Turning the lion city pink: interrogating Singapore's new gay civil servant statement

On 4 July 2003, Singapore’s former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong dropped a small bombshell of an announcement in the main local newspaper The Straits Times. He declared, “In the past, if we know you’re gay, we would not employ you. But we have changed this quietly.” Now, the government will employ gay Singaporeans in ‘certain positions’, even sensitive ones, provided that these civil servants openly declared their sexual orientation. Expecting considerable indignant resistance form the conservative quarters, Goh attempted to placate them: “We are born this way and they [i.e. gay people] are born that way, but they are like you and me. The furore that came in the wake of this announcement saw one very heterosexual man publicly decrying that the government had lost its moral authority to rule. To those of us more experienced in queer politics elsewhere, this man’s outrage seemed misplaced. Goh was merely offering employment to openly gay men and women, not legalising same-sex marriages as had happened in Toronto earlier in the summer. So why the public uproar?AsiaPacifiQueer Network, Australian National Universit

Marine Managed Areas Workshop report, Penang, Malaysia, 18-19 January, 2011

Establishment of a working group of regional experts in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs); inventory and status of existing MPAs; gap analysis;establishment of common data requirements and protocols;development of a regional action plan;training and capacity building; outreach activities; proposal f0r management of existing and creation of new MPAs

Analysis of quorum-sensing Pantoea stewartii strain M073a through whole-genome sequencing

YesPantoea stewartii strain M073a is a Gram-negative bacterium isolated from a tropical waterfall. This strain exhibits quorum-sensing activity. Here, the assembly and annotation of its genome are presented.High Impact Research Grants from the University of Malaya (UM.C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/CHAN/01, grant no. A-000001-50001 and UM-MOHE HIR Grant UM.C/625/1/HIR/MOHE/ CHAN/14/1, no. H-50001-A000027

Correlation between the microstructures and the deformation mechanisms of CuZr-based bulk metallic glass composites

The variation of the transformation-mediated deformation behavior with microstructural changes in CuZr-based bulk metallic glass composites is investigated. With increasing crystalline volume fraction, the deformation mechanism gradually changes from a shear-banding dominated process as evidenced by a chaotic serrated flow behavior, to being governed by a martensitic transformation with a pronounced elastic-plastic stage, resulting in different plastic deformations evolving into a self-organized critical state characterized by the power-law distribution of shear avalanches. This is reflected in the stress-strain curves by a single-to-"double"-to-"triple"- double yielding transition and by different mechanical properties with different serrated flow characteristics, which are interpreted based on the microstructural evolutions and a fundamental energy theorem. Our results can assist in understanding deformation behaviors for high-performance metastable alloys

Conceptual design of a novel power-augmented hydrokinetic run-of- river turbine

Other than the water stream from ocean, river stream is also being considered as a viable source of renewable energy. Many researchers has approached and started the studies of river stream in order to harness the maximum power from the rivers. River stream offers promising energy especially to the rural areas which are surrounded by rivers. From previous studies, it shows that majority of the hydrokinetic run-of-river turbine systems are designed in vertical and horizontal axis. Besides, some of the vertical and horizontal axis turbines are also enclosed by the duct or diffuser in order to guide the river stream and increase the flow velocity. However, the design of the shape of diffuser faced the challenges during fabrication phase and additional supporting structures are needed during installation, causing the increases in the overall cost. In this paper, the authors would like to propose a conceptual design of a novel power-augmented hydrokinetic run-of-river turbine which utilizes the concept of cross-axis wind turbine and simple augmented guide vane. This conceptual design of hydrokinetic turbine able to capture the advantages of both the horizontal and vertical axis turbines. Helical blade design was chosen for this conceptual design due to its ability to capture the skewed flow created by the difference in velocity of upper and lower faces of turbine. When the vertical-axis turbine rotates, the angle of attack of each blade varies cyclically. The cyclical variation of the angle of attack creates cyclical blade loading, which increases the fatigue experienced by blades. Most of the cyclical loading can be alleviated by using helical instead of straight blades. The conceptual design of this cross-axis turbine with helical blade is similar to the Gorlov helical turbine but there are some differences in the radial blades which are designed as 8 degrees upper and lower respectively to the horizontal axis of the connector hub. The two layers radial blade-rotors are offset by 60 degrees. The turbine system is designed by intercepting the two guide vanes in between three individual turbines and also two diffuservanes as the outer part of the system. The NACA 0015 airfoil profile is used as turbine blade in this design. The construction costs of cross-axis concept turbine and the helical blades are relatively low (about 30%) compared with the huge ducted and diffuser turbine. A 3D model was constructed and simulated by using the computational fluid dynamics software, ANSYS-Fluent. In the simulation, the velocity of water flow and the rotational speed of turbine were increased with the integration of the guide-vane and diffuser features. It is estimated that this conceptual design turbine will achieve 60% increase in energy gain

