Self-regulating Regime Research Articles

Criteria for Cost Effectiveness of Safety Measures

The paper demonstrates that a simple method exists, by which easily accessible information aggregated in national statistics can be used to derive acceptance criteria for use in cost effectiveness evaluations. Cost effectiveness assessment is normally used for risks that should be made as low as reasonably practicable. These are risks, which are neither intolerably high nor negligible. Examples of users of such criteria are the national and international regulators that implement safety related regulations and industrial companies that operate in an industrial self-regulation regime and therefore define and implement their own risk control strategies. The criteria are derived by combining societal indicators published by the United Nations development program and national statistics. It is observed that in an unregulated market, individuals invest in their own safety or in the safety of their own family. In the same way as the societal indicators indicate how much the regulator should use on safety, the data on how much individuals spend on safety when the decision is up to them indicate when the regulator should not regulate. The idea is then that when individuals make better use of the available resources there is no reason to regulate. As a last point, when it comes to cost effectiveness, the paper demonstrates that situations may well occur for which a wealthy country should invest in safety and a poor country should not.

Laser propagation and energy absorption by an argon spark

The laser propagation and energy absorption of an argon spark induced by a laser at different pressures is investigated. 8 ns pulses from a frequency-doubled Q-switched Nd:YAG laser are used to create the spark. The pressure of the argon is varied from 1 atm to 10 Torr. Significant energy absorption by the plasma is observed at high pressures (>100 Torr) while there is negligible absorption when the pressure is lower than 50 Torr. The plasma kernel showed distinct behavior with respect to laser energy. At a laser energy well above the breakdown threshold, the spark moved only in the backward direction and the forward component was absent indicating the strong absorption of the laser by the spark front. A spiky behavior is observed in the transmitted temporal profiles of the laser at higher energies and at high pressures and can be due to the formation of a self-regulating regime.

Self‐regulation, public issue management and marketing practices in the US entertainment industry

AbstractThe practice of issue management is widely recognised as a necessary activity for effective corporate and industry political strategy. The issue of violent content, children and the US entertainment industry offers an excellent platform for applying a firm/industry issue management framework developed by Kaufman et al. (1989). To that end, the scope of this paper is three‐fold: first, to categorise the motion picture, television, music recording, and computer and video game industries product self‐regulation regime utilising an expanded version of a model originally developed by Garvin (1983) that identifies a spectrum of governmental regulation categories; second, to employ the above mentioned issue management framework developed by Kaufman et al. (1989) to describe the issue circumstances under which the entertainment industry engages in political activity; and third, to analyse and categorise the entertainment industries' self‐regulation regimes, using the structure and control approach offered by Kaufman et al. (1989) and adapted in a model developed by the author. In conclusion, the Kaufman et al. (1989) model, while offering a credible explanation of issue specificity criteria in this case, does not offer the same credibility for issue frequency criteria. Copyright © 2003 Henry Stewart Publications

Growth diagram and morphologies of AlN thin films grown by molecular beam epitaxy

A growth diagram for molecular beam epitaxy of AlN on sapphire and 6H–SiC was established using reflection high energy electron diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. In varying the Al/N ratio and growth temperature, distinctive surface morphologies emerge, which are assigned to three regimes of growth, one N-rich (Al/N<1) and two Al-rich (Al/N>1) regimes. Under N-rich conditions, AlN films exhibit rough surface morphologies. In contrast, Al-rich conditions produce excellent smooth surface morphologies, but with the constraint of Al droplet formation at very high Al/N ratios and low temperatures. The differentiation between N-rich and Al-rich regimes is given only by the Al/N ratio, while the two Al-rich regimes (intermediate self-regulated and droplet regime) are separated by the boundary line of Al droplet formation. For this boundary an Arrhenius dependence of growth temperature was found, yielding an activation energy of 3.4±0.1 eV. The observed morphology transitions are attributed to varying surface adatom mobilities present under the different Al/N ratios.

