Search Results (161)

Sectoral vulnerability to distinct crisis types in small, open, and geopolitically exposed markets—such as Jordan—remains insufficiently quantified, constraining targeted policy design and portfolio allocation. This study’s primary purpose is to establish a transparent, comparable metric of sector-level market resilience that reveals how crisis typology reorders vulnerabilities and shapes recovery speed. Applying this framework, we assess Jordan’s equity market across three archetypal episodes—the Global Financial Crisis, the Arab Spring, and COVID-19—to clarify how shock channels reconfigure sectoral risk. Using daily Amman Stock Exchange sector indices (2001–2025), we estimate $GARCH\left(\mathrm{1,1}\right)$ models for each sector–crisis window and summarize volatility dynamics by persistence $(\alpha +\beta )$, interpreted as an inverse proxy for resilience; complementary diagnostics include maximum drawdown and days-to-recovery, with nonparametric (Kruskal–Wallis) and rank-based (Spearman, Friedman) tests to evaluate within-crisis differences and cross-crisis reordering. Results show pronounced heterogeneity in every crisis and shifting sectoral rankings: financials—especially banking—display the highest persistence during the GFC; tourism and transportation dominate during COVID-19; and tourism/electric-related industries are most persistent around the Arab Spring. Meanwhile, food & beverages, pharmaceuticals/medical, and education recurrently exhibit lower persistence. Higher persistence aligns with slower post-shock normalization. We conclude that resilience is sector-specific and contingent on crisis characteristics, implying targeted policy and portfolio responses; regulators should prioritize liquidity backstops, timely disclosure, and contingency planning for fragile sectors, while investors can mitigate crisis risk via dynamic sector allocation and volatility-aware risk management in emerging markets. Full article

Background/Objectives: Studies have shown that healthcare providers struggle to discuss difficult end-of-life issues, including palliative sedation (PS), with patients and relatives. This qualitative study aimed to evaluate communication challenges related to PS among healthcare providers in eight European countries. Methods: In each country, two clinical settings providing palliative care were selected. Two moral case deliberation (MCD) sessions were conducted, each with 3 to 9 palliative healthcare professionals (HCPs). They discussed patient cases involving PS and refractory symptom management. Sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymized, and analyzed using a framework analysis. Results: Key issues included core communication values—open, empathetic, and honest dialogue—which were consistent across countries but varied in practice. In The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and the UK, communication prioritized patient autonomy through timely discussions and family dialogue. In Spain and Italy, family-centered communication approaches predominated, while in Romania and Hungary, tendencies for selective disclosure were also evident, along with delegated decision-making and complex family dynamics. Certain challenges reflected professional experience rather than national culture. Nurses mediated across contexts, while terminology surrounding palliative sedation remained a source of ambiguity. Conclusions: This is the first study to present HCPs’ perceptions of communication issues related to PS across Europe. Despite variations between settings, consistently open dialogue among patients, families, and HCPs emerged as the most valued element. These findings highlight the need to better understand how end-of-life communication about PS varies in practice and underscore the importance of considering healthcare providers’ real-world experiences to improve communication with patients and families. Full article

As investors increasingly use Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) criteria, a key challenge remains: ESG data is typically reported annually, while financial markets move much faster. This study investigates whether incorporating annual ESG scores can improve monthly stock return forecasts for German DAX-listed firms. We employ a multivariate long short-term memory (LSTM) network, a machine learning model ideal for time series data, to test this hypothesis over two periods: an 8-year analysis with a full set of ESG scores and a 16-year analysis with a single disclosure score. The evaluation of model performance utilizes standard error metrics and directional accuracy, while statistical significance is assessed through paired statistical tests and the Diebold–Mariano test. Furthermore, we employ SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to ensure model explainability. We observe no statistically significant indication that incorporating annual ESG data enhances forecast accuracy. The 8-year study indicates that using a comprehensive ESG feature set results in a statistically significant increase in forecast error (RMSE and MAE) compared to a baseline model that utilizes solely historical returns. The ESG-enhanced model demonstrates no significant performance disparity compared to the baseline across the 16-year investigation. Our findings indicate that within the one-month-ahead projection horizon, the informative value of low-frequency ESG data is either fully incorporated into the market or is concealed by the significant forecasting capability of the historical return series. This study’s primary contribution is to demonstrate, through out-of-sample testing, that standard annual ESG information holds little practical value for generating predictive alpha, urging investors to seek more timely, alternative data sources. Full article

