Corporate governance (CG) and enterprise risk management (ERM) have emerged as critical mechanisms for enhancing firm value, particularly within financial service institutions operating in volatile and highly regulated environments. However, despite the increased legislative emphasis on corporate governance and enterprise risk management, empirical research on how these processes interact to affect business value in emerging African capital markets is scarce. This study investigates the effects of corporate governance and ERM on the firm value of financial service organisations listed on the Lusaka Securities Exchange (LUSE), using financial performance as a mediating variable and regulation as a moderator. By using panel data from listed financial service institutions covering the period 2020 to 2024, the study adopts a quantitative explanatory research design. Therefore, firm value is measured using Tobin’s Q, corporate governance is captured through a Corporate Governance Perception Index (CGPI), and ERM is measured using an ERM disclosure index aligned to the COSO framework. The panel regression, mediation, and moderation analyses are employed. The findings reveal that both corporate governance and ERM have positive and statistically significant effects on firm value. In addition, financial performance partially mediates these relationships, while regulatory oversight strengthens the impact of corporate governance and ERM on firm value. This thesis adds to the corporate governance valuation literature by presenting evidence from an understudied emerging capital market and provides policy recommendations for regulators, boards, and investors.
History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, Arts in general
Questo saggio presenta un'edizione critica e uno studio della traduzione spagnola anonima del De bello italico adversus Gothos (1441-1442) di Leonardo Bruni. La traduzione è indirizzata al nobile castigliano Fernando Álvarez de Toledo. Si studiano l'identità del destinatario e quella del traduttore, nonché la cronologia, il contesto storico e l'irradiazione di questo volgarizzamento. Sebbene il Libro de belo gótico sia stato quasi trascurato nella storia della letteratura, è la traduzione in spagnolo di Bruni ad avere il maggior numero di manoscritti conservati (sette). Per la prima volta, viene offerta un'edizione critica dei prologhi del traduttore e di Bruni, assieme a un'analisi che evidenzia le conseguenze ecdotiche e interpretative dell'esame della sua tradizione testuale.
Katharina Derksen, Peter Brimblecombe, Guadalupe Piñar
et al.
Within museum depots, the largest part of all heritage collections is stored. Often, the preservation of highly sensitive objects is an ongoing challenge, as the materials are constantly subjected to and influenced by ever-present environmental factors—above all the surrounding climate and other physicochemical processes. Biological degradation is also a major risk for collections. Fungal infestation poses a particular threat, in many regions increasingly the result of climate change. Models for damage prediction and risk assessment are still underdeveloped and require a more substantial database. Approaching this need, nine museum depots and archives were selected in this study. Two years of monitoring the indoor microclimate with thermohygrometric sensors, investigating fungal abundance and diversity through culture-dependent and -independent (metagenomics) approaches, and the collection of relevant additional information resulted in a vast amount of diverse data. The main fungal genera identified through cultivation were <i>Cladosporium</i>, <i>Penicillium</i>, <i>Aspergillus</i>, <i>Alternaria</i> and <i>Epicoccum</i>. The cultivation-independent approach identified <i>Aspergillus</i>, <i>Pyronema</i>, <i>Penicillium</i>, <i>Xenodidymella</i> and <i>Blumeria</i> as the main taxa. Data analyses indicated that key drivers involved in similarities, patterns and differences between the locations were their geographic location, immediate outdoor surroundings and indoor (micro)climatic fluctuations. The study also sheds light on a possible shift in focus when developing strategies for preventing mold growth in collection depots beyond the prevailing path of tightest possible climate control.
This study investigates the diachronic evolution of female stereotypes in China from 2008 to 2023, against the backdrop of rapid socio-cultural changes and uses a combination of word embeddings and qualitative analysis. Based on the corpus of Southern Weekly, the most influential newspaper in China, this study identifies 15 words with significant differences in gender association distances for analysis from the list of 114 words across multiple dimensions. By analysing the gender biases and relational shifts of the selected 15 words, this article reveals societal expectations and stereotypes of gender roles as reflected in the distribution of lexical gender biases. Furthermore, it examines the dynamic changes in word associations, offering insights into the evolving perceptions of gender roles in Chinese society. Through the lens of media discourse analysis, this research contributes to understanding the intersection of language, gender and cultural transformation in contemporary China.
