State-driven Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?: mediating offshore outsourcing and CSR in Malaysia

Offshore outsourcing of business activities from the Global North to the Global South does not only relocate investments and jobs, but has also brought about new business demands on suppliers activities and their social and environmental impact. The article explores whether, how and why offshore outsourcing transactions between foreign firms and Malaysian firms affect the upgrading of the CSR activities of Malaysia incorporated firms, taking the particular institutional context of Malaysia into consideration. The focus is on recipient country vendors, contract manufacturers or subcontractors and their reception of and strategising about corporate social responsibility. The findings of the study indicate, firstly, that the amount of foreign (sub)contracting influences the CSR strategising of domestic firms while the global value chain position is only conditioning the offshore outsourcing portfolio. Secondly, both the corporate governance of Malaysian affiliate and the Malaysian government play an important role shaping the perception, rhetoric and organisation of CSR activities by firms in Malaysia with a domestic value chain position. Hence, firms in Malaysia are squeezed by international business linkages and the local institutional context

Superconductivity and Magnetism in REFeAsO1-xFx (RE=Rare Earth Elements)

Fluoride-doped iron-based oxypnictides containing rare-earth gadolinium (GdFeAsO0.8F0.2) and co-doping with yttrium (Gd0.8Y0.2FeAsO0.8F0.2) have been prepared via conventional solid state reaction at ambient pressure. The non-yttrium substituted oxypnictide show superconducting transition as high as 43.9 K from temperature dependent resistance measurements with the Meissner effect observed at a lower temperature of 40.8 K from temperature dependent magnetization measurements. By replacing a small amount of gadolinium with yttrium Tc was observed to be lowered by 10 K which might be caused by a change in the electronic or magnetic structures since the crystal structure was not altered.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Proceedings in the LT25 Low Temperature Physics Conference) Submitte

Structural relaxation in a system of dumbbell molecules

The interaction-site-density-fluctuation correlators, the dipole-relaxation functions, and the mean-squared displacements of a system of symmetric dumbbells of fused hard spheres are calculated for two representative elongations of the molecules within the mode-coupling theory for the evolution of glassy dynamics. For large elongations, universal relaxation laws for states near the glass transition are valid for parameters and time intervals similar to the ones found for the hard-sphere system. Rotation-translation coupling leads to an enlarged crossover interval for the mean-squared displacement of the constituent atoms between the end of the von Schweidler regime and the beginning of the diffusion process. For small elongations, the superposition principle for the reorientational $\alpha$-process is violated for parameters and time intervals of interest for data analysis, and there is a strong breaking of the coupling of the $\alpha$-relaxation scale for the diffusion process with that for representative density fluctuations and for dipole reorientations.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, Phys. Rev. E in pres

Digital Doppler extraction demonstration with the advanced receiver

A digital Doppler extraction demonstration with the Advanced Receiver 2 (ARX 2) tracking Pioneer 10 and Voyager 2 is described. The measured results are compared with those of the Block 4 receiver that was operating in parallel with the ARX 2. It is shown that the ARX 2 outperforms the Block 4 receiver in terms of Allan variance of the Doppler residuals, the amount of which depends on the scenario of interest

Composting paper and grass clippings with anaerobically treated palm oil mill effluent

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the composting performance of anaerobically treated palm oil mill effluent (AnPOME) mixed with paper and grass clippings. Methods Composting was conducted using a laboratory scale system for 40 days. Several parameters were determined: temperature, mass reduction, pH, electrical conductivity, colour, zeta potential, phytotoxicity and final compost nutrients. Results The moisture content and compost mass were reduced by 24 and 18 %, respectively. Both final compost pH value and electrical conductivity were found to increase in value. Colour (measured as PtCo) was not suitable as a maturity indicator. The negative zeta potential values decreased from −12.25 to −21.80 mV. The phytotoxicity of the compost mixture was found to decrease in value during the process and the final nutrient value of the compost indicates its suitability as a soil conditioner. Conclusions From this study, we conclude that the addition of paper and grass clippings can be a potential substrate to be composted with anaerobically treated palm oil mill effluent (AnPOME). The final compost produced is suitable for soil conditioner

Next-to-leading order QCD predictions for A0γA^{0}\gamma associated production at the CERN Large Hadron Collider

We calculate the complete next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD corrections (including SUSY QCD corrections) to the inclusive total cross sections of the associated production processes $pp\rightarrow A^{0}\gamma+X$ in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Our results show that the enhancement of the total cross sections from the NLO QCD corrections can reach $15$ for 200 GeV$<m_{A}<500$ GeV and $\tan\beta=50$. The scale dependence of the total cross section is improved by the NLO corrections, which is less than 5%. We also show the Monte Carlo simulation results for the $\tau^{+}\tau^{-}+\gamma$ signature including the complete NLO QCD effects, and find an observable signature above the standard model (SM) background for a normal luminosity of 100 fb$^{-1}$ at the LHC.Comment: Published version in Phys.Rev.

