The relationship between CSR and financial performance: the role of social media

Tésis doctoral inédita leída en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales. Departamento de Contabilidad. Fecha de lectura: 15-04-2016Esta tesis tiene embargado el acceso al texto completo hasta el 15-10-201

La arqueología del conflicto desde el prisma de la restitución del campo de batalla de A Coruña 1809: Estudio del paisaje del campo de batalla, la patrimonialización del lugar y la difusión

Màster Oficial d'Estudis Avançats en Arqueologia, Facultat Geografia i Història, Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2021-2022. Tutor: Francesc Gracia Alonso.El período comprendido entre 1808-1812, conocido como la Guerra de Independencia Española o la Guerra Peninsular (Peninsular war), se corresponde con uno de los eventos más destructivos, a nivel humano y material que ha soportado la Península Ibérica. Este impacto sobre la sociedad y el paisaje puede ser hoy en día estudiado no solo a través de la historiografía, sino que la arqueología moderna cuenta con una serie de subdisciplinas que pueden dar luz a los conflictos militares. Habitualmente, los estudios históricos han romantizado excesivamente los eventos más importantes de la Guerra de Independencia y al mismo tiempo, muchos pasajes de su historia han sido prácticamente olvidados. Uno de ellos, es la retirada del ejército británico de España en el invierno del 1808-1809, tenido en gran estima por la historiografía inglesa. La campaña destaca por la penosa retirada y persecución a través del norte peninsular, la cual se cobró miles de vidas. El invierno, la dureza de las marchas y las siempre mortíferas enfermedades, tan presentes en el s. XIX d.C., desembocaran en una tragedia humana de grandes proporciones. Ninguno de los tres ejércitos, compuestos por ingleses, franceses y españoles (además de otras nacionalidades1 arrastradas al conflicto) conseguirán eludir una autentica, “Marcha de la Muerte”

Stakeholders versus Firm Communication in Social Media: The case of Twitter and Corporate Social Responsibility Information

Building on legitimacy theory and prior work on stakeholder management, we study firm Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication in social media. In particular, we analyze the content of over a million microblogs on Twitter relating to CSR in the banking industry. We focus on key issues considered by banks in their CSR reports, which we classify into Core or Supplementary depending on their connection with core business activities. We find that the use of Twitter to communicate CSR information in social media suggests that significant differences exist between the information interests of companies and stakeholders. Outside stakeholders focus on Core CSR issues, whilst firm insiders are relatively more likely to communicate Supplementary CSR issues. Firm insiders information dissemination appears biased towards favorable information, and consistent with a legitimacy-based use of social media. Event studies conducted on dates with significant exogenous CSR news confirm the findings of parallel talking, and no resemblance in the CSR issues communicated by firms and stakeholders in social media.The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades [ECO2016-77579], Comunidad de Madrid (H2015/HUM-3353), FEDER UNC315-EE-3636, the Catedra UAM-Auditores Madrid, and from UC3M-Twittiment

La relación entre responsabilidad social empresarial y desempeño financiero: Un estudio transversal en los países de la Unión Europea

Both in academia and in business, a growing interest in socially responsible practices and their impact on companies reputation can be observed. Although most studies suggest a positive relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and financial performance, many authors agree that the high number of inconclusive studies on this issue underlines the need to clarify the precise way in which these corporate performance measures are related. In this paper, we take a hypothesis aligned with the previous literature as a starting point to investigate the relationship within the context of the European Union, analyzing the mediating influence of company-level variables, such as intangibles and CSR communication, and economic situation as environment variable. Our findings strengthen the hypothesis of positive relationship, indicating that it may occur directly or through the intervention of other variables depending on the economic situation. Therefore, CSR is consolidated as a source of competitive advantage and protection tool in periods of economic crisis, providing more financial stability to the companies that incorporate it in their core business.Tanto en el mundo académico como en el empresarial se percibe un interés creciente por las prácticas socialmente responsables y su impacto en la reputación de las compañías. A pesar de que la mayor parte de los estudios realizados sobre la relación entre Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE) y desempeño financiero (DF) de las empresas sugieren una relación positiva, muchos autores coinciden en que el elevado número de estudios no concluyentes sobre esta cuestión subraya la necesidad de clarificar la forma concreta en que estas medidas de desempeño empresarial se relacionan. En este trabajo, partimos de una hipótesis alineada con la literatura anterior para investigar la relación en el contexto de la Unión Europea, analizando la influencia mediadora de variables propias de cada compañía, como los intangibles y la comunicación sobre RSE, y de la coyuntura económica, como variable del entorno. Nuestros resultados consolidan la hipótesis de la relación positiva, e indican que esta se puede dar de forma directa o producirse mediante la intervención de otras variables, en función de la coyuntura económica. Por lo tanto, la RSE se consolida como fuente de ventaja competitiva y herramienta de protección en momentos de crisis, que dota de mayor estabilidad financiera a las compañías que la incorporan en el núcleo de su estrategia de negocio

