Search Results (16)

The Fifth International Conference on Bioscience and Biotechnology, 2024 (ICBB-2024), held in Godawari, Nepal, from 21 to 24 April 2024, aimed to address planetary health challenges within the local context of Nepal while fostering global dialogue. Bringing together 240 participants from 10 countries, including 20 international invited speakers, the conference sought to explore the intersections of human health, environmental sustainability, and societal well-being. Jointly organized by the Research Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology (RIBB), the University of Nepal Development Board (UoN-DB), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VUA), and the Himalayan Environment Research Institute (HERI) and co-organized by Phutung Research Institute (PRI), Kathmandu Research Institute for Biological Sciences (KRIBS), Engage Nepal with Science (ENwS), and Kathmandu Center for Research and Education (KCRE), the conference represented a collaboration of 15 institutions and companies. With attendees from diverse backgrounds—academia, research institutes, private companies, NGOs, and government organizations—the conference featured a robust program of keynotes, workshops, panel discussions, focus group discussions, and oral and poster presentations. Thematic focuses included sessions on Air and Water, Climate Change, Ecology, Evolutionary and Environmental Sciences, and Global Health. A major highlight was the recognition of Nepal’s rich biodiversity and its vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. The event drew inspiration from the European Planetary Health Hub, convening and exploring sustainable, locally relevant solutions to global planetary health issues. Outcomes of the conference included new research collaborations, an enhanced focus on interdisciplinary approaches to biodiversity conservation, and a deeper understanding of how indigenous knowledge can play a crucial role in environmental sustainability. Additionally, ICBB-2024 set a precedent for eco-friendly conferencing practices by emphasizing sustainability throughout the event. In conclusion, ICBB-2024 succeeded in fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration, inspiring both local and global actions to address pressing planetary health challenges. The event underscored the importance of integrating science, policy, and traditional knowledge in the pursuit of sustainable solutions for planetary health. Full article

The 3rd International Joint Conference on Water Distribution Systems Analysis & Computing and Control for the Water Industry (WDSA/CCWI 2024)—held in Ferrara, Italy, 1–4 July 2024—aimed at involving national and international institutions, public and private companies, professionals, academics, and researchers operating in the field of water distribution and drainage systems management [...] Full article

This study verifies investor perceptions of cash holdings in companies with ownership–control disparities in the Korean stock market. The value of the cash held by a company varies with the level of information asymmetry. A high level of information asymmetry suggests a strong possibility of the controlling shareholder using the company’s cash to obtain private utility and harming other shareholders’ interests. Hence, investors evaluate the value of the company’s cash negatively. Greater disparity between ownership and control indicates a higher level of information asymmetry and the likelihood of agency problems, resulting in capital market investors evaluating the cash held negatively. This study uses Faulkender and Wang’s model to examine the value of the cash held by applying it to large corporations belonging to large corporate groups and their affiliates from 2011 to 2019. The level of disparity between the ownership and control of the controlling shareholder showed a significant negative relationship with the value of the cash held by the company. This suggests that in the capital market, investors evaluate the companies with a high disparity of ownership and control as having a higher possibility of agency problems and operating cash less efficiently. Therefore, these companies are unlikely to be properly valued. Full article

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many children missed their routine vaccinations globally. There is insufficient evidence on the trends in vaccination coverage in the private healthcare sector in South Africa. This study explored the changes in childhood vaccination patterns (non-COVID vaccines) in the private healthcare sector in South Africa using medicine claim data. Using the information on medication claims from a South African pharmaceutical benefit management (PBM) company, we performed a quantitative cross-sectional analysis comparing the period before (2018–2019) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021). All patients who made claims within the study period were included. This study included 67,830 children aged two years and younger. In particular, from 2018 to 2021, boys (52%) outnumbered girls (48%). Pharmacists consistently held the predominant prescriber role before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The proportion of children receiving non-COVID-19 vaccines was higher before the pandemic (60%) than during the pandemic (55%). Furthermore, there was a notable decline of 5% in measles vaccination rates during the children’s first year of life, while a notable increase was observed for measles (5%), hepatitis A (7.7%), and the pentavalent vaccine (5%) during the second year of life. Governments and private healthcare providers must take action to enhance vaccination coverage rates for children in their first year of life to prevent a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases. The results obtained in this study underscore the significance of implementing vaccine catch-up campaigns to address missed vaccination opportunities arising from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, pharmacists emerged as the predominant healthcare providers responsible for administering vaccinations within the private healthcare sector in South Africa, both prior and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their pivotal role in the vaccination process warrants due recognition and should not be underestimated. Full article

