Heat stress, hydration and uric acid: a cross-sectional study in workers of three occupations in a hotspot of Mesoamerican nephropathy in Nicaragua.

OBJECTIVES: To study Mesoamerican nephropathy (MeN) and its risk factors in three hot occupations. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. SETTING: Chinandega and León municipalities, a MeN hotspot on the Nicaraguan Pacific coast, January-February 2013. PARTICIPANTS: 194 male workers aged 17-39 years: 86 sugarcane cutters, 56 construction workers, 52 small-scale farmers. OUTCOME MEASURES: (1) Differences between the three occupational groups in prevalences/levels of socioeconomic, occupational, lifestyle and health risk factors for chronic kidney disease (CKD) and in biomarkers of kidney function and hydration; (2) differences in prevalences/levels of CKD risk factors between workers with reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFRCKD-EPI construction > farming, p=0.003). Significant trends (cane > construction > farming) were also observed for high serum urea nitrogen (blood urea nitrogen (BUN) >20 mg/dL), high serum creatinine (SCr >1.2 mg/dL), low urinary pH (≤5.5) and high BUN/SCr ratio (>20) but not for high urinary specific gravity (≥1.030). Sugarcane cutters also more often had proteinuria and blood and leucocytes in the urine. Workers with eGFR <80 mL/min/1.73 m2 reported a higher intake of water and lower intake of sugary beverages. Serum uric acid levels related strongly and inversely to eGFR levels (adj β -10.4 mL/min/1.73 m2, 95% CI -12.2 to -8.5, p<0.001). No associations were observed for other metabolic risk factors, pesticides, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or alcohol. Among cane cutters, consumption of electrolyte hydration solution appeared preventive (adj β 8.1 mL/min/1.73 m2, p=0.09). CONCLUSIONS: Heat stress, dehydration and kidney dysfunction were most common among sugarcane cutters. Kidney dysfunction also occurred to a lesser extent among construction workers, but hardly at all among small-scale farmers. High serum uric acid was associated with reduced kidney function

Tolerancia de genotipos de maíz (Zea mays L.) a sequía en el Cerrito, Valle.

El presente trabajo tiene por objetivo evaluar 15 genotipos de maíz para seleccionar aquellos que presenten el mejor grado de tolerancia a la sequía en las épocas críticas de prefloración y llendo de grano. Se descartaron materiales sensibles al retorno de la aparición de estigmas y se seleccionaron aquellos que no sufrieron detrimento marcado en el rendimiento. Se utilizaron 15 materiales de maíz, 9 de ellos preseleccionados entre 40 genotipos, tres materiales comerciales y tres materiales promisorios. El agua total acumulada para el tratamiento sin estres hídrico fue de 430 m y de 335 m para la condición con estrés hídrico. Los materiales VBMI-24, VBMI-25, VBM-26, a parte de sus bajos rendimientos, muestran sensibilidad marcada al estrés. Los más promisorios fueron VBMC-28 Y VBMC-21, de comportamiento relativamente aceptable VBMG-22 Y VBMC-23. Los materiales comerciales ICA V-258 E ICA H-211 se comportaron de forma irregular, los híbridos HPM-1 y PIONEER 5800 no sufrieron depresión marcada bajo estrésMaíz-Zea may

Trust when financial implications are not the aim: the integration of sustainability into management education

Literature has paid detailed attention to the positive financial implications of considering the stakeholders’ environmental concerns. This paper contributes by using a trust framework to delimitate how stakeholders may influence managers’ environmental decisions even if they are not focused on financial objectives. Specifically, we analyse how perceptions of academic department heads about their stakeholders’ ability and benevolence influence the head’s willingness to integrate sustainability issues into the syllabus of the courses. We also investigate the direct and moderating role of the heads’ interest in financial aims and the direct influence of the school environmental proactivity. Our analysis includes a sample of 74 deans in 46 different business and engineering schools and a sample of 95 department heads in the field of management studies of 25 Spanish universities. The hierarchical moderated regression results confirm the positive influence of the ability and benevolence of the stakeholders and the heads’ interest in the financial aims, but not the moderating effects and the influence of the school proactivity. The paper provides research implications on the stakeholders’ dimensions influencing environmental decisions and practical implications showing that managers of organisations who wish to advance their environmental approaches may use partnerships with their stakeholders based upon trust

Proactive environmental strategy in a supply chain context: The mediating role of investments

