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Abstract Quality standards (QS) (e.g., ISO 9001) play an important role in assuring the quality of goods and services for organizational stakeholders on a global scale. Recent work has highlighted the role of QS in communicating corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices to a firm’s stakeholders making both the QS adoption decision and the timing of adoption of immense strategic importance to top managers. However, the types of QS and their intended and unintended beneficiaries vary widely, making it difficult for managers to choose QS that are in accord with their CSR goals. Further, current economic (cost/benefit) and institutionally-based theoretical approaches do not provide managers with adequate guidance in making strategic adoption decisions. Rapid developments in QS practices have also made it difficult for researchers to incorporate them into CSR theory. Drawing upon a literature review of QSs and stakeholder theory, this study presents a QS framework and taxonomy that integrates QS adoption timing and beneficiaries. The framework also presents four configurations of QS adopters and their associated beneficiary stakeholder groups, enabling both researchers and practitioners to more completely understand the complex nature of stakeholder pressures on organizations.

The limited availability of water resources and the significant loss of nitrogen oxides are severe constraints on agricultural development in dry-land agricultural systems of China. The field studies consisted of two new inhibitors (1) nitrification inhibitor (N) (3,4-dimethyl-1 H-pyrazol-1-yl) succinic acid isomer (DMPSA) and (2) urease inhibitor (U) N-butyl thiophosphorictriamide (NBPT) with three mulch drip fertigation irrigation treatments H (370 mm, conventional drip fertigation irrigation, referring to local actual agricultural irrigation standards), M (75% of H, moderate drip fertigation), L (50% of H, low drip fertigation), and CF: traditional flat planting without inhibitors and drip fertigation. The results indicate that drip fertigation irrigation with composite nitrification inhibitor can significantly reduce the N2O and CH4 cumulative emissions, thereby significantly reducing ET, GWP, and GHGI. Under the inhibitor-based strategy, the use of urease and nitrification reduced N2O loss by 42% and 60% compared with CF. In addition, RNH or RNM treatment can significantly enhance the content of SWS, NH4+-N, and NO3--N in the 0–120 cm depth, and significantly reduce the NO3--N leaching of the deeper soil. The N accumulation, grain N content, and N transport efficiency of corn significantly increase, which is helpful for improving grain yield. Under the action of two inhibitors, there was a significant difference between H and M drip fertigation irrigation. Compared with CF, the RNM with 75% reduced drip fertigation increase in average grain yield, biomass yield, CWPyield and CWPeco by 51%, 33%, 31%, and 57%, respectively. These results show that the use of H or M drip fertigation with nitrification inhibitor must be promoted in a rain-fed corn agro-ecosystem, in order to reduce GHG emissions without penalizing grain yield and leading to improves water-nitrogen efficiency of maize.

Abstract Background The pod shattering (PS) trait negatively affects the crop yield in rapeseed especially under dry conditions. To better understand the trait and cultivate higher resistance varieties, it’s necessary to identify key genes and unravel the PS mechanism thoroughly. Results In this study, we conducted a comparative transcriptome analysis between two materials significantly different in silique shatter resistance lignin deposition and polygalacturonase (PG) activity. Here, we identified 10,973 differentially expressed genes at six pod developmental stages. We found that the late pod development stages might be crucial in preparing the pods for upcoming shattering events. GO enrichment results from K-means clustering and weighed gene correlation network analysis (WGCNA) both revealed senescence-associated genes play an important role in PS. Two hub genes Bna.A05ABI5 and Bna.C03ERF/AP2-3 were selected from the MEyellow module, which possibly regulate the PS through senescence-related mechanisms. Further investigation found that senescence-associated transcription factor Bna.A05ABI5 upregulated the expression of SAG2 and ERF/AP2 to control the shattering process. In addition, the upregulation of Bna.C03ERF/AP2-3 is possibly involved in the transcription of downstream SHP1/2 and LEA proteins to trigger the shattering mechanism. We also analyzed the PS marker genes and found Bna.C07SHP1/2 and Bna.PG1/2 were significantly upregulated in susceptible accession. Furthermore, the role of auxin transport by Bna.WAG2 was also observed, which could reduce the PG activity to enhance the PS resistance through the cell wall loosening process. Conclusion Based on comparative transcriptome evaluation, this study delivers insights into the regulatory mechanism primarily underlying the variation of PS in rapeseed. Taken together, these results provide a better understanding to increase the yield of rapeseed by reducing the PS through better engineered crops.

