Abstract
Although the literature on crisis communication is quite vast, business communication related to global crises (e.g., natural disasters) is largely unexplored. This chapter aims to fill this gap and shed light on brand communication strategies during a pandemic. A netnographic study was carried out with the purpose of identifying brand positioning and communication strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and of understanding the engagement of brands' followers during that period. The study included four brands of large Brazilian companies and comprised the analysis of brands' feed on Instagram during the first five weeks of the outbreak in Brazil. Findings enable to identify two distinct profiles: unprepared brands and leading brands. The chapter provides valuable clues for both managers and researchers dealing with crisis communication.

Abstract
Smart grid (SG) technologies are playing a key role in the electric grid transformation, bringing out promising benefits for different actors and empowering customers. However, this transition imposes new challenges concerning the operation and management of energy, particularly at the distribution level of the electric grid. This chapter provides an overview of achieved advances toward the widespread implementation of SG, including technological and infrastructure developments. Transactive energy presents a distributed decision-making coordination approach using automated energy transactions that is enabled by the intelligence and connectivity benefits of SG. The way in which these transactions can be integrated in a local market environment and how advances in transactive energy, supported by the infrastructure already developed to enable SG, are leading to the emergence of local energy markets is discussed in this chapter. © 2021 Elsevier Inc.

Abstract
Materials represented by measured BRDF (Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution function) with reflectance data captured from real-world materials have become increasingly prevalent due to the development of novel measurement approaches. Nowadays, important limitations can be highlighted in the current material scanning process, mostly related to the high diversity of existing materials in the real-world and the tedious process for material scanning. Consequently, new approaches are required both for the automatic material acquisition process and for the generation of measured material databases. In this study, a novel approach is proposed for modelling the material appearance by sampling hyperspectral measurements on the BRDF domain. An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based hyperspectral sensor was used to capture high spatial and spectral resolution data. The generated hyperspectral data cubes were used to identify materials with a similar spectral behaviour. Then, a sparse mapping of collected samples is developed to study the appearance of natural and artificial materials in an urban scenario. © 2021 IEEE.

Abstract
Purpose - This paper aims to investigate if the inclusion of Bitcoin among the assets available to retail investors in the Brazilian market has an impact on the efficient frontier and, therefore, on the optimal choices of investors. Design/methodology/approach - This study calculates the efficient frontier with and without the inclusion of Bitcoin and estimates optimal portfolios for different criteria and time intervals. The sample period runs from 07/01/2013 to 06/30/2018 and the daily closing values of the selected assets/indices were used. Findings - This study finds evidence that the inclusion of Bitcoin among the investment alternatives would cause a statistically significant positive displacement and an expansion of the efficient frontier of the Brazilian retail market. This would result in a significant increase in the return on the tangency portfolio. In addition to improving the indicators of optimization of the risk-return binomial, the cryptoasset would be included in many optimal portfolios in the 2013Q3-2018Q2 period. Originality/value - The results obtained show that, as reported for more developed markets, Bitcoin has caused an expansion of the efficient frontier of the Brazilian retail market.

Abstract
The ever-growing capabilities of computers have enabled pursuing Computer Vision through Machine Learning (i.e., MLCV). ML tools require large amounts of information to learn from (ML datasets). These are costly to produce but have received reduced attention regarding standardization. This prevents the cooperative production and exploitation of these resources, impedes countless synergies, and hinders ML research. No global view exists of the MLCV dataset tissue. Acquiring it is fundamental to enable standardization. We provide an extensive survey of the evolution and current state of MLCV datasets (1994 to 2019) for a set of specific CV areas as well as a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results. Data were gathered from online scientific databases (e.g., Google Scholar, CiteSeerX). We reveal the heterogeneous plethora that comprises the MLCV dataset tissue; their continuous growth in volume and complexity; the specificities of the evolution of their media and metadata components regarding a range of aspects; and that MLCV progress requires the construction of a global standardized (structuring, manipulating, and sharing) MLCV "library". Accordingly, we formulate a novel interpretation of this dataset collective as a global tissue of synthetic cognitive visual memories and define the immediately necessary steps to advance its standardization and integration.

Abstract
Convergence in productivity examines if entities in an industry get closer to the best practices or if the gap between the frontiers of the best and worst performers decreases over time. In a multi-input multioutput setting, the assessment of sigma- and beta-convergence can be measured with the use of non-parametric frontier techniques, such as data envelopment analysis. We propose an innovative approach to estimate convergence in the context of performance assessments resting on composite indicators, accounting for desirable and undesirable indicators. This methodology rests on 'Benefit-of-the-Doubt' models, specified with a directional distance function. It is applied to the Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) in order to study their convergence in terms of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 'Good health and well-being'. We collected data for all years since the proposal of the SDGs, covering the period between 2016 and 2020. The results show that all WHO regions are (beta) over cap -divergent, especially because of the generalised decline of the Worst Practice Frontier (WPF), alongside an improvement at a lower rate of the Best Practice Frontier (BPF). The regional analysis also revealed (sigma) over cap -convergence in the Region of the Americas and the Eastern Mediterranean Region; the South-East Asia and African Regions exhibited (sigma) over cap -divergence; the Western Pacific and European Regions remained stable in terms of the performance spread regarding the BPF. At the worldwide level, we also observed an increase of the gap between the BPF and the WPF, although the performance spread around the worldwide BPF remained relatively stable.