Extra Financial Analysis – EFA: Environmental and financial performances of ABB, Akzo-Nobel and SCA: Picturing the business opportunities and risks associated to stakeholder perceptions and environmental and social prerequisites

External assessment of companies’ environmental aspects often focus on the existence of strategies, commitments, management systems and reporting of firms that concerns environmental aspects. Instead, in line with extra financial analysis, in order to play a role in decision-making, analysis of environmental aspects should incorporate the influence that stakeholders may have on future revenues of the assessed firm and how well advanced corporate strategies are in meeting these threats, turning them into business opportunities. Thereafter, the environmental information financial analysts’ use in their financial analyst reports as well as the relation between environmental and financial performance are illuminated. Three industry sectors, Chemicals, Electrical Equipment and Paper & Forest Products, are specially analysed in this report. Out of almost 4500 analyst reports about 36 percent contain environmental information, but when looking at industry sectors these numbers range from only 3 to up to 79 percent. The type of environmental information that the analysts focus on in their reports are on how firms’ products and product portfolios are adopted to Environmental regulations facing customers/markets, Customer demands and Eco-Efficiency. This product perspective is strongly related to discussions of business opportunities of the firm. In fact, a good 77 % of the financial analyst reports containing environmental information dealt with opportunities linked to environmental aspects. To a lower extent, financial analysts write about company specific risk issues like emissions and litigations while their reports is virtually absent from aspects like environmental strategies, policies, management systems, reporting and auditing. The correlation between corporate financial and environmental performances is illuminated through regression analyses. Industry environmental risk is found to be negatively correlated to corporate return on assets – ROA – (in an static model) while (when applying a dynamic model) corporate environmental performance and ROA have a positive correlation in the short term, which can find support by other studies using different data.Extra financial analysis; EFA; Financial analyst reports; Content analysis; ESG Framework; Return on assets; ROA; Environmental performance; Social performance; financial performance; Financial accounting; Non-financial information

Mobile technologies and physical activity behaviour: an example of what you can do with your accelerometry and GPS data

Session - S25 Always in touch: physical activity promotion via social media and modern technology: abstract S25.3Conference Theme: Promoting Healthy Eating and Activity WorldwidePURPOSE: The ability of mobile technologies to continuously collect a large amount of objective data on physical activity (PA) and their correlates can assist the identification of potential determinants of PA behaviour. However, modeling such data, with multiple sources of dependency, can be challenging. METHOD: Objective data on PA and locations were collected on a sample of 95preschoolers using accelerometers and Global Positioning System (GPS) mon…postprin

Shape Theory of Maps

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Anxiety versus fundamental emotions as predictors of perceived functionality of pre-competitive emotional states, threat, and challenge in individual sports

The objectives of this study were to examine the contribution of anxiety and fundamental emotions to perceived emotion functionality and evaluate the informational value of anxiety measures used in sport versus measures of fundamental emotions in terms of appraisal. A battery of questionnaires comprising the somatic and cognitive subscale of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2), the State Anxiety Inventory, the Differential Emotions Scale–IV, a perceived functionality of emotions single item, and two items assessing challenge and threat appraisals was administered to 202 athletes competing in individual sports in the United Kingdom. They were tested on recalled pre-competitive emotions experienced before their best and worst competition ever and momentary emotions experienced one hour before an actual competition. In general, measures of fundamental emotions with clear approach or avoidance action tendencies were better predictors of emotion functionality than anxiety measures. Results also suggested that the CSAI-2 does not convey clear information about an athlete’s appraisal of a competition. Measures of negative and positive fundamental emotions with clear action tendencies were better indicators of athletes’ appraisal patterns. It was concluded that assessment of athletes’ emotional state should not be exclusively based on anxiety measures but should encompass or be replaced with measures of emotions conveying unambiguous information about the athlete-competition relationship

Shape theory intrinsically

We prove in this paper that the category HM whose objects are topological spaces and whose morphisms are homotopy classes of multi-nets is naturally equivalent to the shape category Sh. The description of the category HM was given earlier in the article "Shape via multi-nets". We have shown there that HM is naturally equivalent to Sh only on a rather restricted class of spaces. This class includes all compact metric spaces where a similar intrinsic description of the shape category using multi-valued functions was given by José M. R. Sanjurjo in [5] and [6]

