46 CFR 201.22 - Firms and corporations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 46 Shipping 8 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Firms and corporations. 201.22 Section 201.22 Shipping... PROCEDURE Appearance and Practice Before the Administration (Rule 2) § 201.22 Firms and corporations. Except as regards law firms, practice before the Administration by firms or corporations on behalf of others...

40 CFR 745.229 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

...) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Lead-Based Paint Activities § 745.229 Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based... engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures...

40 CFR 745.229 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

...) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Lead-Based Paint Activities § 745.229 Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based... engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures...

40 CFR 745.229 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

...) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Lead-Based Paint Activities § 745.229 Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based... engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures...

40 CFR 745.226 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Lead-Based Paint Activities § 745.226 Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing... engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing and child-occupied facilities. 745.226 Section 745...

40 CFR 745.226 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Lead-Based Paint Activities § 745.226 Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing... engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing and child-occupied facilities. 745.226 Section 745...

40 CFR 745.226 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Lead-Based Paint Activities § 745.226 Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing... engaged in lead-based paint activities: target housing and child-occupied facilities. 745.226 Section 745...

Rochester's lead law: evaluation of a local environmental health policy innovation.

PubMed

Korfmacher, Katrina Smith; Ayoob, Maria; Morley, Rebecca

2012-02-01

Significant progress has been made in reducing the incidence of childhood lead poisoning in the United States in the past three decades. However, the prevalence of elevated blood lead in children (≥ 10 μg/dL) remains high in some communities, particularly those with high proportions of pre-1978 housing in poor condition. Increasingly, municipalities are using local policy tools to reduce lead poisoning in high-risk areas, but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. In this article, we evaluated the effectiveness of a comprehensive rental housing-based lead law adopted in Rochester, New York, in 2005. This policy evaluation integrates analyses of city inspections data, a survey of landlords, landlord focus groups, and health department data on children's blood lead levels from the first 4 years of implementation of the 2005 law. Implementation has proceeded consistent with projected numbers of inspections with nearly all target units inspected in the first 4 years. Higher than expected inspection passage rates suggest that landlords have reduced lead hazards in rental housing affected by the law. Implementation of the lead law does not appear to have had a significant impact on the housing market. Although many uncertainties remain, our analysis suggests that the lead law has had a positive impact on children's health. Strong enforcement, support for community-based lead programs, and ongoing intergovernmental coordination will be necessary to maintain lead-safe housing in Rochester. Lessons learned from the Rochester experience may inform future local lead poisoning prevention policies in other communities.

Production, depreciation and the size distribution of firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Qi; Chen, Yongwang; Tong, Hui; Di, Zengru

2008-05-01

Many empirical researches indicate that firm size distributions in different industries or countries exhibit some similar characters. Among them the fact that many firm size distributions obey power-law especially for the upper end has been mostly discussed. Here we present an agent-based model to describe the evolution of manufacturing firms. Some basic economic behaviors are taken into account, which are production with decreasing marginal returns, preferential allocation of investments, and stochastic depreciation. The model gives a steady size distribution of firms which obey power-law. The effect of parameters on the power exponent is analyzed. The theoretical results are given based on both the Fokker-Planck equation and the Kesten process. They are well consistent with the numerical results.

Size distribution of Portuguese firms between 2006 and 2012

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pascoal, Rui; Augusto, Mário; Monteiro, A. M.

2016-09-01

This study aims to describe the size distribution of Portuguese firms, as measured by annual sales and total assets, between 2006 and 2012, giving an economic interpretation for the evolution of the distribution along the time. Three distributions are fitted to data: the lognormal, the Pareto (and as a particular case Zipf) and the Simplified Canonical Law (SCL). We present the main arguments found in literature to justify the use of distributions and emphasize the interpretation of SCL coefficients. Methods of estimation include Maximum Likelihood, modified Ordinary Least Squares in log-log scale and Nonlinear Least Squares considering the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. When applying these approaches to Portuguese's firms data, we analyze if the evolution of estimated parameters in both lognormal power and SCL is in accordance with the known existence of a recession period after 2008. This is confirmed for sales but not for assets, leading to the conclusion that the first variable is a best proxy for firm size.

Non-Academic Jobs for Fellows in Law Firms, Patent and Trademark Office and Scientific Intellectual Property | Center for Cancer Research

Cancer.gov

This workshop helps CCR fellows and staff scientists learn about and better position themselves for potential job opportunities at law firms, patent and trademark, and intellectual property protection across the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Guest speakers will shed light on how to best position yourself for obtaining these types of positions and how to improve

Rochester’s Lead Law: Evaluation of a Local Environmental Health Policy Innovation

PubMed Central

Ayoob, Maria; Morley, Rebecca

2011-01-01

Background: Significant progress has been made in reducing the incidence of childhood lead poisoning in the United States in the past three decades. However, the prevalence of elevated blood lead in children (≥ 10 μg/dL) remains high in some communities, particularly those with high proportions of pre-1978 housing in poor condition. Increasingly, municipalities are using local policy tools to reduce lead poisoning in high-risk areas, but little is known about the effectiveness of such policies. Objectives: In this article, we evaluated the effectiveness of a comprehensive rental housing–based lead law adopted in Rochester, New York, in 2005. Methods: This policy evaluation integrates analyses of city inspections data, a survey of landlords, landlord focus groups, and health department data on children’s blood lead levels from the first 4 years of implementation of the 2005 law. Results: Implementation has proceeded consistent with projected numbers of inspections with nearly all target units inspected in the first 4 years. Higher than expected inspection passage rates suggest that landlords have reduced lead hazards in rental housing affected by the law. Implementation of the lead law does not appear to have had a significant impact on the housing market. Conclusions: Although many uncertainties remain, our analysis suggests that the lead law has had a positive impact on children’s health. Strong enforcement, support for community-based lead programs, and ongoing intergovernmental coordination will be necessary to maintain lead-safe housing in Rochester. Lessons learned from the Rochester experience may inform future local lead poisoning prevention policies in other communities. PMID:22001644

Scaling Behavior of Firm Growth

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Stanley, Michael H. R.; Nunes Amaral, Luis A.; Buldyrev, Sergey V.; Havlin, Shlomo; Leschhorn, Heiko; Maass, Philipp; Salinger, Michael A.; Stanley, H. Eugene

1996-03-01

The theory of the firm is of considerable interest in economics. The standard microeconomic theory of the firm is largely a static model and has thus proved unsatisfactory for addressing inherently dynamic issues such as the growth of economies. In recent years, many have attempted to develop richer models that provide a more accurate representation of firm dynamics due to learning, innovative effort, and the development of organizational infrastructure. The validity of these new, inherently dynamic theories depends on their consistency with the statistical properties of firm growth, e.g. the relationship between growth rates and firm size. Using the Compustat database over the time period 1975-1991, we find: (i) the distribution of annual growth rates for firms with approximately the same sales displays an exponential form with the logarithm of growth rate, and (ii) the fluctuations in the growth rates --- measured by the width of this distribution --- scale as a power law with the firm sales. We place these findings of scaling behavior in the context of conventional economics by considering firm growth dynamics with temporal correlations and also, by considering a hierarchical organization of the departments of a firm.

Primary prevention of lead poisoning in children: a cross-sectional study to evaluate state specific lead-based paint risk reduction laws in preventing lead poisoning in children.

PubMed

Kennedy, Chinaro; Lordo, Robert; Sucosky, Marissa Scalia; Boehm, Rona; Brown, Mary Jean

2014-11-07

Children younger than 72 months are most at risk of environmental exposure to lead from ingestion through normal mouthing behavior. Young children are more vulnerable to lead poisoning than adults because lead is absorbed more readily in a child's gastrointestinal tract. Our focus in this study was to determine the extent to which state mandated lead laws have helped decrease the number of new cases of elevated blood-lead levels (EBLL) in homes where an index case had been identified. A cross-sectional study was conducted to compare 682 residential addresses, identified between 2000 and 2009, in two states with and one state without laws to prevent childhood lead poisoning among children younger than 72 months, to determine whether the laws were effective in preventing subsequent cases of lead poisoning detected in residential addresses after the identification of an index case. In this study, childhood lead poisoning was defined as the blood lead level (BLL) that would have triggered an environmental investigation in the residence. The two states with lead laws, Massachusetts (MA) and Ohio (OH), had trigger levels of ≥25 μg/dL and ≥15 μg/dL respectively. In Mississippi (MS), the state without legislation, the trigger level was ≥15 μg/dL. The two states with lead laws, MA and OH, were 79% less likely than the one without legislation, MS, to have residential addresses with subsequent lead poisoning cases among children younger than 72 months, adjusted OR = 0.21, 95% CI (0.08-0.54). For the three states studied, the evidence suggests that lead laws such as those studied herein effectively reduced primary exposure to lead among young children living in residential addresses that may have had lead contaminants.

40 CFR 745.229 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 31 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures... paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures. [Reserved] ...

40 CFR 745.229 - Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 30 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Certification of individuals and firms engaged in lead-based paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures... paint activities: public and commercial buildings, bridges and superstructures. [Reserved] ...

40 CFR 745.89 - Firm certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential Property Renovation... submit to EPA a completed “Application for Firms,” signed by an authorized agent of the firm, and pay at... reimburse the firm for the excess amount. (2) After EPA receives a firm's application, EPA will take one of...

How Knowledge Organisations Work: The Case of Software Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gottschalk, Petter

2007-01-01

Knowledge workers in software firms solve client problems in sequential and cyclical work processes. Sequential and cyclical work takes place in the value configuration of a value shop. While typical examples of value chains are manufacturing industries such as paper and car production, typical examples of value shops are law firms and medical…

Studying Law in a Goldfish Bowl

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Benet, James

1977-01-01

A law firm, Equal Rights Advocates, Inc., specializing in sex discrimination cases, has become a magnet for law students in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is involved in a cooperative program with area universities in which a new model for clinical teaching is offered. Fifteen students each semester spend at least two days a week with the firm.…

The law of the leading digits and the world religions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Mir, T. A.

2012-02-01

Benford's law states that the occurrence of significant digits in many data sets is not uniform but tends to follow a logarithmic distribution such that the smaller digits appear as first significant digits more frequently than the larger ones. We investigate here numerical data on the country-wise adherent distribution of seven major world religions i.e. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism and Baha'ism to see if the proportion of the leading digits occurring in the distribution conforms to Benford's law. We find that the adherent data of all the religions, except Christianity, excellently does conform to Benford's law. Furthermore, unlike the adherent data on Christianity, the significant digit distribution of the three major Christian denominations i.e. Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy obeys the law. Thus in spite of their complexity general laws can be established for the evolution of religious groups.

Where Gibrat meets Zipf: Scale and scope of French firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bee, Marco; Riccaboni, Massimo; Schiavo, Stefano

2017-09-01

The proper characterization of the size distribution and growth of firms represents an important issue in economics and business. We use the Maximum Entropy approach to assess the plausibility of the assumption that firm size follows Lognormal or Pareto distributions, which underlies most recent works on the subject. A comprehensive dataset covering the universe of French firms allows us to draw two major conclusions. First, the Pareto hypothesis for the whole distribution should be rejected. Second, by discriminating across firms based on the number of products sold and markets served, we find that, within the class of multi-product companies active in multiple markets, the distribution converges to a Zipf's law. Conversely, Lognormal distribution is a good benchmark for small single-product firms. The size distribution of firms largely depends on firms' diversification patterns.

Non-Academic Jobs for Fellows in Law Firms, Patent and Trademark Office and Scientific Intellectual Property | Center for Cancer Research

Cancer.gov

This workshop helps CCR fellows and staff scientists learn about and better position themselves for potential job opportunities at law firms, patent and trademark, and intellectual property protection across the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Guest speakers will shed light on how to best position yourself for obtaining these types of positions and how to improve your chances of success. They will describe ways in which you can use your time at NIH to better prepare for opportunities that may arise down the road in these fields.

Medical malpractice web advertising: a qualitative, cross-sectional analysis of plaintiff medical malpractice firms in Suffolk County, Massachusetts.

PubMed

Ghobadi, Comeron W; Gevorgyan, Ofelya; Bednarski, Caroline E; Hayman, Emily L; Walter, Jessica R; Xu, Shuai

2017-01-01

Medical malpractice plaintiff firms play a central role in the prosecution of malpractice claims. There have been limited studies on the online advertising practices of plaintiff medical malpractice firms. The Martindale-Hubbell directory was used to identify all plaintiff medical malpractice firms in Suffolk County, Massachusetts. Each firm's website was individually mined for relevant data. Thirty-one unique medical malpractice law firms were identified. Seventy-seven percent of law firms advertised awards with the Martindale-Hubbell AV rating, AVVO, and Super Lawyer being the three most common. The second most common method of advertising was accomplished through descriptions of successful verdicts and settlements (61%). A total of 408 verdicts, settlements, and arbitrations collectively representing $1.4 billion dollars were advertised by all law firms. Median awarded values for verdicts was advertised as $4.5 million, while the median awarded values for settlements was $1.25 million. Defendants most commonly practiced obstetrics (18%), followed by primary care (14%). Law firms report treatment and diagnosis delay as the most common successful claim (50%), followed much further by misdiagnosis (8%), and communication error (4%). Our sample correlates with larger claims-based studies surrounding the most commonly sued specialties, however, median reported settlement and verdict values were significantly higher in our cohort. Considerations should be made to provide advertising guidelines for medical malpractice plaintiff firms. Copyright © 2017 by the National Legal Center for the Medically Dependent and Disabled, Inc.

Evaluating the effectiveness of state specific lead-based paint hazard risk reduction laws in preventing recurring incidences of lead poisoning in children.

PubMed

Kennedy, Chinaro; Lordo, Robert; Sucosky, Marissa Scalia; Boehm, Rona; Brown, Mary Jean

2016-01-01

Despite significant progress made in recent decades in preventing childhood lead poisoning in the United States through the control or elimination of lead sources in the environment, it continues to be an issue in many communities, primarily in low-income communities with a large percentage of deteriorating housing built before the elimination of lead in residential paint. The purpose of this study is to determine whether state laws aimed at preventing childhood lead poisoning are also effective in preventing recurring lead poisoning among children previously poisoned. An evaluation was conducted to determine whether laws in two representative states, Massachusetts and Ohio, have been effective in preventing recurrent lead poisoning among children less than 72 months of age previously poisoned, compared to a representative state (Mississippi) which at the time of the study had yet to develop legislation to prevent childhood lead poisoning. Compared to no legislation, unadjusted estimates showed children less than 72 months old, living in Massachusetts, previously identified as being lead poisoned, were 73% less likely to develop recurrent lead poisoning. However, this statistically significant association did not remain after controlling for other confounding variables. We did not find such a significant association when analyzing data from Ohio. While findings from unadjusted estimates indicated that state lead laws such as those in Massachusetts may be effective at preventing recurrent lead poisoning among young children, small numbers may have attenuated the power to obtain statistical significance during multivariate analysis. Our findings did not provide evidence that state lead laws, such as those in Ohio, were effective in preventing recurrent lead poisoning among young children. Further studies may be needed to confirm these findings. Published by Elsevier GmbH.

Evaluating the effectiveness of state specific lead-based paint hazard risk reduction laws in preventing recurring incidences of lead poisoning in children☆

PubMed Central

Kennedy, Chinaro; Lordo, Robert; Sucosky, Marissa Scalia; Boehm, Rona; Brown, Mary Jean

2016-01-01

Background Despite significant progress made in recent decades in preventing childhood lead poisoning in the United States through the control or elimination of lead sources in the environment, it continues to be an issue in many communities, primarily in low-income communities with a large percentage of deteriorating housing built before the elimination of lead in residential paint. The purpose of this study is to determine whether state laws aimed at preventing childhood lead poisoning are also effective in preventing recurring lead poisoning among children previously poisoned. Methods An evaluation was conducted to determine whether laws in two representative states, Massachusetts and Ohio, have been effective in preventing recurrent lead poisoning among children less than 72 months of age previously poisoned, compared to a representative state (Mississippi) which at the time of the study had yet to develop legislation to prevent childhood lead poisoning. Results Compared to no legislation, unadjusted estimates showed children less than 72 months old, living in Massachusetts, previously identified as being lead poisoned, were 73% less likely to develop recurrent lead poisoning. However, this statistically significant association did not remain after controlling for other confounding variables. We did not find such a significant association when analyzing data from Ohio. Conclusions While findings from unadjusted estimates indicated that state lead laws such as those in Massachusetts may be effective at preventing recurrent lead poisoning among young children, small numbers may have attenuated the power to obtain statistical significance during multivariate analysis. Our findings did not provide evidence that state lead laws, such as those in Ohio, were effective in preventing recurrent lead poisoning among young children. Further studies may be needed to confirm these findings. PMID:26472219

Will the leading firm continue to dominate the market in the Taiwan notebook industry?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chu, Hsiao-Ping; Yeh, Ming-Liang; Sher, Peter J.; Chiu, Yi-Chia

2007-09-01

This study investigates whether the market share leader in the notebook industry in Taiwan is likely to maintain its dominant position. Market share data are used to investigate the intensity of competitiveness in the industry, and data on the gap in market shares are employed to elucidate the dominance of the leading firm in Taiwan's notebook industry during the 1998-2004 period. The newly developed Panel SURADF tests advanced by Breuer et al. [Misleading inferences from panel unit root tests with an illustration from purchasing power parity, Rev. Int. Econ. 9 (3) (2001) 482-493] are employed to determine whether the market share gap is stationary or not. Unlike other panel-based unit root tests which are joint tests of a unit root for all members of a panel and are incapable of determining the mix of I(0) and I(1) series in a panel setting, the Panel SURADF tests have the advantage of being able to investigate a separate unit root null hypothesis for each individual panel member and are, therefore, able to identify how many and which series in a panel are stationary processes. The empirical results from several panel-based unit root tests substantiate that the market shares of the firms studied here are non-stationary, indicating that Taiwan's notebook industry is highly competitive; however, Breuer et al.'s [12] Panel SURADF tests unequivocally show that only Compal is stationary with respect to market share gap. In terms of sales volume, Compal is the second largest firm in the notebook industry in Taiwan, and the results indicate that it alone has the opportunity to become the market share leader in the notebook industry.

Effects of the turnover rate on the size distribution of firms: An application of the kinetic exchange models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chakrabarti, Anindya S.

2012-12-01

We address the issue of the distribution of firm size. To this end we propose a model of firms in a closed, conserved economy populated with zero-intelligence agents who continuously move from one firm to another. We then analyze the size distribution and related statistics obtained from the model. There are three well known statistical features obtained from the panel study of the firms i.e., the power law in size (in terms of income and/or employment), the Laplace distribution in the growth rates and the slowly declining standard deviation of the growth rates conditional on the firm size. First, we show that the model generalizes the usual kinetic exchange models with binary interaction to interactions between an arbitrary number of agents. When the number of interacting agents is in the order of the system itself, it is possible to decouple the model. We provide exact results on the distributions which are not known yet for binary interactions. Our model easily reproduces the power law for the size distribution of firms (Zipf’s law). The fluctuations in the growth rate falls with increasing size following a power law (though the exponent does not match with the data). However, the distribution of the difference of the firm size in this model has Laplace distribution whereas the real data suggests that the difference of the log of sizes has the same distribution.

Law Libraries as Special Libraries: An Educational Model.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hazelton, Penny A.

1993-01-01

Summarizes the history of the law library profession and the development of the educational model for law librarians in light of the particular demands and needs of corporate and law firm libraries. Guidelines of the American Association of Law Libraries for graduate programs in law librarianship are discussed. (Contains 17 references.) (LRW)

Actual and perceived impacts of tobacco regulation on restaurants and firms.

PubMed

Crémieux, P Y; Ouellette, P

2001-03-01

To examine the actual and anticipated costs of a law regulating workplace smoking and smoking in restaurants, taking into consideration observed and anticipated infrastructure costs, lost productivity, increased absenteeism, and loss of clientele. A survey of 401 Québec restaurants and 600 Québec firms conducted by the Québec Ministry of Health before the enactment of the law was used to derive costs incurred by those who had already complied and anticipated by those that did not. Direct and indirect costs associated with tobacco regulation at work and in restaurants were minimal. Annualised infrastructure costs amounted to less than 0.0002% of firm revenues and 0.15% of restaurant revenues. Anticipated costs were larger and amounted to 0.0004% of firm revenues and 0.41% of restaurant revenues. Impacts on productivity, absenteeism, and restaurant patronage were widely anticipated but not observed in currently compliant establishments. Firms and restaurants expected high costs to result from strict tobacco regulation because of infrastructure costs, decreased productivity, and decreased patronage. That none of these were actually observed suggests that policy makers should discount industry claims that smoking regulations impose undue economic hardship.

A generalized preferential attachment model for business firms growth rates. II. Mathematical treatment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buldyrev, S. V.; Pammolli, F.; Riccaboni, M.; Yamasaki, K.; Fu, D.-F.; Matia, K.; Stanley, H. E.

2007-05-01

We present a preferential attachment growth model to obtain the distribution P(K) of number of units K in the classes which may represent business firms or other socio-economic entities. We found that P(K) is described in its central part by a power law with an exponent ϕ = 2+b/(1-b) which depends on the probability of entry of new classes, b. In a particular problem of city population this distribution is equivalent to the well known Zipf law. In the absence of the new classes entry, the distribution P(K) is exponential. Using analytical form of P(K) and assuming proportional growth for units, we derive P(g), the distribution of business firm growth rates. The model predicts that P(g) has a Laplacian cusp in the central part and asymptotic power-law tails with an exponent ζ = 3. We test the analytical expressions derived using heuristic arguments by simulations. The model might also explain the size-variance relationship of the firm growth rates.

37 CFR 11.117 - Sale of law practice.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Sale of law practice. 11.117... of Professional Conduct Client-Practitioner Relationship § 11.117 Sale of law practice. A practitioner or a law firm may sell or purchase a law practice, or an area of law practice, including good will...

Mean field approximation for biased diffusion on Japanese inter-firm trading network.

PubMed

Watanabe, Hayafumi

2014-01-01

By analysing the financial data of firms across Japan, a nonlinear power law with an exponent of 1.3 was observed between the number of business partners (i.e. the degree of the inter-firm trading network) and sales. In a previous study using numerical simulations, we found that this scaling can be explained by both the money-transport model, where a firm (i.e. customer) distributes money to its out-edges (suppliers) in proportion to the in-degree of destinations, and by the correlations among the Japanese inter-firm trading network. However, in this previous study, we could not specifically identify what types of structure properties (or correlations) of the network determine the 1.3 exponent. In the present study, we more clearly elucidate the relationship between this nonlinear scaling and the network structure by applying mean-field approximation of the diffusion in a complex network to this money-transport model. Using theoretical analysis, we obtained the mean-field solution of the model and found that, in the case of the Japanese firms, the scaling exponent of 1.3 can be determined from the power law of the average degree of the nearest neighbours of the network with an exponent of -0.7.

31 CFR 10.70 - Administrative Law Judge.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 31 Money and Finance: Treasury 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Administrative Law Judge. 10.70... INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE Rules Applicable to Disciplinary Proceedings § 10.70 Administrative Law Judge. (a..., firm or other entity, or appraiser will be conducted by an Administrative Law Judge appointed as...

Corporate social responsibility motives and theories evidenced among oilwell drilling firms in Alberta

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Altvater, Norbert

This dissertation is a study in conceptual CSR motives and theories prompted by the knowledge that socially active NGOs have tried to influence the CSP of companies in Alberta's oil patch by using media pressure. The focus of the study was narrowed to changing CSP among Alberta's oilwell drilling firms. This permits intensive interviews with the firms' informants. The examination of changing CSP implies a consideration of the pressures that prompt and influence its change, and points this study to firm motives for behaving responsibly. The firms were firstly categorized according to their primary and secondary CSP using 5 dimensions of CSR previously used by The Conference Board of Canada. The study uses CSR motives conceptualized by Ruth Aguilera and her collaborators to assess the firms' CSP using self-assessed CSR motives and observed CSP. At the onset 3 working hypotheses were posited as starting points from which substantiated propositions were developed. Lance Moir's and Elisabet Garriga and Domènec Meld's classifications of CSR theories were used to organize and evaluate the data. A mapping of the motives and theories in respect of the firms' primary and secondary CSR dimensions appears to display correlations between the CSR theories and the conceptualized motives. Nevertheless, for some of the firms none of the motives conceptualized by Aguilera and her collaborators seem to apply. By re-visiting the motives, and examining them more closely, it seems possible refine the conceptualized motives relying more on perceived conceptions, which are at the basis of legitimacy theories, rather than on relational factors to better explain the normative expectations raised. A similar analysis also indicates that the firms' seem to seek economic benefits, social benefits, or a combination of both. The CSP that results is within the same continuum; the resulting CSP for the firms seems to mediate towards a blend of both, regardless of the original CSR motives. These

37 CFR 11.505 - Unauthorized practice of law.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 37 Patents, Trademarks, and Copyrights 1 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Unauthorized practice of law... Rules of Professional Conduct Law Firms and Associations § 11.505 Unauthorized practice of law. A practitioner shall not practice law in a jurisdiction in violation of the regulation of the legal profession in...

Law Schools Expect a Record Number of Applicants, but Interest in Public-Service Jobs May Be Waning.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mangan, Katherine S.

1989-01-01

Decline in interest and employment in public-interest law may be due to cuts in legal services funding, heightened recruiting by private firms, mounting law student debt burdens, growing salary disparities in public-interest and corporate law, inadequate curricular attention to public-interest issues, and private law firm prestige. (MSE)

Evolutionary model of the growth and size of firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kaldasch, Joachim

2012-07-01

The key idea of this model is that firms are the result of an evolutionary process. Based on demand and supply considerations the evolutionary model presented here derives explicitly Gibrat's law of proportionate effects as the result of the competition between products. Applying a preferential attachment mechanism for firms, the theory allows to establish the size distribution of products and firms. Also established are the growth rate and price distribution of consumer goods. Taking into account the characteristic property of human activities to occur in bursts, the model allows also an explanation of the size-variance relationship of the growth rate distribution of products and firms. Further the product life cycle, the learning (experience) curve and the market size in terms of the mean number of firms that can survive in a market are derived. The model also suggests the existence of an invariant of a market as the ratio of total profit to total revenue. The relationship between a neo-classic and an evolutionary view of a market is discussed. The comparison with empirical investigations suggests that the theory is able to describe the main stylized facts concerning the size and growth of firms.

Does Organizational Learning Lead to Higher Firm Performance? An Investigation of Chinese Listing Companies

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zhou, Wencang; Hu, Huajing; Shi, Xuli

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework for studying organizational learning, firm innovation and firm financial performance. Design/methodology/approach: This paper examines the effects of organizational learning on innovation and performance among 287 listed Chinese companies. Findings: The results indicate a positive…

Lead ions and Coulomb’s Law at the LHC (CERN)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cid-Vidal, Xabier; Cid, Ramon

2018-03-01

Although for most of the time the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN collides protons, for around one month every year lead ions are collided, to expand the diversity of the LHC research programme. Furthermore, in an effort not originally foreseen, proton-lead collisions are also taking place, with results of high interest to the physics community. All the large experiments of the LHC have now joined the heavy-ion programme, including the LHCb experiment, which was not at first expected to be part of it. The aim of this article is to introduce a few simple physical calculations relating to some electrical phenomena that occur when lead-ion bunches are running in the LHC, using Coulomb’s Law, to be taken to the secondary school classroom to help students understand some important physical concepts.

Public Interest Law: Five Years Later.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jaffe, Sanford

This report provides an account of public-interest law firm activities supported by the Ford Foundation. Public interest law is a phrase that describes efforts aimed at providing legal representation for underrepresented interests in the legal process. The report is arranged into four major sections. The first section, on the evolution of the…

Collective firm bankruptcies and phase transition in rating dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sieczka, P.; Hołyst, J. A.

2009-10-01

We present a simple model of firm rating evolution. We consider two sources of defaults: individual dynamics of economic development and Potts-like interactions between firms. We show that such a defined model leads to phase transition, which results in collective defaults. The existence of the collective phase depends on the mean interaction strength. For small interaction strength parameters, there are many independent bankruptcies of individual companies. For large parameters, there are giant collective defaults of firm clusters. In the case when the individual firm dynamics favors dumping of rating changes, there is an optimal strength of the firm's interactions from the systemic risk point of view. in here

Endogenous network of firms and systemic risk

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ma, Qianting; He, Jianmin; Li, Shouwei

2018-02-01

We construct an endogenous network characterized by commercial credit relationships connecting the upstream and downstream firms. Simulation results indicate that the endogenous network model displays a scale-free property which exists in real-world firm systems. In terms of the network structure, with the expansion of the scale of network nodes, the systemic risk increases significantly, while the heterogeneities of network nodes have no effect on systemic risk. As for firm micro-behaviors, including the selection range of trading partners, actual output, labor requirement, price of intermediate products and employee salaries, increase of all these parameters will lead to higher systemic risk.

Do We Need Stronger Sanctions to Ensure Legal Compliance By Pharmaceutical Firms?

PubMed

Rodwin, Marc A

2015-01-01

The increasing number of enforcement lawsuits against pharmaceutical firms and the large size of settlement payments suggest that misconduct is widespread and even risks slipping into the banalities of ordinary business practices. It also raises questions as to whether current sanctions are an effective means to ensure compliance. This article explores the causes of the frequent illegal conduct, why prosecutors rarely use the strongest sanctions in their arsenal--criminal penalties and debarment from participation in public programs--and asks whether the use of the strongest sanctions would be desirable. Prosecutors might not use the strongest penalties available because of divided enforcement authority or because they prefer to seek monetary penalties to support their budgets. Moreover, strong sanctions might be perceived as imposing steep collateral damages on the-general public and being politically costly. If prosecutors are reluctant to impose the strongest possible sanctions, then policymakers need to develop alternative responses. One option is to create stronger economic penalties than the ones that currently exist. Corporations and their managers have incentives to increase their income, and their pursuit of profit sometimes leads these managers to violate the law. To deter illegal conduct, legislation typically allows courts to impose penalties--including fines and incarceration--on convicted individuals and firms. The increasing wide-scale illegal conduct by pharmaceutical firms and their employees over the last two decades prompts three questions. Are current sanctions sufficient? Are stronger sanctions and enforcement policy possible? If so, would they effectively deter harmful illegal conduct?

The whole relationship between environmental variables and firm performance: competitive advantage and firm resources as mediator variables.

PubMed

López-Gamero, María D; Molina-Azorín, José F; Claver-Cortés, Enrique

2009-07-01

The examination of the possible direct link between environmental protection and firm performance in the literature has generally produced mixed results. The present paper contributes to the literature by using the resource-based view as a mediating process in this relationship. The study specifically tests whether or not the resource-based view of the firm mediates the positive relationships of proactive environmental management and improved environmental performance with competitive advantage, which also has consequences for financial performance. We also check the possible link between the adoption of a pioneering approach and good environmental management practices. Our findings support that early investment timing and intensity in environmental issues impact on the adoption of a proactive environmental management, which in turn helps to improve environmental performance. The findings also show that a firm's resources and competitive advantage act as mediator variables for a positive relationship between environmental protection and financial performance. This contribution is original because the present paper develops a comprehensive whole picture of this path process, which has previously only been partially discussed in the literature. In addition, this study clarifies a relevant point in the literature, namely that the effect of environmental protection on firm performance is not direct and can vary depending on the sector considered. Whereas competitive advantage in relation to costs influences financial performance in the IPPC law sector, the relevant influence in the hotel sector comes from competitive advantage through differentiation.

Time-varying causal network of the Korean financial system based on firm-specific risk premiums

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Song, Jae Wook; Ko, Bonggyun; Cho, Poongjin; Chang, Woojin

2016-09-01

The aim of this paper is to investigate the Korean financial system based on time-varying causal network. We discover many stylized facts by utilizing the firm-specific risk premiums for measuring the causality direction from a firm to firm. At first, we discover that the interconnectedness of causal network is affected by the outbreak of financial events; the co-movement of firm-specific risk premium is strengthened after each positive event, and vice versa. Secondly, we find that the major sector of the Korean financial system is the Depositories, and the financial reform in June-2011 achieves its purpose by weakening the power of risk-spillovers of Broker-Dealers. Thirdly, we identify that the causal network is a small-world network with scale-free topology where the power-law exponents of out-Degree and negative event are more significant than those of in-Degree and positive event. Lastly, we discuss that the current aspects of causal network are closely related to the long-term future scenario of the KOSPI Composite index where the direction and stability are significantly affected by the power of risk-spillovers and the power-law exponents of degree distributions, respectively.

U.S. metric board 1979 survey of selected large U.S. firms and industries

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

King, L. L.

1980-05-01

A mail survey of randomly chosen 202 of the 1000 largest manufacturing and mining firms, as listed by Fortune magazine, was conducted in late 1979 and early 1980. About 64 percent (112 firms) responded with useful data. Among the findings are: about 63 percent of the largest firms produce at least one metric product; about 48 percent of exported sales are of metric products; about three quarters of the firms selling metric products sell products labelled in customary and metric units (soft conversion); about half the firms selling metric products sell hard converted products (products manufactured in metric units); little corporate coordination and planning seems to accompany conversion to the metric system; about one-third of the firms see laws and reputation impeding conversion; over 50 percent see lack of customer demand as inhibiting conversion; and the most realistic time period for conversion is 10 years, the minimum time for conversion (under pressure) is three years, and the perferred time (at the firm's own pace) is eight years.

Seattle's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD): Program effects on recidivism outcomes.

PubMed

Collins, Susan E; Lonczak, Heather S; Clifasefi, Seema L

2017-10-01

Drug users and dealers frequently cycle through the criminal justice system in what is sometimes referred to as a "revolving door." Arrest, incarceration and prosecution have not deterred this recidivism. Seattle's Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) program was established to divert these individuals to case management and supportive services instead of jail and prosecution. A nonrandomized controlled evaluation was conducted to examine LEAD effects on criminal recidivism (i.e., arrests, criminal charges). The sample included 318 people suspected of low-level drug and prostitution activity in downtown Seattle: 203 received LEAD, and 115 experienced the system-as-usual control condition. Analyses were conducted using logistic generalized estimating equation models over both the shorter term (i.e., six months prior and subsequent to evaluation entry) and longer term (i.e., two years prior to the LEAD start date through July 2014). Compared to controls, LEAD participants had 60% lower odds of arrest during the six months subsequent to evaluation entry; and both a 58% lower odds of arrest and 39% lower odds of being charged with a felony over the longer term. These statistically significant differences in arrests and felony charges for LEAD versus control participants indicated positive effects of the LEAD program on recidivism. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The growth of business firms: theoretical framework and empirical evidence.

PubMed

Fu, Dongfeng; Pammolli, Fabio; Buldyrev, S V; Riccaboni, Massimo; Matia, Kaushik; Yamasaki, Kazuko; Stanley, H Eugene

2005-12-27

We introduce a model of proportional growth to explain the distribution P(g)(g) of business-firm growth rates. The model predicts that P(g)(g) is exponential in the central part and depicts an asymptotic power-law behavior in the tails with an exponent zeta = 3. Because of data limitations, previous studies in this field have been focusing exclusively on the Laplace shape of the body of the distribution. In this article, we test the model at different levels of aggregation in the economy, from products to firms to countries, and we find that the predictions of the model agree with empirical growth distributions and size-variance relationships.

Developments in Indian Law from September 1, 1978 through August 31, 1979.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

American Indian Journal, 1979

1979-01-01

Law firm analysis which reviews developments in Indian law, discusses holdings and implications of some important Supreme Court decisions (Boldt Case, Yakima Public Law 280 Case, Blackbird Bend Case), analyzes litigation trends which appear to be developing, and comments on the future conduct of Indian litigation. (DS)

40 CFR 745.89 - Firm certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 31 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Firm certification. 745.89 Section 745.89 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential Property Renovation...

40 CFR 745.89 - Firm certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 32 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Firm certification. 745.89 Section 745.89 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential Property Renovation...

40 CFR 745.89 - Firm certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 31 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Firm certification. 745.89 Section 745.89 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential Property Renovation...

40 CFR 745.89 - Firm certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 40 Protection of Environment 32 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Firm certification. 745.89 Section 745.89 Protection of Environment ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES Residential Property Renovation...

7 CFR 1940.326 - FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 as a lead Agency.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 13 2010-01-01 2009-01-01 true FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354... Environmental Program § 1940.326 FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 as a lead Agency. (a) When other Federal agencies are involved in an FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354...

7 CFR 1940.326 - FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 as a lead Agency.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 13 2011-01-01 2009-01-01 true FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354... Environmental Program § 1940.326 FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354 as a lead Agency. (a) When other Federal agencies are involved in an FmHA or its successor agency under Public Law 103-354...

