From corporate social responsibility to the democratic regulation of transnational corporations

This publication examines the role of transnational corporations in governance and critically evaluates the dominant self-regulatory approach of corporate social responsibility (CSR). By placing the onus for change on the corporation, CSR represents an agent-led approach to a systemic problem, and as such it is flawed. After distinguishing between the ideas of CSR and corporate accountability, the latter of which emphasises the answerability of the corporation to public authorities and citizens, the publication then offers an original model for the democratic regulation of the corporation. The model proposes, first, the negotiation of a new corpus of international law to be agreed by states but ratified by those corporations that wish to trade or invest internationally and, second, the reinvigoration of the public charter as an active instrument of public control. The model aims to provide a nested framework within which corporations can trade and compete, while restoring to local communities final decision making authority on the conditions under which corporations may, or may not, operate. Some possible objections to the model are anticipated and addressed

National Forest Programmes in Europe: Generating policy-relevant propositions for formulation and implementation

The COST Action E19 on National Forest Programmes in a European Context assembled more than 70 researchers and civil servants from 20 European countries and the USA. Some meetings were also attended by scholars from Canada, China and Japan. The participants aimed to provide policy makers in Europe with improved means for the formulation and implementation of National Forest Programmes (NFPs) for ensuring sustainable forest management. In order to accomplish this objective the work programme comprised the following tasks: to interpret the basic elements and institutional and procedural requirements of NFPs, to assess the effects of these elements and requirements on NFPs, to assess the supporting and impeding factors for the development of substantive NFPs, to evaluate the significance of NFPs in comparison to other policy means

The Reconstruction of the Beirut Central District: An urban geography of war and peace

Three conceptual themes of public-private, temporality, and heritage-modernity are used to develop an urban geography of war and peace of Beirut. During the 1975-1990 Lebanese civil war public space shrank and people retreated deeper into localised neighbourhoods, with private space becoming more public as people accommodated those who were displaced. Since the war, the public sector has been rehabilitated, but decision making autonomy on the reconstruction of Beirut’s centre has been handed to a private company. The theme of temporality concerns the relationship between the city’s past, present, and future, with debates on what parts of the city should be preserved intimately bound with notions of memory and forgetting. The relationship between heritage and modernity, both of which are fluid and evolving notions, has informed the reconstruction of the city. The reclamation by Beirutis of the centre of the city following the assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005 makes clear that urban space is constructed as much by publics as by architects and town planners, with Place des Martyrs once again functioning as an integrating space for public dialogue and reconciliation

A Collection of Observations and Advice on University Teaching

Outline 1. A Prime Directive: Don’t Bore the Students 2. The Secret to Classroom Buzz: Listen to, and Play Off, Students’ Questions 3. Puzzle, Enlighten, Repeat 4. Memorable Illustrations 5. Old School, Chalk and Notes 6. Research and Teaching Fusion 7. BackstageAerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic

Probability theory and its models

This paper argues for the status of formal probability theory as a mathematical, rather than a scientific, theory. David Freedman and Philip Stark's concept of model based probabilities is examined and is used as a bridge between the formal theory and applications.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/193940307000000347 the IMS Collections (http://www.imstat.org/publications/imscollections.htm) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

GPS Spoofing and the Financial Sector

All global financial exchanges, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq, have gone digital. Large data centers hold the exchanges’ matching engines—the modern-day equivalent of the historic trading floor—in racks of interconnected servers. The Department of Homeland Security considers these data centers critical national infrastructure. Private security personnel, tall fences, and the best network security money can buy protect the integrity of the thousands of high-stakes trades executed every second within these data centers.Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanic

The role of clover in organic milk production

Relatively high levels of milk output are possible from organic clover-based grassland compared with average production on conventional dairy farms in Ireland. Although clover-based swards receiving no fertilizer have relatively low growth in spring, a long grazing season can be achieved by extending the grazing season during the autumn and winter. High growth rates during the summer and autumn and relatively low stocking densities on organic dairy farms facilitate this. Maintaining the clover content of swards is important to maintain productivity. Tight grazing to 4 cm throughout the year and particularly during the late autumn and winter is important. Identifying swards with declining clover contents due to competition from the grass component of the sward or due to hoof damage is also important. These swards need to be over- sown the following year with the target of over-sowing or re-seeding no less than 20% of the farm each year

Analogues of Weyl's formula for reduced enveloping algebras

In this note we study simple modules for a reduced enveloping algebra U_chi(g) in the critical case when chi element of g^* is ``nilpotent''. Some dimension formulas computed by Jantzen suggest modified versions of Weyl's dimension formula, based on certain reflecting hyperplanes for the affine Weyl group which might be associated to Kazhdan--Lusztig cells.Comment: AMS-LaTeX, 10 pages, 2 figure