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The space radiation environment is dominated by heavy charged particles with atomic numbers ranging from 1 to 93, with broad energy spectra that exceed 10 GeV per nucleon. Despite advances in space radiation modeling and transport, radiation detectors continue to provide critical data for understanding risks of health effects to astronauts in space. In the past, NASA relied on tissue-equivalent proportional counters and passive devices for operational dosimetry; however, in recent years, pixel detectors providing detailed information about the radiation environment through analysis of charged particle tracks have been demonstrated in space. These next-generation detectors, based on Timepix read-out technology, require special analysis considerations that were not necessary or possible for previous dosimetry tools. The impacts of slowing-down and stopped ions on absorbed dose measurements must be explicitly modeled to understand variations with detector orientation. The purpose of the present study is to conclusively demonstrate that while absorbed dose measurements of penetrating charged particles are independent of detector orientation, slowing-down and stopped particles can result in charged particle absorbed dose measurements that are dependent on detector orientation. Monte Carlo simulations of an unshielded detector, irradiated at selected orientations by different kinetic energy domains with fluence spectra representative of two historical solar particle events, are presented to demonstrate the dependence of absorbed dose measurements. Next, results from Monte Carlo simulations of the same energy domains and fluence spectra, isotropically impinging on an anisotropic shield configuration about the detector, are shown, to exhibit the potential for observing varying absorbed doses under realistic environment and shielding conditions. Finally, slowing-down and stopped proton data acquired with Timepix-based detectors at the Tandem Van de Graaff at Brookhaven National Laboratory are used to demonstrate the effect via accelerator-based measurements.

The existence of discriminatory auctions where one class of bidders is offered preferential treatment over another class is controversial. Consider the Affirmative Action policies of the FCC and the Buy-American Act policies of the US Government. The political reasons for such policies are obvious. However, research has shown that there is an economic benefit for such policies in the sense that procurement costs to a buyer may actually decrease as incentives are offered to weaker sellers. In this paper, we test the predictions of Rothkopf et al. (2003) where cost weaker sellers are offered a subsidy in the form of additional payment. For various levels of cost disadvantage, Rothkopf et al (2003), present the optimal subsidy level, bidders’ strategies, bidder profitability, and buyer procurement costs. We test these predictions in a series of controlled experiments. This paper is the first to experimentally test these predictions. Due to the wide use of subsidies not only to support social aims but also their potential to reduce the buyer’s costs, our findings have both financial and societal implications.

This Article explores the limits of judicial settlement of nuclear-weapon disputes through a case study of the Marshall Islands’ cases against India, Pakistan and the UK before the International Court of Justice in 2016. It posits that judicial settlement is limited mainly by the quality of the arguments and evidence submitted by the disputants, not by any limitations inherent in judicial settlement with such politically sensitive disputes. The lawyers in the Marshall Islands’ cases should have taken greater care in crafting their arguments and in tying them explicitly to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its customary equivalent.

The continuous growth in 3D-NAND flash storage density has primarily been enabled by 3D stacking and by increasing the number of bits stored per memory cell. Unfortunately, these desirable flash device design choices are adversely affecting reliability and latency characteristics. In particular, increasing the number of bits stored per cell results in having to apply additional voltage thresholds during each read operation, therefore increasing the read latency characteristics. While most NAND flash challenges can be mitigated through appropriate background processing, the flash read latency characteristics cannot be hidden and remains the biggest challenge, especially for the newest flash generations that store four bits per cell. In this paper, we introduce read heat separation (RHS), a new heat-aware data-placement technique that exploits the skew present in real-world workloads to place frequently read user data on low-latency flash pages. Although conceptually simple, such a technique is difficult to integrate in a flash controller, as it introduces a significant amount of complexity, requires more metadata, and is further constrained by other flash-specific peculiarities. To overcome these challenges, we propose a novel flash controller architecture supporting read heat-aware data placement. We first discuss the trade-offs that such a new design entails and analyze the key aspects that influence the efficiency of RHS. Through both, extensive simulations and an implementation we realized in a commercial enterprise-grade solid-state drive controller, we show that our architecture can indeed significantly reduce the average read latency. For certain workloads, it can reverse the system-level read latency trends when using recent multi-bit flash generations and hence outperform SSDs using previous faster flash generations.