Abstract: There is a growing body of knowledge on the link between environmental management and supply chain management, but there is contradicting evidence on the impact of a proactive environmental strategy on environmental performance. Therefore, this paper investigates the impact of proactive environmental strategy on environmental performance as mediated by environmental investments. We also consider the antecedents of the adoption of proactive environmental strategy. We develop and test hypotheses, using data collected from 96 Turkish manufacturers through an online questionnaire. The model was tested using Partial Least Squares (PLS), a structural equation modelling method. The results show that a proactive environmental strategy leads to higher environmental investments; both internally and externally in collaboration with suppliers. Our findings support our hypothesis that environmental investments acts as a mediating variable between proactive environmental strategy and environmental performance. The results also show that customer pressure and, particularly, organizational commitment positively impact the extent to which firms adopt a proactive environmental strategy

Observation of a gel of quantum vortices in a superconductor at very low magnetic fields

A gel consists of a network of particles or molecules formed for example using the sol-gel process, by which a solution transforms into a porous solid. Particles or molecules in a gel are mainly organized on a scaffold that makes up a porous system. Quantized vortices in type-II superconductors mostly form spatially homogeneous ordered or amorphous solids. Here we present high-resolution imaging of the vortex lattice displaying dense vortex clusters separated by sparse or entirely vortex-free regions in β-Bi2Pd superconductor. We find that the intervortex distance diverges upon decreasing the magnetic field and that vortex lattice images follow a multifractal behavior. These properties, characteristic of gels, establish the presence of a novel vortex distribution, distinctly different from the well-studied disordered and glassy phases observed in high-temperature and conventional superconductors. The observed behavior is caused by a scaffold of one-dimensional structural defects with enhanced stress close to the defects. The vortex gel might often occur in type-II superconductors at low magnetic fields. Such vortex distributions should allow to considerably simplify control over vortex positions and manipulation of quantum vortex states.Fil: Llorens, José Benito. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; EspañaFil: Embon, Lior. Weizmann Institute Of Science.; IsraelFil: Correa, Alexandre. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España. Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid; EspañaFil: González, Jesús David. Universidad del Magdalena; Colombia. Universiteit Antwerp; BélgicaFil: Herrera, Edwin. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; España. Universidad Central; ColombiaFil: Guillamón, Isabel. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; EspañaFil: Luccas, Roberto F.. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Azpeitia, Jon. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Mompeán, Federico J.. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: García Hernández, Mar. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Munuera, Carmen. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; EspañaFil: Aragón Sánchez, Jazmín. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche). División Bajas Temperaturas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología - Nodo Bariloche | Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología - Nodo Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Fasano, Yanina. Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Gerencia del Area de Investigación y Aplicaciones No Nucleares. Gerencia de Física (Centro Atómico Bariloche). División Bajas Temperaturas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología - Nodo Bariloche | Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología. Unidad Ejecutora Instituto de Nanociencia y Nanotecnología - Nodo Bariloche; ArgentinaFil: Milosevic, Milorad V.. Universiteit Antwerp; BélgicaFil: Suderow, Hermann. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid; EspañaFil: Anahory, Yonathan. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Israe

Linking Employee Stakeholders to Environmental Performance: The Role of Proactive Environmental Strategies and Shared Vision

Drawing on the natural-resource-based view (NRBV), we propose that employee stakeholder integration is linked to environmental performance through firms’ proactive environmental strategies, and that this link is contingent on shared vision. We tested our model with a cross-country and multi-industry sample. In support of our theory, results revealed that firms’ proactive environmental strategies translated employee stakeholder integration into environmental performance. This relationship was pronounced for high levels of shared vision. Our findings demonstrate that shared vision represents a key condition for advancing the corporate greening agenda through proactive environmental strategies. We discuss implications for the CSR and the environmental management literatures, with a particular focus on the NRBV and stakeholder integration debates

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

Managing Carbon Aspirations: The Influence of Corporate Climate Change Targets on Environmental Performance

Addressing climate change is among the most challenging ethical issues facing contemporary business and society. Unsustainable business activities are causing significant distributional and procedural injustices in areas such as public health and vulnerability to extreme weather events, primarily because of a distinction between primary emitters and those already experiencing the impacts of climate change. Business, as a significant contributor to climate change and beneficiary of externalizing environmental costs, has an obligation to address its environmental impacts. In this paper, we explore the role of firms’ climate change targets in shaping their emissions trends in the context of a large multi-country sample of companies. We contrast two intentions for setting emissions reductions targets: symbolic attempts to manage external stakeholder perceptions via “greenwashing” and substantive commitments to reducing environmental impacts. We argue that the attributes of firms’ climate change targets (their extent, form, and time horizon) are diagnostic of firms’ underlying intentions. Consistent with our hypotheses, while we find no overall effect of setting climate change targets on emissions, we show that targets characterized by a commitment to more ambitious emissions reductions, a longer target time frame, and absolute reductions in emissions are associated with significant reductions in firms’ emissions. Our evidence suggests the need for vigilance among policy-makers and environmental campaigners regarding the underlying intentions that accompany environmental management practices and shows that these can to some extent be diagnosed analytically