Stress concentration factors around a circular hole in laminated composites

Stress concentration factors around a circular hole in a composite laminate are determined. The specific case investigated is a four layer (-45/45/45/-45 degs) graphite epoxy laminate. The factors are determined experimentally by means of electrical resistance strain gages, and analytically by using a hybrid finite element analysis

Legal Marriage and Political Liberalism

Can or must political liberals recognize any form of legal marriage? If so, on what grounds and what type(s) of marriage can they recognize? Elizabeth Brake argues that political liberals can and must support the social bases of adult caring relationships through the public recognition and support of minimal marriage. She thinks that political liberals cannot recognize a more robust form of marriage than her minimal marriage. Clare Chambers argues that the state should abolish legal marriage and replace it with the marriage-free state, which endorses piecemeal practice-based personal relationship laws. In this thesis, I will argue that the marriage-free state is superior to minimal marriage even in an ideal society because the marriage-free state can secure the rights and entitlements that are important for minimal marriage and do so in a way that is more inclusive of vulnerable persons

On Measuring Influence in Non-Binary Voting Games

In this note, we demonstrate using two simple examples that generalization of the Banzhaf measure of voter influence to non-binary voting games that requires as starting position a voter’s membership in a winning coalition is likely to incompletely reflect the influence a voter has on the outcome of a game. Generalization of the Banzhaf measure that takes into consideration all possible pivot moves of a voter including those moves originating from a losing coalition will, on the other hand, result in a measure that is proportional to the Penrose measure only in the ternary case.Penrose measure, Banzhaf index, ternary games, multicandidate weighted voting games

A note on the neutrality of profit taxes and tax compliance with imperfect detection

In a tax-evasion model with profit tax, we reexamine and clarify the issues of neutrality and separability with imperfect detection of tax fraud. With this more realistic setting, we show that the profit tax is not necessarily neutral and the separability conclusion may not hold. Furthermore, the property of non-neutrality may coexist with that of separability or inseparability. However, in contrast to the traditional conclusion, raising the audit probability may reduce the tax compliance when the property of inseparability is present.

An experimental study of selected face ventilation parameters and their effect on respirable coal-dust dispersion.

Mine face ventilation is generally regarded as the most effective tool for lowering the concentrations of respirable dust. A practical and economical way to gain more in-depth understanding of the relationship between mine face ventilation and dust dispersion is through scale model studies. Researchers have established that the results of these studies can be scaled-up as long as geometric, kinematic, and dynamic similitudes exist between the scale model and the full scale system. To better understand face ventilation and dust dispersion, a one-fifth scale model of room and pillar mine face was constructed. The model was then used to study the effects that line brattice distance (from the face) and air quantity had on dust dispersion. Sixteen combinations of brattice distances and air quantities were examined. The experiments utilized both methane and Arizona Road Dust for simulating the respirable coal dust. Methane or Road Dust concentrations were measured at 25 grid points for each brattice distance and air quantity combination. The tests were first carried out without face machines and the same conditions were repeated with the presence of face machines. Upon completion of the experiments the data were summarized and compared. Rates of reductions in methane or Road Dust concentration because of increased air quantities or brattice extensions were calculated. In addition, concentration isopachs were drawn to observe the trend of changes in concentration pattern. Differences between the dust simulation substances and the presence of face machines were also discussed. The correlation between the ventilation parameters and dust simulators was examined at each grid point. Also, the statistical functions for predicting the dust concentration at each grid point from different simulating substances were also constructed by using regression techniques. Recommendations were made in regard to controlling dust dispersion through increasing air quantity or extending line brattice. Consideration of face areas typically of high and low dust concentration was also recommended

Internalized Homophobia, Psychological Distress and Job Satisfaction among Sexual Minority Males in the Workplace