Radiation induced defects in quartz and applications to the Arrow uranium deposit in the Athabasca basin, Saskatchewan

This thesis presents the results of a combined electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and cathodoluminescence (CL) study of quartz from the Arrow uranium deposit and its surrounding areas in the southwest margin of the Athabasca basin, Saskatchewan. Detailed EPR analyses of quartz samples from both the basement and the overlying sandstones revealed the presence of a host of different paramagnetic defects (i.e., oxygen vacancy electron centers and silicon vacancy hole centers) previously observed in quartz from the eastern part of the Athabasca basin. The silicon vacancy hole centers were previously shown to have formed from bombardment of alpha particles emitted from the decay series of ^238U, ^235U and ^232Th. Characteristic spectral differences have been observed between quartz from different lithologies, such as the lack of the H'_3 centers in basement quartz. Thermal annealing and neutron irradiation experiments suggest that these spectral differences are linked with different diamagnetic precursors, which might be related to growth defects formed during crystallization. Of the four different types of drusy quartz (translucent, milky, pink and smoky) identified in the basement at the Arrow deposit, only the pink and smoky types contain significant concentrations of paramagnetic defects. Blue quartz in metasedimentary rocks from the basement is characterized by low concentrations of radiation induced defects, suggesting no pervasive uranium-bearing fluids in the basement. Quartz of high EPR intensities is restricted to ~7 m from mineralized areas, confirming the structurally controlled nature of uranium-bearing fluids. CL imaging and spectral analyses also confirmed the EPR results that the translucent and milky types of quartz contain only low levels of radiation induced defects. Smoky quartz with elevated radiation induced defects as revealed by EPR, on the other hand, is characterized by characteristic CL halos and patches associated with uranium-rich minerals and often features well-developed continuous rims, which cross-cut the growth zoning of quartz crystals and apparently suggests remobilization of uranium after quartz crystallization. Pink quartz with elevated radiation induced defects as revealed by EPR does not have the characteristic CL halos, patches or continuous rims, suggesting a homogeneous distribution of radiation induced defects in this type of quartz and pointing to their formation during crystallization from a uranium-bearing fluid. This result, combined with the common occurrence of pink quartz in veins and breccias associated with dravite alteration, suggests that this uranium-bearing fluid might represent the main mineralization event at the Arrow deposit. The intensities and distribution of alpha-particles-induced defects in detrital quartz close to the sandstone-basement unconformity suggest that uranium-bearing fluids at the Arrow deposit are restricted to the areas immediately above the basement-hosted mineralization. This distribution, together with the low radiation induced defects in detrital quartz, suggests that the basinal fluid along the sandstone-basement unconformity at the Arrow deposit, if present, was low in uranium, which was mainly transported in basement fluids. The present results further support the suggestion that combined EPR and CL analyses of radiation induced defects in quartz is a powerful tool for the exploration of uranium deposits in the Athabasca basin

Summary of Dissertation Recitals Two Programs of Vocal Music and an Operatic Role

