Out of social accountability: Reasons and alternative paths for SA8000 decertification

This article examines the reasons that drive companies to leave Social Accountability 8000 (SA8000)—the main auditable corporate social responsibility standard—and which alternative paths they undertake after the abandonment. As decertification from SA8000 is an under-researched phenomenon, an exploratory approach based on the analysis of 15 multi-country/industry companies has been adopted. Findings show that firms leave SA8000 for several reasons including the reduction of commercial advantages, paperwork overload, and complexities in orders and suppliers management. Our investigation recognizes decertification drivers that are recurring in other standards as well as new ones specific to SA8000. For what concerns the post-decertification paths, we observe that firms pursue three distinct exit strategies (i.e., adoption of an alternative initiative/standard; no adoption of any alternative social standard/initiative, but still respect some SA8000 requirements; no adoption of any alternative social standard/initiative and stop taking care of SA8000 requirements)

A terahertz-driven non-equilibrium phase transition in a room temperature atomic vapour

There are few demonstrated examples of phase transitions that may be driven directly by terahertz frequency electric fields, and those that are known require field strengths exceeding 1MV cm−1. Here we report a non-equilibrium phase transition driven by a weak (≪1 V cm−1), continuous-wave terahertz electric field. The system consists of room temperature caesium vapour under continuous optical excitation to a high-lying Rydberg state, which is resonantly coupled to a nearby level by the terahertz electric field. We use a simple model to understand the underlying physical behaviour, and we demonstrate two protocols to exploit the phase transition as a narrowband terahertz detector: the first with a fast (20 μs) non-linear response to nano-Watts of incident radiation, and the second with a linearised response and effective noise equivalent power ≤1 pWHz−1/2. The work opens the door to a class of terahertz devices controlled with low-field intensities and operating in a room temperature environment

Non-equilibrium universality in the dynamics of dissipative cold atomic gases

The theory of continuous phase transitions predicts the universal collective properties of a physical system near a critical point, which for instance manifest in characteristic power-law behaviours of physical observables. The well-established concept at or near equilibrium, universality, can also characterize the physics of systems out of equilibrium. The most fundamental instance of a genuine non-equilibrium phase transition is the directed percolation universality class, where a system switches from an absorbing inactive to a fluctuating active phase. Despite being known for several decades it has been challenging to find experimental systems that manifest this transition. Here we show theoretically that signatures of the directed percolation universality class can be observed in an atomic system with long range interactions. Moreover, we demonstrate that even mesoscopic ensembles — which are currently studied experimentally — are sufficient to observe traces of this non-equilibrium phase transition in one, two and three dimensions

Long non-coding RNA gas5 and intestinal mmp2 and mmp9 expression: A translational study in pediatric patients with IBD

Background: The long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) growth arrest–specific transcript 5 (GAS5) seems to be involved in the regulation of mediators of tissue injury, in particular matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). We investigated the role of GAS5 in regulating MMP2 and MMP9 expression in pediatric patients with IBD and in vitro. Methods: In total, 25 IBD patients were enrolled: For each patient paired inflamed and non-inflamed biopsies were collected. RNA was extracted and GAS5, MMP2, and MMP9 were quantified by TaqMan assay. The expression of GAS5 and MMPs was also determined in the human monocytic THP1 cells differentiated into macrophages and stimulated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The function of GAS5 was assessed by overexpressing the lncRNA and evaluating the MMPs levels. Results: Real-time PCR results demonstrated a downregulation of GAS5 and an upregulation of both MMPs in inflamed tissues. In vitro data confirmed the trend observed in patients for the three genes: The stimulation with LPS promoted a downregulation of GAS5 while an increase of MMPs was observed. Overexpression experiments showed that higher levels of GAS5 lead to a decrease of both enzymes. Conclusion: These results provide new information about the role of GAS5 in IBD: The lncRNA could mediate tissue damage by modulating the expression of MMPs

Start of SPIDER operation towards ITER neutral beams

Heating Neutral Beam (HNB) Injectors will constitute the main plasma heating and current drive tool both in ITER and JT60-SA, which are the next major experimental steps for demonstrating nuclear fusion as viable energy source. In ITER, in order to achieve the required thermonuclear fusion power gain Q=10 for short pulse operation and Q=5 for long pulse operation (up to 3600s), two HNB injectors will be needed [1], each delivering a total power of about 16.5 MW into the magnetically-confined plasma, by means of neutral hydrogen or deuterium particles having a specific energy of about 1 MeV. Since only negatively charged particles can be efficiently neutralized at such energy, the ITER HNB injectors [2] will be based on negative ions, generated by caesium-catalysed surface conversion of atoms in a radio-frequency driven plasma source. A negative deuterium ion current of more than 40 A will be extracted, accelerated and focused in a multi-aperture, multi-stage electrostatic accelerator, having 1280 apertures (~ 14 mm diam.) and 5 acceleration stages (~200 kV each) [3]. After passing through a narrow gas-cell neutralizer, the residual ions will be deflected and discarded, whereas the neutralized particles will continue their trajectory through a duct into the tokamak vessels to deliver the required heating power to the ITER plasma for a pulse duration of about 3600 s. Although the operating principles and the implementation of the most critical parts of the injector have been tested in different experiments, the ITER NBI requirements have never been simultaneously attained. In order to reduce the risks and to optimize the design and operating procedures of the HNB for ITER, a dedicated Neutral Beam Test Facility (NBTF) [4] has been promoted by the ITER Organization with the contribution of the European Union\u2019s Joint Undertaking for ITER and of the Italian Government, with the participation of the Japanese and Indian Domestic Agencies (JADA and INDA) and of several European laboratories, such as IPP-Garching, KIT-Karlsruhe, CCFE-Culham, CEA-Cadarache. The NBTF, nicknamed PRIMA, has been set up at Consorzio RFX in Padova, Italy [5]. The planned experiments will verify continuous HNB operation for one hour, under stringent requirements for beam divergence (< 7 mrad) and aiming (within 2 mrad). To study and optimise HNB performances, the NBTF includes two experiments: MITICA, full-scale NBI prototype with 1 MeV particle energy and SPIDER, with 100 keV particle energy and 40 A current, aiming at testing and optimizing the full-scale ion source. SPIDER will focus on source uniformity, negative ion current density and beam optics. In June 2018 the experimental operation of SPIDER has started

Possível modificação climática na Bacia do Rio Ubá (Paty do Alfe-Res, RJ).

In this work was used 21 years of meteorological data (1971/1992) of the station of Avelar, located in the county of Paty do Alferes, Rio de Janeiro. The behavior of the variability of the meteorological elements during the periodo of study has showed the influence of the urban ocupation and the decrease of area covered with natural vegetation in the last 30 years