Research on Corporate Social Responsibility Reporting

The paper aims to revisit the relationship between reporting companies’ characteristics and the importance assigned to social and environmental disclosure, using statistical correlations. We conducted a content analysis on the extent of sustainability reports of the largest 50 companies classified by Global Fortune in 2009, in order to address the research hypotheses. Results show that size characteristics measured by assets and revenues cannot be correlated to the extent of Corporate Social Responsibility reports published by companies, but there is a significant negative correlation between change in revenues and return on equity and social and environmental disclosure for the sampled companies.corporate social responsibility; social and environmental reporting; companies’ characteristics; statistical correlations

Flames recognition for opinion mining

The emerging world-wide e-society creates new ways of interaction between people with different cultures and backgrounds. Communication systems as forums, blogs, and comments are easily accessible to end users. In this context, user generated content management revealed to be a difficult but necessary task. Studying and interpreting user generated data/text available on the Internet is a complex and time consuming task for any human analyst. This study proposes an interdisciplinary approach to modelling the flaming phenomena (hot, aggressive discussions) in online Italian forums. The model is based on the analysis of psycho/cognitive/linguistic interaction modalities among web communities' participants, state-of-the art machine learning techniques and natural language processing technology. Virtual communities' administrators, moderators and users could benefit directly from this research. A further positive outcome of this research is the opportunity to better understand and model the dynamics of web forums as the base for developing opinion mining applications focused on commercial applications

Identification of temperature profile and heat transfer on a dielectric membrane for gas sensors by `COSMOS' program simulation

The application of commercial 3-D software `COSMOS' for the design and thermal analysis of the low power consumption test structures with dielectric membrane for gas microsensors is presented. Within this work, the simulation provides the estimation of the temperature profile on the active area and the whole membrane including the four bridges and the heating efficiency in the temperature range 20-500 °C. Unravelling of the heat loss mechanisms in terms of radiation, convection, conduction by air and solid materials during heat transfer on the dielectric membrane is reported for the first time as a mean to evaluate by 3-D simulation the contribution of technological processes and lay-out design to the total heat losses

Taylor dispersion with absorbing boundaries: A Stochastic Approach

We describe how to solve the problem of Taylor dispersion in the presence of absorbing boundaries using an exact stochastic formulation. In addition to providing a clear stochastic picture of Taylor dispersion, our method leads to closed-form expressions for all the moments of the convective displacement of the dispersing particles in terms of the transverse diffusion eigenmodes. We also find that the cumulants grow asymptotically linearly with time, ensuring a Gaussian distribution in the long-time limit. As a demonstration of the technique, the first two longitudinal cumulants (yielding respectively the effective velocity and the Taylor diffusion constant) as well as the skewness (a measure of the deviation from normality) are calculated for fluid flow in the parallel plate geometry. We find that the effective velocity and the skewness (which is negative in this case) are enhanced while Taylor dispersion is suppressed due to absorption at the boundary.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Efficacy of usage of intraarterial regional hyperglycemia at therapy of oral cavity cancer

Проведено дослідження з визначення вмісту лактату в ракових пухлинах порожнини рота під впливом внутрішньоартеріальної регіонарної гіперглікемії. Виявлено, що посилення протипухлинного ефекту відбувається внаслідок рН-залежного підвищення чутливості пухлинних клітин до лікарського впливу.A study was conducted to determine the content of lactate in cancerous tumors of the oral cavity under the influence of intraarterial regional hyperglycemia, and an antitumor effect would be increased due to the pH-dependent increase in the sensitivity of tumor cells to the medicinal effect