3D QLC NAND has recently entered the SSD market offering capacity increase and cost reduction compared to 3D TLC NAND. However, the endurance of QLC NAND is limited. Moreover, due to reduction of the available margin between the programmed threshold voltage distributions, QLC NAND is more susceptible to bit errors. Read voltage calibration is a key element of modern NAND flash memory controllers to improve the overall bit-error rate and maintain enterprise level reliability. To reduce the calibration overhead associated with the increased number of pages and read voltages in QLC NAND, page grouping is an effective approach. This paper presents open block characterization and read voltage calibration results of state-of-the-art 3D QLC NAND. We present experimental measurements of the bit-error characteristics and threshold voltage distributions based on closed and open block test patterns. We discuss the reliability issues with open blocks in preserving uniform characteristics within a page group at the boundary programmed layer and analyze the performance of different calibration algorithms.

The use of bid preference auctions, where one class of bidders is offered favored treatment over another class, has received mixed attention in the literature. Research has shown there is an economic benefit of such policies thanks to lower costs for procurement auction buyers as incentives are offered to disadvantaged sellers. In this paper, we study one type of preferential procurement auction: the subsidy. Using a set of controlled experiments, we compare actual bidder behavior to what is predicted in equilibrium. We find that sellers suffer from overly aggressive bidding (but do learn over time). More importantly, we explore the behaviors that may explain any deviations from theory – focusing on best response bidding and what directional learning theory would predict based on prior round outcomes. We find evidence of myopic behaviors among bidders. One intriguing take-away is that cost-advantaged bidders may be more responsive to opponents’ bids. Due to the wide use of bid preference auctions to support both policy and social aims, our findings have both financial and societal implications.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of students’ perceptions of the motivational climate in their university exercise class to their body esteem (BE) and social physique anxiety (SPA). Students in physical activity classes at a Midwestern university completed a survey measuring their perceptions of the caring, task- and ego-involving features of the exercise class climate, BE (i.e., weight and appearance), and SPA. Canonical correlation analysis revealed one significant function for males and females. Loadings revealed males’ perceptions of a highly caring and task-involving climate with low emphasis on ego-involving climate features were associated with higher weight and appearance BE and lower SPA. Females were similar except the ego-involving climate did not significantly contribute to the model. Continued research may examine the link between motivational climate and BE, but mounting evidence suggests creating positive exercise environments is associated with participants’ adaptive responses, including BE and SPA.

Despite its widespread use in consumer devices and enterprise storage systems, NAND flash faces a growing number of challenges. While technology advances have helped to increase the storage density and reduce costs, they have also led to reduced endurance and larger block variations, which cannot be compensated solely by stronger ECC or read-retry schemes but have to be addressed holistically. Our goal is to enable low-cost NAND flash in enterprise storage for cost efficiency. We present novel flash-management approaches that reduce write amplification, achieve better wear leveling, and enhance endurance without sacrificing performance. We introduce block calibration, a technique to determine optimal read-threshold voltage levels that minimize error rates, and novel garbage-collection as well as data-placement schemes that alleviate the effects of block health variability and show how these techniques complement one another and thereby achieve enterprise storage requirements. By combining the proposed schemes, we improve endurance by up to 15× compared to the baseline endurance of NAND flash without using a stronger ECC scheme. The flash-management algorithms presented herein were designed and implemented in simulators, hardware test platforms, and eventually in the flash controllers of production enterprise all-flash arrays. Their effectiveness has been validated across thousands of customer deployments since 2015.