This paper examines the interconnection and wavelet coherence between the green cryptocurrency market and the green conventional market, utilizing daily data. The research period covers 1 July 2020 to 30 September 2024. Employing the time-varying parametric vector autoregression (TVP-VAR) model and wavelet coherence analysis, we capture both short- and long-term spillovers across markets. The results show that cryptocurrencies, particularly Binance and Litecoin, act as dominant transmitters of volatility and return shocks, while green conventional indices function mainly as receivers with strong self-dependence. Spillover intensity is highly time-varying, with peaks during periods of systemic stress, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and troughs indicating diversification opportunities. These findings advance the literature on systemic risk and portfolio design by showing that crypto assets can simultaneously amplify vulnerabilities and enhance diversification when combined with green finance instruments. For policy, the results highlight the need for regulatory frameworks that integrate sustainability taxonomies, mandate environmental disclosures for digital assets, and incentivize energy-efficient blockchain adoption to align crypto markets with sustainable finance objectives. This research enhances our understanding of the interrelationship between green investments and cryptocurrencies, providing valuable insights for investors and policymakers on risk management and diversification strategies in an increasingly sustainable financial landscape. Full article

Identifying homologous vulnerabilities across diverse IoT firmware images is critical for large-scale vulnerability auditing and risk assessment. However, existing approaches often rely on coarse-grained components or single-dimensional metrics, lacking the semantic granularity needed to capture cross-firmware vulnerability relationships. To address this gap, we propose FirmVulLinker, a semantic profiling framework that holistically models firmware images across five dimensions: unpacking signature sequences, filesystem semantics, interface exposure, boundary binary symbols, and sensitive parameter call chains. These multi-dimensional profiles enable interpretable similarity analysis without requiring prior vulnerability labels. We construct an evaluation dataset comprising 54 Known Defective Firmware (KDF) images with 74 verified vulnerabilities and assess FirmVulLinker across multiple correlation tasks. Compared to state-of-the-art techniques, FirmVulLinker achieves higher precision with substantially lower false-positive and false-negative rates. Notably, it identifies and reproduces 53 previously undisclosed N-day vulnerabilities in firmware images not listed as affected at the time of public disclosure, effectively extending the known impact scope. Our results demonstrate that FirmVulLinker enables scalable, high-fidelity homologous vulnerability analysis, offering a new perspective on understanding cross-firmware vulnerability patterns in the IoT ecosystem. Full article

International organizations have highlighted the importance of consistent and reliable environment, social and governance (ESG) disclosure and metrics to inform business strategy and investment decisions. Greater corporate disclosure is a positive signal to investors who prioritize sustainable investment. In this study, economic and climate sentiment are extracted from the integrated and sustainability reports of the top 40 corporates listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, employing domain-specific natural language processing. The intention is to clarify the complex interactions between climate risk, corporate disclosures, financial performance and investor sentiment. The study provides valuable insights to regulators, accounting professionals and investors on the current state of disclosures and future actions required in South Africa. A time series analysis of the sentiment scores indicates a noticeable change in the corporates’ disclosures from climate-related risks in the earlier years to climate-related opportunities in recent years, specifically in the banking and mining sectors. The trends are less pronounced in sectors with good ESG ratings. An exploratory regression study reveals that climate and economic sentiments contain information that explain stock price movements over the longer term. The results have important implications for asset allocation and offer an interesting direction for future research. Monitoring the sentiment may provide early-warning signals of systemic risk, which is important to regulators given the impact on financial stability. Full article