This research analyses the establishment and development of social cooperatives exposed to adverse factors in socially unsustainable contexts. The study focuses on a Lithuanian case study, with participants having limited experience creating a socially resilient enterprise ecosystem. The study employed a qualitative approach using case study and comparative analysis methods. The study found that Lithuania’s opportunities to leverage the benefits of social cooperatives are held back by a weak cooperative movement, a socially unsustainable environment, and limited understanding among professionals. The involvement of public policy actors in debates on legalising social business models is also limited. The study participants had mixed opinions about the social cooperative model for business development. Some favoured its cooperative principles and profit-sharing advantages, while others preferred non-profit organisations or smaller communities. The study also found a contradiction in the concepts of social business. The researchers suggest that the conditions for establishing social cooperatives could be more favourable in Lithuania, but social business founders require help understanding cooperative companies’ organisation and finances, for which the current public and private resources available are insufficient. Lithuania’s current policy of support and regulation for social business prioritises several social business models, which complicates the decision-making process for prospective social cooperative founders. Full article

The new energy industry has long benefited from government subsidies in China. However, the effectiveness of subsidies as a policy tool to guide sustainable development and competition has been widely debated. This paper examines the impact of subsidy policies on the firm value of new energy companies from 2011 to 2018. Initially, we employed data envelopment analysis (DEA) to calculate corporate subsidy performance (CSP). Additionally, we investigated the impact of disclosure transparency on the relationship between government subsidies and firm value. We confirmed the significant negative impacts of subsidies and disclosure on firm value through robustness tests and sensitivity analysis. Furthermore, when considering ownership issues, we found negative impacts on firm value for state-owned firms. In contrast, privately-held firms demonstrated a positive influence on firm value. This study highlights the policy implications of subsidy effectiveness, accurate information disclosure, and corporate social responsibility on the sustainable development of subsidies in the new energy industry. Full article

The French Phage Network (Phages.fr) has continuously grown since its foundation, eight years ago. The annual conference, held at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, attracted 164 participants from the 11th to the 13th of October 2022. Researchers from academic laboratories, hospitals and private companies shared their ongoing projects and breakthroughs in the very institute where Felix d’Hérelle developed phage therapy over a century ago. The conference was divided into four thematic sessions, each opened by a keynote lecture: “Interaction between phages, mobile genetic elements and bacterial immune system,” “Ecology and evolution of phage–bacteria interactions,” “Molecular interplay between phages and their hosts” and “Therapeutic and biotechnological applications of phages.” A total of 32 talks and 33 posters were presented during the conference. Full article

The mixed ownership reform aims to improve the property rights structure of the state−owned enterprises (SOEs) and reduce agency costs, and the current mixed reform strategies mainly include equity blending by introducing external non−state capital, executive assignments, and employee stock ownership. In this paper, 953 valid data of A−shares listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2008 to 2020 are used as samples to construct the indicators of mixed reform strategy by the literature statistics method. After obtaining multiple impact indicators, the regression impact model of corporate agency cost suppression strategy is constructed by MATLAB software using a machine learning algorithm. On this basis, the performance of multiple machine learning algorithms is compared, and it is found that the integrated optimization−based bag−boosting model is used to study the effect of hybrid reform strategy to reduce the agency costs of SOEs, and the proportional setting of indicators when the effect is optimal is also explored. Finally, the laws of different influencing factors on the agency costs of enterprises are explored separately by the eigenvalue method. The results of the study show that the proportion of shareholding of the first largest non−state shareholder is sin−functional with the agency costs of SOEs when non−state majority shareholders are introduced into SOEs’ equity mix, and the agency costs tend to decrease after SOEs become privately held enterprises. The greater the number and proportion of supervisors appointed by non−state shareholders, the greater the supervisory restraint effect on SOE managers and the better the effect of suppressing agency costs. The participation of non−state−owned shareholders in the company’s business decisions by appointed executives and the special resource advantages of SOEs intensify the occurrence of the self−interest of appointed executives and the increase of agency costs of SOEs. The implementation of an employee stock ownership plan plays the role of employee supervision and restraint on SOE managers, which reduces the agency costs of SOEs. Based on this, it can provide support for the government to improve the hybrid reform policy and promote the process layer by layer, and also provide theoretical reference for SOEs to deepen the equity mix, incentivize employee shareholding, and empower non−state shareholders to govern and thus reduce agency costs. Full article