Essays on Firm Behavior in Developing Economies

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Abeberese, Ama Baafra

The performance of firms is central to growth in developing economies. A burgeoning literature within development economics seeks to understand the behavior of firms in developing countries and the constraints to their performance. This dissertation explores two types of constraints---infrastructure-related constraints and trade-related constraints---faced by manufacturing firms in developing countries. Despite the widely acknowledged importance of infrastructure for economic growth, there has been relatively little research on how infrastructure affects the decisions of firms. Electricity, in particular, is commonly cited by firms in developing countries as a major obstacle to their performance. In the first two chapters, I analyze the responses of firms to two types of electricity constraints, namely electricity prices and electricity shortages. Chapter 1 provides evidence on how electricity prices affect a firm's industry choice and productivity growth using data on Indian manufacturing firms. I construct an instrument for electricity price as the interaction between the price of coal paid by power utilities, which is arguably exogenous to firm characteristics, and the initial share of thermal generation in a state's total electricity generation capacity. I find that, in response to an exogenous increase in electricity price, firms reduce their electricity consumption and switch to industries with less electricity-intensive production processes. I also find that firm output, machine intensity and labor productivity decline with an increase in electricity price. In addition to these level effects, I show that firm output and productivity growth rates are negatively affected by high electricity prices. These results suggest that electricity constraints faced by firms may limit a country's growth by leading firms to operate in industries with fewer productivity-enhancing opportunities. Chapter 2 examines the impact of electricity shortages on firm investment. I

Parenthood and Productivity: A Study of Demands, Resources and Family-Friendly Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wallace, Jean E.; Young, Marisa C.

2008-01-01

We examine how the presence of children is related to women's and men's productivity. We hypothesize family demands, family resources, and family-friendly workplaces are also related to productivity. Productivity for 670 Alberta law firm lawyers is analyzed using a standardized measure of productivity referred to as billable hours. The results…

The Center for Health Care Law: the legal muscle of home care and hospice.

PubMed

Dombi, Bill

2006-10-01

The Center for Health Care Law is a unique offering for a trade association. Operating as a law firm within NAHC, the Center has strengthened NAHC's advocacy efforts on all fronts. The law provides a useful structure and a rational system for behavior, provided that the law is understood. The Center brings the necessary understanding of the law to home care and hospice.

Non-Cognitive Traits That Impact Female Success in BigLaw

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hogan, Milana Lauren

2013-01-01

In spite of the fact that women account for nearly half of the lawyers entering BigLaw, there are significantly fewer women occupying the most prestigious, powerful, and best-paid positions within today's law firms. This paper focuses on the non-cognitive traits known as grit--defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals--and a growth…

Do coverage mandates affect direct-to-consumer advertising for pharmaceuticals? Evidence from parity laws.

PubMed

Nathenson, Robert; Richards, Michael R

2018-01-29

Direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs is a relatively unique feature of the US health care system and a source of tens of billions of dollars in annual spending. It has also garnered the attention of researchers and policymakers interested in its implications for firm and consumer behavior. However, few economic studies have explored the DTCA response to public policies, especially those mandating coverage of these products. We use detailed advertising expenditure data to assess if pharmaceutical firms increase their marketing efforts after the implementation of relevant state and federal health insurance laws. We focus on mental health parity statutes and related drug therapies-a potentially ripe setting for inducing stronger consumer demand. We find no clear indication that firms expect greater value from DTCA after these regulatory changes. DTCA appears driven by other considerations (e.g., product debut); however, it remains a possibility that firms respond to these laws through other, unobserved channels (e.g., provider detailing).

Quantitative relations between risk, return and firm size

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Podobnik, B.; Horvatic, D.; Petersen, A. M.; Stanley, H. E.

2009-03-01

We analyze —for a large set of stocks comprising four financial indices— the annual logarithmic growth rate R and the firm size, quantified by the market capitalization MC. For the Nasdaq Composite and the New York Stock Exchange Composite we find that the probability density functions of growth rates are Laplace ones in the broad central region, where the standard deviation σ(R), as a measure of risk, decreases with the MC as a power law σ(R)~(MC)- β. For both the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500, we find that the average growth rate langRrang decreases faster than σ(R) with MC, implying that the return-to-risk ratio langRrang/σ(R) also decreases with MC. For the S&P 500, langRrang and langRrang/σ(R) also follow power laws. For a 20-year time horizon, for the Nasdaq Composite we find that σ(R) vs. MC exhibits a functional form called a volatility smile, while for the NYSE Composite, we find power law stability between σ(r) and MC.

A consistent framework for Horton regression statistics that leads to a modified Hack's law

USGS Publications Warehouse

Furey, P.R.; Troutman, B.M.

2008-01-01

A statistical framework is introduced that resolves important problems with the interpretation and use of traditional Horton regression statistics. The framework is based on a univariate regression model that leads to an alternative expression for Horton ratio, connects Horton regression statistics to distributional simple scaling, and improves the accuracy in estimating Horton plot parameters. The model is used to examine data for drainage area A and mainstream length L from two groups of basins located in different physiographic settings. Results show that confidence intervals for the Horton plot regression statistics are quite wide. Nonetheless, an analysis of covariance shows that regression intercepts, but not regression slopes, can be used to distinguish between basin groups. The univariate model is generalized to include n > 1 dependent variables. For the case where the dependent variables represent ln A and ln L, the generalized model performs somewhat better at distinguishing between basin groups than two separate univariate models. The generalized model leads to a modification of Hack's law where L depends on both A and Strahler order ??. Data show that ?? plays a statistically significant role in the modified Hack's law expression. ?? 2008 Elsevier B.V.

A generalized preferential attachment model for business firms growth rates. I. Empirical evidence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pammolli, F.; Fu, D.; Buldyrev, S. V.; Riccaboni, M.; Matia, K.; Yamasaki, K.; Stanley, H. E.

2007-05-01

We introduce a model of proportional growth to explain the distribution P(g) of business firm growth rates. The model predicts that P(g) is Laplace in the central part and depicts an asymptotic power-law behavior in the tails with an exponent ζ = 3. Because of data limitations, previous studies in this field have been focusing exclusively on the Laplace shape of the body of the distribution. We test the model at different levels of aggregation in the economy, from products, to firms, to countries, and we find that the predictions are in good agreement with empirical evidence on both growth distributions and size-variance relationships.

From the Cover: The growth of business firms: Theoretical framework and empirical evidence

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fu, Dongfeng; Pammolli, Fabio; Buldyrev, S. V.; Riccaboni, Massimo; Matia, Kaushik; Yamasaki, Kazuko; Stanley, H. Eugene

2005-12-01

We introduce a model of proportional growth to explain the distribution Pg(g) of business-firm growth rates. The model predicts that Pg(g) is exponential in the central part and depicts an asymptotic power-law behavior in the tails with an exponent = 3. Because of data limitations, previous studies in this field have been focusing exclusively on the Laplace shape of the body of the distribution. In this article, we test the model at different levels of aggregation in the economy, from products to firms to countries, and we find that the predictions of the model agree with empirical growth distributions and size-variance relationships. proportional growth | preferential attachment | Laplace distribution

40 CFR 745.238 - Fees for accreditation and certification of lead-based paint activities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN...-based Paint Activities Firm Application $550 $550 Combined Renovation and Lead-based Paint Activities Tribal Firm Application $20 $20 Tribal Firm $20 $20 (2) Certification examination fee. Individuals...

Analysis of reproductive health hazard information on material safety data sheets for lead and the ethylene glycol ethers.

PubMed

Paul, M; Kurtz, S

1994-03-01

Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) are essential sources of information regarding health risks from exposure to toxic chemicals. We analyzed the reproductive health hazard descriptions on nearly 700 MSDSs for lead- or ethylene glycol ether-containing products submitted by central Massachusetts firms to the Department of Environmental Protection under provisions of the Massachusetts Right-to-Know Law. Over 60% of the MSDSs made no mention whatsoever of effects on the reproductive system. Those that did were much more likely to address developmental risks than male reproductive effects. The MSDSs from firms employing 100 or more workers mentioned reproductive system effects more frequently than those from smaller companies. While the informativeness of the health hazard descriptions increased over time, 53% of the MSDSs prepared after promulgation of the OSHA Hazard Communication Standard still contained no information on reproductive risks.

Author Inflation Leads to a Breakdown of Lotka's Law.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kretschmer, Hildrun; Rousseau, Ronald

2001-01-01

Describes an empirical study using publication data from Dutch physics institutes which shows that Lotka's law breaks down when articles with a large number of authors are included in the bibliography. Suggests that from a mathematical point of view, large groups of authors destroy the underlying explanations of informetric laws. (Author/LRW)

40 CFR 745.91 - Suspending, revoking, or modifying an individual's or firm's certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN... comply with Federal lead-based paint statutes or regulations. EPA may also suspend, revoke, or modify a... individual performing a renovation on behalf of the firm fails to comply, with Federal lead-based paint...

40 CFR 745.91 - Suspending, revoking, or modifying an individual's or firm's certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN... comply with Federal lead-based paint statutes or regulations. EPA may also suspend, revoke, or modify a... individual performing a renovation on behalf of the firm fails to comply, with Federal lead-based paint...

40 CFR 745.91 - Suspending, revoking, or modifying an individual's or firm's certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN... comply with Federal lead-based paint statutes or regulations. EPA may also suspend, revoke, or modify a... individual performing a renovation on behalf of the firm fails to comply, with Federal lead-based paint...

40 CFR 745.91 - Suspending, revoking, or modifying an individual's or firm's certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN... comply with Federal lead-based paint statutes or regulations. EPA may also suspend, revoke, or modify a... individual performing a renovation on behalf of the firm fails to comply, with Federal lead-based paint...

40 CFR 745.91 - Suspending, revoking, or modifying an individual's or firm's certification.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... PROTECTION AGENCY (CONTINUED) TOXIC SUBSTANCES CONTROL ACT LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN... comply with Federal lead-based paint statutes or regulations. EPA may also suspend, revoke, or modify a... individual performing a renovation on behalf of the firm fails to comply, with Federal lead-based paint...

The emergence of different tail exponents in the distributions of firm size variables

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ishikawa, Atushi; Fujimoto, Shouji; Watanabe, Tsutomu; Mizuno, Takayuki

2013-05-01

We discuss a mechanism through which inversion symmetry (i.e., invariance of a joint probability density function under the exchange of variables) and Gibrat’s law generate power-law distributions with different tail exponents. Using a dataset of firm size variables, that is, tangible fixed assets K, the number of workers L, and sales Y, we confirm that these variables have power-law tails with different exponents, and that inversion symmetry and Gibrat’s law hold. Based on these findings, we argue that there exists a plane in the three dimensional space (logK,logL,logY), with respect to which the joint probability density function for the three variables is invariant under the exchange of variables. We provide empirical evidence suggesting that this plane fits the data well, and argue that the plane can be interpreted as the Cobb-Douglas production function, which has been extensively used in various areas of economics since it was first introduced almost a century ago.

Greedy algorithms and Zipf laws

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moran, José; Bouchaud, Jean-Philippe

2018-04-01

We consider a simple model of firm/city/etc growth based on a multi-item criterion: whenever entity B fares better than entity A on a subset of M items out of K, the agent originally in A moves to B. We solve the model analytically in the cases K  =  1 and . The resulting stationary distribution of sizes is generically a Zipf-law provided M  >  K/2. When , no selection occurs and the size distribution remains thin-tailed. In the special case M  =  K, one needs to regularize the problem by introducing a small ‘default’ probability ϕ. We find that the stationary distribution has a power-law tail that becomes a Zipf-law when . The approach to the stationary state can also be characterized, with strong similarities with a simple ‘aging’ model considered by Barrat and Mézard.

Do Data Breach Disclosure Laws Reduce Identity Theft?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Romanosky, Sasha; Telang, Rahul; Acquisti, Alessandro

2011-01-01

In the United States, identity theft resulted in corporate and consumer losses of $56 billion dollars in 2005, with up to 35 percent of known identity thefts caused by corporate data breaches. Many states have responded by adopting data breach disclosure laws that require firms to notify consumers if their personal information has been lost or…

Scale-free models for the structure of business firm networks.

PubMed

Kitsak, Maksim; Riccaboni, Massimo; Havlin, Shlomo; Pammolli, Fabio; Stanley, H Eugene

2010-03-01

We study firm collaborations in the life sciences and the information and communication technology sectors. We propose an approach to characterize industrial leadership using k -shell decomposition, with top-ranking firms in terms of market value in higher k -shell layers. We find that the life sciences industry network consists of three distinct components: a "nucleus," which is a small well-connected subgraph, "tendrils," which are small subgraphs consisting of small degree nodes connected exclusively to the nucleus, and a "bulk body," which consists of the majority of nodes. Industrial leaders, i.e., the largest companies in terms of market value, are in the highest k -shells of both networks. The nucleus of the life sciences sector is very stable: once a firm enters the nucleus, it is likely to stay there for a long time. At the same time we do not observe the above three components in the information and communication technology sector. We also conduct a systematic study of these three components in random scale-free networks. Our results suggest that the sizes of the nucleus and the tendrils in scale-free networks decrease as the exponent of the power-law degree distribution lambda increases, and disappear for lambda>or=3 . We compare the k -shell structure of random scale-free model networks with two real-world business firm networks in the life sciences and in the information and communication technology sectors. We argue that the observed behavior of the k -shell structure in the two industries is consistent with the coexistence of both preferential and random agreements in the evolution of industrial networks.

Scale-free models for the structure of business firm networks

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kitsak, Maksim; Riccaboni, Massimo; Havlin, Shlomo; Pammolli, Fabio; Stanley, H. Eugene

2010-03-01

We study firm collaborations in the life sciences and the information and communication technology sectors. We propose an approach to characterize industrial leadership using k -shell decomposition, with top-ranking firms in terms of market value in higher k -shell layers. We find that the life sciences industry network consists of three distinct components: a “nucleus,” which is a small well-connected subgraph, “tendrils,” which are small subgraphs consisting of small degree nodes connected exclusively to the nucleus, and a “bulk body,” which consists of the majority of nodes. Industrial leaders, i.e., the largest companies in terms of market value, are in the highest k -shells of both networks. The nucleus of the life sciences sector is very stable: once a firm enters the nucleus, it is likely to stay there for a long time. At the same time we do not observe the above three components in the information and communication technology sector. We also conduct a systematic study of these three components in random scale-free networks. Our results suggest that the sizes of the nucleus and the tendrils in scale-free networks decrease as the exponent of the power-law degree distribution λ increases, and disappear for λ≥3 . We compare the k -shell structure of random scale-free model networks with two real-world business firm networks in the life sciences and in the information and communication technology sectors. We argue that the observed behavior of the k -shell structure in the two industries is consistent with the coexistence of both preferential and random agreements in the evolution of industrial networks.

Substitution laws, insurance coverage, and generic drug use.

PubMed

Anis, A H

1994-03-01

This study examined the role of various policies (drug product substitution laws) that are usually motivated by cost containment objectives of insurers in facilitating entry by generic firms. Using data for six Canadian provinces over the years 1981-1988, we evaluated the impact of specific aspects of substitution laws on the level of generic use. We find that formularies and the passage of time are not significant determinants of substitution levels. Legal liability, mandatory product selection, deductible and co-payment schemes, and consumer awareness were found to be important variables. Price responsiveness of generic drugs is indicated but the evidence is not strong.

Effect of tax laws on mineral exploration in Canada

USGS Publications Warehouse

DeYoung, J.H.

1977-01-01

Changes since 1972 in Canadian federal and provincial tax laws have eliminated many of the prior tax incentives offered to the mining industry. These changes provide an opportunity to study the effect of tax laws on a country's mineral resource development by comparing trends in mineral exploration in various provinces with adjoining regions, and by comparing these results with firm behaviour that would be expected from microeconomic analysis. Mineral producers have sought higher, more stable returns, resulting in shifts of exploration into political regions with more favourable and less changeable tax policies. Future supplies of mineral raw materials from a political region are dependent on current exploration effort, which is in turn influenced by the region's tax laws. ?? 1977.

How small firms contrast with large firms regarding perceptions, practices, and needs in the U.S

Treesearch

Urs Buehlmann; Matthew Bumgardner; Michael Sperber

2013-01-01

As many larger secondary woodworking firms have moved production offshore and been adversely impacted by the recent housing downturn, smaller firms have become important to driving U.S. hardwood demand. This study compared and contrasted small and large firms on a number of factors to help determine the unique characteristics of small firms and to provide insights into...

Declines in Employer-Sponsored Insurance between 2000 and 2008: Examining the Components of Coverage by Firm Size

PubMed Central

Vistnes, Jessica; Zawacki, Alice; Simon, Kosali; Taylor, Amy

2012-01-01

Objective To examine trends in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage rates and its associated components between 2000 and 2008, to provide a baseline for later evaluations of the Affordable Care Act, and to provide information to policy makers as they design the implementation details of the law. Data Sources Private sector employer data from the 2000, 2001, and 2008 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance Component (MEPS-IC). Study Design We examine time trends in employer offer, eligibility, and take-up rates. We add a new dimension to the literature by examining dependent coverage and decomposing its trends. We investigate heterogeneity in trends by firm size. Data Collection The MEPS-IC is an annual survey, sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The MEPS-IC obtains information on establishment characteristics, whether an establishment offers health insurance, and details on up to four plans. Principal Findings We find that coverage rates for workers declined in both small and large firms. In small firms, coverage declined due to a drop in both offer and take-up rates. In the largest firms, offer rates were stable and the decline was due to falling take-up rates. In addition, enrollment shifted toward single coverage and away from dependent coverage in both small and large firms. For small firms, this shift was due to declining offer and take-up rates for dependent coverage. In large firms, offers of dependent coverage were stable but take-up rates dropped. Within the category of dependent coverage, the availability of employee-plus-one plans increased in all firm size categories, but take-up rates for these plans declined in small firms. PMID:22250730

Shared vision promotes family firm performance.

PubMed

Neff, John E

2015-01-01

A clear picture of the influential drivers of private family firm performance has proven to be an elusive target. The unique characteristics of private family owned firms necessitate a broader, non-financial approach to reveal firm performance drivers. This research study sought to specify and evaluate the themes that distinguish successful family firms from less successful family firms. In addition, this study explored the possibility that these themes collectively form an effective organizational culture that improves longer-term firm performance. At an organizational level of analysis, research findings identified four significant variables: Shared Vision (PNS), Role Clarity (RCL), Confidence in Management (CON), and Professional Networking (OLN) that positively impacted family firm financial performance. Shared Vision exhibited the strongest positive influence among the significant factors. In addition, Family Functionality (APGAR), the functional integrity of the family itself, exhibited a significant supporting role. Taken together, the variables collectively represent an effective family business culture (EFBC) that positively impacted the long-term financial sustainability of family owned firms. The index of effective family business culture also exhibited potential as a predictive non-financial model of family firm performance.

Shared vision promotes family firm performance

PubMed Central

Neff, John E.

2015-01-01

A clear picture of the influential drivers of private family firm performance has proven to be an elusive target. The unique characteristics of private family owned firms necessitate a broader, non-financial approach to reveal firm performance drivers. This research study sought to specify and evaluate the themes that distinguish successful family firms from less successful family firms. In addition, this study explored the possibility that these themes collectively form an effective organizational culture that improves longer-term firm performance. At an organizational level of analysis, research findings identified four significant variables: Shared Vision (PNS), Role Clarity (RCL), Confidence in Management (CON), and Professional Networking (OLN) that positively impacted family firm financial performance. Shared Vision exhibited the strongest positive influence among the significant factors. In addition, Family Functionality (APGAR), the functional integrity of the family itself, exhibited a significant supporting role. Taken together, the variables collectively represent an effective family business culture (EFBC) that positively impacted the long-term financial sustainability of family owned firms. The index of effective family business culture also exhibited potential as a predictive non-financial model of family firm performance. PMID:26042075

Firm Size, a Self-Organized Critical Phenomenon: Evidence from the Dynamical Systems Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chandra, Akhilesh

performance variables during the sub-critical (below the critical size) and the supra-critical (above the critical size) states. Since the dynamics of any two firms is likely to be different, the analysis is performed individually for each company within the Pharmaceuticals and the Perfume industries. The statistical results of this study provide evidence in support of the hypotheses. The size of a firm is found to be a self-organized critical phenomenon. The presence of 1/f noise and the spatial power-law behavior is taken as an evidence of the firm's size as a self-organized critical phenomenon. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).

Assessing Leading ERP-SAP Implementation in Leading Firms in Indonesia

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Syaiful, B.; Gunawan, W.

2017-01-01

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) enables to bring critical capabilities to an organisation, however, the implementation of such capabilities is often surrounded with problems. The implementing ERP-SAP in Indonesian enterprises are still facing tremendous challenges with the failure rate can reach more than 80% of the cases. The article examines the common problems faced by the consultants whenever they deal with their clients, from the practical perspectives. The article takes the multiple case studies of the leading enterprises in Indonesia, such as: KS (largest steel producer), GEM (large mining producer), and HS (large retailer), with the aim to identify the root of problems of SAP implementation. The outcome of the study is expected to provide the consultants with the guideline to understand the ERP implementation process in their clients and effective solutions to cope with it.

Five years after the Metric Conversion Act, where do we stand? Survey of large US manufacturing and mining firms (the Fortune Magazine 1000)

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

1980-12-01

A mail survey of randomly chosen 202 of the 1000 largest manufacturing and mining firms, as listed by Fortune magazine, was conducted in late 1979 and early 1980. About 64 percent (112 firms) responded with useful data. This Executive Summary draws on the full report (U.S. Metric Board 1979 Survey of Selected Large U.S. Firms and Industries, Lisa King, King Research, Inc., May 1980; AD-A-091-618) and provides an overview of the study's findings. Some selected findings are: (1) about 30 percent of the large firms produce at least one hard metric product; (2) about 48 percent of foreign sales are of metric products; (3) little corporate coordination and planning seems to accompany conversion to the metric system; (4) about one-third of the firms see laws and regulations as impeding conversion; (5) over 50 percent see lack of customers demand as inhibiting conversion; (6) the most realistic time period for conversion is 10 years, the minimum time for conversion (under pressure) is three years, and the preferred time (at the firm's own pace) is eight years.

Law Enforcement Agency Defibrillation (LEA-D): proceedings of the National Center for Early Defibrillation Police AED Issues Forum.

PubMed

Mosesso, Vincent N; Newman, Mary M; Ornato, Joseph P; Paris, Paul M; Andersen, Leon; Brinsfield, Kathryn; Dunnavant, Gregory R; Frederick, Jay; Groh, William J; Johnston, Steven; Lerner, E Brooke; Murphy, George P; Myerburg, Robert J; Rosenberg, Donald G; Savino, Mitchell; Sayre, Michael R; Sciammarella, Joseph; Schoen, Valerie; Vargo, Philip; van Alem, Anouk; White, Roger D

2002-01-01

Why does LEA-D intervention seem to work in some systems but not others? Panelists agreed that some factors that delay rapid access to treatment, such as long travel distances in rural areas, may represent insurmountable barriers. Other factors, however, may be addressed more readily. These include: absence of a medical response culture, discomfort with the role of medical intervention, insecurity with the use of medical devices, a lack of proactive medical direction, infrequent refresher training, and dependence on EMS intervention. Panelists agreed that successful LEA-D programs possess ten key attributes (Table 6). In the end, the goal remains "early" defibrillation, not "police" defibrillation. It does not matter whether the rescuer wears a blue uniform--or any uniform, for that matter--so long as the defibrillator reaches the victim quickly. If LEA personnel routinely arrive at medical emergencies after other emergency responders or after 8 minutes have elapsed from the time of collapse, an LEA-D program will be unlikely to provide added value. Similarly, if police frequently arrive first, but the department is unwilling or unable to cultivate the attributes of successful LEA-D programs, efforts to improve survival may not be realized. In most communities, however, LEA-D programs have tremendous lifesaving potential and are well worth the investment of time and resources. Law enforcement agencies considering adoption of AED programs should review the frequency with which police arrive first at medical emergencies and LEA response intervals to determine whether AED programs might help improve survival in their communities. It is time for law enforcement agency defibrillation to become the rule, not the exception.

Law and Entrepreneurship Education: A Proposed Model for Curriculum Development

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gordon, Jason; Bursuc, Vlad

2018-01-01

Entrepreneurship can be understood as "the introduction of new economic activity that leads to change in the marketplace." The effect of new firms on economic activity is notable, as firms formed within the previous twelve months generally employ more than three million individuals within the United States. As such, entrepreneurship…

Optimal investment and location decisions of a firm in a flood risk area using Impulse Control Theory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Grames, Johanna; Grass, Dieter; Kort, Peter; Prskawetz, Alexia

2017-04-01

Flooding events can affect businesses close to rivers, lakes or coasts. This paper provides a partial equilibrium model which helps to understand the optimal location choice for a firm in flood risk areas and its investment strategies. How often, when and how much are firms willing to invest in flood risk protection measures? We apply Impulse Control Theory to solve the model analytically and develop a continuation algorithm to solve the model numerically. Firms always invest in flood defense. The investment increases the higher the flood risk and the more firms also value the future, i.e. the more sustainable they plan. Investments in production capital follow a similar path. Hence, planning in a sustainable way leads to economic growth. Sociohydrological feedbacks are crucial for the location choice of the firm, whereas different economic situations have an impact on investment strategies. If flood defense is already present, e.g. built up by the government, firms move closer to the water and invest less in flood defense, which allows firms to accrue higher expected profits. Firms with a large initial production capital surprisingly try not to keep their market advantage, but rather reduce flood risk by reducing exposed production capital.

Firms, crowds, and innovation.

PubMed

Felin, Teppo; Lakhani, Karim R; Tushman, Michael L

2017-05-01

The purpose of this article is to suggest a (preliminary) taxonomy and research agenda for the topic of "firms, crowds, and innovation" and to provide an introduction to the associated special issue. We specifically discuss how various crowd-related phenomena and practices-for example, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, user innovation, and peer production-relate to theories of the firm, with particular attention on "sociality" in firms and markets. We first briefly review extant theories of the firm and then discuss three theoretical aspects of sociality related to crowds in the context of strategy, organizations, and innovation: (1) the functions of sociality (sociality as extension of rationality, sociality as sensing and signaling, sociality as matching and identity), (2) the forms of sociality (independent/aggregate and interacting/emergent forms of sociality), and (3) the failures of sociality (misattribution and misapplication). We conclude with an outline of future research directions and introduce the special issue papers and essays.

Firms, crowds, and innovation

PubMed Central

Felin, Teppo; Lakhani, Karim R; Tushman, Michael L

2017-01-01

The purpose of this article is to suggest a (preliminary) taxonomy and research agenda for the topic of “firms, crowds, and innovation” and to provide an introduction to the associated special issue. We specifically discuss how various crowd-related phenomena and practices—for example, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, user innovation, and peer production—relate to theories of the firm, with particular attention on “sociality” in firms and markets. We first briefly review extant theories of the firm and then discuss three theoretical aspects of sociality related to crowds in the context of strategy, organizations, and innovation: (1) the functions of sociality (sociality as extension of rationality, sociality as sensing and signaling, sociality as matching and identity), (2) the forms of sociality (independent/aggregate and interacting/emergent forms of sociality), and (3) the failures of sociality (misattribution and misapplication). We conclude with an outline of future research directions and introduce the special issue papers and essays. PMID:28690428

As Land-Grant Law Turns 150, Students Crowd into Agriculture Colleges

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Biemiller, Lawrence

2012-01-01

On July 2, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed Justin Morrill's second agriculture-school bill into law. Along with another measure he championed, in 1890, it created a system of land-grant colleges that rooted agriculture firmly in university research and helped democratize American higher education, creating institutions not for the sons and daughters…

Firm behavior, environmental externalities and public policy

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Curtis, Earnest Markell, IV

This dissertation consists of three essays which examine environmental policy, employer mandates and energy consumption. The essays explore how firms respond to government policies such as environmental regulation and employer mandates. Understanding how firms adjust to government policies is crucial to law makers attempting to design optimal policies that maximize net benefits to society. The first essay, titled Who Loses under Power Plant Cap-and-Trade Programs tests how a major cap-and-trade program, known as the NOx Budget Trading Program (NBP), affected labor markets in the region where it was implemented. The cap-and-trade program dramatically decreased levels of NOx emissions and added substantial costs to energy producers. Using a triple-differences approach that takes advantage of the geographic and time variation of the program as well as variation in industry energy-intensity levels, I examine how employment dynamics changed in manufacturing industries whose production process requires high levels of energy. After accounting for a variety of flexible state, county and industry trends, I find that employment in the manufacturing sector dropped by 1.7% as a result of the NBP. Young workers experienced the largest employment declines and earnings of newly hired workers fell after the regulation began. Employment declines are shown to have occurred primarily through decreased hiring rates rather than increased separation rates, thus mitigating the impact on incumbent workers. The second essay, titled Evaluating Workplace Mandates with Flows versus Stocks: An Application to California Paid Family Leave uses an underexploited data set to examine the impact of the California Paid Family Leave program on employment outcomes for young women. Most papers on mandated benefits examine labor outcomes by looking at earnings and employment levels of all workers. Examining these levels will be imprecise if the impacts of the program develop over time and firms are wary

32 CFR 37.1250 - Commercial firm.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... REGULATIONS TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS Definitions of Terms Used in This Part § 37.1250 Commercial firm. A for-profit firm or segment of a for-profit firm (e.g., a division or other business unit) that does a substantial portion of its business in the commercial marketplace. ...

Insurance within the Firm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Guiso, Luigi; Pistaferri, Luigi; Schivardi, Fabiano

2005-01-01

We evaluate the allocation of risk between firms and their workers using matched employer-employee panel data. Unlike previous contributions, this paper focuses on idiosyncratic shocks to the firm, which are the correct empirical counterpart of the theoretical notion of diversifiable risk. We allow for both temporary and permanent shocks to output…

Small firm subsistence and market dimensionality

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bruggeman, Jeroen; Péli, Gábor

2014-04-01

In many markets, large and small firms coexist. As large firms can in principle out-compete small ones, the actual presence of the latter asks for an explanation. In ours, we focus on the dimensionality of markets, which can change as a consequence of product innovations, preference elaboration or institutions. We show that increasing market dimensionality substantially enlarges the market periphery relative to the market center, which creates new potential niches for small firms. We thereby provide a parsimonious explanation for small firm subsistence.

49 CFR 1522.103 - Requirements for validation firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... firm's security program. (e) Change in information. (1) The validation firm must inform TSA, in a form... 49 Transportation 9 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Requirements for validation firms. 1522.103...-APPROVED VALIDATION FIRMS AND VALIDATORS TSA-Approved Validation Firms and Validators for the Certified...

An empirical examination of the influence of industry and firm drivers on the rate of internationalization by firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Elango, B.

A gradual shift in U.S. firms' 'center of gravity' toward international markets is taking place. This study seeks to explain which drivers are related to this push toward international markets by U.S. firms. In addressing internationalization, previous research has not focused on various drivers that influence the rate of internationalization. Drivers refer to forces, both within and outside the firm, that impact (both positively and negatively) a firm's extent of internationalization. The role of these drivers on the rate of internationalization, though acknowledged in the literature, is yet to be validated through empirical research. This research seeks to narrow the gap in the literature by testing the various relationships among industry drivers, firm drivers, and the rate of internationalization. The objectives of this study are: (A) To develop a conceptual framework that takes into account various forces that influence the internationalization strategy of a firm; (B) To examine empirically (a) the influence of industry drivers on the rate of internationalization pursued by firms; and, (b) the influence of firm drivers on the rate of internationalization by firms. The sample for this study consists of 158 large U.S.- based multinational firms drawn from seven different industries. Data for the study is gathered from a variety of sources including the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis; COMPUSTAT; and WORLDSCOPE databases. Set-wise regression models were used for data analysis. This study found that global market growth rate, domestic market growth rate, relative size of domestic market to international market, employee productivity, administrative investments, as well as new plant and equipment influences the international strategy of firms. This study explains about 24 percent of the variance of the rate of internationalization. This research finding is contributory to our existing understanding of internationalization in many ways

38 CFR 21.4274 - Law courses.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Law courses. 21.4274... Pursuit of Courses § 21.4274 Law courses. (a) Accredited. A law course in an accredited law school leading to a standard professional law degree will be assessed as provided in § 21.4273(a). (b) Nonaccredited...

38 CFR 21.4274 - Law courses.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Law courses. 21.4274... Pursuit of Courses § 21.4274 Law courses. (a) Accredited. A law course in an accredited law school leading to a standard professional law degree will be assessed as provided in § 21.4273(a). (b) Nonaccredited...

38 CFR 21.4274 - Law courses.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Law courses. 21.4274... Pursuit of Courses § 21.4274 Law courses. (a) Accredited. A law course in an accredited law school leading to a standard professional law degree will be assessed as provided in § 21.4273(a). (b) Nonaccredited...

38 CFR 21.4274 - Law courses.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Law courses. 21.4274... Pursuit of Courses § 21.4274 Law courses. (a) Accredited. A law course in an accredited law school leading to a standard professional law degree will be assessed as provided in § 21.4273(a). (b) Nonaccredited...

38 CFR 21.4274 - Law courses.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... 38 Pensions, Bonuses, and Veterans' Relief 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Law courses. 21.4274... Pursuit of Courses § 21.4274 Law courses. (a) Accredited. A law course in an accredited law school leading to a standard professional law degree will be assessed as provided in § 21.4273(a). (b) Nonaccredited...

Retrospective Catalog Conversion in Mid-Sized Law Libraries: Some Practical Guidelines for Automation.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Riger, Robert E.

1992-01-01

Discusses retrospective catalog conversion from the viewpoint of a law firm library. Topics discussed include reasons for retrospective conversion; preplanning; suggestions for the selection of software; conducting an inventory of the collection; sources of MARC bibliographic records; setting up an online public access catalog; and marketing…

Cooperative Education Programs in CPA Firms.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thibadoux, Gregory M.; Greenberg, Ira S.

1986-01-01

A study was conducted to determine the background of employed students in a sampling of accounting cooperative education programs, the nature of the final selection process made by the firms, the value of the students to the firm, and the value of the program to the students as perceived by members of the firm. (CT)

Firm profitability and the network of organizational capabilities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wagner, Friedrich; Milaković, Mishael; Alfarano, Simone

2010-11-01

A Laplace distribution for firm profit rates (or returns on assets) can be obtained through the sum of many independent shocks if the number of shocks is Poisson distributed. Interpreting this as a linear chain of events, we generalize the process to a hierarchical network structure. The hierarchical model reproduces the observed distributional patterns of firm profitability, which crucially depend on the life span of firms. While the profit rates of long-lived firms obey a symmetric Laplacian, short-lived firms display a different behavior depending on whether they are capable of generating positive profits or not. Successful short-lived firms exhibit a symmetric yet more leptokurtic pdf than long-lived firms. Our model suggests that these firms are more dynamic in their organizational capabilities, but on average also face more risk than long-lived firms. Finally, short-lived firms that fail to generate positive profits have the most leptokurtic distribution among the three classes, and on average lose slightly more than their total assets within a year.

CRP for Pesticides - Testing Firms

EPA Pesticide Factsheets

This list includes firms that have conducted tests or have indicated an interest in conducting tests on child-resistant packaging. This list is not intended to indicate EPA approval, certification, or endorsement of these firms, nor is it comprehensive..

Wealth of the world's richest publicly traded companies per industry and per employee: Gamma, Log-normal and Pareto power-law as universal distributions?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Soriano-Hernández, P.; del Castillo-Mussot, M.; Campirán-Chávez, I.; Montemayor-Aldrete, J. A.

2017-04-01

Forbes Magazine published its list of leading or strongest publicly-traded two thousand companies in the world (G-2000) based on four independent metrics: sales or revenues, profits, assets and market value. Every one of these wealth metrics yields particular information on the corporate size or wealth size of each firm. The G-2000 cumulative probability wealth distribution per employee (per capita) for all four metrics exhibits a two-class structure: quasi-exponential in the lower part, and a Pareto power-law in the higher part. These two-class structure per capita distributions are qualitatively similar to income and wealth distributions in many countries of the world, but the fraction of firms per employee within the high-class Pareto is about 49% in sales per employee, and 33% after averaging on the four metrics, whereas in countries the fraction of rich agents in the Pareto zone is less than 10%. The quasi-exponential zone can be adjusted by Gamma or Log-normal distributions. On the other hand, Forbes classifies the G-2000 firms in 82 different industries or economic activities. Within each industry, the wealth distribution per employee also follows a two-class structure, but when the aggregate wealth of firms in each industry for the four metrics is divided by the total number of employees in that industry, then the 82 points of the aggregate wealth distribution by industry per employee can be well adjusted by quasi-exponential curves for the four metrics.

Financial Constrains for Innovative Firms: The Role of Size, Industry and ICT Uses as Determinants of Firms' Financial Structure

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Castillo-Merino, David; Vilaseca-Requena, Jordi; Plana-Erta, Dolors

This paper uses a large and original data set of Catalan firms in all the economic branches to analyse the effects of size, industry and degree of ICT uses on financial constraints for innovative firms. We have conducted a micro econometric analysis following Henry et al. (1999) investment model to empirically contrast the relationship between firms' investment spread over time and their financial structure, and we have used von Kalckreuth (2004) methodology, based on an original survey with data on financial issues. Our results show that it exits a positive and significant relationship between investment shift and financial structure, emerging financial constraints for more innovative firms. Furthermore, these constraints are higher for micro companies and firms within the knowledge-advanced services' industry. Finally, we have also found that advanced ICT uses by more innovative firms allow them to reduce constraints of access to sources of finance.

