Search results for "NEWA"
showing 10 items of 2491 documents
Insights on the Mechanism of Insoluble-to-Soluble Prussian Blue Transformation
2009
The electrochemical transformation of the soluble form of Prussian blue (PB) material from the insoluble form was monitored using electrochemical, gravimetric, acoustic, and spectroscopic techniques simultaneously. The described combination of in situ techniques represents an innovative tool for measurement in electrochemistry, which provides complementary information on the electrochemical systems. The insoluble-to-soluble PB transformation process takes place during the successive voltammetric cycles between the mixed valence form (PB) and the fully reduced form [Everitt's salt (ES)]. One of the processes that takes place is the exit of free Fe(CN) 4- 6 ions occluded in the vacancies of t…
Understanding the Impact of Opinion Leaders’ Characteristics on Online Group Knowledge-Sharing Engagement from In-Group and Out-Group Perspectives: E…
2019
Opinion leaders often play key roles in online knowledge-sharing communities, which has intrigued a lot of researchers and practitioners worldwide. However, it is not clear how various characteristics of opinion leaders may affect different online groups&rsquo
Effects of Carbon Emissions, Environmental Disclosures and CSR Assurance on Cost of Equity in Emerging Markets
2021
The objective of the paper is to empirically test the relation between carbon emissions, environmental disclosures, assurance of sustainability reports and firms&rsquo
The Inclusion of Socially Irresponsible Companies in Sustainable Stock Indices
2019
Social rating agencies implement complex filters to identify the companies with the best sustainable and social performance and help investors select the companies for their sustainable portfolios. This study analysed whether companies that are defined as ethical, sustainable and socially responsible by those agencies actually deserve this label. More specifically, the inclusion in the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World of companies that have been involved in controversies according to the Thomson Reuters Eikon database was studied. The results show that the inclusion of irresponsible companies in the DJSI Index is a fact. This outcome is in line with previous studies t…
Evaluating the Eco-Efficiency of Wastewater Treatment Plants: Comparison of Optimistic and Pessimistic Approaches
2020
The assessment of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) performance has gained the interest of water utilities and water regulators. Eco-efficiency has been identified as a powerful indicator, as it integrates economic and environmental variables into a single index. Most previous studies have employed traditional data envelopment analysis (DEA) for the evaluation of WWTP eco-efficiency. However, DEA allows the selection of input and output weights for individual WWTPs for the calculation of eco-efficiency scores. To overcome this limitation, we employed the double-frontier and common set of weights methods to evaluate the eco-efficiency of a sample of 30 WWTPs in Spain. The WWTPs were ranked b…
Comparing changes in productivity among private water companies integrating quality of service: A metafrontier approach
2019
Abstract Most previous studies evaluating the effect of ownership on the performance of water companies have ignored the fact that there are several types of private water companies. In this study, we instead recognize that private water companies can differ considerably in how they are managed, based on whether their infrastructure is privately or publicly owned. We estimated change in productivity of fully-privatized companies and concessionary companies by employing the metafrontier Malmquist Luenberger productivity (MMLP) index, which allowed us to integrate quality-of-service variables as undesirable outputs. We segregated the MMLP index to assess changes over time in relative efficien…
Development and application of the Hicks-Moorsteen productivity index for the total factor productivity assessment of wastewater treatment plants
2015
Abstract The assessment of the productivity change in wastewater treatment plants is essential to improve performance and reduce operational costs. Several indices are available to compute unit productivity, however some assessments are more reliable than others. In the absence of price data, the Malmquist productivity index is the most commonly applied; but it does not maintain total factor productivity properties under variable returns to scale technology. Hence, Malmquist productivity index is not a suitable index to compute total factor productivity change in wastewater treatment plants. The present study served to overcome such limitations by calculating, for the first time, total fact…
Do irresponsible corporate activities prevent membership in sustainable stock indices? The case of the Dow Jones Sustainability Index world
2021
Abstract The study analyses the real-life results from the DJSI World selection process and investigates whether companies are treated differently because of sectoral or geographical diversification needs of the index; furthermore, the question whether its methodology penalises ESG-related irresponsible corporate activities is investigated. The last is an important issue, as it is not unusual to find constituents of sustainable indices implicated in corporate scandals. This is a striking fact, contradicting the ethical and sustainable imperative such companies are supposed to comply with. The authors scrutinise data from a data panel containing 2872 firms between 2011 and 2016 and estimate …
A Morphological Clustering Method for daily solar radiation curves
2011
Abstract We present a new method based on Mathematical Morphology techniques for the classification of solar radiation curves that we call MfCM. The main advantage of using MfCM as opposed to daily clearness index distributions is that it allows us to keep the dynamics of the solar radiance curves in the analysis: both cloud transitions and variability in direct radiation are simultaneously taken into account. To illustrate our proposal, we use a set of real radiation data collected in a location sited in southern Spain.
The integration of quality and safety concerns in the wine industry: the role of third-party voluntary certifications
2016
Abstract Over the past few years, public attention has focused on the quality and safety control, traceability, and environmental issues surrounding food products. Several mandatory public standards and private voluntary schemes worldwide have been developed to address these concerns. Using survey data, this paper analyses the key factors affecting the adoption of voluntary quality standards in the wine industry and the existence of a relationship between the adoption of voluntary quality standards and economic performance, measured in terms of labour productivity and marketing behaviour. The survey involved 89 cellars, of which 68 were non-certified and 21 had one or more food quality cert…