We analyze ESG-related news coverage to examine media attention patterns as a reflection of stakeholders’ perceived salience of ESG issues at both the industry and firm levels, offering insights into the evolving nature of ESG materiality. Using longitudinal data visualization over an 11-year period, we show that media attention to ESG issues varies significantly over time and across firms within the same industry. While some issues receive consistent attention, others exhibit shifting patterns, signaling changing stakeholders’ perceived salience. Focusing on SASB-informed financially material ESG issues, we also show that perceived salience varies even among high-relevance topics. Some firms align with their industry’s patterns, while others diverge markedly, reinforcing the view that ESG materiality is both dynamic and firm-specific. These insights suggest that static ESG materiality assessment frameworks may be insufficient for informing long-term sustainability strategies or corporate disclosure practices. For investors, our results underscore the value of media-based ESG signals in complementing traditional materiality assessments. Acknowledging the evolving nature of ESG materiality is essential for firms and investors aiming to develop ESG strategies that respond to shifts in stakeholders’ perceived salience of ESG issues. Full article

With the growth of the urban population and economic level, the issue of urban parking space shortages (UPSSs) has assumed growing prominence. This persistent issue not only exacerbates traffic congestion but also contributes to environmental pollution, highlighting the need for system-oriented mitigation strategies. First, an algorithm for mitigating UPSSs based on nudge theory was constructed, in order to determine how the nudge strategies work. Second, nudge tools, including gain disclosure, salience, and outcome notification, were integrated to construct a mitigation model for UPSSs, which synthesizes nudge theory, the model of self-regulatory processes involved in behavioral change, and system dynamics (NT-SPBC-SD theory). Finally, four scenarios of natural development, guide adjustment, balanced regulation, and enhanced change were simulated. The findings of this study are as follows: (1) The UPSS mitigation had multiple overlapping effects and critical point effects, and the nudge strategy gradually decayed or even rebounded over time. (2) Under the enhanced change scenario, the degree of UPSSs, the amount of illegal parking, and CO₂ emissions from civil vehicles decreased by 21.2%, 6.93%, and 14.54%, respectively. (3) After quantitative comparisons, the balanced regulation scenario with lower implementation costs instead demonstrated superior overall performance. The results support subsequent research and guide the enhancement of urban parking management policies to advance urban sustainability. Full article

The recent debate on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors has focused primarily on financial decision making and risk management from the perspectives of developed economies. However, in most developing countries, ESG risk models for mortgage lenders are very limited. In most of these countries, ESG-rating providers employ widely varying methodologies and disclosure policies, often resulting in divergent assessments of the same organization. This research develops a pilot statistical-analysis, dual-horizon ESG risk model specific to the Mexican mortgage industry, which provides a better understanding of how ESG risk could evolve over time across financial, operational, regulatory, and reputational dimensions in Mexico. This dual-horizon ESG framework considers a two-year short-term risk assessment and a ten-year long-term risk assessment. This research integrates expert opinions with a scoring system that improves on traditional methods. Dependability and internal consistency are tested using the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach’s alpha. Radar chart visualization and cluster analysis are used to visualize the empirical results. The empirical findings show that environmental risk has strong temporal effects, and the perceived severity is 20% higher over the longer time horizon. Furthermore, social risk exhibits high variability, identifying it as a critical risk for financial stability and regulatory compliance. Cluster analysis identifies systematic patterns in expert opinions that determine two groups, making the qualitative findings derived from radar plots more robust. Group 0 (75% of experts) has an institutional view about ESG risks. Group 1 (25% of experts) aligns with an affiliation to large financial institutions. Finally, this research identifies three key sustainability challenges for the mortgage sector in Mexico: exposure to climate-induced stress, fragmented regulatory frameworks, and social inequality. Full article

