Improving reverse supply chain performance: The role of supply chain leadership and governance mechanisms

Recently, a growing interest has been devoted to the role of buying firms in promoting sustainability across supply chains. However, relatively little attention has been given to how the behaviour of a buying firm affects the performance of reverse supply chains. Within this context, this paper investigates the role of Supply Chain Leadership styles on suppliers' performance dimensions related to reverse product flows. Furthermore, the mediating role of two governance mechanisms (namely trust and legal-legitimate power) on this relationship is examined. This study employs structural equation modelling to analyse data collected from 190 manufacturing companies in Malaysia. The paper concludes that transformational and transactional leaderships are significant and positive contributors to suppliers’ reverse supply chain performance; trust and power significantly mediate these relationships

Higher-dimensional black holes with a conformally invariant Maxwell source

We consider an action for an abelian gauge field for which the density is given by a power of the Maxwell Lagrangian. In d spacetime dimensions this action is shown to enjoy the conformal invariance if the power is chosen as d/4. We take advantage of this conformal invariance to derive black hole solutions electrically charged with a purely radial electric field. Because of considering power of the Maxwell density, the black hole solutions exist only for dimensions which are multiples of four. The expression of the electric field does not depend on the dimension and corresponds to the four-dimensional Reissner-Nordstrom field. Using the Hamiltonian action we identify the mass and the electric charge of these black hole solutions.Comment: 5 page

Experimental assessment of the variability of concrete air permeability: repeatability, reproducibility and spatial variability

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Electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern for human smoke habit

The brain is most important part of the human body. Smoking cigarettes is a bad habit, however the total numbers of smokers continue developing. Most smokers give 'to release stress and bored' as a purpose behind smoking. Under this circumstance, the interested of brain condition for smoke affinity are useful for varies biomedical field. The essential motivation behind this research is to investigate the Electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern for smoker using sub-band of theta, alpha and beta groups focus on Power Spectral Density (PSD). EMOTIV Pure•EEG™, SPSS and Excel is used as the software while Emotiv Insight is used as the hardware in this research. 5 smokers and 5 non-smokers were tested for this exploration. EEG data was recorded for 5 minutes. Results demonstrated that smokers have lesser theta band which shows a less stressed on feeling as contrasted with non-smokers with a higher theta band. Smokers additionally higher alpha band which shows that they are more casual contrasted with non-smokers with lower alpha band. In any case, smokers are lower beta band that shows they are less�cognizant contrasted with non-smokers. Recently, electronic cigarettes (e�cigarette) have been proposed as a successful instrument for smoking restraint

Evaluation of different time domain peak models using extreme learning machine-based peak detection for EEG signal

Various peak models have been introduced to detect and analyze peaks in the time domain analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals. In general, peak model in the time domain analysis consists of a set of signal parameters, such as amplitude, width, and slope. Models including those proposed by Dumpala, Acir, Liu, and Dingle are routinely used to detect peaks in EEG signals acquired in clinical studies of epilepsy or eye blink. The optimal peak model is the most reliable peak detection performance in a particular application. A fair measure of performance of different models requires a common and unbiased platform. In this study, we evaluate the performance of the four different peak models using the extreme learning machine (ELM)-based peak detection algorithm. We found that the Dingle model gave the best performance, with 72 % accuracy in the analysis of real EEG data. Statistical analysis conferred that the Dingle model afforded significantly better mean testing accuracy than did the Acir and Liu models, which were in the range 37–52 %. Meanwhile, the Dingle model has no significant difference compared to Dumpala model

Investigation of Air Pollution Impact on Kinta River Water Quality at a Tropical Region

Critical air quality levels lead to an unhealthy environment which disrupts physical activities and human health. Wet deposition of air pollutants might cause a high concentration of water pollution due to rain water washout of nitrate and particulate matter (PM). This study aimed to investigate the impacts of air pollutants deposition on river water quality in Malaysia. The methodology involved in the analysis of secondary data (January to December 2013) for air quality and river water quality using factor, correlation, and regression. Parameters of air quality were PM10, Nitrate (NO3), ozone (O3) and temperature while water quality data were turbidity, Nitrate and PM10 (Ca, As, Hg, Cd, Cr, Pb, Zn, Cl, Fe, K, Mg, Na). The results show that there were positive correlations between air quality indicators and Kinta river water quality parameters. Correlation matrix shows that in terms of turbidity, air and water data were having 96% similarities. Regarding Nitrate concentrations, air and water records had only 30% of correlation matrix, which can be due to other sources of Nitrate which was agriculture activities near Kinta River. The factor analysis results showed that PM was the main contributor to river water quality particles with 94%. © 2020 Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

Blue remembered skills : mental health awareness training for police officers

The Bradley Report (Bradley, 2009) has raised a number of important questions regarding the treatment of individuals who are experiencing mental health problems and find themselves in the criminal justice system. One of the key recommendations is that professional staff working across criminal justice organisations should receive increased training in this area. This paper explores the experiences of two professionals, a mental health nurse and a social worker, involved in providing training for police officers. It goes on to consider the most effective models of training for police officers

Supply chain leadership: A systematic literature review and a research agenda

The main purpose of this study is to improve the understanding and comprehension of the supply chain leadership concept. To this aim, the paper systematically reviews and synthesises the current academic literature in this emerging field, unveiling research gaps and discussing a future research agenda. The review was performed by selecting papers from leading journals in the operations and supply chain management field (using the Scopus and Web of Science academic search engines). Overall, 51 relevant papers were identified through the review process. After providing an overview of classical leadership theories, the paper introduces a definition for the supply chain leadership concept. The theoretical characterisation of such concept is then investigated, through the identification of dominant leadership theories employed to explain and characterise supply chain leadership. Also, the study provides a thematic analysis of supply chain leadership styles and their influence on supply chain practices. Employed research methodologies, along with geographical specificities and supply chain orientations of previous studies, are also scrutinised. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to provide a holistic systematic literature review in the supply chain leadership domain. Therefore, this contribution is an important first step in order to establish robust theoretical frameworks involving the constructs of supply chain leadership and to provide a foundation for further studies in this field