Sustainability, stakeholders and business. Editorial

Over the past 20 years, there has been an increasing attention on the drivers of value in organizations. Both the strategic management literature and practice have remarked the importance for managers to be aware of the impact of firm activities, products and services on either the external and internal environment and, more generally, on all firm stakeholders. The emergence of the notions of “sustainable development” and “sustainability” reflects a profound change in global thinking, which forces firms to move beyond trade-offs between business and society

Low energy neutrino scattering measurements at future Spallation Source facilities

In the future several Spallation Source facilities will be available worldwide. Spallation Sources produce large amount of neutrinos from decay-at-rest muons and thus can be well adapted to accommodate state-of-the-art neutrino experiments. In this paper low energy neutrino scattering experiments that can be performed at such facilities are reviewed. Estimation of expected event rates are given for several nuclei, electrons and protons at a detector located close to the source. A neutrino program at Spallation Sources comprises neutrino-nucleus cross section measurements relevant for neutrino and core-collapse supernova physics, electroweak tests and lepton-flavor violation searches.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, 5 table

E-ABR in patients with cochlear implant: A comparison between patients with malformed cochlea and normal cochlea

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to compare the electrical auditory brainstem response (EABR) following cochlear implant (CI) surgery in pediatric subjects with cochlear malformation and a normal cochlea, in order to assess the sensitivity of EABR and to evaluate the surgery outcome. MATERIALS and METHODS: A total of 26 pediatric subjects who were deaf and scheduled for CI surgery were enrolled into this case control study. Group A (n=20) included subjects with a normo-conformed cochlea. Group B (n=6) included subjects with cochlear malformation. Subjects were evaluated with EABR immediately (T0) and 6 months (T1) post-CI surgery. The EABR Waves III and V average amplitude and latency were compared across time, separately for each group, and across groups, separately for each time. RESULTS: Auditory brainstem response (ABR) could only be recorded in Group A. We were able to record EABR from all subjects at T0 and T1, and waves III and V were present in all the recorded signals. There were no statistically significant differences between T0 and T1 in EABR Waves III and V in terms of average amplitude and latency in neither group. When comparing Groups A and B, the only statistically significant difference was the average amplitude of wave V, both at T0 and T1. CONCLUSION: EABR is a valid tool to measure the auditory nerve integrity after CI surgery in patients with a normal and malformed cochlea, as shown by its ability to measure waves III and V when ABR is absent. The EABR testing should be performed before and after CI surgery, and EABR should be used as a measure of outcome, especially in patients with a malformed cochlea

What about a beta-beam facility for low energy neutrinos?

A novel method to produce neutrino beams has recently been proposed : the beta-beams. This method consists in using the beta-decay of boosted radioactive nuclei to obtain an intense, collimated and pure neutrino beam. Here we propose to exploit the beta-beam concept to produce neutrino beams of low energy. We discuss the applications of such a facility as well as its importance for different domains of physics. We focus, in particular, on neutrino-nucleus interaction studies of interest for various open issues in astrophysics, nuclear and particle physics. We suggest possible sites for a low energy beta-beam facility.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Trade--Off Between Seismic Source Detail and Crustal Heterogeneities in Spherical 3D Finite Element Modeling: the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake case-study

Finite Element methods (FEMs) are a powerful numerical simulation tool for modeling seismic events as they allow to solve three-dimensional complex models. We used a 3D Finite Element approach to evaluate the co-seismic displacement eld produced by the devastating 2004 Sumatra Andaman earthquake, which caused permanent deformations recorded by continuously operating GPS networks in a region of unprecedented extent. Previous analysis of the static displacement fi eld focused on the heterogeneous distribution of moment release on the fault plane; our intention here is to investigate how much the presence of crustal heterogeneities trades off seismic source details. To this aim, we adopted a quite simple source model in modeling the event. The key feature of our analysis is the generation of a complex three dimensional spherical domain. More-over, we also made an accurate analysis concerning boundary conditions, which are crucial for FE simulations

Finite Element Modeling of the 2004 giant Sumatra Earthquake Postseismic Displacement Field

The 26 December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake is one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded since 1900. The earthquake resulted from complex slip on the fault where the oceanic portion of the Indian Plate slides under the Eurasian Plate, by the Indonesian Island of Sumatra. The particular features of the detected quasi-static displacement field has been previously attributed to the heterogeneous distribution of moment release on the fault plane. In the present work, we use a new computational FEM strategy to model the co- and postseismic displacement field associated with the Sumatra earthquake. For the first time we can study the joint effects of sphericity and 3D mechanical and rheological heterogeneities on the investigated observables. The comparison between our synthetic results and the available deformation data allows us to ascertain if also lateral heterogeneities in the physical properties of the medium could have played a role in assessing the deformation field

FEMSA: a finite element simulation tool for quasi-static seismic deformation modeling

We set up a computational tool to numerically model static and quasi-static deformation generated by faulting sources embedded in plane or spherical domains. We use a Finite Element (FE) approach to automatically implement arbitrary faulting sources and calculate displacement and stress fields induced by slip on the fault. The package makes use of the capabilities of CalculiX, a non commercial FE software designed to solve field problems (see <http://www.calculix.de> for details), and is freely distributed by request