Ethanol occurs naturally in the decaying fruit in which many species of Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) breed, potentially generating selection for resistance to its toxic and sedating effects. Studies measuring mortality of flies exposed to a range of ethanol concentrations have shown that within Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, populations from temperate regions are more ethanol resistant than ancestral tropical African populations. The high ethanol resistance of temperate D. melanogaster presents a puzzle, however, because breeding and feeding sites in the wild seldom contain enough ethanol to kill even more ethanol-sensitive Afrotropical genotypes. We hypothesize that the ethanol concentrations encountered by temperate populations, though usually sub-lethal, are nonetheless high enough to reduce fitness in other ways, potentially generating indirect selection for genotypes that can survive exposure to unnaturally high ethanol concentrations. As a first step in testing this hypothesis, we compared the effects of a sub-lethal dose of ethanol, comparable to that obtainable from fermenting fruit, on the mating success of males from one European and one Afrotropical population. Ethanol significantly reduced mating success of males from the Afrotropical population, but had no effect on that of males from the European population. We also show that when flies are placed on medium with a realistic concentration of ethanol, considerably more ethanol is absorbed through vapor than through feeding, suggesting that courting males may be unable to avoid being exposed to ethanol. We hypothesize that the higher resistance of temperate populations to being killed by high, unnatural ethanol concentrations may have evolved in part as a correlated response to selection for behavioral insensitivity to natural concentrations.

Healthcare is a unique services environment with increasing demand for services coupled with widely diverse patient needs. In addition, hospitals are under increased pressure to provide quality car...

Passive radiation shielding alone cannot provide adequate protection for astronauts on long-term, deep-space missions. High atomic number and energy (HZE) ions, and/or their secondaries, can penetrate any realistic mass shielding for long-term deep-space missions and cause damage to cells via direct energy deposition and/or through the production of secondary particles and fragmented nuclei. Active shielding, or the use of electromagnetic fields to deflect or stop incoming ions before reaching the spacecraft, has gained substantial attention over the last decade as a way to augment passive shielding. Recently, a mathematical relationship between a dimensionless scaling parameter characterizing the active shield and the incoming ion and a protected area formed on a downstream detector due to the deflection of HZE ions by the applied field was validated in Earth-based laboratory conditions. In the present work, the mathematical formulation is extended to relate electrostatic shielding efficacy with the ability to deflect positively charged ions with parameters relevant to space applications. Additionally, a modified scaling parameter is formulated to characterize the shielding efficacy of a “family” of electrostatic active shielding configurations for reducing flux density for a space-relevant isotropic source of energetic protons. The results of this study demonstrate a strong correlation among dimensionless scaling parameters and shielding efficacy metrics for space radiation-relevant HZE ions in beam and isotropic angular distributions. Furthermore, it establishes a framework for optimizing design of three-dimensional electrostatic shielding configurations to improve space radiation protection for astronauts on exploration-class missions.

Objectives This study examined the potential for a motivational priming session to buffer the psychophysiological stress response to an ego-involving climate in a physical activity setting. Research in Achievement Goal Perspective Theory (AGPT) suggests that creating a caring/task-involving climate can have beneficial effects on participants in physical activity settings, even buffering the physiological response to stress. However, less is known about how individuals might buffer that response when an ego-involving climate is occurring beyond their control. Design Male college students (N = 38) between the ages of 18 and 30 years ( M age = 20.68 , S D = 2.66 ) were randomly assigned to either a control group with no exposure to AGPT or an experimental (i.e., AGPT motivational priming) group, and took part in an ego-involving juggling session. Psychophysiological stress responses (e.g., cortisol) were assessed. Method Prior to juggling, the experimental group received a motivational priming session that briefly reviewed the body of AGPT literature, while the control group received information on the history of Sport Psychology as a professional field. Cortisol was measured at five time points throughout the study via saliva samples. Participants also completed pre- and post-measures of self-reported anxiety and self-confidence (CSAI-2). Results Results showed a marked increase in cortisol (as measured by percent change from baseline) in the control group, but not the experimental group. Psychological responses were stable across groups. Conclusion Providing athletes and exercisers with nothing more than basic information on AGPT can reduce their physiological markers of psychosocial stress in ego-involving climates. Such education may be a beneficial practice for coaches, physical educators, and trainers.

Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate whether motivational climates have a differential impact on adolescent psychological and physiological stress responses (i.e., salivary cortisol). It is important to investigate this relationship, as psychological stress and stress-responsive hormones have been implicated in a variety of biochemical processes deleterious to mental and physical health. Although youth consistently respond positively to caring, task-involving (C/TI) physical activity settings, ego-involving (EI) climates remain prevalent in youth sport contexts. Design Middle school students ( N = 47) were separated by gender and randomly assigned to either a C/TI or EI 30 min instructional juggling session. Method Salivary cortisol was measured at four times over the 3 h study, including one baseline ( t = 0 min; juggling session start) and three response measures ( t = +30, t = +45, and t = +60 min). Psychological stress and motivational responses were also examined, including anxiety, affect, enjoyment, and effort. Individual items were utilized to substantiate stress perceptions and assess psychological responses. Results Results revealed EI climate procured a significant rise in salivary cortisol and greater humiliation, self-consciousness, shame, negative affect, and anxiety, relative to the C/TI group, while adolescents in the C/TI group responded more favorably (e.g., greater effort and enjoyment). Conclusions These findings suggest the motivational climate can differentially impact adolescents’ stress responses, with EI climates eliciting both physiological and psychological stress responses in youth. In contrast, C/TI climates may buffer performance related stressors that accompany group achievement settings and yield a protective response.

This article explores the reasons why Ethiopia relied on legal resolution with its territorial boundary dispute with Eritrea when it could have relied on its relative military power to dictate the terms and conditions of peace. It dismisses Ethiopia's familiarity with Western-style legal resolution and its relative lack of nationalism as potential explanations, instead focusing on Ethiopia's general sense of exceptionalism from its history as an African and global leader and as a respecter of international law, among other key factors. Ethiopia's example provides considerable hope that legal resolution can be used more frequently with politically sensitive disputes between states.

Chamberlin, JM, Fry, MD, and Iwasaki, S. High school athletes' perceptions of the motivational climate in their off-season training programs. J Strength Cond Res 31(3): 736-742, 2017-Athletes benefit tremendously from working hard in off-season training (OST) because it sets them up to avoid injuries and perform their best during the season. Ironically, many athletes struggle to stay motivated to participate regularly in this training. Research has highlighted the benefits for athletes perceiving a caring and task-involving climate, where they gauge their success based on their personal effort and improvement, and perceive each member of the team is treated with mutual kindness and respect. Athletes who perceive a caring and task-involving climate on their teams are more likely to report greater adaptive motivational responses. Research has not currently examined athletes' perceptions of the climate in OST programs. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between athletes' perceptions of the climate in an OST program and their motivational responses. High school athletes (N = 128; 90 males 35 females; mean age = 15.3 years) participating in summer OST programs completed a survey that included measures of intrinsic motivation, commitment, their valuing OST, feeling like it is their decision to participate in OST, their perceptions that their teammates take OST seriously, and attendance. A canonical correlation revealed that athletes, who perceived a highly caring and task-involving climate reported higher intrinsic motivation, value of and commitment to OST; attendance; and perceived teammates take OST seriously. Results suggest that creating a caring and task-involving climate in OST programs may help athletes optimize their motivation to participate in important strength and conditioning programs.

The recorded history of anal fistulas dates back to the Ancient Greeks, but no fistula in history has been as well or interestingly documented as that of Louis XIV, the Sun King of France. His story illustrates not only the state (or lack thereof) of medicine at the time, but also the first recorded use of the fistulotomy. This narrative provides a unique perspective for the role of the surgeon in 17th century France as well as cementing the place of cryptoglandular fistula disease in history.

Ethanol occurs naturally in the decaying fruit in which many species of Drosophila (Diptera: Drosophilidae) breed, potentially generating selection for resistance to its toxic and sedating effects. Studies measuring mortality of flies exposed to a range of ethanol concentrations have shown that within Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, populations from temperate regions are more ethanol resistant than ancestral tropical African populations. The high ethanol resistance of temperate D. melanogaster presents a puzzle, however, because breeding and feeding sites in the wild seldom contain enough ethanol to kill even more ethanol-sensitive Afrotropical genotypes. We hypothesize that the ethanol concentrations encountered by temperate populations, though usually sub-lethal, are nonetheless high enough to reduce fitness in other ways, potentially generating indirect selection for genotypes that can survive exposure to unnaturally high ethanol concentrations. As a first step in testing this hypothesis, we compared the effects of a sub-lethal dose of ethanol, comparable to that obtainable from fermenting fruit, on the mating success of males from one European and one Afrotropical population. Ethanol significantly reduced mating success of males from the Afrotropical population, but had no effect on that of males from the European population. We also show that when flies are placed on medium with a realistic concentration of ethanol, considerably more ethanol is absorbed through vapor than through feeding, suggesting that courting males may be unable to avoid being exposed to ethanol. We hypothesize that the higher resistance of temperate populations to being killed by high, unnatural ethanol concentrations may have evolved in part as a correlated response to selection for behavioral insensitivity to natural concentrations.

