101 research outputs found
Managing Global Guilt and Local Norms: Governance in the Sri Lankan Clothing Industry
This dissertation examines how multiple forms of governance shape ethical production in Sri Lankan clothing supply chains. With multi-sited research in Sri Lanka, the United States, and Europe, it foregrounds how mid-level managers, as embodied subjects in clothing supply chains, conceptualize and practice ethical trade as they navigate demands to be globally competitive, comply with global standards, and respect local ethical norms. I found that the Sri Lankan apparel industry's attempts to promote ethical manufacturing have led to mixed and uneven effects, meaning that the results did not straightforwardly confirm the hypothesis in the global value chain literature that private governance and industrial upgrading lead to global competitiveness and enhanced wellbeing. Because a series of mediating factors have shaped how the ethical initiatives played out in Sri Lanka, I argue for a more de-centered theory of governance that is attentive to multiple fields of power and forms of struggle occurring through GPNs. I also argue for a sustained critical engagement with the concept of upgrading and its effects on social and economic worlds. This project makes three key contributions to broader debates about globalization. First, it draws on feminist methods and critical policy studies to promote a deeper engagement between the commodity chains literatures and relational economic geography. This is important because the global value chain framework is increasingly gaining currency in mainstream development institutions, but there is also growing criticism about the foundational concepts of governance and upgrading in this framework. Second, I focus on the role of management knowledges and practices in processes of upgrading. Managers are situated at the nexus of global-local power relations and yet very little is understood about how ethical concerns are prioritized, adapted, and contested (or not) through everyday management cultures and practices. My third contribution is to challenge conceptualizations of ethical production that are fixed and binary, such as the assumption that there is an easy answer to questions like, Was this t-shirt ethically made? Instead, I reframe ethical initiatives as processes that are ongoing, embodied, and shaped by relations of dominance and subordination at multiple scales.Doctor of Philosoph
A novel framework to investigate wind-driven snow redistribution over an Alpine glacier: combination of high-resolution terrestrial laser scans and large-eddy simulations
Wind-driven snow redistribution affects the glacier mass balance by eroding or depositing mass from or to different parts of the glacierâs surface. High-resolution observations are used to test the ability of large-eddy simulations as a tool for distributed mass balance modeling. We present a case study of observed and simulated snow redistribution over Hintereisferner glacier (Ătztal Alps, Austria) between 6 and 9 February 2021. Observations consist of three high-resolution digital elevation models (Îx=1âm) derived from terrestrial laser scans taken shortly before, directly after, and 15âh after snowfall. The scans are complemented by datasets from three on-site weather stations. After the snowfall event, we observed a snowpack decrease of 0.08âm on average over the glacier. The decrease in the snow depth can be attributed to post-snowfall compaction and the wind-driven redistribution of snow. Simulations were performed with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model at Îx=48âm with a newly implemented snow drift module. The spatial patterns of the simulated snow redistribution agree well with the observed generalized patterns. Snow redistribution contributed â0.026âm to the surface elevation decrease over the glacier surface on 8 February, resulting in a mass loss of â3.9âkgâmâ2, which is on the same order of magnitude as the observations. With the single case study we cannot yet extrapolate the impact of post-snowfall events on the seasonal glacier mass balance, but the study shows that the snow drift module in WRF is a powerful tool to improve knowledge on wind-driven snow redistribution patterns over glaciers.</p
The LAGUNA design study- towards giant liquid based underground detectors for neutrino physics and astrophysics and proton decay searches
The feasibility of a next generation neutrino observatory in Europe is being
considered within the LAGUNA design study. To accommodate giant neutrino
detectors and shield them from cosmic rays, a new very large underground
infrastructure is required. Seven potential candidate sites in different parts
of Europe and at several distances from CERN are being studied: Boulby (UK),
Canfranc (Spain), Fr\'ejus (France/Italy), Pyh\"asalmi (Finland),
Polkowice-Sieroszowice (Poland), Slanic (Romania) and Umbria (Italy). The
