343,902 research outputs found
Rethinking bank business models: the role of intangibles
<p>Purpose:
This paper provides a new way of rethinking banking models by using qualitative research on intangibles.
This is required because the banking sector has been transformed significantly by the changing environment over the past two decades. The 2007-2009 financial crisis also added to concerns about existing bank business models.</p>
<p>Design/Methodology approach:
Using qualitative data collected from interviews with bank managers and analysts in the UK, this paper develops a grounded theory of bank intangibles.</p>
<p>Findings:
The model reveals how intangibles and tangible/financial resources interact in the bank value creation process, how they actively respond to environmental changes, how bank intangibles are understood by external observers such as analysts, and how bankers and analysts differ in their views.</p>
<p>Research implications:
Grounded theory provides the means to further develop bank models as business models and theoretical models. This provides the means to think beyond conventional finance constructs and to relate bank models to a wider theoretical literature concerning intellectual capital, organisational and social systems theory, and âperformativityâ.</p>
<p>Practical implications:
Such development of bank models and of a systems perspective is critical to the understanding of banks by bankers, by observers and for their âcritical and reflexive performativityâ. It also has implications for systemic risk and bank regulation.</p>
<p>Social implications:
Improvement in bank models and their use in open and transparent processes are key means to improve public accountability of banks.</p>
<p>Originality:
The paper reveals the core role of intellectual capital (IC) in banks, in markets, and in developing theory and research at firm and system levels. </p>
First-principles investigation of transient current of molecular devices by using complex absorbing potential
Based on the non-equilibrium Green's function (NEGF) coupled with density
function theory (DFT), namely, NEGF-DFT quantum transport theory, we propose an
efficient formalism to calculate the transient current of molecular devices
under a step-like pulse from first principles. By combining NEGF-DFT with the
complex absorbing potential (CAP), the computational complexity of our
formalism (NEGF-DFT-CAP) is proportional to \emph{O}(N) where is the
number of time steps in the time-dependent transient calculation. Compared with
state-of-the-art algorithm of first principles time-dependent calculation that
scales with at least , this order N technique drastically reduces the
computational burden making it possible to tackle realistic molecular devices.
To ensure the accuracy of our method, we carry out the benchmark calculation
compared with exact NEGF-TDDFT formalism and they agree well with each other.
As an illustration, we investigate the transient current of molecular device
Al-C-Al from first principles
Hypothesis testing of multiple inequalities: the method of constraint chaining
Econometric inequality hypotheses arise in diverse ways. Examples include concavity restrictions on technological and behavioural functions, monotonicity and dominance relations, one-sided constraints on conditional moments in GMM estimation, bounds on parameters which are only partially identified, and orderings of predictive performance measures for competing models. In this paper we set forth four key properties which tests of multiple inequality constraints should ideally satisfy. These are (1) (asymptotic) exactness, (2) (asymptotic)similarity on the boundary, (3) absence of nuisance parameters from the asymptotic null distribution of the test statistic, (4) low computational complexity and boostrapping cost. We observe that the predominant tests currently used in econometrics do not appear to enjoy all these properties simultaneously. We therefore ask the question : Does there exist any nontrivial test which, as a mathematical fact, satisfies the first three properties and, by any reasonable measure, satisfies the fourth ? Remarkably the answer is affirmative. The paper demonstrates this constructively. We introduce a method of test construction called chaining which begins by writing multiple inequalities as a single equality using zero-one indicator functions. We then smooth the indicator functions. The approximate equality thus obtained is the basis of a well-behaved test. This test may be considered as the baseline of a wider class of tests. A full asymptotic theory is provided for the baseline. Simulation results show that the finite-sample performance of the test matches the theory quite well
The Apology Strategies Used by the Workers to the Old and Young Bosses
This study is aimed to reveal the type of apology strategies used by the workers to the old and young bosses. There were five workers and two bosses, old and young bosses, taken for the subjects. Finally, the research came up with the result that the way of the workers apologizing might influenced by the age of the bosses as interlocutor which made the workers produce apology utterances in different ways of apology to the old and young bosses
Mass segregation in very young open clusters -- A case study of NGC 2244 and NGC 6530
We derive the proper motions, membership probabilities, and velocity
dispersions of stars in the regions of the young (about 2-4 Myr-old) open
clusters NGC 2244 (the central cluster in the Monoceros R2 association) and NGC
6530 (the dominant cluster in the Sgr OB1 association) from photographic plate
material obtained at Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, with time baselines of
34 and 87 years, respectively. Both clusters show clear evidence of mass
segregation, but they do not exhibit any significant velocity-mass (or,
equivalently, a velocity-luminosity) dependence. This provides strong support
for the suggestion that the observed mass segregation is -- at least partially
-- due to the way in which star formation has proceeded in these complex
star-forming regions (``primordial'' mass segregation). Based on arguments
related to the clusters' published initial mass functions, in conjunction with
our new measurements of their internal velocity dispersions (35 and 8 km/s for
NGC 2244 and NGC 6530, respectively), we provide strong arguments in favor of
the dissolution of NGC 2244 on very short time-scales, while we speculate that
NGC 6530 may be more stable against the effects of internal two-body
relaxation. However, this latter object may well be destroyed by the strong
tidal field prevalent at its location in the Galactic plane in the direction of
the Galactic Center.Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures, accepted to A
Bubble-domain circuit wafer evaluation coil set
Coil structures have been designed to permit nondestructive testing of bubble wafers. Wafers can be electrically or optically inspected and operated from quasi-static frequency to maximum device operating frequency
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