Cournot competition between a non-profit firm and a for-profit firm with uncertainty

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferreira, Fernanda A.

2010-03-01

In this paper, we consider a Cournot competition between a nonprofit firm and a for-profit firm in a homogeneous goods market, with uncertain demand. Given an asymmetric tax schedule, we compute explicitly the Bayesian-Nash equilibrium. Furthermore, we analyze the effects of the tax rate and the degree of altruistic preference on market equilibrium outcomes.

18 CFR 284.7 - Firm transportation service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2012-04-01 2012-04-01 false Firm transportation... AUTHORITIES CERTAIN SALES AND TRANSPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS UNDER THE NATURAL GAS POLICY ACT OF 1978 AND RELATED AUTHORITIES General Provisions and Conditions § 284.7 Firm transportation service. (a) Firm...

18 CFR 284.7 - Firm transportation service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2014-04-01 2014-04-01 false Firm transportation... AUTHORITIES CERTAIN SALES AND TRANSPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS UNDER THE NATURAL GAS POLICY ACT OF 1978 AND RELATED AUTHORITIES General Provisions and Conditions § 284.7 Firm transportation service. (a) Firm...

18 CFR 284.7 - Firm transportation service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2011-04-01 2011-04-01 false Firm transportation... AUTHORITIES CERTAIN SALES AND TRANSPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS UNDER THE NATURAL GAS POLICY ACT OF 1978 AND RELATED AUTHORITIES General Provisions and Conditions § 284.7 Firm transportation service. (a) Firm...

18 CFR 284.7 - Firm transportation service.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... 18 Conservation of Power and Water Resources 1 2013-04-01 2013-04-01 false Firm transportation... AUTHORITIES CERTAIN SALES AND TRANSPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS UNDER THE NATURAL GAS POLICY ACT OF 1978 AND RELATED AUTHORITIES General Provisions and Conditions § 284.7 Firm transportation service. (a) Firm...

Strategic Orientation in the Globalization of Software Firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dedrick, Jason; Kraemer, Kenneth L.; Carmel, Erran; Dunkle, Debora

In the search for profits, software firms are globalizing their development activities. Some firms achieve greater profits by becoming more efficient, whereas others do so by reaching new markets; some do both. This paper creates an a priori typology of strategies based on the extent to which firms are focused on operational improvement or market access, have a dual focus or are unfocused. We find that firms with these strategies differ in degree of internationalization, organization of offshoring and performance outcomes related to offshoring. Market-oriented firms receive a greater proportion of their total revenue from sales outside the U.S., showing a greater international orientation. They keep more of their offshore development in-house via captive operations. They also are most likely to report increased non-U.S. sales as a result of offshoring. On the other hand, operations-oriented firms have lower levels of international sales, are more likely to go offshore via outsourced software development, and achieve greater costs savings and labor force flexibility as a result of offshoring. Operations-oriented firms also face more obstacles in offshoring, perhaps because of their reliance on outsourcing. Dual focus firms generally achieve some of the best of both strategies, whereas unfocused firms achieve lower cost benefits.

Core Knowledge Employee Creativity and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Riskiness Orientation, Firm Size, and Realized Absorptive Capacity

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gong, Yaping; Zhou, Jing; Chang, Song

2013-01-01

In this study, we examine when creativity is positively or negatively related to firm performance. Building on the creation-implementation tension theorized in the literature and the attention capacity perspective, we argue that the relationship between creativity and firm performance is contingent on riskiness orientation, firm size, and realized…

21 CFR 7.46 - Firm-initiated recall.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... action, e.g., seizure. In such cases, the firm will be asked to provide the Food and Drug Administration... requested a recall. The firm's action also is considered a firm-initiated recall and is subject to... but where it is apparent, e.g., because of complaints or adverse reactions regarding the product, that...

Bringing the Firms into Globalization Research: The Effects of Foreign Investment and Exports on Wages in Mexican Manufacturing Firms

PubMed Central

Villarreal, Andrés; Sakamoto, Arthur

2011-01-01

Researchers specializing in organizations and labor markets have paid insufficient attention to the effects that foreign ownership of a firm and its orientation towards export production may have on the wages it pays to its workers. Using information from a nationally-representative sample of manufacturing firms in Mexico, a paradigmatic case of a developing country that is highly integrated into world markets, we find that foreign-owned and export-oriented firms pay considerably more than nationally-owned firms engaged in the production of goods for sale in the domestic market. Second, beyond paying higher wages to their workers, foreign-owned firms also raise the wages paid by domestic firms operating in the same regional labor markets. The wage premium in foreign and export-oriented firms cannot be explained by their size, industry, geographical location, productivity, use of advanced technology, or the sociodemographic composition of their workforce. We find evidence that wages in foreign-owned companies in Mexico are dependent on the country of origin of the capital investment. A greater difference between the industry-specific wages paid in the country of ownership and Mexico is associated with a higher wage premium in Mexican affiliates. Future work should strive to link information from foreign-owned affiliates with their parent companies abroad. PMID:21566699

What results when firms implement practices: the differential relationship between specific practices, firm financial performance, customer service, and quality.

PubMed

Gibson, Cristina B; Porath, Christine L; Benson, George S; Lawler, Edward E

2007-11-01

Previous research on organizational practices is replete with contradictory evidence regarding their effects. Here, the authors argue that these contradictory findings may have occurred because researchers have often examined complex practice combinations and have failed to investigate a broad variety of firm-level outcomes. Thus, past research may obscure important differential effects of specific practices on specific firm-level outcomes. Extending this research, the authors develop hypotheses about the effects of practices that (a) enable information sharing, (b) set boundaries, and (c) enable teams on 3 different firm-level outcomes: financial performance, customer service, and quality. Relationships are tested in a sample of observations from over 200 Fortune 1000 firms. Results indicate that information-sharing practices were positively related to financial performance 1 year following implementation of the practices, boundary-setting practices were positively related to firm-level customer service, and team-enabling practices were related to firm-level quality. No single set of practices predicted all 3 firm-level outcomes, indicating practice-specific effects. These findings help resolve the theoretical tension in the literature regarding the effects of organizational practices and offer guidance as to how to best target practices to increase specific work-related outcomes. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed. (c) 2007 APA

Omori Law After Exogenous Shocks on Supplier-Customer Network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fujiwara, Yoshi

We study the relaxation process of a supplier-customer network after mass destruction due to two giant earthquakes, Kobe 1995 and East Japan 2011, by investigating the number of chained failures. Firstly, a mass destruction and intervention of business activities in the damaged areas can be considered as a main shock. The exogenous shock was propagated on the supplier-customer network deteriorating financial states of other firms, even if they are not located in geographical neighbors. To quantify such aftershocks, we use chained failures on the network assuming that they indicate the trace of propagation of shocks. We show that the number of chained failures in its temporal change obeys an Omori-law, a power-law relaxation. This finding implies that the relaxation is much more sluggish than one would naively expect, and that it might be possible to estimate the extent and duration of aftershocks by using the empirical law. Several issues are discussed including the origin of the long-time relaxation.

Finding the "Right Staff" in Small Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Barrett, Rowena; Neeson, Robyn; Billington, Leo

2007-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore what owners of small firms are looking for from new employees. The aim is to pursue this in light of the debate around formality and informality of small firm HRM, exploring the extent to which the small firms studied had formalized HRM practices. Design/methodology/approach: The data reported here…

Skills Gaps in Australian Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lindorff, Margaret

2011-01-01

This paper reports the results of a survey of more than 2000 managers examining perceptions of skills gaps in a range of Australian firms. It finds that three quarters report a skills gap, and almost one third report skills gaps across the whole organisation. Firm size and industry differences exist in perceptions of the effect of the skills gap…

Microcap pharmaceutical firms: linking drug pipelines to market value.

PubMed

Beach, Robert

2012-01-01

This article examines predictors of the future market value of microcap pharmaceutical companies. This is problematic since the large majority of these firms seldom report positive net income. Their value comes from the potential of a liquidity event such as occurs when a key drug is approved by the FDA. The typical scenario is one in which the company is either acquired by a larger pharmaceutical firm or enters into a joint venture with another pharmaceutical firm. Binary logistic regression is used to determine the impact of the firm's drug treatment pipeline and its investment in research and development on the firm's market cap. Using annual financial data from 2007 through 2010, this study finds that the status of the firm's drug treatment pipeline and its research and development expenses are significant predictors of the firm's future stock value relative to other microcap pharmaceutical firms.

Applying Henry`s Law to groundwater treatment

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Chidgopkar, V.R.

Air strippers are very popular equipment for mass transfer where air and water are contacted and the contaminants are transferred from water into the air phase. In a typical air-stripper arrangement, water flows from the top and air is blown from the bottom. The increase in surface area between the air and the water phases increases the removal efficiency. In packed towers, high-surface-area packing materials are used to that end. In a sieve tray tower, water flows across the tray through channels separated by baffles and air flows from the bottom, up through holes in the tray. In diffused aerators,more » air is introduced through a bubbler or a nozzle into the water stream. All these units are commercially available. Several environmental consulting and remediation engineering firms use Henry`s Law to predict the stripping performance of volatile and semi-volatile contaminants present using the above equipment. Extensive work has been done during the past few decades to determine Henry`s Law constant, H. Different procedures are reported in the literature to determine henry`s Law constant for various chemicals from the experimental data and from empirical correlations. This article discusses the reasons why so much error is observed in reported values of henry`s Law constants in the literature--the effect of various parameters such as temperature, co-solubility, etc., on H value. A modified experimental procedure to measure Henry`s Law constant is presented, then the law is applied in predicting stripping performance of various chemicals.« less

Primary prevention of lead poisoning: protecting children from unsafe housing.

PubMed

Rogers, Michelle L; Lucht, James A; Sylvaria, Alyssa J; Cigna, Jessica; Vanderslice, Robert; Vivier, Patrick M

2014-08-01

We examined the effects of changes in Rhode Island's Lead Hazard Mitigation Law in 2005 on children's blood lead levels. We used 2005 to 2009 data from Rhode Island's Lead Elimination Surveillance System; city tax assessor records in Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, and Woonsocket, Rhode Island; and records of conformance to the state's lead hazard mitigation law, to assess the extent to which legislation changes resulted in minimizing children's exposure to lead. During the 5-year study, the proportion of properties that complied with the new law increased for properties that housed young children. However, the majority of rental properties did not comply with the law. Children's lead levels declined by approximately 1 microgram per deciliter on average in properties that did comply, demonstrating that the law could have a protective effect for children. Legislation changes increased the proportion of properties that were certified as nonhazardous, leading to decreased blood lead levels for children living in these properties. However, legislation cannot be a highly effective primary prevention strategy if it does not cover all properties where children live and is not strictly enforced.

Objectives of the Airline Firm: Theory

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Kneafsey, J. T.

1972-01-01

Theoretical models are formulated for airline firm operations that revolve around alternative formulations of managerial goals which these firms are persuing in practice. Consideration is given to the different objective functions which the companies are following in lieu of profit maximization.

Generalized laws of refraction that can lead to wave-optically forbidden light-ray fields.

PubMed

Courtial, Johannes; Tyc, Tomáš

2012-07-01

The recent demonstration of a metamaterial phase hologram so thin that it can be classified as an interface in the effective-medium approximation [Science 334, 333 (2011)] has dramatically increased interest in generalized laws of refraction. Based on the fact that scalar wave optics allows only certain light-ray fields, we divide generalized laws of refraction into two categories. When applied to a planar cross section through any allowed light-ray field, the laws in the first category always result in a cross section through an allowed light-ray field again, whereas the laws in the second category can result in a cross section through a forbidden light-ray field.

13 CFR 315.6 - Firm eligibility for Adjustment Assistance.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... least 50 percent of the total cash cost of the Adjustment Assistance, in addition to appropriate in-kind... certification. The TAAC will assist Firms in completing such petitions (at no cost to the Firms); (2) Firms... least 25 percent of the cost of preparing its Adjustment Proposal. Each Certified Firm requesting $30...

Lenz's Law Magic Trick

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ruiz, Michael J.

2006-02-01

The demonstration of Lenz's law by dropping a powerful magnet down a nonmagnetic metal pipe has become a classic lecture-hall demonstration.1,2 An inexpensive version is packaged as a professional magic trick3 called "Newton's Nightmare." Combining sleight-of-hand with a demonstration of Lenz's law is a surefire way to heighten student interest. The subsequent student discussion motivated by a desire to understand the magic trick can lead to a memorable physics lesson. This paper will discuss Lenz's law magic and review literature that reveals the subtlety of the physics.

Establishing Law and Order After Conflict

DTIC Science & Technology

2005-01-01

the y-axis indicates the rule of law. This leads to four quadrants . We code the lower-left quadrant as successful, since it includes decreasing...levels of violence and an improving rule of law. The lower-right quadrant is mixed because it includes increasing levels of violence but an improving rule...of law. Cases in the upper-right quadrant are un- successful, since they have increasing levels of violence and a deterio- rating rule of law

Economics of mining law

USGS Publications Warehouse

Long, K.R.

1995-01-01

Modern mining law, by facilitating socially and environmentally acceptable exploration, development, and production of mineral materials, helps secure the benefits of mineral production while minimizing environmental harm and accounting for increasing land-use competition. Mining investments are sunk costs, irreversibly tied to a particular mineral site, and require many years to recoup. Providing security of tenure is the most critical element of a practical mining law. Governments owning mineral rights have a conflict of interest between their roles as a profit-maximizing landowner and as a guardian of public welfare. As a monopoly supplier, governments have considerable power to manipulate mineral-rights markets. To avoid monopoly rent-seeking by governments, a competitive market for government-owned mineral rights must be created by artifice. What mining firms will pay for mineral rights depends on expected exploration success and extraction costs. Landowners and mining firms will negotlate respective shares of anticipated differential rents, usually allowing for some form of risk sharing. Private landowners do not normally account for external benefits or costs of minerals use. Government ownership of mineral rights allows for direct accounting of social prices for mineral-bearing lands and external costs. An equitable and efficient method is to charge an appropriate reservation price for surface land use, net of the value of land after reclamation, and to recover all or part of differential rents through a flat income or resource-rent tax. The traditional royalty on gross value of production, essentially a regressive income tax, cannot recover as much rent as a flat income tax, causes arbitrary mineral-reserve sterilization, and creates a bias toward development on the extensive margin where marginal environmental costs are higher. Mitigating environmental costs and resolving land-use conflicts require local evaluation and planning. National oversight ensures

The structure of a market containing boundedly rational firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ibrahim, Adyda; Zura, Nerda; Saaban, Azizan

2017-11-01

The structure of a market is determined by the number of active firms in it. Over time, this number is affected by the exit of existing firms, called incumbents, and entries of new firms, called entrant. In this paper, we considered a market governed by the Cobb-Douglas utility function such that the demand function is isoelastic. Each firm is assumed to produce a single homogenous product under a constant unit cost. Furthermore, firms are assumed to be boundedly rational in adjusting their outputs at each period. A firm is considered to exit the market if its output is negative. In this paper, the market is assumed to have zero barrier-to-entry. Therefore, the exiting firm can reenter the market if its output is positive again, and new firms can enter the market easily. Based on these assumptions and rules, a mathematical model was developed and numerical simulations were run using Matlab. By setting certain values for the parameters in the model, initial numerical simulations showed that in the long run, the number of firms that manages to survive the market varies between zero to 30. This initial result is consistent with the idea that a zero barrier-to-entry may produce a perfectly competitive market.

Updating about reductions of air and blood lead concentrations in Turin, Italy, following reductions in the lead content of gasoline.

PubMed

Bono, R; Pignata, C; Scursatone, E; Rovere, R; Natale, P; Gilli, G

1995-07-01

Considering its well-know toxicity and the chronic human exposure to lead, international law-makers enforced some directives or laws calling for the reduction of lead content of gasoline. All of these legislative acts aimed to reduce health risks for the general population. The aim of this study was to consider the effectiveness of these laws on air lead levels and consequently on blood lead levels in a randomly selected urban Italian population. In particular, these markers were analyzed over the course of several years, corresponding to the periods just before and after enforcements of the reductions of lead in petrol. Data presented point out some considerations: (1) enforcement of legislative measures concerning the reduction of lead in petrol has reduced atmospheric levels of lead. This result demonstrates a major environmental success in primary prevention efforts. (2) This success is clear especially considering that the actual Pb-B levels can be extended to the urbanized populations. Pb-B levels were consistently higher for drinkers, for older adults, and for males. The mean of Pb-B level for the present urbanized population is higher than the U.S. overall population (6.4 vs 3 microgram/dl). This difference can be also explained considering the different historical period of enforcement of the restriction laws.

On using sample selection methods in estimating the price elasticity of firms' demand for insurance.

PubMed

Marquis, M Susan; Louis, Thomas A

2002-01-01

We evaluate a technique based on sample selection models that has been used by health economists to estimate the price elasticity of firms' demand for insurance. We demonstrate that, this technique produces inflated estimates of the price elasticity. We show that alternative methods lead to valid estimates.

48 CFR 1019.202-70-7 - Mentor firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 5 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Mentor firms. 1019.202-70... SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS Policies 1019.202-70-7 Mentor firms. A mentor firm may be either... developmental assistance to enhance the capabilities of protégés to perform as subcontractors. Mentors will be...

Hyperbolic conservation laws and numerical methods

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Leveque, Randall J.

1990-01-01

The mathematical structure of hyperbolic systems and the scalar equation case of conservation laws are discussed. Linear, nonlinear systems and the Riemann problem for the Euler equations are also studied. The numerical methods for conservation laws are presented in a nonstandard manner which leads to large time steps generalizations and computations on irregular grids. The solution of conservation laws with stiff source terms is examined.

Incorporating a Creative Component in First-Year Law

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kleefeld, John C.; Farnese, Patricia L.

2015-01-01

For some students, law school leads to a perception of legal education as favouring technical proficiency and structural similarity over innovation and creativity, leading to disengagement in learning. To address this, we offered a creative option in two first-year law courses, worth 20% of the grade. Students who chose this option created a…

Measuring firm size distribution with semi-nonparametric densities

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Cortés, Lina M.; Mora-Valencia, Andrés; Perote, Javier

2017-11-01

In this article, we propose a new methodology based on a (log) semi-nonparametric (log-SNP) distribution that nests the lognormal and enables better fits in the upper tail of the distribution through the introduction of new parameters. We test the performance of the lognormal and log-SNP distributions capturing firm size, measured through a sample of US firms in 2004-2015. Taking different levels of aggregation by type of economic activity, our study shows that the log-SNP provides a better fit of the firm size distribution. We also formally introduce the multivariate log-SNP distribution, which encompasses the multivariate lognormal, to analyze the estimation of the joint distribution of the value of the firm's assets and sales. The results suggest that sales are a better firm size measure, as indicated by other studies in the literature.

48 CFR 519.7006 - Mentor firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Mentor firms. 519.7006... PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS GSA Mentor-Protégé Program 519.7006 Mentor firms. (a) Mentors must be... plan as required by FAR 19.7 - Small business mentors are exempted; or (2) A small business prime...

Firm size distribution and mobility of the top 500 firms in China, the United States and the world

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Guo, Jinzhong; Xu, Qi; Chen, Qinghua; Wang, Yougui

2013-07-01

This paper considers the macroscopic and microscopic statistical features of the top 500 firms in China, the United States and the world, denoted as China 500 (CH500), Fortune 500 (US500) and Fortune Global 500 (FG500). From a macroscopic perspective, the firm size distribution of each category, when measured by revenue, is steadily distributed over the observed period, even during periods of financial crises. As is evidenced by the Gini coefficient, divergences between firm scales are most significant for the CH500. From a microscopic perspective, the underlying micro-dynamics are volatile and often turbulent due to the exit and entry of firms as well as shifts in their revenues and ranks. Such fluctuations, or mobility, are visualized in rank/revenue/share clocks. We also propose a revenue/rank/share mobility index that is a quantitative measurement of mobility. Among these, we find that the share mobility acts as an effective indicator of economic status; where there is a share mobility spike, there is an ailing economy. The share mobility indexes indicate that the 2008 Financial Crisis had little impact on the Chinese economy, while it triggered violent changes in the top 500 firms in the United States and the world.

Gradually truncated log-normal in USA publicly traded firm size distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gupta, Hari M.; Campanha, José R.; de Aguiar, Daniela R.; Queiroz, Gabriel A.; Raheja, Charu G.

2007-03-01

We study the statistical distribution of firm size for USA and Brazilian publicly traded firms through the Zipf plot technique. Sale size is used to measure firm size. The Brazilian firm size distribution is given by a log-normal distribution without any adjustable parameter. However, we also need to consider different parameters of log-normal distribution for the largest firms in the distribution, which are mostly foreign firms. The log-normal distribution has to be gradually truncated after a certain critical value for USA firms. Therefore, the original hypothesis of proportional effect proposed by Gibrat is valid with some modification for very large firms. We also consider the possible mechanisms behind this distribution.

The relationship among the resiliency practices in supply chain, financial performance, and competitive advantage in manufacturing firms in Indonesia and Sierra Leone

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Musa, I.; Nyoman Pujawan, I.

2018-04-01

Current supply chain management (SCM) has become a potentially treasured way of safeguarding competitive advantage and improving organizational performance since competition is no longer between organizations, but among supply chains. This research conceptualizes and develops four resiliency practices (Flexibility, Redundancy, Collaboration and Agility) and tests the relationships between organizations’ financial performance and competitive advantage in manufacturing firms. The study involves manufacturing firms in Indonesia and Sierra Leone. The study used stratified random sampling to pick a sample size of 95 manufacturing firms, which represented different industrial sectors. The respondents were mainly managers of different manufacturing companies. The relationships proposed in the conceptual framework were tested using correlation analysis. The results indicate that higher levels of resilience practices in manufacturing firms can lead to enhanced competitive advantage and improved financial performance.

Factors Affecting Firm Yield and the Estimation of Firm Yield for Selected Streamflow-Dominated Drinking-Water-Supply Reservoirs in Massachusetts

USGS Publications Warehouse

Waldron, Marcus C.; Archfield, Stacey A.

2006-01-01

Factors affecting reservoir firm yield, as determined by application of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection's Firm Yield Estimator (FYE) model, were evaluated, modified, and tested on 46 streamflow-dominated reservoirs representing 15 Massachusetts drinking-water supplies. The model uses a mass-balance approach to determine the maximum average daily withdrawal rate that can be sustained during a period of record that includes the 1960s drought-of-record. The FYE methodology to estimate streamflow to the reservoir at an ungaged site was tested by simulating streamflow at two streamflow-gaging stations in Massachusetts and comparing the simulated streamflow to the observed streamflow. In general, the FYE-simulated flows agreed well with observed flows. There were substantial deviations from the measured values for extreme high and low flows. A sensitivity analysis determined that the model's streamflow estimates are most sensitive to input values for average annual precipitation, reservoir drainage area, and the soil-retention number-a term that describes the amount of precipitation retained by the soil in the basin. The FYE model currently provides the option of using a 1,000-year synthetic record constructed by randomly sampling 2-year blocks of concurrent streamflow and precipitation records 500 times; however, the synthetic record has the potential to generate records of precipitation and streamflow that do not reflect the worst historical drought in Massachusetts. For reservoirs that do not have periods of drawdown greater than 2 years, the bootstrap does not offer any additional information about the firm yield of a reservoir than the historical record does. For some reservoirs, the use of a synthetic record to determine firm yield resulted in as much as a 30-percent difference between firm-yield values from one simulation to the next. Furthermore, the assumption that the synthetic traces of streamflow are statistically equivalent to the

Construction of a microscopic agent-based model for firms' dynamics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iyetomi, Hiroshi; Aoyama, Hideaki; Fujiwara, Yoshi; Ikeda, Yuichi; Kaizoji, Taisei; Soma, Wataru

2005-07-01

A workable microscopic model for firms' dynamics has been constructed. The model consists of firm agents and a bank agent dynamics of which are described by balance sheets. The size distribution of firms and the temporal evolution of the bank show critical dependence on whether or not firms use perfect information on their financial conditions to draw up next production plans.

Teaching Newton's Laws with the iPod Touch in Conceptual Physics

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kelly, Angela M.

2011-04-01

One of the greatest challenges in teaching physics is helping students achieve a conceptual understanding of Newton's laws. I find that students fresh from middle school can sometimes recite the laws verbatim ("An object in motion stays in motion…" and "For every action…"), but they rarely demonstrate a working knowledge of how to apply them to observable phenomena. As a firm believer in inquiry-based teaching methods, I like to develop activities where students can experiment and construct understandings based on relevant personal experiences. Consequently, I am always looking for exciting new technologies that can readily demonstrate how physics affects everyday things. In a conceptual physics class designed for ninth-graders, I created a structured activity where students applied Newton's laws to a series of free applications downloaded on iPod Touches. The laws had been introduced during the prior class session with textual descriptions and graphical representations. The course is offered as part of the Enlace Latino Collegiate Society, a weekend enrichment program for middle and high school students in the Bronx. The majority of students had limited or no prior exposure to physics concepts, and many attended high schools where physics was not offered at all.

Analysis of labor productivity using large-scale data of firm's financial statements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ikeda, Y.; Souma, W.; Aoyama, H.; Fujiwara, Y.; Iyetomi, H.

2010-08-01

We investigated labor productivity distribution by analyzing large-scale financial statement data consisting of listed and unlisted Japanese firms to clarify the characteristics of the Japanese labor market. Both high and low productivity sides of the labor productivity distribution follows the power-law distribution. Large inequality in the low productivity side was observed only for the manufacturing sectors in Japan fiscal year (JFY) 1999 and observed for both the manufacturing and non-manufacturing sectors in JFY 2002. The decline in the Japanese GDP in JFY 1999 and JFY 2002 were coincided with the large inequality in the low productivity side of the distribution. A lower peak was found for all non-manufacturing sectors. This might be the origin of the low productivity of the non-manufacturing sectors reported in recent economic studies.

Electronic Commerce, Digital Information, and the Firm.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rosenbaum, Howard

2000-01-01

Discussion of the social context of electronic commerce (ecommerce) focuses on information imperatives, or rules that are critical for ecommerce firms. Concludes with a discussion of the organizational changes that can be expected to accompany the incorporation of these imperatives into the mission and core business processes of ecommerce firms.…

Lead shot incidence on a New Mexico public hunting area

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Schranck, B.W.; Dollahon, G.R.

The incidence of lead shot was investigated on a 20.2-ha (50-acre) seasonal marsh used for waterfowl hunting at the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge, Roswell, New Mexico. Of the 162 soil samples taken randomly, 59% contained 1 to 5 lead shot. A minimum lead shot incidence of 98,985 shot per ha (40,075 per acre) was calculated. More shot was found in firm than in mucky soils. Management recommendations to limit waterfowl exposure to lead ingestion are offered.

Networks of Firms and the Ridge in the Production Space

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Souma, Wataru

We develop complex networks that represent activities in the economy. The network in this study is constructed from firms and the relationships between firms, i.e., shareholding, interlocking directors, transactions, and joint applications for patents. Thus, the network is regarded as a multigraph, and it is also regarded as a weighted network. By calculating various network indices, we clarify the characteristics of the network. We also consider the dynamics of firms in the production space that are characterized by capital stock, employment, and profit. Each firm moves within this space to maximize their profit by using controlling of capital stock and employment. We show that the dynamics of rational firms can be described using a ridge equation. We analytically solve this equation by assuming the extensive Cobb-Douglas production function, and thereby obtain a solution. By comparing the distribution of firms and this solution, we find that almost all of the 1,100 firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo stock exchange and belonging to the manufacturing sector are managed efficiently.

Predictor laws for pictorial flight displays

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Grunwald, A. J.

1985-01-01

Two predictor laws are formulated and analyzed: (1) a circular path law based on constant accelerations perpendicular to the path and (2) a predictor law based on state transition matrix computations. It is shown that for both methods the predictor provides the essential lead zeros for the path-following task. However, in contrast to the circular path law, the state transition matrix law furnishes the system with additional zeros that entirely cancel out the higher-frequency poles of the vehicle dynamics. On the other hand, the circular path law yields a zero steady-state error in following a curved trajectory with a constant radius. A combined predictor law is suggested that utilizes the advantages of both methods. A simple analysis shows that the optimal prediction time mainly depends on the level of precision required in the path-following task, and guidelines for determining the optimal prediction time are given.

Theoretical Perspectives on the Internationalization of Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Rask, Morten; Strandskov, Jesper; Hakonsson, Dorthe Dojbak

2008-01-01

The purpose of this article is to build a coherent framework of the four main theories relating to the internationalization of firms, in order to facilitate better business teaching and research. Yet, theories of the internationalization of firms are broad and rest on different underlying assumptions. With the purpose of clarifying the potential…

Optoelectronics-related competence building in Japanese and Western firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miyazaki, Kumiko

1992-05-01

In this paper, an analysis is made of how different firms in Japan and the West have developed competence related to optoelectronics on the basis of their previous experience and corporate strategies. The sample consists of a set of seven Japanese and four Western firms in the industrial, consumer electronics and materials sectors. Optoelectronics is divided into subfields including optical communications systems, optical fibers, optoelectronic key components, liquid crystal displays, optical disks, and others. The relative strengths and weaknesses of companies in the various subfields are determined using the INSPEC database, from 1976 to 1989. Parallel data are analyzed using OTAF U.S. patent statistics and the two sets of data are compared. The statistical analysis from the database is summarized for firms in each subfield in the form of an intra-firm technology index (IFTI), a new technique introduced to assess the revealed technology advantage of firms. The quantitative evaluation is complemented by results from intensive interviews with the management and scientists of the firms involved. The findings show that there is a marked variation in the way firms' technological trajectories have evolved giving rise to strength in some and weakness in other subfields for the different companies, which are related to their accumulated core competencies, previous core business activities, organizational, marketing, and competitive factors.

The impact of price-cap regulations on market entry by generic pharmaceutical firms.

PubMed

Zhang, Wei; Sun, Huiying; Guh, Daphne; Anis, Aslam H

2017-04-01

In 1998, the province of Ontario, Canada implemented price-cap '70/90' regulations: the first generic must be priced at ≤70% of the associated brand-name price and subsequent generics must be priced at ≤90% of the first generics' price. The price-cap was further lowered to 50% in 2006 and 25% in 2010 for all generic drugs regardless of the first or subsequent generic entrants. This study assessed the impact of such price-cap regulations on market entry by generic firms using the formulary database from 9 provinces (January 2004-March 2013). A logistic regression was estimated to compare the probability of entry during the three policy periods in Ontario ('70/90', '25', versus '50'). Since different price-caps were subsequently introduced in other provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, difference-in-differences was used to compare market entry. In Ontario, compared with the period '50', generic firms were 76% and 63% less likely to enter markets in the periods '25' and '70/90', respectively. The difference-in-differences showed that the entry probability decreased the most in Ontario during the '25' period from the '50' period. Lowering the price-cap level to 25% leads to a significantly lower probability of market entry by generic firms.

How to choose a calving law

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

O'Leary, M.

2014-12-01

Any model of an ocean-terminating ice mass requires a frontal boundary condition, often referred to as a "calving law". The choice of this boundary condition can have complex and poorly-understood effects on the behaviour of the system. Despite this, calving laws are often chosen based on numerical convenience or fashions in the literature. This can often lead to predictions which have "hidden dependencies" on the particular choice of calving law. As an attempt to alleviate this problem, I will show results from a wide variety of calving laws, applied to tidewater glacier scenarios. I will demonstrate how the decadal-scale stability of a tidewater system can put constraints on possible calving laws, and how certain observational phenomena, such as the presence of "pinning points" are largely independent of the choice of calving law. These results can be used by practitioners to decide on appropriate calving laws for the specific problems at hand. They should also be useful to help direct research into new calving laws, and to guide our conception of what an ideal calving law should look like.

Firm productivity, pollution, and output: theory and empirical evidence from China.

PubMed

Tang, Erzi; Zhang, Jingjing; Haider, Zulfiqar

2015-11-01

Using a theoretical model, this paper argues that as firm productivity increases, there is a decrease in firm-level pollution intensity. However, as productivity increases, firms tend to increase their aggregate output, which requires the use of additional resources that increase pollution. Hence, an increase in productivity results in two opposing effects where increased productivity may in fact increase pollution created by a firm. We describe the joint effect of these two mechanisms on pollution emissions as the "productivity dilemma" of pollution emission. Based on firm-level data from China, we also empirically test this productivity dilemma hypothesis. Our empirical results suggest that, in general, firm productivity has a positive and statistically significant impact on pollution emission in China. However, the impact of productivity on pollution becomes negative when we control for increases in firm output. The empirical evidence also confirms the positive influence of productivity on output, which suggests that the main determinant of pollution is the firm's output. The empirical results provide evidence of the existence of, what we describe as, the productivity dilemma of pollution emission.

Archie's law - a reappraisal

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Glover, Paul W. J.

2016-07-01

When scientists apply Archie's first law they often include an extra parameter a, which was introduced about 10 years after the equation's first publication by Winsauer et al. (1952), and which is sometimes called the "tortuosity" or "lithology" parameter. This parameter is not, however, theoretically justified. Paradoxically, the Winsauer et al. (1952) form of Archie's law often performs better than the original, more theoretically correct version. The difference in the cementation exponent calculated from these two forms of Archie's law is important, and can lead to a misestimation of reserves by at least 20 % for typical reservoir parameter values. We have examined the apparent paradox, and conclude that while the theoretical form of the law is correct, the data that we have been analysing with Archie's law have been in error. There are at least three types of systematic error that are present in most measurements: (i) a porosity error, (ii) a pore fluid salinity error, and (iii) a temperature error. Each of these systematic errors is sufficient to ensure that a non-unity value of the parameter a is required in order to fit the electrical data well. Fortunately, the inclusion of this parameter in the fit has compensated for the presence of the systematic errors in the electrical and porosity data, leading to a value of cementation exponent that is correct. The exceptions are those cementation exponents that have been calculated for individual core plugs. We make a number of recommendations for reducing the systematic errors that contribute to the problem and suggest that the value of the parameter a may now be used as an indication of data quality.

48 CFR 519.7008 - Selection of protégé firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS GSA Mentor-Protégé Program 519.7008 Selection of protégé firms. (a) Mentor firms will be solely responsible for selecting protégé firms. Mentors are encouraged to... subcontractor or a newly selected subcontractor for the prime contractor's GSA contract. (b) Mentor firms may...

Box-Cox transformation of firm size data in statistical analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Ting Ting; Takaishi, Tetsuya

2014-03-01

Firm size data usually do not show the normality that is often assumed in statistical analysis such as regression analysis. In this study we focus on two firm size data: the number of employees and sale. Those data deviate considerably from a normal distribution. To improve the normality of those data we transform them by the Box-Cox transformation with appropriate parameters. The Box-Cox transformation parameters are determined so that the transformed data best show the kurtosis of a normal distribution. It is found that the two firm size data transformed by the Box-Cox transformation show strong linearity. This indicates that the number of employees and sale have the similar property as a firm size indicator. The Box-Cox parameters obtained for the firm size data are found to be very close to zero. In this case the Box-Cox transformations are approximately a log-transformation. This suggests that the firm size data we used are approximately log-normal distributions.

48 CFR 52.216-16 - Incentive Price Revision-Firm Target.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

...-Firm Target. 52.216-16 Section 52.216-16 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION... Clauses 52.216-16 Incentive Price Revision—Firm Target. As prescribed in 16.406(a), insert the following clause: Incentive Price Revision—Firm Target (OCT 1997) (a) General. The supplies or services identified...

48 CFR 52.216-16 - Incentive Price Revision-Firm Target.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

...-Firm Target. 52.216-16 Section 52.216-16 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION... Clauses 52.216-16 Incentive Price Revision—Firm Target. As prescribed in 16.406(a), insert the following clause: Incentive Price Revision—Firm Target (OCT 1997) (a) General. The supplies or services identified...

78 FR 41298 - Children's Products Containing Lead; Procedures and Requirements for Exclusions From Lead Limits...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-07-10

... changes mandated by Public Law 112-28. DATES: Effective Date: July 10, 2013. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION... Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814; email: [email protected] ; telephone: 301-504-7632. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION... section by removing the excessive lead or by making the lead inaccessible; (B) The product, class of...

Creating the most frightening company on earth. An interview with Andy Law of St. Luke's. Interview by Diane L. Coutu.