Liver procurement as part of multiple organ procurement

Departamentul de Chirurgie Generală şi Transplant Hepatic “Dan Setlacec”, Institutul Clinic Fundeni, Bucureşti, România, Al XII-lea Congres al Asociației Chirurgilor „Nicolae Anestiadi” din Republica Moldova cu participare internațională 23-25 septembrie 2015Scop: Prelevarea hepatică, etapă premergătoare transplantului hepatic, parte din prelevarea multiorgan, contribuie prin acuratețea și corectitudinea intervenției la obținerea unei grefe hepatice de bună calitate cu rezultate bune ale transplantului atît imediate cât și pe termen lung. Lucrarea de față își propune să evidențieze importantul rol al identificării variantelor anatomice și adaptarea metodelor de prelevare în funcție de acestea.Material şi metode: Pe parcursul perioadei 1 ianuarie 2000-16 iunie 2015 s-au efectuat în Centrul nostru 666 prelevări multiorgan. O importanță deosebită a fost acordată recunoașterii variantelor anatomice arteriale, acestea adaugând un grad de dificultate procedurii, dar fiind totodată esențiale pentru asigurarea succesului intervenției. Rezultate: Caracteristicile heterogene ale donatorilor au obligat la aplicarea unei game variate de tehnici de prelevare, adaptate fiecărei situații, așa cum au fost descrise în lucrarea de față, un pas cheie pentru obținerea unei grefe viabile pentru transplant. Concluzii: Multiplele tehnici de prelevare hepatică pot fi aplicate cu succes când sunt adaptate fiecarui donator, scurtând timpul de prelevare și furnizând o grefă de cea mai bună calitate.Purpose: Liver procurement, the preliminary stage of liver transplantation, is a part of multi-organ procurement, and it contributes, with its accuracy and correctness to the high quality liver graft, with the best results in the transplantation process (both immediate and long term). This paper is framed to enlighten the important role of identification of anatomical variants and the selection of the procurement technique that suits most. Material and methods: During 1st Jan 2000-16th Jun 2015 a number of 666 multi-organ procurements were performed in our center. A special attention was paid in recognizing of anatomical variants of blood vessels (especially arterial blood vessels), which added a high degree of difficulty to the procedures, but was considered to be vital in order to ensure the success of the intervention. Results: Heterogeneous characteristics of donors imposed the implementation of a variety of sampling techniques, adapted on each situation as was described in the paper, an essential step to obtain a viable liver / organ graft suitable for the transplant. Conclusions: The multiple methods of liver procurement can be successfully applied when it is adapted to each of the donors, thus shortening the actual time of the liver harvesting, delivering the best quality of the new liver graft

Exploring the perspectives of integrated reporting for future research opportunities

This paper investigates the perspectives of integrated reporting as an emerging field in mainstream academic literature. The current state of research and its development are explored by using the Structured Literature Review (SLR) method on publications indexed in Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science. An analytical framework is designed for applying the coding procedure. The findings suggest an evolution of integrated reporting research from the phase of spreading awareness regarding the new reporting paradigm towards an impact analysis phase. The accounting and audit journals are noted to have greatly contributed to the shift of IR literature towards studying the integrated reporting as a reporting practice. A further purpose is to examine newly developed research interest in integrated reporting and to establish future paths to be followed. Future research might bring to discussion possible links between integrated reporting, governance and integrated thinking. The complex interrelationships influencing the companies’ ability to create value for the multi-stakeholders need to frame the practice-oriented research

Efficiency of thermal outgassing for tritium retention measurement and removal in ITER

Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Plasma Surface Interactions 2016, 22nd PSIAs a licensed nuclear facility, ITER must limit the in-vessel tritium (T) retention to reduce the risks of potential release during accidents, the inventory limit being set at 1kg. Simulations and extrapolations from existing experiments indicate that T-retention in ITER will mainly be driven by co-deposition with beryllium (Be) eroded from the first wall, with co-deposits forming mainly in the divertor region but also possibly on the first wall itself. A pulsed Laser-Induced Desorption (LID) system, called Tritium Monitor, is being designed to locally measure the T-retention in co-deposits forming on the inner divertor baffle of ITER. Regarding tritium removal, the baseline strategy is to perform baking of the plasma-facing components, at 513K for the FW and 623K for the divertor. Both baking and laser desorption rely on the thermal desorption of tritium from the surface, the efficiency of which remains unclear for thick (and possibly impure) co-deposits. This contribution reports on the results of TMAP7 studies of this efficiency for ITER-relevant deposits.Peer reviewe

Effects of Compost Manure on Soil Microbial Respiration, Plant-Available-Water, Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) Yield and Pre-Harvest Aflatoxin Contamination

Peanut production in Zambia is often characterized by low yields and high aflatoxin incidence in harvested kernels. Soil amendments such as farmyard manure have shown potential to increase yields and reduce pre-harvest aflatoxin incidence. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the effects of composted cattle manure on soil properties that relate to yield and pre-harvest aflatoxin contamination of peanut kernels. Research evaluated the effects of composted cattle manure on soil respiration, plant-available water (PAW), peanut yield and pre-harvest aflatoxin contamination in a field experiment conducted in two successive rain-fed cropping seasons starting in December, 2015 and ending in April 2017, in Chongwe District, Zambia. Six (6) levels of compost were incorporated into the top 10 cm of the soil at rates of 0, 4.5, 12.0, 19.5, 27.0, and 34.5 metric tons/ha 1 wk before planting. There was a strong positive relationship between levels of compost and soil microbial respiration (R2=0.84) and PAW (R2=0.86). Secondly, compost manure was associated with increases in pod (R2=0.65) and kernel (R2=0.61) yield. The kernel yield potential of the planted cultivar was achieved at the rate of 12 metric tons per ha. Thirdly, there was a reduction in total aflatoxin levels with increasing levels of compost (R2=0.85). The improvement in peanut yield and the decrease in aflatoxin concentrations in kernels can be attributed to the improvement in soil moisture retention capacity and soil microbial activity arising from manure amendments. This study demonstrated the potential of compost manure to increase soil microbial activity, PAW, peanut yield and minimize aflatoxin contamination at field level