Rapeseed (Brassica napus) is one of the most important oil crops worldwide; however, drought seriously curtails its growth and productivity. Identifying drought-tolerant germplasm is an efficient strategy for addressing water shortages. Here, we phenotyped a panel of 264 B. napus accessions at full-bloom stage using water loss ratio (WLR) as drought-tolerant index. It identified 8 low-WLR and 6 high-WLR accessions, regarded as drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive, respectively. Comparing with drought-sensitive accessions at the seedling stage, drought-tolerant accessions had shown better performance in maintaining fresh and dry weights, and performed the higher expression of drought-induced marker genes under drought stress. Subsequently, a total of 139 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) were identified associated with the WLR using a genome-wide association study (GWAS) among 264 B. napus accessions, with the largest number SNPs at chromosome A10, and 13 SNPs significantly were associated with the WLR (–log10 (p-value) > 6). Furthermore, 4 putative candidate genes (BnaC09.RPS6, BnaC09.MATE, BnaA10.PPD5 and BnaC09.Histone) were screened involving in drought tolerance in B. napus. Together, our results highlight the WLR's importance in drought tolerance and establish the foundation for improving WLR-associated drought tolerance in rapeseed.

Motorcycle has become a common vehicle in Indonesia due to its flexibility to drive around in various geographical terrain. The number of motorcycle purchases in Indonesia is increasing annually, along with the repair services and spare part selling. Abundant repair service providers create fierce competition among themselves, so many providers maintain their service quality in order to retain their customer. The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of service quality and relationship quality to customer satisfaction in motorcycle repair providers. This research is using the quantitative approach, in which the data are collected by questionnaires distributed to samples of populations. The population is the customers who have purchased repair services and spare parts for their motorcycle, and the number of samples is 100 respondents. The data are analyzed with a SmartPLS software, and the results show a positive significant impact from service quality to customer satisfaction, a positive significant impact from service quality to relationship quality, and a positive impact from relationship quality to customer satisfaction. Therefore, for the long term competitive advantage, motorcycle repair service providers have to consider their service quality and relationship quality to retain their customers.

In facing fierce business competition, car maintenance workshops deal with it by creating new services often called mobile home services because there are many customers who are constrained by their time to do car services. To win the business competition, many services are made to comply with the needs and desires of their customers by paying attention to service quality and store image to provoke repurchase intention because nowadays, many customers are also more aware of prices. The purpose of this study is to analyze the effect of service quality, store image, and price consciousness on repurchase intention for mobile home services. This type of research uses a quantitative approach through survey methods. The population in this study is the customers who use car repair shops in the past year with a sample size of 55 respondents. Data analysis techniques in this study use Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) assisted with Smart PLS (Partial Least Square) software. The results show that service quality has a positive effect on price consciousness, store image has a positive effect on price consciousness, and price consciousness has a positive effect on repurchase Intention on mobile home services.

Globalization and the development of modern education systems make foreign students more important in higher education. In Indonesia, in recent years the number of international students has increased. International students, supervisors, and institutions are trying to identify possible ways that can help foreign students adapt to the Indonesian environment, which has its uniqueness. This research aims to investigate the level of acculturative stress experienced by international students of Airlangga University, Indonesia. Specifically, it focused on international students of master programs originating from countries on the African continent. This research was quantitative research. Participants in this research were 40 students. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling technique. The questionnaire was used to collect data and the results were analyzed using SPSS software. Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students (ASSIS) was used to determine the homesickness experienced by the participants. This research found that significant positive acculturative stress among international students (SD=23.87333), (mean=3.00) on homesickness. The result shows that international students experience homesickness because of not having experience living in a different culture and country. The results showed that African students are experiencing high homesickness.

The semiconductor tracker (SCT) is one of the tracking systems for charged particles in the ATLAS detector. It consists of 4088 silicon strip sensor modules. During Run 2 (2015-2018) the Large Hadron Collider delivered an integrated luminosity of 156 fb−1 to the ATLAS experiment at a centre-of-mass proton-proton collision energy of 13 TeV. The instantaneous luminosity and pile-up conditions were far in excess of those assumed in the original design of the SCT detector. Due to improvements to the data acquisition system, the SCT operated stably throughout Run 2. It was available for 99.9% of the integrated luminosity and achieved a data-quality efficiency of 99.85%. Detailed studies have been made of the leakage current in SCT modules and the evolution of the full depletion voltage, which are used to study the impact of radiation damage to the modules.