title: Current issues and potential solutions for the electrospinning of major polysaccharides and proteins: A review

authors: Syed, Murtaza Haider Syed

abstract: Biopolymers, especially polysaccharides and proteins, are the promising green replacement for petroleum based polymers. Due to their innate properties, they are effectively used in biomedical applications, especially tissue engineering, wound healing, and drug delivery. The fibrous morphology of biopolymers is essentially required for the effectiveness in these biomedical applications. Electrospinning (ES) is the most advanced and robust method to fabricate nanofibers (NFs) and provides a complete solution to the conventional methods issues. However, the major issues regarding fabricating polysaccharides and protein nanofibers using ES include poor electrospinnability, lack of desired fundamental properties for a specific application by a single biopolymer, and insolubility among common solvents. The current review provides the main strategies for effective electrospinning of the major biopolymers. The key strategies include blending major biopolymers with suitable biopolymers and optimizing the solvent system. A systematic literature review was done to provide the optimized solvent system of the major biopolymers along with their best possible biopolymeric blend for ES. The review also highlights the fundamental issues with the commercialization of ES based biomedical products and provides future directions to improve the fabrication of biopolymeric nanofibers.

text: Current issues and potential solutions for the electrospinning of major polysaccharides and proteins: A review Biopolymers, especially polysaccharides and proteins, are the promising green replacement for petroleum based polymers. Due to their innate properties, they are effectively used in biomedical applications, especially tissue engineering, wound healing, and drug delivery. The fibrous morphology of biopolymers is essentially required for the effectiveness in these biomedical applications. Electrospinning (ES) is the most advanced and robust method to fabricate nanofibers (NFs) and provides a complete solution to the conventional methods issues. However, the major issues regarding fabricating polysaccharides and protein nanofibers using ES include poor electrospinnability, lack of desired fundamental properties for a specific application by a single biopolymer, and insolubility among common solvents. The current review provides the main strategies for effective electrospinning of the major biopolymers. The key strategies include blending major biopolymers with suitable biopolymers and optimizing the solvent system. A systematic literature review was done to provide the optimized solvent system of the major biopolymers along with their best possible biopolymeric blend for ES. The review also highlights the fundamental issues with the commercialization of ES based biomedical products and provides future directions to improve the fabrication of biopolymeric nanofibers.

year: 2023-09

title: Blood money: A grounded theory of corporate citizenship; Myanmar (Burma) as a case in point

authors: Black, Nicola Mary

subjects: Corporate Citizenship

abstract: Corporate Citizenship as a social phenomena spans a growing body of
corporate initiatives, nascent policy frameworks, and global civil society action.
Corporate engagement with fragile states, and other situations identified as
contexts of conflict and/or weak governance, is the subject of scholarly and
practitioner research by those with an interest in Corporate Citizenship. In this
thesis I represent the corporation as a legal entity with significant political and
socio-economic impacts. Responsibility for these impacts is the subject of
ongoing social critique and contest. I consider the corporate form as a site of
broad protest at the environmental devastation and social dislocation that has
accompanied the globalisation and intensification of neo-liberal economic
activity. My analytic focus is the range of social processes involving actors from
the private, civil and political sphere, through which understandings of
responsible, potentially 'constructive' corporate engagement in fragile states are
created, contested and transformed. Further, efforts to embed Corporate
Citizenship as the normative basis for global business practice broadly reflect
aspirations for greater social justice. In identifying and describing intentions,
aspirations and forms of corporate engagement in fragile states, and the social
process through which these change, I critically examine the discourses of
development, security and governance which underpin Corporate Citizenship
efforts.
In this thesis I offer a grounded theory of Corporate Citizenship in Fragile
States I have developed through an empirical case study of the oil and gas
industry in Myanmar (Burma). Working within a social constructivist perspective
in the grounded theory research tradition, I have employed an iterative analytic
process to develop the theory presented. In this process the sampling of data was
undertaken to challenge and develop concepts in the emerging theory, concepts
identified using a method of constant comparison within and between sets of data.
I continued these concurrent processes of data-collection, analysis and theoretical
development until I judged the theory to be a sufficiently complete description of
the focus of inquiry. A total of seven broad sets of data informed the
development of the theory presented. These datasets include over a hundred
interviews in seven countries with stakeholders in three joint-venture offshore
exploration and production projects in Myanmar (Burma) undertaken from July
2006 to August 2009. The datasets also draw from an extensive body of corporate
and advocacy group publications regarding foreign investment in Myanmar, along
with other secondary data sources.
In this inquiry I have explored the multiple interactions between corporate,
state and civil society actors through which understandings of 'responsible'
corporate engagement in Myanmar are created, enacted and transformed. I have
identified and conceptualised four social processes at work in these interactions,
which I describe in the grounded theories of:
(1) Commercial Diplomacy (describing the use of enterprise as a conduit
for foreign policy by states, particularly as it relates to 'ethical' business
activity)
(2) Stakeholder Activism (critiquing the aims and strategies of
transnational civil society organisations who advocate for 'responsible'
corporate engagement)
(3) Corporate Engagement (explaining variation in the motivations and
terms of corporate engagement, specifically different forms of divestment
or engagement, as strategic responses to stakeholder activism, commercial
diplomacy and other factors which influence the enterprise context)
(4) Constructive Corporate Engagement (a conceptual framework,
grounded in multiple stakeholder-views and drawing from the
international development discourses of state fragility and human security,
for considering the potentially constructive impacts of corporate
engagement).
Working within and between these four theories, I generated an overarching
grounded theory of (5) Corporate Citizenship in Fragile States. From these
theories I offer a critical analysis of Corporate Citizenship as the normative basis
for a new articulation between the economic, social and political spheres in
pursuit of a more equitable global order.