This paper investigates the negative and positive politeness strategies used in the syntactic structures and hedging devices in conversation in Bua Fiji Hindi. Studies on politeness in different cultures have received the attention of anthropologists and linguists. This research was based on Brown and Levinson’s, Grice’s and Lakoff’s models of politeness strategies. This work is innovative since politeness has not been studied in Fiji Hindi, and is based on recorded natural discourse. Thirty discussions were recorded and translated. The information was coded into several sentence-level classes and, after that examined. In this paper, analysis of six types of hedging devices in the conversation will be presented – subjectivity markers, performative hedges, clausal mitigators, downgraders, proverbs and politeness maxims. Together with this, syntactic strategies such as honorificity in pronominal use, plurality in verbs, use of particles, and syntactic structures in requests will also be presented. The most significant difference found in the analyses is that females tend to use subjectivity markers predominantly. The research however, did not reveal any gender differences in using syntactic strategies. This research may inspire some new ideas concerning politeness strategies across different cultures in order to understand how cultural differences play a role in people’s politeness behaviour in conversations.
W artykule na podstawie przekazów kartograficznych, w tym planu katastralnego Wilna, zaproponowano nowe datowanie katakumb na cmentarzu Na Rossie. Powstały one w dwóch etapach. Jako pierwsze, w 1801 r. wybudowano te ujmujące teren pod przyszłą kaplicę cmentarną, a dopiero w 1826 r. dobudowano do nich skrzydła równoległe wobec planowanej fasady budynku. W ten sposób ostatecznie katakumby na cmentarzu Na Rossie przyjęły kształt odwróconych względem siebie liter L.
The aim of the article is to analyse trends in the field of digital management of graphic archives in the context of the rapidly changing information environment, to consider issues of data security and accessibility. To raise the issue of popularising the study of the bookplate as an independent genre in the fine arts and as a historical document that attests to the era, events and people. The history of ex-libris goes back to ancient times, with the appearance of the text and its first owner. This history is multifaceted, diverse and touches on various aspects of the worldwide development of human culture. The development of bookplate collecting and the study of bookplates dates back to the Middle Ages, from which time we can trace the history of the transformation of the bookplate from a bookmark with a protective function to an independent art object and collector’s item.
This paper examines several modern methods of organising and preserving an ex-libris collection, providing an overview of the key technologies involved in these processes, drawing on contemporary and historical research. The research results are primarily intended for use in the collections of the Pushkin Museum in Chișinău and are based on the largest ex-libris collection in the country, which includes over 15,000 items. The collection needs to be described, systematised and assigned in order to prepare it for further research and exhibitions.
Javier Ortega Vidal, Francisco José Marín Perellón
A partir del estado actual del conjunto monumental, se ensaya una lectura de la peculiar biografía del edificio que abarca más de cuatro siglos y medio de duración. El estudio se aborda desde una visión e interpretación específica, en la que su componente arquitectónica se complementa con la consideración simultánea de su contexto urbano; entre ambos aspectos, se reconoce especialmente la importancia del concepto de la propiedad, tanto del suelo como de las edificaciones. La primera resulta inexcusable para entender la progresiva conformación del conjunto original, mientras que la segunda afectará sobre todo a los usos y transformaciones que supondrán la progresiva degradación o distorsión del conjunto edificado.
History of the arts, History (General) and history of Europe
Gjennom hele Inghild Karlsens karriere har tematikk knyttet til forholdet mellom natur og kultur i nordområdene blitt pekt på som sentrale tema i hennes kunst. Denne artikkelen tar for seg hvordan Karlsen behandler nordlige landskap og kystkultur i «Sea Tranquil», en serie verk fra perioden 1990–1993. Måten Karlsen arbeider med disse temaene på i denne serien, kan ses både som en ny retning i kunsten hennes og som et tidlig eksempel på en større vending i norsk samtidskunst. I artikkelen ses arbeidene i lys av den performative vendingen i kunsten.
During the reign of king Władysław II Jagiełło (1386-1434), the Mazovian Piasts participated actively in all conflagrations between their sovereign and forces of the Teutonic Order: at the beginning of the 1390s; during the so-called great war against the Teutonic Order 1409-1411; in warfare of 1414; in a short-lived military expedition of 1419 (abandoned due to the intervention of Sigismund of Luxembourg’s envoy, Bartholomew de Capra, Archbishop of Milan) and in the war of 1433. In this way, king Władysław II strenghtened his army, provided better supplies for his troops, and prevented the Mazovian Piasts from siding with the Teutonic Order.