Two vocal recitals and an operatic role were performed in lieu of a written dissertation. The repertoire for these performances was chosen to demonstrate mastery of a wide range of styles and languages within the classical vocal literature. The first recital, Of Love & Nightingales, juxtaposed two nineteenth-century song cycles from France and Germany. The second performance was the role of Papageno in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. Sung in German with English dialogue, this role required a mastery of stagecraft in addition to strong vocal ability and proficiency in both languages. The final recital, Krik, Krak: Stories of Africa & the New World explored folk song, art song, folk tales, and poetry about Africa and the African Diaspora in North and South America. The program traced a link between the music and the international Négritude Movement and the American Harlem Renaissance. Monday, November 18, 2013, 8:30 p.m., Faber Piano Institute, Ann Arbor. Nicholas Shaneyfelt, piano, Jennifer Berg, violin, Jamie Davis, cello, Caroline Hart, violin, Edward Ryan, viola, Amy Petrongelli, narrator. Gabriel Fauré “Mandoline,” “En sourdine” from Cinq mélodies de Vénise, opus 58, La bonne chanson, opus 61; Heinrich Heine “Prologue” from Lyriches Intermezzo; Robert Schumann Dichterliebe, opus 48. Friday, March 28, 2014, 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 30, 2014, 2:30 p.m., Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, The University of Michigan. Martin Katz, conductor. Kay Walker Castaldo, director. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Die Zauberflöte, KV 620. Role performed: Papageno. Sunday, May 4, 2014, 8:00 p.m., Stamps Auditorium, Walgreen Center, The University of Michigan. Lydia Qiu, piano, Brittany DeYoung, harp, Ruby Brallier, cello, Melissa-Kay Grey, flute, Veena Kulkarni, piano, Lonnie Reed, tenor, Xavier Verna, marimba, Lunise Jules Cerin, narrator. Timothy Peterson “Ton soir, mon soir”; Lunise Jules Cerin Taza; Jean Bernard Cerin “Wangolo”; Jean Ronald Lafond “Ague Ta Royo”; Heitor Villa-Lobos “Estrela é lua nova,” “Xângo” from Canções típicas Brasileiras, W158; Maurice Ravel “Aoûa,” “Il est doux” from Les chansons Madécasses, M. 78; Xavier Montsalvatge Cinco canciones Negras; Margaret Bonds “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His hands”; Moses Hogan “Deep River,” “Were You There?”AMUMusic: PerformanceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147475/1/jbcerin_1.pd

Analysing the Environmental Content of Financial Analyst Reports by developing an ESG Framework that incorporates Business Opportunities and the Product Perspectives

Unlike most previous research that merely looks at the perceptions of analysts, this report examines the environmental information financial analysts actually use in their analyst reports. Out of almost 4,500 analyst reports about 36 percent contain environmental information, varying between 3 to 79 percent depending on industry sector where, in general, analyst reports in sectors with more severe environmental aspects to a larger degree contain environmental information. The type of environmental information that the analysts foremost focus on in their reports are on how firms’ products and product portfolios are adopted to Environmental regulations facing customers/markets, Customer demands and Eco-Efficiency. This product perspective is strongly related to discussions of business opportunities of the firm. In fact, a good 77 % of the financial analyst reports containing environmental information dealt with opportunities linked to environmental aspects. To a lower extent, financial analysts write about company specific risk issues like emissions and litigation. The financial analyst reports, furthermore, practically lacks environmental preparedness aspects – like environmental strategies, policies, management systems, reporting and auditing – that are core issues of the ethical and SRI analyses. The financial analysts, hence, focus on different environmental aspects than the ethically specialised analysts. For analysing the environmental content in the analyst reports in this study an ESG framework was developed that, unlike previous research, also detects the environmental performance in the product dimension.Financial Analyst Reports; ESG Framework; Environmental Information; Responsible Investments; Business Opportunities; Product Perspectives

Predictors of pre- and post-competition affective states in male martial artists: a multilevel interactional approach

The aims of this study were to examine (a) the effects of competition-related and competition-extraneous concerns on affective states; (b) the relationships of primary and secondary appraisal with affective states and (c) the main and moderating effects of personality traits on pre- and post-competition affects. Thirty-nine male elite martial artists were assessed on 12 affective states, concerns and dimensions of primary and secondary appraisal at five random times a day across 1 week before and 3 days after a competition. On the competition day, they were assessed 1 h before and immediately after the contest. Competitive trait anxiety, neuroticism and extraversion were measured at the start of the study. The competition was the most significant and stressful event experienced in the examined period and had a pervasive influence on athletes' affective states. All examined appraisal and personality factors were somewhat associated with pre- and post-competition affective states. Competitive trait anxiety was a key moderator of the relationship between cognitive appraisal and affective states. This study supports the idea that cognitive appraisal and situational and personality factors exert main and interactive effects on athletes' pre- and post-competition affects. These factors need to be accounted for in planning of emotion regulation interventions