PubMed

Law, A

2000-01-01

Though only five years old, employee-owned St. Luke's Communications has become one of the most talked about advertising agencies in the United Kingdom, winning numerous awards--though it doesn't enter contests--and increasing its profits eightfold. Chairman and cofounder Andy Law attributes the firm's success to its determination to continuously reinvent itself in a world populated by dot-coms and mega-ad agencies. St Luke's intends to revolutionize the way business is done and provide a credible alternative to the capitalism of both the old economy and the new. To that end, it pushes its people to take enormous risks. As Law says in this candid interview, "We're fundamentally convinced that there is a connection between co-ownership, creativity, collaboration, and competitive advantage." In this interview, Law comments on topics ranging from dot-coms--he calls them old-fashioned--to the hazards of St. Luke's environment. "When I see ... paranoia," he says, "it's a sign there's been too much change." Along the way, he provides concrete examples of how St. Luke's fosters its brand of "confrontative, angry creativity" and manages an organization that is run "like a radical democracy." Safety and fear play key roles. No one has ever been fired for poor performance, so employees can feel secure about their jobs, but the firm requires people "to peel away all the levels of their personalities.... That's truly frightening." Self-knowledge, Law says, "is the DNA of a creative company in the creative age."

Transsexualism and the law.

PubMed

Green, R

1994-01-01

Transsexuals pose dilemmas for the law in (a) defining a male or a female; (b) deciding what partners are legally acceptable for marriage; (c) assessing the best interests of children after divorce; (d) interpreting employment discrimination based on gender or handicap; (e) permitting public cross dressing; (f) reviewing third-party reimbursement for medical procedures that may be deemed cosmetic or experimental; (g) determining eligibility for sports competition; (h) meeting military needs; and (i) determining socially and medically acceptable treatment in prison. Leading law cases are reviewed in each area, with commentary on relevant research findings.

Effect of Different Levels of Pressure Relieving Air-Mattress Firmness on Cough Strength.

PubMed

Kamikawa, Norimichi; Taito, Shunsuke; Takahashi, Makoto; Sekikawa, Kiyokazu; Hamada, Hironobu

2016-01-01

Cough is an important host-defense mechanism. The elderly and patients who are severely ill cannot cough effectively when lying in the supine position. Furthermore, pressure relieving air-mattresses are recommended for preventing the development of pressure ulcers. In this study, we clarified whether or not the cough peak flow (CPF), an index of cough strength, is affected by different firmness levels of a pressure relieving air-mattress in healthy volunteers in the supine position. Fifty-two healthy young men participated. All the measurements were carried out on each participant in the supine position on a pressure relieving air-mattress. The participants were assessed at two firmness levels, a "hard" and "soft" mode. The CPF, forced vital capacity (FVC), maximal expiratory pressure (PEmax), and maximal inspiratory pressure (PImax) were determined for each mode. The sinking distance of the body into the mattress was measured without any activity and the difference between the sinking distances of the two firmness levels was determined. The CPF, FVC, PEmax, and PImax were determined for each mode. The sinking distance of the body into the mattress was measured and the difference between the sinking distances of the two firmness levels was determined. The CPF, FVC, PEmax and PImax values of the participants coughing on the mattress were significantly lower when the mattress was in "soft" than in "hard" mode. The differences between the sinking distances of the mattress in "soft" and "hard" modes were larger for the anterior superior iliac spine. A harder mattress may lead to increased CPF in healthy young men lying in the supine position, and increased CPF may be important for host defense.

Benford's Law: textbook exercises and multiple-choice testbanks.

PubMed

Slepkov, Aaron D; Ironside, Kevin B; DiBattista, David

2015-01-01

Benford's Law describes the finding that the distribution of leading (or leftmost) digits of innumerable datasets follows a well-defined logarithmic trend, rather than an intuitive uniformity. In practice this means that the most common leading digit is 1, with an expected frequency of 30.1%, and the least common is 9, with an expected frequency of 4.6%. Currently, the most common application of Benford's Law is in detecting number invention and tampering such as found in accounting-, tax-, and voter-fraud. We demonstrate that answers to end-of-chapter exercises in physics and chemistry textbooks conform to Benford's Law. Subsequently, we investigate whether this fact can be used to gain advantage over random guessing in multiple-choice tests, and find that while testbank answers in introductory physics closely conform to Benford's Law, the testbank is nonetheless secure against such a Benford's attack for banal reasons.

Safe leads and lead changes in competitive team sports.

PubMed

Clauset, A; Kogan, M; Redner, S

2015-06-01

We investigate the time evolution of lead changes within individual games of competitive team sports. Exploiting ideas from the theory of random walks, the number of lead changes within a single game follows a Gaussian distribution. We show that the probability that the last lead change and the time of the largest lead size are governed by the same arcsine law, a bimodal distribution that diverges at the start and at the end of the game. We also determine the probability that a given lead is "safe" as a function of its size L and game time t. Our predictions generally agree with comprehensive data on more than 1.25 million scoring events in roughly 40,000 games across four professional or semiprofessional team sports, and are more accurate than popular heuristics currently used in sports analytics.

Safe leads and lead changes in competitive team sports

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Clauset, A.; Kogan, M.; Redner, S.

2015-06-01

We investigate the time evolution of lead changes within individual games of competitive team sports. Exploiting ideas from the theory of random walks, the number of lead changes within a single game follows a Gaussian distribution. We show that the probability that the last lead change and the time of the largest lead size are governed by the same arcsine law, a bimodal distribution that diverges at the start and at the end of the game. We also determine the probability that a given lead is "safe" as a function of its size L and game time t . Our predictions generally agree with comprehensive data on more than 1.25 million scoring events in roughly 40 000 games across four professional or semiprofessional team sports, and are more accurate than popular heuristics currently used in sports analytics.

ICT, complementary investment, and firm performance in China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sun, Linlin; Ding, Juan; Fan, Maoqing

2011-12-01

Using China firm data about ICT, we provide some insight into the link between ICT, productivity and complementary investment. The results show that the contribution of ICT capital deepening is raised when firms combine ICT use and some complementary investment (human capital, innovation and organization change).

Will Green CSR Enhance Innovation? A Perspective of Public Visibility and Firm Transparency.

PubMed

Wu, Weiwei; Liu, Yexin; Chin, Tachia; Zhu, Wenzhong

2018-02-04

In response to the asking and requiring of stakeholders to be more environmentally responsible, firms must commit to green corporate social responsibility (CSR). Firms being green and responsible always can acquire intangible resources that are important for firm innovation. Given the scarcity of existing research addressing relevant issues in depth, this paper expands our understanding of green CSR by revealing its antecedent effects on firm innovation performance. We also include public visibility and firm transparency as contingency factors to explore the relationship between green CSR and firm innovation performance. Using data collected from publicly listed firms in China, we find that greater innovation performance is associated with an increase in firm green CSR, and the positive relationship between green CSR and innovation performance is moderated by public visibility and firm transparency. Based on the results, theoretical contributions and practical implications are outlined.

Beefing up operations in service firms.

PubMed

Chase, R B; Hayes, R H

1991-01-01

Many articles exhort service firm managers to empower workers and first-line supervisors, exploit technology, focus on the customer, and, above all, provide outstanding service. This article proposes a framework to help you evaluate your company's competitive standing in each of these areas. It discusses four types of companies on a continuum, from the company that is simply "available for service" to the firm that delivers world class service. The authors focus on operations, the function that controls the service encounter, and apply the manufacturing strategy paradigm to services as a means of implementing change.

Does microblogging convey firm-specific information? Evidence from China

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Shen, Dehua; Li, Xiao; Xue, Mei; Zhang, Wei

2017-09-01

This paper investigates the impact of opening microblogging account in Sina Weibo on the diffusion of firm-specific information in Chinese stock market. With the unique sample of firms opening their official accounts, the empirical results show that this newly emerged information diffusion channel, i.e., Sina Weibo, plays an important role in conveying firm-specific information to the market. Generally speaking, these empirical findings have practical implications to securities regulators who have interest in monitoring the diffused information via social media.

39 CFR 281.1 - Notification of firm mailers.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... customer services at the office of mailing to give known mailers timely notification of the incident and... 39 Postal Service 1 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Notification of firm mailers. 281.1 Section 281.1 Postal Service UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION FIRM MAILINGS DAMAGED OR...

Will Green CSR Enhance Innovation? A Perspective of Public Visibility and Firm Transparency

PubMed Central

Wu, Weiwei; Liu, Yexin; Chin, Tachia; Zhu, Wenzhong

2018-01-01

In response to the asking and requiring of stakeholders to be more environmentally responsible, firms must commit to green corporate social responsibility (CSR). Firms being green and responsible always can acquire intangible resources that are important for firm innovation. Given the scarcity of existing research addressing relevant issues in depth, this paper expands our understanding of green CSR by revealing its antecedent effects on firm innovation performance. We also include public visibility and firm transparency as contingency factors to explore the relationship between green CSR and firm innovation performance. Using data collected from publicly listed firms in China, we find that greater innovation performance is associated with an increase in firm green CSR, and the positive relationship between green CSR and innovation performance is moderated by public visibility and firm transparency. Based on the results, theoretical contributions and practical implications are outlined. PMID:29401714

It's Time to Redefine Moore's Law Again

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

DeBenedictis, Erik P.

The familiar story of Moore's law is actually inaccurate. Here, this article corrects the story, leading to different projections for the future. Moore's law is a fluid idea whose definition changes over time. It thus doesn't have the ability to "end," as is popularly reported, but merely takes different forms as the semiconductor and computer industries evolve.

It's Time to Redefine Moore's Law Again

DOE PAGES

DeBenedictis, Erik P.

2017-02-06

The familiar story of Moore's law is actually inaccurate. Here, this article corrects the story, leading to different projections for the future. Moore's law is a fluid idea whose definition changes over time. It thus doesn't have the ability to "end," as is popularly reported, but merely takes different forms as the semiconductor and computer industries evolve.

Educational Competencies That Mid-Sized CPA Firms Value in Their Professional Accounting Staff

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Margheim, Loren; Hora, Judith A.; Pattison, Diane

2010-01-01

This study examined the educational competencies mid-sized accounting firm partners value in their professional staff when making promotion decisions to senior, manager, and partner. Mid-sized firms were defined in this study to include all of the non-Big 4 national firms, the large regional CPA firms, and several large local firms. Over 1,380…

Is Transfer of Training Related to Firm Performance?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Saks, Alan M.; Burke-Smalley, Lisa A.

2014-01-01

The purpose of this study was to bridge the gap between micro-training research on the transfer of training and macro-training research on training and firm performance by testing the relationship between transfer of training and firm performance. Training and development professionals completed a survey about the training methods used in their…

Environmental performance, profitability, asset utilization, debt monitoring and firm value

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bukit, R. Br; Haryanto, B.; Ginting, P.

2018-02-01

The growing issue on firm value shows that firm value is not only determined by the firm ability to increase financial profit, but also by the company's concern in maintaining the environmental condition. The industrial development produces waste that pollutes the environment that has potential to serious impact on the next life. In addition to provide financial benefits, companies are increasingly facing pressure to be socially responsible for the survival of the company. However, past findings demonstrate that the effect of environmental performance, profitability, and asset utilization to the firm’s value are still unclear. This study aims to test whether environmental performance, firm profitability and asset utilization can effectively enhance firm value in two different conditions: intensive debt monitoring and less intensive debt monitoring. Sample of companies is taken from the list of Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period of 2013 to 2015. Using multiple regression analysis, discloses that: in intensive monitoring, managers tend to have high firm value when company has high environmental performance and or high profitability and high asset utilization. Monitoring system needs to be intensified especially for companies with the above characteristics.

[Micro-simulation of firms' heterogeneity on pollution intensity and regional characteristics].

PubMed

Zhao, Nan; Liu, Yi; Chen, Ji-Ning

2009-11-01

In the same industrial sector, heterogeneity of pollution intensity exists among firms. There are some errors if using sector's average pollution intensity, which are calculated by limited number of firms in environmental statistic database to represent the sector's regional economic-environmental status. Based on the production function which includes environmental depletion as input, a micro-simulation model on firms' operational decision making is proposed. Then the heterogeneity of firms' pollution intensity can be mechanically described. Taking the mechanical manufacturing sector in Deyang city, 2005 as the case, the model's parameters were estimated. And the actual COD emission intensities of environmental statistic firms can be properly matched by the simulation. The model's results also show that the regional average COD emission intensity calculated by the environmental statistic firms (0.002 6 t per 10 000 yuan fixed asset, 0.001 5 t per 10 000 yuan production value) is lower than the regional average intensity calculated by all the firms in the region (0.003 0 t per 10 000 yuan fixed asset, 0.002 3 t per 10 000 yuan production value). The difference among average intensities in the six counties is significant as well. These regional characteristics of pollution intensity attribute to the sector's inner-structure (firms' scale distribution, technology distribution) and its spatial deviation.

Effect of Different Levels of Pressure Relieving Air-Mattress Firmness on Cough Strength

PubMed Central

Kamikawa, Norimichi; Taito, Shunsuke; Takahashi, Makoto; Sekikawa, Kiyokazu; Hamada, Hironobu

2016-01-01

Cough is an important host-defense mechanism. The elderly and patients who are severely ill cannot cough effectively when lying in the supine position. Furthermore, pressure relieving air-mattresses are recommended for preventing the development of pressure ulcers. In this study, we clarified whether or not the cough peak flow (CPF), an index of cough strength, is affected by different firmness levels of a pressure relieving air-mattress in healthy volunteers in the supine position. Fifty-two healthy young men participated. All the measurements were carried out on each participant in the supine position on a pressure relieving air-mattress. The participants were assessed at two firmness levels, a “hard” and “soft” mode. The CPF, forced vital capacity (FVC), maximal expiratory pressure (PEmax), and maximal inspiratory pressure (PImax) were determined for each mode. The sinking distance of the body into the mattress was measured without any activity and the difference between the sinking distances of the two firmness levels was determined. The CPF, FVC, PEmax, and PImax were determined for each mode. The sinking distance of the body into the mattress was measured and the difference between the sinking distances of the two firmness levels was determined. The CPF, FVC, PEmax and PImax values of the participants coughing on the mattress were significantly lower when the mattress was in “soft” than in “hard” mode. The differences between the sinking distances of the mattress in “soft” and “hard” modes were larger for the anterior superior iliac spine. A harder mattress may lead to increased CPF in healthy young men lying in the supine position, and increased CPF may be important for host defense. PMID:26741497

Social firms: sustainable employment for people with mental illness.

PubMed

Williams, Anne; Fossey, Ellie; Harvey, Carol

2012-01-01

Social firms or enterprises aim to offer sustainable employment in supportive workplaces for people who are disadvantaged in the labour market. Therefore, this study sought to explore employees' views in one social firm about the features of their workplace that they found supportive. Seven employees were recruited, all of whom experienced persistent mental illness, and had worked in this social firm for between eleven months and six years. A semi-structured interview, the Work Environment Impact Scale (version 2.0), was used to explore participants' views of their workplace and to rate how its physical and social characteristics impacted them. Participants also rated their job satisfaction with a modified Indiana Job Satisfaction Scale. Features of the social firm workplace identified by these employees as contributing to their sustained employment and satisfaction were the rewards, task demands, work schedule, and workplace interactions with supervisors and other co-workers. From their views, guiding principles for the development of supportive workplaces and evaluation of their capacity to afford sustainable employment were derived. This study adds to current knowledge about workplace supports from an employee perspective, and is of relevance for informing future social firm development, workplace design and evaluation.

Ontology-Based Model Of Firm Competitiveness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deliyska, Boryana; Stoenchev, Nikolay

2010-10-01

Competitiveness is important characteristics of each business organization (firm, company, corporation etc). It is of great significance for the organization existence and defines evaluation criteria of business success at microeconomical level. Each criterium comprises set of indicators with specific weight coefficients. In the work an ontology-based model of firm competitiveness is presented as a set of several mutually connected ontologies. It would be useful for knowledge structuring, standardization and sharing among experts and software engineers who develop application in the domain. Then the assessment of the competitiveness of various business organizations could be generated more effectively.

Control Law for Automatic Landing Using Fuzzy Logic Control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Akio; Inagaki, Yoshiki

The effectiveness of fuzzy logic control law for automatic landing of aircraft, which cover both of control to lead aircraft from level flight at an altitude of 500m to the flight on the glide-path course near the runway and control for the aircraft to land smoothly on a runway, was studied. The control law of the automatic landing was designed to match the design goals of leading from the horizontal flight to the flight on the glide-path course quickly and smoothly and of landing smoothly on a runway. Because there is the ground effect at landing, design of control law and evaluation of control performance were done in consideration of the ground effect. As a result, it was confirmed that the design objective was achieved. Even if the characteristics of the plant changes greatly, this control law was able to maintain the control performance. Moreover, it was confirmed to be able to land safely when there was air turbulence. This paper shows that fuzzy logic control is an effective and flexible method when applied to control law for automatic landing and the design method of control law using fuzzy logic control was obtained.

Two-Production-Period in a Duopoly with Nonprofit and For-Profit Firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ferreira, Fernanda A.

2010-09-01

We investigate endogenous roles in a competition between a nonprofit firm and a for-profit firm in a homogeneous goods market, by allowing two production periods. We find that the Cournot-type equilibrium and one Stackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the follower exist; however, another tackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the leader does not exist.

Input output scaling relations in Italian manufacturing firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bottazzi, Giulio; Grazzi, Marco; Secchi, Angelo

2005-09-01

Recent analyses on different database have proposed some regularities with respect to size and growth rates distribution of firms. In this work we explore some basic properties of the dynamics of productivity in Italian manufacturing firms. We investigate relations between different inputs and output examining the impact of productivity in shaping the pattern of corporates evolution.

48 CFR 16.403-1 - Fixed-price incentive (firm target) contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... (firm target) contracts. 16.403-1 Section 16.403-1 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL... Fixed-price incentive (firm target) contracts. (a) Description. A fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract specifies a target cost, a target profit, a price ceiling (but not a profit ceiling or floor), and...

48 CFR 16.403-1 - Fixed-price incentive (firm target) contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... (firm target) contracts. 16.403-1 Section 16.403-1 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL... Fixed-price incentive (firm target) contracts. (a) Description. A fixed-price incentive (firm target) contract specifies a target cost, a target profit, a price ceiling (but not a profit ceiling or floor), and...

A Universal Rank-Size Law

PubMed Central

2016-01-01

A mere hyperbolic law, like the Zipf’s law power function, is often inadequate to describe rank-size relationships. An alternative theoretical distribution is proposed based on theoretical physics arguments starting from the Yule-Simon distribution. A modeling is proposed leading to a universal form. A theoretical suggestion for the “best (or optimal) distribution”, is provided through an entropy argument. The ranking of areas through the number of cities in various countries and some sport competition ranking serves for the present illustrations. PMID:27812192

Public Health and Law Collaboration: The Philadelphia Lead Court Study

PubMed Central

Gracely, Ed; Pan, Sarah; Cummings, Curtis; Palermo, Peter; Gould, George

2013-01-01

Objectives. We determined whether Philadelphia Lead Court is effective in enforcing lead hazard remediation in the homes of children with elevated blood lead levels. Methods. We created a deidentified data set for properties with an initial failed home inspection (IFHI) for lead hazards from January 1, 1998, through December 31, 2008, and compared compliance rates within the first year and time to compliance for lead hazard remediation between 1998 and 2002 (precourt period) and between 2003 and 2008 (court period). We evaluated predictors of time to compliance. Results. Within 1 year of the IFHI, 6.6% of the precourt and 76.8% of the court cases achieved compliance (P < .001) for the 3764 homes with data. Four years after the IFHI, 18% had attained compliance in the precourt period compared with 83.1% for the court period (P < .001). A proportional hazard analysis found that compliance was 8 times more likely in the court than the precourt period (P < .001). Conclusions. Lead court was more effective than precourt enforcement strategies. Most properties were remediated within 1 year of the IFHI, and time to compliance was significantly reduced. This model court could be replicated in other cities with similar enforcement problems. PMID:23678927

The Jumping Ring and Lenz's Law--An Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bostock-Smith, J. M.

2008-01-01

Lenz's law is sometimes invoked to explain the behaviour of the jumping, or levitating, ring. This is shown to be incomplete, and an alternative explanation using Faraday's laws and circuit analysis is offered. This leads to the choice of optimum material and dimensions for the ring. (Contains 1 table and 4 figures.)

13 CFR 120.173 - Lead-based paint.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false Lead-based paint. 120.173 Section... to All Business Loans Requirements Imposed Under Other Laws and Orders § 120.173 Lead-based paint. If loan proceeds are for the construction or rehabilitation of a residential structure, lead-based paint...

13 CFR 120.173 - Lead-based paint.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false Lead-based paint. 120.173 Section... to All Business Loans Requirements Imposed Under Other Laws and Orders § 120.173 Lead-based paint. If loan proceeds are for the construction or rehabilitation of a residential structure, lead-based paint...

13 CFR 120.173 - Lead-based paint.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Lead-based paint. 120.173 Section... to All Business Loans Requirements Imposed Under Other Laws and Orders § 120.173 Lead-based paint. If loan proceeds are for the construction or rehabilitation of a residential structure, lead-based paint...

13 CFR 120.173 - Lead-based paint.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Lead-based paint. 120.173 Section... to All Business Loans Requirements Imposed Under Other Laws and Orders § 120.173 Lead-based paint. If loan proceeds are for the construction or rehabilitation of a residential structure, lead-based paint...

Efficiency and Productivity Analysis of Multidivisional Firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gong, Binlei

Multidivisional firms are those who have footprints in multiple segments and hence using multiple technologies to convert inputs to outputs, which makes it difficult to estimate the resource allocations, aggregated production functions, and technical efficiencies of this type of companies. This dissertation aims to explore and reveal such unobserved information by several parametric and semiparametric stochastic frontier analyses and some other structural models. In the empirical study, this dissertation analyzes the productivity and efficiency for firms in the global oilfield market.

Law Firms and Public Libraries.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Fong, Colin

1997-01-01

Summarizes sources of legal information in New South Wales and outlines the libraries' driving motivations, access policies, and practices. Also highlights the important value-added service professional library staff contribute to both the quality and quantity of information delivery in this discipline. (Author/AEF)

Strengthening seat belt use laws

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

1996-09-01

Traffic crashes are a leading cause : of death in the United States. : Wearing seat belts is the easiest and : most effective way of cutting the : highway death tolland strong : occupant protection laws are the most : effective way of increasing s...

A database linking Chinese patents to China’s census firms

PubMed Central

He, Zi-Lin; Tong, Tony W.; Zhang, Yuchen; He, Wenlong

2018-01-01

To meet researchers’ increasing interest in the fast growing innovation activities taking place in China, we match patents filed with China’s State Intellectual Property Office to firms covered in China’s Census. China has experienced a strong growth in patent filings over the past two decades, and has since 2011 become the world’s top patent filing country. China’s Census database covers about one million unique manufacturing firms from 1998–2009, representing the broad Chinese economy. We design data parsing and pre-processing routines to clean and stem firm and assignee names, create a matching algorithm that fits with our data and maintains a balance between matching accuracy and workload of manual check, and implement a systematic manual check process to filter out false positives generated from computerized matching. Our project generates 1,113,588 matches for the Census firms, among which 849,647 patents are uniquely matched. By creating the patent-firm linked dataset, we hope to reduce duplicative effort and encourage more research to better understand China’s fast changing innovation landscape. PMID:29583142

Benford’s Law: Textbook Exercises and Multiple-Choice Testbanks

PubMed Central

Slepkov, Aaron D.; Ironside, Kevin B.; DiBattista, David

2015-01-01

Benford’s Law describes the finding that the distribution of leading (or leftmost) digits of innumerable datasets follows a well-defined logarithmic trend, rather than an intuitive uniformity. In practice this means that the most common leading digit is 1, with an expected frequency of 30.1%, and the least common is 9, with an expected frequency of 4.6%. Currently, the most common application of Benford’s Law is in detecting number invention and tampering such as found in accounting-, tax-, and voter-fraud. We demonstrate that answers to end-of-chapter exercises in physics and chemistry textbooks conform to Benford’s Law. Subsequently, we investigate whether this fact can be used to gain advantage over random guessing in multiple-choice tests, and find that while testbank answers in introductory physics closely conform to Benford’s Law, the testbank is nonetheless secure against such a Benford’s attack for banal reasons. PMID:25689468

The environmental actions of firms: examining the role of spillovers, networks and absorptive capacity.

PubMed

Albornoz, Facundo; Cole, Matthew A; Elliott, Robert J R; Ercolani, Marco G

2014-12-15

In the light of climate uncertainty and growing concern for the natural environment, an increasingly important aspect of global business is the environmental behaviour of firms. In this paper we consider the factors that influence firms' environmental actions (EAs). Our study of Argentinean firms concentrates on measures of environmental spillovers, informal and formal networks and absorptive capacity by testing four related hypotheses. We find that foreign-owned firms, large firms and those with a greater capacity to assimilate new environmental technologies are more likely to adopt EAs. We also show that formal and informal networks aid the adoption of EAs in the presence of traditional firm-level spillovers. Finally, we show that foreign-owned firms have different motives to domestic firms for undertaking EAs. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

48 CFR 819.7107 - Selection of Protégé firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS VA Mentor-Protégé Program 819.7107 Selection of Protégé firms. (a) Mentor firms will be solely responsible for selecting protégé firms. Mentors are encouraged to.... (b) Mentors may have multiple protégés. However, to preserve the integrity of the Program and assure...

Threshold law for positron-atom impact ionisation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Temkin, A.

1982-01-01

The threshold law for ionisation of atoms by positron impact is adduced in analogy with our approach to the electron-atom ionization. It is concluded the Coulomb-dipole region of the potential gives the essential part of the interaction in both cases and leads to the same kind of result: a modulated linear law. An additional process which enters positron ionization is positronium formation in the continuum, but that will not dominate the threshold yield. The result is in sharp contrast to the positron threshold law as recently derived by Klar on the basis of a Wannier-type analysis.

The Law of Higher Education, 1997 Supplement. Third Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kaplin, William A.; Lee, Barbara A.

This 1997 supplement to "The Law of Higher Education: A Comprehensive Guide to Lead Implications of Administrative Decision Making, Third Edition" (1995) (ED 383 256), includes discussions of court opinions, statutes, regulations, and related developments, and cites selected law journal articles, books, and other resources concerning the legal…

Social firms: a means for building employment skills and community integration.

PubMed

Lysaght, Rosemary; Jakobsen, Klara; Granhaug, Birgit

2012-01-01

Social firms are widely used in Europe as a means of affirmatively creating employment opportunities and training for employment challenged groups. These commercial businesses produce, market and sell goods and services to the public while providing opportunities for productive engagement, increased incomes, and social integration for their employees. This article presents a case study of a Norwegian social firm that was created to improve employment and functional outcomes for workers with mental health disabilities and addictions. The case illustrates one model of social firm, and is used as the foundation for discussion of the relative contributions of social firms to employment outcomes for people who are marginalized in the labour market. The social firm represented a major change in philosophy and operations for mental health service provision in the local municipality. Numbers of individuals served increased dramatically, and changes were observed in the extent and nature of participant daily involvement, and in outcomes achieved. This model brings participants into contact with the public, and has served to break down barriers and reduce stigma. Social firms represent a viable alternative for creating employment options and training and for enhancing social integration of people with mental health disabilities.

Hunting for a headhunter. How to select a physician search firm.

PubMed

Walker, R

1989-05-01

Many healthcare facilities in search of a physician are bombarded with offers from physician search firms to drum up potential candidates. Determining which firm has the right stuff for the job takes considerable time and skill. More than 60 companies belong to the National Association of Physician Recruiters, and their methods, policies, and results may vary widely. Administrators can begin getting basic information by contacting firms and requesting written material. During the initial telephone call, the administrator in charge of the search should speak with a consultant or principal of the firm (whoever would be doing the search) and find out what experience that person has had with searches for facilities in similar geographical areas, his or her success in placing physicians who specialize in the specialty needed, how many searches the consultant undertakes at one time, whether the firm guarantees its services, and an outline of its fee structure. After evaluating written material, the administrator should choose two or three search firms to make personal presentations. These presentations should follow a logical sequence and include statistics, completion times, ratios, and specific deadlines for various parts of the search process.

Firm Size and Skill Formation Processes: An Emerging Debate

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bishop, Daniel

2012-01-01

Recent research has established that small firms tend to develop and acquire the skills they need in different ways to those employed by larger organisations. More specifically, due to certain characteristics inherent to their small size, small firms generally display greater informality in their learning processes. As such, it is now broadly…

Benford's Law for Quality Assurance of Manner of Death Counts in Small and Large Databases.

PubMed

Daniels, Jeremy; Caetano, Samantha-Jo; Huyer, Dirk; Stephen, Andrew; Fernandes, John; Lytwyn, Alice; Hoppe, Fred M

2017-09-01

To assess if Benford's law, a mathematical law used for quality assurance in accounting, can be applied as a quality assurance measure for the manner of death determination. We examined a regional forensic pathology service's monthly manner of death counts (N = 2352) from 2011 to 2013, and provincial monthly and weekly death counts from 2009 to 2013 (N = 81,831). We tested whether each dataset's leading digit followed Benford's law via the chi-square test. For each database, we assessed whether number 1 was the most common leading digit. The manner of death counts first digit followed Benford's law in all the three datasets. Two of the three datasets had 1 as the most frequent leading digit. The manner of death data in this study showed qualities consistent with Benford's law. The law has potential as a quality assurance metric in the manner of death determination for both small and large databases. © 2017 American Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Modified circular velocity law

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Djeghloul, Nazim

2018-05-01

A modified circular velocity law is presented for a test body orbiting around a spherically symmetric mass. This law exhibits a distance scale parameter and allows to recover both usual Newtonian behaviour for lower distances and a constant velocity limit at large scale. Application to the Galaxy predicts the known behaviour and also leads to a galactic mass in accordance with the measured visible stellar mass so that additional dark matter inside the Galaxy can be avoided. It is also shown that this circular velocity law can be embedded in a geometrical description of spacetime within the standard general relativity framework upon relaxing the usual asymptotic flatness condition. This formulation allows to redefine the introduced Newtonian scale limit in term of the central mass exclusively. Moreover, a satisfactory answer to the galactic escape speed problem can be provided indicating the possibility that one can also get rid of dark matter halo outside the Galaxy.

Firm performance and the role of environmental management.

PubMed

Lundgren, Tommy; Zhou, Wenchao

2017-12-01

This paper analyzes the interactions between three dimensions of firm performance - productivity, energy efficiency, and environmental performance - and especially sheds light on the role of environmental management. In this context, environmental management is investments to reduce environmental impact, which may also affect firm competitiveness, in terms of change in productivity, and spur more (or less) efficient use of energy. We apply data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique to calculate the Malmquist firm performance indexes, and a panel vector auto-regression (VAR) methodology is utilized to investigate the dynamic and causal relationship between the three dimensions of firm performance and environmental investment. Main results show that energy efficiency and environmental performance are integrated, and energy efficiency and productivity positively reinforce each other, signifying the cost saving property of more efficient use of energy. Hence, increasing energy efficiency, as advocated in many of today's energy policies, could capture multiple benefits. The results also show that improved environmental performance and environmental investments constrain next period productivity, a result that would be in contrast with the Porter hypothesis and strategic corporate social responsibility; both concepts conveying the notion that pro-environmental management can boost productivity and competitiveness. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Determinants of Successful Training Practices in Large Australian Firms.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dawe, Susan

The determinants of successful training practices in large Australian firms were examined. The study's three phases were as follows: (1) a review of existing literature; (2) a meta-analysis of previously conducted case studies of 49 large Australian firms in 14 industrial sectors; and (3) a comparative analysis of the findings of the past studies…

Firm Size, Ownership, Training Duration and Training Evaluation Practices

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Asadullah, Muhammad Ali; Peretti, Jean Marie; Ali, Arain Ghulam; Bourgain, Marina

2015-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to test the mediating role of training duration in relationship between firm characteristics and training evaluation practices. In this paper, the authors also investigated if this mediating effect differs with respect to the size of the firm. Design/methodology/approach: The authors collected data from 260…

48 CFR 2936.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 2936.209 Section 2936.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF LABOR GENERAL CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 2936.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. As...

48 CFR 2936.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 2936.209 Section 2936.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF LABOR GENERAL CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 2936.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. As...

48 CFR 1536.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... architect-engineer firms. 1536.209 Section 1536.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 1536.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. (a...

48 CFR 2936.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 2936.209 Section 2936.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF LABOR GENERAL CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 2936.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. As...

48 CFR 2936.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 2936.209 Section 2936.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF LABOR GENERAL CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 2936.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. As...

Advance directives for euthanasia in dementia: do law-based opportunities lead to more euthanasia?

PubMed

de Boer, Marike E; Dröes, Rose-Marie; Jonker, Cees; Eefsting, Jan A; Hertogh, Cees M P M

2010-12-01

To obtain insight into current practices regarding compliance with advance directives for euthanasia (ADEs) in cases of incompetent patients with dementia in Dutch nursing homes, in light of the legal possibility offered by the new euthanasia law to perform euthanasia in these cases. A written questionnaire was completed by 434 elderly care physicians (ECPs). Over the years 2005-2006, many ECPs took care of patients with dementia and an ADE, actual life termination of these patients took place very rarely and never in incompetent patients. ECPs reported practical difficulties in determining the 'unbearableness' of the suffering and choosing the right moment of carrying out the ADE. Although the enactment of the Dutch euthanasia law in theory provided a window of opportunity for euthanasia in incompetent patients with dementia and an ADE, it has not led to obvious changes in compliance with ADEs of this patient group in practice. Crucial in the reticent attitudes of ECPs appears to be the impossibility of patient-physician communication. This raises questions on the feasibility of the law on this point. In our opinion, the role of ADEs in end-of-life care of patients with advanced dementia in the Netherlands deserves serious reconsideration. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contingent feasibility for forest carbon credit: evidence from South Korean firms.

PubMed

Roh, TaeWoo; Koo, Ja-Choon; Cho, Dong-Sung; Youn, Yeo-Chang

2014-11-01

Under the Kyoto Protocol, a global governmental response to climate change, protocol signatories make an effort to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. South Korea is not included in the list of Annex I countries; yet, South Korea is the seventh highest emitter of CO2. The South Korean government has enacted various institutional policies to encourage greenhouse gas reductions. While previous studies have focused on the guidance that reflects the stance of suppliers in the carbon market, this study focuses on South Korean firms' actual demand for forest carbon credits. By applying the contingent valuation method, we estimated domestic firms' willingness to pay for forest carbon credits. We then applied a rank-ordered logistic regression to confirm whether the rank of forest carbon credits, as compared to any other carbon credit, is influenced by a firm's characteristics. The results showed that Korean firms are willing to pay 5.45 USD/tCO2 and 7.77 USD/tCO2 for forest carbon credits in domestic and overseas forest carbon projects, respectively. Therefore, the introduction of forest carbon credits in the Korean carbon market seems reasonable. Analysis of the priority rankings of forest carbon credits, however, demonstrated that forestry projects were least likely to be ranked by firms as their first priority. Although relative preferences for forest carbon credits were influenced by individual firms' characteristics such as prior experience of environmental CSR related activities and whether the firm established an emissions reduction plan, the impact of perceived behavior control, whether the firm was included in the emissions target management scheme on forest carbon credits was negligible. Therefore, forest carbon credits are not a feasible solution without strong government support or institutional instruments. The results of this study are expected to provide policy makers with realistic approaches to formulate climatic change-related policies. Copyright © 2014

Productivity and safety in worker cooperatives and conventional firms.

PubMed

Grunberg, L; Everard, J; O'Toole, M

1984-01-01

This paper examines the relationship between productivity and workers' safety in firms characterized by very different types of relations in production. Arguments are developed to explain why worker cooperatives are expected to have higher productivity and lower accident rates than conventional capitalist firms. Workers who own and control their firms are expected to have a greater incentive to be efficient and a greater ability to safeguard their health than workers employed under hierarchical and alienating conditions. The hypotheses are tested by comparing carefully matched conventional and cooperative plywood companies. Preliminary results suggest that while cooperatives may be more productive they are not safer, indicating the limits of the isolated cooperative form in capitalist market economies.

24 CFR 35.145 - Compliance with Federal laws and authorities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-04-01

... Housing and Urban Development LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES General Lead-Based Paint Requirements and Definitions for All Programs. § 35.145 Compliance with Federal laws and authorities. All lead-based paint activities, including waste disposal, performed under this...

24 CFR 35.145 - Compliance with Federal laws and authorities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-04-01

... Housing and Urban Development LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES General Lead-Based Paint Requirements and Definitions for All Programs. § 35.145 Compliance with Federal laws and authorities. All lead-based paint activities, including waste disposal, performed under this...

24 CFR 35.145 - Compliance with Federal laws and authorities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-04-01

... Housing and Urban Development LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES General Lead-Based Paint Requirements and Definitions for All Programs. § 35.145 Compliance with Federal laws and authorities. All lead-based paint activities, including waste disposal, performed under this...

24 CFR 35.145 - Compliance with Federal laws and authorities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-04-01

... Housing and Urban Development LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES General Lead-Based Paint Requirements and Definitions for All Programs. § 35.145 Compliance with Federal laws and authorities. All lead-based paint activities, including waste disposal, performed under this...

