The limitations of market driven sustainability: The case of environmental management systems for food production in Australia.

Environmental Management Systems (EMSs) address environmental risks in supply chains and certification of environmental claims. Governments supporting EMSs have encouraged producers to respond to anticipated consumer environmental concerns. Attempts at implementing EMSs have rarely been in direct response to market demand but are usually farmer organisation driven - to forestall increased regulation. In Australia, consumer demand for foods produced to environmentally sustainable standards is minimal because consumers don't believe these products offer special benefits. EMS implementation is expensive and onerous; and the products require a market premium. Food consumers have difficulty differentiating the terms organic, environmentally-friendly, and sustainably-produced in food labelling.EMS, environmental marketing, sustainable food production, eco-labelling, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Minimal Supergravity with m_0^2 < 0

We extend the parameter space of minimal supergravity to negative values of m_0^2, the universal scalar mass parameter defined at the grand unified scale. After evolving to the weak scale, all scalars can be non-tachyonic with masses consistent with collider constraints. This region of parameter space is typically considered excluded by searches for charged dark matter, since the lightest standard model superpartner is a charged slepton. However, if the gravitino is the lightest supersymmetric particle, the charged slepton decays, and this region is allowed. This region provides qualitatively new possibilities for minimal supergravity, including spectra with light sleptons and very heavy squarks, and models in which the lightest slepton is the selectron. We show that the m_0^2 < 0 region is consistent with low energy precision data and discuss its implications for particle colliders. These models may provide signals of supersymmetry in even the first year of operation at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 16 page

Re-examining relationship development

Research examining marketing relationships has not traditionally discussed the fact that business-to-business relationships strengthen and weaken over its life. The model also suggests relationship inactivity is not necessarily the same as relationship failure. The paper proposes a model that allows relationships to move in multiple directions over their existence.<br /

The strong coupling, unification, and recent data

The prediction of the strong coupling assuming (supersymmetric) coupling constant unification is reexamined. We find, using the new electroweak data, $\alpha_{s}(M_{Z}) \approx 0.129 \pm 0.010$. The implications of the large $\alpha_{s}$ value are discussed. The role played by the $Z$ beauty width is stressed. It is also emphasized that high-energy (but not low-energy) corrections could significantly diminish the prediction. However, unless higher-dimension operators are assumed to be suppressed, at present one cannot place strong constraints on the super-heavy spectrum. Non-leading electroweak threshold corrections are also discussed.Comment: 12 pages, LaTex + RevTex, uuencoded postscript file (including 13 figures) is attached. Also available at ftp://dept.physics.upenn.edu/pub/Ni

μ\mu-term as the origin of baryon and lepton number asymmetry

We study a possibility of combining an origin of the $\mu$-term and the baryon and lepton number asymmetry. If we assume that the $\mu$-term is generated through a flat direction of a singlet scalar field, the coherent oscillation of this condensate around its potential minimum can store the global U(1) charge asymmetry. The decay of this condensate can distribute this asymmetry into the lepton and baryon number asymmetry as far as its decay occurs at an appropriate temperature. We examine the compatibility between this scenario and the small neutrino mass generation based on both the ordinary seesaw mechanism and the bilinear R-parity violating terms.Comment: 22 pages, published versio

Developing relationships – a nonlinear perspective

The research examining marketing relationships has traditionally assumed that they develop in an evolutionary linear process. There has been limited discussion of the fact that over a relationship&rsquo;s lifespan it may in fact both strengthen and weaken, and that inactivity does not necessarily infer relationship failure. The paper proposes a model that allows relationships to move in multiple directions over their existence.<br /

Single flux quantum circuits with damping based on dissipative transmission lines

We propose and demonstrate the functioning of a special Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) circuit with frequency-dependent damping. This damping is achieved by shunting individual Josephson junctions by pieces of open-ended RC transmission lines. Our circuit includes a toggle flip-flop cell, Josephson transmission lines transferring single flux quantum pulses to and from this cell, as well as DC/SFQ and SFQ/DC converters. Due to the desired frequency-dispersion in the RC line shunts which ensures sufficiently low noise at low frequencies, such circuits are well-suited for integrating with the flux/phase Josephson qubit and enable its efficient control.Comment: 6 pages incl. 6 figure