Disaster Dynamics: Understanding the Role of Quantity in Organizational Collapse

This article examines the role that the quantity of non-novel events plays in precipitating disaster through the development of a formal (mathematical) system-dynamics model. Building on existing case studies of disaster, we develop a general theory of how an organizational system responds to an on-going stream of non-novel interruptions to existing plans and procedures. We show how an overaccumulation of interruptions can shift an organizational system from a resilient, self-regulating regime, which offsets the effects of this accumulation, to a fragile, self-escalating regime that amplifies them. We offer a new characterization of the conditions under which organizations may be prone to major disasters caused by an accumulation of minor interruptions. Our analysis provides both theoretical insights into the causes of organizational crises and practical suggestions for those charged with preventing them.

Success in failure? Reflections on the changing Spanish audit environment

The 1990s in Spain have witnessed a significant shift in attitudes towards the role of auditing, with promises of more transparent reporting being replaced by talk of audit expectations gaps. This paper explores the changing atmosphere, both through an analysis of one of the most notorious scandals of recent times - involving the Banco Español de Credito (‘Banesto’) - and a more general review of the way the Spanish profession has responded to such downturns in public expectations of auditing. While at first sight, the profession appears to have become more defensive and the audit environment more competitive, the multinational accounting firms do appear to have strengthened their position in the Spanish audit market. Intriguingly, despite public expressions of concern with the quality and capabilities of auditing and the imposition of large fines on audit firms for inadequate audit work, proposed ‘solutions’ for improving audit quality include the establishment of a self-regulated audit regime and reductions in auditor liability. The Spanish experience allows for some timely reflections on the significance of an audit expectations gap and highlights the importance of viewing the audit function from an international perspective.

Ablation studies of Y-Ba-Cu-oxide in oxygen using a pulsed CO 2 laser

The depth of ablation of Y-Ba-Cu-oxide pellets as a function of pulsed CO 2 laser fluence has been measured. Up to fluences of ∼ 5 J cm -2 the data can be well fitted to a Beer's law dependence with absorption coefficient ∝ = 10 4 cm -1 and threshold fluence for ablation of 0.85 J cm -2. At higher fluences a self-regulating ablation rate regime, due to plasma formation, is encountered. Particulate deposits from 10.6 μm laser ablation are found to be much greater than with shorter wavelenghts and evidence of large particle formation by accretion of smaller ablation products is observed. The range of the ablation plume in low pressure oxygen has been studied as a function of laser fluence, irradiation spot size and ambient gas pressure and is compared with modelling.

Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: A Reflexive Citation Analysis or Science Disciplines and Disciplining Science

This paper takes the form of a double text which simultaneously investigates the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) through citation analysis, and investigates citation analysis using theoretical ideas from SSK and Foucault. One strand of the text performs an analysis of citation patterns in SSK. This text identifies the figures who have had the most impact through their articles and books, and examines the possible effects of cultural and linguistic bias. It also investigates the impact of SSK outside the field, asks whether this impact has changed over time, and identifies researchers who have had a particularly high impact outside SSK. The other strand takes citation analysis, as exemplified in the citation study of SSK, as its topic. This text focuses on the way the citation analysis constitutes its field of study, and on the way a citation is produced as a separable, countable category. It notes the `realistic' idea of science categories which is deployed, and the individualistic model of scientific activity. It questions the involvement of citation analysis with power, both in the traditional sense of institutional control of science through funding changes, and in the Foucaldian sense of scientists adopting citation counting as a regime of self-regulation. The paper ends with a dialogue between the `authors' on/in these issues.

Ablative corona driven by light ion beam

A theoretical model is presented describing the spatial structure and scaling laws for the ablative corona generated by the incidence of an intense light ion beam pulse on a spherical pellet. This treatment differs, from an earlier model in the assumption that the beam velocity vb is higher than the electron thermal velocity vThe everywhere, which allows one to obtain universal profiles for the dimensionless magnitudes describing the state of the corona. The setting of a self-regulating regime for the plasma opacity is confirmed.

