Green Procurement Practices and Barriers in Furniture Manufacturing Companies

Lack of awareness is the most significant barrier to implementing green procurement practices among procurement managers. Procurement managers seldom consider the effects of procurement on the environment. This situation will cause many environmental problems such as carbon dioxide emissions, climate change, greenhouse effects, pollution, and deforestation. Hence, the purpose of this study is to identify the current practices of green procurement in furniture manufacturing companies. Additionally, this study intends to determine barriers to green procurement practices in furniture manufacturing companies. In this study, 118 procurement officers and managers were chosen randomly from furniture manufacturing companies in Batu Pahat, Johor. This study applied a quantitative method and utilized the Statistical Package Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 to analyse the data from the responses of questionnaires. Descriptive analysis was employed to achieve the research objectives. The findings of this study have revealed that current practices of green procurement in furniture manufacturing companies include ensuring the safe, incoming movement of product to facilities, followed by ensuring that suppliers locations are operated in a safe manner. Meanwhile, the main barrier to green procurement practices is that procedures for the implementation of green procurement are time-consuming. This study is important for furniture manufacturing companies to use green procurement practices in their operation and production processes

The Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker Non-Local Coherent Potential Approximation (KKR-NLCPA)

We introduce the Korringa-Kohn-Rostocker non-local coherent potential approximation (KKR-NLCPA) for describing the electronic structure of disordered systems. The KKR-NLCPA systematically provides a hierarchy of improvements upon the widely used KKR-CPA approach and includes non-local correlations in the disorder configurations by means of a self-consistently embedded cluster. The KKR-NLCPA method satisfies all of the requirements for a successful cluster generalization of the KKR-CPA; it remains fully causal, becomes exact in the limit of large cluster sizes, reduces to the KKR-CPA for a single-site cluster, is straightforward to implement numerically, and enables the effects of short-range order upon the electronic structure to be investigated. In particular, it is suitable for combination with electronic density functional theory to give an ab-initio description of disordered systems. Future applications to charge correlation and lattice displacement effects in alloys and spin fluctuations in magnets amongst others are very promising. We illustrate the method by application to a simple one-dimensional model.Comment: Revised versio

Genetic Sharing with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors and Diabetes Reveals Novel Bone Mineral Density Loci.

Bone Mineral Density (BMD) is a highly heritable trait, but genome-wide association studies have identified few genetic risk factors. Epidemiological studies suggest associations between BMD and several traits and diseases, but the nature of the suggestive comorbidity is still unknown. We used a novel genetic pleiotropy-informed conditional False Discovery Rate (FDR) method to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with BMD by leveraging cardiovascular disease (CVD) associated disorders and metabolic traits. By conditioning on SNPs associated with the CVD-related phenotypes, type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, high density lipoprotein, low density lipoprotein, triglycerides and waist hip ratio, we identified 65 novel independent BMD loci (26 with femoral neck BMD and 47 with lumbar spine BMD) at conditional FDR < 0.01. Many of the loci were confirmed in genetic expression studies. Genes validated at the mRNA levels were characteristic for the osteoblast/osteocyte lineage, Wnt signaling pathway and bone metabolism. The results provide new insight into genetic mechanisms of variability in BMD, and a better understanding of the genetic underpinnings of clinical comorbidity

Autoantibodies against type I IFNs in patients with life-threatening COVID-19

Interindividual clinical variability in the course of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection is vast. We report that at least 101 of 987 patients with life-threatening coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pneumonia had neutralizing immunoglobulin G (IgG) autoantibodies (auto-Abs) against interferon-w (IFN-w) (13 patients), against the 13 types of IFN-a (36), or against both (52) at the onset of critical disease; a few also had auto-Abs against the other three type I IFNs. The auto-Abs neutralize the ability of the corresponding type I IFNs to block SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. These auto-Abs were not found in 663 individuals with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection and were present in only 4 of 1227 healthy individuals. Patients with auto-Abs were aged 25 to 87 years and 95 of the 101 were men. A B cell autoimmune phenocopy of inborn errors of type I IFN immunity accounts for life-threatening COVID-19 pneumonia in at least 2.6% of women and 12.5% of men

