Volatile content of lunar volcanic glasses and the presence of water in the Moon's interior

The Moon is generally thought to have formed and evolved through a single or a series of catastrophic heating events, during which most of the highly volatile elements were lost. Hydrogen, being the lightest element, is believed to have been completely lost during this period. Here we make use of considerable advances in secondary ion mass spectrometry to obtain improved limits on the indigenous volatile (CO(2), H(2)O, F, S and Cl) contents of the most primitive basalts in the Moon-the lunar volcanic glasses. Although the pre-eruptive water content of the lunar volcanic glasses cannot be precisely constrained, numerical modelling of diffusive degassing of the very-low-Ti glasses provides a best estimate of 745 p.p.m. water, with a minimum of 260 p.p.m. at the 95 per cent confidence level. Our results indicate that, contrary to prevailing ideas, the bulk Moon might not be entirely depleted in highly volatile elements, including water. Thus, the presence of water must be considered in models constraining the Moon's formation and its thermal and chemical evolution.     

Leading Effective Global Virtual Teams: The Consequences of Methods of Communication

This paper explores the relationship between communication and team effectiveness within the context of global virtual teams, arguing that a range of communication methods may impact upon the team’s effectiveness. To explore this relationship empirically, we present a key informant insights based on the activities deployed by a participant in a global team. The paper reports on the team’s effectiveness, their communication strategies and the team’s psychological traits: trust, shared understanding and co-operation. Findings from the pattern matching analysis indicate that the limited range of communication methods available to a global virtual team was not a major contributing factor to a team’s effectiveness. The paper offers communication/management techniques that could be beneficial to the global virtual team leader in facilitating team effectiveness, highlighting some issues surrounding the level of dispersion within teams that could be further explored in future research.     

TNF-α modulates the migratory response of mesenchymal stem cells to TRAIL

The number of circulating mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), analyzed after acute myocardial infarction (AMI), was lower in AMI patients who developed heart failure (HF) in the follow-up. Conversely, the circulating levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and osteoprotegerin (OPG) were higher in AMI patients who developed HF with respect to the patients who did not develop HF. In vitro exposure to TNF-α enhanced the migration of MSC in response to TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and significantly increased the release of OPG by endothelial cells. On the contrary, OPG dose-dependently neutralized the in vitro pro-migratory activity of TRAIL. Thus, TNF-α exhibits opposite effects on MSC migration driven by TRAIL: it is capable of potentiating MSC migration as well as of inhibiting MSC migration as an indirect consequence of OPG induction, which might result in a suboptimal recruitment of circulating MSC after AMI in those patients who develop HF in the follow-up.     

Measuring the Performance of a Research Strategic Plan System Using the Soft Systems Methodology’s Three ‘Es’ and the Viable System Model’s Indices of Achievement

We explore problems involving the measurement of the performance of a system. We outline two systemic approaches that have come from different epistemological positions: one from the interpretivist paradigm (soft systems methodology) and the other from the cybernetic paradigm (viable systems model). These two systemic methodologies that have tackled problems involving performance measurement are considered and discussed: (a) Checkland’s systems ideas of ‘managing and controlling’ a system throughout a set of three measures of performance: efficacy, efficiency and effectiveness; and (b) Beer’s concepts of Actuality, Capability, Potentiality of the firm and his claims that the performance of a system needs to be quantifiable and resumed on ‘pure’ numbers which should reflect the survivability of the firm. A parallel is drawn between the two approaches concluding that although the paradigms underpinning them are in some way different, the practicalities of these approaches to control, measure and improve the performance of a system are very similar. A case involving the measurement of a proposed research strategic plan for a Manchester Metropolitan University Business School’s department is used to illustrate the systemic approaches.     

Soft System Dynamics Methodology in Action: A study of the Problem of Citizen Insecurity in an Argentinean Province

This paper illustrates an application of soft system dynamics methodology (SSDM). SSDM arose as a fusion of two well-known methodologies in the systems movement: system dynamics (SD) and soft systems methodology (SSM). SSDM includes 10 steps to orchestrate and implant change in social systems, based on a multimethodological and multiparadigmatic approach as an outcome of the combination of the mentioned methodologies. After a brief introduction, the paper starts by briefly explaining SSM and SD, their stages and their problematical issues as systemic methodologies, then goes on to explain SSDM, its philosophical roots and stages, ending with a comparison among the three. It then introduces the citizen insecurity problem in Argentina, specifically in Mendoza Province, where SSDM was applied to analyze this issue. The paper concludes with an explanation of the learning points that arose from the use of SSDM in this study and suggestions for further research on citizen security and SSDM.     

A Cenozoic record of the equatorial Pacific carbonate compensation depth

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and climate are regulated on geological timescales by the balance between carbon input from volcanic and metamorphic outgassing and its removal by weathering feedbacks; these feedbacks involve the erosion of silicate rocks and organic-carbon-bearing rocks. The integrated effect of these processes is reflected in the calcium carbonate compensation depth, which is the oceanic depth at which calcium carbonate is dissolved. Here we present a carbonate accumulation record that covers the past 53 million years from a depth transect in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. The carbonate compensation depth tracks long-term ocean cooling, deepening from 3.0-3.5?kilometres during the early Cenozoic (approximately 55?million years ago) to 4.6 kilometres at present, consistent with an overall Cenozoic increase in weathering. We find large superimposed fluctuations in carbonate compensation depth during the middle and late Eocene. Using Earth system models, we identify changes in weathering and the mode of organic-carbon delivery as two key processes to explain these large-scale Eocene fluctuations of the carbonate compensation depth.     

High mixing rates in the abyssal Southern Ocean

Mixing of water masses from the deep ocean to the layers above can be estimated from considerations of continuity in the global ocean overturning circulation. But averaged over ocean basins, diffusivity has been observed to be too small to account for the global upward flux of water, and high mixing intensities have only been found in the restricted areas close to sills and narrow gaps. Here we present observations from the Scotia Sea, a deep ocean basin between the Antarctic peninsula and the tip of South America, showing a high intensity of mixing that is unprecedented over such a large area. Using a budget calculation over the whole basin, we find a diffusivity of (39 plus minus 10) x 104[?]m2[?]s-1, averaged over an area of 7 x 105[?]km2. The Scotia Sea is a basin with a rough topography, situated just east of the Drake passage where the strong flow of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current is constricted in width. The high basin-wide mixing intensity in this area of the Southern Ocean may help resolve the question of where the abyssal water masses are mixed towards the surface.