Measuring and Reporting on Sustainability Performance in the Cement Industry

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance assessment and reporting has drawn a considerable amount of attention. In this context, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has been among the first organizations to develop a framework for sustainability performance reporting, which is synonymous with reporting on CSR actions and results. Now at its 3rd edition, GRI offers a very detailed set of indicators that describe CSR performance as envisioned by the framework. Yet, GRI itself warns that its set of performance indicators is not universally applicable to companies in all industries and, in addition, certain areas of industrial activities may need additional indicators for a reliable and realistic assessment of CSR performance. The Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), a global project of a group of cement producers with worldwide presence, that are also members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), has been early to recognize the limits of GRI and develop an industry specific approach. The paper analyzes the pathway the cement industry has pursued in order to improve its performance in mitigating social and environmental impacts, and report on the results. Based on direct experience with and firsthand knowledge of the cement industry, the set of alternative performance indicators developed by CSI is presented and a parallel is drawn between that set and the general-purpose indicators developed by GRI. The approach taken by CSI to assure compliance of the quantitative data with accepted reporting principles such as accuracy, reliability, and comparability is also detailed and commented on.cement; measuring; reporting; sustainability.

Beamforming with sparse prior in ultrasound medical imaging

Nowadays the classical Delay-and-Sum (DAS) beamformer is extensively used in ultrasound imaging due to its low computational characteristics. However, it suffers from high sidelobe level, poor resolution and low contrast. An alternative is the Minimum-Variance (MV) beamformer which results in a higher image quality both in terms of spatial resolution and contrast. Even so, these benefits come at the expense of a higher computation complexity that limits its real-time capabilities. One solution that recently gained noticeable interest is the exploit of the sparsity of the scanned medium. Based on this assumption, we extend the DAS method to yield sparse results by using the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC). Our realistic simulations demonstrate that the proposed beamforming (BF) method shows better performance than the classical DAS and MV in terms of lateral resolution, sidelobe reduction and contrast

Eaten out of house and home:impacts of grazing on ground-dwelling reptiles in Australian grasslands and grassy woodlands

Large mammalian grazers can alter the biotic and abiotic features of their environment through their impacts on vegetation. Grazing at moderate intensity has been recommended for biodiversity conservation. Few studies, however, have empirically tested the benefits of moderate grazing intensity in systems dominated by native grazers. Here we investigated the relationship between (1) density of native eastern grey kangaroos, Macropus giganteus, and grass structure, and (2) grass structure and reptiles (i.e. abundance, richness, diversity and occurrence) across 18 grassland and grassy Eucalyptus woodland properties in south-eastern Australia. There was a strong negative relationship between kangaroo density and grass structure after controlling for tree canopy cover. We therefore used grass structure as a surrogate for grazing intensity. Changes in grazing intensity (i.e. grass structure) significantly affected reptile abundance, reptile species richness, reptile species diversity, and the occurrence of several ground-dwelling reptiles. Reptile abundance, species richness and diversity were highest where grazing intensity was low. Importantly, no species of reptile was more likely to occur at high grazing intensities. Legless lizards (Delma impar, D. inornata) were more likely to be detected in areas subject to moderate grazing intensity, whereas one species (Hemiergis talbingoensis) was less likely to be detected in areas subject to intense grazing and three species (Menetia greyii, Morethia boulengeri, and Lampropholis delicata) did not appear to be affected by grazing intensity. Our data indicate that to maximize reptile abundance, species richness, species diversity, and occurrence of several individual species of reptile, managers will need to subject different areas of the landscape to moderate and low grazing intensities and limit the occurrence and extent of high grazing

Ecological, Agronomic and Anthropogenic Characterization of the Habitat 62C0* Ponto-Sarmatian Steppes in the North of Dobrogea (Romania)

Natural habitat of Community interest 62C0* Ponto-Sarmatian steppes is very important at European level due to its high biodiversity. The aim of the paper is to study the grassland systems within the habitat 62C0* Sarmatic pontoon steps and to characterize them from an ecological and agronomic point of view. The floristic studies were carried out on the permanent grasslands of the biogeographical region ROSCI 0201 North Dobrogean Plateau, which for the most part belong to the Natural Habitat of Community Interest 62C0 * Sarmatian pontoon steps. Following the classifications (cluster) resulted 4 groups such as: type Cynodon dactylon, type Bothriochloa ischaemum - Festuca valesiaca, type Festuca valesiaca and type Festuca valesiaca - Stipa capillata

Psycho-social factors associated with mental resilience in the Corona lockdown.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. Although increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes, as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. To gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (22 March to 19 April) in a convenience sample of N = 15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p < 0.0001). The resilience factor PAS also partly mediated the positive association between perceived social support and resilience, and its association with resilience was in turn partly mediated by the ability to easily recover from stress (both p < 0.0001). In comparison with other resilience factors, good stress response recovery and positive appraisal specifically of the consequences of the Corona crisis were the strongest factors. Preregistered exploratory subgroup analyses (osf.io/thka9) showed that all tested resilience factors generalize across major socio-demographic categories. This research identifies modifiable protective factors that can be targeted by public mental health efforts in this and in future pandemics

Measuring and Reporting on Sustainability Performance in the Cement Industry

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance assessment and reporting has drawn a considerable amount of attention. In this context, the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) has been among the first organizations to develop a framework for sustainability performance reporting, which is synonymous with reporting on CSR actions and results. Now at its 3rd edition, GRI offers a very detailed set of indicators that describe CSR performance as envisioned by the framework. Yet, GRI itself warns that its set of performance indicators is not universally applicable to companies in all industries and, in addition, certain areas of industrial activities may need additional indicators for a reliable and realistic assessment of CSR performance. The Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI), a global project of a group of cement producers with worldwide presence, that are also members of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), has been early to recognize the limits of GRI and develop an industry specific approach. The paper analyzes the pathway the cement industry has pursued in order to improve its performance in mitigating social and environmental impacts, and report on the results. Based on direct experience with and firsthand knowledge of the cement industry, the set of alternative performance indicators developed by CSI is presented and a parallel is drawn between that set and the general-purpose indicators developed by GRI. The approach taken by CSI to assure compliance of the quantitative data with accepted reporting principles such as accuracy, reliability, and comparability is also detailed and commented on

Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory: Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Romanian version

Kenny Music Performance Anxiety Inventory (K-MPAI) is one of the most widely used instruments in the research of music performance anxiety. The aim of this study was to investigate the factor structure of the Romanian version of K-MPAI. A sample of 420 (aged 18–66, M = 24.46, SD = 7.36; 48% women and 52% men) musicians completed the K-MPAI. Exploratory factor analysis with principal axis factoring and oblimin rotation method indicated eight factors which explained 49.16% of variance. Due to the overestimation of the number of factors by the Kaiser’s criterion of 1, parallel analysis with the syntax provided by O’Connor was implemented. Four factors were extracted which explained 41.37% of variance. They were named “music performance anxiety symptoms,” “depression and hopelessness,” “parental support,” and “memory self-efficacy.” Results partially support the theoretical model which sustained the development of K-MPAI, and further clinical implications for the Romanian musician population are discussed. </jats:p

Elastic-net based beamforming in medical ultrasound imaging

International audienceThis paper presents a new way of addressing beamforming in ultrasound imaging, by formulating it, for each image depth, as an inverse problem solved using elastic-net regularization. This approach was evaluated on both simulated and in vivo data showing a gain in contrast, while maintaining an increased value of the signal-to-noise ratio compared to two standard ultrasound beamforming methods