385 research outputs found
CSR and the Companies Act, 2013: Be Bold, Take Action
Through the Companies Act, 2013, the Indian government recently made Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities mandatory for companies that, in any of the three preceding financial years, had: (i) net profits of USD 769,000 or more; or (ii) net worth of USD 76.92 million or more; or (iii) turnover of USD 153.84 million or more. These provisions were made effective from the financial year starting 1 April 2014. Dasra's report, Be Bold, Take Action: CSR and the Companies Act, 2013, introduces and explains the regulatory provisions, and guides corporate investors through basic social investment issues to help shape new CSR strategies. It also provides a roadmap to document and expand the impact of CSR spending
Book Reviews [1974, Vol. 1, nos. 1-4]
Books reviewed are: Ellis Mast Sowell, The Evolution of the Theories and Techniques of Standard Costs Reviewed by Kenneth S. Most; James Ole Winjum, The Role of Accounting in the Economic Development of England: 1500-1750 Reviewed by Marc J. Epstein; Michael Chatfield, A History of Accounting Thought Reviewed by Turgut Var; Michael E. Parrish, Securities Regulation and the New Deal Reviewed by Hugh Hughes
Minimal surfaces and particles in 3-manifolds
We use minimal (or CMC) surfaces to describe 3-dimensional hyperbolic,
anti-de Sitter, de Sitter or Minkowski manifolds. We consider whether these
manifolds admit ``nice'' foliations and explicit metrics, and whether the space
of these metrics has a simple description in terms of Teichm\"uller theory. In
the hyperbolic settings both questions have positive answers for a certain
subset of the quasi-Fuchsian manifolds: those containing a closed surface with
principal curvatures at most 1. We show that this subset is parameterized by an
open domain of the cotangent bundle of Teichm\"uller space. These results are
extended to ``quasi-Fuchsian'' manifolds with conical singularities along
infinite lines, known in the physics literature as ``massive, spin-less
particles''.
Things work better for globally hyperbolic anti-de Sitter manifolds: the
parameterization by the cotangent of Teichm\"uller space works for all
manifolds. There is another description of this moduli space as the product two
copies of Teichm\"uller space due to Mess. Using the maximal surface
description, we propose a new parameterization by two copies of Teichm\"uller
space, alternative to that of Mess, and extend all the results to manifolds
with conical singularities along time-like lines. Similar results are obtained
for de Sitter or Minkowski manifolds.
Finally, for all four settings, we show that the symplectic form on the
moduli space of 3-manifolds that comes from parameterization by the cotangent
bundle of Teichm\"uller space is the same as the 3-dimensional gravity one.Comment: 53 pages, no figure. v2: typos corrected and refs adde
Slit1 and Slit2 Cooperate to Prevent Premature Midline Crossing of Retinal Axons in the Mouse Visual System
AbstractDuring development, retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons either cross or avoid the midline at the optic chiasm. In Drosophila, the Slit protein regulates midline axon crossing through repulsion. To determine the role of Slit proteins in RGC axon guidance, we disrupted Slit1 and Slit2, two of three known mouse Slit genes. Mice defective in either gene alone exhibited few RGC axon guidance defects, but in double mutant mice a large additional chiasm developed anterior to the true chiasm, many retinal axons projected into the contralateral optic nerve, and some extended ectopically—dorsal and lateral to the chiasm. Our results indicate that Slit proteins repel retinal axons in vivo and cooperate to establish a corridor through which the axons are channeled, thereby helping define the site in the ventral diencephalon where the optic chiasm forms
Radon--Nikodym representations of Cuntz--Krieger algebras and Lyapunov spectra for KMS states
We study relations between --KMS states on Cuntz--Krieger algebras
and the dual of the Perron--Frobenius operator .
Generalising the well--studied purely hyperbolic situation, we obtain under
mild conditions that for an expansive dynamical system there is a one--one
correspondence between --KMS states and eigenmeasures of
for the eigenvalue 1. We then consider
representations of Cuntz--Krieger algebras which are induced by Markov fibred
systems, and show that if the associated incidence matrix is irreducible then
these are --isomorphic to the given Cuntz--Krieger algebra. Finally, we
apply these general results to study multifractal decompositions of limit sets
of essentially free Kleinian groups which may have parabolic elements. We
show that for the Cuntz--Krieger algebra arising from there exists an
analytic family of KMS states induced by the Lyapunov spectrum of the analogue
of the Bowen--Series map associated with . Furthermore, we obtain a formula
for the Hausdorff dimensions of the restrictions of these KMS states to the set
of continuous functions on the limit set of . If has no parabolic
elements, then this formula can be interpreted as the singularity spectrum of
the measure of maximal entropy associated with .Comment: 30 pages, minor changes in the proofs of Theorem 3.9 and Fact
A new North American species of Etainia (Lepidoptera, Nepticulidae), feeding on Arbutus and Arctostaphylos species (Ericaceae)
Etainia thoraceleuca van Nieukerken, Epstein & Davis, sp. nov. is the second native American species of Etainia Beirne, 1945, and the second known Etainia species feeding on Ericaceae. The species is known from light-collected adults in the USA (California, Arizona) and Canada (Ontario). These were linked via DNA barcodes to larvae that make short leafmines on Arbutus and Arctostaphylos species, then continue feeding in stems and branches, causing damage in nurseries and planted trees in Sonoma and Marin Counties, California. The holotype was accidentally reared from Arbutus arizonica, without observing the damage. Life history and damage are described in detail. Damage in Arctostaphylos uva-ursi found in Washington State probably belongs to E. thoraceleuca, which is a sister species to the European E. albibimaculella (Larsen, 1927)
The sweet spot in sustainability: a framework for corporate assessment in sugar manufacturing
The assessment of corporate sustainability has become an increasingly important topic, both within academia and in industry. For manufacturing companies to conform to their commitments to sustainable development, a standard and reliable measurement framework is required. There is, however, a lack of sector-specific and empirical research in many areas, including the sugar industry. This paper presents an empirically developed framework for the assessment of corporate sustainability within the Thai sugar industry. Multiple case studies were conducted, and a survey using questionnaires was also employed to enhance the power of generalisation. The developed framework is an accurate and reliable measurement instrument of corporate sustainability, and guidelines to assess qualitative criteria are put forward. The proposed framework can be used for a company’s self-assessment and for guiding practitioners in performance improvement and policy decision-maki
Testing the Asteroseismic Mass Scale Using Metal-Poor Stars Characterized with APOGEE and Kepler
Fundamental stellar properties, such as mass, radius, and age, can be
inferred using asteroseismology. Cool stars with convective envelopes have
turbulent motions that can stochastically drive and damp pulsations. The
properties of the oscillation frequency power spectrum can be tied to mass and
radius through solar-scaled asteroseismic relations. Stellar properties derived
using these scaling relations need verification over a range of metallicities.
