Towards a responsible exit for business in conflict. Analysis of foreign companies´ behavior in Russian territory

The following research thesis has the overarching purpose of contributing to a greater development of the study regarding Business and Human Rights in Conflict-affected Settings, while striving to expand the scope of the discourse. More specifically, this research focuses on the framework of disengagement defined by the BHR standards and aims to assess how to address a responsible exit strategy in conflict-affected settings, through the contextual lens of the ongoing Russian unlawful invasion of Ukraine. The binomial of Business and Human Rights has characterized the evolution of human society, and the rising of the geopolitical and sociological vectors coinciding with globalization and technological development have established a prominent rising power of corporations in international affairs that defined the necessity of assessing the impact of enterprises activities to human rights concerns. Nevertheless, conflict-affected areas serve as an unpredictable element in the equation, where the volatility of the contexts requires a rapid and flexible response in relation to Human Rights Due Diligence. The enhanced risks of human rights violations request companies to be mindful of the two-way dynamic between a company and its context of involvement, because their activity is never neutral: even using best practices, there is always an impact. This reciprocal influence endures even when confronting the prospect of leaving, whether imposed by external factors or motivated by internal decisions. The question posed at the core of the research revolves around identifying the complexities and challenges that companies have to navigate when seeking a responsible exit in conflict-affected settings. Additionally, the thesis assesses the lack of a universally recognized legal threshold of conflict within the context of implementation of a responsible exit strategy as part of the enhanced Human Rights Due Diligence. This thesis will convey a mixed methodological approach, interlacing and drawing upon a multitude of approaches that allow a comprehensive analysis of the developing field of Business and Human Rights in conflict-affected areas. Furthermore, the thesis studies the foreign companies behavior in the Russian market employing an holistic approach that includes both qualitative and quantitative methodology. The research examines the intertwined relations between conflict dynamics and corporate activities, with the objective of identifying the complexities encountered by enterprises seeking to exit Russia. The study's findings not only indicate the elements that ought to guide a responsible exit strategy, but also demonstrate the positive repercussions of including a responsible exit framework into Human Rights Due Diligence.A tese de investigação que se segue tem como objetivo geral contribuir para um maior desenvolvimento do estudo relativo ao Business and Human Rights em contextos afetados por conflitos, enquanto se esforça por alargar o âmbito do discurso. Mais especificamente, esta investigação centra-se no quadro de desvinculação definido pelas normas BHR e visa avaliar como abordar uma estratégia de saída responsável em cenários afetados por conflitos, através da lente contextual da invasão ilegal russa em curso na Ucrânia. O binómio entre o Mundo Empresarial e Direitos Humanos tem caracterizado a evolução da sociedade humana e a ascensão dos vetores geopolíticos e sociológicos, coincidindo com a globalização e o desenvolvimento tecnológico, estabeleceu um poder crescente e proeminente das empresas nos assuntos internacionais que definiu a necessidade de avaliar o impacto das atividades das empresas nas preocupações com os direitos humanos. No entanto, as zonas afetadas por conflitos constituem um elemento imprevisível da equação, em que a volatilidade dos contextos exige uma resposta rápida e flexível em relação à diligência devida em matéria de direitos humanos. Os riscos acrescidos de violações dos direitos humanos exigem que as empresas estejam atentas à dinâmica bidirecional entre uma empresa e o seu contexto de envolvimento, visto que a sua atividade nunca é neutra: mesmo utilizando as melhores práticas, há sempre um impacto. Esta influência recíproca mantém-se mesmo quando se confronta a perspetiva de saída, quer seja imposta por fatores externos ou motivada por decisões internas. A questão colocada no centro da investigação gira em torno da identificação das complexidades e dos desafios que as empresas têm de enfrentar quando procuram uma saída responsável em contextos afetados por conflitos. Além disso, a tese avalia a falta de um limiar legal de conflito universalmente reconhecido no contexto da implementação de uma estratégia de saída responsável como parte da diligência devida reforçada em matéria de direitos humanos. A presente tese apresenta uma abordagem metodológica mista, entrelaçando e recorrendo a uma multiplicidade de abordagens que permitem uma análise abrangente do domínio em desenvolvimento das empresas e dos direitos humanos em zonas afetadas por conflitos. Além disso, a tese estuda o comportamento das empresas estrangeiras no mercado russo, utilizando uma abordagem holística que inclui uma metodologia qualitativa e quantitativa. A investigação examina as relações interligadas entre a dinâmica dos conflitos e as atividades empresariais, com o objetivo de identificar as complexidades encontradas pelas empresas que procuram sair da Rússia. As conclusões do estudo não só indicam os elementos que devem orientar uma estratégia de saída responsável, como também demonstram as repercussões positivas da inclusão de um quadro de saída responsável na diligência devida em matéria de direitos humanos.La presente tesi di ricerca vuole contribuire allo sviluppo dello studio Business and Human Rights in zone di conflitto. In particolare, la ricerca si concentra sulla struttura di un’interruzione delle relazioni commerciali (disengagement) definito dagli standard BHR e mira a valutare come affrontare una strategia di uscita responsabile (responsible exit) in contesti dettati da dinamiche di conflitto, attraverso una lente contestuale che prende in considerazione l'invasione illegale dell'Ucraina da parte della Russia. Il binomio Imprese e Diritti Umani (Business and Human Rights) ha caratterizzato l'evoluzione della società umana e l'affermarsi di vettori sia geopolitici che sociologici, ha determinato e sancito l'ascesa del potere delle imprese negli affari internazionali, in concomitanza con la globalizzazione e lo sviluppo tecnologico definendo la necessità di valutare l'impatto delle attività delle imprese sui diritti umani. Tuttavia, le aree colpite da conflitti rappresentano un elemento imprevedibile dell'equazione, in cui la volatilità dei contesti richiede una risposta rapida e flessibile in relazione alla Due Diligence sui diritti umani. L'aumento dei rischi di violazione dei diritti umani richiede alle aziende di essere consapevoli della dinamica bidirezionale tra un'azienda e il contesto in cui è coinvolta, perché le proprie attività non sono mai neutrali anche utilizzando le migliori pratiche, c'è sempre un impatto. Questa influenza reciproca permane anche quando si affronta la prospettiva di interrompere le attività commerciali nel luogo in cui si opera, sia essa conseguenza di fattori esterni o motivata da decisioni interne. La domanda posta al centro della ricerca ruota attorno all'identificazione delle complessità e delle sfide che le imprese devono affrontare quando cercano di uscire in modo responsabile da un contesto di conflitto. Inoltre, la tesi valuta quanto la mancanza di una soglia legale universalmente riconosciuta di conflitto possa influire sull’implementazione di una strategia preventiva di un'uscita responsabile nel processo di Due Diligence. Questa tesi adotterà un approccio metodologico misto, intrecciando e attingendo a una moltitudine di approcci che consentono un'analisi completa del campo in via di sviluppo de “Business and Human Rights” nelle aree colpite da conflitti. Inoltre, la tesi studia il comportamento di aziende straniere nel mercato Russo utilizzando un approccio olistico che include sia una metodologia qualitativa che quantitativa. La ricerca esamina le relazioni intrecciate tra le dinamiche di conflitto e le attività aziendali, con l'obiettivo di identificare le complessità incontrate dalle imprese che cercano di uscire dalla Russia. I risultati dello studio non solo indicano gli elementi che dovrebbero guidare una strategia di uscita responsabile, ma dimostrano anche le ripercussioni positive dell'inclusione di una strategia di uscita responsabile nella Human Rights Due Diligence