24 CFR 35.145 - Compliance with Federal laws and authorities.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-04-01

... Housing and Urban Development LEAD-BASED PAINT POISONING PREVENTION IN CERTAIN RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES General Lead-Based Paint Requirements and Definitions for All Programs. § 35.145 Compliance with Federal laws and authorities. All lead-based paint activities, including waste disposal, performed under this...

48 CFR 36.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 36.209 Section 36.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 36.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. No...

48 CFR 636.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 636.209 Section 636.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 636.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. The...

48 CFR 636.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 636.209 Section 636.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 636.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. The...

48 CFR 836.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 836.209 Section 836.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER...-engineer firms. (a) When the contracting officer considers it necessary or advantageous to award a contract...

48 CFR 636.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 636.209 Section 636.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 636.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. The...

48 CFR 636.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 636.209 Section 636.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 636.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. The...

48 CFR 836.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 836.209 Section 836.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER...-engineer firms. (a) When the contracting officer considers it necessary or advantageous to award a contract...

48 CFR 836.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 836.209 Section 836.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER...-engineer firms. (a) When the contracting officer considers it necessary or advantageous to award a contract...

48 CFR 36.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 36.209 Section 36.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 36.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. No...

48 CFR 636.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 636.209 Section 636.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF STATE SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 636.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. The...

48 CFR 2936.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... architect-engineer firms. 2936.209 Section 2936.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF LABOR GENERAL CONTRACTING REQUIREMENTS CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 2936.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. As required by FAR...

48 CFR 36.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 36.209 Section 36.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 36.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. No...

48 CFR 836.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 836.209 Section 836.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER...-engineer firms. (a) When the contracting officer considers it necessary or advantageous to award a contract...

48 CFR 36.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 36.209 Section 36.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 36.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. No...

48 CFR 836.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 836.209 Section 836.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER...-engineer firms. (a) When the contracting officer considers it necessary or advantageous to award a contract...

48 CFR 36.209 - Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... with architect-engineer firms. 36.209 Section 36.209 Federal Acquisition Regulations System FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SPECIAL CATEGORIES OF CONTRACTING CONSTRUCTION AND ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Special Aspects of Contracting for Construction 36.209 Construction contracts with architect-engineer firms. No...

On the origins of the Mendelian laws.

PubMed

Monaghan, F; Corcos, A

1984-01-01

The two laws usually attributed to Mendel were not considered as laws by him. The first law, the law of independent segregation occurs in Mendel's paper as an assumption or hypothesis. Hugo de Vries refers to this as a law discovered by Mendel. This appears to be the first use of an expression equivalent to Mendel's law. In his paper de Vries did not associate the observable characters with structures having a causitive role. That was done by Correns, who transformed the law of segregation of characters into a law of the segregation of anlagen. The second law, the law of independent assortment, is present in embryonic form in Mendel's paper. Here the independent assortment of characters appears as a secondary conclusion to a series of experiments involving several pairs of traits. Mendel repeats the primary conclusion later in the paper but not the secondary one. This leads us to believe that he considered the secondary conclusion as of lesser importance. We note in this context that the 9:3:3:1 ratio commonly associated with the idea of independent assortment, and attributed to Mendel, also does not occur in his paper. A careful reading of the papers of his discoverers shows it was Correns who first drew attention to this ratio. However, he did not formulate the second Mendelian law even though it was clearly implied. Neither was it stated by de Vries. Indeed, the first clear separation of the two laws and the naming of the second law was by T. H. Morgan some 13 years later.

Training's Practices: Education and Training within the American Firm.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Zemsky, Robert; Meyerson, Martin

A study examined the training provided to workers by 20 firms across the Nation. In the 12 years between 1969 and 1981, American firms increased their expenditures on employee training from $2.4 to $3.5 million according to an analysis of data gathered by Current Population Surveys. In the same period, members of the American Society for Training…

In vivo topical application of acetyl aspartic acid increases fibrillin-1 and collagen IV deposition leading to a significant improvement of skin firmness.

PubMed

Gillbro, J M; Merinville, E; Cattley, K; Al-Bader, T; Hagforsen, E; Nilsson, M; Mavon, A

2015-10-01

Acetyl aspartic acid (A-A-A) was discovered through gene array analysis with corresponding Cmap analysis. We found that A-A-A increased keratinocyte regeneration, inhibited dermal matrix metalloprotease (MMP) expression and relieved fibroblast stiffness through reduction of the fibroblast stiffness marker F-actin. Dermal absorption studies showed successful delivery to both the epidermal and dermal regions, and in-use trial demonstrated that 1% A-A-A was well tolerated. In this study, the aim was to investigate whether A-A-A could stimulate the synthesis of extracellular matrix supporting proteins in vivo and thereby improving the viscoelastic properties of human skin by conducting a dual histological and biophysical clinical study. Two separate double-blind vehicle-controlled in vivo studies were conducted using a 1% A-A-A containing oil-in-water (o/w) emulsion. In the histological study, 16 female volunteers (>55 years of age) exhibiting photodamaged skin on their forearm were included, investigating the effect of a 12-day treatment of A-A-A on collagen IV (COLIV) and fibrillin-1. In a subsequent pilot study, 0.1% retinol was used for comparison to A-A-A (1%). The biomechanical properties of the skin were assessed in a panel of 16 women (>45 years of age) using the standard Cutometer MPA580 after topical application of the test products for 28 days. The use of multiple suction enabled the assessment of F4, an area parameter specifically representing skin firmness. Twelve-day topical application of 1% A-A-A significantly increased COLIV and fibrillin with 13% and 6%, respectively, compared to vehicle. 1% A-A-A and 0.1% retinol were found to significantly reduce F4 after 28 days of treatment by 15.8% and 14.7%, respectively, in the pilot Cutometer study. No significant difference was found between retinol and A-A-A. However, only A-A-A exhibited a significant effect vs. vehicle on skin firmness which indicated the incremental benefit of A-A-A as a skin-firming

Firms navigating through innovation spaces: a conceptualization of how firms search and perceive technological, market and productive opportunities globally.

PubMed

McKelvey, Maureen

2016-01-01

The main contribution of this paper is a theory-based conceptual framework of innovation spaces, and how firms must navigate through them to innovate. The concept of innovation systems - at the regional, sectoral and national levels - have been highly influential. Previous literature developing the concept of innovation systems has stressed the importance of institutions, networks and knowledge bases at the regional, sectoral and national levels. This paper primarily draws upon an evolutionary and Schumpeterian economics perspective, in the following three senses. The conceptualization of 'innnovation spaces' focuses upon how and why firm search for innovations is influenced the opportunities within certain geographical contexts. This means that the firm create opportunities and can span different context, but they are influence by the context in term of the access, flow and co-evolution of ideas, resources, technology, people and knowledge, which help stimulate business innovation in terms of products, process and services. The paper concludes with an agenda for future research and especially the need to focus on globalization as a process of intensifying linkages across the globe.

Disability Management in Small Firms.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Drury, David

1991-01-01

Notes that American research has paid relatively little attention to prospects for adapting disability management practices to financial and management environment of smaller employers. Compares large and small firms in terms of employer disability practices and characteristics of disabled workers; discusses barriers to rehabilitation and…

A law of order estimation and leading-order terms for a family of averaged quantities on a multibaker chain system

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Ishida, Hideshi, E-mail: ishida@me.es.osaka-u.ac.jp

2014-06-15

In this study, a family of local quantities defined on each partition and its averaging on a macroscopic small region, site, are defined on a multibaker chain system. On its averaged quantities, a law of order estimation in the bulk system is proved, making it possible to estimate the order of the quantities with respect to the representative partition scale parameter Δ. Moreover, the form of the leading-order terms of the averaged quantities is obtained, and the form enables us to have the macroscopic quantity in the continuum limit, as Δ → 0, and to confirm its partitioning independency. Thesemore » deliverables fully explain the numerical results obtained by Ishida, consistent with the irreversible thermodynamics.« less

Firm size diversity, functional richness, and resilience

USGS Publications Warehouse

Garmestani, A.S.; Allen, Craig R.; Mittelstaedt, J.D.; Stow, C.A.; Ward, W.A.

2006-01-01

This paper applies recent advances in ecology to our understanding of firm development, sustainability, and economic development. The ecological literature indicates that the greater the functional richness of species in a system, the greater its resilience - that is, its ability to persist in the face of substantial changes in the environment. This paper focuses on the effects of functional richness across firm size on the ability of industries to survive in the face of economic change. Our results indicate that industries with a richness of industrial functions are more resilient to employment volatility. ?? 2006 Cambridge University Press.

The evolution of scaling laws in the sea ice floe size distribution

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Horvat, Christopher; Tziperman, Eli

2017-09-01

The sub-gridscale floe size and thickness distribution (FSTD) is an emerging climate variable, playing a leading-order role in the coupling between sea ice, the ocean, and the atmosphere. The FSTD, however, is difficult to measure given the vast range of horizontal scales of individual floes, leading to the common use of power-law scaling to describe it. The evolution of a coupled mixed-layer-FSTD model of a typical marginal ice zone is explicitly simulated here, to develop a deeper understanding of how processes active at the floe scale may or may not lead to scaling laws in the floe size distribution. The time evolution of mean quantities obtained from the FSTD (sea ice concentration, mean thickness, volume) is complex even in simple scenarios, suggesting that these quantities, which affect climate feedbacks, should be carefully calculated in climate models. The emergence of FSTDs with multiple separate power-law regimes, as seen in observations, is found to be due to the combination of multiple scale-selective processes. Limitations in assuming a power-law FSTD are carefully analyzed, applying methods used in observations to FSTD model output. Two important sources of error are identified that may lead to model biases: one when observing an insufficiently small range of floe sizes, and one from the fact that floe-scale processes often do not produce power-law behavior. These two sources of error may easily lead to biases in mean quantities derived from the FSTD of greater than 100%, and therefore biases in modeled sea ice evolution.

Evidence for a neural law of effect.

PubMed

Athalye, Vivek R; Santos, Fernando J; Carmena, Jose M; Costa, Rui M

2018-03-02

Thorndike's law of effect states that actions that lead to reinforcements tend to be repeated more often. Accordingly, neural activity patterns leading to reinforcement are also reentered more frequently. Reinforcement relies on dopaminergic activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), and animals shape their behavior to receive dopaminergic stimulation. Seeking evidence for a neural law of effect, we found that mice learn to reenter more frequently motor cortical activity patterns that trigger optogenetic VTA self-stimulation. Learning was accompanied by gradual shaping of these patterns, with participating neurons progressively increasing and aligning their covariance to that of the target pattern. Motor cortex patterns that lead to phasic dopaminergic VTA activity are progressively reinforced and shaped, suggesting a mechanism by which animals select and shape actions to reliably achieve reinforcement. Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.

Law of the Minimum paradoxes.

PubMed

Gorban, Alexander N; Pokidysheva, Lyudmila I; Smirnova, Elena V; Tyukina, Tatiana A

2011-09-01

The "Law of the Minimum" states that growth is controlled by the scarcest resource (limiting factor). This concept was originally applied to plant or crop growth (Justus von Liebig, 1840, Salisbury, Plant physiology, 4th edn., Wadsworth, Belmont, 1992) and quantitatively supported by many experiments. Some generalizations based on more complicated "dose-response" curves were proposed. Violations of this law in natural and experimental ecosystems were also reported. We study models of adaptation in ensembles of similar organisms under load of environmental factors and prove that violation of Liebig's law follows from adaptation effects. If the fitness of an organism in a fixed environment satisfies the Law of the Minimum then adaptation equalizes the pressure of essential factors and, therefore, acts against the Liebig's law. This is the the Law of the Minimum paradox: if for a randomly chosen pair "organism-environment" the Law of the Minimum typically holds, then in a well-adapted system, we have to expect violations of this law.For the opposite interaction of factors (a synergistic system of factors which amplify each other), adaptation leads from factor equivalence to limitations by a smaller number of factors.For analysis of adaptation, we develop a system of models based on Selye's idea of the universal adaptation resource (adaptation energy). These models predict that under the load of an environmental factor a population separates into two groups (phases): a less correlated, well adapted group and a highly correlated group with a larger variance of attributes, which experiences problems with adaptation. Some empirical data are presented and evidences of interdisciplinary applications to econometrics are discussed. © Society for Mathematical Biology 2010

13 CFR 120.173 - Lead-based paint.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Lead-based paint. 120.173 Section 120.173 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION BUSINESS LOANS Policies Applying to All Business Loans Requirements Imposed Under Other Laws and Orders § 120.173 Lead-based paint. If...

Who will lead?

PubMed

Gustafson, R P; Schlosser, J R

1997-01-01

A recent survey conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Services Management and the Physician Executive Practice of Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, sheds light on the emerging physician executive's role. The goal of the research was to identify success factors as a means of evaluating and developing effective industry leaders. Respondents were asked to look at specific skills in relation to nine categories: Communication, leadership, interpersonal skills, self-motivation/management, organizational knowledge, organizational strategy, administrative skills, and thinking. Communication, leadership, and self-motivation/management emerged, in that order, as the three most important success factors for physician executives. An individual's general competencies, work styles, and ability to lead others through organizational restructuring defines his or her appropriateness for managerial positions in the health care industry.

Bank-firm credit network in Japan: an analysis of a bipartite network.

PubMed

Marotta, Luca; Miccichè, Salvatore; Fujiwara, Yoshi; Iyetomi, Hiroshi; Aoyama, Hideaki; Gallegati, Mauro; Mantegna, Rosario N

2015-01-01

We investigate the networked nature of the Japanese credit market. Our investigation is performed with tools of network science. In our investigation we perform community detection with an algorithm which is identifying communities composed of both banks and firms. We show that the communities obtained by directly working on the bipartite network carry information about the networked nature of the Japanese credit market. Our analysis is performed for each calendar year during the time period from 1980 to 2011. To investigate the time evolution of the networked structure of the credit market we introduce a new statistical method to track the time evolution of detected communities. We then characterize the time evolution of communities by detecting for each time evolving set of communities the over-expression of attributes of firms and banks. Specifically, we consider as attributes the economic sector and the geographical location of firms and the type of banks. In our 32-year-long analysis we detect a persistence of the over-expression of attributes of communities of banks and firms together with a slow dynamic of changes from some specific attributes to new ones. Our empirical observations show that the credit market in Japan is a networked market where the type of banks, geographical location of firms and banks, and economic sector of the firm play a role in shaping the credit relationships between banks and firms.

Unbundled infrastructure firms: Competition and continuing regulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hogendorn, Christiaan Paul

Unbundled infrastructure firms provide conduits for electricity transmission, residential communications, etc. but are vertically disintegrated from "content" functions such as electricity generation or world-wide-web pages. These conduits are being deregulated, and this dissertation examines whether the deregulated conduits will behave in an efficient and competitive manner. The dissertation presents three essays, each of which develops a theoretical model of the behavior of conduit firms in a market environment. The first essay considers the prospects for competition between multiple conduits in the emerging market for broadband (high-speed) residential Internet access. It finds that such competition is likely to emerge as demand for these services increase. The second essay shows how a monopoly electricity or natural gas transmission conduit can facilitate collusion between suppliers of the good. It shows that this is an inefficient effect of standard price-cap regulation. The third essay considers the supply chain of residential Internet access and evaluates proposed "open access" regulation that would allow more than one firm to serve customers over the same physical infrastructure. It shows that the amount of content available to consumers does not necessarily increase under open access.

10 CFR 603.615 - Financial management standards for-profit firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Financial management standards for-profit firms. 603.615... § 603.615 Financial management standards for-profit firms. (a) To avoid causing needless changes in participants' financial management systems, an expenditure-based TIA will make for-profit participants that...

Determinants of environmental audit frequency: the role of firm organizational structure.

PubMed

Earnhart, Dietrich; Leonard, J Mark

2013-10-15

This study empirically examines the extent of environmental management practiced by US chemical manufacturing facilities, as reflected in the number of environmental internal audits conducted annually. As its focus, this study analyzes the effects of firm-level organizational structure on facility-level environmental management practices. For this empirical analysis, the study exploits unique data from a survey distributed to all U.S. chemical manufacturing permitted to discharge wastewater in 2001; the data reflect internal audits conducted during the years 1999-2001. Empirical results reveal differences in auditing behavior based on whether facilities are owned by publicly held or non-publicly held firms, owned by U.S.-based or non-U.S.-based firms, and owned by larger or smaller firms. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fractality and the law of the wall

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xu, Haosen H. A.; Yang, X. I. A.

2018-05-01

Fluid motions in the inertial range of isotropic turbulence are fractal, with their space-filling capacity slightly below regular three-dimensional objects, which is a consequence of the energy cascade. Besides the energy cascade, the other often encountered cascading process is the momentum cascade in wall-bounded flows. Despite the long-existing analogy between the two processes, many of the thoroughly investigated aspects of the energy cascade have so far received little attention in studies of the momentum counterpart, e.g., the possibility of the momentum-transferring scales in the logarithmic region being fractal has not been considered. In this work, this possibility is pursued, and we discuss one of its implications. Following the same dimensional arguments that lead to the D =2.33 fractal dimension of wrinkled surfaces in isotropic turbulence, we show that the large-scale momentum-carrying eddies may also be fractal and non-space-filling, which then leads to the power-law scaling of the mean velocity profile. The logarithmic law of the wall, on the other hand, corresponds to space-filling eddies, as suggested by Townsend [The Structure of Turbulent Shear Flow (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1980)]. Because the space-filling capacity is an integral geometric quantity, the analysis presented in this work provides us with a low-order quantity, with which, one would be able to distinguish between the logarithmic law and the power law.

A School Wide Approach to Leading Pedagogical Enhancement: An Australian Perspective

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Conway, Joan M.; Andrews, Dorothy

2016-01-01

This paper presents how some Australian schools are changing their approaches to leading the teaching and learning in their diverse and multi-characteristic contexts. Experiences of these schools shows that the development of a school wide approach to pedagogy and its implementation needs to be firmly embedded in the leadership of learning.…

The relationship between human resource investments and organizational performance: a firm-level examination of equilibrium theory.

PubMed

Subramony, Mahesh; Krause, Nicole; Norton, Jacqueline; Burns, Gary N

2008-07-01

It is commonly believed that human resource investments can yield positive performance-related outcomes for organizations. Utilizing the theory of organizational equilibrium (H. A. Simon, D. W. Smithburg, & V. A. Thompson, 1950; J. G. March & H. A. Simon, 1958), the authors proposed that organizational inducements in the form of competitive pay will lead to 2 firm-level performance outcomes--labor productivity and customer satisfaction--and that financially successful organizations would be more likely to provide these inducements to their employees. To test their hypotheses, the authors gathered employee-survey and objective performance data from a sample of 126 large publicly traded U.S. organizations over a period of 3 years. Results indicated that (a) firm-level financial performance (net income) predicted employees' shared perceptions of competitive pay, (b) shared pay perceptions predicted future labor productivity, and (c) the relationship between shared pay perceptions and customer satisfaction was fully mediated by employee morale.

Hamiltonian structures for systems of hyperbolic conservation laws

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Olver, Peter J.; Nutku, Yavuz

1988-07-01

The bi-Hamiltonian structure for a large class of one-dimensional hyberbolic systems of conservation laws in two field variables, including the equations of gas dynamics, shallow water waves, one-dimensional elastic media, and the Born-Infeld equation from nonlinear electrodynamics, is exhibited. For polytropic gas dynamics, these results lead to a quadri-Hamiltonian structure. New higher-order entropy-flux pairs (conservation laws) and higher-order symmetries are exhibited.

48 CFR 719.273-5 - Selection of Protégé firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... (USAID) Mentor-Protégé Program 719.273-5 Selection of Protégé firms. (a) Mentor firms will be solely responsible for selecting Protégé firms. Mentors are encouraged to select from a broad base of small business.... (b) Mentors may have multiple Protégés. However, to preserve the integrity of the Program and assure...

A temporal basis for Weber's law in value perception.

PubMed

Namboodiri, Vijay Mohan K; Mihalas, Stefan; Hussain Shuler, Marshall G

2014-01-01

Weber's law-the observation that the ability to perceive changes in magnitudes of stimuli is proportional to the magnitude-is a widely observed psychophysical phenomenon. It is also believed to underlie the perception of reward magnitudes and the passage of time. Since many ecological theories state that animals attempt to maximize reward rates, errors in the perception of reward magnitudes and delays must affect decision-making. Using an ecological theory of decision-making (TIMERR), we analyze the effect of multiple sources of noise (sensory noise, time estimation noise, and integration noise) on reward magnitude and subjective value perception. We show that the precision of reward magnitude perception is correlated with the precision of time perception and that Weber's law in time estimation can lead to Weber's law in value perception. The strength of this correlation is predicted to depend on the reward history of the animal. Subsequently, we show that sensory integration noise (either alone or in combination with time estimation noise) also leads to Weber's law in reward magnitude perception in an accumulator model, if it has balanced Poisson feedback. We then demonstrate that the noise in subjective value of a delayed reward, due to the combined effect of noise in both the perception of reward magnitude and delay, also abides by Weber's law. Thus, in our theory we prove analytically that the perception of reward magnitude, time, and subjective value change all approximately obey Weber's law.

Information Systems, Competitive Dynamics, and Firm Performance: An Interpretive and Centering Resonance Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vannoy, Sandra A.

2010-01-01

This dissertation examines, from a managerial interpretive perspective, how information systems contribute to firms' specific competitive actions and responses, and the resultant impacts upon firm performance. The findings from this research suggest that the answer may well lie within the role of information systems in firms' competitive dynamics…

Probing Planck's Law at Home

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bonnet, I.; Gabelli, J.

2010-01-01

We report on the physics around an incandescent lamp. Using a consumer-grade digital camera, we combine electrical and optical measurements to explore Planck's law of black-body radiation. This simple teaching experiment is successfully used to measure both Stefan's and Planck's constants. Our measurements lead to a strikingly accurate value for…

International environmental law and global public health.

PubMed Central

Schirnding, Yasmin von; Onzivu, William; Adede, Andronico O.

2002-01-01

The environment continues to be a source of ill-health for many people, particularly in developing countries. International environmental law offers a viable strategy for enhancing public health through the promotion of increased awareness of the linkages between health and environment, mobilization of technical and financial resources, strengthening of research and monitoring, enforcement of health-related standards, and promotion of global cooperation. An enhanced capacity to utilize international environmental law could lead to significant worldwide gains in public health. PMID:12571726

Correction to the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer law for optical absorption.

PubMed

Abitan, Haim; Bohr, Henrik; Buchhave, Preben

2008-10-10

The Beer-Lambert-Bouguer absorption law, known as Beer's law for absorption in an optical medium, is precise only at power densities lower than a few kW. At higher power densities this law fails because it neglects the processes of stimulated emission and spontaneous emission. In previous models that considered those processes, an analytical expression for the absorption law could not be obtained. We show here that by utilizing the Lambert W-function, the two-level energy rate equation model is solved analytically, and this leads into a general absorption law that is exact because it accounts for absorption as well as stimulated and spontaneous emission. The general absorption law reduces to Beer's law at low power densities. A criterion for its application is given along with experimental examples. (c) 2008 Optical Society of America

Bank-Firm Credit Network in Japan: An Analysis of a Bipartite Network

PubMed Central

Marotta, Luca; Miccichè, Salvatore; Fujiwara, Yoshi; Iyetomi, Hiroshi; Aoyama, Hideaki; Gallegati, Mauro; Mantegna, Rosario N.

2015-01-01

We investigate the networked nature of the Japanese credit market. Our investigation is performed with tools of network science. In our investigation we perform community detection with an algorithm which is identifying communities composed of both banks and firms. We show that the communities obtained by directly working on the bipartite network carry information about the networked nature of the Japanese credit market. Our analysis is performed for each calendar year during the time period from 1980 to 2011. To investigate the time evolution of the networked structure of the credit market we introduce a new statistical method to track the time evolution of detected communities. We then characterize the time evolution of communities by detecting for each time evolving set of communities the over-expression of attributes of firms and banks. Specifically, we consider as attributes the economic sector and the geographical location of firms and the type of banks. In our 32-year-long analysis we detect a persistence of the over-expression of attributes of communities of banks and firms together with a slow dynamic of changes from some specific attributes to new ones. Our empirical observations show that the credit market in Japan is a networked market where the type of banks, geographical location of firms and banks, and economic sector of the firm play a role in shaping the credit relationships between banks and firms. PMID:25933413

An empirical analysis of ERP adoption by oil and gas firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Romero, Jorge

2005-07-01

Despite the growing popularity of enterprise-resource-planning (ERP) systems for the information technology infrastructure of large and medium-sized businesses, there is limited empirical evidence on the competitive benefits of ERP implementations. Case studies of individual firms provide insights but do not provide sufficient evidence to draw reliable inferences and cross-sectional studies of firms in multiple industries provide a broad-brush perspective of the performance effects associated with ERP installations. To narrow the focus to a specific competitive arena, I analyze the impact of ERP adoption on various dimensions of performance for firms in the Oil and Gas Industry. I selected the Oil and Gas Industry because several companies installed a specific type of ERP system, SAP R/3, during the period from 1990 to 2002. In fact, SAP was the dominant provider of enterprise software to oil and gas companies during this period. I evaluate performance of firms that implemented SAP R/3 relative to firms that did not adopt ERP systems in the pre-implementation, implementation and post-implementation periods. My analysis takes two different approaches, the first from a financial perspective and the second from a strategic perspective. Using the Sloan (General Motors) model commonly applied in financial statement analysis, I examine changes in performance for ERP-adopting firms versus non-adopting firms along the dimensions of asset utilization and return on sales. Asset utilization is more closely aligned with changes in leanness of operations, and return on sales is more closely aligned with customer-value-added. I test hypotheses related to the timing and magnitude of the impact of ERP implementation with respect to leanness of operations and customer value added. I find that SAP-adopting companies performed relatively better in terms of asset turnover than non-SAP-adopting companies during both the implementation and post-implementation periods and that SAP

Hospitals look to hospitality service firms to meet TQM goals.

PubMed

Hard, R

1992-05-20

Hospitals that hire contract service firms to manage one or all aspects of their hospitality service departments increasingly expect those firms to help meet total quality management goals as well as offer the more traditional cost reduction, quality improvement and specialized expertise, finds the 1992 Hospital Contract Services Survey conducted by Hospitals.

Spaces of Innovation: Experiences from Two Small High-Tech Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Heiskanen, Tuula; Heiskanen, Hannu

2011-01-01

Purpose: By comparing two small high-tech firms specialising in medical technology this article seeks to answer the following questions: What are the key characteristics of innovation processes in the case firms? How do the mutual relationships between mental, social and physical spaces explain the different pathways in the innovation processes in…

Growth and profitability in small privately held biotech firms: preliminary findings.

PubMed

Brännback, Malin; Carsrud, Alan; Renko, Maija; Ostermark, Ralf; Aaltonen, Jaana; Kiviluoto, Niklas

2009-06-01

This paper reports on preliminary findings on a study of the relationship of growth and profitability among small privately held Finnish Life Science firms. Previous research results concerning growth and profitability are mixed, ranging from strongly positive to a negative relationship. The conventional wisdom states that growth is a prerequisite for profitability. Our results suggest that the reverse is the case. A high profitability-low growth biotech firm is more probably to make the transition to high profitability-high growth than a firm that starts off with low profitability and high growth.

Measuring Economic Discrimination of Hispanic-Owned Architecture and Engineering Firms in South Florida

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carvajal, Manuel J.

2004-01-01

Using data developed for the U.S. District Court, this study compared the performance of Hispanic-owned firms and two groupings of non-Hispanic-owned firms in three South Florida markets: architecture (n= 176), structural engineering (n= 144), and civil engineering (n = 200). Within each market, firms?earnings are expressed as functions of…

Community Structure of a Bank-Firm Credit Network in Japan

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Iyetomi, Hiroshi; Matsuura, Yuki

2014-03-01

We study temporal change of community structure in a Japanese credit network formed by banks and listed firms through their financial relations over the last 30 years. The credit connectedness is regarded as a potenital source of systemic risk. Our network is a bipartite graph consisting of two species of nodes connected with bidirectional links. The direction of links is identified with that of risk flows and their weights are relative credit/loan with respect to the targets. In a partial credit network obtained only with the links pointing from firms toward banks, the city banks forms one major community in most of the time period to share risk when firms go wrong. On the other hand, a partial network only with the links from banks toward firms is decomposed into communities of similar size each of which has its own city bank, reflecting the main-bank system in Japan. Finally we take overlapping parts of the two community sets to find cores of the risk concentration in the credit network. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 22300080.

48 CFR 252.236-7011 - Overseas architect-engineer services-Restriction to United States firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

..., resulting from this solicitation, to a United States firm or a joint venture of United States and host... firm or a joint venture of United States and host nation firms. (End of provision) [62 FR 2858, Jan. 17...

SELECTION AND TRAINING, A SURVEY OF IOWA MANUFACTURING FIRMS. MONOGRAPH SERIES NO. 4.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

SHERIFF, DON R.; AND OTHERS

INFORMATION ON EMPLOYEE SELECTION AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES WAS SECURED FROM QUESTIONNAIRES RETURNED BY 215 OF 283 FIRMS EMPLOYING AT LEAST 100 PERSONS. DATA FROM 207 SEPARATE ITEMS FOR EACH FIRM WERE KEY PUNCHED AND TABULATED INTO MULTIVARIATE CROSS-CLASSIFICATIONS. OVER 60 PERCENT OF THE FIRMS WERE IN CITIES HAVING OVER 25,000 POPULATION, 40…

Kinetic Theory Derivation of the Adiabatic Law for Ideal Gases.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sobel, Michael I.

1980-01-01

Discusses how the adiabatic law for ideal gases can be derived from the assumption of a Maxwell-Boltzmann (or any other) distribution of velocities--in contrast to the usual derivations from thermodynamics alone, and the higher-order effect that leads to one-body viscosity. An elementary derivation of the adiabatic law is given. (Author/DS)

Training and Competitiveness in U.S. Manufacturing and Services: Training Needs and Practices of Lead Firms in Textile, Banking, Retailing and Business Services. Contractor Report.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Noyelle, Thierry; Bailey, Thomas

Changing employer-based training represents one strategy that U.S. firms are adopting to confront recent transformations in the global economy. The new competitive conditions place new and different demands on workers, more of whom are being called upon to use technical, conceptual, and communications skills. Approaches to training in particular…

The effects of safety practice, technology adoption, and firm characteristics on motor carrier safety

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2004-01-01

The theory of the firm suggests that firms should maximize profit by investing in safety until : marginal cost is equal to the marginal benefit. This paper addresses motor carrier safety from the : perspective of the firm, developing the theoretical ...

10 CFR 904.6 - Charge for capacity and firm energy.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2011-01-01 2011-01-01 false Charge for capacity and firm energy. 904.6 Section 904.6 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY GENERAL REGULATIONS FOR THE CHARGES FOR THE SALE OF POWER FROM THE BOULDER CANYON PROJECT Power Marketing § 904.6 Charge for capacity and firm energy. The charge for Capacity and...

10 CFR 904.6 - Charge for capacity and firm energy.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Charge for capacity and firm energy. 904.6 Section 904.6 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY GENERAL REGULATIONS FOR THE CHARGES FOR THE SALE OF POWER FROM THE BOULDER CANYON PROJECT Power Marketing § 904.6 Charge for capacity and firm energy. The charge for Capacity and...

10 CFR 904.6 - Charge for capacity and firm energy.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false Charge for capacity and firm energy. 904.6 Section 904.6 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY GENERAL REGULATIONS FOR THE CHARGES FOR THE SALE OF POWER FROM THE BOULDER CANYON PROJECT Power Marketing § 904.6 Charge for capacity and firm energy. The charge for Capacity and...

Cole-Cole law for critical dynamics in glass-forming liquids.

PubMed

Sperl, Matthias

2006-07-01

Within the mode-coupling theory (MCT) for glassy dynamics, the asymptotic low-frequency expansions for the dynamical susceptibilities at critical points are compared to the expansions for the dynamic moduli; this shows that the convergence properties of the two expansions can be quite different. In some parameter regions, the leading-order expansion formula for the modulus describes the solutions of the MCT equations of motion outside the transient regime successfully; at the same time, the leading- and next-to-leading-order expansion formulas for the susceptibility fail. In these cases, one can derive a Cole-Cole law for the susceptibilities; and this law accounts for the dynamics for frequencies below the band of microscopic excitations and above the high-frequency part of the alpha peak. It is shown that this scenario explains the optical-Kerr-effect data measured for salol and benzophenone (BZP). For BZP it is inferred that the depolarized light-scattering spectra exhibit a wing for the alpha peak within the Gigahertz band. This wing results from the crossover of the von Schweidler law part of the alpha peak to the high-frequency part of the Cole-Cole peak; and this crossover can be described quantitatively by the leading-order formulas of MCT for the modulus.

48 CFR 216.403-1 - Fixed-price incentive (firm target) contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... (firm target) contracts. 216.403-1 Section 216.403-1 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEFENSE... CONTRACTS Incentive Contracts 216.403-1 Fixed-price incentive (firm target) contracts. (b) Application. (1... target) contracts, especially for acquisitions moving from development to production. (2) The contracting...

13 CFR 315.17 - Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

...-impacted industries. 315.17 Section 315.17 Business Credit and Assistance ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE FOR FIRMS Assistance to Industries § 315.17 Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries. (a) Whenever the International Trade Commission makes an...

13 CFR 315.17 - Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

...-impacted industries. 315.17 Section 315.17 Business Credit and Assistance ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE FOR FIRMS Assistance to Industries § 315.17 Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries. (a) Whenever the International Trade Commission makes an...

13 CFR 315.17 - Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

...-impacted industries. 315.17 Section 315.17 Business Credit and Assistance ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE FOR FIRMS Assistance to Industries § 315.17 Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries. (a) Whenever the International Trade Commission makes an...

13 CFR 315.17 - Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

...-impacted industries. 315.17 Section 315.17 Business Credit and Assistance ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TRADE ADJUSTMENT ASSISTANCE FOR FIRMS Assistance to Industries § 315.17 Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries. (a) Whenever the International Trade Commission makes an...

Environmental management and firm performance: a case study.

PubMed

Claver, Enrique; López, María D; Molina, José F; Tarí, Juan J

2007-09-01

This study has as its aim to help to clarify the relationship between environmental management and economic performance by integrating it into a wider framework that includes the relationship between environmental strategy and firm performance, the latter being understood as the combination of environmental performance, competitive advantage and economic performance. A case study of the COATO farming cooperative showed us that its environmental management, focused on prevention logic, has had a positive net effect on its environmental performance. Besides, the order in which these practices were adopted favoured the development of new organisational capabilities that have contributed to the appearance of advantages derived from the greater accumulated experience of employees in creating new projects that are designed to reduce residues and pollution. COATO has also obtained a competitive advantage in differentiation thanks to an improved brand image and to its increased credibility in business relationships. Finally, a positive correlation exists between the pioneering proactive strategy adopted by this cooperative and the improvement of its firm performance with respect to the other firms in its sector.

Examining the scope of multibusiness health care firms: implications for strategy and financial performance.

PubMed

Noorein Inamdar, S

2007-08-01

Use theory and data to examine the scope of corporate strategies for multibusiness health care firms, also known as organized or integrated health care delivery systems. Data are from the 2000 HIMSS Analytics Annual Survey of integrated health care delivery systems (IHDS), which provides complete information on businesses owned by IHDS. Scope defined as the breadth and type of businesses in which a firm chooses to compete is measured across seven separate business areas: (1) health plans, (2) ambulatory, (3) acute, (4) subacute, (5) home health, (6) other related nonpatient care businesses, and (7) external collaborations. Theories on strategy and organizational configurations along with measures of scope and a novel dataset were used to classify 796 firms into five mutually exclusive groups. The bases for classification were two competitive dimensions of scope: (1) breadth of businesses and (2) mix of existing core businesses versus new noncore businesses. Unit of analysis is the multibusiness health care firm. Sample consists of 796 firms, defined as nonprofit organizations that own two or more direct patient care businesses in two or more separate areas across the health care value chain. Firms were clustered into five mutually exclusive organizational configurations with unique scope characteristics revealing a new taxonomy of corporate strategies. Analysis of the scope variables revealed five strategic types (along with the number of firms and distinguishing features of each strategy) defined as follows: (1) Core Service Provider (340 firms with the smallest scope providing core set of patient care services), (2) Mission Based (52 firms with the next smallest scope offering core set of services to underserved populations), (3) Contractor (266 firms with medium scope and contracting with physician groups), (4) Health Plan Focus (83 firms with large scope and providing health plans), and (5) Entrepreneur (55 firms with the largest scope offering both a core set

Gene Expression Profiling of Soft and Firm Atlantic Salmon Fillet

PubMed Central

Larsson, Thomas; Mørkøre, Turid; Kolstad, Kari; Østbye, Tone-Kari; Afanasyev, Sergey; Krasnov, Aleksei

2012-01-01

Texture of salmon fillets is an important quality trait for consumer acceptance as well as for the suitability for processing. In the present work we measured fillet firmness in a population of farmed Atlantic salmon with known pedigree and investigated the relationship between this trait and gene expression. Transcriptomic analyses performed with a 21 K oligonucleotide microarray revealed strong correlations between firmness and a large number of genes. Highly similar expression profiles were observed in several functional groups. Positive regression was found between firmness and genes encoding proteasome components (41 genes) and mitochondrial proteins (129 genes), proteins involved in stress responses (12 genes), and lipid metabolism (30 genes). Coefficients of determination (R2) were in the range of 0.64–0.74. A weaker though highly significant negative regression was seen in sugar metabolism (26 genes, R2 = 0.66) and myofiber proteins (42 genes, R2 = 0.54). Among individual genes that showed a strong association with firmness, there were extracellular matrix proteins (negative correlation), immune genes, and intracellular proteases (positive correlation). Several genes can be regarded as candidate markers of flesh quality (coiled-coil transcriptional coactivator b, AMP deaminase 3, and oligopeptide transporter 15) though their functional roles are unclear. To conclude, fillet firmness of Atlantic salmon depends largely on metabolic properties of the skeletal muscle; where aerobic metabolism using lipids as fuel, and the rapid removal of damaged proteins, appear to play a major role. PMID:22745718

Gene expression profiling of soft and firm Atlantic salmon fillet.

