Search results for " firm"
showing 10 items of 291 documents
Evaluation of Late-Maturing Peach and Nectarine Fruit Quality by Chemical, Physical, and Sensory Determinations
2019
In this work, both analytical and sensory determinations were carried out to evaluate the quality of yellow (&lsquo
Integrated management strategies of Meloidogyne incognita and Pseudopyrenochaeta lycopersici on tomato using a Bacillus firmus-based product and two …
2019
Abstract Because of the restrictions on chemical pesticide use and their negative effects on the environment, as well as on human and animal health, alternative strategies for plant pest and pathogen managements are highly desirable. The objective of this work was to evaluate the suitability of a commercial formulation of Bacillus firmus strain 1-1582, applied either alone or in combination with oxamyl or fosthiazate, to control the southern root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita and the fungal plant pathogen Pseudopyrenochaeta lycopersici under greenhouse conditions during two tomato crop cycles. Application of B. firmus suppressed nematode population levels during the second crop cycle …
Firming of fruit tissues by vacuum infusion of pectin methylesterase: Visualisation of enzyme action
2008
; Apple pieces were vacuum-impregnated with either a pectin methylesterase (PME) and calcium solution or with water prior to pasteurization. Pasteurized apple pieces impregnated with PME and calcium showed a significantly higher firmness. Moreover, solid state C-13 NMR spectroscopy of apple cell wall residues revealed an increase of their molecular rigidity. Exogenous PME addition involved a decrease from 82% to 45% of apple pectin degree of methyl-esterification. Microscopic observations of apple slices immunolabelled with antibodies specific for pectins showed that (i) demethyl-esterification was more intense in the cell wall region lining intercellular spaces (demonstrating a key role f…
The adoption of green energy technologies: The role of policies in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland
2017
We contribute to the existing research about policy-induced technology adoption in several ways. First, we suggest a new survey design to measure the energy-related policy environment. Second, we simultaneously estimate the policy effects for the adoption propensity and the adoption intensity simultaneously and, third, we compare the policy effects in the three countries, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Based on a representative sample of firms for all three countries we find that policies essentially promote the adoption of technologies and they are practically ineffective for the intensity, which poses a great challenge to future policy designs. Voluntary agreements or demand-related f…
Renewable energy growth and the financial performance of electric utilities: A panel data study
2017
Electric utilities are under pressure to increase clean energy production. Although the adoption of renewable energy can improve the utilities' environmental performance, a fundamental question is if it also pays in economic terms. Building on the natural-resource-based view of the firm, we answer this question using two data analysis methods. First, we carry out a regression analysis of panel data from 66 large electric utilities covering the period 2005–2014, applying both a fixed and random effects estimator. Subsequently, we use the Granger causality test to explore possible causality links. Our results show a negative correlation at the firm level between renewable energy increase and …
Coupling News Sentiment with Web Browsing Data Improves Prediction of Intra-Day Price Dynamics
2015
The new digital revolution of big data is deeply changing our capability of understanding society and forecasting the outcome of many social and economic systems. Unfortunately, information can be very heterogeneous in the importance, relevance, and surprise it conveys, affecting severely the predictive power of semantic and statistical methods. Here we show that the aggregation of web users' behavior can be elicited to overcome this problem in a hard to predict complex system, namely the financial market. Specifically, our in-sample analysis shows that the combined use of sentiment analysis of news and browsing activity of users of Yahoo! Finance greatly helps forecasting intra-day and dai…
‘Green’ Wine through a Responsible and Efficient Production: A Case Study of a Sustainable Sicilian Wine Producer
2016
Abstract Sustainability is progressively gaining importance in the winegrowing sector. Implementing this concept implies environmental soundness, social equity and economic feasibility. A proliferation of initiatives to develop the sustainable production of wine started officially in Italy since the year 2010. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the reshaping of Sicilian winegrowing according to the ‘Triple bottom line’ approach to sustainability. By analyzing the case-study of the Tasca d’Almerita firm, pilot farm of various national projects in wine-sustainability, we found that adopting sustainable operative, organizational and competitive strategies has lead to a well-managed a…
Unveiling the Role of Multiple blockholders: Evidence from Closely Held Firms.
2019
Research Question/Issue. This paper disentangles how the modes of ownership distribution among multiple blockholders and their heterogeneity shape principal–principal conflicts and, in turn, affect firm performance. The paper offers empirical evidence from a panel of Italian closely held firms over the period 2009–2014. Research Findings/Insights. We explore the principal–principal conflicts among blockholders across two distinct control structures. When a single blockholder controls the firm, principal–principal conflicts are shaped by the trade‐off between the alignment effect and the monitoring effect. In this scenario, we find that the relationship between the two largest blockholders' …
The industry effect and the decision to integrate vertically in a crisis context
2019
The objective of this work is twofold: firstly, to study if the characteristics of the industry affect certain financial and strategic decisions of manufacturing firms and, secondly, to determine i...
Shareholder Wealth Creation in Response to Announcements of Acquisitions of Unlisted Firms: Evidence from Spain
2011
We investigate shareholder value creation of Spanish listed firms in response to announcements of acquisitions of unlisted companies and compare this experience to the purchase of listed firms over the period 1991–2006. Similar to foreign markets, acquirers of listed targets earn insignificant average abnormal returns, whereas acquirers of unlisted targets gain significant positive average abnormal returns. When we relate these results to company and transaction characteristics our findings diverge from those reported in the literature for other foreign markets, as our evidence suggests that the listing status effect is mainly associated with the fact that unlisted firms tend to be smaller …