Corporate Governance, CSR, ESG, and Sustainability: Realigning the Principle-Agent Equilibrium in Multinational Enterprises “MNEs”

openABSTRACT The thesis provides a thorough examination of the interconnections between Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) principles, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), legal frameworks, global value chains, and international agreements that influence the conduct of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the current business environment. The first step involves the establishment of a fundamental transition towards sustainability and the adoption of responsible business practices. This transition is characterized by the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations and the recognition of the strategic significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The thesis subsequently explores the intricate correlation between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and Global Value Chains (GVCs), providing a comprehensive understanding of the escalating significance of ESG concerns in the financial domain and their consequential effects on global investment dynamics. The accompanying discussion explores the domain of international agreements and legal factors that regulate multinational enterprises (MNEs), emphasizing the importance of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in fostering responsible corporate behavior. The ongoing investigation delves into the realms of legislative frameworks, corporate governance, and ESG reporting requirements, highlighting the need of thorough research, industry-specific reporting standards, and voluntary frameworks in bolstering openness and accountability. The present thesis examines the European Commission's ESG Rating Articles in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. This analysis uncovers a significant alignment between regulatory efforts and the overarching aims of global sustainability. In summary, this thesis offers a thorough comprehension of the dynamic environment in which multinational enterprises (MNEs) function, emphasizing the imperative of ethical behavior, sustainability, and openness in order to effectively traverse the many intricacies of the contemporary global economy. Keywords: ESG, CSR, MNEs, GVCs, OECD, SDGsABSTRACT The thesis provides a thorough examination of the interconnections between Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) principles, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), legal frameworks, global value chains, and international agreements that influence the conduct of multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the current business environment. The first step involves the establishment of a fundamental transition towards sustainability and the adoption of responsible business practices. This transition is characterized by the integration of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations and the recognition of the strategic significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR). The thesis subsequently explores the intricate correlation between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues and Global Value Chains (GVCs), providing a comprehensive understanding of the escalating significance of ESG concerns in the financial domain and their consequential effects on global investment dynamics. The accompanying discussion explores the domain of international agreements and legal factors that regulate multinational enterprises (MNEs), emphasizing the importance of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in fostering responsible corporate behavior. The ongoing investigation delves into the realms of legislative frameworks, corporate governance, and ESG reporting requirements, highlighting the need of thorough research, industry-specific reporting standards, and voluntary frameworks in bolstering openness and accountability. The present thesis examines the European Commission's ESG Rating Articles in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations. This analysis uncovers a significant alignment between regulatory efforts and the overarching aims of global sustainability. In summary, this thesis offers a thorough comprehension of the dynamic environment in which multinational enterprises (MNEs) function, emphasizing the imperative of ethical behavior, sustainability, and openness in order to effectively traverse the many intricacies of the contemporary global economy. Keywords: ESG, CSR, MNEs, GVCs, OECD, SDG

Arete CEL Final Report

Roshana Ghaedi reports on her participation in the Arete project on an isolated North Carolinian farm in the summer of 2019, which she counted as experiential-learning requirement in the School for Advanced Studies in the Arts & Humanities (SASAH). She explains Arete’s founding pillars and approach to education and details the work and self-reflection she undertook, the concept of self-governance, and the process of developing her presentation on her experience

AN AUTOMATED DENTAL CARIES DETECTION AND SCORING SYSTEM FOR OPTIC IMAGES OF TOOTH OCCLUSAL SURFACE

Dental caries are one of the most prevalent chronic diseases. Worldwide 60 to 90 percent of school children and nearly 100 percent of adults experienced dental caries. The management of dental caries demands detection of carious lesions at early stages. The research of designing diagnostic tools in caries has been at peak for the last decade. This research aims to design an automated system to detect and score dental caries according to the International Caries Detection and Assessment System (ICDAS) guidelines using the optical images of the occlusal tooth surface. There have been numerous works that address the problem of caries detection by using new imaging technologies or advanced measurements. However, no such study has been done to detect and score caries with the use of optical images of the tooth surface. The aim of this dissertation is to develop image processing and machine learning algorithms to address the problem of detection and scoring the caries by the use of optical image of the tooth surface

Wykorzystanie podziemi: krok w kierunku zrównoważonego rozwoju w prowincji Chuzestan w Iranie

