Multinationals, Social Agency and Institutional Change; Variation by Sector

This is the accepted manuscript version of the following article: Mike Geppert and Graham Hollinshead, ‘Editorial: Multinationals, Social Agency and Institutional Change; Variation by Sector’, Competition and Change, Vol 18(3): 195-199, June 2014. The final, definitive version of this paper has been published is available online via doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1024529414Z.00000000056 Published by SAGE Publishing. All rights reserved. © W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2014Multinational corporations (MNCs) operate at a crossroads of countervailing influences, While headquarters are typically embedded in the institutional settings of their home country, subsidiaries tend to internalize regulative and cognitive frames in their own national and regional contexts. MNCs now frequently assume highly diffuse global structures, operating across regionally dispersed horizontal and vertical networks, thereby exposing them to a global mosaic of societal, institutional and socio- economic influences. Moreover, MNCs are subjected to regulative effects emanating from transnational regulationPeer reviewe

Bayesian Model Comparison and Analysis of the Galactic Disk Population of Gamma-Ray Millisecond Pulsars

Pulsed emission from almost one hundred millisecond pulsars (MSPs) has been detected in $\gamma$-rays by the Fermi Large-Area Telescope. The global properties of this population remain relatively unconstrained despite many attempts to model their spatial and luminosity distributions. We perform here a self-consistent Bayesian analysis of both the spatial distribution and luminosity function simultaneously. Distance uncertainties, arising from errors in the parallax measurement or Galactic electron-density model, are marginalized over. We provide a public Python package for calculating distance uncertainties to pulsars derived using the dispersion measure by accounting for the uncertainties in Galactic electron-density model YMW16. Finally, we use multiple parameterizations for the MSP population and perform Bayesian model comparison, finding that a broken power law luminosity function with Lorimer spatial profile are preferred over multiple other parameterizations used in the past. The best-fit spatial distribution and number of $\gamma$-ray MSPs is consistent with results for the radio population of MSPs.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 3 tables + Appendix. Public code and source list available from http://github.com/tedwards2412/MSPDis

UK open source crime data: accuracy and possibilities for research

In the United Kingdom, since 2011 data regarding individual police recorded crimes have been made openly available to the public via the police.uk website. To protect the location privacy of victims these data are obfuscated using geomasking techniques to reduce their spatial accuracy. This paper examines the spatial accuracy of the police.uk data to determine at what level(s) of spatial resolution – if any – it is suitable for analysis in the context of theory testing and falsification, evaluation research, or crime analysis. Police.uk data are compared to police recorded data for one large metropolitan Police Force and spatial accuracy is quantified for four different levels of geography across five crime types. Hypotheses regarding systematic errors are tested using appropriate statistical approaches, including methods of maximum likelihood. Finally, a “best-fit” statistical model is presented to explain the error as well as to develop a model that can correct it. The implications of the findings for researchers using the police.uk data for spatial analysis are discussed

Magnetic properties of strongly disordered electronic systems

We present a unified, global perspective on the magnetic properties of strongly disordered electronic systems, with special emphasis on the case where the ground state is metallic. We review the arguments for the instability of the disordered Fermi liquid state towards the formation of local magnetic moments, and argue that their singular low temperature thermodynamics are the ``quantum Griffiths'' precursors of the quantum phase transition to a metallic spin glass; the local moment formation is therefore not directly related to the metal-insulator transition. We also review the the mean-field theory of the disordered Fermi liquid to metallic spin glass transition and describe the separate regime of ``non-Fermi liquid'' behavior at higher temperatures near the quantum critical point. The relationship to experimental results on doped semiconductors and heavy-fermion compounds is noted.Comment: 25 pages; Contribution to the Royal Society Discussion Meeting on "The Metal-Non Metal Transition in Macroscopic and Microscopic Systems", March 5-6, 199

