Latent Heat Flux Profiles from Collocated Airborne Water Vapor and Wind Lidars during IHOP_2002

Latent heat flux profiles in the convective boundary layer (CBL) are obtained for the first time with the combination of the DLR water vapor differential absorption lidar (DIAL) and the NOAA high resolution Doppler wind lidar (HRDL). Both instruments were integrated nadir viewing on board the DLR “Falcon” research aircraft during the International H2O Project (IHOP_2002) over the U.S. Southern Great Plains. Flux profiles from 300 – 2500 m AGL are computed from high spatial resolution (150 m horizontal and vertical) two-dimensional water vapor and vertical velocity lidar cross sections using the eddy covariance technique. All cospectra show significant contributions to the flux between 1 and 10 km wavelength, with peaks between 2 and 6 km, originating from large eddies. The main flux uncertainty is due to low sampling (55 % rmse at mid-CBL), while instrument noise (15 %) and systematic errors (7 %) play a minor role. The combination of a water vapor and a wind lidar on an aircraft appears as an attractive new tool that allows measuring latent heat flux profiles from a single over-flight of the investigated area

Global business services

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of global business services to improved productivity and economic growth of the world economy, which has gone largely unnoticed in service research. Design/Methodology/Approach – The authors draw on macroeconomic data and industry reports, and link them to the non-ownership concept in service research and theories of the firm. Findings – Business services explain a large share of the growth of the global service economy. The fast growth of business services coincides with shifts from domestic production towards global outsourcing of services. A new wave of global business services are traded across borders and have emerged as important drivers of growth in the world's service sector. Research Limitations and Implications – This paper advances the understanding of non-ownership services in an increasingly global and specialized post-industrial economy. The paper makes a conceptual contribution supported by descriptive data, but without empirical testing. Originality/Value – The authors integrate the non- ownership concept and three related economic theories of the firm to explain the role of global business services in driving business performance and the international transformation of service economies

Situational awareness and transparency as core concepts of authentic leadership

There is not a common, agreed upon definition of authentic leadership. There are varying opinions as to whether authenticity is a trait or a style; however, most scholars believe authenticity is a purpose and value based characteristic (Gardner, Cogliser, Davis, & Dickens, 2011) that is developed over time (George, 2003). Transparency is a core concept of authentic leadership, and situational awareness is a critical skill for leaders to determine the degree of transparency that they should demonstrate. There is limited theoretical and empirical research on how transparency and self-monitoring can be used in conjunction with situational leadership and situational awareness theory. This study measures the impact of a leader\u27s expression of transparency on follower\u27s confidence in his or her ability with consideration of a number of covariates. The findings of this study are intended to help advance authentic leadership theory with specific focus on situational awareness and transparency as core concepts of authenticity. Implications are discussed on the advancement of leadership theory, authentic leadership, and transparency as a core concept of authenticity. Data collection used Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) and yielded 1,006 global participants who met the inclusion criteria. In general, higher degrees of leadership transparency yield higher levels of follower confidence. Situation can impact how expressions of transparency impact follower confidence. Thus, situational awareness and situational leadership are critical competencies for leaders to use transparency effectively. Leader-Member Exchange does not, generally, moderate the relationship between a leader\u27s transparency and his or her follower\u27s confidence. There was statistical significance in the difference in responses between confidence. There was statistical significance in the difference in responses between geographies, but there were not statistically significant differences in the results when considering gender, years of work experience, education, age, and race in the US

Common leadership strategies and practices among authentic senior leaders

From the early 2000s onwards, authentic leadership has continued to garner growing interest from academia, the public sector, and across multiple industries. Perhaps the reason for the increased focus on authenticity is the unethical behavior demonstrated by a number of leaders from 2000 to 2010. While there is growing interest in demonstrating authenticity as a situational leadership style or even an inherent trait, there is limited research on what leadership strategies or practices are most effective for authentic leaders. This study was designed to apply a common definition, or set of criteria, to identify leaders that are authentic. Once this group of authentic leaders has been identified, research can be conducted to understand common characteristics, traits, styles, practices, and strategies. Conversely, the opportunity exists to understand what common challenges authentic leaders face to determine mitigation strategies. The findings of this study provided exemplary best practices for leaders in business and other fields. To help ground the study, a detailed literature review of leadership theory, and authentic leadership’s place within the study of leadership, was completed. The historical examination of leadership is important as it adds richness and context to how authenticity has risen to prominence within empirical and theoretical research. This research showed that common leadership strategies and practices among authentic leaders include the ability to connect and engage through honest and transparent storytelling. Authentic leaders are vulnerable and transparent, and they enable and engage people and organizations through sharing a compelling vision. Their core leadership approach of honesty and transparency does not change, but they will flex how direct they are based on the situation and audience. In terms of challenges, authentic senior leaders have a high desire for their authentic approach to be reciprocated, and they can be too demanding. In order to overcome these challenges, they try to manage their stress and use physiological and mental means to manage energy. Authentic senior leaders measure success in terms of business results, talent development, and being recognized. The advice they have for future leader is to be one’s authentic self and to understand one’s personal mission and purpose

Reentry systems: Material technology needs

The material technology needs are: (1) lightweight and durable rigid insulating and higher temperature flexible materials; and (2) inspection, repair, producibility, and maintainability of refractory composites. The direction of efforts are: (1) funding base is relatively small for future years; (2) to minimize returns, collaborative programs appear to be practical; and (3) SSD's approach is to implement NASA developed technology

Charged particle beam acceleration and strong discharge currents' fields generation by laser - a study on laser-driven ion sources and beam transport suited for application in high-energy-density physics experiments