Spirituality has gained increasing legitimacy in psychotherapy; however, certain spiritual experiences, such as past life memories, remain marginalized in clinical settings. These experiences often arise outside therapy and may hold deep existential meaning for individuals, yet patients frequently hesitate to disclose them in conventional psychotherapy for fear of being pathologized. This qualitative study examines how individuals who experienced past life memories outside therapy decided whether to share them during psychotherapy, how therapists responded, and how these responses influenced the therapeutic process. Fifteen participants who had undergone conventional psychotherapy were interviewed using a hermeneutic phenomenological approach. The findings reveal that participants perceived their experiences as vivid and transformative, yet many refrained from sharing them due to concerns about stigma and clinical judgment. When disclosures occurred, therapist responses ranged from validating to dismissive, at times resulting in iatrogenic harm affecting the therapeutic alliance and patients’ willingness to continue. Participants expressed a desire for therapeutic spaces that could respectfully engage with spiritually meaningful experiences. The study introduces the concept of Spiritual-Psychoeducation as a potential framework for supporting the integration of such narratives in therapy. These findings suggest a need for expanded clinical sensitivity to anomalous spiritual experiences, divine gifts within the therapeutic process, as meaningful elements of psychological healing. Full article

Faced with mounting pressure to achieve high-quality green transformation, manufacturing enterprises are increasingly scrutinized for greenwashing behaviors. This study develops a novel hybrid modeling framework that combines evolutionary game theory with the SEIR epidemic model to investigate the dynamic interactions between environmental regulation, media pressure, and green innovation behavior. The model captures how strategic decisions among boundedly rational actors evolve over time under dual external pressures. Simulation results show that stronger environmental regulatory intensity accelerates the adoption of substantive green innovation and concurrently reduces the media pressure associated with greenwashing. Moreover, while social media disclosure has a limited impact during the early stages of greenwashing information diffusion, its influence becomes significantly amplified once a critical dissemination threshold is surpassed, rapidly transforming latent information into widespread public concern. This amplification triggers significant public opinion pressure, which, in turn, incentivizes local governments to enforce stricter environmental policies. The findings reveal a synergistic governance mechanism where environmental regulation and media scrutiny jointly curb greenwashing and foster genuine corporate sustainability. Full article

This study aims to explore the moderating role of corporate governance disclosures on the link between executive board gender diversity and financial performance. Governance disclosures were assessed based on executive managers’ information presented in the companies’ annual reports. The analysis was conducted on Romanian-listed companies from eight industries, covering a time range of ten years. Various robustness tests were used and examined the Blau index apart of the proportion of women managers, as well as different measures for financial performance. The endogeneity issue was solved by the Two-Stage Least Square method and the Generalized Method of Moments. The results revealed that a higher governance disclosure level on executive managers’ characteristics is reflected in increased financial performance. A positive influence was found for the composite financial performance indicator, return on assets, return on equity, and global solvency. Our findings led to the conclusion that the governance disclosure index moderates the relationship between board gender diversity and corporate business performance, and the effect of gender diversity on financial performance will be less positive with a higher level of disclosures on board characteristics. Therefore, managers can filter the quantity and quality of governance disclosure and can monitor the influence of the board’s composition on performance. Full article