Very long baseline interferometry using a radio telescope in Earth orbit

Successful Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) observations at 2.3 GHz were made using an antenna aboard an Earth-orbiting spacecraft as one of the receiving telescopes. These observations employed the first deployed satellite (TDRSE-E for East) of the NASA Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). Fringes were found for 3 radio sources on baselines between TDRSE and telescopes in Australia and Japan. The purpose of this experiment and the characteristics of the spacecraft that are related to the VLBI observations are described. The technical obstacles to maintaining phase coherence between the orbiting antenna and the ground stations, as well as the calibration schemes for the communication link between TDRSE and its ground station at White Sands, New Mexico are explored. System coherence results and scientific results for the radio source observations are presented. Using all available calibrations, a coherence of 84% over 700 seconds was achieved for baselines to the orbiting telescope

An investigation into grid patching techniques

In the past decade significant advances were made using flow field methods in the calculation of external transonic flows over aerodynamic configurations. It is now possible to calculate inviscid transonic flow over three dimensional configurations by solving the potential equation. However, with the exception of the transonic small disturbance methods which have the advantage of a simple cartesian grid, the configurations over which it is possible to calculate such flows are relatively simple. The major reason for this is the difficulty of producing compatibility between grid generation and flow equation solutions. The main programs in use, use essentially analytic transformations for prescribed configurations and, as such, are not easy to extend. While there is work in progress to extend this type of system to a limited extent, the long term effort is directed towards a more general approach. This approach should not be restricted to producing grid systems in isolation but rather a consideration of the overall problem of flow field solution

Simulation of time-varying ascent loads on arrays of shuttle tiles in a large transonic tunnel

For abstract, see A82-24682

Carbon coating of the SPS dipole chambers

The Electron Multipacting (EM) phenomenon is a limiting factor for the achievement of high luminosity in accelerators for positively charged particles and for the performance of RF devices. At CERN, the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) must be upgraded in order to feed the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with 25 ns bunch spaced beams. At such small bunch spacing, EM may limit the performance of the SPS and consequently that of the LHC. To mitigate this phenomenon CERN is developing a carbon thin film coating with low Secondary Electron Yield (SEY) to coat the internal walls of the SPS dipoles beam pipes. This paper presents the progresses in the coating technology, the performance of the carbon coatings and the strategy for a large scale production.Comment: 7 pages, contribution to the Joint INFN-CERN-EuCARD-AccNet Workshop on Electron-Cloud Effects: ECLOUD'12; 5-9 Jun 2012, La Biodola, Isola d'Elba, Italy; CERN Yellow Report CERN-2013-002, pp.141-14

Acting without being in control: Exploring volition in Parkinson's disease with impulsive compulsive behaviours.

BACKGROUND: Several aspects of volitional control of action may be relevant in the pathophysiology of impulsive-compulsive behaviours (ICB) in Parkinson's disease (PD). We aimed to explore multiple aspects of action control, assessing reward-related behaviour, inhibition (externally and internally triggered) and sense of agency in PD patients, with and without ICB compared to healthy subjects. METHODS: Nineteen PD patients with ICB (PD-ICB), 19 PD without ICB (PD-no-ICB) and 19 healthy controls (HC) underwent a battery of tests including: Intentional Binding task which measures sense of agency; Stop Signal Reaction Time (SSRT) measuring capacity for reactive inhibition; the Marble task, assessing intentional inhibition; Balloon Analog Risk Task for reward sensitivity. RESULTS: One-way ANOVA showed significant main effect of group for action binding (p = 0.004, F = 6.27). Post hoc analysis revealed that PD-ICB had significantly stronger action binding than HC (p = 0.004), and PD-no-ICB (p = 0.04). There was no difference between PD-no-ICB and HC. SSRT did not differ between PD groups, whereas a significant difference between PD-no-ICB and HC was detected (p = 0.01). No other differences were found among groups in the other tasks. CONCLUSIONS: PD patients with ICB have abnormal performance on a psychophysical task assessing sense of agency, which might be related to a deficit in action representation at cognitive/experiential level. Yet, they have no deficit on tasks evaluating externally and internally triggered inhibitory control, or in reward-based decision-making. We conclude that impaired sense of agency may be a factor contributing to ICB in PD patients