This work aims at both, the experimental benchmark of laser-driven ion acceleration from targets in the near-critical density regime and the exploration of laser-driven open-geometry platforms for spatial and spectral ion beam tailoring. Theoretically described mechanisms and dynamics predicted by numerical simulations are compared to novel experimental findings that are supported by new particle in cell simulations and heuristic models. Results comprise (i) demonstration of Helium ion acceleration from ultra-relativistic laser-driven near-critical density gas jet targets employing shock nozzles, (ii) further investigation of the driving mechanisms of charged particle beam lensing platforms in the quasi-static regime driven by ns-laser and in the transient regime driven by sub-ps laser, and (iii) studies of transport and tailoring of laser accelerated particle beams by electromagnetic and magnetic fields. The Helium ion source shows cut-off energies above 55MeV, a regime suitable for isotope production in alpha-therapy. Hence, the destruction of nozzles in the violent experimental environment and the perspective to high-repetition-rate operation underlines the need of mass producible nozzles with automatized nozzle exchange and vacuum systems able to maintain good vacuum levels. Ns-laser driven magnetic lenses show comparable current amplitudes in the spontaneous magnetic fields of the plasma and the consumer loop, which favors the theoretical modeling of the platform as a plasma-diode power source. During the laser drive, space charge effects arise with the arrival of the laser-plasma in vicinity of the magnetic lens, representing a possible threat to efficient lensing of ion beams. A modified target geometry is presented that decreases space charge effects. Short laser-pulse driven solid target discharge gives rise to a surficial pulsed potential dynamics guided by the target geometry. This work shows that electromagnetic discharge pulses emanating the interaction region are followed by a pulse discharge current from the ground, both transporting kA-range currents through the target rod. The observed pulsed current dynamics on timescales of tens of ps indicates the presence of a hot surface plasma. The temperature and electron density of the surface plasma are promising control parameters of the discharge pulse dispersion. The high branch of the dispersion relation is responsible for a group velocity different from the speed of light. Solutions on the low branch of the dispersion relation agree with modulations of the target potential in their spatial dimensions and temporal growth rate. Experimental and numerical studies of short laser pulse driven platforms show their applicability to spectral shaping of ion beams, with a perspective to temporal compression of beams for cases where low energy parts of the spectrum get efficiently post-accelerated. Presented are the experimental study of a simple double-coil geometry and a numerical study of a helical coil target. This work motivates junction of presented approaches for future experiments aiming at high repetition rate laser accelerated high energy density ion beams for applications, notably medical isotope production, or fundamental research, ranging from studies on collective stopping effects, warm dense matter generation to an optimized fast ignition particle injector

Five Blood Pressure Loci Identified by an Updated Genome-Wide Linkage Scan: Meta-Analysis of the Family Blood Pressure Program

Background A preliminary genome-wide linkage analysis of blood pressure in the Family Blood Pressure Program (FBPP) was reported previously. We harnessed the power and ethnic diversity of the final pooled FBPP dataset to identify novel loci for blood pressure thereby enhancing localization of genes containing less common variants with large effects on blood pressure levels and hypertension. Methods We performed one overall and 4 race-specific meta-analyses of genome-wide blood pressure linkage scans using data on 4,226African-American, 2,154 Asian, 4,229 Caucasian, and 2,435 Mexican- American participants (total N = 13,044). Variance components models were fit to measured (raw) blood pressure levels and two types of antihypertensive medication adjusted blood pressure phenotypes within each of 10 subgroups defined by race and network. A modified Fisher's method was used to combine the P values for each linkage marker across the 10 subgroups. Results Five quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were detected on chromosomes 6p22.3, 8q23.1, 20q13.12, 21q21.1, and 21q21.3 based on significant linkage evidence (defined by logarithm of odds (lod) score ≥3) in at least one meta-analysis and lod scores ≥1 in at least 2 subgroups defined by network and race. The chromosome 8q23.1 locus was supported by Asian-, Caucasian-, and Mexican-American-specific meta-analyses. Conclusions The new QTLs reported justify new candidate gene studies. They may help support results from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that fall in these QTL regions but fail to achieve the genome-wide significance. American Journal of Hypertension advance online publication 9 December 2010;doi:10.1038/ajh.2010.23

Positional identification of variants of Adamts16 linked to inherited hypertension

A previously reported blood pressure (BP) quantitative trait locus on rat Chromosome 1 was isolated in a short congenic segment spanning 804.6 kb. The 804.6 kb region contained only two genes, LOC306664 and LOC306665. LOC306664 is predicted to translate into A Disintegrin-like and Metalloproteinase with Thrombospondin Motifs-16 (Adamts16). LOC306665 is a novel gene. All predicted exons of both LOC306664 and LOC306665 were sequenced. Non-synonymous variants were identified in only one of these genes, LOC306664. These variants were naturally existing polymorphisms among inbred, outbred and wild rats. The full-length rat transcript of Adamts16 was detected in multiple tissues. Similar to ADAMTS16 in humans, expression of Adamts16 was prominent in the kidney. Renal transcriptome analysis suggested that a network of genes related to BP was differential between congenic and S rats. These genes were also differentially expressed between kidney cell lines with or without knock-down of Adamts16. Adamts16 is conserved between rats and humans. It is a candidate gene within the homologous region on human Chromosome 5, which is linked to systolic and diastolic BP in the Quebec Family Study. Multiple variants, including an Ala to Pro variant in codon 90 (rs2086310) of human ADAMTS16, were associated with human resting systolic BP (SBP). Replication study in GenNet confirmed the association of two variants of ADAMTS16 with SBP, including rs2086310. Overall, our report represents a high resolution positional cloning and translational study for Adamts16 as a candidate gene controlling B