International ethics and globalization

In the inherently anarchic international system the validity of moral principles is weakening. To overcome anarchy global governance is needed. It means efficient international institutions, but also pressures from the global civil society and the self-regulation of business. Multinational firms have the duty of cooperating in governance systems. They also have the duty of reconciling in their activity the two, equally legitimate claims of universalism and cultural relativism; i.e., applying universal moral principles and respecting local moral norms. Finally, multinationals must be guided by the principle of enhanced responsibility. However, although globalizing efforts are important in overcoming international anarchy and coordinating the protection of global commons, strong arguments support the notion that economic globalization does not promote sustainable development. Some form of localization of the economy is certainly needed. The challenge is to find a way towards more global governance with less economic globalization

Nursing with the Heart of Christ

Within the nursing profession it is necessary for the nurse to learn to have love, compassion, joy, peace, patience, humility, and integrity within his/her character. After reviewing numerous peer reviewed journals and personal examples, the following paper reveals how these traits – love, compassion, joy, peace, patience, humility, and integrity – are beneficial within the nursing profession. The paper defines the mentioned characteristics, shows how they can be used and implemented within the nursing practice, demonstrates how their implementation leads to greater patient care, and then compares these traits and actions to the character and person of Christ

The SCSE Organic Rankine engine

The engine is the heart of a Power Conversion Subsystem (PCS) located at the focal point of a sun-tracking parabolic dish concentrator. The ORC engine employs a single-stage axial-flow turbine driving a high speed alternator to produce up to 25 kW electrical output at the focus of each dish. The organic working fluid is toluene, circulating in a closed-loop system at temperatures up to 400 C (750 F). Design parameters, system description, predicted performance and program status are described

Unraveling the behavior of the individual ionic activity coefficients on the basis of the balance of ion-ion and ion-water interactions

We investigate the individual activity coefficients of pure 1:1 and 2:1 electrolytes using our theory that is based on the competition of ion-ion (II) and ion-water (IW) interactions (Vincze et al., J. Chem. Phys. 133, 154507, 2010). The II term is computed from Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations on the basis of the implicit solvent model of electrolytes using hard sphere ions with Pauling radii. The IW term is computed on the basis of Born's treatment of solvation using experimental hydration free energies. The two terms are coupled through the concentration-dependent dielectric constant of the electrolyte. With this approach we are able to reproduce the nonmonotonic concentration dependence of the mean activity coefficient of pure electrolytes qualitatively without using adjustable parameters. In this paper, we show that the theory can provide valuable insight into the behavior of individual activity coefficients too. We compare our theoretical predictions against experimental data measured by electrochemical cells containing ion-specific electrodes. As in the case of the mean activity coefficients, we find good agreement for 2:1 electrolytes, while the accuracy of our model is worse for 1:1 systems. This deviation in accuracy is explained by the fact that the two competing terms (II and IW) are much larger in the 2:1 case so errors in the two separate terms have less effects. The difference of the excess chemical potentials of cations and anions (the ratio of activity coefficients) is determined by asymmetries in the properties of the two ions: charge, radius, and hydration free energies.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, 1 TOC figur

When do beetles and bugs fly? A unified scheme for describing seasonal flight behaviour of highly dispersing primary aquatic insects

Many authors investigated the dispersal flight of aquatic insects, but the exact length of the seasonal flying periods and its main characteristics have not been determined. A wide spectrum of species must be investigated before drawing general conclusions on seasonal changes about dispersal flight. Seasonal dispersal flight of aquatic beetles and bugs were studied during a 30-week long monitoring period. Insects were attracted to highly polarizing horizontal shiny black plastic sheets. 90 species/taxa and more than 45 000 individuals were captured during the sampling period. Aquatic insects were rising into the air during all periods of the year (from April till October). We hypothesized that species or group of species can be characterized by different seasonal rhythms of their dispersal flight. A unified scheme was established based on seasonal dispersal activity of 45 species to assess the dispersal behaviour. Detailed information about seasonal dispersal of 22 more species, and seasonal dispersal pattern were predicted in cases of further 23 species. In all, three seasonal patterns and twelve sub-patterns were identified based on specific characteristics of flight. The scheme is widely and generally applicable to characterize the seasonal dispersal flight of primarily aquatic insects. To demonstrate this, we performed the classification on previously reported data. Both previous and current results of the flight dispersal studies can be classified in the scheme, and the results are comparable by using this unified categorization

The SCSTPE organic Rankine engine

The organic Rankine cycle engine under consideration for a solar thermal system being developed is described. Design parameters, method of control, performance and cost data are provided for engine power levels up to 80 kWe; efficiency is shown as a function of turbine inlet temperature in the range of 149 C to 427 C

Universal Sampling Rate Distortion

We examine the coordinated and universal rate-efficient sampling of a subset of correlated discrete memoryless sources followed by lossy compression of the sampled sources. The goal is to reconstruct a predesignated subset of sources within a specified level of distortion. The combined sampling mechanism and rate distortion code are universal in that they are devised to perform robustly without exact knowledge of the underlying joint probability distribution of the sources. In Bayesian as well as nonBayesian settings, single-letter characterizations are provided for the universal sampling rate distortion function for fixed-set sampling, independent random sampling and memoryless random sampling. It is illustrated how these sampling mechanisms are successively better. Our achievability proofs bring forth new schemes for joint source distribution-learning and lossy compression

Larval data to the caddisfly fauna of the Szuha stream and its environments, NE Hungary (Trichoptera)

Localities and collecting data of 29 caddisfly species belonging 7 families are given from 31 collecting sites of the Szuha-valley, NE Hungary. All of the species are new to this region of Hungary