PubMed

Larsson, Thomas; Mørkøre, Turid; Kolstad, Kari; Østbye, Tone-Kari; Afanasyev, Sergey; Krasnov, Aleksei

2012-01-01

Texture of salmon fillets is an important quality trait for consumer acceptance as well as for the suitability for processing. In the present work we measured fillet firmness in a population of farmed Atlantic salmon with known pedigree and investigated the relationship between this trait and gene expression. Transcriptomic analyses performed with a 21 K oligonucleotide microarray revealed strong correlations between firmness and a large number of genes. Highly similar expression profiles were observed in several functional groups. Positive regression was found between firmness and genes encoding proteasome components (41 genes) and mitochondrial proteins (129 genes), proteins involved in stress responses (12 genes), and lipid metabolism (30 genes). Coefficients of determination (R(2)) were in the range of 0.64-0.74. A weaker though highly significant negative regression was seen in sugar metabolism (26 genes, R(2) = 0.66) and myofiber proteins (42 genes, R(2) = 0.54). Among individual genes that showed a strong association with firmness, there were extracellular matrix proteins (negative correlation), immune genes, and intracellular proteases (positive correlation). Several genes can be regarded as candidate markers of flesh quality (coiled-coil transcriptional coactivator b, AMP deaminase 3, and oligopeptide transporter 15) though their functional roles are unclear. To conclude, fillet firmness of Atlantic salmon depends largely on metabolic properties of the skeletal muscle; where aerobic metabolism using lipids as fuel, and the rapid removal of damaged proteins, appear to play a major role.

The venality of human body parts and products in French law and common law.

PubMed

Haoulia, Naima

2012-03-01

The successive bioethics laws in France have constantly argued that the human body is not for sale and consecrated an absolute principle of free and anonymous donations, whether of semen, ova, blood, tissues or organs. Nonetheless, this position is not shared by all countries. These legal divergences upset today our moral principles and the development of these practices leads us to question the legal status of human biological material and its gradual commodification. This paper outlines the current law principles that protect people's interests in their bodies, excised body parts and tissues without conferring the rights of full legal ownership in French law and in Common law. Contrary to what many people believe, people do not legally 'own' their bodies, body parts or tissues. However, they do have some legal rights in relation to their bodies and excised body material. For lawyers, the exact relationship people have with their bodies has raised a host of complex questions and long debates about the status we should grant to human body parts. The significance of this issue is due to two reasons:first, because of the imperative protection we have to assure to human dignity and then, because of the economic value which is attached to human products.

Locational Determinants of Emissions from Pollution-Intensive Firms in Urban Areas

PubMed Central

Zhou, Min; Tan, Shukui; Guo, Mingjing; Zhang, Lu

2015-01-01

Industrial pollution has remained as one of the most daunting challenges for many regions around the world. Characterizing the determinants of industrial pollution should provide important management implications. Unfortunately, due to the absence of high-quality data, rather few studies have systematically examined the locational determinants using a geographical approach. This paper aimed to fill the gap by accessing the pollution source census dataset, which recorded the quantity of discharged wastes (waste water and solid waste) from 717 pollution-intensive firms within Huzhou City, China. Spatial exploratory analysis was applied to analyze the spatial dependency and local clusters of waste emissions. Results demonstrated that waste emissions presented significantly positive autocorrelation in space. The high-high hotspots generally concentrated towards the city boundary, while the low-low clusters approached the Taihu Lake. Their locational determinants were identified by spatial regression. In particular, firms near the city boundary and county road were prone to discharge more wastes. Lower waste emissions were more likely to be observed from firms with high proximity to freight transfer stations or the Taihu Lake. Dense populous districts saw more likelihood of solid waste emissions. Firms in the neighborhood of rivers exhibited higher waste water emissions. Besides, the control variables (firm size, ownership, operation time and industrial type) also exerted significant influence. The present methodology can be applicable to other areas, and further inform the industrial pollution control practices. Our study advanced the knowledge of determinants of emissions from pollution-intensive firms in urban areas. PMID:25927438

Second Law of Thermodynamics Applied to Metabolic Networks

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nigam, R.; Liang, S.

2003-01-01

We present a simple algorithm based on linear programming, that combines Kirchoff's flux and potential laws and applies them to metabolic networks to predict thermodynamically feasible reaction fluxes. These law's represent mass conservation and energy feasibility that are widely used in electrical circuit analysis. Formulating the Kirchoff's potential law around a reaction loop in terms of the null space of the stoichiometric matrix leads to a simple representation of the law of entropy that can be readily incorporated into the traditional flux balance analysis without resorting to non-linear optimization. Our technique is new as it can easily check the fluxes got by applying flux balance analysis for thermodynamic feasibility and modify them if they are infeasible so that they satisfy the law of entropy. We illustrate our method by applying it to the network dealing with the central metabolism of Escherichia coli. Due to its simplicity this algorithm will be useful in studying large scale complex metabolic networks in the cell of different organisms.

49 CFR 1522.121 - Security threat assessments for personnel of TSA-approved validation firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

...-approved validation firms. 1522.121 Section 1522.121 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to... FOR ALL MODES OF TRANSPORTATION TSA-APPROVED VALIDATION FIRMS AND VALIDATORS TSA-Approved Validation... for personnel of TSA-approved validation firms. Each of the following must successfully complete a...

CIMOSA process classification for business process mapping in non-manufacturing firms: A case study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Latiffianti, Effi; Siswanto, Nurhadi; Wiratno, Stefanus Eko; Saputra, Yudha Andrian

2017-11-01

A business process mapping is one important means to enable an enterprise to effectively manage the value chain. One of widely used approaches to classify business process for mapping purpose is Computer Integrated Manufacturing System Open Architecture (CIMOSA). CIMOSA was initially designed for Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) system based enterprises. This paper aims to analyze the use of CIMOSA process classification for business process mapping in the firms that do not fall within the area of CIM. Three firms of different business area that have used CIMOSA process classification were observed: an airline firm, a marketing and trading firm for oil and gas products, and an industrial estate management firm. The result of the research has shown that CIMOSA can be used in non-manufacturing firms with some adjustment. The adjustment includes addition, reduction, or modification of some processes suggested by CIMOSA process classification as evidenced by the case studies.

Elementary Concepts and Fundamental Laws of the Theory of Heat

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Oliveira, Mário J.

2018-06-01

The elementary concepts and fundamental laws concerning the science of heat are examined from the point of view of its development with special attention to its theoretical structure. The development is divided into four periods, each one characterized by the concept that was attributed to heat. The transition from one to the next period was marked by the emergence of new concepts and new laws, and by singular events. We point out that thermodynamics, as it emerged, is founded on the elementary concepts of temperature and adiabatic wall, and on the fundamental laws: Mayer-Joule principle, or law of conservation of energy; Carnot principle, which leads to the definition of entropy; and the Clausius principle, or law of increase in entropy.

Elementary Concepts and Fundamental Laws of the Theory of Heat

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

de Oliveira, Mário J.

2018-03-01

The elementary concepts and fundamental laws concerning the science of heat are examined from the point of view of its development with special attention to its theoretical structure. The development is divided into four periods, each one characterized by the concept that was attributed to heat. The transition from one to the next period was marked by the emergence of new concepts and new laws, and by singular events. We point out that thermodynamics, as it emerged, is founded on the elementary concepts of temperature and adiabatic wall, and on the fundamental laws: Mayer-Joule principle, or law of conservation of energy; Carnot principle, which leads to the definition of entropy; and the Clausius principle, or law of increase in entropy.

48 CFR 236.602 - Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts. 236.602 Section 236.602 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEFENSE... ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Architect-Engineer Services 236.602 Selection of firms for architect-engineer...

48 CFR 236.602 - Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts. 236.602 Section 236.602 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEFENSE... ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Architect-Engineer Services 236.602 Selection of firms for architect-engineer...

48 CFR 236.602 - Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts. 236.602 Section 236.602 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEFENSE... ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Architect-Engineer Services 236.602 Selection of firms for architect-engineer...

48 CFR 236.602 - Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts. 236.602 Section 236.602 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEFENSE... ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Architect-Engineer Services 236.602 Selection of firms for architect-engineer...

48 CFR 236.602 - Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 3 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Selection of firms for architect-engineer contracts. 236.602 Section 236.602 Federal Acquisition Regulations System DEFENSE... ARCHITECT-ENGINEER CONTRACTS Architect-Engineer Services 236.602 Selection of firms for architect-engineer...

Taylor's law and body size in exploited marine ecosystems.

PubMed

Cohen, Joel E; Plank, Michael J; Law, Richard

2012-12-01

Taylor's law (TL), which states that variance in population density is related to mean density via a power law, and density-mass allometry, which states that mean density is related to body mass via a power law, are two of the most widely observed patterns in ecology. Combining these two laws predicts that the variance in density is related to body mass via a power law (variance-mass allometry). Marine size spectra are known to exhibit density-mass allometry, but variance-mass allometry has not been investigated. We show that variance and body mass in unexploited size spectrum models are related by a power law, and that this leads to TL with an exponent slightly <2. These simulated relationships are disrupted less by balanced harvesting, in which fishing effort is spread across a wide range of body sizes, than by size-at-entry fishing, in which only fish above a certain size may legally be caught.

Taylor's law and body size in exploited marine ecosystems

PubMed Central

Cohen, Joel E; Plank, Michael J; Law, Richard

2012-01-01

Taylor's law (TL), which states that variance in population density is related to mean density via a power law, and density-mass allometry, which states that mean density is related to body mass via a power law, are two of the most widely observed patterns in ecology. Combining these two laws predicts that the variance in density is related to body mass via a power law (variance-mass allometry). Marine size spectra are known to exhibit density-mass allometry, but variance-mass allometry has not been investigated. We show that variance and body mass in unexploited size spectrum models are related by a power law, and that this leads to TL with an exponent slightly <2. These simulated relationships are disrupted less by balanced harvesting, in which fishing effort is spread across a wide range of body sizes, than by size-at-entry fishing, in which only fish above a certain size may legally be caught. PMID:23301181

Can Cross-Listing Mitigate the Impact of an Information Security Breach Announcement on a Firm's Values?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Chen, Yong; Dong, Feng; Chen, Hong; Xu, Li

2016-08-01

The increase in globalization in the markets has driven firms to adopt online technologies and to cross-list their stocks. Recent studies have consistently found that the announcements of information security breaches (ISBs) are negatively associated with the market values of the announcing firms during the days surrounding the breach announcements. Given the improvement in firms’ information environments and the better protection for investors generated by cross-listing, does cross-listing help firms to reduce the negative impacts caused by their announcements of ISBs? This paper conducts an event study of 120 publicly traded firms (among which 25 cross-list and 95 do not), in order to explore the answer. The results indicate that the impact of ISB announcements on a firm's stock prices shows no difference between cross-listing firms and non-cross-listing firms. Cross-listing does not mitigate the impact of ISBs announcement on a firm's market value.

Exploration decisions and firms in the mineral industries

USGS Publications Warehouse

Attanasi, E.D.

1981-01-01

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how physical characteristics of deposits and results of past exploration enter future exploration decisions. A proposed decision model is presented that is consistent with a set of primitive probabilistic assumptions associated with deposit size distributions and discoverability. Analysis of optimal field exploration strategy showed the likely firm responses to alternative exploration taxes and effects on the distribution of future discoveries. Examination of the probabilistic elements of the decision model indicates that changes in firm expectations associated with the distribution of deposits cannot be totally offset by changes in economic variables. ?? 1981.

13 CFR 315.17 - Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 13 Business Credit and Assistance 1 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries. 315.17 Section 315.17 Business Credit and Assistance ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT... Assistance to firms in import-impacted industries. (a) Whenever the International Trade Commission makes an...

A Knowledge Management Model for Firms in the Financial Services Industry

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Held, Carsten; Duncan, Glen; Yanamandram, Venkat

2013-01-01

The financial services industry faces many demanding challenges. Firms within this industry are predominantly knowledge-based, as are most of the industry's products, processes and services. The application of knowledge management represents a clear opportunity for financial services firms to confront challenges. However, no industry specific…

Entanglement Generation and Area Law with Long-Range Interactions

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gorshkov, Alexey

In short-range interacting systems, the speed at which entanglement can be established between two separated points is limited by a constant Lieb-Robinson velocity. This same limit also leads to the so-called area-law bound on entanglement in one-dimensional gapped short-range interacting systems. In this talk, we will show that long-range interactions that decay with distance as a power law allow for faster entanglement generation and state transfer. We will also present sufficient conditions for the area law in gapped systems to hold even in the presence of long-range interactions.

Healthy vs. unhealthy food: a strategic choice for firms and consumers.

PubMed

Antoñanzas, Fernando; Rodríguez-Ibeas, Roberto

2011-07-20

In this paper, we carry out a theoretical analysis of the strategic choice made by firms regarding the type of food they market when they face consumers who care about the healthy/unhealthy attributes of the product but incur in emotional/health costs when the food they consume has unhealthy attributes. We consider a two-stage game. In the first stage, one of the firms chooses the unhealthy content of its product. In the second stage, both firms simultaneously decide their prices. We find that, depending on the parameters of the model, product differentiation can be maximal or less than maximal. The firm that produces the unhealthy food charges a higher price and obtains a larger share of the market unless the emotional/health costs and the unhealthy food production costs are relatively high. We also find that educational campaigns will not always reduce the demand for the unhealthy food or the degree of the unhealthy attribute.JEL Classification:I10, I18, L11.

Healthy vs. unhealthy food: a strategic choice for firms and consumers

PubMed Central

2011-01-01

In this paper, we carry out a theoretical analysis of the strategic choice made by firms regarding the type of food they market when they face consumers who care about the healthy/unhealthy attributes of the product but incur in emotional/health costs when the food they consume has unhealthy attributes. We consider a two-stage game. In the first stage, one of the firms chooses the unhealthy content of its product. In the second stage, both firms simultaneously decide their prices. We find that, depending on the parameters of the model, product differentiation can be maximal or less than maximal. The firm that produces the unhealthy food charges a higher price and obtains a larger share of the market unless the emotional/health costs and the unhealthy food production costs are relatively high. We also find that educational campaigns will not always reduce the demand for the unhealthy food or the degree of the unhealthy attribute. JEL Classification:I10, I18, L11 PMID:22828271

Distinctive Human Resources Are the Core Competencies of Firms. EQW Working Papers WP18.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cappelli, Peter; Crocker-Hefter, Anne

The interrelationship between people management practices and product market/competition was examined in a series of case comparisons of pairs of firms/organizations of the following types: professional sports teams, military services, retailing firms, information service firms, business schools, financial services, shipping services, and food and…

Earnings Management before Rights Issues and the Subsequent Cash Transfer in Chinese Firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Tsai, Bi-Huei

2009-08-01

Unlike private enterprises in developed markets, political influence is profound upon Chinese state-dominated firms. Under this consideration, this paper demonstrates how political impact interferes in Chinese managers' decisions. State-assigned managers were found to deliberately transfer cash raised via rights issues from the public shareholders to the state by cash dividends in order to please Chinese politicians. Especially, to meet the regulatory requirement of rights issues, managers from firms which distributed more cash dividends in the same year of rights issues were more likely to inflate earnings before rights issues. The earnings inflation which managers use to boost firm's incomes is defined as "earnings management." Furthermore, the empirical results also exhibit that firm's close relationship with the state enables managers to obtain approvals of rights issues easily, which reduces the firm's earnings management tendency. The manager's incentives of earnings management is closely attributed to the political intervention.

Examining the Scope of Multibusiness Health Care Firms: Implications for Strategy and Financial Performance

PubMed Central

Noorein Inamdar, S

2007-01-01

Objective Use theory and data to examine the scope of corporate strategies for multibusiness health care firms, also known as organized or integrated health care delivery systems. Data Sources Data are from the 2000 HIMSS Analytics Annual Survey of integrated health care delivery systems (IHDS), which provides complete information on businesses owned by IHDS. Study Design Scope defined as the breadth and type of businesses in which a firm chooses to compete is measured across seven separate business areas: (1) health plans, (2) ambulatory, (3) acute, (4) subacute, (5) home health, (6) other related nonpatient care businesses, and (7) external collaborations. Theories on strategy and organizational configurations along with measures of scope and a novel dataset were used to classify 796 firms into five mutually exclusive groups. The bases for classification were two competitive dimensions of scope: (1) breadth of businesses and (2) mix of existing core businesses versus new noncore businesses. Data Extraction Methods Unit of analysis is the multibusiness health care firm. Sample consists of 796 firms, defined as nonprofit organizations that own two or more direct patient care businesses in two or more separate areas across the health care value chain. Firms were clustered into five mutually exclusive organizational configurations with unique scope characteristics revealing a new taxonomy of corporate strategies. Principal Findings Analysis of the scope variables revealed five strategic types (along with the number of firms and distinguishing features of each strategy) defined as follows: (1) Core Service Provider (340 firms with the smallest scope providing core set of patient care services), (2) Mission Based (52 firms with the next smallest scope offering core set of services to underserved populations), (3) Contractor (266 firms with medium scope and contracting with physician groups), (4) Health Plan Focus (83 firms with large scope and providing health plans

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT THEORIES AND BUSINESS FIRM STRATEGIES,

DTIC Science & Technology

characteristic economic patterns also provide a basis for business firms to plan their policies for investment and other international business activities in relation to opportunities in different kinds of environments. (Author)

Teaching law in medical schools: first, reflect.

PubMed

Campbell, Amy T

2012-01-01

Law is now routinely included in the medical school curriculum, often incorporated into bioethics and/or practice of medicine coursework. There seems to lack, however, a systematic understanding of what works in terms of getting across an effective depth and breadth of legal knowledge for medical students - or what such would even look like. Moreover, and more critically, while some literature addresses these what, when, how, and who questions, a more fundamental question is left unanswered: why teach law in medical school? This article suggests a process to reveal a more consensual understanding of this latter question. The author highlights findings and recommendations of some of the leading literature to date related to teaching law in medical schools, and also recent U.K. projects addressing legal teaching in medical schools. Reflecting on these materials and activities, the author suggests that we take a "pause" before we argue for more or different legal topics within the medical curriculum. Before we alter the curricula for more and/or different "law," first, it is critical to have a meaningful, stakeholder-driven, consensus-seeking discussion of the goals of legal education: why do we think it matters that medical students learn about "the law"? © 2012 American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Inc.

Work Uncertainty and the Promotion of Professional Women: The Case of Law Firm Partnership

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gorman, Elizabeth H.

2006-01-01

Work uncertainty may affect gender disparities in professionals' upward mobility in organizational hierarchies. Professional work involves three forms of uncertainty--problem variability, strategic indeterminacy and dependence on autonomous actors--that weaken the association between performance and ability, leading organizational decision-makers…

Lead Ions and Coulomb's Law at the LHC (CERN)

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cid-Vidal, Xabier; Cid, Ramon

2018-01-01

Although for most of the time the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN collides protons, for around one month every year lead ions are collided, to expand the diversity of the LHC research programme. Furthermore, in an effort not originally foreseen, proton-lead collisions are also taking place, with results of high interest to the physics…

Showdown Shapes Up Over Pollution Laws

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Chemical and Engineering News, 1974

1974-01-01

Discusses technological, legislative, and administrative problems facing the implementation of the 1972 air and water pollution control acts. Indicates that a congressional reworking on the pollution laws appears to be in the offing which could lead to a softening of environmental deadlines and a change in spending for pollution controls. (CC)

Emergence of power-law in a market with mixed models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ali Saif, M.; Gade, Prashant M.

2007-10-01

We investigate the problem of wealth distribution from the viewpoint of asset exchange. Robust nature of Pareto's law across economies, ideologies and nations suggests that this could be an outcome of trading strategies. However, the simple asset exchange models fail to reproduce this feature. A Yardsale (YS) model in which amount put on the bet is a fraction of minimum of the two players leads to condensation of wealth in hands of some agent while theft and fraud (TF) model in which the amount to be exchanged is a fraction of loser's wealth leads to an exponential distribution of wealth. We show that if we allow few agents to follow a different model than others, i.e., there are some agents following TF model while rest follow YS model, it leads to distribution with power-law tails. Similar effect is observed when one carries out transactions for a fraction of one's wealth using TF model and for the rest YS model is used. We also observe a power-law tail in wealth distribution if we allow the agents to follow either of the models with some probability.

48 CFR 1019.202-70-10 - Application process for mentor firms to participate in the program.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... mentor firms to participate in the program. 1019.202-70-10 Section 1019.202-70-10 Federal Acquisition...-70-10 Application process for mentor firms to participate in the program. (a) Firm interested in becoming a mentor firm may apply in writing to Treasury's OSBD. The application will be evaluated based...

ERP and Knowledge Management Integration: The Case of Malaysian Business Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Supramaniam, Mahadevan; Kuppusamy, Mudiarasan

2010-01-01

In order to compete in a global environment, Malaysian business firms need to improve their products and services through best practices. This paper aims to investigate the critical success factors to adopt Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) with knowledge management (KM) strategies among Malaysian business firms. In order to achieve the research…

Improving Performance in Very Small Firms through Effective Assessment and Feedback

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lorenzet, Steven J.; Cook, Ronald G.; Ozeki, Cynthia

2006-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to improve assessment and feedback processes in the training practices of very small firms, thereby improving the firms' human capital. Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews research and practice on effective assessment and feedback. Findings: Based on this paper, human resources are increasingly seen…

10 CFR 603.1230 - Commercial firm.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... 10 Energy 4 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Commercial firm. 603.1230 Section 603.1230 Energy DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (CONTINUED) ASSISTANCE REGULATIONS TECHNOLOGY INVESTMENT AGREEMENTS Definitions of Terms...., a division or other business unit) that does a substantial portion of its business in the commercial...

Environmental lead hazard to children.

PubMed

Mittal, S K

1992-01-01

Clinically evident lead poisoning is rare in Indian children but is more common than in adults. In children, lead poisoning may appear as fever, seizures, anemia, or abdominal pain, while in adults it is more likely to manifest as chronic minor peripheral neuropathy or gum pigmentation. Children with acute lead poisoning can be treated with chelators such as EDTA and BAL, but many are left with permanent brain damage. The most common sources of acute lead poisoning in Indian children are inhalation of fumes from burned car batteries, ingestion of flaking paint, consuming food cooked in cheap aluminum or brass utensils, and eating contaminated soil. The sources of chronic lead poisoning are water from lead pipes and fumes from industrial or automotive exhaust. Another common source in India is application of "kajjal" to children's eyes. Sources of lead in Western countries, such as drinking water, canned food, residential paint, automotive fuel, and ambient air quality, are regulated by law. None of these are regulated in India.

Relative importance of moisture migration and amylopectin retrogradation for pound cake crumb firming.

PubMed

Luyts, A; Wilderjans, E; Van Haesendonck, I; Brijs, K; Courtin, C M; Delcour, J A

2013-12-15

Moisture migration largely impacts cake crumb firmness during storage at ambient temperature. To study the importance of phenomena other than crumb to crust moisture migration and to exclude moisture and temperature gradients during baking, crustless cakes were baked using an electrical resistance oven (ERO). Cake crumb firming was evaluated by texture analysis. First, ERO cakes with properties similar to those baked conventionally were produced. Cake batter moisture content (MC) was adjusted to ensure complete starch gelatinisation in the baking process. In cakes baked conventionally, most of the increase in crumb firmness during storage was caused by moisture migration. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance ((1)H NMR) showed that the population containing protons of crystalline starch grew during cake storage. These and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data pointed to only limited amylopectin retrogradation. The limited increase in amylopectin retrogradation during cake storage cannot solely account for the significant firming of ERO cakes and, hence, other phenomena are involved in cake firming. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Corporate social responsibility in global health: an exploratory study of multinational pharmaceutical firms.

PubMed

Droppert, Hayley; Bennett, Sara

2015-04-09

As pharmaceutical firms experience increasing civil society pressure to act responsibly in a changing globalized world, many are expanding and/or reforming their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. We sought to understand how multinational pharmaceutical companies currently engage in CSR activities in the developing world aimed at global health impact, their motivations for doing so and how their CSR strategies are evolving. We conducted a small-scale, exploratory study combining (i) an in-depth review of publicly available data on pharmaceutical firms' CSR with (ii) interviews of representatives from 6 firms, purposively selected, from the highest earning pharmaceutical firms worldwide. Corporate social responsibility differed for each firm particularly with respect to how CSR is defined, organizational structures for managing CSR, current CSR activities, and motivations for CSR. Across the firms studied, the common CSR activities were: differential pharmaceutical pricing, strengthening developing country drug distribution infrastructure, mHealth initiatives, and targeted research and development. Primary factors that motivated CSR engagement were: reputational benefits, recruitment and employee satisfaction, better rankings in sustainability indices, entrance into new markets, long-term economic returns, and improved population health. In terms of CSR strategy, firms were at different points on a spectrum ranging from philanthropic donations to integrated systemic shared value business models. CSR is of increasing importance for multinational pharmaceutical firms yet understanding of the array of CSR strategies employed and their effects is nascent. Our study points to the need to (i) develop clearer and more standardized definitions of CSR in global health (2) strengthen indices to track CSR strategies and their public health effects in developing countries and (iii) undertake more country level studies that investigate how CSR engages with

Interdisciplinary integration for quality improvement: the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center Firm System.

PubMed

Aucott, J N; Pelecanos, E; Bailey, A J; Shupe, T C; Romeo, J H; Ravdin, J I; Aron, D C

1995-04-01

Many of the characteristics of Firm Systems lend themselves to the application of principles of continuous quality improvement (CQI). A Firm System is defined as two or more parallel practices organized on the principle of continuity of relationships between patients and an interdisciplinary group of health care professionals and trainees. Firm Systems are organized around the care of the patient or customer and emphasize access, continuity, and quality of care. The Firm System was implemented at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) not as a CQI initiative per se, but as an effort to coordinate the processes involved in the delivery of patient care. The primary goals of this implementation were to improve the quality of patient care, medical education, and health care research. The main strategy to deal with problems caused by uncoordinated care were to move from a departmental approach to an integrated interdisciplinary approach. This approach represented a paradigm shift within the organization that extended to planning, documentation, and the general work environment. Most important, the institution had leaders who were committed to the Firm System and willing to authorize resources to ensure its success. VA hospitals are ideal settings for Firm Systems because they provide longitudinal, comprehensive care with a centralized, prepaid payment mechanism, and they have well-developed information systems that allow the random assignment of patients to Firms. Recommendations to others interested in implementing Firm Systems include creation of a written plan that can gain general support; identification of resources needed for successful implementation; remembering that the patient is the most important customer, as well as that complex systems have many customers; monitoring of performance; and the importance of randomizing patients and providers.

U.S. International Firms and R,D&E in Developing Countries.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.

This document provides a panel report of research, development, and engineering (R,D&E) issues confronting international firms operating in developing countries. Biscussed are the R,D&E objectives of developing countries, the objectives of international firms, conflicts and the possibilities for cooperation between the two, and the role of U.S.…

Spatial firm competition in two dimensions with linear transportation costs: simulations and analytical results

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Roncoroni, Alan; Medo, Matus

2016-12-01

Models of spatial firm competition assume that customers are distributed in space and transportation costs are associated with their purchases of products from a small number of firms that are also placed at definite locations. It has been long known that the competition equilibrium is not guaranteed to exist if the most straightforward linear transportation costs are assumed. We show by simulations and also analytically that if periodic boundary conditions in a plane are assumed, the equilibrium exists for a pair of firms at any distance. When a larger number of firms is considered, we find that their total equilibrium profit is inversely proportional to the square root of the number of firms. We end with a numerical investigation of the system's behavior for a general transportation cost exponent.

Comment on the modified Beer-Lambert law for scattering media.

PubMed

Sassaroli, Angelo; Fantini, Sergio

2004-07-21

We present a concise overview of the modified Beer-Lambert law, which has been extensively used in the literature of near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) of scattering media. In particular, we discuss one form of the modified Beer-Lambert law that is commonly found in the literature and that is not strictly correct. However, this incorrect form of the modified Beer-Lambert law still leads to the correct expression for the changes in the continuous wave optical signal associated with changes in the absorption coefficient of the investigated medium. Here we propose a notation for the modified Beer-Lambert law that keeps the typical form commonly found in the literature without introducing any incorrect assumptions.

Freedom in the free world: The extimate becomes the law.

PubMed

Aristodemou, Maria

My article takes Robert Burt's piece as a starting point to highlight how a lacanian analysis of law differs from the one Robert Burt (rightly) rejected and from the alternative psychotherapeutic scenario Burt develops. I focus on what I consider to be the novel characteristics of a lacanian analysis, particularly its insistence on the castration of the human subject by language, a castration that problematizes our understanding of "freedom" and "free speech", and, in turn, on Law's own castration. The gradual peeling away of the claims made on behalf of the subject by ego psychologists, enables us to arrive at what a lacanian analysis would ideally uncover, that is the subject's extimate core. I illustrate this with the film The Act of Killing, a documentary which displays not only the extimate core at the heart of the subject but the extimate as the Law itself. The encounter between law and psychoanalysis, I conclude, far from leading to mutual understanding, leads to the dissolution of the analysand's pretenses, and, in turn, to the withdrawal of psychoanalysis from the scene altogether. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Stable power laws in variable economies; Lotka-Volterra implies Pareto-Zipf

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Solomon, S.; Richmond, P.

2002-05-01

In recent years we have found that logistic systems of the Generalized Lotka-Volterra type (GLV) describing statistical systems of auto-catalytic elements posses power law distributions of the Pareto-Zipf type. In particular, when applied to economic systems, GLV leads to power laws in the relative individual wealth distribution and in market returns. These power laws and their exponent α are invariant to arbitrary variations in the total wealth of the system and to other endogenously and exogenously induced variations.

Workplace Learning and Its Organizational Benefits for Small Enterprises: Evidence from Greek Industrial Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Panagiotakopoulos, Antonios

2011-01-01

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore small firm owners' perceptions of the impact of employee training on small firm competitiveness in the context of Greece. Design/methodology/approach: The research adopts a qualitative orientation. Empirical data were collected from 43 owners of small and micro-firms operating in various sectors of…

Quantification of the evolution of firm size distributions due to mergers and acquisitions.

PubMed

Lera, Sandro Claudio; Sornette, Didier

2017-01-01

The distribution of firm sizes is known to be heavy tailed. In order to account for this stylized fact, previous economic models have focused mainly on growth through investments in a company's own operations (internal growth). Thereby, the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the firm size (external growth) is often not taken into consideration, notwithstanding its potential large impact. In this article, we make a first step into accounting for M&A. Specifically, we describe the effect of mergers and acquisitions on the firm size distribution in terms of an integro-differential equation. This equation is subsequently solved both analytically and numerically for various initial conditions, which allows us to account for different observations of previous empirical studies. In particular, it rationalises shortcomings of past work by quantifying that mergers and acquisitions develop a significant influence on the firm size distribution only over time scales much longer than a few decades. This explains why M&A has apparently little impact on the firm size distributions in existing data sets. Our approach is very flexible and can be extended to account for other sources of external growth, thus contributing towards a holistic understanding of the distribution of firm sizes.

Quantification of the evolution of firm size distributions due to mergers and acquisitions

PubMed Central

Sornette, Didier

2017-01-01

The distribution of firm sizes is known to be heavy tailed. In order to account for this stylized fact, previous economic models have focused mainly on growth through investments in a company’s own operations (internal growth). Thereby, the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on the firm size (external growth) is often not taken into consideration, notwithstanding its potential large impact. In this article, we make a first step into accounting for M&A. Specifically, we describe the effect of mergers and acquisitions on the firm size distribution in terms of an integro-differential equation. This equation is subsequently solved both analytically and numerically for various initial conditions, which allows us to account for different observations of previous empirical studies. In particular, it rationalises shortcomings of past work by quantifying that mergers and acquisitions develop a significant influence on the firm size distribution only over time scales much longer than a few decades. This explains why M&A has apparently little impact on the firm size distributions in existing data sets. Our approach is very flexible and can be extended to account for other sources of external growth, thus contributing towards a holistic understanding of the distribution of firm sizes. PMID:28841683

48 CFR 1019.202-70-8 - Protégé firms.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... multiple mentors unless approved, in writing, by the Director, Office of Small Business Development (OSBD... SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS Policies 1019.202-70-8 Protégé firms. (a) For selection as a protégé, a firm must be: (1) A small business, women-owned small business, small disadvantaged business...

Administrative Law: The Hidden Comparative Law Course.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strauss, Peter L.

1996-01-01

Argues that the main contribution of the Administrative Law course to law students is that it presents problems which contrast with those of the standard court-centered curriculum and can illuminate other areas of law, repeatedly confronting students with doctrinal differences. Offers several examples from civil procedure, constitutional law, and…

12 CFR 513.8 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 513.8 Section 513.8 Banks and... Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit... of independent public accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and...

12 CFR 513.8 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 513.8 Section 513.8 Banks and Banking..., suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. (a... independent public accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and attestation...

12 CFR 513.8 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 513.8 Section 513.8 Banks and Banking..., suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. (a... independent public accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and attestation...

12 CFR 513.8 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 513.8 Section 513.8 Banks and... Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit... of independent public accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and...

75 FR 66796 - Pricewaterhousecoopers LLP (“PwC”), Internal Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-10-29

... LLP (``PwC''), Internal Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group Atlanta, GA; Amended...''), Internal Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group. Accordingly, the Department is amending this... Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group. The amended notice applicable to TA-W-73,630 is...

Structural Break, Stock Prices of Clean Energy Firms and Carbon Market

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wang, Yubao; Cai, Junyu

2018-03-01

This paper uses EU ETS carbon future price and Germany/UK clean energy firms stock indices to study the relationship between carbon market and clean energy market. By structural break test, it is found that the ‘non-stationary’ variables judged by classical unit root test do own unit roots and need taking first difference. After analysis of VAR and Granger causality test, no causal relationships are found between the two markets. However, when Hsiao’s version of causality test is employed, carbon market is found to have power in explaining the movement of stock prices of clean energy firms, and stock prices of clean energy firms also affect the carbon market.

Globalization, pharmaceutical pricing, and South African health policy: managing confrontation with U.S. firms and politicians.

PubMed

Bond, P

1999-01-01

Brewing since the advent of South African democracy in 1994 and promises of health sector transformation, an extraordinary drug war between President Nelson Mandela's African National Congress government and U.S. pharmaceutical manufacturers took on global proportions in 1998-1999. Within months of the passage of South African legislation aimed at lowering drug prices, the U.S. government quickly applied powerful pressure points to repeal a clause allowing potential importation of generic substitutes and imposition of compulsory licensing. At stake were not only local interpretations of patent law and World Trade Organization rules on Trade in Intellectual Property, but international power relations between developing countries and the pharmaceutical industry. In reviewing the ongoing debate, this article considers post-apartheid public health policy, U.S. government pressure to change the law, and pharmaceutical industry interests and links to the U.S. government, and evaluates various kinds of resistance to U.S. corporate and government behavior. The case thus raises--not for the first time--concerns about contemporary imperialism ("globalization"), the role of the profit motive as an incentive in vital pharmaceutical products, and indeed the depth of "democracy" in a country where high-bidding international drug firms have sufficient clout to embarrass Vice President Al Gore by pitting him against the life-and-death interests of millions of consumers of essential drugs in South Africa and other developing countries.

Titius-Bode laws in the solar system. 2: Build your own law from disk models

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Dubrulle, B.; Graner, F.

1994-02-01

Simply respecting both scale and rotational invariance, it is easy to construct an endless collection of theoretical models predicting a Titius-Bode law, irrespective to their physical content. Due to the numerous ways to get the law and its intrinsic arbitrariness, it is not a useful constraint on theories of solar system formation. To illustrate the simple elegance of scale-invariant methods, we explicitly cook up one of the simplest examples, an infinitely thin cold gaseous disk rotating around a central object. In that academic case, the Titius-Bode law holds during the linear stage of the gravitational instability. The time scale of the instability is of the order of a self-gravitating time scale, (G rhod)-1/2, where rhod is the disk density. This model links the separation between different density maxima with the ratio MD/MC of the masses of the disk and the central object; for instance, MD/MC of the order of 0.18 roughly leads to the observed separation between the planets. We discuss the boundary conditions and the limit of the Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin (WKB) approximation.