Comparative effects of castration and dehorning in series or concurrent castration and dehorning procedures on stress responses and production in Holstein calves

The study objective was to compare serum cortisol as an acute stress measure, chute exit velocity as a behavioral measure, and ADG as an indicator of performance and well-being after castration, dehorning, or concurrent castration/dehorning of calves when performed in parallel and in series. Intact male Holstein calves, 3 to 4 mo, underwent sham handling before 2 procedures performed in series separated by 2 to 3 wk. In Period 1, calves were either dehorned by amputation, surgically castrated, concurrently castrated/dehorned, or served as nonsurgical controls (n = 10/treatment). In Period 2, calves that had been dehorned, castrated, or castrated/dehorned were then castrated, dehorned, or served as nonsurgical controls, respectively. Indicators of distress were measured after all procedures; ADG was assessed for 7 d after each procedure and over the 2 to 3 wk interim. Period 1 cortisol concentrations in dehorned calves were less than in castrated and castrated/dehorned calves at 120 min and from 50 to 240 min, respectively (P \u3c 0.02). There was marginal evidence that cortisol concentrations were greater in castrated/dehorned than castrated calves at 60 min (P = 0.06). Period 2 cortisol concentrations were less in dehorned than castrated calves at 120 min (P = 0.005) but were greater from 360 to 480 min (P \u3c 0.002). The Period 2 cortisol profile of control calves did not differ from the baseline obtained during sham handling, despite the intervening castration/dehorning in Period 1, suggesting that memory did not affect cortisol. The cortisol profile of castrated calves did not differ between periods except at 720 min, when Period 1 concentrations were greater than Period 2 (P = 0.02). Cortisol concentrations of calves dehorned in Period 2 were greater than those dehorned in Period 1 at 20 and 240 to 480 min (P \u3c 0.05). In both periods, castrated calves exited the chute slower than dehorned calves (P \u3c 0.05). The ADG did not differ between surgically treated calves in Period 1; in the interim, the ADG of castrated calves was greater than that of castrated/dehorned calves (difference ± SED, 1.4 ± 0.6 kg/d; P = 0.03), and in Period 2, the ADG of dehorned calves was less than castrated calves (1.8 ± 0.6 kg/d; P = 0.005). Our study supports both the common practice of concurrent castration/dehorning and the sequence of dehorning and castration. Delayed dehorning (vs. delayed castration) appeared to be more acutely stressful and more detrimental to ADG

Mechanisms of airfoil noise near stall conditions

The focus of this paper is on investigating the noise produced by an airfoil at high angles of attack over a range of Reynolds number Re≈2×10⁵–4×10⁵. The objective is not modeling this source of noise but rather understanding the mechanisms of generation for surface pressure fluctuations, due to a separated boundary layer, that are then scattered by the trailing edge. To this aim, we use simultaneous noise and surface pressure measurement in addition to velocimetric measurements by means of hot wire anemometry and time-resolved particle image velocimetry. Three possible mechanisms for the so-called “separation-stall noise” have been identified in addition to a clear link between far-field noise, surface pressure, and velocity fields in the noise generation

Operational approach to the Uhlmann holonomy

We suggest a physical interpretation of the Uhlmann amplitude of a density operator. Given this interpretation we propose an operational approach to obtain the Uhlmann condition for parallelity. This allows us to realize parallel transport along a sequence of density operators by an iterative preparation procedure. At the final step the resulting Uhlmann holonomy can be determined via interferometric measurements.Comment: Added material, references, and journal reference

A secure state estimation algorithm for nonlinear systems under sensor attacks

The state estimation of continuous-time nonlinear systems in which a subset of sensor outputs can be maliciously controlled through injecting a potentially unbounded additive signal is considered in this paper. Analogous to our earlier work for continuous-time linear systems in \cite{chong2015observability}, we term the convergence of the estimates to the true states in the presence of sensor attacks as `observability under $M$ attacks', where $M$ refers to the number of sensors which the attacker has access to. Unlike the linear case, we only provide a sufficient condition such that a nonlinear system is observable under $M$ attacks. The condition requires the existence of asymptotic observers which are robust with respect to the attack signals in an input-to-state stable sense. We show that an algorithm to choose a compatible state estimate from the state estimates generated by the bank of observers achieves asymptotic state reconstruction. We also provide a constructive method for a class of nonlinear systems to design state observers which have the desirable robustness property. The relevance of this study is illustrated on monitoring the safe operation of a power distribution network.Comment: This paper has been accepted for publication at the 59th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 202