMI team members and management are reviewing the suggestions for implementation. This paper will discuss ongoing waste reduction and recycling activities at NUMMI and the preliminary results of the Cal Poly student project

Possible psi(5S), psi(4D), psi(6S) and psi(5D) signals in Lambda(c)-antiLambda(c)

It is shown that the Lambda(c+)-Lambda(c-) signal recently reported by the Belle Collaboration (ARXIV:0807.4458) contains clear signs of the psi(5S) and the psi(4D) c-cbar vector states, and also some indication for the masses and widths of the psi(6S) and psi(5D). Moreover, it is argued that the threshold behaviour of the Lambda(c+)-antiLambda(c-) cross sections suggests the presence of the hitherto undetected psi(3D) state not far below the Lambda(c+)-Lambda(c-) threshold.Comment: 11 pages plain LaTeX and 5 figures; version 2: Background contribution removed; much better result; some references added; version 3: discussion on phase space include

Facies analysis and Reservoir Characterization of the Cambrian Mount Simon Formation in the Illinois Basin: Implications for CO Sequestration and Storage

This poster was presented at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) Annual Meeting, from June 7-10, 2009, in Denver, Colorado.Deep saline reservoirs have become a target of increased study with the development of carbon sequestration technologies. In the Illinois Basin, The Upper Cambrian Mt. Simon Formation has been proposed as a potential reservoir for CO2 sequestration. Depth and limited economic interest in the Mt. Simon have left it minimally explored with previous detailed depositional facies analysis only performed at localities outside of the Illinois Basin, where the Mt. Simon is much thinner and closer to the surface. From the analysis of recently acquired and preexisting relatively complete cores and composite cores of the Mt. Simon Formation in addition to basin wide correlation with geophysical well logs, we present a revised model for the deposition of the Mt. Simon Formation in the Illinois Basin region and the resulting implications for a CO2 reservoir. The Mt. Simon Formation is a sub-quartz to quartz arenite that unconformably overlies the crystalline basement of the interior North American craton. Thickness of the Mt. Simon ranges from a few hundred to over 2000 feet thick and structually from 2000 to over 14000 feet below sea level. The upper contact of the Mt. Simon Formation is gradational with the overlying Eau Clair Formation while the lower contact unconformably bounds the crystalline basement. Core analysis has led to the identification of several distinct facies within the Mt. Simon. The lowermost facies is dominated by medium grain to granular eolian sands with distinct interdunal red mudstone. Gradationally above the lowermost facies, tidal indicators become increasingly present with mud drapes and flaser bedding located in isolated units. This transgressive sequence from nonmarine to marine depositional environments correlates with sea level curves for the Upper Cambrian. By increasing our understanding of the Mt. Simon, we can better understand its CO2 reservoir potential

The Separable Kernel of Nucleon-Nucleon Interaction in the Bethe-Salpeter Approach

The dispersion relations for nucleon-nucleon (NN) T-matrix in the framework of Bethe-Salpeter equation for two spin one-half particle system and with separable kernel of interaction are considered in the paper. The developed expressions are applied for construction of the separable kernel of interaction for S partial-waves in singlet and triplet channels. We calculate the low energy scattering parameters and the phase shifts and also the deuteron binding energy with the separable interaction. The approach can be easily extended to higher partial-waves for NN-scattering and other reactions (anti N N-, pi N-scattering).Comment: RevTex 4 style, 9 pages, 1 figur

Can Soft Regulation Prevent Financial Crises?: The Dutch Central Bank\u27s Supervision of Behavior and Culture

Financial regulation has traditionally been hard : national legislatures and regulators (and sometimes international bodies) require certain kinds of behavior and forbid others, on pain of business sanctions, fines, or even criminal penalties. When a financial crisis happens, the usual after-the-fact response is more hard regulation-new laws, stricter regulations, and often entirely new regulatory agencies.That pattern goes back at least to the 1929 market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. But the fact that financial crises still occur is leading many observers to wonder if more hard regulation is the best way to prevent the next one. However elaborate the regulatory structure, there always seem to be people in the industry willing to take the risk of getting caught to benefit themselves and their institutions. There is a growing body of opinion that what the financial world needs is a way to identify those pathological risktakers in advance and, perhaps more importantly, to make sure that the financial institutions that employ them discover and control them. Such an approach to financial governance might be characterized as soft supervision: rather than relying on prescribing, proscribing, and punishing specific actions, it would focus on education and persuasion (still backed up by the threat of sanctions) to encourage financial institutions to head off excessive risk-taking before it occurs. In this Article, we report on an in-depth study of the first major effort to put this theory into practice: De Nederlansche Bank\u27s (DNB; the central bank of the Netherlands) novel initiative to promote a healthy corporate culture in the large banks that it supervises. Despite its radical originality, this initiative has been almost entirely unreported in the U.S. legal and business literatures. As with all central banks, DNB\u27s traditional mandate has been to ensure the stability and integrity of the national financial system by promulgating and enforcing regulations and supervising individual banks. The financial crisis of 2007-2008 prompted DNB to reassess the adequacy of that model. In response, it has expanded its supervision to include the evaluation of both individual behavior and group-level culture- Behaviour & Culture (B&C) -supervision. We have investigated the history and theoretical roots of B&C supervision; interviewed a large number of participants, both regulators and regulated, to understand their practical perspectives; explored the connections between B&C supervision and relevant themes in law and the social sciences; and considered the implications of B&C supervision for banking regulation elsewhere. We conclude that, while the response to B&C supervision has been generally positive, the tangible effect of its supervision remains unproven. Moreover, its relative positive reception may depend on the specific business culture of the Netherlands, which casts doubt on whether it can be exported to larger banking systems