Managerial Cognitive Moral Development and the Firm's Owners' Salience: Empirical Evidence

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Martynov, Aleksey; Logachev, Sergey

2016-01-01

In this paper, we study the agency relationship between the firm's owners and managers. We apply the theory of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) to answer the question: What factors affect salience of the interests of the firm's owners to the managers? Using a sample of Russian managers, we found that higher levels of CMD weaken the relationship…

12 CFR 390.97 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 390.97 Section 390.97 Banks and... debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. (a) Scope. This... accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and attestation services required by...

12 CFR 390.97 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 390.97 Section 390.97 Banks and... debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. (a) Scope. This... accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and attestation services required by...

12 CFR 390.97 - Removal, suspension, or debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. 390.97 Section 390.97 Banks and... debarment of independent public accountants and accounting firms performing audit services. (a) Scope. This... accountants and their accounting firms from performing independent audit and attestation services required by...

ExtLaw_H18: Extinction law code

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hosek, Matthew W., Jr.; Lu, Jessica R.; Anderson, Jay; Do, Tuan; Schlafly, Edward F.; Ghez, Andrea M.; Clarkson, William I.; Morris, Mark R.; Albers, Saundra M.

2018-03-01

ExtLaw_H18 generates the extinction law between 0.8 - 2.2 microns. The law is derived using the Westerlund 1 (Wd1) main sequence (A_Ks 0.6 mag) and Arches cluster field Red Clump at the Galactic Center (A_Ks 2.7 mag). To derive the law a Wd1 cluster age of 5 Myr is assumed, though changing the cluster age between 4 Myr - 7 Myr has no effect on the law. This extinction law can be applied to highly reddened stellar populations that have similar foreground material as Wd1 and the Arches RC, namely dust from the spiral arms of the Milky Way in the Galactic Plane.

Correlation of fresh muscle firmness with sensory characteristics of pork loins destined for a quality focused market.

PubMed

Arkfeld, E K; Mancini, S; Fields, B; Dilger, A C; Boler, D D

2015-10-01

Production of pork for quality-driven export markets offers economic incentive. Pork processors use subjective firmness as a sorting tool for loins intended for high-quality export. The objectives of this study were to determine 1) durometer efficacy in muscle, 2) if firmness on one portion of the loin is indicative of other locations, 3) if 1 d firmness is related to export quality traits, and 4) if variation in firmness is explained by mechanistic measures. Subjective firmness scores (1 = extremely soft and 5 = extremely firm) were determined by a trained individual 1 d (initial time point) postmortem. Loins (North American Meat Processors number 414 Canadian back; = 154) were wet aged for 28 d at 1.7°C. On d 28, a panel of 4 individuals assigned firmness scores on the ventral side of the loin at the area of the 10th rib, the anterior half, and the posterior half of the loin. Durometer readings were collected at the area of the 10th rib on the dorsal and ventral side of the loin. Spearman correlation coefficients were computed in SAS (version 9.3) to account for nonnormality of categorical data. Subjective firmness measurements at d 28 at the 10th rib and on the anterior portion of the loin were not correlated ( ≥ 0.21) with whole loin durometer readings on the dorsal or ventral portion of the loin or the average of the whole loin values. Subjective firmness (d 28) at the 10th rib accounted for 38.44 ( = 0.620) and 48.30% ( = 0.695) of the variation in firmness at the anterior portion of the loin and the posterior portion of the loin, respectively ( ≤ 0.05). One-day subjective firmness measurements were correlated with 28-d Warner-Bratzler shear force measurements ( = 0.174, = 0.03) but were not significantly correlated with sensory characteristics ( ≥ 0.08). Purge tended to be correlated with 1 d firmness ( = 0.136, = 0.10); however, drip and cooking loss, 24-h and 28-d pH, and soluble and insoluble collagen content were not correlated ( ≥ 0

Stochasticity Favoring the Effects of the R&D Strategies of the Firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pinto, Alberto A.; Oliveira, Bruno M. P. M.; Ferreira, Fernanda A.; Ferreira, Flávio

We present stochastic dynamics on the production costs of Cournot competitions, based on perfect Nash equilibria of nonlinear R&D investment strategies to reduce the production costs of the firms at every period of the game. We analyse the effects that the R&D investment strategies can have in the profits of the firms along the time. We observe that, in certain cases, the uncertainty can improve the effects of the R&D strategies in the profits of the firms due to the non-linearity of the profit functions and also of the R&D parameters.

Human resources management and firm performance: The differential role of managerial affective and continuance commitment.

PubMed

Gong, Yaping; Law, Kenneth S; Chang, Song; Xin, Katherine R

2009-01-01

In this study, the authors developed a dual-concern (i.e., maintenance and performance) model of human resources (HR) management. The authors identified commonly examined HR practices that apply to the middle manager level and classified them into the maintenance- and performance-oriented HR subsystems. The authors found support for the 2-factor model on the basis of responses from 2,148 managers from 463 firms operating in China. Regression results indicate that the performance-oriented HR subsystems had a positive relationship with firm performance and that the relationship was mediated by middle managers' affective commitment to the firm. The maintenance-oriented HR subsystems had a positive relationship with middle managers' continuance commitment but not with their affective commitment and firm performance. This study contributes to the understanding of how HR practices relate to firm performance and offers an improved test of the argument that valuable and firm-specific HR provide a source of competitive advantage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved).

Solar hybrid power plants: Solar energy contribution in reaching full dispatchability and firmness

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Servert, Jorge F.; López, Diego; Cerrajero, Eduardo; Rocha, Alberto R.; Pereira, Daniel; Gonzalez, Lucía

2016-05-01

Renewable energies for electricity generation have always been considered as a risk for the electricity system due to its lack of dispatchability and firmness. Renewable energies penetration is constrained to strong grids or else its production must be limited to ensure grid stability, which is kept by the usage of hydropower energy or fossil-fueled power plants. CSP technology has an opportunity to arise not only as a dispatchable and firm technology, but also as an alternative that improves grid stability. To achieve that objective, solar hybrid configurations are being developed, being the most representative three different solutions: SAPG, ISCC and HYSOL. A reference scenario in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has been defined to compare these solutions, which have been modelled, simulated and evaluated in terms of dispatchability and firmness using ratios defined by the authors. The results show that: a) SAPG obtains the highest firmness KPI values, but no operation constraints have been considered for the coal boiler and the solar energy contribution is limited to 1.7%, b) ISCC provides dispatchable and firm electricity production but its solar energy contribution is limited to a 6.4%, and c) HYSOL presents the higher solar energy contribution of all the technologies considered: 66.0% while providing dispatchable and firm generation in similar conditions as SAPG and ISCC.

Social Firms as a means of vocational recovery for people with mental illness: a UK survey.

PubMed

Gilbert, Eleanor; Marwaha, Steven; Milton, Alyssa; Johnson, Sonia; Morant, Nicola; Parsons, Nicholas; Fisher, Adrian; Singh, Swaran; Cunliffe, Di

2013-07-11

Employment is associated with better quality of life and wellbeing in people with mental illness. Unemployment is associated with greater levels of psychological illness and is viewed as a core part of the social exclusion faced by people with mental illness. Social Firms offer paid employment to people with mental illness but are under-investigated in the UK. The aims of this phase of the Social Firms A Route to Recovery (SoFARR) project were to describe the availability and spread of Social Firms across the UK, to outline the range of opportunities Social Firms offer people with severe mental illness and to understand the extent to which they are employed within these firms. A UK national survey of Social Firms, other social enterprises and supported businesses was completed to understand the extent to which they provide paid employment for the mentally ill. A study-specific questionnaire was developed. It covered two broad areas asking employers about the nature of the Social Firm itself and about the employees with mental illness working there. We obtained returns from 76 Social Firms and social enterprises / supported businesses employing 692 people with mental illness. Forty per cent of Social Firms were in the south of England, 24% in the North and the Midlands, 18% in Scotland and 18% in Wales. Other social enterprises/supported businesses were similarly distributed. Trading activities were confined mainly to manufacturing, service industry, recycling, horticulture and catering. The number of employees with mental illness working in Social Firms and other social enterprises/supported businesses was small (median of 3 and 6.5 respectively). Over 50% employed people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, though the greatest proportion of employees with mental illness had depression or anxiety. Over two thirds of Social Firms liaised with mental health services and over a quarter received funding from the NHS or a mental health charity. Most workers with

Social firms as a means of vocational recovery for people with mental illness: a UK survey

PubMed Central

2013-01-01

Background Employment is associated with better quality of life and wellbeing in people with mental illness. Unemployment is associated with greater levels of psychological illness and is viewed as a core part of the social exclusion faced by people with mental illness. Social Firms offer paid employment to people with mental illness but are under-investigated in the UK. The aims of this phase of the Social Firms A Route to Recovery (SoFARR) project were to describe the availability and spread of Social Firms across the UK, to outline the range of opportunities Social Firms offer people with severe mental illness and to understand the extent to which they are employed within these firms. Method A UK national survey of Social Firms, other social enterprises and supported businesses was completed to understand the extent to which they provide paid employment for the mentally ill. A study-specific questionnaire was developed. It covered two broad areas asking employers about the nature of the Social Firm itself and about the employees with mental illness working there. Results We obtained returns from 76 Social Firms and social enterprises / supported businesses employing 692 people with mental illness. Forty per cent of Social Firms were in the south of England, 24% in the North and the Midlands, 18% in Scotland and 18% in Wales. Other social enterprises/supported businesses were similarly distributed. Trading activities were confined mainly to manufacturing, service industry, recycling, horticulture and catering. The number of employees with mental illness working in Social Firms and other social enterprises/supported businesses was small (median of 3 and 6.5 respectively). Over 50% employed people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, though the greatest proportion of employees with mental illness had depression or anxiety. Over two thirds of Social Firms liaised with mental health services and over a quarter received funding from the NHS or a mental health

The LSU Law Center -- Canada Bijuralism Conference. Introduction: Global Law and the Law School Curriculum.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Costonis, John J.

2002-01-01

Introduces papers from a conference focused on the bijural programs of Louisiana State University Law Center and McGill University Faculty of Law. The programs educate all first-degree law students in both the common law and civil law traditions, preparing them for the increasing globalization of legal practice. (EV)

Similarity law and critical properties in ionic systems.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Desgranges, Caroline; Delhommelle, Jerome

2017-11-01

Using molecular simulations, we determine the locus of ideal compressibility, or Zeno line, for a series of ionic compounds. We find that the shape of this thermodynamic contour follows a linear law, leading to the determination of the Boyle parameters. We also show that a similarity law, based on the Boyle parameters, yields accurate critical data when compared to the experiment. Furthermore, we show that the Boyle density scales linearly with the size-asymmetry, providing a direct route to establish a correspondence between the thermodynamic properties of different ionic compounds.

Gauss's law test of gravity at short range

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Moody, M. V.; Paik, H. J.

1993-01-01

A null test of the gravitational inverse-square law can be performed by testing Gauss's law for the field. We have constructed a three-axis superconducting gravity gradiometer and carried out such a test. A lead pendulum weighing 1500 kg was used to produce a time-varying field. This experiment places a new (2-sigma) limit of alpha = (0.9 + or - 4.6) x 10 exp -4 at lambda of 1.5 m, where alpha and lambda are parameters for the generalized potential phi = -(GM/r)(l + alpha e exp -r/lambda).

Lead absorption in indoor firing range users.

PubMed Central

Valway, S E; Martyny, J W; Miller, J R; Cook, M; Mangione, E J

1989-01-01

To determine if users of indoor firing ranges may be at risk from lead exposure, we studied a law enforcement trainee class during three months of firearms instruction. Blood lead levels were obtained before training and at four-week intervals during training. Air lead levels were measured three times during instruction. Blood lead levels rose from a pre-training mean of 0.31 mumol/L to 2.47 mumol/L. Mean air lead levels were above 2,000 micrograms/m3, more than 40 times the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's standard of 50 micrograms/m3. Cumulative exposure to lead and the change in blood lead were positively correlated. Control measures need to be studied to determine their efficacy in decreasing or eliminating this health risk. PMID:2751019

The Impact of Price-cap Regulations on Exit by Generic Pharmaceutical Firms.

PubMed

Zhang, Wei; Guh, Daphne; Sun, Huiying; Marra, Carlo A; Lynd, Larry D; Anis, Aslam H

2016-09-01

In 1998, the Province of Ontario in Canada adopted price-cap "70/90" regulations whereby the first generic entrant was required to be priced at ≤70% of the associated brand-name product and subsequent generics were priced at ≤90% of the first generic price. The price-caps were further lowered to 50% in 2006 and 25% in 2010. This study assessed the impact of such price-cap regulations on exit by generic drug firms. Formulary (2003-2012) listings of prescription drugs covered under the Ontario Drug Benefit program were used. The formulary tracks the "status" (on formulary, discontinued by manufacturer, and delisted for other reasons) for each drug. Markets were defined based on unique active ingredient and form within Ontario. Firm exit occurred when a manufacturer discontinued all its generic drugs within a market. The exit rate was defined as the number of generic firm-market exits divided by total generic firm-market follow-up years. Poisson regression was used to compare the exit rates during the 3 policy periods ("25," "50," and "70/90"). A total of 1126 generic manufacturers paired with 290 markets were identified. The exit rate ratio during the 25% price-cap period compared with the 70%/90% period was 2.42 (95% confidence interval, 1.56-3.77). A small manufacturer or a manufacturer in a market with ≥3 competitors or in an older market was more likely to exit. Lowering the price-cap level is associated with a higher incidence of generic firm exit from markets. Continuously reducing price-caps may have the unintended consequence of forcing generic firms to exit.

Origin of Noncubic Scaling Law in Disordered Granular Packing

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xia, Chengjie; Li, Jindong; Kou, Binquan

Recent diffraction experiments on metallic glasses have unveiled an unexpected non-cubic scaling law between density and average interatomic distance, which lead to the speculations on the presence of fractal glass order. Using X-ray tomography we identify here a similar non-cubic scaling law in disordered granular packing of spherical particles. We find that the scaling law is directly related to the contact neighbors within first nearest neighbor shell, and therefore is closely connected to the phenomenon of jamming. The seemingly universal scaling exponent around 2.5 arises due to the isostatic condition with contact number around 6, and we argue that themore » exponent should not be universal.« less

Workplace Education Programs in Small and Medium-Sized Michigan Firms. Staff Working Paper 92-13.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hollenbeck, Kevin; Anderson, William

A project collected data from small and medium-sized firms (employing fewer than 500) in Michigan concerning workplace education programs. It addressed why firms were or were not offering programs, program characteristics, and program impacts on firms and employees. Case studies of 28 businesses were undertaken from May 1991-July 1992 and a…

A stochastic model of firm growth

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Bottazzi, Giulio; Secchi, Angelo

2003-06-01

Recently from analyses on different databases the tent-shape of the distribution of firm growth rates has emerged as a robust and universal characteristic of the time evolution of corporates. We add new evidence on this topic and we present a new stochastic model that, under rather general assumptions, provides a robust explanation for the observed regularity.

78 FR 70987 - Proxy Advisory Firm Roundtable

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-11-27

... SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION [Release No. 34-70929; IA-3721; File No. 4-670] Proxy Advisory Firm Roundtable AGENCY: Securities and Exchange Commission. ACTION: Notice of roundtable discussion; request for comment. SUMMARY: The Securities and Exchange Commission will host a roundtable about proxy...

Outsourcing Relationships between Firms and Their Training Providers: The Role of Trust

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gainey, Thomas W.; Klaas, Brian S.

2005-01-01

Firms increasingly use external vendors to provide training for their employees. And because trust has been found to be essential in successful interfirm relationships, this study identified a number of factors thought to be associated with both self-interested trust and socially oriented trust between firms and their training suppliers. Using…

The Integration of Social-Ecological Resilience and Law

EPA Science Inventory

Growing recognition of the inherent uncertainty associated with the dynamics of ecological systems and their often non-linear and surprising behavior, however, presents a set of problems outside the scope of classic environmental law, and has lead to a fundamental understanding a...

Cooperative Factors, Cooperative Innovation Effect and Innovation Performance for Chinese Firms: an Empirical Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xie, Xuemei

Based on a survey to 1206 Chinese firms, this paper empirically explores the factors impacting cooperative innovation effect of firms, and seeks to explore the relationship between cooperative innovation effect (CIE) and innovation performance using the technique of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). The study finds there are significant positive relationships between basic sustaining factors, factors of government and policy, factors of cooperation mechanism and social network, and cooperative innovation effect. However, the result reveals that factors of government and policy demonstrate little impact on the CIE of firms compared with other factors. It is hoped that the findings can pave the way for future studies in improving cooperative innovation capacity for firms in emerging countries.

75 FR 66797 - PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (“PwC”) Internal Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-10-29

... LLP (``PwC'') Internal Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group, Charlotte, NC; Amended... Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group. Accordingly, the Department is amending this... Firm Services Client Account Administrators Group. The amended notice applicable to TA-W-73,608 is...

Dramatic (and Simple!) Demonstration of Newton's Third Law

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Feldman, Gerald

2011-02-01

An operational understanding of Newton's third law is often elusive for students. Typical examples of this concept are given for contact forces that are closer to the students' everyday experience. While this is a good thing in general, the reaction force can sometimes be taken for granted, and the students can miss the opportunity to really think about what is going on. In the case of magnetic forces, however, the notion of action at a distance actually requires a careful inspection of the forces involved and thereby promotes a more detailed analysis of the situation. In this paper, a simple demonstration of Newton's third law is presented in the context of a magnet falling through a hollow conducting tube. The results are unambiguous and lead the students to an irrefutable verification of Newton's third law.

Natural law and the "right to die".

PubMed

Whiting, R A

Over the last two decades social concerns with the "right to die" have grown beyond the ability of our governmental and judicial institutions to consistently deal with them. One reason for this difficulty has been the unavailability of any legal or judicial standard that is consistent with American conceptions of liberty, morality, and justice. This article attempts to examine the theory of natural law to determine whether it may provide a consistent standard for resolving these difficult questions. As natural law theories are traced through history, they lead directly to the United States where a uniquely American interpretation became one of the foundational principles for our constitution. By applying these theories to the contemporary question of the "right to die," natural law can again provide the foundational principles needed to develop standards for dealing with such questions that are consistent with our historical, philosophical, and political traditions.

Impact of parallel trade on pharmaceutical firm's profits: rise or fall?

PubMed

Guo, Shen; Hu, Bin; Zhong, Hai

2013-04-01

Most existing studies on parallel trade conclude that it reduces pharmaceutical firms' profits. One special feature of the pharmaceutical industry is the presence of price regulation in most countries. Taking into account the impact of parallel trade on the regulated pharmaceutical prices [Pecorino, P.: J. Health Econ. 21, 699-708 (2002)] shows that a pharmaceutical firm's profit is greater in the presence of parallel trade. The present paper relaxes the assumption on identical demands among countries, and takes into account transaction costs. The results of our model show that a firm's profits may increase or decrease in the presence of parallel trade, depending on its bargaining power in the price negotiation and market size of the drug. Changes in social welfare due to the transition to parallel trade regime are also considered.

Comparison and fusion of four nondestructive sensors for predicting apple fruit firmness and soluble solids content

USDA-ARS?s Scientific Manuscript database

Four nondestructive technologies (i.e., acoustic firmness, bioyield firmness, visible/near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, and spectral scattering) have been developed in recent years for assessing the firmness and/or soluble solids content (SSC) of apples. Each of these technologies has its merits and...

A Classroom Entry and Exit Game of Supply with Price-Taking Firms

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cheung, Stephen L.

2005-01-01

The author describes a classroom game demonstrating the process of adjustment to long-run equilibrium in a market consisting of price-taking firms. This game unites and extends key insights from several simpler games in a framework more consistent with the standard textbook model of a competitive industry. Because firms have increasing marginal…

Lead in American Schools: What School Districts Should and Should Not Do.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Institute for Environmental Assessment, Brooklyn Park, MN.

This paper examines the lead issue in school buildings, noting that even minimal exposures to lead can create diagnosable health problems in children. It includes comments about current regulations and laws pertaining to the areas of soil, water, air, debris disposal, surfaces, and level of lead in the blood. It also lists responses to lead that…

Plasma focus ion beam-scaling laws

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saw, S. H.

2014-08-01

Measurements on plasma focus ion beams include various advanced techniques producing a variety of data which has yet to produce benchmark numbers. Recent numerical experiments using an extended version of the Lee Code has produced reference numbers and scaling trends for number and energy fluence of deuteron beams as functions of stored energy E0. At the pinch exit the ion number fluence (ions m-2) and energy fluence (J m-2) computed as 2.4-7.8×1020 and 2.2-33×106 respectively were found to be independent of E0 from 0.4 - 486 kJ. This work was extended to the ion beams for various gases. The results show that, for a given plasma focus, the fluence, flux, ion number and ion current decrease from the lightest to the heaviest gas except for trend-breaking higher values for Ar fluence and flux. The energy fluence, energy flux, power flow and damage factors are relatively constant from H2 to N2 but increase for Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe due to radiative cooling and collapse effects. This paper reviews this work and in a concluding section attempts to put the accumulating large amounts of data into the form of a scaling law of beam energy Ebeam versus storage energy E0 taking the form for deuteron as: {Ebeam} = 18.2{E}01.23; where Ebeam is in J and E0 is in kJ. It is hoped that the establishment of such scaling laws places on a firm footing the reference quantitative ideas for plasma focus ion beams.

Maximum likelihood estimators for truncated and censored power-law distributions show how neuronal avalanches may be misevaluated

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Langlois, Dominic; Cousineau, Denis; Thivierge, J. P.

2014-01-01

The coordination of activity amongst populations of neurons in the brain is critical to cognition and behavior. One form of coordinated activity that has been widely studied in recent years is the so-called neuronal avalanche, whereby ongoing bursts of activity follow a power-law distribution. Avalanches that follow a power law are not unique to neuroscience, but arise in a broad range of natural systems, including earthquakes, magnetic fields, biological extinctions, fluid dynamics, and superconductors. Here, we show that common techniques that estimate this distribution fail to take into account important characteristics of the data and may lead to a sizable misestimation of the slope of power laws. We develop an alternative series of maximum likelihood estimators for discrete, continuous, bounded, and censored data. Using numerical simulations, we show that these estimators lead to accurate evaluations of power-law distributions, improving on common approaches. Next, we apply these estimators to recordings of in vitro rat neocortical activity. We show that different estimators lead to marked discrepancies in the evaluation of power-law distributions. These results call into question a broad range of findings that may misestimate the slope of power laws by failing to take into account key aspects of the observed data.

Maximum likelihood estimators for truncated and censored power-law distributions show how neuronal avalanches may be misevaluated.

PubMed

Langlois, Dominic; Cousineau, Denis; Thivierge, J P

2014-01-01

The coordination of activity amongst populations of neurons in the brain is critical to cognition and behavior. One form of coordinated activity that has been widely studied in recent years is the so-called neuronal avalanche, whereby ongoing bursts of activity follow a power-law distribution. Avalanches that follow a power law are not unique to neuroscience, but arise in a broad range of natural systems, including earthquakes, magnetic fields, biological extinctions, fluid dynamics, and superconductors. Here, we show that common techniques that estimate this distribution fail to take into account important characteristics of the data and may lead to a sizable misestimation of the slope of power laws. We develop an alternative series of maximum likelihood estimators for discrete, continuous, bounded, and censored data. Using numerical simulations, we show that these estimators lead to accurate evaluations of power-law distributions, improving on common approaches. Next, we apply these estimators to recordings of in vitro rat neocortical activity. We show that different estimators lead to marked discrepancies in the evaluation of power-law distributions. These results call into question a broad range of findings that may misestimate the slope of power laws by failing to take into account key aspects of the observed data.

Virtual firm as a role-playing tool for biomedical education.

PubMed

Blagosklonov, Oleg; Soto-Romero, Georges; Guyon, Florent; Courjal, Nadège; Euphrasie, Sebatien; Yahiaoui, Reda; Butterlin, Nadia

2006-01-01

The paper describes design of a role-playing tool based on the experience of the practice firm which allows participants to obtain relevant and practical on-the-job experience. The students played the roles of the employees and the applicants for vacant positions at the virtual firm - a small business specialized in biomedical sector - founded to design the demonstration vehicle for a biomedical device. We found that this innovative concept may be used to improve the young engineers performance and to facilitate their post-graduate integration.

Android-based E-Traffic law enforcement system in Surakarta City

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yulianto, Budi; Setiono

2018-03-01

The urban advancement is always overpowered by the increasing number of vehicles as the need for movement of people and goods. This can lead to traffic problems if there is no effort on the implementation of traffic management and engineering, and traffic law enforcement. In this case, the Government of Surakarta City has implemented various policies and regulations related to traffic management and engineering in order to run traffic in an orderly, safe and comfortable manner according to the applicable law. However, conditions in the field shows that traffic violations still occurred frequently due to the weakness of traffic law enforcement in terms of human resources and the system. In this connection, a tool is needed to support traffic law enforcement, especially in relation to the reporting system of traffic violations. This study aims to develop an Android-based traffic violations reporting application (E-Traffic Law Enforcement) as part of the traffic law enforcement system in Surakarta City. The Android-apps records the location and time of the traffic violations incident along with the visual evidence of the infringement. This information will be connected to the database system to detect offenders and to do the traffic law enforcement process.

Inter-firm Networks, Organizational Learning and Knowledge Updating: An Empirical Study

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Su-rong; Wang, Wen-ping

In the era of knowledge-based economy which information technology develops rapidly, the rate of knowledge updating has become a critical factor for enterprises to gaining competitive advantage .We build an interactional theoretical model among inter-firm networks, organizational learning and knowledge updating thereby and demonstrate it with empirical study at last. The result shows that inter-firm networks and organizational learning is the source of knowledge updating.

Campbell's Law and the Ethics of Immensurability

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Sidorkin, Alexander M.

2016-01-01

The paper examines "Campbell's Law": "The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." The examination of measurability leads to explaining the…

Firm-Specific Marketing Capital and Job Satisfaction of Marketers: Evidence from Vietnam

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Nguyen, Tho D.; Nguyen, Trang T. M.

2011-01-01

Purpose: Based on the resource-based view of the firm, this study aims to examine antecedents and outcomes of firm-specific marketing capital pool invested by marketers in a transition market, Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 528 marketers in Ho Chi Minh City was surveyed to test the theoretical model. Structural equation…

Organizational Learning, Knowledge Management Practices and Firm's Performance: An Empirical Study of a Heavy Engineering Firm in India

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jain, Ajay K.; Moreno, Ana

2015-01-01

Purpose: The study aims at investigating the impact of organizational learning (OL) on the firm's performance and knowledge management (KM) practices in a heavy engineering organization in India. Design/Methodology/Approach: The data were collected from 205 middle and senior executives working in the project engineering management division of a…

Health care law versus constitutional law.

PubMed

Hall, Mark A

2013-04-01

National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, is a landmark decision - both for constitutional law and for health care law and policy. Others will study its implications for constitutional limits on a range of federal powers beyond health care. This article considers to what extent the decision is also about health care law, properly conceived. Under one view, health care law is the subdiscipline that inquires how courts and government actors take account of the special features of medicine that make legal or policy issues especially problematic - rather than regarding health care delivery and finance more generically, like most any other economic or social enterprise. Viewed this way, the opinions from the Court's conservative justices are mainly about general constitutional law principles. In contrast, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion for the four more liberal justices is just as much about health care law as it is about constitutional law. Her opinion gives detailed attention to the unique features of health care finance and delivery in order to inform her analysis of constitutional precedents and principles. Thus, the Court's multiple opinions give a vivid depiction of the compelling contrasts between communal versus individualistic conceptions of caring for those in need, and between health care and health insurance as ordinary commodities versus ones that merit special economic, social, and legal status.

Innovation, Technology and Decision Making: A Perspective for Strategic Action in Firms

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Mulenburg, Gerald M.

2002-01-01

Innovation, technology, and the making of decisions are tightly intertwined in what can generally be called, strategic decision making. Although true for all firms, it is especially true in innovative, high technology firms that operate in a turbulent, fast moving environment where strategic decisions must be made accurately and quickly to survive. This paper looks at some factors reported in the literature that affect how and why the strategic decision process is so important, especially in companies in fast-moving, competitive environments. The work of several prominent authors who looked critically at past theory and research, and the current state of knowledge and practice, provides a perspective of how firms make strategic decisions.

The origin of asymmetric behavior of money flow in the business firm network

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miura, W.; Takayasu, H.; Takayasu, M.

2012-09-01

In the business firm network, the number of in-degrees and out-degrees show the same scale-free property, however, the distribution of authorities and hubs show asymmetric behavior. Here we show the result of an analysis of the two-link structure of the network to find the origin of this asymmetric behavior. We find the tendency for big construction firms intermediating small subcontracting firms to have higher hub degrees. By measuring the strength of preferential attachment rate of new companies, we also find a abnormally strong preferential attachment for which the exponent is 1.4 with respect to out-degree when a new company forms a business partnership with a construction company. We propose a new model that reproduces the asymmetric behavior of the degrees of authorities and hubs by changing the preferential attachment rate between the in-degree and the out-degree in the business firm network.

14 CFR 1274.915 - Restrictions on sale or transfer of technology to foreign firms or institutions.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... technology to foreign firms or institutions. 1274.915 Section 1274.915 Aeronautics and Space NATIONAL... Conditions § 1274.915 Restrictions on sale or transfer of technology to foreign firms or institutions. Restrictions on Sale or Transfer of Technology to Foreign Firms or Institutions July 2002 (a) The parties agree...

Electric energy costs and firm productivity in the countries of the Pacific Alliance

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Camacho, Anamaria

This paper explores the relation between energy as an input of production and firm-level productivity for Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru, all country members of the Pacific Alliance economic bloc. The empirical literature, has explored the impact of infrastructure on productivity; however there is limited analysis on the impact of particular infrastructure variables, such as energy, on productivity at the firm level in Latin America. Therefore, this study conducts a quantitative assessment of the responsiveness of productivity to energy cost and quality for Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. For this, the empirical strategy is to estimate a Cobb-Douglas production function using the World Bank's Enterprise Survey to obtain comparable measures of output and inputs of production. This approach provides estimates of input factor elasticities for all of the factors of production including energy. The results indicate that electric energy costs explain cross-country differences in firm level productivity. For the particular case of Colombia, the country exhibits the lowest capital and labor productivity of the PA, and firm output is highly responsive to changes in energy use. As a result, the evidence suggests that policies reducing electric energy costs are an efficient alternative to increase firm performance, particularly in the case of Colombia.

Do more hospital beds lead to higher hospitalization rates? a spatial examination of Roemer's Law.

PubMed

Delamater, Paul L; Messina, Joseph P; Grady, Sue C; WinklerPrins, Vince; Shortridge, Ashton M

2013-01-01

Roemer's Law, a widely cited principle in health care policy, states that hospital beds that are built tend to be used. This simple but powerful expression has been invoked to justify Certificate of Need regulation of hospital beds in an effort to contain health care costs. Despite its influence, a surprisingly small body of empirical evidence supports its content. Furthermore, known geographic factors influencing health services use and the spatial structure of the relationship between hospital bed availability and hospitalization rates have not been sufficiently explored in past examinations of Roemer's Law. We pose the question, "Accounting for space in health care access and use, is there an observable association between the availability of hospital beds and hospital utilization?" We employ an ecological research design based upon the Anderson behavioral model of health care utilization. This conceptual model is implemented in an explicitly spatial context. The effect of hospital bed availability on the utilization of hospital services is evaluated, accounting for spatial structure and controlling for other known determinants of hospital utilization. The stability of this relationship is explored by testing across numerous geographic scales of analysis. The case study comprises an entire state system of hospitals and population, evaluating over one million inpatient admissions. We find compelling evidence that a positive, statistically significant relationship exists between hospital bed availability and inpatient hospitalization rates. Additionally, the observed relationship is invariant with changes in the geographic scale of analysis. This study provides evidence for the effects of Roemer's Law, thus suggesting that variations in hospitalization rates have origins in the availability of hospital beds. This relationship is found to be robust across geographic scales of analysis. These findings suggest continued regulation of hospital bed supply to assist in

Project 2000-3 Leading Edge Enterprise: Insights into Employment and Training Practices. Working Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Long, Michael; Fischer, John

Leading-edge firms (LEFs)--at the forefront of their industry in terms of growth or market share--may influence skill development through diffusion of technology, products, or practices and use of market power to set standards or change customer businesses. Study of LEFs can identify the type and mix of skills needed in the industry. LEFs are…

31 CFR 515.559 - Certain transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... controlled foreign firms with Cuba. 515.559 Section 515.559 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating... transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba. (a) Effective October 23, 1992, no specific... controlled firms in third countries and Cuba for the exportation to Cuba of commodities produced in the...

31 CFR 515.559 - Certain transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... controlled foreign firms with Cuba. 515.559 Section 515.559 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating... transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba. (a) Effective October 23, 1992, no specific... controlled firms in third countries and Cuba for the exportation to Cuba of commodities produced in the...

31 CFR 515.559 - Certain transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... controlled foreign firms with Cuba. 515.559 Section 515.559 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating... transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba. (a) Effective October 23, 1992, no specific... controlled firms in third countries and Cuba for the exportation to Cuba of commodities produced in the...

31 CFR 515.559 - Certain transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... controlled foreign firms with Cuba. 515.559 Section 515.559 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating... transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba. (a) Effective October 23, 1992, no specific... controlled firms in third countries and Cuba for the exportation to Cuba of commodities produced in the...

31 CFR 515.559 - Certain transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... controlled foreign firms with Cuba. 515.559 Section 515.559 Money and Finance: Treasury Regulations Relating... transactions by U.S.-owned or controlled foreign firms with Cuba. (a) Effective October 23, 1992, no specific... controlled firms in third countries and Cuba for the exportation to Cuba of commodities produced in the...

Do hospital chief executive officers extract rents from Certificate of Need laws?

PubMed

Eichmann, Traci L; Santerre, Rexford E

2011-01-01

Prior research suggests that Certificate of Need (CON) laws reduce competition in the hospital services industry. As a result, this study empirically investigates if not-for-profit hospital chief executive officers (CEOs) are able to extract rents from CON laws in the form of higher compensation. A sample of 256 not-for-profit hospital CEOs in states with and without CON laws and data for 2007 are used in the empirical analysis. The study considers the endogenous nature of a CON law and allows such a law to indirectly affect CEO compensation through its impact on the number of hospitals and beds. The multiple regression results indicate that special and public interests both motivate the decision of a state to maintain a CON law. CON laws are shown to reduce the number of beds at the typical hospital by 12 percent, on average, and the number of hospitals per 100,000 persons by 48 percent. These reductions ultimately lead urban hospital CEOs in states with CON laws to extract economic rents of $91,000 annually.

A geomorphic process law for detachment-limited hillslopes

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Turowski, Jens

2015-04-01

Geomorphic process laws are used to assess the shape evolution of structures at the Earth's surface over geological time scales, and are routinely used in landscape evolution models. There are two currently available concepts on which process laws for hillslope evolution rely. In the transport-limited concept, the evolution of a hillslope is described by a linear or a non-linear diffusion equation. In contrast, in the threshold slope concept, the hillslope is assumed to collapse to a slope equal to the internal friction angle of the material when the load due to the relief exists the material strength. Many mountains feature bedrock slopes, especially in the high mountains, and material transport along the slope is limited by the erosion of the material from the bedrock. Here, I suggest a process law for detachment-limited or threshold-dominated hillslopes, in which the erosion rate is a function of the applied stress minus the surface stress due to structural loading. The process law leads to the prediction of an equilibrium form that compares well to the shape of many mountain domes.

Microsimulation of household and firm behaviors: anticipation of greenhouse gas emissions for Austin, Texas.

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2009-05-01

Anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can be attributed to household and firm travel and : building decisions. This study demonstrates the development and application of a microsimulation model : for household and firm evolution and location c...

Inter-Firm Cooperation in Training. A National Vocational Education and Training Research and Evaluation Program Report

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cooney, Richard; Long, Michael

2008-01-01

Industry policy emphasises the importance of competition between firms as the basis of efficient markets and as a stimulus for improved firm efficiency. Yet research has shown that much can be gained from cooperation among firms in a range of activities, especially those involving the transfer of knowledge, such as training. These cooperative…

US firms leave business lobby group

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwynne, Peter

2009-11-01

Three US energy and hi-tech firms have left the US Chamber of Commerce - a powerful group that lobbies on behalf of business - because it has openly questioned the science behind climate change. The departing organizations protest that the chamber and another business lobbying group, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), could cripple advances in renewable energy by becoming representatives of fossil-fuel interests.

NASA cash boost for space firms

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwynne, Peter

2012-09-01

NASA has awarded 1.1bn to three US firms to design and develop the "next generation of human spaceflight capabilities". Boeing, Sierra Nevada and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), who will receive 460m, 212.5m and 440m respectively, will use the money to improve and test their systems intended to fly astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) within the next five years.