This article analyzed the cost of capital under risk conditions for thermoelectric plants in Brazil, applying the Capital Asset Pricing Model—CAPM and the Weighted Average Capital Cost—WACC. To estimate the local CAPM, we used information from the Electric Energy Index—IEE of publicly traded companies in the electricity sector in Brazil and for the global CAPM, we observed the companies associated with the Edison Electric Institute—EEI, listed on the New York Stock Exchange—NYSE and at the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations—NASDAQ—USA. The risk conditions for capital costs were represented by Monte Carlo simulation using, as a basis, the WACC of a fuel oil thermoelectric plant and the local and global CAPM. The main results show that the IEE and EEI companies obtained a positive average daily return. Due to the Brazil risk, under deterministic conditions, the local WACC (11.13% p.a.) was more attractive to investors when compared to the global WACC (10.32% p.a.) and the regulatory WACC of 10.55% p.a., established by the National Electric Energy Agency—ANEEL. The most risk-sensitive input variables were: unleveraged beta, net debt and equity. Under risk conditions observed by the market from the point of view of Brazilian companies, the chances of the WACC of the fuel oil thermoelectric plant being 11.1% p.a. was 68.30% and from a global perspective, the chance of WACC being 10.32% p.a. was 99.51%. It is concluded that the cost of capital under risk conditions provides a more realistic view of decision-making for privately held companies. Full article

The aim of this paper is to enhance understanding of factors that undermine sustainable management of renewable resources by identifying and analyzing the main drivers and dynamics involved, with a focus on the role of corruption perceptions and its implications. To shed light on the research question, we chose to perform a comparative study of three different resource sectors in European countries that are ranked differently on the Corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, namely fisheries in Iceland, forestry in Romania, and arable soils in Ukraine. We conducted 40 in-depth semi-structured interviews with various stakeholders to explore assumptions on individual actions and behavior in the sectors. The interviews were analyzed using a qualitative coding procedure based on causal loop diagrams, a method from system dynamics. The results indicate that even though the cases are different, they share a similar outcome, in that privatization of the resource and consolidation of companies took place, along with perceived risk of both unsustainable resource management practices and corruption. Our findings suggest that the underlying similarities of the cases are that privatization occurred around the same time in early 1990s, when neoliberal economic ideology influentially held up the idea that private ownership meant better management. What followed was a transition to economies of scale that ultimately resulted in dominance of large vertically integrated companies in the sectors. The resulting inequalities between large and small actors in the renewable resource management systems serve to increase the risk for unsustainable management decisions as well as increase perceptions of corruption risks, especially amongst smaller actors in the sectors. Full article

The purpose of our paper is to investigate whether any differences between International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) impact the transparency of financial reporting of non-listed companies through bankruptcy prediction. This contributes to extant research that has focused on the effects of IFRS adoption in the context of listed companies. For our investigation, we used logistic regression, well-established accounting-based predictors, and a sample of financial statements from privately held Swedish companies using IFRS, and Norwegian companies using Norwegian GAAP. The results indicate that financial statements made under IFRS may be better suited for bankruptcy prediction than those made under Norwegian GAAP. Our findings suggest that the use of IFRS could aid in increasing the informativeness of financial reports by promoting transparency and prevent managers of firms facing insolvency from engaging in creative accounting practices. Our results should, however, be applied with caution, as they may be due to the differences in characteristics across firms that are not captured by our research design. We leave this issue open to future research. Full article

This study aimed to examine the financing of photovoltaics research and development by analyzing funding from public (European Union and national budgets) and private sources (enterprises), Strategic Energy Technology Plan participating countries being the main focus (European Union Member States plus Norway and Turkey). In the coming years, photovoltaics are expected to heavily contribute towards the achievement of audacious climate and energy objectives. Continuous monitoring of the effects is of great importance to assess a course of action taken at such a large scale. It will be revealed that the distribution of funding provided by national budgets highly concentrates on a few Member States, which is part of a general trend in Research and Development within Europe. Approximately 85% of the current European investment provided by the EU budget is administered in the framework of the Horizon 2020 (2014–2020) program; private investment behaves differently. The European photovoltaics manufacturing market has been obliterated by low-budget imported goods. A major characteristic is that the remaining companies are almost exclusively privately held. Gathering data has consequently been a challenge, as opposed to the readily available public datasets. Full article

