Ideologies about Work: Comparing Hospitality and Business Students and Managers

A little explored factor posited as underlying most managerial and organizational variables is work ideology. Work ideologies are surveyed to begin to show their ability to be studied and that patterned differences may be discovered. The author surveys several samples of students and managers pursuing careers in either the hospitality industry or business to show patterned differences in work ideologies and to note these implications

The Beacon, January 22, 2008

Vol. 20, Issue 41, 12 pages

The Continuing Significance of Exile in American Politics

Dr. Nicol Rae, Dean of the College of Letters and Science and Professor of Political Science at Montana State University, speaks of the U.S. receptiveness towards professors who have exiled from other nations.

Beryllium, neodymium and metal composition of ODP Leg 194 sites and survey sites crusts

Be and Nd isotope compositions and metal concentrations (Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu) of surface and subsurface ferromanganese hardground crusts from Ocean Drilling Program Leg 194 Marion Plateau Sites 1194 and 1196 provide new insights into the crusts' genesis, growth rates, and ages. Metal compositions indicate that the hardgrounds, which have grown on erosional surfaces in water depths of <400 m because of strong bottom currents, are not pure hydrogenetic precipitates. Nevertheless, the ratios between cosmogenic 10Be and stable 9Be in hardgrounds from the present-day seafloor at Site 1196 between 1 x 10**-7 and 1.5 x 10**-7 are within the range of values expected for Pacific seawater, which shows that the hardgrounds recorded the isotope composition of ambient seawater. This is also confirmed by their Nd isotope composition (epsilon Nd between -3 and 0). The 10Be/9Be ratios in the up to 30-mm-thick and partly laminated hardgrounds do not show a decrease with depth, which suggests high growth rates on the present-day seafloor. The subsurface crust at Site 1194 (117 m below the seafloor) grew during a sedimentation hiatus, when bottom currents in the late Miocene prevented sediment accumulation on the carbonate platform during a sea level lowstand. The age of 8.65 ± 0.50 Ma for this crust obtained from 10Be-based dating agrees well with the combined seismostratigraphic and biostratigraphic evidence, which suggests an age for the hiatus between 7.7 and 11.8 Ma.

(Table 1) TOC, d13C, concentrations of C37 alkenones, crenarchaeol and GDGTs of turbidites

One of the primary prerequisites for the application of organic proxies is that they should not be substantially affected by diagenesis. However, studies have shown that oxic degradation of biomarker lipids can affect their relative distribution. We tested the diagenetic stability of the UK'37 and TEX86 palaeothermometers upon long term oxygen exposure. For this purpose, we studied the distributions of alkenones and glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) in different sections of turbidites at the Madeira Abyssal Plain (MAP) that experienced different degrees of oxygen exposure. Sediments were deposited anoxically on the shelf and then transported by turbidity currents to the MAP, which has oxic bottom water. This resulted in partial degradation of the turbidite organic matter as a result of long term exposure to oxic bottom water. Concentrations of GDGTs and alkenones were reduced by one to two orders of magnitude in the oxidized parts of the turbidites compared to the unoxidized parts, indicating substantial degradation. High-resolution analysis of the Pleistocene F-turbidite showed that the UK'37 index of long chain alkenones increased only slightly (0.01, corresponding to <0.5 °C) in the oxidized part of the turbidite, suggesting minor preferential degradation of the C37:3 alkenone, in agreement with previous studies. TEX86 values showed a small increase (0.02, corresponding to ~2 °C) in the F-turbidite, like UK'37 , while for other Pliocene/Miocene turbidites it either remained unchanged or decreased substantially (up to 0.06, corresponding to ~6 °C). Previous observations showed that the BIT index, a proxy for the contribution of soil organic matter to total organic carbon, was always substantially higher in the oxidized part in all the turbidites, as a result of preferential degradation of marine-derived GDGTs. This relative increase in soil-derived GDGTs affects TEX86, as the isoprenoid GDGT distribution on the continent can be quite different from that in the marine environment. Our results indicate that the organic proxies are affected by long term oxic degradation to different extents; this should be taken into account when applying these proxies in palaeoceanographic studies of sediments which have been exposed to prolonged oxic degradation.