text: Blood money: A grounded theory of corporate citizenship; Myanmar (Burma) as a case in point Corporate Citizenship as a social phenomena spans a growing body of
corporate initiatives, nascent policy frameworks, and global civil society action.
Corporate engagement with fragile states, and other situations identified as
contexts of conflict and/or weak governance, is the subject of scholarly and
practitioner research by those with an interest in Corporate Citizenship. In this
thesis I represent the corporation as a legal entity with significant political and
socio-economic impacts. Responsibility for these impacts is the subject of
ongoing social critique and contest. I consider the corporate form as a site of
broad protest at the environmental devastation and social dislocation that has
accompanied the globalisation and intensification of neo-liberal economic
activity. My analytic focus is the range of social processes involving actors from
the private, civil and political sphere, through which understandings of
responsible, potentially 'constructive' corporate engagement in fragile states are
created, contested and transformed. Further, efforts to embed Corporate
Citizenship as the normative basis for global business practice broadly reflect
aspirations for greater social justice. In identifying and describing intentions,
aspirations and forms of corporate engagement in fragile states, and the social
process through which these change, I critically examine the discourses of
development, security and governance which underpin Corporate Citizenship
efforts.
In this thesis I offer a grounded theory of Corporate Citizenship in Fragile
States I have developed through an empirical case study of the oil and gas
industry in Myanmar (Burma). Working within a social constructivist perspective
in the grounded theory research tradition, I have employed an iterative analytic
process to develop the theory presented. In this process the sampling of data was
undertaken to challenge and develop concepts in the emerging theory, concepts
identified using a method of constant comparison within and between sets of data.
I continued these concurrent processes of data-collection, analysis and theoretical
development until I judged the theory to be a sufficiently complete description of
the focus of inquiry. A total of seven broad sets of data informed the
development of the theory presented. These datasets include over a hundred
interviews in seven countries with stakeholders in three joint-venture offshore
exploration and production projects in Myanmar (Burma) undertaken from July
2006 to August 2009. The datasets also draw from an extensive body of corporate
and advocacy group publications regarding foreign investment in Myanmar, along
with other secondary data sources.
In this inquiry I have explored the multiple interactions between corporate,
state and civil society actors through which understandings of 'responsible'
corporate engagement in Myanmar are created, enacted and transformed. I have
identified and conceptualised four social processes at work in these interactions,
which I describe in the grounded theories of:
(1) Commercial Diplomacy (describing the use of enterprise as a conduit
for foreign policy by states, particularly as it relates to 'ethical' business
activity)
(2) Stakeholder Activism (critiquing the aims and strategies of
transnational civil society organisations who advocate for 'responsible'
corporate engagement)
(3) Corporate Engagement (explaining variation in the motivations and
terms of corporate engagement, specifically different forms of divestment
or engagement, as strategic responses to stakeholder activism, commercial
diplomacy and other factors which influence the enterprise context)
(4) Constructive Corporate Engagement (a conceptual framework,
grounded in multiple stakeholder-views and drawing from the
international development discourses of state fragility and human security,
for considering the potentially constructive impacts of corporate
engagement).
Working within and between these four theories, I generated an overarching
grounded theory of (5) Corporate Citizenship in Fragile States. From these
theories I offer a critical analysis of Corporate Citizenship as the normative basis
for a new articulation between the economic, social and political spheres in
pursuit of a more equitable global order.

year: 2009

title: Akoranga whakarei: Learning about inclusion from four kura rumaki

authors: Berryman, Mere

subjects: Special education

abstract: In 2004 the New Zealand Ministry of Education proposed two research projects to understand how learning, social and cultural outcomes were being promoted for tamariki and rangatahi Māori with special educational needs in both kura auraki (English-medium schools) and kura rumaki (Māori-medium schools). 1hey also wanted to understand how this played out for other whānau members. At the time, a description of the services being promoted for Māori with special education needs acknowledged the philosophy that "tamariki and rangatahi with special needs and their whānau learn effectively through the provision of culturally competent services, which will ensure mana and tikanga are upheld" (Ministry of Education, 2003, p. 56). 
This chapter will briefly describe how this research was undertaken in kura rumaki and then discuss the findings that emerged. Perhaps not surprisingly, it will show that the staff from the kura who participated in this study, as with all of their students and whānau, had a very holistic and inclusive view of educating all tamariki and rangatahi, especially those with identified special education needs. The conclusion will consider some of the implications of these findings for others and propose that these research outcomes maintain relevance in 2014, a decade later.

text: Akoranga whakarei: Learning about inclusion from four kura rumaki In 2004 the New Zealand Ministry of Education proposed two research projects to understand how learning, social and cultural outcomes were being promoted for tamariki and rangatahi Māori with special educational needs in both kura auraki (English-medium schools) and kura rumaki (Māori-medium schools). 1hey also wanted to understand how this played out for other whānau members. At the time, a description of the services being promoted for Māori with special education needs acknowledged the philosophy that "tamariki and rangatahi with special needs and their whānau learn effectively through the provision of culturally competent services, which will ensure mana and tikanga are upheld" (Ministry of Education, 2003, p. 56). 
This chapter will briefly describe how this research was undertaken in kura rumaki and then discuss the findings that emerged. Perhaps not surprisingly, it will show that the staff from the kura who participated in this study, as with all of their students and whānau, had a very holistic and inclusive view of educating all tamariki and rangatahi, especially those with identified special education needs. The conclusion will consider some of the implications of these findings for others and propose that these research outcomes maintain relevance in 2014, a decade later.

year: 2015