62880 research outputs found
Sort by
Hints of paradigm shifts
No full textA discussion of the implications for typeface design across scripts of the Higher Order Interpolation technology integrated into Kermit, the font for supporting reading skills by children. The font was published to mark Microsoft's 50th anniversary
Estimating the antimicrobial effect of grape seed extract on L. monocytogenes ΔsigB on xanthan gum-based gels
Get PDFThe substitution of chemical preservatives with natural antimicrobials has emerged as an important topic of interest for both researchers and the food industry. The utilisation of grape seed extract (GSE) has the potential to serve as an effective natural antimicrobial agent, while also offering the advantage of being a sustainable antimicrobial strategy, since GSE is a by-product of the fruit industry. The aim of this study was to quantitatively investigate the antimicrobial efficacy of GSE (1 % w/v) that was added in xanthan gum (XG)-based viscoelastic models of various XG concentrations (3, 5, 7% w/v XG) against the wild-type (WT) strain and isogenic ΔsigB mutant of the foodborne pathogen L. monocytogenes. The gene regulator SigB is responsible for the general stress response of L. monocytogenes and its adaptation to environmental stresses. The GSE treatment effectively inactivated both strains (microbial inactivation ≥ 3 log CFU/ml) in all viscoelastic models regardless of the model firmness. However, the mutant strain ΔsigB was more sensitive to GSE treatment evidenced by the reduced viable population count and the increased percentage of sublethal injury in comparison to the WT. Lastly, at 7 % w/v XG (GSE-free) concentration, which was the highest gelling agent concentration used in this study, the mutant formed smaller colonies on the model surface as compared to the WT, suggesting the impact of SigB on the microbial growth/colony formation, especially on stiffer surfaces. The results of our study shed light on the impact of matrix surface structure on the response of L. monocytogenes and its ΔsigB mutant to the waste product GSE. Therefore, this study contributes to the development of enhanced and sustainable antimicrobial control strategies
State lies as violations of human rights
Get PDFThis article examines how lying by state agents can violate human rights, including freedoms of opinion and expression, the right to health, and the right to participate in public affairs. The article argues that a lie – a statement, made by one person to another, that is untruthful and is made with the intention of deceiving the addressee – by a state agent can interfere with the interests of individuals protected by human rights law. Not all lies interfere with human rights, however. Whether they do so depends on the harms they cause. The article shows that lies that interfere with human rights can be justified only very exceptionally within the human rights framework, since they are most often motivated by an illegitimate purpose. The article also argues that human rights law will apply equally regardless of whether states lie to their own people or to peoples of other states.
One purpose of this article is to conduct a mapping exercise, demonstrating the integral role that lies by state agents play in all kinds of human rights violations. The article also demonstrates how, in some instances, lies are a necessary condition for human rights violations, which cannot be committed without them – a good example here is that of states fabricating election results. In other cases, lies by state agents are a sufficient condition for a human rights violation. That is, the lie alone violates individual rights – systematic lying by state agents that pollutes the information space and thereby inhibits their people’s right to seek and receive information of all kinds is an example of such practice, as is the dissemination of lies that harm public health.