Reducing the consumption of fossil fuels using underground spaces has a significant impact on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. In this study, the soil layers temperature and thermal comfort in these layers were investigated to make the underground spaces in Khuzestan province. The average summer temperature in the central of Province is about 38°C, which is far from the comfort of the temperature. The surface annual temperature fluctuation in the Province varies from 23.5 in the north of the province to 28.5 °C in the southeast. Investigating the temperature fluctuation in the soil layers shows that it decreases with increasing depth, so that at a depth of 10 meters, the temperature fluctuation is approximately zero and it is equal to the annual average temperature. Therefore to 10 m depth, temperature fluctuation decreases by increasing the depth. The use of underground spaces in the Province can be taken in coping with heat and extreme sunlight, reducing energy and controlling dust and has positive effect on economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.Zmniejszenie zużycia paliw kopalnych z wykorzystaniem przestrzeni podziemnych ma znaczący wpływ na wymiar gospodarczy, społeczny i środowiskowy zrównoważonego rozwoju. W tym badaniu zbadano temperaturę i komfort cieplny warstw gleby w tych warstwach, aby stworzyć podziemne przestrzenie w prowincji Chuzestan. Średnia temperatura latem w centralnej części prowincji wynosi około 38 ° C, co jest dalekie od komfortowej temperatury. Roczne wahania temperatury powierzchniowej w prowincji wahają się od 23,5 °C na północy prowincji do 28,5 °C na południowym wschodzie. Badanie wahań temperatury w warstwach gleby wykazało, że zmniejsza się ona wraz ze wzrostem głębokości, tak że na głębokości 10 metrów wahania temperatury są w przybliżeniu zerowe i są równe średniej temperaturze rocznej. Dlatego do głębokości 10 m wraz z rosnącą głębokością zmniejszają się wahania temperatury. Wykorzystanie przestrzeni podziemnych w tej prowincji może być wykorzystane do walki z upałem i ekstremalnym nasłonecznieniem, ograniczania zużycia energii i kontrolowania zapylenia oraz ma pozytywny wpływ na wymiar ekonomiczny, społeczny i środowiskowy zrównoważonego rozwoju

Identifying spam e-mail messages using an intelligence algorithm

During the past few years, there have been growing interests in using email for delivering various types of messages such as social, financial, etc. There are also people who use email messages to promote products and services or even to do criminal activities called Spam email. These unwanted messages are sent to different target population for different purposes and there is a growing interest to develop methods to filter such email messages. This paper presents a method to filter Spam email messages based on the keyword pattern. In this article, a multi-agent filter trade based on the Bayes rule, which has benefit of using the users’ interest, keywords and investigation the message content according to its topic, has been used. Then Nested Neural Network has been used to detect the spam messages. To check the authenticity of this proposed method, we test it for a couple of email messages, so that it could determine spams and hams from each other, effectively. The result shows the superiority of this method over the previous ones including filters with Multi-Layer Perceptron that detect spams

Applications of frames of subspaces in Richardson and Chebyshev methods for solving operator equations

This paper is concerned with the construction of two iterative methods by frames of subspaces for solving an operator equation on Hilbert spaces. We present two algorithms based on Richardson and Chebyshev methods, and investigate their convergence and optimality

An Analytic Study on Evolution of Social Spaces

Social spaces have confronted huge changes through ages but they date back to the history of social life of man. Due to social characteristics, human being in his life demand for social life based on exchanging thoughts, culture and ideas. Therefore, with respect to massive changes, man familiarizes himself with concepts such as society, gathering and reunion and can benefit from a community spirit. With regard to the important role of city halls in social spaces, it is worth mentioning that the history of these spaces and also the necessity of their creation, with respect to current social demands and using new methods to help people participate in city affairs and taking responsibility for cities issues should also taken into account

A Review on Ophthalmologic Manifestations in Beta-Thalassemia Major Patients

Background: Beta-thalassemia is an inherited blood disorder that leads to early apoptosis of red blood cells (RBCs), ineffective erythropoiesis, and ocular complications. The disease is classified into beta-thalassemia minor (β-TMi), beta-thalassemia intermedia (β-TI), and beta-thalassemia major (β-TM).We aim to review various functional and structural ocular manifestations of β-TM patients in different studies and present the most important findings based on the prevalence and etiologies of each ocular complication. Materials and methods: To reach this purpose, we developed a search strategy using the keywords “eye disease,” “ocular complications,” “ocular manifestations,” and “ocular abnormality,” each with “beta-thalassemia” in the two popular search engines PubMed and Google Scholar up to December 2022. We also reviewed related references of the chosen papers. Results: According to the literature review, the most consistent is the correlation of β-TM with dry eye disease and fundus alterations, while there are still many challenges regarding the prevalence and etiologies of other ocular complications in β-TM patients. Conclusion: This finding warrants studies with larger sample sizes to reach more reliable results and take them into action for preventing and timely diagnosing such ocular complications

GABAA receptors as novel drug targets for treatment of mental disorders

A balance between excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmissions in brain is an essential factor for the proper function of the brain. The amino acid gamma-aminobutyric-acid (GABA) is considered as the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in brain. Thus, GABAergic neurons play a key role in regulating behavior. Previous data have revealed the complex subunit structural design for GABAA receptor channel, in which a pentameric assembly resulting from 5 of at least 21 subunits, grouped in the eight classes alpha (α1-6), beta (β1-4), gamma (γ1-4), delta, pi (π), epsilon (ε), theta (θ) and rho (ρ1-3) permits an immense number of putative receptor isoforms. GABAARs are highly diversed in the central nervous system in which this diversity may be related to some mental disorders. Any alteration in expression of the GABAA receptor genes causes neurophysiological and functional consequences that might be associated with neurological disorders. Some neuropsychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, epilepsy and sleep disorders, are effectively treated with therapeutic agents that act on the GABAA receptor. In this article, the contribution of GABAA receptor deficits to central nervous system disorders, in particular anxiety disorders, epilepsy, schizophrenia and insomnia, will be reviewed. The better understanding of GABA and its receptors may help us to find novel therapeutic agents for treatment of mental disorder in future research