As the biggest sector of the global economy, an understanding of environmental management in small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is necessary for improved sustainability. This paper explores the ...role of contextual factors for ISO 14001 adoption and improved environmental performance in SMEs. It finds that socio-political factors (e.g. legislation, regulation and legitimation) guide the initial adoption decision. Nevertheless, beyond this, substantive performance improvements (i.e. improved internal processes and procedures) are received, based on symbolic (i.e. legitimacy-based) reasoning. Particularly, operational improvements subsequently lead to improved financial and environmental outcomes, as well as external social performance evaluations. This not only suggests that environmental performance is a multidimensional concept that extends beyond the firm, but also that ISO 14001 adoption in SMEs is based on the interrelation of symbolic and substantive performance effects over time and space that cannot be separated analytically in research practice. The findings are presented as particularly useful for SMEs in terms of highlighting the performance benefits of ISO 14001 adoption.
•The socio-political context guides ISO adoption in SMEs, rather than owner-manager values.•Environmental performance is a multidimensional concept.•Symbolic and substantive performance benefits interplay through ISO 14001 adoption in SMEs.•ISO 14001 is often misinterpreted by SMEs, thus hindering substantive performance improvement.
Abstract
Background
Previous studies on computed tomography (CT) in patients with a suspected triangular fibrocartilage complex (TFCC) injury have not been successful in assessing distal radioulnar ...joint (DRUJ) laxity. The aim of this study was to develop a novel servomotor-driven device for the assessment of DRUJ by applying increasing torque to the DRUJ in pronation and supination.
Methods
A custom-built device was designed to function during four-dimensional (4D) CT of the wrist. A torque meter, positioned between the incoming hand holder, and a direct current (DC) servomotor were used for angular positioning and for applying rotational force to the patient's arm. A total of 110 healthy participants were recruited to gather reference values for the range of motion (ROM), maximum torque in neutral and supinated/pronated position, and the ability to withstand an increasing, device-generated torque in these positions. The device was also used during 4D DRUJ CT in five patients with suspected TFCC injuries.
Results
A gender- and age-relevant reference chart for ROM and torque was created. Men showed a tendency (ns) toward having a larger ROM and increasing strength with increasing age, whereas women showed the opposite. Also, the dominant hand showed a tendency toward having a larger ROM and being stronger than the nondominant hand (ns). A smaller cohort of patients (
n
= 5) with suspected TFCC injuries showed a significantly decreased ability to withstand increasing torque in both supination (2.1 ± 0.3 vs. 3.1 ± 0.2 s;
p
< 0.005) and pronation (2.3 ± 0.5 vs. 3.1 ± 0.4 s;
p
< 0.0005) and also showed a clear laxity on real-time 4D CT image sequences. Decreased strength at all positions was also found (average 74% decrease compared to noninjured side).
Conclusion
Reference values for torque strength and ability to withstand increasing torque can be used clinically in the assessment of patients with symptoms that could represent ligamentous injuries to the TFCC. The ability to use the device during CT enables radiographic evaluation of instability during increasing torque.
Level of Evidence
This is a Level II study.
Three materials of perovskite structure, CaMn1−xMxO3−δ (M = Mg or Mg and Ti), have been examined as oxygen carriers in continuous operation of chemical-looping combustion (CLC) in a circulating ...fluidized bed system with the designed fuel power 300 W. Natural gas was used as fuel. All three materials were capable of completely converting the fuel to carbon dioxide and water at 900°C. All materials also showed the ability to release gas phase oxygen when fluidized by inert gas at elevated temperature (700–950°C); that is, they were suitable for chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU). Both fuel conversion and oxygen release improved with temperature. All three materials also showed good mechanical integrity, as the fraction of fines collected during experiments was small. These results indicate that the materials are promising oxygen carriers for chemical-looping combustion.
The purpose of this article is to analyze the concept of ethnographic representation or art through the lens of Johann Gottfried Herder (17441803), the counter-cultural philosopher of art, culture, ...and history of the late Enlightenment. While Herders role as a foundational figure in the history of anthropology is by now widely recognized his views on visual anthropology understood here as the artistic representation of foreign peoples has hitherto been neglected. Since Herder himself did not develop any comprehensive writings devoted to a critical history and philosophy of ethnographic representation specifically, the article reconstructs his views by weaving together what he does say about ethnographic art with an analysis, along the critical lines he offered of artists like Theodore de Bry (1528-1598), Cornelis de Bruyn (1652-1726/1727), Sydney Parkinson (1745-1771). Herders critical remarks on ethnographic art, from its inception in de Brys late sixteenth-century engravings of Americans to the work of Webber in the late eighteenth century, show him highlighting what Michael Gaudio summarizes as three major sources of distortion: (1) stylistic influences, (2) iconographic convention, and (3) ideological assumptions. (Author abstract)
In chemical looping combustion (CLC), the choice of the oxygen carrier material is crucial with respect to overall system performance and cost. Materials based on manganese ores are promising ...candidates due to their favorable thermodynamic properties, high availability, and low price. As these ores tend to be comparably soft and prone to attrition, the challenge is to find materials which combine the above-mentioned advantages with sufficient mechanical durability. In this study, three manganese materials were screened for their suitability as oxygen carriers in the chemical looping process. The materials were subjected to continuous operation with fuel in a 10 kW chemical looping unit and evaluated in terms of gas conversion, carbon capture efficiency, and particle lifetime. All oxygen carriers showed good performance and reached more than 90% gas conversion at relevant conditions. Particle lifetime based on fines production was in the range of 99–284 h, which is a considerable improvement compared to a manganese ore previously tested in this unit. One material was ruled out as a potential candidate for up-scaling due to agglomeration tendencies.