International and regional human rights bodies, especially those acting in a judicial or quasi-judicial capacity, rarely accuse states of deliberately lying, or of otherwise acting in bad faith. This is understandable, for all sorts of practical and prudential reasons. The article is not arguing that human rights bodies or activists must change their approach radically. But neglecting the role that lying by states plays in human rights violations has consequences, as it impedes the ability of human rights bodies (or activists) to tell the truth about what the state concerned is really doing. Put differently, if human rights bodies avoid dealing with state lies and their consequences, they risk normalizing them. In a world in which an increasing number of states is led by rapacious liars, this is not a risk that we can afford to ignore
High-resolution climate models improve simulation of monsoon rainfall changes in the Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin
Get PDFThis study investigates the impact of model resolution on simulating South Asian monsoon rainfall, focusing on the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) basin. By comparing high- and low-resolution versions of four CMIP6 HighResMIP model families against reference datasets (MSWEP and ERA5), we emphasize the advantages of high-resolution models in accurately simulating key monsoon characteristics, including annual rainfall, timing, intensity, and duration. Our results show that the high-resolution models align more closely with observed data, outperforming their low-resolution counterparts. Between 1979 and 2014, the high-resolution model ensemble (HR-models) captures key shifts in monsoon timing, such as delayed onset and withdrawal, leading to a slight increase in monsoon duration. In contrast, the low-resolution ensemble (LR-models) showed more pronounced delays in onset. The observational datasets, MSWEP and ERA5, indicate earlier (7±3 days) and later (3±1.2 days) onsets, respectively, with both showing delays in withdrawal, indicating extended monsoon duration. Notably, the increase in monsoon duration is more pronounced in MSWEP observations than in the model simulations, particularly for LR-models. Regarding rainfall trends, the HR-models more accurately reflect observed changes in both total rainfall and extreme rainfall from 1979-2014 compared to LR-models. Future projections (2015-2050) indicate further delays in monsoon onset, with HR-models projecting larger increases in total rainfall and extreme events (up to 4.5%/decade for the 95th percentile of rainfall) compared to LR-models, which show smaller increases and higher variability in total and extreme rainfall. These findings highlight the critical role of model resolution in improving the accuracy of monsoon simulations, with HR models offering more reliable simulations of historical monsoon behaviour and therefore likely more robust projections of future monsoon behavior. These are essential for informed water management and agricultural decision-making over the complex topography of the GBM basin
A latent profile analysis of expatriate’s assessment of the local business environment: cross country comparisons
No full textThe assessment expatriates make of the business environment of their host country reflects social comparison mechanisms and has an influence on multinational enterprises’ approaches to specific countries. We conduct a latent profile analysis and identify three different profiles of expatriates regarding their assessment of the local business environment. We then analyse different individual and organisational-level predictors and find that nationality, mode of expatriation, organisation size and host country are associated with specific assessments of the local business environment.
Overall, self-initiated expatriates make more positive assessments of their host country than assigned expatriates. Expatriates in Qatar and Saudi Arabia make more extreme assessments of the local business environment than those in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait.
We believe this is the first paper checking the important issue of how expatriates are distributed along different profiles based on the assessment they make of their host country, within a cross-country comparison framework
On the role of barotropic versus baroclinic dynamics in generating a Taylor Cap at Maud Rise, Weddell Sea
No full textA Taylor Cap originates from the flow's impingement on a seamount and subsequent formation of a quasi-stagnant volume above it, which isolates water properties and weakens the stratification around it. Our focus is the Taylor Cap at Maud Rise, Weddell Sea, as this region is prone to open-ocean polynyas. While previous studies have mainly examined the Cap's formation in a barotropic ocean, little attention has been paid to the role of baroclinic conditions, which are more relevant to the real world. We study the behavior of a Taylor Cap in response to ambient stratification and inflow conditions in an idealized model set up. Our investigation explores scenarios ranging from a barotropic set up to a simplified, quasi-realistic stratification associated with thermal wind. In the stratified cases, we determine the relative roles of the barotropic (depth-independent) and the baroclinic (depth-dependent) flows, and investigate the local response of stratification. Our results show that the Taylor Cap is primarily generated by the deep barotropic flow, and that the baroclinic component only forms a Taylor Cap if the velocity at the depth of the seamount is sufficiently large. The baroclinic flow is, however, more effective at producing a doming of isopycnals over the seamount. The limited ability of Maud Rise in trapping water masses stems from the Rise's large fractional height. Lastly, we show that higher inflow velocities lead to a shoaling of isopycnals and reduction of upper-ocean stratification over the seamount, with implications for the potential local onset of deep convection
Assessing the impact of non-tariff measures on international palm oil trade and their linkages with sustainable development goals
