When corporate social responsibility matters: An empirical investigation of contingencies

Rather than re-examine the question of whether doing good generally helps a company to do well, this study draws on contingency theory to empirically examine when doing good helps a company do as well as possible. Using panel data, we examine the effects of industry life cycle, munificence, and instability on the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate financial performance (CFP). Our findings indicate that life cycle has a significant impact on the CSR-CFP relationship, as does industry instability. These findings suggest that CSR helps the bottom line considerably – if it is applied at the right time

Sinaloa World: The Dark Mirror of the Global Drugs Trade

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Never Trust a Gun

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Vacancy ordering effects on the conductivity of yttria- and scandia-doped zirconia

Polarizable interaction potentials, parametrized using ab initio electronic structure calculations, have been used in molecular dynamics simulations to study the conduction mechanism in Y2 O3 - and Sc2 O3 -doped zirconias. The influence of vacancy-vacancy and vacancy-cation interactions on the conductivity of these materials has been characterised. While the latter can be avoided by using dopant cations with radii which match those of Zr4+ (as is the case of Sc3+), the former is an intrinsic characteristic of the fluorite lattice which cannot be avoided and which is shown to be responsible for the occurrence of a maximum in the conductivity at dopant concentrations between 8 and 13 %. The weakness of the Sc-vacancy interactions in Sc2 O3 -doped zirconia suggests that this material is likely to present the highest conductivity achievable in zirconias.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figur

Effectiveness Of Educating Health Care Professionals In Managing Chronic Pain Patients Through A Supervised Student Inter-Professional Pain Clinic

Objective: To address the need for increased and more effective medical education regarding chronic pain and pain management, an inter-professional (IP) training program in the form of a supervised student IP pain clinic was implemented in 2016. In the current study, we evaluated its feasibility and effectiveness in improving health care professional students’ skills in 1) managing chronic pain and 2) working in an IP team. Methods: From January 2016 to December 2018, we assembled 12 IP teams that included students from the following six professions at the University of New England: nursing, osteopathic medicine (OM), occupational therapy (OT), pharmacy, physical therapy (PT), and social work (SW). During this 12-week training program, each team conducted the initial evaluation, generated treatment plans, and performed follow-up examinations for its assigned patient under the supervision of a pain specialist at the Mercy Pain Center. Surveys were conducted with all participating students and patients. Results: Overall, students showed significant improvement in knowledge regarding pain physiology and chronic pain management as well as attitude and perception regarding IP practice and perceived team skills. Specifically, prior to the program, nursing students showed the greatest pain-related knowledge and perceived team skills, while OT students scored the highest in attitude and perception regarding IP practice. Following the program, improvement in various measures were observed in all professions with PT students showing the most significant improvement in all areas. Surveys also indicated patients’ satisfaction with their IP pain clinic experience. Conclusions: These results demonstrated the feasibility and the effectiveness of this IP training program for all participating professions

State Leadership Development Policies An Analysis of 50 States and Territories

State education systems to support leadership development have received relatively scant attention and resources, despite the demonstrated importance of leadership to school improvement. This need spurred the National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) to form a study group with its members and partner with the Consortium for Policy Research in Education (CPRE) to examine the problem from a state policy perspective; to offer a framework, guidance, and resources to help states develop and keep effective leaders; provide examples of practices for states; and share insights from partner organizations. The report, Successful Leaders for Successful Schools: Building and Maintaining a Quality Workforce, details findings that emerged from this work. As a companion piece to this work, State Leadership Development Policies -An Analysis of 50 States and Territories, presents a comprehensive picture of school leadership development policies across all 50 states and US territories. CPRE Researchers Bobbi Newman, Jonathan Supovitz, and Greg Collins, in collaboration with NASBE\u27s Robert Hull and Stephen Prociw, produced an interactive report that seeks to operationalize the framework developed for state education agencies to improve the school leadership pipeline. Researchers interviewed state board members and staff members from state education agencies to learn about their states\u27 school leadership development policies and practices. Data collection questions focused on identifying the organizational and individual supports that states have established. State Leadership Development Policies -An Analysis of 50 States and Territories provides a wealth of information for state leaders interested in learning about a sample of each state\u27s policies and programs that support the school leadership pipeline

Cation composition effects on oxide conductivity in the Zr_2Y_2O_7-Y_3NbO_7 system

Realistic, first-principles-based interatomic potentials have been used in molecular dynamics simulations to study the effect of cation composition on the ionic conductivity in the Zr2Y2O7-Y3NbO7 system and to link the dynamical properties to the degree of lattice disorder. Across the composition range, this system retains a disordered fluorite crystal structure and the vacancy concentration is constant. The observed trends of decreasing conductivity and increasing disorder with increasing Nb5+ content were reproduced in simulations with the cations randomly assigned to positions on the cation sublattice. The trends were traced to the influences of the cation charges and relative sizes and their effect on vacancy ordering by carrying out additional calculations in which, for example, the charges of the cations were equalised. The simulations did not, however, reproduce all the observed properties, particularly for Y3NbO7. Its conductivity was significantly overestimated and prominent diffuse scattering features observed in small area electron diffraction studies were not always reproduced. Consideration of these deficiencies led to a preliminary attempt to characterise the consequence of partially ordering the cations on their lattice, which significantly affects the propensity for vacancy ordering. The extent and consequences of cation ordering seem to be much less pronounced on the Zr2Y2O7 side of the composition range.Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Journal of Physics: Condensed Matte

High thermoelectric performance of bornite through control of the Cu(II) content and vacancy concentration

The thermoelectric performance of the p-type semiconductor bornite, Cu5FeS4, is greatly enhanced through chemical substitution. Non-stoichiometric materials in which the Cu:Fe ratio and overall cation-vacancy con-tent were adjusted are reported and a figure of merit, ZT = 0.79, is achieved at temperatures as low as 550 K in Cu4.972Fe0.968S4. All materials were synthesised mechanochemically and characterised by powder X-ray diffrac-tion, DSC and thermal and electrical transport property measurements. Single-phase behaviour is retained in copper deficient phases, Cu5-xFeS4, for vacancy levels up to x = 0.1, while in materials Cu5+yFe1-yS4, in which the Cu:Fe ratio is varied whilst maintaining full occupancy of cation sites, single-phase behaviour persists for y≤0.08. Adjusting the Cu:Fe ratio at a constant cation-vacancy level of 0.06 in Cu4.94+zFe1-zS4, leads to single-phases for z ≤0.04. DSC measurements indicate the temperature of the intermediate- (2a) to high-temperature (a) phase transition shows a more marked dependence on the Cu:Fe ratio than the lower temperature 4a to 2a transition. The thermoelectric power factor increases almost linearly with increasing Cu(II) content. The maximum figures of merit are obtained for materials with Cu(II) contents in the range 0.10 to 0.15 (corresponding to 2.0 – 2.8 % Cu(II)) which simultaneously contain ca .1 % of cation vacancies