CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE TIME OF FINANCIAL CRISIS: EVIDENCE FROM TURKEY

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been an important global issue all over theworld. Proponents of CSR claim that it has lots of benefits for the company such as goodreputation; on the other hand opponents claim that CSR can not protect a firm from financial harmin times of crisis. The objective of this paper is to conceptually examine the CSR, benefits ofimplementing CSR, and CSR activities in the time of financial crisis. In addition, a research wasconducted to explore the impact of CSR on company reputation in Turkey by comparing therelationship between our CSR and reputation measures before and after the financial crisis. Theevidence gathered shows that there is a positive and significant relationship between these twovariables in both before financial crisis era and financial crisis era. However, the correlationbetween these two variables has not increased significantly between the two periods investigated.Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Reputation, Financial Crisis

Income inequality is associated with stronger social comparison effects: The effect of relative income on life satisfaction

Previous research has shown that having rich neighbors is associated with reduced levels of subjective well-being, an effect that is likely due to social comparison. The current study examined the role of income inequality as a moderator of this relative income effect. Multilevel analyses were conducted on a sample of more than 1.7 million people from 2,425 counties in the United States. Results showed that higher income inequality was associated with stronger relative income effects. In other words, people were more strongly influenced by the income of their neighbors when income inequality was high.postprin

The missing complexity in seismically imaged normal faults: What are the implications for geometry and production response?

The impact of geometric uncertainty on across-fault flow behaviour at the scale of individual intra-reservoir faults is investigated in this study. A high resolution digital elevation model (DEM) of a faulted outcrop is used to construct an outcrop-scale geocellular grid capturing high-resolution fault geometries (5 m scale). Seismic forward modelling of this grid allows generation of a 3D synthetic seismic cube, which reveals the corresponding seismically resolvable fault geometries (12.5 m scale). Construction of a second geocellular model, based upon the seismically resolvable fault geometries, allows comparison with the original outcrop geometries. Running fluid flow simulations across both models enables us to assess quantitatively the impact of outcrop resolution versus seismic resolution fault geometries upon across-fault flow. The results suggest that seismically resolvable fault geometries significantly underestimate the area of across-fault juxtaposition relative to realistic fault geometries. In turn this leads to overestimates in the sealing ability of faults, and inaccurate calculation of fault plane properties such as transmissibility multipliers (TMs)

Influence of Quality on Employee Results: The Case of Rural Accommodations in Spain

Few studies have analysed the effect of the critical factors of quality results on employees in the services sector and, more specifically, in the tourism sector. This work studies the rural accommodation sector in order to provide facility managers with the critical factors on which to focus their efforts towards increasing their employee results/satisfaction. The data obtained from 100 rural accommodations in Spain are analysed and each of the measurement scales used are validated by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The theoretical model proposed to analyse the relationship is estimated by applying Structural Equation Modelling. The research reveals that the factors to which greater attention should be paid in order to enhance employee results/satisfaction are quality policy and strategy and processes management, the latter being the criterion through which the rest of the critical factors perform. The greatest total effect derives from quality policy and strategy and leadership, and indirect effect via the rest of the criteria

Interaction of crustal heterogeneity and lithospheric processes in determining passive margin architecture on the southern Namibian margin

The influence of pre-rift crustal heterogeneity and structure on the evolution of a continental rift and its subsequent passive margin is explored. The absence of thick Aptian salts in the Namibian South Atlantic allows imaging of sufficient resolution to distinguish different pre-rift basement seismic facies. Aspects of the pre-rift basement geometry were characterized and compared with the geometries of the Cretaceous rift basin structure and with subsequent post-rift margin architectural elements. Half-graben depocentres migrated westwards within the continental synrift phase at the same time as basin-bounding faults became established as hard-linked arrays with lengths of c. 100 km. The rift–drift transition phase, marked by seaward-dipping reflectors, gave way to the early post-rift progradation of clastic sediments off the Namibian coast. In the Late Cretaceous, these shelf clastic sediments were much thicker in the south, reflecting the dominance of the newly formed Orange River catchment as the main entry point for sediments on the South African–Namibian margin. Tertiary clastic sediments largely bypassed the pre-existing shelf area, revealing a marked basinwards shift in sedimentation. The thickness of post-rift megasequences does not vary simply according to the location of synrift half-graben and thinned continental crust. Instead, the Namibian margin exemplifies a margin influenced by a complex interplay of crustal thinning, pre-rift basement heterogeneity, volcanic bodies and transient dynamic uplift events on the evolution of lithospheric strain and depositional architecture

Sequence stratigraphic evolution of The post-rift MEGASEQUENCE in The northern part of The Nile Delta basin, Egypt

