Search results

Ventricular surface activation time maps are estimated from simulated and measured body surface potential (BSP) maps and extra‐corporal magnetic field maps. In a first step the transfer matrix, relating the primary cardiac sources to the measured potential and/or magnetic field data, is calculated applying the boundary element method. Activation times are determined by minimizing a cost function which is based on this transfer matrix. This optimization method is solved by a quasi Newton method. The critical point theorem is used in order to estimate the starting column matrix.

The available evidence is partly consistent and partly inconsistent with a negative association of branching restrictions and the number of banking offices. In this paper, I present evidence that the failure to consistently find such a negative association of branching restrictions and banking offices is quite robust. I suggest that the endogeneity of the banking restrictions and regulators' unmodeled behavior are the basic source of the inconsistency. I conclude that there is no evidence that suggests substantial changes in the number of banking offices with the introduction of interstate branching.

Introduction Hastily, I beat the editor to it by writing “These are the personal views of the author, and do not necessarily represent the views of the editor of this journal.” Indeed, I take it further. The article does not necessarily, in general manner or particular phrase, represent the views of the National Committee of National Library Week. It's a great disappointment to me that to date neither the National Committee nor myself has had to disown the other. Our opinions, to date, coincide on all salient points. No blows have been exchanged between Committee and Organiser. Since concord should often be more rightly spelt “c‐o‐m‐p‐l‐a‐c‐e‐n‐c‐y”, I regret this. All, however, may yet be well. My full views as Organiser of NLW 1969 follow: I shall state them with the most forthright candour and the most furious conviction; and the fisticuffs may well follow, as sure as Library fines. If the editor considers this preamble, too … well, too ambling … I proffer one excuse. As organiser, I'm as over‐worked and time‐pressed as any librarian, and my defence is therefore borrowed from Flaubert: “Forgive a long letter—I had no time to write a short one.” (Reference librarians, please check this quotation. I'm too busy.) Finally, there are those who write very lightly when they wish to state their most serious belief. Into this maladjusted and misjudged fraternity, I was myself born.

Public universities began reporting the costs for nonpension retiree benefit obligations known as other postemployment benefits (OPEB) in their fiscal 2008 financial statements. The reported OPEB obligation is the projected benefits to be paid after an employee retires. This descriptive study examines the status of OPEB funding at land grant universities, composition of the benefits provided, and whether modifications are under consideration. Results indicate land grant institutions cover their costs on a pay-as-you-go basis, OPEB liabilities are significantly underfunded, and universities provide comparable types of benefits in their OPEB plan. Revenue shortfalls and current fiscal pressures raise concerns about how they can support the OPEB liabilities. Thus many institutions are evaluating the OPEB cost and the benefits currently provided.

In this chapter, we focus on the social integration of young immigrants in Sweden who themselves and/or one or both of their parents came from Iran or former Yugoslavia. In particular, we look at the share of alters in their core networks who are of the same parental national origin and how this has changed within a period of four years. To explain network changes, we consider the parental national origin similarity among them, changes in opportunities to meet network members, and important life events.

We analyzed two waves of survey data collected in 2010 and 2014 from 1,537 individuals who live in Sweden and who were all born in 1990, including 325 immigrants from Iran, 447 immigrants from former Yugoslavia, and 805 native Swedes. The results indicate that: (a) the share of parental national origin similar alters in the core networks of immigrants significantly increases over time, (b) first-generation immigrants in particular increasingly associate with others who are of the same parental national origin, (c) important life events hardly result in network changes, and (d) schools and work places are social contexts that enhance the social integration of immigrants, because in these contexts immigrants meet and engage in personal relationships with individuals who do not share their parental national origin.

The ability of financial statement users, investors, donors and academic researchers to compare financial information issued by nonprofit universities, hospitals, fund-raising organizations and government agencies is affected by their understanding of current accounting recognition and reporting guidance. Public nonprofit organizations report different financial results from private nonprofit organizations. This study looks at the events that brought about the divergence in nonprofit financial accounting recognition and reporting for higher education institutions, discusses specific differences, and offers a look at additional changes in recognition and reporting for the sector currently underway.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically test whether a systematic relationship exists between firms’ level of entrepreneurial marketing (EM) behaviours and firms’ characteristics, including firm age, firm size and firm’s founder.

This paper quantitatively investigates EM behaviours from data collected from 752 business owners through structured interviews. The data analysis applied was multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (multi-group CFA).

Results from the analysis show that not all of the firms’ characteristics determine firms’ level of EM practice. The level of EM behaviours has a systematic relationship with firms’ age but not with the founding status of the firms’ manager. The impact of firm size on the level of EM behaviours is evident only when the firms’ age is taken into account.

This paper concludes that relationships between EM behaviours and firm characteristics are more complicated than anticipated. Firms’ characteristics alone may not be a good measure for identifying the level of a firm’s EM. EM cannot be conceptualized solely in relation to the activities of small firms, young firms or founder-operated firms.

This paper examines EM behaviours in a large survey and uses multi-group CFA to examine firms’ EM practice through latent variables, instead of observed variables. The findings should complement knowledge regarding the EM concept generated from existing literature.

Chapters 2–6 have dealt in turn with how Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Singapore have been effective in curbing corruption, as manifested in their rankings and scores on the five international indicators of the perceived extent of corruption. In contrast, Chapter 7 focuses on India’s ineffective anti-corruption measures and identifies the lessons which India can learn from their success in fighting corruption. The aim of this concluding chapter is twofold: to describe and compare the different paths taken by these six countries in their battle against corruption; and to identify the lessons which other countries can learn from their experiences in combating corruption. However, as the policy contexts of these six countries differ significantly, it is necessary to begin by providing an analysis of their contextual constraints before proceeding to compare their anti-corruption strategies and identifying the relevant lessons for other countries.

Scholarship on reputation in and of organizations has been going on for decades, and it always has separated along level of analysis issues, whereby the separate literatures on individual, group/team/unit, and organization reputation fail to acknowledge each other. This sends the implicit message that reputation is a fundamentally different phenomenon at the three different levels of analysis. We tested the validity of this implicit assumption by conducting a multilevel review of the reputation literature, and drawing conclusions about the “level-specific” or “level-generic” nature of the reputation construct. The review results permitted the conclusion that reputation phenomena are essentially the same at all levels of analysis. Based on this, we frame a future agenda for theory and research on reputation.