3D NAND flash memory has entered dynamically into the space of enterprise server and storage systems, offering significantly higher capacity and better endurance than the latest 2D technology node. Moreover, the advancements in vertical stacking, cell design and program/read algorithms, have also enabled TLC 3D NAND flash with enterprise-level reliability, thus achieving further increase in capacity and cost-per-bit reduction. This paper presents an in-depth analysis of the bit-error characteristics of state-of-the-art 64-layer 3D TLC NAND flash with a focus on read-voltage calibration. We provide experimental measurements of the RBER and threshold voltage distributions using typical and mixed-mode test patterns of program/erase cycling, retention and read-disturb. Moreover, we quantify the RBER components attributed to threshold voltage level overlapping and on-chip 2-step program errors. Finally, we characterize how the optimal read voltages change under different device stress and we evaluate calibration schemes with different performance and complexity trade-offs.

Passive radiation shielding alone is insufficient for protecting astronauts from galactic cosmic ray exposure. Active shields, utilizing electromagnetic fields to deflect heavy charged ions in space, could be used to supplement conventional passive shielding. Due to experimental limitations, simulation capability is crucial for designing effective active shields. The purpose of this work is to validate the Active Shielding Particle Pusher (ASPP) code, used to characterize active shielding efficacy, using beamline measurements conducted at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Emphasis is placed on (1) comparing shielding efficacy as a function of a scaled dimensionless parameter among various electric dipole sphere sizes and center-to-center distances, (2) comparing shielding efficacy as a function of dipole rotation angle as the voltage applied to each sphere is varied independently, and (3) comparing shielding efficacy observed in measurements and simulations to broaden the validation domain of ASPP. Simulated and measured shielding efficacy data are shown to agree within a factor of 1.10 on average. The results of this work demonstrate that dimensionless scaling of parameters characteristic of the active shield and incident radiation can be used to create scaling laws for a range of ion species relevant for protecting astronauts from galactic cosmic ray exposure at beamline energies.

The purpose of this study was to examine two objectives: a) a moderation effect of task orientation in the predictive relationship of ego orientation to mindful engagement, and b) the mediational role of female high school soccer players' mindful engagement in the relationship between their perceptions of a caring/task-involving climate and task orientation to their practice strategy use and ability to peak under pressure. Athletes (N = 190, Mage = 15.59) completed measures of aforementioned psychometric variables. The moderation analysis revealed that athletes' task orientation and their mindful engagement were in a positive and significant liner relationship. The final mediation model results suggest that both female high school soccer athletes' mindful engagement and practice strategy use mediate the relationship of their perceptions of a caring/task-involving climate and goal orientations to their ability to peak under pressure. Results suggest that coaches' efforts to create a caring/task-involving climate in sport may help athletes be more task oriented and mindfully engaged in their sport, and thus experience more positive outcomes.

It is a delicate task to accurately assess the impact of solar particle events (SPEs) on future long-duration human exploration missions. In the past, researchers have used several functional forms to fit satellite data for radiation exposure estimation. In this work we present a segmental power law interpolating algorithm to stream satellite data and get time series of proton spectra, which can be used to derive dosimetric quantities for any short period during which a single SPE or multiple SPEs occur. Directly using the corrected High Energy Proton and Alpha Detector fluxes of GOES, this method interpolates the intensity spectrum of a typical SPE to hundreds of MeV and extrapolates to the GeV level as long as sufficient particles are recorded in the high-energy sensors. The high-energy branch of the May 2012 SPE is consistent with the Band functional fitting, which is calibrated with ground level measurement. Modeling simulations indicate that the input spectrum of an SPE beyond 100 MeV is the major contributor for dose estimation behind the normal shielding thickness of spacecraft. Applying this method to the three SPEs that occurred in 2012 generates results consistent with two sets of in situ measurements, demonstrating that this approach could be a way to perform real-time dose estimation. This work also indicates that the galactic cosmic ray dose rate is important for accurately modeling the temporal profile of radiation exposure during an SPE.

