143,286 research outputs found
Implementing CSR through partnerships: Understanding the selection, design and institutionalisation of nonprofit-business partnerships
Partnerships between businesses and nonprofit organisations are an increasingly prominent element of corporate social responsibility implementation. The paper is based on two in depth partnership case studies (Earthwatch-Rio Tinto and Prince’s Trust-Royal Bank of Scotland) that move beyond a simple stage model to reveal the deeper level micro-processes in the selection, design and institutionalisation of business-NGO partnerships. The suggested practice-tested model is followed by a discussion that highlights management issues within partnership implementation and a practical Partnership Test to assist managers in testing both the accountability and level of institutionalisation of the relationship in order to address any possible skill gaps. Understanding how CSR partnerships are implemented in practice contributes to the broader CSR and partnership literatures a context specific level of detail in a systematic way that allows for transferable learning in both theory and practice
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Power in global agriculture: economics, politics, and natural resources
Recent events, such as the 2008 food price crisis, have focussed global attention on the agriculture and food sectors. In particular, many countries have become increasingly concerned with the issue of ensuring the security of their food supply and one key element of this is who has power within the food supply chain. Through examining three dimensions of power – Economic, Political, and Natural Resources – this paper explores where power currently lies in world agriculture and how this might change in the future. Whilst recognising that power is a somewhat abstract concept, through a process of deriving potential indicators, a picture of the distribution of power is drawn. These indicators were also used to develop a simple 'global power index'. The power index indicates that the US and the EU dominate world agriculture in terms of economics and politics, but are potentially vulnerable in terms of their possession of natural resources. On the other hand, the emerging economies have lower political and corporate power, but seem better placed in terms of natural resources. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for the main food producing regions
Salient Objects in Clutter: Bringing Salient Object Detection to the Foreground
We provide a comprehensive evaluation of salient object detection (SOD)
models. Our analysis identifies a serious design bias of existing SOD datasets
which assumes that each image contains at least one clearly outstanding salient
object in low clutter. The design bias has led to a saturated high performance
for state-of-the-art SOD models when evaluated on existing datasets. The
models, however, still perform far from being satisfactory when applied to
real-world daily scenes. Based on our analyses, we first identify 7 crucial
aspects that a comprehensive and balanced dataset should fulfill. Then, we
propose a new high quality dataset and update the previous saliency benchmark.
Specifically, our SOC (Salient Objects in Clutter) dataset, includes images
with salient and non-salient objects from daily object categories. Beyond
object category annotations, each salient image is accompanied by attributes
that reflect common challenges in real-world scenes. Finally, we report
attribute-based performance assessment on our dataset.Comment: ECCV 201
Similarity Measure Development for Case-Based Reasoning- A Data-driven Approach
In this paper, we demonstrate a data-driven methodology for modelling the
local similarity measures of various attributes in a dataset. We analyse the
spread in the numerical attributes and estimate their distribution using
polynomial function to showcase an approach for deriving strong initial value
ranges of numerical attributes and use a non-overlapping distribution for
categorical attributes such that the entire similarity range [0,1] is utilized.
We use an open source dataset for demonstrating modelling and development of
the similarity measures and will present a case-based reasoning (CBR) system
that can be used to search for the most relevant similar cases
Effects of different vibration frequencies, amplitudes and contraction levels on lower limb muscles during graded isometric contractions superimposed on whole body vibration stimulation
Background: Indirect vibration stimulation, i.e., whole body vibration or upper limb vibration, has been investigated increasingly as an exercise intervention for rehabilitation applications. However, there is a lack of evidence regarding the effects of graded isometric contractions superimposed on whole body vibration stimulation. Hence, the objective of this study was to quantify and analyse the effects of variations in the vibration parameters and contraction levels on the neuromuscular responses to isometric exercise superimposed on whole body vibration stimulation. Methods: In this study, we assessed the 'neuromuscular effects' of graded isometric contractions, of 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of maximum voluntary contraction, superimposed on whole body vibration stimulation (V) and control (C), i.e., no-vibration in 12 healthy volunteers. Vibration stimuli tested were 30 Hz and 50 Hz frequencies and 0.5 mm and 1.5 mm amplitude. Surface electromyographic activity of the vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and biceps femoris were measured during V and C conditions with electromyographic root mean square and electromyographic mean frequency values used to quantify muscle activity and their fatigue levels, respectively. Results: Both the prime mover (vastus lateralis) and the antagonist (biceps femoris) displayed significantly higher (P < 0.05) electromyographic activity with the V than the C condition with varying percentage increases in EMG root-mean-square (EMGrms) values ranging from 20% to 200%. For both the vastus lateralis and biceps femoris, the increase in mean EMGrms values depended on the frequency, amplitude and muscle contraction level with 50 Hz-0.5 mm stimulation inducing the largest neuromuscular activity. Conclusions: These results show that the isometric contraction superimposed on vibration stimulation leads to higher neuromuscular activity compared to isometric contraction alone in the lower limbs. The combination of the vibration frequency with the amplitude and the muscle tension together grades the final neuromuscular output.Peer reviewe
Synthesis of hetero-bifunctional, end-capped oligo-EDOT derivatives
Conjugated oligomers of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) are attractive materials for tissue engineering applications, and as model systems for studying the properties of the widely used polymer PEDOT. We report here the facile synthesis of a series of keto-acid end-capped oligo-EDOT derivatives (n = 2-7) through a combination of a glyoxylation end capping strategy and iterative direct arylation chain extension. Importantly, these structures not only represent the longest oligo-EDOTs reported, but are also bench stable in contrast to previous reports on such oligomers. The constructs reported here can undergo subsequent derivatization for integration into higher order architectures, such as those required for tissue engineering applications. The synthesis of hetero-bifunctional constructs, as well as those containing mixed monomer units is also reported, allowing further complexity to be installed in a controlled manner. Finally, we describe the optical and electrochemical properties of these oligomers and demonstrate the importance of the keto-acid in determining their characteristics
The clathrin-binding domain of CALM-AF10 alters the phenotype of myeloid neoplasms in mice.