Patterns of Strong Coupling for LHC Searches

Even though the Standard Model (SM) is weakly coupled at the Fermi scale, a new strong dynamics involving its degrees of freedom may conceivably lurk at slightly higher energies, in the multi TeV range. Approximate symmetries provide a structurally robust context where, within the low energy description, the dimensionless SM couplings are weak, while the new strong dynamics manifests itself exclusively through higher-derivative interactions. We present an exhaustive classification of such scenarios in the form of effective field theories, paying special attention to new classes of models where the strong dynamics involves, along with the Higgs boson, the SM gauge bosons and/or the fermions. The IR softness of the new dynamics suppresses its effects at LEP energies, but deviations are in principle detectable at the LHC, even at energies below the threshold for production of new states. Our construction provides the so far unique structurally robust context where to motivate several searches in Higgs physics, diboson production, or WW scattering, which were so far poorly justified. Perhaps surprisingly, the interplay between weak coupling, strong coupling and derivatives, which is controlled by symmetries, can override the naive expansion in operator dimension, providing instances where dimension-8 dominates dimension-6, well within the domain of validity of the low energy effective theory. This result reveals the limitations of an analysis that is both ambitiously general and restricted to dimension-6 operators.Comment: 37 pages, 1 figur

(Re-)Inventing the Relativistic Wheel: Gravity, Cosets, and Spinning Objects

Space-time symmetries are a crucial ingredient of any theoretical model in physics. Unlike internal symmetries, which may or may not be gauged and/or spontaneously broken, space-time symmetries do not admit any ambiguity: they are gauged by gravity, and any conceivable physical system (other than the vacuum) is bound to break at least some of them. Motivated by this observation, we study how to couple gravity with the Goldstone fields that non-linearly realize spontaneously broken space-time symmetries. This can be done in complete generality by weakly gauging the Poincare symmetry group in the context of the coset construction. To illustrate the power of this method, we consider three kinds of physical systems coupled to gravity: superfluids, relativistic membranes embedded in a higher dimensional space, and rotating point-like objects. This last system is of particular importance as it can be used to model spinning astrophysical objects like neutron stars and black holes. Our approach provides a systematic and unambiguous parametrization of the degrees of freedom of these systems.Comment: 30 page

Phenotypic and genotypic data integration and exploration through a web-service architecture

