Trends in Flag Selection Criteria and Their Effect on Career Management

One of the most trying problems that faces any organization, whether civilian or military, is the choice and appointment of top management

Recent developments in the use of isotope ratio mass spectrometry in sports drug testing

According to the annual report of the World Anti-Doping Agency, steroids are the most frequently detected class of doping agents. Detecting the misuse of endogenously occurring steroids, i.e. steroids such as testosterone that are produced naturally by humans, is one of the most challenging issues in doping control analysis. The established thresholds for urinary concentrations or concentration ratios such as the testosterone/epitestosterone quotient are sometimes inconclusive owing to the large biological variation in these parameters. For more than 15years, doping control laboratories focused on the carbon isotope ratios of endogenous steroids to distinguish between naturally elevated steroid profile parameters and illicit administration of steroids. A variety of different methods has been developed throughout the last decade and the number of different steroids under investigation by isotope ratio mass spectrometry has recently grown considerably. Besides norandrosterone, boldenone was found to occur endogenously in rare cases and the misuse of corticosteroids or epitestosterone can now be detected with the aid of carbon isotope ratios as well. In addition, steroids excreted as sulfoconjugates were investigated, and the first results regarding hydrogen isotope ratios recently became available. All of these will be presented in detail within this review together with some considerations on validation issues and on identification of parameters influencing steroidal isotope ratios in urin

Physical Characterization of Warm Spitzer-observed Near-Earth Objects

Near-infrared spectroscopy of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) connects diagnostic spectral features to specific surface mineralogies. The combination of spectroscopy with albedos and diameters derived from thermal infrared observations can increase the scientific return beyond that of the individual datasets. To that end, we have completed a spectroscopic observing campaign to complement the ExploreNEOs Warm Spitzer program that obtained albedos and diameters of nearly 600 NEOs (Trilling et al. 2010). Here we present the results of observations using the low-resolution prism mode (~0.7-2.5 microns) of the SpeX instrument on the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF). We also include near-infrared observations of ExploreNEOs targets from the MIT-UH-IRTF Joint Campaign for Spectral Reconnaissance. Our dataset includes near-infrared spectra of 187 ExploreNEOs targets (125 observations of 92 objects from our survey and 213 observations of 154 objects from the MIT survey). We identify a taxonomic class for each spectrum and use band parameter analysis to investigate the mineralogies for the S-, Q-, and V-complex objects. Our analysis suggests that for spectra that contain near-infrared data but lack the visible wavelength region, the Bus-DeMeo system misidentifies some S-types as Q-types. We find no correlation between spectral band parameters and ExploreNEOs albedos and diameters. We find slightly negative Band Area Ratio (BAR) correlations with phase angle for Eros and Ivar, but a positive BAR correlation with phase angle for Ganymed. We find evidence for spectral phase reddening for Eros, Ganymed, and Ivar. We identify the likely ordinary chondrite type analog for a subset of our sample. Our resulting proportions of H, L, and LL ordinary chondrites differ from those calculated for meteorite falls and in previous studies of ordinary chondrite-like NEOs.Comment: 6 Tables, 9 Figure

Combination of carbon isotope ratio with hydrogen isotope ratio determinations in sports drug testing

Carbon isotope ratio (CIR) analysis has been routinely and successfully applied to doping control analysis for many years to uncover the misuse of endogenous steroids such as testosterone. Over the years, several challenges and limitations of this approach became apparent, e.g., the influence of inadequate chromatographic separation on CIR values or the emergence of steroid preparations comprising identical CIRs as endogenous steroids. While the latter has been addressed recently by the implementation of hydrogen isotope ratios (HIR), an improved sample preparation for CIR avoiding co-eluting compounds is presented herein together with newly established reference values of those endogenous steroids being relevant for doping controls. From the fraction of glucuronidated steroids 5β-pregnane-3α,20α-diol, 5α-androst-16-en-3α-ol, 3α-Hydroxy-5β-androstane-11,17-dione, 3α-hydroxy-5α-androstan-17-one (ANDRO), 3α-hydroxy-5β-androstan-17-one (ETIO), 3β-hydroxy-androst-5-en-17-one (DHEA), 5α- and 5β-androstane-3α,17β-diol (5aDIOL and 5bDIOL), 17β-hydroxy-androst-4-en-3-one and 17α-hydroxy-androst-4-en-3-one were included. In addition, sulfate conjugates of ANDRO, ETIO, DHEA, 3β-hydroxy-5α-androstan-17-one plus 17α- and androst-5-ene-3β,17β-diol were considered and analyzed after acidic solvolysis. The results obtained for the reference population encompassing n = 67 males and females confirmed earlier findings regarding factors influencing endogenous CIR. Variations in sample preparation influenced CIR measurements especially for 5aDIOL and 5bDIOL, the most valuable steroidal analytes for the detection of testosterone misuse. Earlier investigations on the HIR of the same reference population enabled the evaluation of combined measurements of CIR and HIR and its usefulness regarding both steroid metabolism studies and doping control analysis. The combination of both stable isotopes would allow for lower reference limits providing the same statistical power and certainty to distinguish between the endo- or exogenous origin of a urinary steroi

Chinese parent-child relationships in later life in the context of social inequalities

This paper examines how parent-child relationships vary against the backdrop of socio-economic inequalities evident in China. China is both an increasingly unequal and rapidly ageing country. Understanding how the relationships that older Chinese have with their children are associated with social inequalities is therefore of paramount importance. We do this by examining the effect of socio-economic indicators of the parent and child on their relationship in a multilevel, multinomial logit model of parentchild dyads using data from the Chinese Family Panel Study. First, the relationships we observe are not unidimensional and display complex patterns which deviate heavily from a ‘strong versus weak’ description of family ties. The results do not support a family displacement perspective of parent-child relationships but instead suggest that educational and financial resources facilitate support that is associated with greater emotional closeness and negates the need for support which places an emotional strain on the parent-child relationship.In diesem Artikel wird untersucht, wie die Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen vor dem Hintergrund sozialökonomischer Ungleichheiten, die in China evident sind, variieren. China ist gleichermaßen ein zunehmend von Ungleichheiten geprägtes wie ein rasch alterndes Land. Es ist daher von überragender Bedeutung zu verstehen, inwieweit die Beziehungen älterer Chinesen zu ihren Kindern mit sozioökonomischen Ungleichheiten assoziiert sind. Wir widmen uns dieser Frage, indem wir den Effekt sozialökonomischer Indikatoren für Eltern und Kinder auf deren Beziehung in einem multinominalen logistischen Mehrebenenmodell unter Verwendung von Daten der Chinese Family Panel Study für Eltern-Kind-Dyaden untersuchen. Die von uns beobachteten Beziehungen sind jedoch nicht eindimensional, sondern weisen komplexe Muster auf, die stark von einer "stark versus schwach"-Beschreibung der Familienbeziehungen abweichen. Die Ergebnisse stützen die Perspektive der Ablösung von der Familie in den Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen nicht, sondern legen stattdessen nahe, dass vorhandene Bildungs- und finanzielle Ressourcen eine Unterstützung erleichtern, die mit größerer emotionaler Nähe assoziiert ist und die Notwendigkeit solcher Unterstützung negieren, die der Eltern-Kind-Beziehung eine emotionalen Belastung auferlegen