The PICALM (CALM) gene, whose product is involved in clathrin-mediated endocytosis, has been identified in two recurring chromosomal translocations, involving either MLL or MLLT10 (AF10). We developed a mouse model of CALM-AF10(+) leukemia to examine the hypothesis that disruption of endocytosis contributes to leukemogenesis. Exclusion of the C-terminal portion of CALM from the fusion protein, which is required for optimal binding to clathrin, resulted in the development of a myeloproliferative disease, whereas inclusion of this domain led to the development of acute myeloid leukemia and changes in gene expression of several cancer-related genes, notably Pim1 and Crebbp. Nonetheless, the development of leukemia could not be attributed directly to interference with endocytosis or consequential changes in proliferation and signaling. In leukemia cells, full-length CALM-AF10 localized to the nucleus with no consistent effect on growth factor endocyctosis, and suppressed histone H3 lysine 79 methylation regardless of the presence of clathrin. Using fluorescence resonance energy transfer analysis, we show that CALM-AF10 has a propensity to homo-oligomerize, raising the possibility that the function of endocytic proteins involved in chimeric fusions may be to provide dimerization properties, a recognized mechanism for unleashing oncogenic properties of chimeric transcription factors, rather than disrupting the internalization of growth factor receptors
Polynomial Delay Algorithm for Listing Minimal Edge Dominating sets in Graphs
The Transversal problem, i.e, the enumeration of all the minimal transversals
of a hypergraph in output-polynomial time, i.e, in time polynomial in its size
and the cumulated size of all its minimal transversals, is a fifty years old
open problem, and up to now there are few examples of hypergraph classes where
the problem is solved. A minimal dominating set in a graph is a subset of its
vertex set that has a non empty intersection with the closed neighborhood of
every vertex. It is proved in [M. M. Kant\'e, V. Limouzy, A. Mary, L. Nourine,
On the Enumeration of Minimal Dominating Sets and Related Notions, In Revision
2014] that the enumeration of minimal dominating sets in graphs and the
enumeration of minimal transversals in hypergraphs are two equivalent problems.
Hoping this equivalence can help to get new insights in the Transversal
problem, it is natural to look inside graph classes. It is proved independently
and with different techniques in [Golovach et al. - ICALP 2013] and [Kant\'e et
al. - ISAAC 2012] that minimal edge dominating sets in graphs (i.e, minimal
dominating sets in line graphs) can be enumerated in incremental
output-polynomial time. We provide the first polynomial delay and polynomial
space algorithm that lists all the minimal edge dominating sets in graphs,
answering an open problem of [Golovach et al. - ICALP 2013]. Besides the
result, we hope the used techniques that are a mix of a modification of the
well-known Berge's algorithm and a strong use of the structure of line graphs,
are of great interest and could be used to get new output-polynomial time
algorithms.Comment: proofs simplified from previous version, 12 pages, 2 figure
Learning SO(3) Equivariant Representations with Spherical CNNs
We address the problem of 3D rotation equivariance in convolutional neural
networks. 3D rotations have been a challenging nuisance in 3D classification
tasks requiring higher capacity and extended data augmentation in order to
tackle it. We model 3D data with multi-valued spherical functions and we
propose a novel spherical convolutional network that implements exact
convolutions on the sphere by realizing them in the spherical harmonic domain.
Resulting filters have local symmetry and are localized by enforcing smooth
spectra. We apply a novel pooling on the spectral domain and our operations are
independent of the underlying spherical resolution throughout the network. We
show that networks with much lower capacity and without requiring data
augmentation can exhibit performance comparable to the state of the art in
standard retrieval and classification benchmarks.Comment: Camera-ready. Accepted to ECCV'18 as oral presentatio
Couching in Nigeria: prevalence, risk factors and visual acuity outcomes.
PURPOSE: Couching is an ancient treatment for cataract which is still practiced in some of the poorer developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of this study is to describe risk factors for couching and visual acuity outcomes in a nationally representative sample of adults aged 40 years and above in Nigeria. METHODS: Probability in proportion size methods were used to identify a representative sample. Of the 15,375 adults enumerated, 13,582 were interviewed and examined. Examination included logMar acuities, slit lamp examination and dilated fundoscopy with digital fundus imaging. RESULTS: Almost half of the 583 eyes undergoing a procedure for cataract had been couched (249 eyes, 42.7%). Individuals living in rural areas (P = 0.033) and in the two underserved northern administrative zones (P = 0.33; P = 0.002) were more likely to have been couched. Visual outcomes were poor according to World Health Organization categories, with 55.8% of people and 73.1% of eyes having a presenting visual acuity of less than 3/60 and only 9.7% and 2.4% of people and eyes respectively having a good outcome (6/18 or better). None were wearing an aphakic correction, and with correction acuities improved but 42.6% of eyes were still blind (< 3/60). CONCLUSIONS: Couching is still widely practiced in Nigeria and visual outcomes are very poor. The population needs to be made aware of the risks associated with the procedure, and services for high quality, affordable cataract surgery need to be expanded, particularly in rural areas and in the north of the country
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