This article examines whether economic performance could affect EID and how the relationship is determined by the form of ownership from voluntarism to regulation under the current Chinese context. In this study, our empirical results show that the relationship between firms’ performance and EID is complex and the interactive impact of ownership and economic performance on EID significantly varies from voluntary disclosure to mandatory disclosure. This study provides a more comprehensive understanding of the motivations in corporate EID. The performance–impression theory (...) can be used to explain the disclosure behaviors during the period of voluntary disclosure, while the pressure–legitimacy theory can be used during the period of mandatory disclosure. The finding suggests that when evaluating corporate EID associated with economic performance in emerging economies such as China, it needs to be cautious, as which tends to vary with the form of ownership and whether there is any mandatory regulation in place. (shrink)

We have empirically examined the relationship between top executives’ turnover and the corporate environmental responsibility by identifying the influence of ten specific turnover reasons resulting in the chairman’s departure and two important types of chairman’s succession. Using a sample of 782 manufacturing listed companies across 3 years in China, we find that the corporate environmental responsibility is negatively associated with the involuntary and negative turnover (i.e., dismissal, health and death, and forced resignation) and positively associated with improving corporate governance, and (...) not associated with the normal turnover (i.e., retirement and contract expiration) and the types of chairman’s succession (i.e., independence, and internal or external promotion). Our study significantly contributes to research in environmental disclosure by revealing the relationship between chairman’s turnover and the corporate environmental responsibility. A feasible way is suggested to regulators and other stakeholders in monitoring or assessing the possible abnormality of environmental responsibility when firms experience involuntary and negative chairman’s turnover in the emerging economies. (shrink)

A veritable tidal shift in Herder scholarship has taken place over the last quarter century, primarily but not exclusively in German. This review essay seeks to evoke the richness and vitality of this revival with the hope of persuading American academics that some ill-founded opinions still circulating concerning Herder's "irrationalism" and chauvinistic, even racist nationalism, and his philosophical naivety and literary effrontery, might at last be put to rest. The recent revival has brough sharply to the fore two crucial aspects (...) of Herder. First, there is the contribution of Herder's thought to the emergent cultural and social sciences. Second, for Herder the "science of man" was also a natural science: the division between the humanities and the natural sciences that has been such a hallmark of the age from Kant until very recently did not exist for Herder. (shrink)

The DAMA project is an observatory for rare processes and it is operative deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the I.N.F.N. In particular, the DAMA/LIBRA (Large sodium Iodide Bulk for RAre processes) set-up consists of highly radiopure NaI(Tl) detectors for a total sensitive exposed mass of ≃250 kg. Recent results, obtained by this set-up by exploiting the model independent annual modulation signature of Dark Matter (DM) particles, have confirmed and improved those obtained by the former DAMA/NaI experiment. (...) A model independent evidence for the presence of Dark Matter particles in the galactic halo is cumulatively obtained at 8.2 σ C.L. No systematics or side reactions able to account for the measured modulation amplitude and to contemporaneously satisfy all the many specific requirements of the signature have been found or suggested by anyone over more than a decade. An example of one of the many possible model dependent corollary quests for the candidate particles and for the related astrophysical, nuclear and particle physics scenarios is presented considering the whole cumulative exposure. Future perspectives are shortly addressed. (shrink)

Searches for non-paulian nuclear processes, i.e. processes normally forbidden by the Pauli–Exclusion–Principle (PEP) with highly radiopure NaI(Tl) scintillators allow the test of this fundamental principle with high sensitivity. Status and perspectives are addressed.

A part of relativistic dynamics is axiomatized by simple and purely geometrical axioms formulated within first-order logic. A geometrical proof of the formula connecting relativistic and rest masses of bodies is presented, leading up to a geometric explanation of Einstein's famous E = mc² . The connection of our geometrical axioms and the usual axioms on the conservation of mass, momentum and four-momentum is also investigated.

Abstract. There is an ongoing debate in the philosophical and jurisprudential literature regarding the nature and possibility of Contract theory. On one hand, are those who argue (or assume) that there is, or should be, a single, general, universal theory of Contract Law, one applicable to all jurisdictions and all times. On the other hand, are those who assert that Contract theory should be localized to particular times and places, perhaps even with different theories for different types of agreements. This (...) article considers one facet of this debate: evaluating the relevance of the fact that the remedies available for breach of contract can vary significantly from one jurisdiction to another. This wide variation in remedies for breach of a (contractual) promise is one central difference between promises in morality and enforceable agreements in law. The article asserts that variation of remedies strongly supports the conclusion that there is (and can be) no general, universal theory of Contract Law. (shrink)