Search Results (10)

Seeking to examine cases of sacrificial love for another that is empathetic, unconditional, and morally redemptive, I focus on writer Jeff Lemire’s and artist Dustin Nguyen’s heralded comic series, Descender and Ascender (published by Image Comics starting in 2015 and 2018, respectively). In the first main subsection, I argue how illustrative fictional cases (some involving robots) can mirror inter-human ethical struggles in our own world and examine what I call the “The R2-D2 and Wall-E Syndrome”. Next, I look at some representative theoretical, literary, and biblical examples of sacrifice, especially regarding morally problematic theories about Jesus’ death on the cross, a classic Western example of sacrificial love. I then provide a brief context for why I chose Descender and Ascender and highlight some of the main themes and characters in the comics. In doing so, I draw from three main examples: the cyborg and mother Effie (Queen Between), the companion robot TIM-21, and the robot Driller (“a real killer”), where I gleam key traits of sacrificial love as empathetic, unconditional, and morally redemptive. I close with how to distinguish unholy and holy forms of sacrificial love and reflect on how the examples of sacrificial love in the comics ultimately complement my reading of Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross while adding some stipulations to his oft-quoted saying: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Full article

From Night of the Living Dead (1968) to The Walking Dead (2010–2022), zombie media offers a consistent refrain, namely to avoid becoming a zombie. This refrain makes intuitive sense. Why would anyone welcome becoming a member of a roaming, mindless, and often violent undead horde symbolizing humanity’s destruction? However, zombification has affirmative, emancipatory possibilities. In “Epidemiology,” from Season 2 of the NBC sitcom Community (2009–2015), we see the zombie’s affirmative and emancipatory potential. In this essay, I argue zombification enlivens Community by provoking the show to rethink its relationship to its nominal protagonist, Jeff Winger, and to itself as a piece of avant-garde comedy television produced during the “Golden Age of Television,” what media scholars also call, “Peak” or “Prestige TV.” In this episode, Community evolves its understanding of its central protagonist by shifting, in some respects, from a conventional and historically predictable character to a character far less conventional. Full article

In this study, a similarity coefficient generation code system was established using the Monte Carlo Code for Advanced Reactor Design (McCARD) transport code and the MIG multi-correlated input sampling code. We considered the adjoint-based sensitivity and uncertainty (S/U) and stochastic sampling (S.S.) approaches to the generation of the c_k similarity coefficient. To examine the code system, the c_k similarity coefficients of 23 relevant critical experiments and the System-Integrated Modular Advanced Reactor (SMART) small modular reactor (SMR) target system were generated using ENDF/B-VII.1 covariance data with the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) 30-group energy group structure. Our results show that the similarity coefficients between the 16 LEU thermal-spectrum-based critical experiments and SMART are more than 0.90, which is the recommended criterion of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). These results are very helpful for licensees and can be used to justify the determination of critical experiment benchmarks for computational bias estimations of the SMART target system. To examine the discrepancy in the similarity coefficient, c_k, due to the covariance data, similarity analyses for a 24 × 24 benchmark matrix were performed using ENDF-VIII.0, JENDL-5.0, and JEFF-3.3 covariance data. The results show that the selection of the covariance data used for c_k generation significantly impacts the similarity coefficient. Moreover, it was observed that the current results for the SCALE 6.1 covariance data show a consistent trend with the results reported in earlier studies. Full article