<p>The collection of modern, spatially extensive pollen data is important
for the interpretation of fossil pollen assemblages and the
reconstruction of past vegetation communities in space and time. Modern
datasets are readily available for percentage data but lacking for
pollen accumulation rates (PARs). Filling this gap has been the
motivation of the pollen monitoring network, whose contributors
monitored pollen deposition in modified Tauber traps for several years
or decades across Europe. Here we present this monitoring dataset
consisting of 351 trap locations with a total of 2742 annual samples
covering the period from 1981 to 2017. This dataset shows that total PAR
is influenced by forest cover and climate parameters, which determine
pollen productivity and correlate with latitude. Treeless vegetation
produced PAR values of at least 140 grains cm<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−2</sup></span> yr<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span>. Tree PAR increased by at least 400 grains cm<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−2</sup></span> yr<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span> with each 10 % increase in forest cover. Pollen traps situated beyond 200 km of the distribution of a given tree species still collect occasional pollen grains of that species. The threshold of this long-distance transport differs for
individual species and is generally below 60 grains cm<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−2</sup></span> yr<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span>. Comparisons between modern and fossil PAR from the same regions show similar values. For temperate taxa, modern analogues for fossil PARs are generally found downslope or southward of the fossil sites. While we do not find modern situations comparable to fossil PAR values of some taxa (e.g. <i>Corylus</i>), <span class="inline-formula">CO<sub>2</sub></span> fertilization and land use may cause high modern PARs that are not documented in the fossil record. The modern data are now publicly available in the Neotoma Paleoecology Database and aid
interpretations of fossil PAR data.</p>
NOTE: Due to a possible editorial conflict of interest the author did not participate in the editing/publishing process of this issue of the journal.When considering the complexity and intricacy of Japanese history, as well as the endless innovation and colorfulness which defined, over the centuries, the development of martial arts in Japan, a potential reader might be a bit skeptical about the ability to pick up just one book and find a clear, well-structured, and informative overview of a large portion of Japanese history. However, Alexander Bennett in his book titled Japan: The Ultimate Samurai Guide manages to do just that. Starting with a somewhat obvious and unavoidable chapter on the actual and metaphoric meaning/value of the samurai, Bennett initiates a narrative journey that, through its approximately 150 pages, never falters in conveying the main issues and pinpointing various crucial historical turning points. By opening with a self-explanatory title to the first chapter – “Who were the Samurai?” – Bennett colloquially dives into the historical intricacies of the Japanese bushi (samurai), initially defined by their elite warrior status, only to become the ruling class of Japan in the period from the 12th to the 19th century. While relying on various illustrations, directly or indirectly related to the subject at hand (a narrative dynamic present through the entire text), the author manages not only to provide a succinct overview of some of the major samurai-era figures and occurrences, but he also enriches the discourse with numerous historical trivia facts, successfully avoiding in such a way the dangers of an overly static historical recount. Perhaps the most interesting segment within this samurai/male-based narrative is the one focusing on the outcasts – women warriors, the ronins (samurais without a “master”), and the popularized and (unnecessarily) mystified ninjas. It is within this segment that the author’s academic and real-life experience comes to life and becomes articulated through a series of verbal sketches which properly contextualize the various mythical and cultural approaches to Japanese history. This analytic tone continues in the following two chapters as well. The strongly titled chapters “Core Concepts of Bushido” and “Killing as an Art Form” necessitate a lighter narrative tone not only due to the attempt to simplify complex philosophical and existential paradigms, but also to more successfully expose the intricate cultural undertones which characterize Japanese martial traditions. Ranging from the highly-ritualized seppuku (ritual suicide) to politics, literature and, finally, to martial arts schools and the aesthetic of death, Bennett touches upon a number of critical moments and concepts, and by doing so, he traces an evolutionary path of the samurai thought all the way up to its modern incarnations. The fourth chapter, “Martial Arts in Japan Today,” summarizes the previously described traditions, folklore, and philosophies into Budo – the martial ways of Japan. Developed around the idea of self-cultivation through discipline and dedicated training, Budo becomes, through the narrative of the author, not only a path to self-perfection but also an educational tool, as well as an active narrative, developed and modernized with the aim of internationally promoting Japan. Although this chapter could mark a logical conclusion to the narrative arc of the book, Bennett opts for two additional chapters titled “Life in a Japanese Dojo” and “Surviving Japan.” It is with these two chapters that the title of the book itself becomes much clearer. Instead of a potentially structurally rigid (although humorous) history lesson, the author reaches for years of his own personal experience in living, training, and working in Japan. The result is a fascinating, although unfortunately brief rundown of rules, traditions, and customs to which a non-Japanese ind
Por meio da apresentação de dados etnográficos, o artigo descreve e analisa formas do público estabelecer contato com obras de arte expostas em centros culturais e museus de arte. Decompondo a observação das obras nos procedimentos de aproximação, permanência e visão, discute premissas embutidas em modelo de estudo do público da arte ainda calcado na relação um indivíduo / uma obra, e propõe uma abordagem voltada para práticas e interações sociais.