No full textThis thesis provides a holistic examination of the role of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) in
shaping the global trade of palm oil, assessing their impact through the lens of Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs). It navigates the complexities of the palm oil industry, a sector
central to global agricultural trade and rife with sustainability challenges. This research
elucidates how NTMs, employed by importing nations, affect trade dynamics and explores
whether these regulatory tools are linked to SDGs, particularly in light of environmental
concerns such as deforestation, thus shedding light on their standard-like role. A significant
68.6% of total palm oil production is exported, predominantly from Indonesia and Malaysia,
which jointly account for 84% of these exports. The global reliance on their output, coupled
with the wide-ranging applications of palm oil, underscores the sector's expansive growth and
its profound economic, social, and environmental footprint. The thesis identifies a diverse
array of NTMs applied by key importers, highlighting the nuanced policy landscape that palm
oil exporters navigate. The study highlights that while private certification schemes like RSPO
strive to enhance sustainability, their limitations necessitate public policy support, with new
NTMs, such as those under the EUDR, emerging to strengthen palm oil trade sustainability. A
quantitative analysis, grounded in the gravity model of international trade, dissects the
multifaceted impact of NTMs on trade flows. The findings reveal that technical NTMs
generally hinder trade, whereas non-technical measures may facilitate it. This nuanced
impact is further influenced by country characteristics such as income level, participation in
Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs), and accumulated trade experience. In exploring the
interplay between NTMs and SDGs, the thesis reveals that NTMs linked with SDGs, which
prioritize food safety and sustainable practices, tend to have a less pronounced negative
effect on trade when compared to NTMs that lack such a linkage to SDGs. However, it also
notes a critical gap in current measures: none directly target the environmental and social
sustainability challenges most pertinent to the palm oil industry, such as deforestation and
biodiversity protection in the environmental sphere, and human and cultural preservation in
the social one
Drivers and outcomes of Artificial Intelligence on product/service and process innovation: Evidence from the service industries
No full textArtificial Intelligence (AI) has been identified as the driving force behind the digital
transformation of service operations in service industries for innovation. Recently, scholars in
management have begun conducting their assessments on AI in innovation management.
However, innovation management research misses a structured framework mapping out
existing study on the drivers and outcomes of AI adoption in the innovation domain. Moreover,
little is known about AI adoption in service industries from the service suppliers’ viewpoints
for AI-enabled services. Additionally, study lacks on the factors prompting AI adoption for
innovation and empirical studies addressing both the drivers and the outcomes of AI adoption
for product/service innovation and process innovation in service industries. To bridge the
aforementioned research gaps, this thesis establishes that (a) the managerial intellectual efforts
linked to AI in innovation research can be effectively classified into seven distinctive clusters
(Chapter 2); (b) AI in innovation research can be effectively charted into framework covering
the antecedents and consequences of AI adoption for innovation (Chapter 2); (c) within the
service industries, through empirical examination deploying an enhanced (TOE) paradigm with
a People (P) dimension, successfully identifies the antecedents of AI adoption in service
industries (Chapter 3); and (d) establishes AI adoption impact on product/service innovation
and process innovation (Chapter 4), confirms the positive effect of AI adoption for AI-enabled
services by offering a model of AI adoption in the service industries
Stable isotope analysis of ectoparasites as a tool for understanding trophic interactions with mammalian hosts
Get PDFClimate change is expected to expand the geographic ranges of ectoparasites, increasing the transmission of vector-borne diseases and thereby necessitating a better understanding of ectoparasite-host trophic dynamics. Haematophagous ectoparasites can serve as valuable subsamples of their hosts, retaining isotopic values that reflect dietary information in both their blood meals and tissues. However, the differences in the lifestyles and feeding strategies of lice, fleas, and ticks may influence how these isotopic values are preserved. Here, stable isotope values of carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) were used to investigate trophic interactions between ectoparasites and their mammalian hosts in three pairings: lice (Anoplura: Polyplacidae; n = 101) and Eurasian red squirrels Sciurus vulgaris, fleas (Siphonaptera: Ceratophyllidae; n = 92) and fat dormice Glis glis, and ticks (Ixodida: Ixodidae; n = 16) and European hedgehogs Erinaceus europaeus. Our findings indicate ectoparasites reflect the dietary patterns of their host, with lice exhibiting the closest isotopic values, followed by fleas and ticks. All ectoparasites had significantly higher nitrogen isotope values compared to those of their hosts, indicative of trophic enrichment, but their carbon isotope values varied. Notably, we found that the presence of a blood meal did not significantly affect the isotopic values found in lice and fleas, while ticks showed a significant difference between exoskeleton and blood meal in δ13C values. This study highlights the importance of understanding how the life histories of parasite species influence the preservation of isotopic host signals in order to be able to utilise stable isotope analyses of ectoparasites (particularly lice) to infer host dietary niches and preferences, with broader implications for understanding host-parasite dynamics and predicting disease transmission pathways
