Search results for "Plastics"
showing 10 items of 2724 documents
Audit Committee Independence and Auditor-Manager Disputes
2020
This paper analyzes the role of audit committee independence in resolving disagreements between management and the auditor regarding financial reporting. The common intuition suggests that the audit committee must be independent from management to be able to support the auditor against the manager's manipulation attempts. We build a one-period strategic model to show that this intuition is valid only if overinvestment is a bigger concern to shareholders than underinvestment. Otherwise, any audit committee will agree with management to avoid underinvestment. The audit committee's optimal independence level, which can be fully independent or partially dependent, is affected by investment effi…
High-pressure study of the aurophilic topological Dirac material AuI
2022
We endeavour to explore the high-pressure study in the aurophilic AuI within the state-of-the-art of first principles. The impediment of expressing precise ground-state features of aurophilic compounds that had afflicted prior theoretical research has been resolved by incorporating van der Waals corrections (vdw). Mechanical and dynamical stability are ensured at ambient using the computed elastic constants and phonon dispersion curves. The dynamical instability is triggered by the application of pressure in AuI, as evidenced by the softening of an acoustic mode (Eu) at ∼7 GPa. Non-adherence of estimated elastic constants to the Born stability criterion at this pressure illustrates the syst…
Forecasting green roofs’ potential in improving building thermal performance and mitigating urban heat island in the Mediterranean area: An artificia…
2023
Green roofs are widely used in hot or cold climates mainly because they are capable to improve the energy efficiency of buildings and, when implemented at a large scale, reducing air pollution and the urban heat island effect (UHI) in urban contexts. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) black-box algorithms are a valid alternative to studying complex systems. However, the literature highlights - quite surprisingly – none of the available research refers to coupling ANNs and green roofs in the Mediterranean area, where green roofs are instead considered one of the most suitable technologies to reduce the high cooling demand. Therefore, the objective of this research work is to create and validate…
Impacts of piscicide-induced fish removal on resource use and trophic diversity of lake invertebrates
2022
Chemical eradication of non-native species has become a widely used method to mitigate the potential negative im- pacts of altered competitive or predatory dynamics on biodiversity and natural ecosystem processes. However, the re- sponses of non-target species can vary from rapid full recovery to delayed or absent recolonization, and little is known about the potential shifts in resource use and trophic diversity of native species following chemical treatments. We used a before-after-control-impact approach to study the effects of rotenone piscicide treatment on abundance and tro- phic niche of benthic invertebrates in three untreated and three treated lakes in central Norway, the latter gr…
Optogenetic Control of Bacterial Expression by Red Light
2022
In optogenetics, as in nature, sensory photoreceptors serve to control cellular processes by light. Bacteriophytochrome (BphP) photoreceptors sense red and far-red light via a biliverdin chromophore and, in response, cycle between the spectroscopically, structurally, and functionally distinct Pr and Pfr states. BphPs commonly belong to two-component systems that control the phosphorylation of cognate response regulators and downstream gene expression through histidine kinase modules. We recently demonstrated that the paradigm BphP from Deinococcus radiodurans exclusively acts as a phosphatase but that its photosensory module can control the histidine kinase activity of homologous receptors.…
Amide functionalized aminobisphenolato MoO2 and WO2 complexes: Synthesis, characterization, and alkene epoxidation catalysis
2023
The use of dioxidomolybdenum(vi) and -tungsten(vi) complexes supported by a variety of structurally different tri- and tetradentate aminobisphenolato ligands as pre-catalysts in the epoxidation of alkenes is well established. However, under the widely used standard 1 mol-% catalyst loadings these types of complexes generally show modest activity only. Recently, amide functionalities in the ligand design of various aminomonophenolato MoO2 complexes have been shown to lead to heightened catalytic activity in alkene epoxidation. In this paper we show that similar ligand amide functionalization can lead to significant enhancement in the alkene epoxidation activity of aminobisphenolato MoO2 comp…
Key CDO functions for successful digital transformation: Insights from a Delphi study
2022
Financiado para publicación en acceso aberto: Universidade de Vigo/CISUG Given that the Chief Digital Office (CDO) is a new business position, it is not yet clear what the key functions they must develop to successfully undertake the company digital transformation process. Although previous literature has tentatively covered this issue, there are still gaps in knowledge about which functions are truly relevant. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap by (1) clarifying the key CDO functions through a Delphi study, validated by a digital dynamic capabilities (DDC) framework (Warner and Wäger 2019), and (2) presenting a measurement instrument useful for assessing the degree of the key CDO fu…
SELF-EXPANDABLE METAL STENT PLACEMENT FOR CLOSURE OF A LEAK AFTER TOTAL GASTRECTOMY FOR GASTRIC CANCER: REPORT ON THREE CASES AND REVIEW OF THE LITER…
2014
In the setting of the curative oncological surgery, the gastric surgery is exposed to complicated upper gastrointestinal leaks, and consequently the management of this problem has become more critically focused than was previously possible. We report here three cases of placement of a partially silicone-coated SEMS (Evolution Controlled Release Esophageal Stent System, Cook Medical, Winston-Salem, NC, USA) in patients who underwent total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y end-to-side esophagojejunostomy for a gastric adenocarcinoma. The promising results of our report, despite the small number of patients, suggest that early stenting (through a partially silicone-coated SEMS) is a feasible alternat…
New folate-functionalized biocompatible block copolymer micelles as potential anti-cancer drug delivery systems
2006
Abstract The main objective of this study was to synthesize novel folic acid-functionalized diblock copolymer micelles and evaluate their solubilization of two poorly water-soluble anti-tumor drugs, tamoxifen and paclitaxel, which suffer from low water solubility and/or poor hydrolytic stability. The diblock copolymer consisted of a permanently hydrophilic block comprising 2-(methacryloyloxy)ethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC) residues and a pH-sensitive hydrophobic block comprising 2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DPA) residues. Folic acid (FA) was conjugated to the end of the MPC block so that this group was located on the micelle periphery. Tamoxifen- and paclitaxel-loaded micelles were…
Solution behavior of 4-arm poly(tert-butyl acrylate) star polymers
2010
Abstract This paper reports the synthesis of 4-arm poly( tert -butyl acrylate) stars of different molar masses up to 10 6 g/mol by the “core-first” method using ATRP. All obtained stars have a monomodal and narrow molar-mass distribution ( The dilute-solution properties of these star polymers were investigated in good solvents (tetrahydrofuran and acetone). Gel permeation chromatography and dynamic and static light scattering were used to measure the hydrodynamic properties including intrinsic viscosity [ η ], radius of gyration R g , hydrodynamic radius R h , second virial coefficient A 2 and diffusion coefficient D 0 . These data were used to establish relationships between these paramet…