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Linking genotypic and phenotypic information is one of the greatest challenges of current genetics research. The definition of an Information Technology infrastructure to support this kind of studies, and in particular studies aimed at the analysis of complex traits, which require the definition of multifaceted phenotypes and the integration genotypic information to discover the most prevalent diseases, is a paradigmatic goal of Biomedical Informatics. This paper describes the use of Information Technology methods and tools to develop a system for the management, inspection and integration of phenotypic and genotypic data.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We present the design and architecture of the Phenotype Miner, a software system able to flexibly manage phenotypic information, and its extended functionalities to retrieve genotype information from external repositories and to relate it to phenotypic data. For this purpose we developed a module to allow customized data upload by the user and a SOAP-based communications layer to retrieve data from existing biomedical knowledge management tools. In this paper we also demonstrate the system functionality by an example application of the system in which we analyze two related genomic datasets.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this paper we show how a comprehensive, integrated and automated workbench for genotype and phenotype integration can facilitate and improve the hypothesis generation process underlying modern genetic studies.</p

High-resolution periodic mode shapes identification for wind turbines

The stability analysis of in-operation wind turbines is a very important topic, that has received considerable attention in the last years. Many identification algorithms have been developed to estimate frequencies and damping ratios, but very few papers have been dedicated to the mode shapes. The knowledge of high-resolution mode shapes could be exploited for several applications including model validation, accurate description of the vibratory content of a machine and spatially-accurate damage detection. In this work, we will present a procedure to compute the high-resolution periodic mode shapes of a wind turbine, and apply it to a high-fidelity wind turbine model. The results show that this methodology is able to identify the first low-damped modes of the system with good accuracy

Higgs Couplings in Composite Models

We study Higgs couplings in the composite Higgs model based on the coset SO(5)/SO(4). We show that the couplings to gluons and photons are insensitive to the elementary-composite mixings and thus not affected by light fermionic resonances. Moreover, at leading order in the mixings the Higgs couplings to tops and gluons, when normalized to the Standard Model (SM), are equal. These properties are shown to be direct consequences of the Goldstone symmetry and of the assumption of partial compositeness. In particular, they are independent of the details of the elementary-composite couplings and, under the further assumption of CP invariance, they are also insensitive to derivative interactions of the Higgs with the composite resonances. We support our conclusions with an explicit construction where the SM fermions are embedded in the 14 dimensional representation of SO(5).Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; v2: small improvements in the discussion, results unchanged; typos corrected; one reference added. Matches version submitted to PR

Periodic stability analysis of wind turbines operating in turbulent wind conditions

Abstract. The formulation is model-independent, in the sense that it does not require knowledge of the equations of motion of the periodic system being analyzed, and it is applicable to an arbitrary number of blades and to any configuration of the machine. In addition, as wind turbulence can be viewed as a stochastic disturbance, the method is also applicable to real wind turbines operating in the field. The characteristics of the new method are verified first with a simplified analytical model and then using a high-fidelity multi-body model of a multi-MW wind turbine. Results are compared with those obtained by the well-known operational modal analysis approach

What is the gamma gamma resonance at 750 GeV?

Run 2 LHC data show hints of a new resonance in the diphoton distribution at an invariant mass of 750 GeV. We analyse the data in terms of a new boson, extracting information on its properties and exploring theoretical interpretations. Scenarios covered include a narrow resonance and, as preliminary indications suggest, a wider resonance. If the width indications persist, the new particle is likely to belong to a strongly-interacting sector. We also show how compatibility between Run 1 and Run 2 data is improved by postulating the existence of an additional heavy particle, whose decays are possibly related to dark matter.Comment: v2: 45 pages, 12 figures, final. Factor of 2 changed in table 1, 4th ro

On the wave equation on moving domains: regularity, energy balance and application to dynamic debonding

We revisit some issues about existence and regularity for the wave equation in noncylindrical domains. Using a method of diffeomorphisms, we show how, through increasing regularity assumptions, the existence of weak solutions, their improved regularity and an energy balance can be derived. As an application, we give a rigorous definition of dynamic energy release rate density for some problems of debonding, and we formulate a proper notion of solution for such problems. We discuss the consistence of such formulation with previous ones, given in literature for particular cases.Comment: 36 page

An automated reasoning framework for translational research

AbstractIn this paper we propose a novel approach to the design and implementation of knowledge-based decision support systems for translational research, specifically tailored to the analysis and interpretation of data from high-throughput experiments. Our approach is based on a general epistemological model of the scientific discovery process that provides a well-founded framework for integrating experimental data with preexisting knowledge and with automated inference tools.In order to demonstrate the usefulness and power of the proposed framework, we present its application to Genome-Wide Association Studies, and we use it to reproduce a portion of the initial analysis performed on the well-known WTCCC dataset. Finally, we describe a computational system we are developing, aimed at assisting translational research. The system, based on the proposed model, will be able to automatically plan and perform knowledge discovery steps, to keep track of the inferences performed, and to explain the obtained results