Search for the associated production of the Higgs boson with a top-quark pair

A search for the standard model Higgs boson produced in association with a top-quark pair t t ¯ H (tt¯H) is presented, using data samples corresponding to integrated luminosities of up to 5.1 fb &#8722;1 and 19.7 fb &#8722;1 collected in pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 TeV and 8 TeV respectively. The search is based on the following signatures of the Higgs boson decay: H &#8594; hadrons, H &#8594; photons, and H &#8594; leptons. The results are characterized by an observed t t ¯ H tt¯H signal strength relative to the standard model cross section, &#956; = &#963;/&#963; SM ,under the assumption that the Higgs boson decays as expected in the standard model. The best fit value is &#956; = 2.8 ± 1.0 for a Higgs boson mass of 125.6 GeV

Measurement of prompt Jψ\psi pair production in pp collisions at \sqrt s = 7 Tev

Production of prompt J/ &#968; meson pairs in proton-proton collisions at s s&#8730; = 7 TeV is measured with the CMS experiment at the LHC in a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 4.7 fb &#8722;1 . The two J/ &#968; mesons are fully reconstructed via their decays into &#956; + &#956; &#8722; pairs. This observation provides for the first time access to the high-transverse-momentum region of J/ &#968; pair production where model predictions are not yet established. The total and differential cross sections are measured in a phase space defined by the individual J/ &#968; transverse momentum ( p T J/ &#968; ) and rapidity (| y J/ &#968; |): | y J/ &#968; | 6.5 GeV/ c ; 1.2 4.5 GeV/ c . The total cross section, assuming unpolarized prompt J/ &#968; pair production is 1.49 ± 0.07 (stat) ±0.13 (syst) nb. Different assumptions about the J/ &#968; polarization imply modifications to the cross section ranging from &#8722;31% to +27%

Measurements of the t(t)Overbar charge asymmetry using the dilepton decay channel in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV

The tt¯ charge asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at s&#8730; = 7 TeV is measured using the dilepton decay channel (ee, e &#956; , or &#956;&#956; ). The data correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb &#8722;1 , collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC. The tt and lepton charge asymmetries, defined as the differences in absolute values of the rapidities between the reconstructed top quarks and antiquarks and of the pseudorapidities between the positive and negative leptons, respectively, are measured to be A C = &#8722;0 . 010 ± 0 . 017 (stat . ) ± 0 . 008 (syst . ) and AlepC = 0 . 009 ± 0 . 010 (stat . ) ± 0 . 006 (syst . ). The lepton charge asymmetry is also measured as a function of the invariant mass, rapidity, and transverse momentum of the tt¯ system. All measurements are consistent with the expectations of the standard model

Measurement of the Z boson differential cross section in transverse momentum and rapidity in proton-proton collisions at 8 TeV

We present a measurement of the Z boson differential cross section in rapidity and transverse momentum using a data sample of pp collision events at a centre-of-mass energy s=8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb-1. The Z boson is identified via its decay to a pair of muons. The measurement provides a precision test of quantum chromodynamics over a large region of phase space. In addition, due to the small experimental uncertainties in the measurement the data has the potential to constrain the gluon parton distribution function in the kinematic regime important for Higgs boson production via gluon fusion. The results agree with the next-to-next-to-leading-order predictions computed with the fewz program. The results are also compared to the commonly used leading-order MadGraph and next-to-leading-order powheg generators. © 2015 CERN for the benefit of the CMS Collaboration

Search for neutral resonances decaying into a Z boson and a pair of b jets or τ leptons

A search is performed for a new resonance decaying into a lighter resonance and a Z boson. Two channels are studied, targeting the decay of the lighter resonance into either a pair of oppositely charged τ leptons or a bb‾ pair. The Z boson is identified via its decays to electrons or muons. The search exploits data collected by the CMS experiment at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.8 fb −1 . No significant deviations are observed from the standard model expectation and limits are set on production cross sections and parameters of two-Higgs-doublet models

Measurement of the azimuthal anisotropy of Y(1S) and Y(2S) mesons in PbPb collisions at √S^{S}NN = 5.02 TeV

The second-order Fourier coefficients (υ$_{2}$) characterizing the azimuthal distributions of Υ(1S) and Υ(2S) mesons produced in PbPb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}}$ = 5.02 TeV are studied. The Υmesons are reconstructed in their dimuon decay channel, as measured by the CMS detector. The collected data set corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 1.7 nb$^{-1}$. The scalar product method is used to extract the υ$_{2}$ coefficients of the azimuthal distributions. Results are reported for the rapidity range |y| < 2.4, in the transverse momentum interval 0 < p$_{T}$ < 50 GeV/c, and in three centrality ranges of 10–30%, 30–50% and 50–90%. In contrast to the J/ψ mesons, the measured υ$_{2}$ values for the Υ mesons are found to be consistent with zero