3,297 research outputs found
The brain plus the cultural transmission mechanism determine the nature of language
We agree that language adapts to the brain, but we note that language also has to adapt to brain-external constraints, such as those arising from properties of the cultural transmission medium. The hypothesis that Christiansen & Chater (C&C) raise in the target article not only has profound consequences for our understanding of language, but also for our understanding of the biological evolution of the language faculty
\u3ci\u3eCaremark\u3c/i\u3e and ESG, Perfect Together: A Practical Approach to Implementing an Integrated, Efficient, and Effective \u3ci\u3eCaremark\u3c/i\u3e and EESG Strategy
With increased calls from investors, legislators, and academics for corporations to consider employee, environmental, social, and governance factors (âEESGâ) when making decisions, boards and managers are struggling to situate EESG within their existing reporting and organizational structures. Building on an emerging literature connecting EESG with corporate compliance, this Essay argues that EESG is best understood as an extension of the boardâs duty to implement and monitor a compliance program under Caremark. If a company decides to do more than the legal minimum, it will simultaneously satisfy legitimate demands for strong EESG programs and promote compliance with the law. Building on that insight, we explain how boards can marry existing corporate compliance programs with budding EESG programs. By integrating compliance and EESG, corporations can meet growing societal demands in an effective and efficient manner that capitalizes on existing structures. Lastly, we address how EESG and corporate compliance responsibilities should be allocated at the board and senior management level. Instead of separating compliance and EESG oversight, this Essay suggests that boards embrace a functional approach, delegating similar compliance and EESG oversight to the same committee and managers. By situating EESG within the boardâs existing fiduciary duties, this Essay provides academics, legislators, investors, and managers with a novel framework to conceptualize EESG while also offering a path forward for boards struggling to place the current EESG movement within their existing corporate structure
\u3cem\u3eCaremark\u3c/em\u3e and ESG, Perfect Together: A Practical Approach to Implementing an Integrated, Efficient, and Effective \u3cem\u3eCaremark\u3c/em\u3e and EESG Strategy
With increased calls from investors, legislators, and academics for corporations to consider employee, environmental, social, and governance factors (âEESGâ) when making decisions, boards and managers are struggling to situate EESG within their existing reporting and organizational structures. Building on an emerging literature connecting EESG with corporate compliance, this Essay argues that EESG is best understood as an extension of the boardâs duty to implement and monitor a compliance program under Caremark. If a company decides to do more than the legal minimum, it will simultaneously satisfy legitimate demands for strong EESG programs and promote compliance with the law. Building on that insight, we explain how boards can marry existing corporate compliance programs with budding EESG programs. By integrating compliance and EESG, corporations can meet growing societal demands in an effective and efficient manner that capitalizes on existing structures. Lastly, we address how EESG and corporate compliance responsibilities should be allocated at the board and senior management level. Instead of separating compliance and EESG oversight, this Essay suggests that boards embrace a functional approach, delegating similar compliance and EESG oversight to the same committee and managers. By situating EESG within the boardâs existing fiduciary duties, this Essay provides academics, legislators, investors, and managers with a novel framework to conceptualize EESG while also offering a path forward for boards struggling to place the current EESG movement within their existing corporate structure
A new deep-depletion CCD for the red channel of the Palomar Double Spectrograph
The red channel of the Palomar Double Spectrograph (DBSP) on the 200-inch Hale Telescope has been upgraded with a new deep-depletion CCD from LBNL. Its redder response produced a significant increase of the throughput above 550 nm, and its longer dimension more than doubled the spectral coverage. A special Dewar was designed to accommodate a detector mount which includes features to minimize CCD motion due to thermal cycling, in spite of the very simple "picture frame" packaging of the CCD. The new Dewar also includes some novel features to improve the liquid nitrogen hold time while staying within the size envelope allowed in the Cassegrain cage. We describe these changes along with the detector characterization
The Smith Cloud: high-velocity accretion and dark-matter confinement
The Smith Cloud is a massive system of metal-poor neutral and ionized gas
M_gas >= 2x10^6 M_sun) that is presently moving at high velocity (V_GSR ~300 km
s^-1) with respect to the Galaxy at a distance of 12 kpc from the Sun. The
kinematics of the cloud's cometary tail indicates that the gas is in the
process of accretion onto the Galaxy, as first discussed by Lockman et al.