Revisiting the moderating role of culture between job characteristics and job satisfaction: a multilevel analysis of 33 countries

Purpose: This paper aims to address how national culture moderates the relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: The authors examine the most recent data collected from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) in 2015 from a group of 33 countries. Hofstede's cultural model is used to represent and measure national culture. Findings: One of the most significant findings from the authors’ two-level regression analysis is that having an interesting job contributes more to job satisfaction in individualistic countries than in collectivist countries. The authors also find that the newly introduced cultural dimension indulgence vs restraint has some significant moderating effect on the relationship between job security, salary, the perceived interest of a job and job satisfaction. Job security also seems to contribute less to job satisfaction in societies that are long-term oriented. Practical implications: This study provides further support for a more careful, nuanced examination of job motivation theories. Multinational companies should understand the needs of their employees and diversify their compensation packages accordingly. More attention should be paid to job design in individualistic or indulgent-oriented countries to create a satisfying job experience. Originality/value: The authors examine the most recent data from ISSP and extend the literature by incorporating two additional cultural dimensions from Hofstede's model as moderators

Impact of n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone in monoethanolamine solution to the co2 absorption in packed column: analysis via mathematical modeling

This work investigates the reason behind the change of CO2 absorption behaviour exhibited by monoethanolamine (MEA) solution via mathematical modeling analysis when physical absorbent, i.e. n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), was added into the solution. The mathematical modeling included the heat model using time resolved numerical method. Based on the results, it was found that lower CO2 removal performance with the addition of NMP into MEA solution at pressure of 0.1 MPa was mainly due to the lower temperature rise along the column, which resulted in lower reaction rate. However, at 3 and 5 MPa pressure conditions, the high physical absorption capability contributed by the presence of NMP in MEA hybrid solution enhanced the CO2 absorption performance of MEA hybrid solution significantly. As such, temperature rise of solution was identified as the dominating factor affecting the performance of the hybrid solvent. The reaction rate of MEA was not affected by the addition of physical solvent. This finding shed crucial insight on the behaviour MEA-NMP hybrid solution which can be applied during scale-up of the process

Tomato: a crop species amenable to improvement by cellular and molecular methods

Tomato is a crop plant with a relatively small DNA content per haploid genome and a well developed genetics. Plant regeneration from explants and protoplasts is feasable which led to the development of efficient transformation procedures. In view of the current data, the isolation of useful mutants at the cellular level probably will be of limited value in the genetic improvement of tomato. Protoplast fusion may lead to novel combinations of organelle and nuclear DNA (cybrids), whereas this technique also provides a means of introducing genetic information from alien species into tomato. Important developments have come from molecular approaches. Following the construction of an RFLP map, these RFLP markers can be used in tomato to tag quantitative traits bred in from related species. Both RFLP's and transposons are in the process of being used to clone desired genes for which no gene products are known. Cloned genes can be introduced and potentially improve specific properties of tomato especially those controlled by single genes. Recent results suggest that, in principle, phenotypic mutants can be created for cloned and characterized genes and will prove their value in further improving the cultivated tomato.

A Reverse Logistics Network Model for Handling Returned Products

58827Due to the emergence of e-commerce and the proliferation of liberal return policies, product returns have become daily routines for many companies. Considering the significant impact of product returns on the company’s bottom line, a growing number of companies have attempted to streamline the reverse logistics process. Products are usually returned to initial collection points (ICPs) in small quantities and thus increase the unit shipping cost due to lack of freight discount opportunities. One way to address this issue is to aggregate the returned products into a larger shipment. However, such aggregation increases the holding time at the ICP, which in turn increases the inventory carrying costs. Considering this logistics dilemma, the main objectives of this research are to minimize the total cost by determining the optimal location and collection period of holding time of ICPs; determining the optimal location of a centralized return centre; transforming the nonlinear objective function of the proposed model formulation by Min et al. (2006a) into a linear form; and conducting a sensitivity analysis to the model solutions according to varying parameters such as shipping volume. Existing models and solution procedures are too complicated to solve real-world problems. Through a series of computational experiments, we discovered that the linearization model obtained the optimal solution at a fraction of the time used by the traditional nonlinear model and solution procedure, as well as the ability to handle up to 150 customers as compared to 30 in the conventional nonlinear model. As such, the proposed linear model is more suitable for actual industry applications than the existing models.S