Environmental heterogeneity is thought to be an important process maintaining genetic variation in populations [1-4]: if alternative alleles are favored in different environments, a stable polymorphism can be maintained [1, 5, 6]. This situation has been hypothesized to occur in genes encoding multi-substrate enzymes [7], in which changes that increase activity with one substrate typically decrease activity with others [8-10], but examples of polymorphisms maintained by this mechanism are rare. Here, we present evidence that a polymorphism in an enzyme gene in Drosophila melanogaster is maintained by such a trade-off. The mitochondrially localized aldehyde dehydrogenase in D. melanogaster has two important functions: detoxifying acetaldehyde derived from dietary ethanol [11] and detoxifying larger aldehydes produced as byproducts of oxidative phosphorylation [12]. A derived variant of the enzyme, Leu479Phe, is present in moderate frequencies in most temperate populations but is rare in more ethanol-averse tropical populations. Using purified recombinant protein, we show that the Leu-Phe substitution increases turnover rate of acetaldehyde but decreases turnover rate of larger aldehydes. Furthermore, using transgenic fly lines, we show that the substitution increases lifetime fitness on medium supplemented with an ecologically relevant ethanol concentration but decreases fitness on medium lacking ethanol. The strong, opposing selection pressures, coupled with documented highly variable ethanol concentrations in breeding sites of temperate populations, implicate an essential role for environmental heterogeneity in maintaining the polymorphism.

Crowd ingress and egress occurring before and after large special events results in oversaturation of the traffic network and is a crucial issue event planners and transportation officials must address. Because intersections constitute the greatest restraint in network traffic flows, efficient operation during special event peak flows is crucial. This research focuses on evaluating how well traffic control officers optimize intersection operations during heavily oversaturated conditions associated with large-scale special events. Network traffic data, including volumes, queues, and traffic officer signal/right-of-way phase times, were collected before and after four Clemson University home football games during the 2014 and 2015 season. Actual traffic count volumes were adjusted to account for vehicle queues and used to develop optimal signal timings using Synchro. These results are compared to field-observed intersection operation using officer directed hand-signaling and officer traffic signal pushbutton operation. A microscopic VISSIM model was also created for both manual control and optimized control scenarios to determine average delays for each approach and to improve the interpretation of macroscopic Synchro results. Findings indicate that traffic officers perform well in near saturated conditions; however, optimized signal timings provide reduced approach delay and overall intersection delay in heavily oversaturated conditions. The paper includes recommendations on how traffic officers can improve intersection performance. The paper also describes how results from data collection, analysis, and simulation modeling have been used to make recommendations to law enforcement in evaluating traffic operations and identifying improvements. Intersection control is crucial to the implementation of the overall traffic management plan, and the research findings provide insight to the effectiveness of law enforcement control of intersection operations.

There is a large literature base within the field of sport psychology that provides tremendous direction to coaches and parents on how to structure youth sport so that young athletes develop sport skills and concurrently reap psychological benefits from their sport participation. Much of this research has employed Nicholls’ Achievement Goal Perspective Theory and a Caring Framework to (a) identity the processes children undergo as their cognitive development matures across the elementary years, allowing them to accurately judge their ability by adolescence, (b) formulate their personal definitions of success in sport (develop their goal orientations), and (c) note features of the team and overall sport climate created by coaches and parents. Of particular importance is athletes’ perceptions of the motivational climate prevailing on their teams. Athletes can perceive a caring and task-involving climate where coaches reward effort, improvement, and cooperation among teammates, make everyone feel they play an important role on the team, and treat mistakes as part of the learning process. In contrast, athletes can also perceive an ego-involving climate where the coach rewards ability and performance outcome, fosters rivalry among teammates, punishes mistakes, and gives most of the recognition to a few “stars.” When athletes perceive a caring and task-involving climate on their teams, they are more likely to have fun, exert high effort, experience intrinsic motivation, have better interpersonal relationships with coaches and athletes, display better sportsperson-like values and behaviors, have better psychological well-being, and even perform better. In contrast, when athletes perceive an ego-involving climate on their teams they experience fewer adaptive and positive motivational outcomes and greater problematic outcomes (e.g., increased cortisol; greater endorsement of unsportsperson-like behaviors). Research has clearly identified the benefits of coaches and parents creating a caring and task-involving climate for young athletes, yet there are still many ego-involving climates in the youth sport world. A number of organizations are committed to helping coaches and parents transform youth sport culture into a positive arena where young people can develop their athletic skills and have a rewarding sport experience.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between studentathletes’ perceptions of the motivational climate on their sport teams and their own career exploration and engagement and athletic identity. Student-athletes (N = 101) from various National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I institutions were administered online surveys. Canonical correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the climate variables (i.e., caring, task, and ego) and athletic identity, career self-efficacy, and career exploration/engagement. One significant function emerged: Perceptions of a high task-involving climate and moderate caring climate were positively associated with athletes’ reporting higher athletic identity, career self-efficacy, and career exploration/engagement. Results suggest that Division I athletes may benefit from having coaches who foster a caring and task-involving team climate with regard to the athletes’ development as holistic individuals who spend their college years performing at a high level of sport and also preparing for their lives after college and sports.

