International molders' and foundry workers' journal.

Mode of access: Internet.

Trade union internationalism and political change in Myanmar

Networks of trade union activists working as part of the global union movement have played a central role in political change in Myanmar. In response to trade union advocacy, compliance with International Labour Organization (ILO) standards was made a key condition for the lifting of sanctions on Myanmar, leading the current civilian government to pass revised labour laws allowing the formation of independent trade unions. Union activists have taken advantage of this new freedom, with a rapid growth in registration of local union organizations since 2011. Based on recent fieldwork in Myanmar, including interviews with union leaders and ILO officials, this paper presents an empirical analysis of political relationships formed by local and international union organizations in the context of multi-level political change. In this case study of translating international norms into domestic political change, local and international trade union networks are shown to have a significant impact on achieving compliance with international labour standards.

Dealing with the problem of cybercrime

Lack of a universally accepted and comprehensive taxonomy of cybercrime seriously impedes international efforts to accurately identify, report and monitor cybercrime trends. There is, not surprisingly, a corresponding disconnect internationally on the cybercrime legislation front, a much more serious problem and one which the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says requires „the urgent attention of all nations‟. Yet, and despite the existence of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, a proposal for a global cybercrime treaty was rejected by the United Nations (UN) as recently as April 2010. This paper presents a refined and comprehensive taxonomy of cybercrime and demonstrates its utility for widespread use. It analyses how the USA, the UK, Australia and the UAE align with the CoE Convention and finds that more needs to be done to achieve conformance. We conclude with an analysis of the approaches used in Australia, in Queensland, and in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi, to fight cybercrime and identify a number of shared problems.

Current trends and issues in geographical education

In this introductory chapter to Schmeinck, D. and Lidstone, J. (2014) “Current trends and issues in geographical education” in Schmeinck, D. and Lidstone, J. (2014) Eds) Standards and Research in Geographical Education: Current Trends and International Issues. Berlin. Mensch und Buch Verlag. Pp. 5 - 16. , the authors review and analyse eleven papers originally presented to the Congress of the International Geographical Union held in Cologne in 2012. Taking the collection of papers as a single corpus representing the “state of the art” of geography education, they applied lexical and bibliometric analyses in an innovative attempt to identify the nature of geographical education as represented by this anthology of peer reviewed chapters presented at the start of the second decade of the Twenty-first century?

Locating the seat of the solar dynamo

The hypothesis that the solar dynamo operates in a thin layer at the bottom of the convection zone is addressed. Recent work on the question whether the magnetic flux can be made to emerge at sunspot latitudes is reviewed. It is concluded that this hypothesis can fit the observational facts only if there is turbulence with a length scale of a few hundred kilometers in and around the dynamo region.

Absorption of Electromagnetic Waves in Astrophysical Plasmas

We study parametric Decay Instabilities (PDI) using the kinetic description, in the homogeneous and unmagnetic plasmas. These instabilities cause anomalous absorption of the incident electromagnetic (e.m) radiations. The maximum plasma temperatures reached are functionas of luminocity of the non-thermal radio radiation and the plasma parameters.

Resonant absorption of Alfven waves and the associated phenomenon of magnetic reconnection

It is proposed that the mathematical analysis of the Alfven wave equation in inhomogeneous magnetic fields which explain the resonance absorption of Alfven surface waves near a resonant layer can also be used to show that the magnetic reconnection process can arise near the zero-frequency resonant layer driven by VLF Alfven surface waves. It is suggested that the associated phenomena of resonant absorption and magnetic reconnection can account for the recent observations of intense magnetic activity in the long-period geomagnetic micropulsation range, at cusp latitudes, during flux transfer events.

On the Existence of Hydromagnetic Interface Waves in a Structured Atmosphere

The conditions under which the hydromagnetic interface waves can exist at a magnetic interface is deduced. Using these conditions, it is shown that a slow interface wave with a phase velocity about 5Km/s and a fast interface wave with a phase velocity 6.5 to 8km/s at the photospheric level can exist.

Locating the seat of the solar dynamo

The hypothesis that the solar dynamo operates in a thin layer at the bottom of the convection zone is addressed. Recent work on the question whether the magnetic flux can be made to emerge at sunspot latitudes is reviewed. It is concluded that this hypothesis can fit the observational facts only if there is turbulence with a length scale of a few hundred kilometers in and around the dynamo region.

Interaction of flux tubes with sound waves

The Landau damping of sound waves in a plasma consisting of ensemble of magnetic flux tubes is discussed. It is shown that sound waves cannot be Landau damped in general but under certain restricted conditions on plasma parameters the possibility of absorption of these waves can exist. The possibility of radiative damping of the acoustic waves along the magnetic filaments is also discussed. It appears that the most plausible mechanism of damping of sound waves in a plasma consisting of magnetic filaments can be due to scattering of a sound wave by the filaments.

Effect of Turbulence on Emerging Magnetic Flux Tubes in the Convection Zone

Working under the hypothesis that magnetic flux in the sun is generated at the bottom of the convection zone, Choudhuri and Gilman (1987; Astrophys. J. 316, 788) found that a magnetic flux tube symmetric around the rotation axis, when released at the bottom of the convection zone, gets deflected by the Coriolis force and tends to move parallel to the rotation axis as it rises in the convection zone. As a result, all the flux emerges at rather high latitudes and the flux observed at the typical sunspot latitudes remains unexplained. Choudhuri (1989; Solar Physics, in press) finds that non-axisymmetric perturbations too cannot subdue the Coriolis force. In this paper, we no longer treat the convection zone to be passive as in the previous papers, but we consider the role of turbulence in the convection zone in inhibiting the Coriolis force. The interaction of the flux tubes with the turbulence is treated in a phenomenological way as follows: (1) Large scale turbulence on the scale of giant cells can physically drag the tubes outwards, thus pulling the flux towards lower latitudes by dominating over the Coriolis force. (2) Small scale turbulence of the size of the tubes can exchange angular momentum with the tube, thus suppressing the growth of the Coriolis force and making the tubes emerge at lower latitudes. Numerical simulations show that the giant cells can drag the tubes and make them emerge at lower latitufes only if the velocities within the giant cells are unrealistically large of if the radii of the flux tubes are as small as 10 km. However, small scale turbulence can successfully suppress the growth of the Coriolis force if the tubes have radii smaller than about 300 km which may not be unreasonable. Such flux tubes can then emerge at low latitudes where sunspots are seen.