Will Moores law be sufficient?

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

DeBenedictis, Erik P.

2004-07-01

It seems well understood that supercomputer simulation is an enabler for scientific discoveries, weapons, and other activities of value to society. It also seems widely believed that Moore's Law will make progressively more powerful supercomputers over time and thus enable more of these contributions. This paper seeks to add detail to these arguments, revealing them to be generally correct but not a smooth and effortless progression. This paper will review some key problems that can be solved with supercomputer simulation, showing that more powerful supercomputers will be useful up to a very high yet finite limit of around 1021 FLOPSmore » (1 Zettaflops) . The review will also show the basic nature of these extreme problems. This paper will review work by others showing that the theoretical maximum supercomputer power is very high indeed, but will explain how a straightforward extrapolation of Moore's Law will lead to technological maturity in a few decades. The power of a supercomputer at the maturity of Moore's Law will be very high by today's standards at 1016-1019 FLOPS (100 Petaflops to 10 Exaflops), depending on architecture, but distinctly below the level required for the most ambitious applications. Having established that Moore's Law will not be that last word in supercomputing, this paper will explore the nearer term issue of what a supercomputer will look like at maturity of Moore's Law. Our approach will quantify the maximum performance as permitted by the laws of physics for extension of current technology and then find a design that approaches this limit closely. We study a 'multi-architecture' for supercomputers that combines a microprocessor with other 'advanced' concepts and find it can reach the limits as well. This approach should be quite viable in the future because the microprocessor would provide compatibility with existing codes and programming styles while the 'advanced' features would provide a boost to the limits of performance.« less

Effects of state managed care patient protection laws on physician satisfaction.

PubMed

Sloan, Frank A; Rattliff, John R; Hall, Mark A

2007-10-01

Physician dissatisfaction often drives public policy, and is associated with lower quality of care and disruption of treatment relationships. Physicians expressed strong dissatisfaction with managed care, leading to enactment of patient protection laws. By 2001, almost all states enacted laws to curb alleged abuses of managed care organizations. To date, no studies have examined whether such laws improved physician satisfaction. This article examines whether enactment of these laws improved physician satisfaction, using responses to the Physician Survey component of the Community Tracking Study (CTS), supplemented with data on state statutes/regulations. Career satisfaction increased for both primary care physicians (PCPs) and specialists following enactment of such laws; improvements were limited to early-adopting states. Enactment was associated with improvements in early-adopting states for specialists but not for PCPs on: ability to provide high quality care, clinical freedom, and ability to make clinical decisions in patients' interests without sacrificing physician income.

Providing accurate near real-time fire alerts for Protected Areas through NASA FIRMS: Opportunities and Challenges

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ilavajhala, S.; Davies, D.; Schmaltz, J. E.; Wong, M.; Murphy, K. J.

2013-12-01

The NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) is at the forefront of providing global near real-time (NRT) MODIS thermal anomalies / hotspot location data to end-users . FIRMS serves the data via an interactive Web GIS named Web Fire Mapper, downloads of NRT active fire, archive data downloads for MODIS hotspots dating back to 1999 and a hotspot email alert system The FIRMS Email Alerts system has been successfully alerting users of fires in their area of interest in near real-time and/or via daily and weekly email summaries, with an option to receive MODIS hotspot data as a text file (CSV) attachment. Currently, there are more than 7000 email alert subscriptions from more than 100 countries. Specifically, the email alerts system is designed to generate and send an email alert for any region or area on the globe, with a special focus on providing alerts for protected areas worldwide. For many protected areas, email alerts are particularly useful for early fire detection, monitoring on going fires, as well as allocating resources to protect wildlife and natural resources of particular value. For protected areas, FIRMS uses the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) supplied by United Nations Environment Program - World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Maintaining the most up-to-date, accurate boundary geometry for the protected areas for the email alerts is a challenge as the WDPA is continuously updated due to changing boundaries, merging or delisting of certain protected areas. Because of this dynamic nature of the protected areas database, the FIRMS protected areas database is frequently out-of-date with the most current version of WDPA database. To maintain the most up-to-date boundary information for protected areas and to be in compliance with the WDPA terms and conditions, FIRMS needs to constantly update its database of protected areas. Currently, FIRMS strives to keep its database up to date by downloading the most recent

The Anthropocene and the international law of the sea.

PubMed

Vidas, Davor

2011-03-13

The current law of the sea provides a framework for various specific issues, but is incapable of responding adequately to the overall challenges facing humankind, now conceivably already living in the Anthropocene. The linkages between the development of the law of the sea and the current process towards formal recognition of an Anthropocene epoch are twofold. First, there is a linkage of origin. The ideological foundations of the law of the sea facilitated the emergence of forces that were to lead to the Industrial Revolution and, eventually, to levels of development entailing ever-greater human impacts on the Earth System. Second, there are linkages in interaction. Geological information has prompted key developments in the law of the sea since the introduction of the continental shelf concept in the mid-twentieth century. With the formalization of the Anthropocene epoch, geology might again act as a trigger for new developments needed in the law of the sea. This article explores those two aspects of linkages and examines prospects for further development of the law of the sea framework, through concepts such as the responsibility for the seas as well as those related to new approaches to global sustainability such as the 'planetary boundaries'.

Control Law for Automatic Landing Using Fuzzy-Logic Control

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kato, Akio; Inagaki, Yoshiki

The effectiveness of a fuzzy-logic control law for automatically landing an aircraft that handles both the control to lead an aircraft from horizontal flight at an altitude of 500 meters to flight along the glide-path course near the runway, as well as the control to direct the aircraft to land smoothly on a runway, was investigated. The control law for the automatic landing was designed to match the design goals of directing an aircraft from horizontal flight to flight along a glide-path course quickly and smoothly, and for landing smoothly on a runway. The design of the control law and evaluation of the control performance were performed considering the ground effect at landing. As a result, it was confirmed that the design goals were achieved. Even if the characteristics of the aircraft change greatly, the proposed control law is able to maintain the control performance. Moreover, it was confirmed to be able to land an aircraft safely during air turbulence. The present paper indicates that fuzzy-logic control is an effective and flexible method when applied to the control law for automatic landing, and the design method of the control law using fuzzy-logic control was obtained.

Darwin's laws.

PubMed

Haufe, Chris

2012-03-01

There is widespread agreement among contemporary philosophers of biology and philosophically-minded biologists that Darwin's insights about the intrusion of chance processes into biological regularities undermines the possibility of there being biological laws. Darwin made references to "designed laws." He also freely described some laws as having exceptions. This paper provides a philosophical analysis of the notion of scientific laws that was dominant in Darwin's time, and in all probability the one which he inherited. The analysis of laws is then used to show how it could have been natural for Darwin to believe in designed laws that had exceptions, and to highlight the continuity between the metaphysics of pre-Darwinian, Darwinian, and contemporary biological science. One important result is the removal of one motivation for the anti-laws sentiment in philosophy and biology. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Electromagnetic scattering laws in Weyl systems.

PubMed

Zhou, Ming; Ying, Lei; Lu, Ling; Shi, Lei; Zi, Jian; Yu, Zongfu

2017-11-09

Wavelength determines the length scale of the cross section when electromagnetic waves are scattered by an electrically small object. The cross section diverges for resonant scattering, and diminishes for non-resonant scattering, when wavelength approaches infinity. This scattering law explains the colour of the sky as well as the strength of a mobile phone signal. We show that such wavelength scaling comes from the conical dispersion of free space at zero frequency. Emerging Weyl systems, offering similar dispersion at non-zero frequencies, lead to new laws of electromagnetic scattering that allow cross sections to be decoupled from the wavelength limit. Diverging and diminishing cross sections can be realized at any target wavelength in a Weyl system, providing the ability to tailor the strength of wave-matter interactions for radiofrequency and optical applications.

A face only an investor could love: CEOs' facial structure predicts their firms' financial performance.

PubMed

Wong, Elaine M; Ormiston, Margaret E; Haselhuhn, Michael P

2011-12-01

Researchers have theorized that innate personal traits are related to leadership success. Although links between psychological characteristics and leadership success have been well established, research has yet to identify any objective physical traits of leaders that predict organizational performance. In the research reported here, we identified leaders' facial structure as a specific physical trait that correlates with organizational performance. Specifically, we found that firms whose male CEOs have wider faces (relative to facial height) achieve superior financial performance. Decision-making dynamics within a firm's leadership team moderate this effect, such that the relationship between a given CEO's facial measurements and his firm's financial performance is stronger in firms with cognitively simple leadership teams.

A 'Scottish Poor Law of Lunacy'? Poor Law, Lunacy Law and Scotland's parochial asylums.

PubMed

Farquharson, Lauren

2017-03-01

Scotland's parochial asylums are unfamiliar institutional spaces. Representing the concrete manifestation of the collision between two spheres of legislation, the Poor Law and the Lunacy Law, six such asylums were constructed in the latter half of the nineteenth century. These sites expressed the enduring mandate of the Scottish Poor Law 1845 over the domain of 'madness'. They were institutions whose very existence was fashioned at the directive of the local arm of the Poor Law, the parochial board, and they constituted a continuing 'Scottish Poor Law of Lunacy'. Their origins and operation significantly subverted the intentions and objectives of the Lunacy Act 1857, the aim of which had been to institute a public district asylum network with nationwide coverage.

The impact of information disclosure on market liquidity: Evidence from firms' use of Twitter

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Qu, Qixing; Wang, Lin; Qin, Liangjuan; Zhao, Xiaoye; Wang, Lijie

2017-01-01

Despite the popular use of social media by firms, empirical research investigating their economic values still lags. Based on the Security Exchange Commission's (SEC) new regulation on Fair Disclosure valid important corporate information discloses via social media (RIDSM), in this study, we examine the effectiveness of this new regulation to market liquidity. We collect trade data including daily volume and bid-ask spread to assemble a unique data set at individual firm level from S&P 500 firms and analyze the firms' bid-ask spread and volume before and after issuing the regulation. This natural experiment allows us to separate the effect of regulation from the effect of other confounding factors. The results from our panel data analyses indicate that bid-ask spread has decreased by about 5% in response to the new regulation. Our results are statistically significant and highly robust. We also examine the impact of the new regulation on a volume-based measure of liquidity, and find that the regulation is associated with greater volume, consistent with a reduction in information asymmetry. Moreover, this result holds mainly for firms that are high-tech, consistent with them being in greater need of this additional information disclosure channel.

Bureaucratic versus Craft Administration: The Relationship of Market Structure to the Construction Firm.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Eccles, Robert G.

1981-01-01

Examines the factors that influence subcontracting and type of management in the construction industry. Argues that subcontracting is explained by a construction firm's size, complexity, and market extent, and that management type results from a firm's size and role in the production process and from census classification problems. (Author/RW)

Learning the Law: Law Education for Young North Carolinians.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Edwards, Wanda Rushing; Carr, Edward G., Jr.

Arranged in five chapters, this supplementary resource for junior high students contains information on the history, practical applications, and social consequences of the law. In chapter 1, students are introduced to the origin of laws through examination of a fable, the relationship between government and laws, types of laws, and law…

Arctic sea ice leads from advanced very high resolution radiometer images

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lindsay, R. W.; Rothrock, D. A.

1995-01-01

A large number of advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) images from throughout 1989 are analyzed to determine lead characteristics. The units of analysis are square 200-km cells, and there are 270 such cells in the data set. Clouds are masked manually. Leads determine from images of the potential open water delta, a scaled version of the surface temperature or albedo that weights thin ice by its thermal or brightness impact. The lead fraction is determined as the mean delta, the monthly mean lead fraction ranges from 0.02 in winter to 0.06 in summer in the central Arctic and is near 0.08 in the winter in the peripheral seas. A method of accounting for lead width sampling errors due to the finite sample areas is introduced. In the central Arctic the observed mean lead width for a threshold of delta = 0.1 ranges from 2 or 3 km (near the resolution of the instrument) in the winter to 6 km in the summer. In the peripheral seas it is about 5 km in the winter. Width distributions are often more heavily weighted in the tail than exponential distributions and are well approximated by a power law. The along-track, number density power law N = aw(exp -6) has a mean exponent of b = 1.60 (standard deviation 0.18) and shows some seasonal variability. Mean floe widths in the central Arctic are 40 to 50 km in the winter, dropping to about 10 km in the summer. For floes the power law has a mean exponent of 0.93 and exhibits a clearer annual cycle. Lead orientation is determined with a method based on the direction of maximum extent.

Reliability of reservoir firm yield determined from the historical drought of record

USGS Publications Warehouse

Archfield, S.A.; Vogel, R.M.

2005-01-01

The firm yield of a reservoir is typically defined as the maximum yield that could have been delivered without failure during the historical drought of record. In the future, reservoirs will experience droughts that are either more or less severe than the historical drought of record. The question addressed here is what the reliability of such systems will be when operated at the firm yield. To address this question, we examine the reliability of 25 hypothetical reservoirs sited across five locations in the central and western United States. These locations provided a continuous 756-month streamflow record spanning the same time interval. The firm yield of each reservoir was estimated from the historical drought of record at each location. To determine the steady-state monthly reliability of each firm-yield estimate, 12,000-month synthetic records were generated using the moving-blocks bootstrap method. Bootstrapping was repeated 100 times for each reservoir to obtain an average steady-state monthly reliability R, the number of months the reservoir did not fail divided by the total months. Values of R were greater than 0.99 for 60 percent of the study reservoirs; the other 40 percent ranged from 0.95 to 0.98. Estimates of R were highly correlated with both the level of development (ratio of firm yield to average streamflow) and average lag-1 monthly autocorrelation. Together these two predictors explained 92 percent of the variability in R, with the level of development alone explaining 85 percent of the variability. Copyright ASCE 2005.

TRAP laws and the invisible labor of US abortion providers

PubMed Central

Mercier, Rebecca J; Buchbinder, Mara; Bryant, Amy

2016-01-01

Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers (TRAP laws) are proliferating in the United States and have increased barriers to abortion access. In order to comply with these laws, abortion providers make significant changes to facilities and clinical practices. In this article, we draw attention to an often unacknowledged area of public health threat: how providers adapt to increasing regulation, and the resultant strains on the abortion provider workforce. Current US legal standards for abortion regulations have led to an increase in laws that target abortion providers. We describe recent research with abortion providers in North Carolina to illustrate how providers adapt to new regulations, and how compliance with regulation leads to increased workload and increased financial and emotional burdens on providers. We use the concept of invisible labor to highlight the critical work undertaken by abortion providers not only to comply with regulations, but also to minimize the burden that new laws impose on patients. This labor provides a crucial bridge in the preservation of abortion access. The impact of TRAP laws on abortion providers should be included in the consideration of the public health impact of abortion laws. PMID:27570376

Row erupts over US firm's plan to import nuclear waste

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gwynne, Peter

2008-06-01

A controversy is brewing in the US over a plan by a firm in Utah to import, process and dispose of 20 000 tonnes of low-level radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear reactors built in Italy by American companies. EnergySolutions intends to recycle some of this waste at a site near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, so that it can be re-used as shielding blocks in nuclear plants. The firm then wants to dispose of the remaining radioactive material at a site in Clive, Utah, where over 90% of low-level radioactive waste generated in the US is currently buried.

Explanation of Louisiana mineral law and the doctrine of liberative prescription: policy considerations for common law jurisdictions

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Dobray, D.

Louisiana is a leading producer of oil and gas despite its small size in comparison with Texas, Alaska, and California. The author describes the basic features of Louisiana's unique property system and the forms of mineral ownership under that system, including divided ownership and pooled interests. She examines the state's pro-development doctrine of liberative prescription and its effect on mineral rights, and discusses the policy choices which permeate the state's approach. Louisiana mineral law is based upon notions inherent in the Civil Law that dismembered interests in land cannot be conveyed in perpetuity nor transferred or reserved as future interests,more » which allows mineral rights to be terminated if they are unused. Louisiana incorporates a computerized approach to dispute resolution, thanks to a rich legislative and jurisprudential background.« less

Violation of Ohm's law in a Weyl metal.

PubMed

Shin, Dongwoo; Lee, Yongwoo; Sasaki, M; Jeong, Yoon Hee; Weickert, Franziska; Betts, Jon B; Kim, Heon-Jung; Kim, Ki-Seok; Kim, Jeehoon

2017-11-01

Ohm's law is a fundamental paradigm in the electrical transport of metals. Any transport signatures violating Ohm's law would give an indisputable fingerprint for a novel metallic state. Here, we uncover the breakdown of Ohm's law owing to a topological structure of the chiral anomaly in the Weyl metal phase. We observe nonlinear I-V characteristics in Bi 0.96 Sb 0.04 single crystals in the diffusive limit, which occurs only for a magnetic-field-aligned electric field (E∥B). The Boltzmann transport theory with the charge pumping effect reveals the topological-in-origin nonlinear conductivity, and it leads to a universal scaling function of the longitudinal magnetoconductivity, which completely describes our experimental results. As a hallmark of Weyl metals, the nonlinear conductivity provides a venue for nonlinear electronics, optical applications, and the development of a topological Fermi-liquid theory beyond the Landau Fermi-liquid theory.

78 FR 692 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility To Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2013-01-04

..., injection 59715. moldings, and tooling. Firm provides services for design, lean manufacturing consulting... Manufacturing, Inc...... 910 E. Saint Andrew 12/20/2012 Firm manufactures steel Street, Rapid City, SD doors..., or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm. List of...

Logging firms, nonindustrial private forests, and forest parcelization: evidence of firm specialization and its impact on sustainable timber supply

Treesearch

Mark Rickenbach; Thomas W. Steele

2006-01-01

Increasing forest parcelization has raised concerns about tract-size economies and sustainable timber supply. We explored this issue by examining the logging sector and forest ownership in northern Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Using 2004 survey data, we found that 48% of logging firms demonstrated a near exclusive reliance on nonindustrial private...

How Is Corporate Social Responsibility Addressed by Biotech Firms? a Case Study Analysis

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pérez-Bustamante, Guillermo

2013-01-01

This paper explores corporate social responsibility (CSR) in the biotech high-tech sector as a way to achieve competitive advantages. After presenting the importance of science for high-tech firms, the paper focuses on the social and economic role of CSR. Next, the primary reasons for firms' engagement in CSR activities are presented, followed by…

The Resource-Based View and Value: The Customer-Based View of the Firm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Clulow, Val; Barry, Carol; Gerstman, Julie

2007-01-01

Purpose: The resource-based view (RBV) explores the role of key resources, identified as intangible assets and capabilities, in creating competitive advantage and superior performance. To a great extent the conceptual analysis and empirical research within the RBV has focused on the firm's perspective of key resources and the value to the firm of…

77 FR 12007 - Notice of Petitions by Firms tor Determination of Eligibility to Apply For Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-02-28

.../2011 through 02/21/2012] Date accepted for Firm name Address investigation Products Cuisine Holdings Unlimited, 1997 Surgi Dr., 12/29/2011 The firm manufactures food for human LLC.. Mandeville, LA consumption. 70448. Custom Service Printer, lnc.. 916 E. Keating 2/8/2012 The firm manufactures printed products...

77 FR 48127 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility to Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-13

... firm designs and Brockton, MA 02301. manufactures coil winding machinery. New World Millworks, Inc 1211... workers, or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm. List of... Delaware Avenue, 07/10/12 The firm manufactures hats Longmont, CO 80501. and other apparel. HEB...

The Nature of Conflict in Firm-Client Relations: A Content Analysis of "Public Relations Journal," 1980-89.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Bourland, Pamela G.

1993-01-01

Finds that key issues recurring in articles regarding public relations firm-client relations were concerns over knowing each other's businesses, contributing to a consistent communication flow, finances, and "chemistry." Finds that conflict issues for public relations firms parallel those for advertising firms as reported in the advertising agency…

Violation of Ohm’s law in a Weyl metal [A hallmark of the Weyl metal state: Breakdown of Ohm's law

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Shin, Dongwoo; Lee, Yongwoo; Sasaki, M.

Ohm’s law is a fundamental paradigm in the electrical transport of metals. Any transport signatures violating Ohm’s law would give an indisputable fingerprint for a novel metallic state. Here, we uncover the breakdown of Ohm’s law owing to a topological structure of the chiral anomaly in the Weyl metal phase. We observe nonlinear I–V characteristics in Bi 0.96Sb 0.04 single crystals in the diffusive limit, which occurs only for a magnetic-field-aligned electric field (E∥B). The Boltzmann transport theory with the charge pumping effect reveals the topological-in-origin nonlinear conductivity, and it leads to a universal scaling function of the longitudinal magnetoconductivity,more » which completely describes our experimental results. Furthermore, as a hallmark of Weyl metals, the nonlinear conductivity provides a venue for nonlinear electronics, optical applications, and the development of a topological Fermi-liquid theory beyond the Landau Fermi-liquid theory.« less

Violation of Ohm’s law in a Weyl metal [A hallmark of the Weyl metal state: Breakdown of Ohm's law

DOE PAGES

Shin, Dongwoo; Lee, Yongwoo; Sasaki, M.; ...

2017-08-14

Ohm’s law is a fundamental paradigm in the electrical transport of metals. Any transport signatures violating Ohm’s law would give an indisputable fingerprint for a novel metallic state. Here, we uncover the breakdown of Ohm’s law owing to a topological structure of the chiral anomaly in the Weyl metal phase. We observe nonlinear I–V characteristics in Bi 0.96Sb 0.04 single crystals in the diffusive limit, which occurs only for a magnetic-field-aligned electric field (E∥B). The Boltzmann transport theory with the charge pumping effect reveals the topological-in-origin nonlinear conductivity, and it leads to a universal scaling function of the longitudinal magnetoconductivity,more » which completely describes our experimental results. Furthermore, as a hallmark of Weyl metals, the nonlinear conductivity provides a venue for nonlinear electronics, optical applications, and the development of a topological Fermi-liquid theory beyond the Landau Fermi-liquid theory.« less

Careers in Patent Law for Physics Majors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Oliver, Douglas L.

2010-01-01

An important question that many undergraduate physics students ask is, "What can one do with a physics degree?" Of course there are many answers to this question. Often a general reference to becoming a lawyer is given as a possible answer. This paper is intended to explain the field of patent law and how a physics degree can lead to an…

Restaurant menu labeling laws and alcohol use.

PubMed

Restrepo, Brandon J; Ali, Mir M

2017-09-01

The goal of this study was to analyze the effect of local and state mandatory restaurant menu labeling laws on alcohol use. Using a difference-in-differences estimation approach and data on adults aged 21 and older (n=2,157,722) from the 2002-2012 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we estimated the effect of menu labeling laws on self-reported consumption of alcoholic beverages in the past month. The regression analysis indicates that on average implementation of menu labeling laws is associated with a 1.2 percentage-point drop in the fraction of survey respondents reporting that they drank an alcoholic beverage in the past month (95% confidence interval=-0.020, -0.004), compared with jurisdictions that had not implemented menu labeling laws. Moreover, we find that the estimated policy effects on alcohol use are larger among men than among women and larger among minorities than among non-Hispanic whites. Further provision of calorie information on foods and beverages in food service establishments, such as through federal menu labeling regulations, may have the potential to lead to a meaningful reduction in alcohol use throughout the U.S. and may result in larger reductions in alcohol use among men and minorities. Published by Elsevier Inc.

The clinical profile of employees with mental health problems working in social firms in the UK.

PubMed

Milton, Alyssa; Parsons, Nicholas; Morant, Nicola; Gilbert, Eleanor; Johnson, Sonia; Fisher, Adrian; Singh, Swaran; Cunliffe, Di; Marwaha, Steven

2015-08-01

UK social firms are under-researched but are a potentially important vocational option for people with mental health problems. To describe the clinical profile, satisfaction levels and experiences of social firms employees with mental health problems. Clinical, work and service use characteristics were collected from social firms' employees with mental health problems in England and Wales. Workplace experience and satisfaction were explored qualitatively. Predominantly, social firms' employees (N = 80) report that they have a diagnosis of depression (56%) and anxiety (41%). People with schizophrenia (20%) or bipolar disorder (5%) were a minority. Respondents had low symptom and disability levels, high quality of life and job satisfaction and experienced reductions in secondary mental health service use over time. High-workplace satisfaction was related to flexibility, manager and colleague support and workplace accommodations. The clinical profile, quality of life and job satisfaction level of employees with mental health problems suggest social firms could be a useful addition to UK vocational services for some people. Current employees mainly have common mental disorders, and social firms will need to shift their focus if they are to form a substantial pathway for the vocational recovery of people currently using community mental health teams.

Practical Law in Utah. Utah Supplement to "Street Law." Fourth Edition.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Utah State Office of Education, Salt Lake City. Statewide Clearinghouse on Law-Related Education.

This textbook for high school students on law in Utah supplements "Street Law: A Course in Practical Law," a program in law-related education in use across the United States. The introduction explains the meaning of law, how laws are made in Utah, and the functions of the state court system. Following chapters elucidate the branches of…

77 FR 47820 - Invention Promoters/Promotion Firms Complaints

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-10

... DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Invention Promoters/Promotion... investigate these complaints or participate in any legal proceedings against invention promoters or promotion... invention promoter or promotion firm, explain the basis for the complaint, and include the signature of the...

76 FR 30098 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility To Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-05-24

.... Enterprises, Inc 6543 South Laramie 28-Apr-11 The firm designs and Avenue, Bedford manufactures leather Park.... Chicago Booth Manufacturing, Inc. 5000 W. Roosevelt 12-May-11 The firm manufactures Road, Chicago, IL..., or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm. [[Page 30099...

76 FR 11424 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility To Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-03-02

... Products, Inc... 400 Riverside Avenue, 07-Feb-11 The firm designs and manufactures a wide Medford, MA 02155... S. Koster Ave, 11-Feb-11 The firm designs, manufactures, and Chicago, IL 60623. assembles decorative..., or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm. List of...

75 FR 60083 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility To Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-09-29

..., MA 9/17/10 The firm designs, manufactures, markets and services high- 01876. resolution imaging... manufacturing industry. Mize and Co., Inc 2020 N. Koch Industrial 9/20/10 The firm manufactures wire harnesses..., or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm. LIST OF...

The Roles of Pharmacy Schools in Bridging the Gap Between Law and Practice.

PubMed

Adams, Alex J; Dering-Anderson, Allison; Klepser, Michael E; Klepser, Donald

2018-05-01

Progressive pharmacy laws do not always lead to progressive pharmacy practice. Progressive laws are necessary, but not sufficient for pharmacy services to take off in practice. Pharmacy schools can play critical roles by working collaboratively with community pharmacies to close the gap between law and practice. Our experiences launching pharmacy-based point-of-care testing services in community pharmacy settings illustrate some of the roles schools can play, including: developing and providing standardized training, developing template protocols, providing workflow support, sparking collaboration across pharmacies, providing policy support, and conducting research.

Does the Usage of an Online EFL Workbook Conform to Benford's Law?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olszewski, Mikolaj; Lodzikowski, Kacper; Zwolinski, Jan; Warnakulasooriya, Rasil; Black, Adam

2016-01-01

The aim of this paper is to explore if English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' usage of an online workbook follows Benford's law, which predicts the frequency of leading digits in numbers describing natural phenomena. According to Benford (1938), one can predict the frequency distribution of leading digits in numbers describing natural…

Duality in Power-Law Localization in Disordered One-Dimensional Systems

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Deng, X.; Kravtsov, V. E.; Shlyapnikov, G. V.; Santos, L.

2018-03-01

The transport of excitations between pinned particles in many physical systems may be mapped to single-particle models with power-law hopping, 1 /ra . For randomly spaced particles, these models present an effective peculiar disorder that leads to surprising localization properties. We show that in one-dimensional systems almost all eigenstates (except for a few states close to the ground state) are power-law localized for any value of a >0 . Moreover, we show that our model is an example of a new universality class of models with power-law hopping, characterized by a duality between systems with long-range hops (a <1 ) and short-range hops (a >1 ), in which the wave function amplitude falls off algebraically with the same power γ from the localization center.

13 CFR 124.1003 - How does a firm become certified as an SDB?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... as an SDB? 124.1003 Section 124.1003 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 8(a... certified as an SDB? (a) All firms that are current Participants in SBA's 8(a) BD program are automatically deemed to be certified SDBs. (b) Any firm seeking to be certified as an SDB in order to represent that it...

13 CFR 124.1003 - How does a firm become certified as an SDB?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-01-01

... as an SDB? 124.1003 Section 124.1003 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 8(a... certified as an SDB? (a) All firms that are current Participants in SBA's 8(a) BD program are automatically deemed to be certified SDBs. (b) Any firm seeking to be certified as an SDB in order to represent that it...

13 CFR 124.1003 - How does a firm become certified as an SDB?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... as an SDB? 124.1003 Section 124.1003 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 8(a... certified as an SDB? (a) All firms that are current Participants in SBA's 8(a) BD program are automatically deemed to be certified SDBs. (b) Any firm seeking to be certified as an SDB in order to represent that it...

13 CFR 124.1003 - How does a firm become certified as an SDB?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... as an SDB? 124.1003 Section 124.1003 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 8(a... certified as an SDB? (a) All firms that are current Participants in SBA's 8(a) BD program are automatically deemed to be certified SDBs. (b) Any firm seeking to be certified as an SDB in order to represent that it...

13 CFR 124.1003 - How does a firm become certified as an SDB?

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-01-01

... as an SDB? 124.1003 Section 124.1003 Business Credit and Assistance SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION 8(a... certified as an SDB? (a) All firms that are current Participants in SBA's 8(a) BD program are automatically deemed to be certified SDBs. (b) Any firm seeking to be certified as an SDB in order to represent that it...

Architectural Innovation: The Reconfiguration of Existing Product Technologies and the Failure of Established Firms.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Henderson, Rebecca M.; Clark, Kim B.

1990-01-01

Using an empirical study of the semiconductor photolithographic alignment equipment industry, this paper shows that architectural innovations destroy the usefulness of established firms' architectural knowledge. Because this knowledge is embedded in the firms' structure and information-processing procedures, the destruction is hard to detect.…

48 CFR 19.306 - Protesting a firm's status as a HUBZone small business concern.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Protesting a firm's status... FEDERAL ACQUISITION REGULATION SOCIOECONOMIC PROGRAMS SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAMS Determination of Small Business Status for Small Business Programs 19.306 Protesting a firm's status as a HUBZone small business...

Teaching Evaluation: A Student-Run Consulting Firm

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Cundiff, Nicole; Nadler, Joel; Scribner, Shauna

2011-01-01

Applied Research Consultants (ARC) is a graduate student run consulting firm that provides experience to students in evaluation and consultation. An overview of this program has been compiled in order to serve as a model of a graduate training practicum that could be applied to similar programs or aid in the development of such programs. Key…

77 FR 38268 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility To Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-27

... manufactures Wausau WI 54401. engineered hardwood flooring. Bruin Manufacturing, Co 607 North 4th Avenue, 06/08..., connectors, and rings. Homeart Designs, LLC 6419 McPherson Road, 06/14/12 The firm manufactures Laredo TX... firm's workers, or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm...

When Does Reward Maximization Lead to Matching Law?

PubMed Central

Sakai, Yutaka; Fukai, Tomoki

2008-01-01

What kind of strategies subjects follow in various behavioral circumstances has been a central issue in decision making. In particular, which behavioral strategy, maximizing or matching, is more fundamental to animal's decision behavior has been a matter of debate. Here, we prove that any algorithm to achieve the stationary condition for maximizing the average reward should lead to matching when it ignores the dependence of the expected outcome on subject's past choices. We may term this strategy of partial reward maximization “matching strategy”. Then, this strategy is applied to the case where the subject's decision system updates the information for making a decision. Such information includes subject's past actions or sensory stimuli, and the internal storage of this information is often called “state variables”. We demonstrate that the matching strategy provides an easy way to maximize reward when combined with the exploration of the state variables that correctly represent the crucial information for reward maximization. Our results reveal for the first time how a strategy to achieve matching behavior is beneficial to reward maximization, achieving a novel insight into the relationship between maximizing and matching. PMID:19030101

75 FR 2491 - Trade Adjustment Assistance for Firms Program Fiscal Year 2009 Annual Report

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2010-01-15

... strengthen their marketing channels to more effectively reach service firms, it is expected that the number... a marketing/sales project or production/engineering project in their Adjustment Proposals, and 35... types of projects in Adjustment Proposals. More than half of all firms proposed to implement marketing...

A constitutive law for degrading bioresorbable polymers.

PubMed

Samami, Hassan; Pan, Jingzhe

2016-06-01

This paper presents a constitutive law that predicts the changes in elastic moduli, Poisson's ratio and ultimate tensile strength of bioresorbable polymers due to biodegradation. During biodegradation, long polymer chains are cleaved by hydrolysis reaction. For semi-crystalline polymers, the chain scissions also lead to crystallisation. Treating each scission as a cavity and each new crystal as a solid inclusion, a degrading semi-crystalline polymer can be modelled as a continuum solid containing randomly distributed cavities and crystal inclusions. The effective elastic properties of a degrading polymer are calculated using existing theories for such solid and the tensile strength of the degrading polymer is predicted using scaling relations that were developed for porous materials. The theoretical model for elastic properties and the scaling law for strength form a complete constitutive relation for the degrading polymers. It is shown that the constitutive law can capture the trend of the experimental data in the literature for a range of biodegradable polymers fairly well. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

7 CFR 4284.906 - State laws, local laws, regulatory commission regulations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 15 2013-01-01 2013-01-01 false State laws, local laws, regulatory commission...-Added Producer Grant Program General § 4284.906 State laws, local laws, regulatory commission regulations. If there are conflicts between this subpart and State or local laws or regulatory commission...

7 CFR 4284.906 - State laws, local laws, regulatory commission regulations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 15 2014-01-01 2014-01-01 false State laws, local laws, regulatory commission...-Added Producer Grant Program General § 4284.906 State laws, local laws, regulatory commission regulations. If there are conflicts between this subpart and State or local laws or regulatory commission...

7 CFR 4284.906 - State laws, local laws, regulatory commission regulations.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 15 2012-01-01 2012-01-01 false State laws, local laws, regulatory commission...-Added Producer Grant Program General § 4284.906 State laws, local laws, regulatory commission regulations. If there are conflicts between this subpart and State or local laws or regulatory commission...

77 FR 28567 - Notice of Petitions by Firms for Determination of Eligibility To Apply for Trade Adjustment...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-05-15

..., LLC......... Hubbardton Forge, 04/06/12 The firm designs and manufactures hand- LLC., P.O. Box 827... workers, or threat thereof, and to a decrease in sales or production of each petitioning firm. List of... U.S. Highway 90W, 04/23/12 The firm manufactures processed food for San Antonio, TX 78237. human...

Modular rate laws for enzymatic reactions: thermodynamics, elasticities and implementation.

PubMed

Liebermeister, Wolfram; Uhlendorf, Jannis; Klipp, Edda

2010-06-15

Standard rate laws are a key requisite for systematically turning metabolic networks into kinetic models. They should provide simple, general and biochemically plausible formulae for reaction velocities and reaction elasticities. At the same time, they need to respect thermodynamic relations between the kinetic constants and the metabolic fluxes and concentrations. We present a family of reversible rate laws for reactions with arbitrary stoichiometries and various types of regulation, including mass-action, Michaelis-Menten and uni-uni reversible Hill kinetics as special cases. With a thermodynamically safe parameterization of these rate laws, parameter sets obtained by model fitting, sampling or optimization are guaranteed to lead to consistent chemical equilibrium states. A reformulation using saturation values yields simple formulae for rates and elasticities, which can be easily adjusted to the given stationary flux distributions. Furthermore, this formulation highlights the role of chemical potential differences as thermodynamic driving forces. We compare the modular rate laws to the thermodynamic-kinetic modelling formalism and discuss a simplified rate law in which the reaction rate directly depends on the reaction affinity. For automatic handling of modular rate laws, we propose a standard syntax and semantic annotations for the Systems Biology Markup Language. An online tool for inserting the rate laws into SBML models is freely available at www.semanticsbml.org. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Universal scaling laws of diffusion in two-dimensional granular liquids.

PubMed

Wang, Chen-Hung; Yu, Szu-Hsuan; Chen, Peilong

2015-06-01

We find, in a two-dimensional air table granular system, that the reduced diffusion constant D* and excess entropy S(2) follow two distinct scaling laws: D*∼e(S(2)*) for dense liquids and D∼e(3S(2)*) for dilute ones. The scaling for dense liquids is very similar to that for three-dimensional liquids proposed previously [M. Dzugutov, Nature (London) 381, 137 (1996); A. Samanta et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 145901 (2004)]. In the dilute regime, a power law [Y. Rosenfeld, J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 11, 5415 (1999)] also fits our data reasonably well. In our system, particles experience low air drag dissipation and interact with each others through embedded magnets. These near-conservative many-body interactions are responsible for the measured Gaussian velocity distribution functions and the scaling laws. The dominance of cage relaxations in dense liquids leads to the different scaling laws for dense and dilute regimes.