design study aims at the comprehensive and coordinated technical assessment of
each site, at a coherent cost estimation, and at a prioritization of the sites
within the summer 2010.Comment: 5 pages, contribution to the Workshop "European Strategy for Future
Neutrino Physics", CERN, Oct. 200
New limits on heavy sterile neutrino mixing in -decay obtained with the Borexino detector
If heavy neutrinos with mass 2 are produced in the
Sun via the decay in a side
branch of pp-chain, they would undergo the observable decay into an electron, a
positron and a light neutrino . In the
present work Borexino data are used to set a bound on the existence of such
decays. We constrain the mixing of a heavy neutrino with mass 1.5 MeV 14 MeV to be
respectively. These are tighter limits on the mixing parameters than obtained
in previous experiments at nuclear reactors and accelerators.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Signal enhancement in protein NMR using the spin-noise tuning optimum
We have assessed the potential of an alternative probe tuning strategy based on the spin-noise response for application in common high-resolution multi-dimensional biomolecular NMR experiments with water signal suppression on aqueous and salty samples. The method requires the adjustment of the optimal tuning condition, which may be offset by several 100Â kHz from the conventional tuning settings using the noise response of the water protons as an indicator. Although the radio frequency-pulse durations are typically longer under such conditions, signal-to-noise gains of up to 22% were achieved. At salt concentrations up to 100Â mM a substantial sensitivity gain was observed
The Borexino experiment: Recent results and future plans
The Borexino experiment (located at Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso) is the most radiopure liquid scintillator neutrino detector allover the world. Starting from 2007, the Borexino experiment provided a precision measurement of
7Be solar neutrino flux (including also a detailed day/night modulation analysis), and gave the first detection of pep neutrinos, a detection of the 8B neutrinos at low energy threshold (3 MeV) and an important contribution to the geo-neutrino physics. The forthcoming program includes an improvement of the solar neutrino and geo-neutrino detection and an important project focused on the sterile neutrino search (SOX)
Precision muon reconstruction in Double Chooz
We describe a muon track reconstruction algorithm for the reactor anti-neutrino experiment Double Chooz. The Double Chooz detector consists of two optically isolated volumes of the liquid scintillator viewed by PMTs, and an Outer Veto above these made of crossed scintillator strips. Muons are reconstructed by their Outer Veto hit positions along with timing information from the other two detector volumes. All muons are fit under the hypothesis that they are through-going and ultrarelativistic. If the energy depositions suggest that the muon may have stopped, the reconstruction fits also for this hypothesis and chooses between the two via the relative goodness-of-fit. In the ideal case of a through-going muon intersecting the center of the detector, the resolution is ~40mm in each transverse dimension. High quality muon reconstruction is an important tool for reducing the impact of the cosmogenic isotope background in Double Chooz. © 2014 Elsevier B.V
Tobacco industry globalization and global health governance: : towards an interdisciplinary research agenda
Shifting patterns of tobacco production and consumption, and the resultant disease burden worldwide since the late twentieth century prompted efforts to strengthen global health governance through adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. While the treaty is rightfully considered an important achievement, to address a neglected public health issue through collective action, evidence suggests that tobacco industry globalization continues apace. In this article we provide a systematic review of the public health literature and reveal definitional and measurement imprecision, ahistorical timeframes, transnational tobacco companies and the state as the primary units and levels of analysis, and a strong emphasis on agency as opposed to structural power. Drawing on the study of globalization in international political economy and business studies, we identify opportunities to expand analysis along each of these dimensions. We conclude that this expanded and interdisciplinary research agenda provides the potential for fuller understanding of the dual and dynamic relationship between the tobacco industry and globalization. Deeper analysis of how the industry has adapted to globalization over time, as well as how the industry has influenced the nature and trajectory of globalization, is essential for building effective global governance responses
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