Background: Accurately assessing eating disorder (ED) severity and treatment progress is essential for effective intervention. The Comprehensive and Continuous Tool to Assess Severity and Improvement of Eating Disorders (CONTASI-ED) was developed to address limitations in existing assessments by incorporating behavioral, cognitive, and physiological markers. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties and sensitivity to symptom changes of the CONTASI-ED in a community-based clinical sample of women with ED. Methods: Participants were 58 females diagnosed with EDs and 10 healthy controls. The CONTASI-ED assessments were conducted over multiple time points in outpatient and intensive treatment settings. We examined reliability, validity, and sensitivity to treatment-related change. The CONTASI-ED scores were compared with EAT-26, and multivariable analyses explored the effects of body mass index (BMI), age, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on symptom trajectories. Results: The CONTASI-ED demonstrated strong reliability, with test–retest correlations between 0.72 and 0.90 and inter-rater reliability of 0.68–0.95. The tool effectively distinguished ED patients from healthy controls (p < 0.001) and correlated strongly with EAT-26. Significant reductions in the CONTASI-ED scores over time (p < 0.001) reflected treatment-related improvements—although temporary score increases highlighted greater self-awareness and symptom disclosure. BMI, age, and PTSD significantly influenced symptom severity and treatment response. Conclusions: The CONTASI-ED demonstrated strong reliability and validity in distinguishing clinical and non-clinical cases and in tracking treatment-related changes. However, the findings are based on a relatively small, all-female sample, underscoring the need for further validation in more diverse populations. Full article

In recent years, corporate ESG performance has been widely incorporated into investment decisions and capital allocation considerations, becoming a focal point and hot topic for research by governments and organizations worldwide. However, due to various reasons, significant discrepancies have emerged in ESG ratings for the same company across different institutions, and this growing divergence in ESG ratings has increasingly drawn the attention of scholars. Studying the differences in ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance) ratings is of great significance. This not only helps to understand the root causes of differences, improve the objectivity, consistency, and comparability of ratings, but also helps users better understand the meaning and limitations of rating results. It is beneficial for investors to understand the focus of different ratings and develop more effective investment strategies. It can promote rated companies to improve the quality and transparency of ESG-related information disclosure. It can also provide a reference for regulatory agencies and policymakers, identify market failures and potential risks, and promote the development of more unified standards and frameworks. At the same time, this study can also promote the in-depth development of relevant academic research and theories. Based on this, this study systematically reviews the relevant literature on ESG rating divergence, focusing on its existence, causes, influencing factors, and impacts. The study finds that, in addition to the widespread existence of rating divergence in corporate ESG performance, scholars also disagree on the measurement and methods of this divergence. The reasons for rating divergence are mainly that ESG is a qualitative indicator; top-level design, intermediate calculations, and bottom-level data collection across multiple stages exacerbate divergence; and controversies in practice further deepen divergence, among others. The influencing factors and impact effects of ESG rating divergence are diverse. Given the existence of ESG rating divergence, all parties should treat ESG ratings with caution. This paper offers corresponding recommendations and looks forward to the future, providing a foundation for subsequent research. Full article

Natural gas (NG) is a key transitional energy source for clean energy transition. Against the backdrop of a grim climate change situation, the sustainable development of the Chinese NG industry is emphasized. Climate change disclosure (CCD) has become an important way for corporations to fulfill their social responsibility and demonstrate their capacity for sustainable development. In order to understand the current status of CCD in the Chinese NG industry and to improve the deficiencies, this paper assesses the quality of CCD in the Chinese NG industry. Climate change information is not fully covered by the existing quality evaluation systems. This study establishes a highly applicable system for evaluating the quality of CCD based on the theory pillar perspective. It includes the following five dimensions: completeness, balance, reliability, comparability, and understandability. This study evaluates the quality of CCD of 58 NG corporations using content analysis and quality evaluation index methods, incorporating Skip-Gram and CRITIC models. The evaluation results indicate that the quality of climate reports in the Chinese NG industry has shown general improvement over time; however, inconsistencies remain, making comparisons challenging. There are differences in the level of quality of CCD in the Chinese NG industry. Policy incentives with clear guidance and regional economic development conditions have a notable impact on the quality of CCD. For Chinese NG corporations themselves, disclosing climate change information related to risk management is the focus of narrowing the reporting gap. The CCD quality evaluation system constructed in this paper provides a theoretical reference for all industries to accurately promote disclosure quality. It also provides practical guidelines for corporations to identify weak links in CCD. Full article