Does Cultural Diversity of Board of Directors Affect Corporate Environmental Performance? Evidence From the Energy Sector

This paper has a twofold objective. First, it intends to investigate if and how the cultural diversity of the board of directors affects the corporate environmental performance of energy firms. Second, it aims at verifying if the relationship between board cultural diversity and corporate environmental performance varies across different legal systems. To address this topic, panel data methodology was used on a sample of 153 firms operating in the energy sector, from 32 countries, over the period 2013-2018. The findings suggest that a higher board’s cultural heterogeneity positively affects corporate environmental performance. Moreover, the study reveals that this link is stronger among energy firms from civil law countries compared to energy firms from common law countries

The Virtuous Circle of Intellectual Capital and Corporate Environmentalism: Evidence from the Food Industry

The purpose of this paper is to address the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate environmentalism, assuming that intellectual capital may be an important precondition to foster environmental commitment and that, on the other side, corporate environmentalism may positively determine the level of intellectual capital in a reciprocal and virtuous circle. To address this topic, we conducted two OLS regression analysis on a worldwide sample of 235 firms operating in the food industry, over an eight years’ time horizon (2010-2017), with 1,686 firm-year observations gathered from Asset-4ESG and Worldscope. Results confirm our hypotheses thus providing important theoretical and managerial implications

A nonlinear generalization of Arbitrage Pricing Theory

EnArbitrage Pricing Theory (APT) leads good estimates of expected utility stock returns by means of k factors. Notwithstanding initial skepticism the idea of using multiple risk factors to explain the relationship between expected return and asset risk has been winning. In literature the APT has been seen as a generalization of single risk factor approach of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM). The APT provides a better indication of asset risk and a better estimate of expected return than CAPM does. In this paper we propose a generalization of APT to non-linear case. In order to study the relationships which occur between return and multiple risk factors, we propose non-linear principal components. To find justifications for embracing a more complicated model than traditional APT we evaluate the consistency of results by known real data

Network Sensitivity of Systemic Risk

A growing body of studies on systemic risk in financial markets has emphasized the key importance of taking into consideration the complex interconnections among financial institutions. Much effort has been put in modeling the contagion dynamics of financial shocks, and to assess the resilience of specific financial markets - either using real network data, reconstruction techniques or simple toy networks. Here we address the more general problem of how shock propagation dynamics depends on the topological details of the underlying network. To this end we consider different realistic network topologies, all consistent with balance sheets information obtained from real data on financial institutions. In particular, we consider networks of varying density and with different block structures, and diversify as well in the details of the shock propagation dynamics. We confirm that the systemic risk properties of a financial network are extremely sensitive to its network features. Our results can aid in the design of regulatory policies to improve the robustness of financial markets

Health related quality of life in colorectal cancer patients: state of the art

Proceedings of the 26th National Congress of the Italian Society of Geriatric Surgery Silvestro Canonico, Bruno Amato and Alessandro Puzziello This supplement has not been sponsored. The source of funding used to cover open access publication charges is declared by the authors in each article. Articles have undergone the journal's standard review process for supplements. The supplement editors declare they have no competing interests. Conference 26th National Congress of the Italian Society of Geriatric Surgery 19-22 June 2013 Naples, ItalyBACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in males and the second in females with a progressive increase in prevalence in industrialized countries. The loss of health due to the cancer and/or the consequence of the treatment may result in psychophysical, functional and social impairment; all of these affect health-related quality of life (QoL). DESCRIPTION: The most frequently CRC-specific QoL questionnaires is the FACT-C. QoL is not only important for the well-being of cancer patient but it also influences survival and response to therapy. Many studies investigated various determinants involved in the assessment of QoL in CRC, suggesting that symptoms, surgical procedures and the number of comorbidity significantly affected QoL. CONCLUSION: Despite that CRC patients have a relatively good QoL compared with the general population, a wide range of intervention could be undertaken to improve their QoL. The finding of this review may be useful for cancer clinicians in taking therapy and surveillance-related decisions. However, future research should be directed to large-scale prospective studies using well validated QoL instruments to facilitate comparison of results.Funding for this article has come from University funds.S

HD 226766: a hierarchical SB3 system with two twin Am stars

In this paper, we present a detailed revision of the orbital parameters and the first quantitative abundance analysis of the spectroscopic triple system HD 226766. By means of a simultaneous fit of the radial velocities of all the three components, we derived precise orbital parameters for the system, in particular inner pair has P(d) = 31.9187 ± 0.0001, e = 0.28 ± 0.01, and MA/MB = 1.03 ± 0.03, while the C component orbits around the inner pair with a period of P(d) = 1615 ± 59 in a very eccentric orbit (e = 0.54 ± 0.11). From the fit of the Hβ and Hα profiles, we determined the effective temperatures and surface gravities of each component of the inner pair: Teff = 8600 ± 500 K and log g = 3.8 ± 0.2 for HD 226766 A and Teff = 8500 ± 400 K and log g = 4.0 ± 0.2 for HD 226766 B. In the hypothesis that component C is a main sequence star (log g = 4.0) we derived Teff = 8000 ± 500 K. Rotational velocities have been estimated by modeling the profiles of metallic lines: v sin i = 13 ± 1 km s-1 for inner pair and v sin i = 150 ± 20 km s-1 for the C component. We find that the inner pair is heterogeneous from the point of view of the chemical composition: both stars are very similar and show chemical anomalies typical of Am stars. With some hypothesis about the masses of the components, we estimated the orbital inclination angle for the inner binary, i = (47 ± 1)○, and for the outer orbit, i = (54 ± 19)○

The behaviour of chemical elements in 62 Am star candidates

In this paper, we present the results of a spectroscopic campaign devoted to ascertain the actual nature of a sample of 155 objects reported as uncertain peculiar stars in the General catalogue of Ap, Am, and HgMn stars. Spectroscopic observations have been obtained with Catania Astrophysical Observatory Spectropolarimeter. We derive for all the objects that appear to be single stars, effective temperature, gravity, rotational and radial velocities, and chemical abundances by spectral synthesis method, then by using an abundance-based criterion we selected 62 Am star candidates. Further, by using the positions of these stars within the theoretical instability strips for δ Sct and γ Dor in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, we selected 46 out of 62 candidates to be possible pulsating stars, in particular 42 are candidates δ Sct and four candidates hybrid stars