Although a growing number of organizations have enacted nondiscrimination policies that include sexual orientation as a protected category and more than 180 municipalities have forbidden employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, many lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) employees continue to lack legal recourse to employment discrimination. Furthermore, anti-discrimination policies may exist, but not be enforced in the workplace, creating a hostile working environment. Thus, it is important to examine the overall organizational climate as well as the presence or absence of specific nondiscrimination policies as they relate to LGB employees’ job satisfaction and psychological distress. Internalized homophobia has been found to be a unique predictor of psychological distress among LGB individuals. This study examined if psychological distress mediates the relationship between workplace context (defined as both the presence of LGB-affirmative policies and organizational climate) and job satisfaction of gay employees. It was hypothesized that gay employees in organizations with more extensive LGB-affirmative policies would have higher job satisfaction due to lower psychological distress, and gay employees who work under a hostile workplace climate would have higher psychological distress and therefore perceive lower job satisfaction. Additionally, the mediated relations between organizational LGB-affirmative policies as well as organizational climate and job satisfaction would be stronger in employees with higher levels of internalized homophobia. A moderated mediational model with 107 participants indicated that psychological distress was a mediator of both the LGB-affirmative policies-job satisfaction link and the organizational climate-job satisfaction link. However, the indirect effects of both workplace variables (LGB-affirmative policies and organizational climate) on job satisfaction through psychological distress were present only at low levels of internalized homophobia. The results suggest that LGB individuals who are more comfortable or accepting of their sexual identity experienced more distress in the face of workplace discrimination and subsequently experienced less job satisfaction. Implications for the findings and directions for future research are discussed

The Implications Of Expensing Stock Options On Corporate Governance

This paper examines the roots of the abuse of stock options, finding it centered on a principal/agent problem that arises when employee stock options are not required to be expensed in the income statement.  The failure of corporate governance, including the proper oversight of executive compensation, and the failure of FASB to require expensing stock options, leads to a management-centric organization whose motives diverge from the interests of shareholders

Metal-Free Dihydrogen Oxidation by a Borenium Cation:A Combined Electrochemical/Frustrated Lewis Pair Approach

In order to use H2 as a clean source of electricity, prohibitively rare and expensive precious metal electrocatalysts, such as Pt, are often used to overcome the large oxidative voltage required to convert H2 into 2 H+ and 2 e−. Herein, we report a metal-free approach to catalyze the oxidation of H2 by combining the ability of frustrated Lewis pairs (FLPs) to heterolytically cleave H2 with the in situ electrochemical oxidation of the resulting borohydride. The use of the NHC-stabilized borenium cation [(IiPr2)(BC8H14)]+ (IiPr2=C3H2(NiPr)2, NHC=N-heterocyclic carbene) as the Lewis acidic component of the FLP is shown to decrease the voltage required for H2 oxidation by 910 mV at inexpensive carbon electrodes, a significant energy saving equivalent to 175.6 kJ mol−1. The NHC–borenium Lewis acid also offers improved catalyst recyclability and chemical stability compared to B(C6F5)3, the paradigm Lewis acid originally used to pioneer our combined electrochemical/frustrated Lewis pair approach

Behavior of Model Piles in a Liquefiable Soil in Shaking Table Tests

The responses of model piles in a liquefiable ground under one- and two-dimensional shakings were studied in a physical model test using a large biaxial laminar shear box on the shaking table at the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE), Taiwan. The model piles were made of stainless steel pipe and aluminum alloy pipe with an outer diameter of 101.6 mm and a wall thickness of 3.0 mm for the study of the soil-pile interactions with two kinds of stiffness of pile. Each model pile was placed in the shear box containing saturated clean fine sand. The pile tip was fixed at the bottom of the shear box to simulate the condition of a pile foundation embedded in a firm stratum. In addition, various amounts of masses were placed on the top of the piles for different conditions of superstructures. The input shakings included sinusoidal and recorded earthquake accelerations. Strain gauges and accelerometers were placed on the pile surface to obtain the behavior of the pile under shaking. The near- and far-field soil responses, including pore water pressure changes, accelerations, and settlements were also measured. The responses of the model pile and the soil-pile interactions, including the inertial and kinematic actions on the model pile, under shakings for liquefied and non-liquefied soil conditions were evaluated. The results showed that the stiffness of the soil vanished when soil liquefaction occurred. The performance of the pile foundation was affected by the relation among the dynamic characteristics of the pile and the surrounding soil, and the mass of the superstructure