Can Soft Regulation Prevent Financial Crises?: The Dutch Central Bank\u27s Supervision of Behavior and Culture

Financial regulation has traditionally been hard : national legislatures and regulators (and sometimes international bodies) require certain kinds of behavior and forbid others, on pain of business sanctions, fines, or even criminal penalties. When a financial crisis happens, the usual after-the-fact response is more hard regulation-new laws, stricter regulations, and often entirely new regulatory agencies.That pattern goes back at least to the 1929 market crash that precipitated the Great Depression. But the fact that financial crises still occur is leading many observers to wonder if more hard regulation is the best way to prevent the next one. However elaborate the regulatory structure, there always seem to be people in the industry willing to take the risk of getting caught to benefit themselves and their institutions. There is a growing body of opinion that what the financial world needs is a way to identify those pathological risktakers in advance and, perhaps more importantly, to make sure that the financial institutions that employ them discover and control them. Such an approach to financial governance might be characterized as soft supervision: rather than relying on prescribing, proscribing, and punishing specific actions, it would focus on education and persuasion (still backed up by the threat of sanctions) to encourage financial institutions to head off excessive risk-taking before it occurs. In this Article, we report on an in-depth study of the first major effort to put this theory into practice: De Nederlansche Bank\u27s (DNB; the central bank of the Netherlands) novel initiative to promote a healthy corporate culture in the large banks that it supervises. Despite its radical originality, this initiative has been almost entirely unreported in the U.S. legal and business literatures. As with all central banks, DNB\u27s traditional mandate has been to ensure the stability and integrity of the national financial system by promulgating and enforcing regulations and supervising individual banks. The financial crisis of 2007-2008 prompted DNB to reassess the adequacy of that model. In response, it has expanded its supervision to include the evaluation of both individual behavior and group-level culture- Behaviour & Culture (B&C) -supervision. We have investigated the history and theoretical roots of B&C supervision; interviewed a large number of participants, both regulators and regulated, to understand their practical perspectives; explored the connections between B&C supervision and relevant themes in law and the social sciences; and considered the implications of B&C supervision for banking regulation elsewhere. We conclude that, while the response to B&C supervision has been generally positive, the tangible effect of its supervision remains unproven. Moreover, its relative positive reception may depend on the specific business culture of the Netherlands, which casts doubt on whether it can be exported to larger banking systems

Images in Christmas Balls

We describe light-reflection properties of spherically curved mirrors, like balls in the Christmas tree. In particular, we study the position of the image which is formed somewhere beyond the surface of a spherical mirror, when an eye observes the image of a pointlike light source. The considered problem, originally posed by Abu Ali Hasan Ibn al-Haitham -- alias Alhazen -- more than a millennium ago, turned out to have the now well known analytic solution of a biquadratic equation, being still of great relevance, e.g. for the aberration-free construction of telescopes. We do not attempt to perform an exhaustive survey of the rich historical and engineering literature on the subject, but develop a simple pedagogical approach to the issue, which we believe to be of continuing interest in view of its maltreating in many high-school textbooks.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures plain LaTeX; Also see http://cft.fis.uc.pt/eef/mirrors.htm, revised version has simplified formulas, more transparent for a wider audience, one reference adde

Relativistic three-particle scattering equations

We derive a set of relativistic three-particle scattering equations in the three-particle c.m. frame employing a relativistic three-particle propagator suggested long ago by Ahmadzadeh and Tjon in the c.m. frame of a two-particle subsystem. We make the coordinate transformation of this propagator from the c.m. frame of the two-particle subsystem to the three-particle c.m. frame. We also point out that some numerical applications of the Ahmadzadeh and Tjon propagator to the three-nucleon problem use unnecessary nonrelativistic approximations which do not simplify the computational task, but violate constraints of relativistic unitarity and/or covariance.Comment: 5pages, text and one ps figure (in revtex) include

Relativistic three-body bound states and the reduction from four to three dimensions

Beginning with an effective field theory based upon meson exchange, the Bethe-Salpeter equation for the three-particle propagator (six-point function) is obtained. Using the one-boson-exchange form of the kernel, this equation is then analyzed using time-ordered perturbation theory, and a three-dimensional equation for the propagator is developed. The propagator consists of a pre-factor in which the relative energies are fixed by the initial state of the particles, an intermediate part in which only global propagation of the particles occurs, and a post-factor in which relative energies are fixed by the final state of the particles. The pre- and post-factors are necessary in order to account for the transition from states where particles are off their mass shell to states described by the global propagator with all of the particle energies on shell. The pole structure of the intermediate part of the propagator is used to determine the equation for the three-body bound state: a Schr{\"o}dinger-like relativistic equation with a single, global Green's function. The role of the pre- and post-factors in the relativistic dynamics is to incorporate the poles of the breakup channels in the initial and final states. The derivation of this equation by integrating over the relative times rather than via a constraint on relative momenta allows the inclusion of retardation and dynamical boost corrections without introducing unphysical singularities.Comment: REVTeX, 21 pages, 4 figures, epsf.st