(2008). Here, we re-investigate the cloud's orbit by considering the
possibility that the cloud is confined by a dark matter halo. This is required
for the cloud to survive its passage through the Galactic corona. We consider
three possible models for the dark matter halo (NFW, Einasto, Burkert)
including the effects of tidal disruption and ram-pressure stripping during the
cloud's infall onto and passage through the Galactic disk. For the NFW and
Einasto dark-matter models, we are able to determine reasonable initial
conditions for the Smith Cloud, although this is only marginally possible with
the Burkert model. For all three models, the progenitor had an initial
(gas+dark matter) mass that was an order of magnitude higher than inferred
today. In agreement with Lockman et al. (2008), the cloud appears to have
punched through the disk ~70 Myr ago. For our most successful models, the
baryon to dark matter ratio is fairly constant during an orbital period but
drops by a factor of 2-5 after transiting the disk. The cloud appears to have
only marginally survived its transit, and is unlikely to retain its integrity
during the next transit ~30 Myr from now.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. ApJ, accepte
Block-structured, equal-workload, multi-grid-nesting interface for the Boussinesq wave model FUNWAVE-TVD (Total Variation Diminishing)
We describe the development of a block-structured, equal-CPU-load (central processing unit), multi-grid-nesting interface for the Boussinesq wave model FUNWAVE-TVD (Fully Nonlinear Boussinesq Wave Model with Total Variation Diminishing Solver). The new model framework does not interfere with the core solver, and thus the core program, FUNWAVE-TVD, is still a standalone model used for a single grid. The nesting interface manages the time sequencing and two-way nesting processes between the parent grid and child grid with grid refinement in a hierarchical manner. Workload balance in the MPI-based (message passing interface) parallelization is handled by an equal-load scheme. A strategy of shared array allocation is applied for data management that allows for a large number of nested grids without creating additional memory allocations. Four model tests are conducted to verify the nesting algorithm with assessments of model accuracy and the robustness in the application in modeling transoceanic tsunamis and coastal effects
Empty spaces and the value of symbols: Estonia's 'war of monuments' from another angle
Taking as its point of departure the recent heightened discussion surrounding publicly sited monuments in Estonia, this article investigates the issue from the perspective of the country's eastern border city of Narva, focusing especially upon the restoration in 2000 of a 'Swedish Lion' monument to mark the 300th anniversary of Sweden's victory over Russia at the first Battle of Narva. This commemoration is characterised here as a successful local negotiation of a potentially divisive past, as are subsequent commemorations of the Russian conquest of Narva in 1704. A recent proposal to erect a statue of Peter the Great in the city, however, briefly threatened to open a new front in Estonia's ongoing 'war of monuments'. Through a discussion of these episodes, the article seeks to link the Narva case to broader conceptual issues of identity politics, nationalism and post-communist transition
The significance of 'the visit' in an English category-B prison: Views from prisoners, prisoners' families and prison staff
A number of claims have been made regarding the importance of prisoners staying in touch with their family through prison visits, firstly from a humanitarian perspective of enabling family members to see each other, but also regarding the impact of maintaining family ties for successful rehabilitation, reintegration into society and reduced re-offending. This growing evidence base has resulted in increased support by the Prison Service for encouraging the family unit to remain intact during a prisonerâs incarceration. Despite its importance however, there has been a distinct lack of research examining the dynamics of families visiting relatives in prison. This paper explores perceptions of the same event â the visit â from the familiesâ, prisonersâ and prison staffs' viewpoints in a category-B local prison in England. Qualitative data was collected with 30 prisonersâ families, 16 prisoners and 14 prison staff, as part of a broader evaluation of the visitorsâ centre. The findings suggest that the three parties frame their perspective of visiting very differently. Prisonersâ families often see visits as an emotional minefield fraught with practical difficulties. Prisoners can view the visit as the highlight of their time in prison and often have many complaints about how visits are handled. Finally, prison staff see visits as potential security breaches and a major organisational operation. The paper addresses the current gap in our understanding of the prison visit and has implications for the Prison Service and wider social policy
Leo IV & V - A possible dwarf galaxy pair ?
The last few years have seen the discovery of many faint and ultra-faint
dwarf spheroidal galaxies around the Milky Way. Among these is a pair of
satellites called Leo IV and Leo V. This pair is found at large distances from
the Milky Way (154 and 175 kpc respectively). The rather small difference in
radial distance, and the fact that they also show a close projected distance on
the sky, has led to the idea that we might be seeing a new pair of bound
galaxies - like the Magellanic Clouds. In this paper we investigate this
speculation by means of a simple integration code (confirming the results with
full N-body simulations). As the luminous mass of both faint dwarfs is far too
low to allow them to be bound, we simulate the pair assuming extended dark
matter haloes. Our results show that the minimum dark matter mass required for
the pair to be bound is rather high - ranging from 1.6 x 10^10 Msun to 5.4 x
10^10 Msun (within the virial radii). Computing the mass of dark matter within
a commonly adopted radius of 300 pc shows that our models are well within the
predicted range of dark matter content for satellites so faint. We therefore
conclude that it could be possible that the two galaxies constitute a bound
pair.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, accepted by A&
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