The purpose of this study was to develop an abbreviated version of the Perceived Motivational Climate in Exercise Questionnaire (PMCEQ-A) to provide a more practical instrument for use in applied exercise settings. In the calibration step, two shortened versions’ measurement and latent model values were compared to each other and the original PMCEQ using a three-group CFA invariance testing approach with previously collected exercise setting data (N = 5,427). Based on the model fit and reliability values, the 12-item version performed better than the 17-item version. The resultant 12-item PMCEQ-A’s CFA model estimates were then compared to the PMCEQ’s model values for two different, previously conducted studies of exercise settings (N = 414 and 770). The more parsimonious 12-item PMCEQ-A can be used by exercise psychology researchers to gain insight into members’ perspectives on the motivational climate and may lead to developing effective strategies to enhance members’ experiences and commitment.

BACKGROUND: Demand for respiratory care services and staffing levels of respiratory therapists (RTs) is expected to increase over the next several years. Hence, RT job satisfaction will be a critical factor in determining recruitment and retention of RTs. Determinants of RT job satisfaction measures have received little attention in the literature. This study examines the use of respiratory care protocols and associated levels of RT job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and job stress. METHODS: Four-hundred eighty-one RTs at 44 hospitals responded to an online survey regarding job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and job stress. Random coefficient modeling was used for analysis and to account for the nested structure of the data. RESULTS: Higher levels of RT protocol use were associated with higher levels of job satisfaction, lower rates of turnover intentions, and lower levels of job stress. In addition, RTs with greater experience had higher levels of job satisfaction, and RTs working at teaching hospitals had lower rates of turnover intentions. CONCLUSIONS: The study extends prior research by examining how the use of respiratory care protocols favorably affects RTs9 perceptions of job satisfaction, turnover intention, and job stress. In a time of increasing demand for respiratory care services, protocols may enhance retention of RTs.

The backlash against investor–State arbitration is building, to the point that some commentators even talk about termination or amendment of investment treaties in order to strip international arbitral tribunals of their jurisdiction after the arbitration process already has started. This suggestion has been made in the context of the Philip Morris Asia plain packaging ICSID arbitration involving the Australia–Hong Kong bilateral investment treaty (BIT). This suggestion raises a number of interesting issues for international law and dispute settlement, especially in relation to the limits of the intertemporal rule. States are free to agree to amend or terminate treaties, including ones relating to investment, even before they expire. Such amendments or termination do not have retroactive effects unless the parties to the treaty agree otherwise. This same freedom is available to states in relation to investment treaties. However, the analysis may vary in the context of investor–State arbitration . An arbitration clause in an investment treaty represents an offer made by those states to arbitrate disputes with investors. When investors accept that offer, the consent to arbitrate becomes perfected and cannot be withdrawn unless both parties to the arbitration —the investor and the host state—agree. This conclusion is based on the principle of irrevocability of the consent to arbitrate, which is a pillar of arbitration law and also is established in Article 25 of the ICSID Convention. Moreover, the applicable law to the dispute would be the law that was binding on the parties at the moment of the acts that created the dispute. The same principle applies in state responsibility disputes. Therefore, the argument that Australia simply can amend its BIT with Hong Kong to stop the Philip Morris arbitration might be incorrect. This article explores these issues. (ICSID) Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of other States (1965), art 25, 71–72 Philip Morris Asia Limited v The Commonwealth of Australia , PCA Case No. 2012–12Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969), arts 24, 11, 28, 31, 39, 42, 54, 59, 70Australia -Hong Kong Bilateral Investment Treaty (1993) Sanum Investments Limited v Lao People's Democratic Republic , PCA Case No 2013–13 Aguas del Tunari, SA v Republic of Bolivia , ICSID Case No. ARB/02/3, Decision on Respondent's Objections to Jurisdiction, IIC 8 (2005)NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) Free Trade Commission, Notes of Interpretation of Certain Chapter 11 Provisions (2001) Azurix Corp v Argentina , ICSID Case No. ARB/01/12, Decision on Jurisdiction, IIC (2003) Island of Palmas Case (or Miangas) , United States v Netherlands, Award (1949) Pan American Energy LLC v Plurinational State of Bolivia , ICSID Case No ARB/10/8