Research and development of the DEMOnstration power plant (DEMO) breeder blanket (BB) has been performed in recent years based on a predefined DEMO tritium breeding ratio (TBR) requirement, which determines a loss of wall surface due to non-breeding in-vessel components (IVCs) which consume plasma-facing wall surface and do not contribute to the breeding of tritium. The integration of different IVCs, such as plasma limiters, neutral beam injectors, electron cyclotron launchers and diagnostic systems, requires cut-outs in the BB, resulting in a loss of the breeder blanket volume, TBR and power generation, respectively. The neutronic analyses presented here have the goal of providing an assessment of the TBR losses associated with each IVC. Previously performed studies on this topic were carried out with simplified, homogenized BB geometry models. To address the effect of the detailed heterogeneous structure of the BBs on the TBR losses due to the inclusion of the IVCs in the tokamak, a series of blanket geometry models were developed for integration in the latest DEMO base model. The assessment was performed for both types of BBs currently developed within the EUROfusion project, the helium-cooled pebble bed (HCPB) and water-cooled lead–lithium (WCLL) concepts, and for the water-cooled lead and ceramic breeder (WLCB) hybrid BB concept. The neutronic simulations were performed using the MCNP6.2 Monte Carlo code with the Joint Evaluated Fission and Fusion File (JEFF) 3.3 data library. For each BB concept, a 22.5° toroidal sector of the DEMO tokamak was developed to assess the TBR and nuclear power generation in the breeder blankets. For the geometry models with the breeder blanket space filled only with blankets without considering IVCs, the results of the TBR calculations were 1.173, 1.150 and 1.140 for the HCPB, WCLL and WLCB BB concepts, respectively. The TBR impact of all IVCs and the losses of the power generation were estimated as a superposition of the individual effects. Full article

The Plasma Facing Components (PFCs) of the divertor target contribute to the fundamental functions of heat removal and particle exhaust during fusion operation, being subjected to a very hostile and complex loading environment characterized by intense particles bombardment, high heat fluxes (HHF), varying stresses loads and a significant neutron irradiation. The development of a well-designed divertor target, which represents a crucial step in the realization of DEMO, needs the assessment of all these loads as accurately as possible, to provide pivotal data and indications for the design and structural performance prediction of the PFCs. In a particular way, this study is fully devoted to the comprehension of the distributions on the divertor target of the main nuclear loads due to neutron irradiation, performed for the first time using an extremely detailed approach. This work has been carried-out considering the latest configuration of the DEMO reactor, including the updated design of the divertor and ITER-Like PFCs geometry, varying the blanket layout (Water Cooled Lithium Lead—WCLL and Helium Cooled Pebble Bed—HCPB), thus evaluating the impact of the different blanket concept on the above-mentioned distributions. Neutronics analyses have been performed with MCNP5 Monte Carlo code and JEFF3.3 nuclear data libraries. 3D DEMO MCNP models have been created, focusing in particular on a thorough representation of the divertor and PFCs, allowing for the assessment of the distributions of the main nuclear loads: radiation damage (dpa/FPY), He-production rate (appm/FPY) and nuclear heating density (W/cm³) and total nuclear power deposition (MW). These results are presented by means of 2D maps and plots for each PFCs sub-component both for WCLL and HCPB blanket case: W-monoblocks, Cu-interlayers\CuCrZr-pipe and PFC-CB (Cassette Body) supports made of Eurofer steel. Full article

International Criticality Safety Benchmark Evaluation Project (ICSBEP) criticality analyses were conducted using the McCARD Monte Carlo code for 85 selected benchmark problems with 7 evaluated nuclear data libraries (ENDLs): ENDF/B-VII.1, ENDF/B-VIII.0, JENDL-4.0, JENDL-5.0, JEFF-3.3, TENDL-2021, and CENDL-3.2. Regarding the analyses, it was confirmed that the k_eff results are sensitive to the ENDL. It is noted that the new-version ENDLs show better performance in the fast benchmark cases, while on the other hand, there are no significant differences in k_eff among the different ENDLs in the thermal benchmark cases. The sensitivity of the k_eff results depending on the ENDL may impact nuclear core design parameters such as the shutdown margin, critical boron concentration, and power defects. This study and k_eff results will be a good reference in the development of new types of nuclear cores or new design codes. Full article