On the properties of the plasma generated by irradiating spherical heavy targets by an electron beam

Investigates the generation of plasma by irradiating with a convergent relativistic electron beam spherical targets whose outer layer is constituted by heavy materials (i.e. gold). The energy deposition is described by the well-known law commonly employed in the interaction of high energy electrons with cold matter. Average values for the density and thermal and expansion velocities of the plasma (corona) are given as functions of the power of the beam and of the particle radius. It results that after a first phase, which consists in the heating and the expansion of a layer whose initial thickness is the electron range in the unperturbed solid, the corona tends to a self-regulated regime, adjusting its average density to a value such that the electron range becomes of the order of the radius of the target.

Ionization and heating of solid material by means of a laser pulse

When a very intense light beam interacts with a solid wall, a hot plasma layer is formed on its surface and expands towards the light source with a supersonic velocity. A self-consistent model for this process is proposed, in which three different regions exist; outside a jet of very hot, low density, and almost transparent plasma moves in the opposite direction of the light beam; by momentum conservation an ordinary shock moves into the undisturbed material. The shocked region is separated from the plasma by a thin layer, where the light is absorbed. The Hugoniot relationships for the shock and the absorbing layer determine all physical quantities in terms of two free parameters. They, in turn, are obtained on the basis of a self-regulating regime and with the detailed analysis of the absorbing layer.

7A5 - Evaporation and heating of a substance due to laser radiation

Gas-dynamic equations are studied for determination of heating, vaporization, and expansion of substance when a radiation of Q -switched laser is collimated onto a surface of solids. A possibility of existence of the self-regulating regime of vaporization and heating in one-dimensional case is proved for the case when an optical density value of the vapored gas is about unity in all the stages of this process. The values for temperature and velocity of the substance expansion are obtained. An approximate consideration of this problem is carried out when a spherical case of expansion takes place describing substance vaporization by a strong-focused radiation. The experimental investigation data of gas dynamic values are presented for the case of plume arising from collimated laser radiation interactions with the energy of several hundred MeV. Results obtained in experiments permit to calculate temperature, expansion velocity, and optical transparency of vapored substance for different stages of this process.

Gas-dynamic processes for substance heating caused by laser radiation

Summary form only, as given. Gas-dynamic equations are studied for determination of heating, vaporization, and expansion of substance when a radiation of Q-switched laser is collimated onto a surface of solids. A possibility of existence of the self-regulating regime of vaporization and heating in one-dimensional case is proved for the case when an optical density value of the vapored gas is about unity in all the stages of this process. The values for temperature and velocity of the substance expansion are obtained. An approximate consideration of this problem is carried out when a spherical case of expansion takes place describing substance vaporization by a strong-focused radiation. The experimental investigation data of gas dynamic values are presented for the case of plume arising from collimated laser radiation interactions with the energy of several hundred MeV. Results obtained in experiments permit to calculate temperature, expansion velocity, and optical transparency of vapored substance for different stages of this process.

Self-regulating regime of plasma heating by laser radiation

Self-regulating regime of plasma heating by laser radiation

A Case History of Twins Breastfed on a Self-demand Regime

W E ARE presenting the case history of the first thirteen months of life of a pair of twins, male and female, breast fed according to their own demands from the third week of life. Other aspects of their care were based on the same philosophy; but in the present account we have emphasized the feeding history. . There have appeared in the literature several reports of self-regulated infant feeding sehedulesY, a In our experience the self-regulation regime for infants, especially for feeding and sleeping, is increasingly popular with parents, who report happy babies arid readily adjusted households when such a system is in praetiee. However, there still prevails much skepticism in the minds of many members of the medical profession as to the practicality and wisdom of such a philosophy of infant feeding and care. We believe with Gesell and Ilg, ~ Aldrich and Aldrich, 1 and Senn and NewilP that the cultural adaptation of infants may be facilitated by early recognition of and adherence to individual needs. We present the case of Peter and Sherry, therefore, because we fed that their superior development lends some support to this view, as their good feeding history and satisfactory growth demonstrate the practicality as well as wisdom of a self-demand regime, even for twins.