This paper investigates the research contributions over a 26-year time frame (1985–2010) of academic institutions and individual authors to the field of operations management (OM). We use two measures, shared articles and distributed articles, to assess the research productivity of institutions as well as individual researchers. Further we assess the contribution of institutions based on affiliated author research as well as the research of their PhD graduates. In order to accomplish this, we utilise the published OM research articles in 11 top-rated and well-known academic journals over the time period from 1985 to 2010. In addition to the research, contributions of academic institutions and individual authors, we look at several bibliometric statistics related to this body of published research. These measures indicate that the research constituency is growing as evidenced by increasing numbers of researchers and institutions represented. Lastly, the collaboration between researchers appears to be incre...

The Production and Operations Management Society is the largest professional society dedicated to creating and disseminating knowledge in product and process design, operations, and supply chains for the management of manufacturing and services. Its research journal, Production and Operations Management (POM), covers all topics in the discipline and all research paradigms to serve the entire community. Since its inception in 1992, POM has become recognized as a top tier outlet for operations management research. We identify research institutions in the operations management community that have played major roles in developing the journal based on the research of their faculty members and doctoral graduates. Our findings show that the constituency of the journal reflects the constituency of the society.

This study examined the effects of a university recreation center intervention aimed at increasing members’ perceptions of a caring, task-involving climate. In addition, members’ perceptions of staff behaviors and their own behaviors were measured. College students (N = 282) completed questionnaires before and after an intervention designed to increase perceptions of a caring, task-involving climate. Results revealed the intervention did increase members’ perceptions of the caring, task-involving climate while reducing perceptions of the ego-involving climate. Members’ perceptions of the staff and their own positive behaviors also increased. The staff’s behaviors predicted members’ perceptions of the three types of climates; moreover, members’ perceptions of the ego-involving climate negatively predicted their caring, task-involving behaviors. The study suggests that members’ perceptions of the climate can be positively influenced through minimal training with recreation center staff and that the behaviors in which the staff engage are an antecedent to members’ perceptions of the motivational climate.

BACKGROUND: Organizational factors associated with adoption and use of respiratory care protocols have received little attention. This study examines patterns of protocol use and features of a hospital and providers that are associated with respiratory care protocol use. METHODS: Forty-four hospitals and their health-care providers responded to an online survey regarding perceived outcomes of protocol use and their level of support for using protocols. Hospital features (ie, size, teaching status, and use of information systems) were also assessed. Descriptive statistics and multivariate logistic regression were used for analysis. RESULTS: Of the 9 types of respiratory care protocols assessed (ie, asthma, COPD, ARDS, hypoxemia, pneumonia, noninvasive ventilation therapy, supplemental oxygen titration and discontinuation, ventilator weaning, and bronchopulmonary hygiene), the most commonly used were for oxygen titration and ventilator weaning. Large hospitals (> 350 beds) used protocols more widely than smaller hospitals (P = .01). Respondents felt that use of protocols enhanced cost and quality of care. Finally, hospital features that were associated with overall protocol use were stakeholder support for protocol use and use of high-quality hospital information systems. CONCLUSIONS: The study extends prior research by clarifying features of hospitals and providers associated with use of respiratory care protocols. Validation in future hypothesis-testing samples will further advance this knowledge.