Managing chronic widespread pain in primary care : a qualitative study of patient perspectives and implications for treatment delivery

Funding The MUSICIAN trial was supported by an award from Arthritis Research UK, Chesterfield, UK. Grant number: 17292. The funding body approved the design of the study. They played no role in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data or the writing of the manuscript.

Bill Loftus electrofishing in Shark River

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation through the Florida Coastal Everglades Long-Term Ecological Research program under Cooperative Agreements #DBI-0620409 and #DEB-9910514. This image is made available for non-commercial or educational use only.

Nd isotopes an geochemistry of bulk deep sea sediments of the Atlantic Ocean

Nd isotopes preserved in fossil fish teeth and ferromanganese crusts have become a common tool for tracking variations in water mass composition and circulation through time. Studies of Nd isotopes extracted from Pleistocene to Holocene bulk sediments using hydroxylamine hydrochloride (HH) solution yield high resolution records of Nd isotopes that can be interpreted in terms of deep water circulation, but concerns about diagenesis and potential contamination of the seawater signal limit application of this technique to geologically young samples. In this study we demonstrate that Nd extracted from the > 63 µm, decarbonated fraction of older Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) sediments using a 0.02 M HH solution produces Nd isotopic ratios that are within error of values from cleaned fossil fish teeth collected from the same samples, indicating that the HH-extractions are robust recorders of deep sea Nd isotopes. This excellent correlation was achieved for 94 paired fish teeth and HH-extraction samples ranging in age from the Miocene to Cretaceous, distributed throughout the north, tropical and south Atlantic, and composed of a range of lithologies including carbonate-rich oozes/chalks and black shales. The strong Nd signal recovered from Cretaceous anoxic black shale sequences is unlikely to be associated with ferromanganese oxide coatings, but may be derived from abundant phosphatic fish teeth and debris or organic matter in these samples. In contrast to the deep water Nd isotopic signal, Sr isotopes from HH-extractions are often offset from seawater values, suggesting that evaluation of Sr isotopes is a conservative test for the integrity of Nd isotopes in the HH fraction. However, rare earth elements (REE) from the HH-extractions and fish teeth produce distinctive middle REE bulge patterns that may prove useful for evaluating whether the Nd isotopic signal represents uncontaminated seawater. Alternatively, a few paired HH-extraction and cleaned fish teeth samples from each site of interest can be used to verify the seawater composition of the HH-extractions. The similarity between isotopic values for the HH-extraction and fish teeth illustrates that the extensive cleaning protocol applied to fish teeth samples is not necessary in typical, carbonate-rich, deep sea sediments.

Geochemistry of Chixulub ejecta in ODP Leg 207 holes

An up to 2-cm thick Chicxulub ejecta deposit marking the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary (the "K-T" boundary) was recovered in six holes drilled during ODP Leg 207 (Demerara Rise, tropical western Atlantic). Stunning features of this deposit are its uniformity over an area of 30 km2 and the total absence of bioturbation, allowing documentation of the original sedimentary sequence. High-resolution mineralogical, petrological, elemental, isotopic (Sr-Nd), and rock magnetic data reveal a distinct microstratigraphy and a range of ejecta components. The deposit is normally graded and composed predominantly of rounded, 0.1- to max. 1-mm sized spherules. Spherules are altered to dioctahedral aluminous smectite, though occasionally relict Si-Al-rich hydrated glass is also present, suggesting acidic precursor lithologies. Spherule textures vary from hollow to vesicle-rich to massive; some show in situ collapse, others include distinct Fe-Mg-Ca-Ti-rich melt globules and lath-shaped Al-rich quench crystals. Both altered glass spherules and the clay matrix (Site 1259B) display strongly negative epsilon-Nd (T=65Ma) values (-17) indicating uptake of Nd from contemporaneous ocean water during alteration. Finally, Fe-Mg-rich spherules, shocked quartz and feldspar grains, few lithic clasts, as well as abundant accretionary and porous carbonate clasts are concentrated in the uppermost 0.5-0.7 mm of the deposit. The carbonate clasts display in part very unusual textures, which are interpreted to be of shock-metamorphic origin. The preservation of delicate spherule textures, normal grading with lack of evidence for traction transport, and sub-millimeter scale compositional trends provide evidence for this spherule deposit representing a primary air-fall deposit not affected by significant reworking. The ODP Leg 207 spherule deposit is the first known dual-layer K-Pg boundary in marine settings; it incorporates compositional and stratigraphic aspects of both proximal and distal marine sites. Its stratigraphy strongly resembles the dual-layer K-Pg boundary deposits in the terrestrial Western Interior of North America (although there carbonate phases are not preserved). The occurrence of a dual ejecta layer in these quite different sedimentary environments - separated by several thousands of kilometers - provides additional evidence for an original sedimentary sequence. Therefore, the layered nature of the deposit may document compositional differences between ballistic Chicxulub ejecta forming the majority of the spherule deposit, and material falling out from the vapor (ejecta) plume, which is concentrated in the uppermost part.