Because the age and mass of halo stars are well-constrained by astrophysical
priors, they provide an independent, empirical check on asteroseismic mass
estimates in the low-metallicity regime. We identify nine metal-poor red giants
(including six stars that are kinematically associated with the halo) from a
sample observed by both the Kepler space telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky
Survey-III APOGEE spectroscopic survey. We compare masses inferred using
asteroseismology to those expected for halo and thick-disk stars. Although our
sample is small, standard scaling relations, combined with asteroseismic
parameters from the APOKASC Catalog, produce masses that are systematically
higher (=0.17+/-0.05 Msun) than astrophysical expectations. The
magnitude of the mass discrepancy is reduced by known theoretical corrections
to the measured large frequency separation scaling relationship. Using
alternative methods for measuring asteroseismic parameters induces systematic
shifts at the 0.04 Msun level. We also compare published asteroseismic analyses
with scaling relationship masses to examine the impact of using the frequency
of maximum power as a constraint. Upcoming APOKASC observations will provide a
larger sample of ~100 metal-poor stars, important for detailed asteroseismic
characterization of Galactic stellar populations.Comment: 4 figures; 1 table. Accepted to ApJ
Weakened magnetic braking as the origin of anomalously rapid rotation in old field stars
A knowledge of stellar ages is crucial for our understanding of many
astrophysical phenomena, and yet ages can be difficult to determine. As they
become older, stars lose mass and angular momentum, resulting in an observed
slowdown in surface rotation. The technique of 'gyrochronology' uses the
rotation period of a star to calculate its age. However, stars of known age
must be used for calibration, and, until recently, the approach was untested
for old stars (older than 1 gigayear, Gyr). Rotation periods are now known for
stars in an open cluster of intermediate age (NGC 6819; 2.5 Gyr old), and for
old field stars whose ages have been determined with asteroseismology. The data
for the cluster agree with previous period-age relations, but these relations
fail to describe the asteroseismic sample. Here we report stellar evolutionary
modelling, and confirm the presence of unexpectedly rapid rotation in stars
that are more evolved than the Sun. We demonstrate that models that incorporate
dramatically weakened magnetic braking for old stars can---unlike existing
models---reproduce both the asteroseismic and the cluster data. Our findings
might suggest a fundamental change in the nature of ageing stellar dynamos,
with the Sun being close to the critical transition to much weaker magnetized
winds. This weakened braking limits the diagnostic power of gyrochronology for
those stars that are more than halfway through their main-sequence lifetimes.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figures in main paper, 6 extended data figures, 1 table.
Published in Nature, January 2016. Please see https://youtu.be/O6HzYgP5uyc
for a video description of the resul
Engaging Undergraduates to Solve Global Health Challenges: A New Approach Based on Bioengineering Design
Recent reports have highlighted the need for educational programs to prepare students for careers developing and disseminating new interventions that improve global public health. Because of its multi-disciplinary, design-centered nature, the field of Biomedical Engineering can play an important role in meeting this challenge. This article describes a new program at Rice University to give undergraduate students from all disciplines a broad background in bioengineering and global health and provides an initial assessment of program impact. Working in partnership with health care providers in developing countries, students in the Beyond Traditional Borders (BTB) initiative learn about health challenges of the poor and put this knowledge to work immediately, using the engineering design process as a framework to formulate solutions to complex global health challenges. Beginning with a freshman design project and continuing through a capstone senior design course, the BTB curriculum uses challenges provided by partners in the developing world to teach students to integrate perspectives from multiple disciplines, and to develop leadership, communication, and teamwork skills. Exceptional students implement their designs under the guidance of clinicians through summer international internships. Since 2006, 333 students have designed more than 40 technologies and educational programs; 28 have been implemented in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, southeast Asia, and the United States. More than 18,000 people have benefited from these designs. 95% of alumni who completed an international internship reported that participation in the program changed or strengthened their career plans to include a focus on global health medicine, research, and/or policy. Empowering students to use bioengineering design to address real problems is an effective way to teach the new generation of leaders needed to solve global health challenges
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