Adapting to expected impacts of climate change is a task shared by multiple institutions and individuals, but much of this work falls over local and regional authorities, which has made them experts over the issue. At the same time, adaptation to climate change has been a research interest in different academic fields; while private companies provide research and development efforts on the issue. Views from perspectives may contain common ground and discrepancies, but benefits from the discussion may differ among these three sectors. This study shows the application of collaborative approaches to analyze impacts and adaptation measures at a local level. A stakeholder workshop was held in the city of Bilbao to discuss impacts of climate change and adaptation in the local context of the Basque Country. The contributions were proposed on three axes: impacts from climate change, good practices proposed or already in action, and costs and benefits derived from those strategies. Participants were asked to rank a series of measures and practices extracted from their previous inputs. These measures were analyzed after applying bootstrapping techniques, according to the perceived costs and benefits assigned to each of the grouped measures and practices. Participants estimated that groups containing green adaptation measures and those that had potentially positive impacts over climate change mitigation were the most efficient measures, as reduced costs combined with high benefits could lead to win–win adaptation strategies, while grey infrastructures were seen as providing high benefits at high costs. Full article

Gas-fired power plants are environmentally friendly because of their high efficiency rates and low CO₂ emissions. On the other hand, the output power of renewable generators is stochastic, meaning that additional capacity must be held in reserve throughout the system. Gas-fired power plants are ideally suited to mitigate renewable uncertainties as they are more flexible and can easily be fired up in just a few minutes, and subsequently be shut down. Increased use of gas-fired power plants makes gas and electricity networks more dependent, so that adequacy in fuel supply of electricity network becomes a majority. However expansion planning of gas and electricity systems is accomplished by private gas and electricity companies, having no effective data exchange mechanism together. So there is a need to provide a model that coordinates the expansion planning of gas and electricity networks. On the other hand, expansion cost of either gas or electricity network and risk criteria of integrated energy system may have priority in decision-making process. With different challenging attributes, there is a gap in the literature to provide a model that takes into account the privacy of energy parties with a minimum data exchange, while considering different attributes in decision-making process. In this paper a multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) method for co-expansion planning of gas and electricity systems is introduced. The proposed MADM method supposes that a central entity as Ministry of Energy (ME) is responsible for coordinated expansion planning of gas and electricity networks, while taking into account the privacy of gas and electricity energy parties. Decision-making attributes are conflicting and the proposed method selects the best plan based on a compromise among the attributes. Different attributes including gas expansion cost (GEC), electricity expansion cost (EEC), minimum of maximum regret (MMR) and β-robustness (β_R) are considered to find the best plan with regard to the preferences of independent gas and electricity network operators. In this regard, two multi-attribute decision analysis methodologies are employed: analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is used as a simple way to weight and rank all the attributes objectively and find the relative importance of various plans, and the weighted sum method to provide a general composite index and finding the final appropriate plan. A real case study in the Khorasan province of Iran, which has a high penetration level of gas-consuming generation units (GCGU), is utilized to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed MADM method. Results are compared with a Pareto optimal method to qualify the accuracy of proposed method. Full article

This paper examines the effect of gainsharing provisions on the selection of a discount rate for a defined benefit pension plan. The paper uses a traditional actuarial approach of discounting liabilities using the expected return of the associated pension fund. A stochastic Excel model was developed to simulate the effect of varying investment returns on a pension fund with four asset classes. Lognormal distributions were fitted to historical returns of two of the asset classes; large company stocks and long-term government bonds. A third lognormal distribution was designed to represent the investment returns of alternative investments, such as real estate and private equity. The fourth asset class represented short term cash investments and that return was held constant. The following variables were analyzed to determine their relative impact of gainsharing on the selection of a discount rate: hurdle rate, percentage of gainsharing, actuarial asset method smoothing period, and variations in asset allocation. A 50% gainsharing feature can reduce the discount rate for a defined benefit pension plan from 0.5% to more than 2.5%, depending on the gainsharing design and asset allocation. Full article