A systemic perspective could support an enterprise to integrate multiple organizational aspects to facilitate the implementation of sustainability in work practices. The study explores sustainability in SMEs work-practices from multiple stakeholder’ perspectives following a systemic approach to developing a systemic sustainability model proposal. This model intends to investigate sustainability’ r

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability

The chemical potential of water (//h2o) provides an essential thermodynamic characterization of the environment of living organisms, and it is of equal significance as the temperature. For cells, //H,0 is conventionally expressed in terms of the osmotic pressure. We have previously suggested that the main contribution to the intracellular osmotic pressure of the bacterium E. coli is from soluble n

Norms can be adopted without modifications or adapted to regional contexts for strategic or principled reasons. Norm adoption and adaptation can also happen by chance. When adoption takes place without consideration of the norm’s effectiveness or appropriateness, we speak about imitation. When adaptation takes place in such a manner, we lack conceptual tools to analyse it. We propose a novel conce

We model the spillover effect between competing firms’ daily idiosyncratic stock returns, using spatial econometric techniques. Contagion effect from rival firms dominates competitive effect, and the net effect is larger from negative return shocks of rival firms than from positive ones. The net effect is strong for firms in product markets with low concentration and high product market fluidity.

Non-bee pollinators (NBP) are a group of species with very diverse ecology. Indeed, they inhabitvarious habitats, using these as nesting sites, for shelter, as source of food and as huntingground for prey. Depending on the life stage of species, NBPs can inhabit different areas andtheir overall contribution to pollination can be diverse. For example, adult butterflies mainlyforage on nectar, where

Organizational anticipation involves the ability to foresee and analyze potential threats and disturbances as a means to minimize the likelihood of hazard occurrence and to reduce the potential impacts. Common methods include Risk and Vulnerability Assessments (RVAs) and contingency planning, where potentially harmful events are identified and analyzed, and where measures to prevent, respond to an

An evacuation experiment was carried out at the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in March 2018 to investigate human behaviour during evacuation in underground facilities via escape routes with long ascending tunnels. The objective of the experiment was to collect data that could be used as a basis for evacuation risk and safety assessments in underground tunnels and other large infrastructure projects re

In 2013, Mexico was the first developing country to adopt a carbon tax, confounding expectations that adoption of such taxes is mostly driven by international commitments and hindered by economic concerns: Mexico was not subject to international climate commitments and constituted an economy dependent on oil and exports to its NAFTA trading partners, which did not price carbon. To address this puz

Who are the guardians of separatism in Abkhazia and South Ossetia? These de facto states can be seen as self-determination movements or as outgrowths of Russian imperialism. We arbitrate between these competing scripts using a dataset that profiles officials in charge of high politics decision-making inside Georgia’s separatist entities from 1992 through 2020 (N=608). We find that most are sons of

The growth of Sweden’s urban population necessitates new approaches for increasing the sustainability and energy efficiency of multifamily buildings. The development of such approaches will require a holistic and integrated understanding of the factors driving the decision making of both professionals who design buildings and end-users who live in them. This paper, therefore, uses the goal framing

Embedded systems and networked embedded systems play an increasingly important role in today’s society. They are often found in consumer products (e.g., in automotive systems and cellular phones), and are therefore subject to hard economic constraints. The pervasive nature of these systems generates further constraints on physical size and power consumption. These product-level constraints give ri

In this paper, we introduce the tamed stochastic gradient descent method (TSGD) for optimization problems. Inspired by the tamed Euler scheme, which is a commonly used method within the context of stochastic differential equations, TSGD is an explicit scheme that exhibits stability properties similar to those of implicit schemes. As its computational cost is essentially equivalent to that of the w

Intrinsically disordered proteins are distinguished by a lack of distinct three-dimensional structure, existing instead as an ensemble of heterogenous structures. In this research, the effect of crowding on these proteins is investigated using a combined approach of experiment and computer simulation, mainly using coarse-grained simulation models to make simulation computationally feasible at the

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the design and analysis of gradient descent-based algorithms for coverage control tasks involving robot swarms. We adopt a multiscale approach to analysis and design to ensure consistency of the algorithms in the large-scale limit. First, we represent the macroscopic configuration of the swarm as a probability measure and formulate the macroscopic co

Digital activism, political activism mediated by digital technologies, offers the promise of increased visibility and political power for marginalized groups. Yet, this has not been the case outside of a few exceptions such as Black Lives Matter. This paper offers theoretical, conceptual critical research that explores why successful digital activism may elude marginalized groups. We ask why many

The study presented in this article is about the role played by imagination when national and international organisations convey the idea of a dystopian crisis involved in the real transition to a postantibiotic era. The present is an era that can be defined as a time when no new antibiotics are discovered or developed, and existing antibiotics simultaneously become less effective since bacteria d

Vertical ground heat exchangers (GHEs) used with ground source heat pump systems have been constructed in a variety of configurations including single U-tubes, double U-tubes, quadruple U-tubes, and coaxial-type. Selections of vertical GHE other than single U-tubes are often motivated by a desire to decrease the borehole thermal resistance and therefore reduce the required amount of drilling and/o