How is Business Adapting to Climate Change Impacts Appropriately? Insight from the Commercial Port Sector

Adaptation to climate change impacts is a key research topic in business ethics that poses substantial implications on the good lives of human beings. The commercial port sector is a highly relevant study focus with its pivotal roles in supply chains and international trade. Hence, it is important to investigate whether the port planning system and practice is appropriate in tackling climate change impacts. But beforehand, we must thoroughly understand the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Through a survey towards 21 ports (seaports and dry ports) in Canada, the paper investigates the attitude and behaviors of port planners and operators on ports’ climate adaptation planning. Towards the end, we propose a new approach so as to enable port stakeholders to carry out climate adaptation planning effectively. The paper offers important insight to researchers to investigate the ways in developing effective climate adaptation plans and practice for ports and other business sectors. © 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrech

Flag choice behaviour in the world merchant fleet

Accepted ManuscriptPublishe

The Attractiveness of Ports in West Africa: Some Lessons from Shipping Lines' Port Selection

This paper investigates the attractiveness of ports in West Africa through the development of a container shipping lines' port choice methodology. Although many multi-criteria decision-making methods have been developed and applied to facilitate a rational port choice process, few have investigated the criteria used by shipping lines when selecting ports in West Africa. With the rapid economic development of West Africa, the task of establishing a rational model to guide shipping lines to choose their favourite ports in the region becomes urgent. In this work, 16 criteria are identified to assist shipping lines in port choice from four perspectives including adequate infrastructure, port location, port charge, and port administration/port efficiency. In order to quantitatively evaluate these criteria, an analytical hierarchy process approach is used to make use of subjective judgements to compensate the incompleteness of objective data. One of the important findings from this study is that port infrastructure is the most crucial criterion in terms of the port attractiveness in West Africa. It is followed by port draught, political stability, market size/cargo volume, and international networks. The research outcomes also indicate that the port of Abidjan is the most attractive container port in West Africa, followed by Dakar when all the identified important criteria are taken into account

Improvements and Applications of AMS Radiocarbon Measurement at Peking University

AMS radiocarbon measurements were started at Peking University in 1992 with a modified HICONEX 834 ion source. Some archaeological samples were measured at a sensitivity of 10(-14) with ca. 1.7% precision for modern samples. We have made many improvements in our first two years of operation: a high-intensity Cs sputtering ion source was installed; the graphite sample preparation technique was investigated; and the system stability has been improved. The blank sample background is currently ca. 0.006 MC and a precision within 1% can be reached for modern samples. Geological, archaeological, environmental and biomedical samples can be measured routinely. We present some typical applications.Geochemistry & GeophysicsSCI(E)

AMS Radiocarbon Dating of Tianma-Qucun Site in Shanxi, China

Tianma-Qucun is the biggest site of Western Zhou Dynasty discovered in Shanxi Province, China. It has been recognized as the early capital of Jin, a vassal state of Western Zhou. The territories were granted to the first Marquis of Jin with the title in the early days of Western Zhou. Bone sample series from the site were radiocarbon-dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) and calibrated with the Oxford calibration program OxCal 3.5. Bayesian analysis of the calibrated ages shows that the earliest residents of the Western Zhou came to Tianma-Qucun area in 1020-940 BC and the lower boundary of the Western Zhou is 796-754 BC, which corresponds well to the historical record 770 BC.Geochemistry & GeophysicsSCI(E)CPCI-S(ISTP)

Preparation of Pectin–ZnO Nanocomposite

Pectin–ZnO nanocomposite was prepared in the aqueous solution condition at room temperature. The Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, and transmission electron microscope (TEM) measurements confirmed the nanoscaled structure of pectin–ZnO composite. According to the TEM observation, the average composite granules size was about 150 nm and the embedded ZnO nanoparticles were uniform with an average diameter of 70 nm

Fully spray-coated triple-cation perovskite solar cells

We use ultrasonic spray-coating to sequentially deposit thin films of tin oxide, a triple-cation perovskite and spiro-OMeTAD, allowing us fabricate perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with a champion reverse scan power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.4% on small-area substrates. We show that the use of spray-deposition permits us to rapidly (>80 mm s−1) coat 25 mm × 75 mm substrates that were divided into a series of devices each with an active area of 15.4 mm2, yielding an average PCE of 10.3% and a peak PCE of 16.3%. By connecting seven 15.4 mm2 devices in parallel on a single substrate, we create a device having an effective active area of 1.08 cm2 and a PCE of 12.7%. This work demonstrates the possibility for spray-coating to fabricate high efficiency and low-cost perovskite solar cells at speed

Comparative transcriptome sequencing of germline and somatic tissues of the Ascaris suum gonad

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Ascaris suum </it>(large roundworm of pigs) is a parasitic nematode that causes substantial losses to the meat industry. This nematode is suitable for biochemical studies because, unlike <it>C. elegans</it>, homogeneous tissue samples can be obtained by dissection. It has large sperm, produced in great numbers that permit biochemical studies of sperm motility. Widespread study of <it>A. suum </it>would be facilitated by more comprehensive genome resources and, to this end, we have produced a gonad transcriptome of <it>A. suum</it>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Two 454 pyrosequencing runs generated 572,982 and 588,651 reads for germline (TES) and somatic (VAS) tissues of the <it>A. suum </it>gonad, respectively. 86% of the high-quality (HQ) reads were assembled into 9,955 contigs and 69,791 HQ reads remained as singletons. 2.4 million bp of unique sequences were obtained with a coverage that reached 16.1-fold. 4,877 contigs and 14,339 singletons were annotated according to the <it>C. elegans </it>protein and the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) protein databases. Comparison of TES and VAS transcriptomes demonstrated that genes participating in DNA replication, RNA transcription and ubiquitin-proteasome pathways are expressed at significantly higher levels in TES tissues than in VAS tissues. Comparison of the <it>A. suum </it>TES transcriptome with the <it>C. elegans </it>microarray dataset identified 165 <it>A. suum </it>germline-enriched genes (83% are spermatogenesis-enriched). Many of these genes encode serine/threonine kinases and phosphatases (KPs) as well as tyrosine KPs. Immunoblot analysis further suggested a critical role of phosphorylation in both testis development and spermatogenesis. A total of 2,681 <it>A. suum </it>genes were identified to have associated RNAi phenotypes in <it>C. elegans</it>, the majority of which display embryonic lethality, slow growth, larval arrest or sterility.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Using deep sequencing technology, this study has produced a gonad transcriptome of <it>A. suum</it>. By comparison with <it>C. elegans </it>datasets, we identified sets of genes associated with spermatogenesis and gonad development in <it>A. suum</it>. The newly identified genes encoding KPs may help determine signaling pathways that operate during spermatogenesis. A large portion of <it>A. suum </it>gonadal genes have related RNAi phenotypes in <it>C. elegans </it>and, thus, might be RNAi targets for parasite control.</p