The Balanced Scorecard: The Key to Effective Strategic Management

The intent of this paper is to define the importance of the balanced scorecard in the strategic management process. The need for the balanced scorecard will be established by explaining the roles of demand shifters, traditional management accounting, Senge’s concept of a learning organization, and the strategic management process. This will involve detailing the stages of the strategic management process and connecting them to the various aspects of creating a balanced scorecard. Ultimately, the goal of the balanced scorecard is to translate the overarching strategy into specific actions that can be implemented throughout the organization. Lastly, other strategic applications of the balanced scorecard will be identified and explained

Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Convective Boundaries, Element Diffusion, and Massive Star Explosions

We update the capabilities of the software instrument Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA) and enhance its ease of use and availability. Our new approach to locating convective boundaries is consistent with the physics of convection, and yields reliable values of the convective core mass during both hydrogen and helium burning phases. Stars with $M<8\,{\rm M_\odot}$ become white dwarfs and cool to the point where the electrons are degenerate and the ions are strongly coupled, a realm now available to study with MESA due to improved treatments of element diffusion, latent heat release, and blending of equations of state. Studies of the final fates of massive stars are extended in MESA by our addition of an approximate Riemann solver that captures shocks and conserves energy to high accuracy during dynamic epochs. We also introduce a 1D capability for modeling the effects of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities that, in combination with the coupling to a public version of the STELLA radiation transfer instrument, creates new avenues for exploring Type II supernovae properties. These capabilities are exhibited with exploratory models of pair-instability supernova, pulsational pair-instability supernova, and the formation of stellar mass black holes. The applicability of MESA is now widened by the capability of importing multi-dimensional hydrodynamic models into MESA. We close by introducing software modules for handling floating point exceptions and stellar model optimization, and four new software tools -- MESAWeb, MESA-Docker, pyMESA, and mesastar.org -- to enhance MESA's education and research impact.Comment: 64 pages, 61 figures; Accepted to AAS Journal

Stable water isotope and surface heat flux simulation using ISOLSM: Evaluation against in-situ measurements

Author's manuscript made available in accordance with the publisher's policy.The stable isotopes of water are useful tracers of water sources and hydrological processes. Stable water isotope-enabled land surface modeling is a relatively new approach for characterizing the hydrological cycle, providing spatial and temporal variability for a number of hydrological processes. At the land surface, the integration of stable water isotopes with other meteorological measurements can assist in constraining surface heat flux estimates and discriminate between evaporation (E) and transpiration (T). However, research in this area has traditionally been limited by a lack of continuous in-situ isotopic observations. Here, the National Centre for Atmospheric Research stable isotope-enabled Land Surface Model (ISOLSM) is used to simulate the water and energy fluxes and stable water isotope variations. The model was run for a period of one month with meteorological data collected from a coastal sub-tropical site near Sydney, Australia. The modeled energy fluxes (latent heat and sensible heat) agreed reasonably well with eddy covariance observations, indicating that ISOLSM has the capacity to reproduce observed flux behavior. Comparison of modeled isotopic compositions of evapotranspiration (ET) against in-situ Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) measured bulk water vapor isotopic data (10 m above the ground), however, showed differences in magnitude and temporal patterns. The disparity is due to a small contribution from local ET fluxes to atmospheric boundary layer water vapor (∼1% based on calculations using ideal gas law) relative to that advected from the ocean for this particular site. Using ISOLSM simulation, the ET was partitioned into E and T with 70% being T. We also identified that soil water from different soil layers affected T and E differently based on the simulated soil isotopic patterns, which reflects the internal working of ISOLSM. These results highlighted the capacity of using the isotope-enabled models to discriminate between different hydrological components and add insight into expected hydrological behavior

Development and production of a one act play

A commonly known facet of the traditional western Christian faith is that mankind is created in God\u27s image. The question that immediately follows this is what is God\u27s image? or what does it mean to be made in someone or something\u27s image? This play attempts to explore that question by creating an understandable and humanized caricature of the Christian God. In the author\u27s opinion, what is meant by humanity being made in God\u27s image is that humanity has been granted the power of consciousness, the attribute of individual and self-aware life. Neither the biblical representation of God nor many of his fictionalizations delve into this topic; what does it mean if our similarity to God is our consciousness? By characterizing God as someone who struggles with questions of an existential nature as much as humans do, this play creates a depiction of what it truly means to be conscious and alive and offers its own possible layout of what kind of person the Christian God might be. The entire show was written as a search for the answer to the question who is God? in the hopes for an answer to the question who are we

Computational Study of Laminar Separation Bubble Development over Supersonic Airfoils at Subsonic Speeds

Laminar Separation Bubbles (LSBs) are regions of separated flow that start near the leading edge of an airfoil and reattach further down the airfoil surface. These regions of separation can appear at low angles of attack and can grow significantly as the angle of attack is increased heavily influencing the flow characteristics over the airfoil. Research on this topic is driven by the supersonic business jet industry which has a particular interest in this type of research due to performance requirements in both the subsonic and supersonic flight regimes. This manuscript is focused on the flow developments near the sharp leading edge of supersonic airfoils and their influence on aerodynamic performance at low subsonic speeds. Computational Fluid Dynamics was utilized to show how LSB formation, size, and shape are dependent on the turbulence model chosen and the level of free-stream turbulence present in the flow. Two turbulence models were investigated, the Spalart-Allmaras and the Menter\u27s SST. The LSB modeled by the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model was consistently longer than the LSB modeled by the Menter\u27s SST turbulence model. Both models verified the LSB dependence on the Reynolds and Mach number of the flow

Flower & Song

My work functions as a spiritual and philosophical inquiry, adapting ideas from a broad variety of sources, from the mythic and literary, to the autobiographical. I seek to harmonize paradoxical elements in service of higher knowledge and consciousness. Genealogical explorations of my unusual familial heritage have provided me with a wealth of photographs, religious and cultural motifs, and conceptual material. I view this personal examination as an idiosyncratic path to the universal, the limbs of my family tree branching through time and space to intertwine with the whole of history. Combining both ancient and modern traditions, I create esoteric liminal spaces in my paintings as a means of arriving closer to a truth that unfolds beyond the reach of material reality. I view my task as a mystical one, a divine, even futile, attempt to make work that serves as a vehicle to the other shore of human consciousness

Identity in Music

Whether consciously or not, every person answers the question, “Who am I?” Every mundane action, every syllable spoken, and even every event that affects someone, contribute to the realization of “who I am.” The answer to this question is always an individual’s identity. Identity helps a person achieve a desired social acceptance or success in a certain field. Much of the same can be said for the identity of a group. Different groups throughout history have constantly been fighting for their place in history. The identity of a group is based on the values that they hold, their ideals, actions, and involvement with society. Each group, whether it is Christians or vegetarians, is assimilated into society. In order for the assimilation to be successful, the values of the group must be either tolerated or accepted by the majority of outsiders. This is usually not a problem; however, when a minority group is trying to find its place in society, there must be a shift in the ideals that are shared by society. Because society’s ideas are constantly shifting, it is clear that there are agents of this change. One of these agents is music. This piece will examine the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s and the gay rights movement to exemplify how music has been used to advance a minority group