The operation of many nuclear pressurized water reactors is being extended beyond their design lifetime limit. From the perspective of possible further lifetime extension, safety requirements are a priority. Therefore, the quantification of the neutron irradiation embrittlement of the reactor pressure vessel (RPV) is an important issue, as this is a guiding parameter that influences the reactor lifetime. In this context, the Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire developed a calculation scheme for the analysis of RPV aging under neutron irradiation, named VACS (vessel aging calculation scheme). VACS couples a deterministic approach (CASMO5 and SIMULATE5) to evaluate the full-core fission neutron source term and a Monte Carlo modeling (MCNP6) approach to model the neutron attenuation from the core to sites of interest (RPV, surveillance capsules, etc.). To ensure the reliability of aging predictions, this paper describes a detailed analysis of the neutron H.B. Robinson-2 reactor pressure vessel dosimetry benchmark. The results indicate that VACS shows satisfactory accuracy when the ENDF-B/VII.1 or JEFF-3.3 nuclear data libraries are used in the attenuation calculation. However, the use of ENDF-B/VIII.0 leads to significantly worse results. Full article

As the technologies for peptide synthesis and development continue to mature, antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are being widely studied as significant contributors in medicinal chemistry research. Furthermore, the advancement in the synthesis of dendrimers’ design makes dendrimers wonderful nanostructures with distinguishing properties. This study foregrounds a temporin SHa analog, [G10a]-SHa, and its dendrimers as globular macromolecules possessing anticancer and antibacterial activities. These architectures of temporin SHa, named as [G10a]-SHa, its dendrimeric analogs [G10a]₂-SHa and [G10a]₃-SHa, and [G10a]₂-SHa conjugated with a polymer molecule, i.e., Jeff-[G10a]₂-SHa, were synthesized, purified on RP-HPLC and UPLC and fully characterized by mass, NMR spectroscopic techniques, circular dichroism, ultraviolet, infrared, dynamic light scattering, and atomic force microscopic studies. In pH- and temperature-dependent studies, all of the peptide dendrimers were found to be stable in the temperature range up to 40–60 °C and pH values in the range of 6–12. Biological-activity studies showed these peptide dendrimers possessed improved antibacterial activity against different strains of both Gram-positive and Gram-negative strains. Together, these dendrimers also possessed potent selective antiproliferative activity against human cancer cells originating from different organs (breast, lung, prostate, pancreas, and liver). The high hemolytic activity of [G10a]₂-SHa and [G10a]₃-SHa dendrimers, however, limits their use for topical treatment, such as in the case of skin infection. On the contrary, the antibacterial and anticancer activities of Jeff-[G10a]₂-SHa, associated with its low hemolytic action, make it potentially suitable for systemic treatment. Full article

What CEO attributes can improve corporate sustainability? In this regard, what do superstar CEOs, e.g., Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates, have in common? Also, did the personalities of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay contribute to the crack in the US Enron Corporation early in this century? Why, as far as presidential elections are concerned, are some countries, more than others, more likely to vote for seemingly narcissistic politicians? In our practice-oriented review article, we aim to contribute to shedding new light on the challenging evidence continuously evolving around CEOs, in general, and around their effect on corporate sustainability, in particular. Two distinctive features represent the main “so-what” value of our work. First, each of the CEO attributes which we sequentially focus on (i.e., power, personality, profiles, and effect) is, at the beginning, not only separately considered but also associated with many recent examples from business life and from the “CEO world” at an international level. Second, from our analysis, we then derive a conceptual framework which, combining all these attributes into a unique body of knowledge, could be used as a potential starting point for future investigations in this challenging research area regarding the CEO/sustainability relationship. In this regard, we believe understanding how all the analysed attributes coevolve will represent a pivotal question to address if we want to enhance the scientific and practical understanding of CEO (sustainable) behaviour. Full article

This article explores how Jeff Astley’s work on ordinary theology can enrich historical study of late medieval lay religion. Ordinary theology provides scholars with a new set of vocabulary and methodological approaches for accessing the religious discourses of “everyday” Christians and allows medievalists in particular to reach beyond contested labels for lay belief. The article begins with a discussion of the promises and limitations of Astley’s theories for historians of religion and concludes with a test case of how they might guide future research, through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 152 wills from fifteenth-century Norfolk. The results highlight the diversity of beliefs about the afterlife and associated doctrines among medieval laypeople even as they demonstrated commitment to orthodox Christianity and their local parishes. Full article