Tracing the international career of the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights to Sweden via France, this article is a study in the translation of politics and the politics of translation. Specifically, ...it shows how the Swedish translator, physician and publisher Lorents Münter Philipson (1765-1851) reached for it in 1792 to add to domestic arguments against hereditary office, the purpose of which, the article argues, was to revive and legitimise a more indigenous but by now slumbering rights revolution. The article first outlines the reception of America in Sweden and the ways in which Sweden figured in American debates. It then provides a detailed analysis of the trial that ensued as a response to the Swedish translation of the Virginia Declaration. Having reconstructed the process of transmission and the trial, during which the translator was charged with attacking Sweden's monarchical constitution by means of 'wrongly' translating the term 'magistrate', the article places the translation of the declaration in political context. The contextual analysis shows that translating the declaration at this particular point in time makes most sense against the background of the events unfolding in revolutionary France, which the translator hoped would influence political developments in Sweden and which the authorities sought to suppress.
In times of rapid transformation of society in general and domains of technology in particular, questions are raised on how to effectively organise higher engineering education. As a response, this ...study examines the curriculum composition of eleven engineering programs to investigate curriculum nativeness, a novel approach for assessing curriculum characteristics. In addition to forming the construct nativeness, this study establishes a way to measure curriculum nativeness by determining the number of credits originating from what is characterised as native courses. Native refers to the way curriculum content reflects the main subject classification, connecting the content of the profession with the content of the program curriculum. This measure is used in correlation analyses and other dependency studies to assess performance of the students during their first year, including total grade point and attrition. The measure of curriculum nativeness is also used to compare programs. The results indicate that the level of native content in a curriculum influences student performance comparable to that of other learning types that are known to promote student achievement. In addition, this study indicates that native content credits are more frequently earned than non-native credits.
Chemical looping combustion and chemical looping with oxygen uncoupling (CLOU) with oxygen carrier particles consisting of CaMn1-xMxO3-delta (M = Ti, Fe, Mg) has been studied by consecutive oxidation ...and reduction experiments in a fluidized-bed batch reactor. The examined particles were produced by spray drying, and all did show a significant release of gas-phase oxygen to the inert atmosphere at 900 and 1000 degrees C. All particles also provided very high reactivity with syngas and methane. Some of the examined particles showed unfavorable fluidization characteristics, i.e., they formed dust during operation or showed agglomeration or defluidization tendencies. The crushing strength of the particles that formed dust was typically
Today’s demands on higher engineering education given the rapid transformation of society are, to say the least, multifaceted. Rapidly increased complexity of technology as well as adaptation to ...sustainability requirements are causing major transformations and mergers of whole domains of technology that strongly impact current and future engineering workforces within these domains, in particular, the need for new competencies. To adapt to industry demands for engineering competence that fits new constellations of technology domains, providers of advanced engineering training – i.e., engineering faculties – need to inventory their toolbox for ways to support knowledge creation processes. Product development theory is a central part of many types of academic engineering programs. However, as the product development process itself is a process of knowledge creation, it also has strong relations to theories of learning. This thesis explores the idea that some of the tools of engineering that are also taught at engineering faculties and therefore are familiar to their members can beneficially be applied to the development and management of engineering curricula. This thesis explores the domains of product development theory, engineering education and learning analytics in search of overlapping approaches to knowledge creation. The outcome of this search, which are also the result of this thesis, is a set of proposed tools, measures, and approaches for the development, management, content, and arrangement of engineering curriculum. The main contributions focus on the use of physical artifacts and their contribution to engineering educational frameworks, such as the Conceiving – Designing – Implementing – Operating (CDIO) initiative. For this purpose, the thesis picks up on a previously developed concept of low-cost demonstrators for the establishment of a formalized learning and enabling platform that promotes implementation and execution of the CDIO framework. Furthermore, by adopting a similar approach to product development and learning theory, additional tools are identified and developed for curriculum adaptation, enhancement, and management. In particular, by examining the curriculum from previously unexplored perspectives followed by establishment of novel measurements, this thesis demonstrates how curriculum developers and program managers can increase their insights into the outcomes of their decisions.
This article argues that Thomas More's creative appropriation in Utopia (1516) of the New World narrative enabled him to sketch out a cosmopolitan civil science for the purpose of sparking sentiments ...for a new ethics. Placing More's classic in a wider and more detailed context
the article shows that the book's protagonists' anthropological approach to civil scientific study in turn has three important characteristics, all of which set it apart from conventional social knowledge: it is (1) empirical or experiential, (2) comparative and (3) cosmopolitan.
The article thus offers a new interpretation of the relationship between Utopia and the New World as one that stresses the value of social experimentation, an aspect that is elaborated by emphasizing the theme of social knowledge both in the many vernacular European editions of the work as
well as in the account of Utopian social life.
PDF