The stratigraphic succession of the subsurface Pliocene-Quaternary post-rift megasequence in the north-central part of the Nile Delta includes the rock units; Kafr El-Sheikh Formation (Early-Middle Pliocene), El- Wastani Formation (Late Pliocene), Mit-Ghamr and Bilqas formations (Quaternary). These rock units were analyzed according to the sequence stratigraphic principles to construct their stratigraphic architecture and discuss the depositional events influencing their evolution. Accordingly, seven 3rd order depositional sequences were encountered, of which six 3rd order seismic depositional sequences (sequences 1–6) are found in the Early–Middle Pliocene Kafr El-Sheikh Formation, whereas sequence-7 includes the Quaternary rock units. Sequences 1 and 7 were further subdivided, on the basis of high-resolution sequence stratigraphy into 8 and 11 4th order subsequences respectively. The results of the sequence stratigraphic analyses suggested that the depositional evolution of the examined Pliocene-Quaternary megasequence represents a complete prograding depositional phase during the Nile Delta history. The lower part of Kafr El-Sheikh Formation (sequences 1, 2, 3 and 4) was deposited as a thick outer marine shelf succession over which the younger rock units were deposited. However, the depositional sequences 5 & 6 of Kafr El-Sheikh Formation and the lower parts of El-Wastani Formations may indicate a deposition within active prograding prodelta sub-aqueous deltaic-subenvironments. The upper parts of El-Wastani Formation were deposited as a constructive delta-front pushing its way northward. The Pleistocene Mit-Ghamr Formation was evolved as a direct result of a huge fluvial input, organized as coalescing laterally extensive sand-rich bars. These were laid-down by active fluvial distributary streams that dominated the delta plain as the final phases of the present deltaic subaqueous environments

Entorno gráfico para simulaciones de sistemas biológicos

Aquesta memòria conté tota l'evolució del desenvolupament del projecte a tractar, és a dir, un entorn gràfic per a simulacions de sistemes biològics. Es partirà d'uns objectius a complir, buscant quina via se'ls adapta millor. A continuació s'expliquen els requeriments establerts, i fent una abstracció d'ells, el disseny general del software per a, després, passar al desenvolupament del mateix. Finalment, es mostren les proves realitzades sobre aquest, deduint conclusions que ajudaran a la seva posterior utilització i manteniment.Esta memoria contiene toda la evolución del desarrollo del proyecto que se va a tratar, es decir, un entorno gráfico para simulaciones de sistemas biológicos. Se partirá desde unos objetivos a cumplir, buscando qué vía es la que mejor se adapta a ellos. Seguidamente se explican los requerimientos establecidos, y abstrayéndolos, el diseño general del software para posteriormente pasar al desarrollo del mismo. Finalmente, se muestran las pruebas realizadas sobre él, sacando conclusiones que ayudarán a su posterior uso y mantenimiento.This report has inside the whole evolution of the development of the project that we're going to talk about. This is a graphical environment for simulations of biological systems. First of all, we'll start looking for which is the better way to reach the aims. Then we'll explain the requirements and how to abstract them to do a great design of the software, using it in the development. Finally, we'll analyze the tests done to the application, extracting conclusions that will help us to use and maintenance it.Nota: Aquest document conté originàriament altre material i/o programari només consultable a la Biblioteca de Ciència i Tecnologia

Building up or out? Disparate sequence architectures along an active rift margin—Corinth rift, Greece

Early Pleistocene synrift deltas developed along the southern Corinth rift margin were deposited in a single, dominantly lacustrine depocenter and were subject to the same climate-related base-level and sediment supply cyclicity. Two synrift deltas, just 50 km apart, show markedly different sequence geometry and evolution related to their location along the evolving border fault. In the west, strongly aggradational fan deltas (>600 m thick; 2–4 km radius) deposited in the immediate hanging wall of the active border fault comprise stacked 30–100-m-thick stratal units bounded by flooding surfaces. Each unit evolves from aggradational to progradational with no evidence for abrupt subaerial exposure or fluvial incision. In contrast, in the central rift, the border fault propagated upward into an already deep lacustrine environment, locating rift-margin deltas 15 km into the footwall. The deltas here have a radius of >9 km and comprise northward downstepping and offlapping units, 50–200 m thick, that unconformably overlie older synrift sediments and are themselves incised. The key factors driving the marked variation in sequence stratigraphic architecture are: (1) differential uplift and subsidence related to position with respect to the border fault system, and (2) inherited topography that influenced shoreline position and offshore bathymetry. Our work illustrates that stratal units and their bounding surfaces may have only local (<10 km) extent, highlighting the uncertainty involved in assigning chronostratigraphic significance to systems tracts and in calculating base-level changes from stratigraphy where marked spatial variations in uplift and subsidence occur

Integrate and Fire Neural Networks, Piecewise Contractive Maps and Limit Cycles

We study the global dynamics of integrate and fire neural networks composed of an arbitrary number of identical neurons interacting by inhibition and excitation. We prove that if the interactions are strong enough, then the support of the stable asymptotic dynamics consists of limit cycles. We also find sufficient conditions for the synchronization of networks containing excitatory neurons. The proofs are based on the analysis of the equivalent dynamics of a piecewise continuous Poincar\'e map associated to the system. We show that for strong interactions the Poincar\'e map is piecewise contractive. Using this contraction property, we prove that there exist a countable number of limit cycles attracting all the orbits dropping into the stable subset of the phase space. This result applies not only to the Poincar\'e map under study, but also to a wide class of general n-dimensional piecewise contractive maps.Comment: 46 pages. In this version we added many comments suggested by the referees all along the paper, we changed the introduction and the section containing the conclusions. The final version will appear in Journal of Mathematical Biology of SPRINGER and will be available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/0303-681