Whistleblowing as a countermeasure strategy against food crime

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to undertake a two-phase desktop review of literature sources in order to conceptualise, frame, and critique existing whistleblowing models and strategies and consider how whistleblowing strategies form part of an effective food crime management system (FCMS) especially for small and medium sized organisations. Design/methodology/approach Existing literature from academic sources, financial, healthcare, food industries has been reviewed and critiqued in order to construct a conceptual framework that can inform future empirical research. Findings Whistleblowing strategies can form an effective part of a FCMS. Appropriate regulatory protection of those who whistleblow is crucial to not only safeguard individuals but also to mitigate food crime and protect consumers from loss and potential harm. Barriers to whistleblowing exist and if these are not addressed then individuals will be reluctant to report food crime. Further empirical research is required to assess the influence of these and other factors identified in this research and how they can be overcome. Originality/value The framework will provide food industry practitioners with guidance on the effective application of whistleblowing strategies within a FCMS

Analysis of environmentally assisted cracking processes in notched steels using the point method

This paper proposes the use of the Point Method (PM) to analyse Environmentally Assisted Cracking (EAC) processes in steels containing U-shaped notches. The PM, a methodology included within the Theory of Critical Distances (TCD), has been extensively validated by many authors for the analysis of fracture and fatigue phenomena of different types of materials containing notches. However, it has never been applied to other critical or subcritical cracking processes such as EAC or creep crack propagation. This work provides a PM-based analysis of EAC emanating from notches, which is validated by testing CT notched specimens of X80 and S420 steels subjected to aggressive environments under hydrogen embrittlement conditions. The results reveal that the PM accurately predicts the crack propagation onset condition, as well as the evolution of the materials apparent EAC resistance.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the research projects MAT2014-58443-P and MAT2014-58738-C3-3-R

A scale-up of processing non-woven flax/PLA tape and triaxial glass fibre fabric for composites

In the drive towards a sustainable bio-economy, a growing interest in the development of composite materials using renewable raw material resources such as flax fibre reinforced polylactic acid (PLA), known as a flax-tape composite (FTC), has been observed. Flax/PLA is one of the cornerstones for the sustainable economic growth of natural fibre composites, while the use of hydrocarbon fossil resources and synthetic fibres such as glass and carbon have caused severe environmental impacts along their entire life cycles. In this study, the manufacturing process for the production of flax tape and triaxial glass fibre were evaluated through life cycle assessment (LCA) gate-to-gate, based on an input-output model, to estimate the energy demand and environmental impacts. The quality of the natural hybrid composite produced and cost-effectiveness of their LCA were dependent on their roving processing speeds; temperature applied to the flax tape and triaxial glass fabrics during processing. This was optimised to be 4 m/min at a temperature of 170 oC. In contrast, normal triaxial glass fibre production took a slower speed of 1 m/min using a roving glass fibre laminating machine. The results showed that when the flax and PLA were commingled to produce a new composite material in the form of a flax tape, the energy consumption was 0.25 MJ/kg, lower than 0.8 MJ/kg of glass fibre fabric composites. Flax tape and glass fibre fabric composites have a carbon footprint equivalent to 0.036 kg CO2 and 0.11kg CO2, respectively, under the same manufacturing conditions. These are within the technical requirements in the composites industry. The manufacturing process adopted to transform flax/PLA into a similar tape composite was considerably quicker than that of woven glass fibre composite tape. Importantly, this work explored a relationship between the blending process and energy consumption of the flax tape composite in comparison to glass fibre composite, using a standard LCA analytical methodology. The outcomes support an alternative option for replacement of some conventional composite materials and technique for the automotive industry

Changes in the mechanical properties of biomass wood pellets during artificial degradation in a laboratory environment

In stockpiles exposed to high relative humidity (RH) and rainfall, woody biomass pellets lose structural integrity, often assumed to be due to the uptake of moisture from the environment. In this study three different types of biomass pellet were artificially degraded in a laboratory environment under controlled exposure to RH (10% and 90% RH ) and temperature (range of 10 to 30°C). White, torrefied and steam-exploded wood pellets were investigated. Daily shear tests were conducted with durability and moisture content measured. The exposure of all three pellet types to high RH coupled with elevated temperatures caused a substantial decrease of shear modulus with values of 50% to 92% decrease compared to fresh pellets after 4 days exposure. The steam exploded pellets saw the lowest drop in mechanical durability (5%) but saw the largest decrease in shear modulus, whilst the white wood pellets disintegrated in situ after 4 days. In contrast storage at 10% RH did not cause any observable degradation, with mechanical behaviour of steam exploded and torrefied pellets showing an improvement. This paper presents both testing methodology as well as clear indication of the behaviour of three woody biomass pellets on exposure to high relative humidity

Intelligent transport systems harmonisation assessment: use case of some Spanish intelligent transport systems services

From the 1980s, new telematic technologies have meant a great evolution in several areas. In the transportation domain, their use has implied the development and implementation of several intelligent transport systems (ITS). However, these deployments were done in an isolated way. Traffic managers, public and private organisations, stakeholders and others have implemented ITS without much perspective, that is, without providing ITS as services for end users. In the last few years, several European Union (EU) funded projects have been dealing with the development of harmonised ITS services. For example, the EasyWay Project is involving most of the European countries (EU member states and others) to deploy harmonised ITS services taking into account the European citizen as the final target. In this study, an introduction of the EasyWay project is made, including the ITS concept services and the deployment guidelines for harmonisation. In November 2012, EasyWay presented a new version of DGs, which were approved with minor editorial changes. An overview on these DGs for the ITS services is presented and two real Spanish road traffic ITS services are analysed

Leaks, legislation and freedom of speech: how can the law effectively promote public interest whistleblowing

In this article we outline the differences between leaking and whistleblowing, and provide possible justifications for leaking. We argue that, as a matter of principle, leaking information outside an organization will normally not further any public interest and should only be used as a last resort where problems have not been resolved internally. As uncontrolled leaking may be hazardous, we believe that the opportunity to blow the whistle in accordance with structured procedures offers a more satisfactory mechanism for exposing financial and other forms of wrongdoing (Carr and Lewis 2010). Next we describe how freedom of speech, whistleblowing legislation and internal reporting procedures provide alternatives to leaking and explain how they all operate unsatisfactorily in certain respects. In our analysis we refer to international conventions and the laws of four countries (USA, UK, France and Germany) that we consider representative of the different approaches to the treatment of whistleblowers. In conclusion, we suggest that regimes which are aimed at encouraging public interest disclosures through organizational insiders need improvement. Without this, unauthorized leaking could be tolerable in certain situations. Finally, we observe that public interest disclosure regimes need to take the human right dimension into accoun

Briefing: Towards exploring profession-specific BIM challenges in the UK

Building information modelling (BIM) has been proposed as an enabler for greater efficiency and effectiveness within the UK construction industry, providing digital management of construction data throughout the project life cycle. The potential benefits of BIM have been widely discussed in published literature but relatively less attention has been paid to the discipline/profession-specific challenges of wider industry adoption. Further studies, such as the authors' ongoing research, could help to remedy this