DpgC-Catalyzed Peroxidation of 3,5-Dihydroxyphenylacetyl-CoA (DPA-CoA): Insights into the Spin-Forbidden Transition and Charge Transfer Mechanisms

[EN]Despite being a very strong oxidizing agent, most organic molecules are not oxidized in the presence of O2 at room temperature because O2 is a diradical whereas most organic molecules are closed-shell. Oxidation then requires a change in the spin state of the system, which is forbidden according to non-relativistic quantum theory. To overcome this limitation, oxygenases usually rely on metal or redox cofactors to catalyze the incorporation of, at least, one oxygen atom into an organic substrate. However, some oxygenases do not require any cofactor, and the detailed mechanism followed by these enzymes remains elusive. To fill this gap, here the mechanism for the enzymatic cofactor-independent oxidation of 3,5-dihydroxyphenylacetyl-CoA (DPA-CoA) is studied by combining multireference calculations on a model system with QM/MM calculations. Our results reveal that intersystem crossing takes place without requiring the previous protonation of molecular oxygen. The characterization of the electronic states reveals that electron transfer is concomitant with the triplet–singlet transition. The enzyme plays a passive role in promoting the intersystem crossing, although spontaneous reorganization of the water wire connecting the active site with the bulk presets the substrate for subsequent chemical transformations. The results show that the stabilization of the singlet radical-pair between dioxygen and enolate is enough to promote spin-forbidden reaction without the need for neither metal cofactors nor basic residues in the active site

Optimization-Based Capacitor Balancing Method with Customizable Switching Reduction for CHB Converters

This paper presents a method for switching reduction in cascaded H-bridge converters. Given the wide applicability of this topology, it would be especially desirable to increase its efficiency with switching losses reduction techniques. Since this type of converter requires voltage balancing methods, several modulation methods consider the possibility of combining the balancing and switching reduction goals together. In this paper, a previously disclosed optimization-based balance method was modified further to consider the switching losses in its objective function. Each commutation was penalized in proportion to the phase current and the module voltage, thus avoiding commutations that would produce the most losses but tolerating low-losses commutations. The structure of the original method was maintained so that the algorithm could be applied with minimal change. The results show that it is possible to reduce the switching up to 14% without any noticeable drawback and up to 22% at the cost of a greater DC-link ripple. It is also possible to selectively reduce the effective switching frequency of only some modules, making it significantly low. This extends the adaptability of the converter, possibly allowing hybrid converters with modules of different transistor technologies.Horizon 2020. Trusted European SiC Value Chain for a Greener Economy PCI2021-121986, TRANSFORM

Multi P2P Energy Trading Market, Integrating Energy Storage Systems and Used for Optimal Scheduling

The increasing use of renewable energy and storage systems by end users has changed the paradigm of electricity markets, with consumers changing their role from passive to active players, the so-called prosumers. Different countries have encouraged the aggregation of these prosumers in energy communities. In these communities, it is essential to create a market to manage energy exchanges between neighbors, who can sell surpluses or buy energy to reduce their bills. This paper presents the framework definition of a multi-peer-to-peer market. As contributions, it defines how storage systems can participate in the market and multiple exchanges between prosumers are possible. This market can be integrated in an optimization process to perform optimal scheduling in the community by setting an objective. All this has been tested in a community with 5 prosumers with generation and storage, where the effect of multiple exchanges and valuation of assets is observed, achieving as a result higher bill reductions