Sea surface temperature (TEX86), marine GDGTs and BIT index from ODP Hole 161-977A

The TEX86H temperature proxy is a relatively new proxy based on crenarchaeotal lipids and has rarely been applied together with other temperature proxies. In this study, we applied the TEX86H on a sediment core from the Alboran Sea (western Mediterranean, core ODP-977A) covering the penultimate climate cycle, that is, from 244 to 130 ka, and compared this with previously published sea surface temperatures derived from the Uk'37 of alkenones of haptophyta and Mg/Ca records of planktonic foraminifera. The TEX86H temperature record shows remarkably similar stadial-interstadial patterns and abrupt temperature changes to those observed with the Uk'37 palaeothermometer. Absolute TEX86H temperature estimates are generally higher than those of Uk'37, though this difference (<3°C in 81% of the data points) is mainly within the temperature calibration error for both proxies, suggesting that crenarchaeota and haptophyta experienced similar temperature variations. During occasional events (<5% of the analyzed time span), however, the TEX86H exhibits considerably higher absolute temperature estimates than the Uk'37. Comparison with Mg/Ca records of planktonic foraminifera as well as other Mediterranean TEX86 and Uk'37 records suggests that part of this divergence may be attributed to seasonal differences, that is, with TEX86H reflecting mainly the warm summer season while Uk'37 would show annual mean. Biases in the global calibration of both proxies or specific biases in the Mediterranean are an alternative, though less likely, explanation. Despite differences between absolute TEX86H and Uk'37 temperatures, the correlation between the two proxies (r**2 = 0.59, 95% significance) provides support for the occurrence of abrupt temperature variations in the western Mediterranean during the penultimate interglacial-to-glacial cycle.

Una estrategia de inversión basada en múltiplos que bate los retornos del MILA

El presente trabajo plantea la hipótesis de que se puede emplear una estrategia basada en múltiplos para obtener retornos superiores a los del mercado integrado latinoamericano (MILA), lo cual sugeriría que no se cumple a cabalidad la forma semifuerte de eficiencia de mercado, según la cual no se puede batir al mercado de manera sistemática a partir del uso de información pública. Para ello, se desarrolló una estrategia de inversión para inversionistas no sofisticados, basada en tres ratios financieros (PER, Price to Book Value y grado de apalancamiento), que busca obtener retornos superiores al índice MILA; asimismo, se llevaron a cabo pruebas estadísticas para probar si los excesos de retorno obtenidos son significativos y sugieren la existencia de ineficiencia en el MILA. Mediante dicho análisis, se concluyó que, a partir del uso oportuno de la información financiera que publican las empresas, se diseñaron algunas estrategias de inversión basadas en múltiplos que batieron al índice S&P MILA Andean 40, incluso luego de realizar el ajuste por nivel de riesgo. A diferencia de los trabajos anteriores, en la presente investigación, se planteó un punto de vista diferente para analizar los resultados obtenidos por la estrategia de inversión, dado que se compara el rendimiento acumulado obtenido, pero, además, se ha analizado estadísticamente la existencia de un alpha significativo. En este proceso, se realizó una regresión de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios a fin de verificar estadísticamente la existencia de un alpha positivo y no se pudo concluir que este sea significativo. En línea con los trabajos revisados, se pudo apreciar que el PER serviría como un predictor de retornos acumulados superiores a los de mercado; sin embargo, los resultados obtenidos no han sido concluyentes en términos estadísticos. Con estos resultados, no se puede rechazar la hipótesis semifuerte de los mercados eficientes. No obstante, existirían ventanas de tiempo que podrían ser aprovechadas para obtener rendimientos superiores al mercado.