Environmental and productivity management: the business sustainability syndrome

Original article can be found at: http://www.inderscience.com/ Copyright Inderscience Enterprises Limited. DOI: 10.1504/IJETM.2009.021578Every organisation must ensure that its responsibilities are encompassed within its legal, social and economic domains. Environmental and productivity issues thus need to be entwined to form the foundation of such an effective corporate strategy. The inter-relationships of sustainability, growth and the improvement in quality of life are discussed through a stakeholder approach where "green‟ yardsticks are explored and related to productivity. A framework for analysis is constructed, illustrating the flow from inputs, through processes, to outputs and, ultimately, to outcomes, highlighting impacts on society. Such a perspective can be perceived as the contemporary sustainability vision through sensible resource utilisation.Peer reviewe

Organisational exploration of human resources: the ethical pathway

Original article can be found at: http://www.inderscience.com/index.php Copyright Inderscience. DOI: 10.1504/IJHRDM.2009.025071Informed decisions regarding contemporary challenges and development of human resources must be made through the effective execution of intra-exploration. Such engagement, involvement and dialogue would result in enhanced performance. An overview of the principles and practices associated with planning, undertaking and reporting is provided. Related guidelines are propounded, offering frameworks which embrace ethical responsibilities and contain procedures which are underpinned by fundamental theoretical concepts and based upon sound ethics. These must be perceived as a social process, to be carried out with equitable, fair and honest mechanisms in relation to data collected, analysed, communicated and, thence, acted upon.Peer reviewe

À la recherche du détecteur de fautes minimal pour le k-accord

Ce rapport de stage de master recherche en informatique présente des travaux effectués dans le domaine des systèmes distribués asynchrones. Il s'agit d'études visant à déterminer le plus faible détecteur de faute permettant de résoudre le problème du k-accord dans un système distribué asynchrone où les processus communiquent par passage de messages et où un nombre arbitrairement grand de défaillances peuvent survenir

On the factors causing processing difficulty of multiple-scene displays

Multiplex viewing of static or dynamic scenes is an increasing feature of screen media. Most existing multiplex experiments have examined detection across increasing scene numbers, but currently no systematic evaluation of the factors that might produce difficulty in processing multiplexes exists. Across five experiments we provide such an evaluation. Experiment 1 characterises difficulty in change detection when the number of scenes is increased. Experiment 2 reveals that the increased difficulty across multiple-scene displays is caused by the total amount of visual information accounts for differences in change detection times, regardless of whether this information is presented across multiple scenes, or contained in one scene. Experiment 3 shows that whether quadrants of a display were drawn from the same, or different scenes did not affect change detection performance. Experiment 4 demonstrates that knowing which scene the change will occur in means participants can perform at monoplex level. Finally, Experiment 5 finds that changes of central interest in multiplexed scenes are detected far easier than marginal interest changes to such an extent that a centrally interesting object removal in nine screens is detected more rapidly than a marginally interesting object removal in four screens. Processing multiple-screen displays therefore seems dependent on the amount of information, and the importance of that information to the task, rather than simply the number of scenes in the display. We discuss the theoretical and applied implications of these findings

Behavioral biases when viewing multiplexed scenes:scene structure and frames of reference for inspection

Where people look when viewing a scene has been a much explored avenue of vision research (e.g., see Tatler, 2009). Current understanding of eye guidance suggests that a combination of high and low-level factors influence fixation selection (e.g., Torralba et al., 2006), but that there are also strong biases toward the center of an image (Tatler, 2007). However, situations where we view multiplexed scenes are becoming increasingly common, and it is unclear how visual inspection might be arranged when content lacks normal semantic or spatial structure. Here we use the central bias to examine how gaze behavior is organized in scenes that are presented in their normal format, or disrupted by scrambling the quadrants and separating them by space. In Experiment 1, scrambling scenes had the strongest influence on gaze allocation. Observers were highly biased by the quadrant center, although physical space did not enhance this bias. However, the center of the display still contributed to fixation selection above chance, and was most influential early in scene viewing. When the top left quadrant was held constant across all conditions in Experiment 2, fixation behavior was significantly influenced by the overall arrangement of the display, with fixations being biased toward the quadrant center when the other three quadrants were scrambled (despite the visual information in this quadrant being identical in all conditions). When scenes are scrambled into four quadrants and semantic contiguity is disrupted, observers no longer appear to view the content as a single scene (despite it consisting of the same visual information overall), but rather anchor visual inspection around the four separate “sub-scenes.” Moreover, the frame of reference that observers use when viewing the multiplex seems to change across viewing time: from an early bias toward the display center to a later bias toward quadrant centers

Longitudinal assessment of reflexive and volitional saccades in Niemann-Pick Type C disease during treatment with miglustat

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Role of flavonoids and nitrates in cardiovascular health

CVD remain the leading cause of death globally. Effective dietary strategies for their reduction are of high priority. Increasing evidence suggests that phytochemicals, particularly dietary flavonoids and nitrates, are key modulators of CVD risk reduction through impact on multiple risk factors. The aim of this review is to explore the evidence for the impact of flavonoid- and nitrate-rich foods and supplements on CVD risk, with specific reference to their importance as mediators of vascular health and platelet function. There is accumulating evidence to support benefits of dietary flavonoids on cardiovascular health. Dose-dependent recovery of endothelial function and lowering of blood pressure have been reported for the flavanol (-)-epicatechin, found in cocoa, apples and tea, through production and availability of endothelial nitric oxide (NO). Furthermore, flavonoids, including quercetin and its metabolites, reduce in vitro and ex vivo platelet function via inhibition of phosphorylation-dependent cellular signalling pathways, although further in vivo studies are required to substantiate these mechanistic effects. Hypotensive effects of dietary nitrates have been consistently reported in healthy subjects in acute and chronic settings, although there is less evidence for these effects in patient groups. Proposed mechanisms of actions include endothelial-independent NO availability, which is dependent on the entro-salivary circulation and microbial conversion of dietary nitrate to nitrite in the mouth. In conclusion, flavonoid- and nitrate-rich foods show promising effects on vascular function, yet further randomly controlled studies are required to confirm these findings and to determine effective doses