Methods and Tools for Objective Assessment of Psychomotor Skills in Laparoscopic Surgery

Training and assessment paradigms for laparoscopic surgical skills are evolving from traditional mentor–trainee tutorship towards structured, more objective and safer programs. Accreditation of surgeons requires reaching a consensus on metrics and tasks used to assess surgeons’ psychomotor skills. Ongoing development of tracking systems and software solutions has allowed for the expansion of novel training and assessment means in laparoscopy. The current challenge is to adapt and include these systems within training programs, and to exploit their possibilities for evaluation purposes. This paper describes the state of the art in research on measuring and assessing psychomotor laparoscopic skills. It gives an overview on tracking systems as well as on metrics and advanced statistical and machine learning techniques employed for evaluation purposes. The later ones have a potential to be used as an aid in deciding on the surgical competence level, which is an important aspect when accreditation of the surgeons in particular, and patient safety in general, are considered. The prospective of these methods and tools make them complementary means for surgical assessment of motor skills, especially in the early stages of training. Successful examples such as the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery should help drive a paradigm change to structured curricula based on objective parameters. These may improve the accreditation of new surgeons, as well as optimize their already overloaded training schedules

Software Architecture for Autonomous and Coordinated Navigation of UAV Swarms in Forest and Urban Firefighting

Advances in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have led to an exponential increase in their market, thanks to the development of innovative technological solutions aimed at a wide range of applications and services, such as emergencies and those related to fires. In addition, the expansion of this market has been accompanied by the birth and growth of the so-called UAV swarms. Currently, the expansion of these systems is due to their properties in terms of robustness, versatility, and efficiency. Along with these properties there is an aspect, which is still a field of study, such as autonomous and cooperative navigation of these swarms. In this paper we present an architecture that includes a set of complementary methods that allow the establishment of different control layers to enable the autonomous and cooperative navigation of a swarm of UAVs. Among the different layers, there are a global trajectory planner based on sampling, algorithms for obstacle detection and avoidance, and methods for autonomous decision making based on deep reinforcement learning. The paper shows satisfactory results for a line-of-sight based algorithm for global path planner trajectory smoothing in 2D and 3D. In addition, a novel method for autonomous navigation of UAVs based on deep reinforcement learning is shown, which has been tested in 2 different simulation environments with promising results about the use of these techniques to achieve autonomous navigation of UAVs.This work was supported by the Comunidad de Madrid Government through the Industrial Doctorates Grants (GRANT IND2017/TIC-7834)

Mechanical elasticity as a physical signature of conformational dynamics in a virus particle

In this study we test the hypothesis that mechanically elastic regions in a virus particle (or large biomolecular complex) must coincide with conformationally dynamic regions, because both properties are intrinsically correlated. Hypothesis-derived predictions were subjected to verification by using 19 variants of the minute virus of mice capsid. The structural modifications in these variants reduced, preserved, or restored the conformational dynamism of regions surrounding capsid pores that are involved in molecular translocation events required for virus infectivity. The mechanical elasticity of the modified capsids was analyzed by atomic force microscopy, and the results corroborated every prediction tested: Any mutation (or chemical cross-linking) that impaired a conformational rearrangement of the pore regions increased their mechanical stiffness. On the contrary, any mutation that preserved the dynamics of the pore regions also preserved their elasticity. Moreover, any pseudo-reversion that restored the dynamics of the pore regions (lost through previous mutation) also restored their elasticity. Finally, no correlation was observed between dynamics of the pore regions and mechanical elasticity of other capsid regions. This study (i) corroborates the hypothesis that local mechanical elasticity and conformational dynamics in a viral particle are intrinsically correlated; (ii) proposes that determination by atomic force microscopy of local mechanical elasticity, combined with mutational analysis, may be used to identify and study conformationally dynamic regions in virus particles and large biomolecular complexes; (iii) supports a connection between mechanical properties and biological function in a virus; (iv) shows that viral capsids can be greatly stiffened by protein engineering for nanotechnological applications.MICINN; Fundación Ramón ArecesPeer Reviewe