Seeking Democracy: Bringing Legitimacy to Balkan Institutions through Lobbying Reform

Croatia’s accession to the European Union in 2013 showed Western Balkan countries that EU accession is an attainable goal and a way to improve quality of life in the region. Further, the European Union is interested in accepting these countries as a way to stabilize its own neighborhood. However, one of the biggest issues for Balkan countries is eschewing histories of institutional corruption to illustrate that their institutions comply with EU standards. This paper uses lobbying regulatory typologies to understand how Balkan countries amend their lobbying laws to meet EU standards. Using the Slovenian case as a model, we compare lobbying regulations in Montenegro and Macedonia to those adopted in Slovenia. Ultimately this paper finds that lobbying regulations in Slovenia and Macedonia fit the “transparency-seeking” typology while the Montenegrin lobbying reforms match the “hard-regulatory” typology. Despite issues with implementation, Macedonian lobbying reform is closer to meeting EU standards than lobbying reform in Montenegro because the Macedonian reform closely resembles Slovenian reform that brought the nation from being considered the 17th most transparent government in Europe to the most transparent in just a few years. Ultimately, this paper concludes that lobbying reform is a tactic that western Balkan governments employ to bring their institutions in line with EU values, and that the more these reforms mirror the Slovenian case, the more likely they are to meet EU accession criteria

Factors Effecting User Adoption Of I Dentity Management Systems: An Empi Rical Study

This study focuses on Web- based Identity Management Systems (IdMS), a new and emerging field where technology and business processes are integrated for the creation of identity -centric approaches to the management of users, their attributes, authentication factors and security privileges across the Internet and within an organisation. Understanding factors that affect user adoption of information technology is of interest to researchers in a diversity of fields. Although previous studies have addressed an extensive range of factors related to user adoption of information technology applications and products, there is no research examining the adoption of IdMS . In addition, no studies have investigated the conceptualisation and measurement of adoption factors in the IdMS context. The main objective of this study is to fill this clear gap by aiming to explore and understand the important factors influencing the user adoption of IdMS

A parallel generalized relaxation method for high-performance image segmentation on GPUs

Fast and scalable software modules for image segmentation are needed for modern high-throughput screening platforms in Computational Biology. Indeed, accurate segmentation is one of the main steps to be applied in a basic software pipeline aimed to extract accurate measurements from a large amount of images. Image segmentation is often formulated through a variational principle, where the solution is the minimum of a suitable functional, as in the case of the Ambrosio–Tortorelli model. Euler–Lagrange equations associated with the above model are a system of two coupled elliptic partial differential equations whose finite-difference discretization can be efficiently solved by a generalized relaxation method, such as Jacobi or Gauss–Seidel, corresponding to a first-order alternating minimization scheme. In this work we present a parallel software module for image segmentation based on the Parallel Sparse Basic Linear Algebra Subprograms (PSBLAS), a general-purpose library for parallel sparse matrix computations, using its Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) extensions that allow us to exploit in a simple and transparent way the performance capabilities of both multi-core CPUs and of many-core GPUs. We discuss performance results in terms of execution times and speed-up of the segmentation module running on GPU as well as on multi-core CPUs, in the analysis of 2D gray-scale images of mouse embryonic stem cells colonies coming from biological experiment

Information Sharing Under Mixed Cooperative and Competitive Reward Structures

With regard to the increased application of team-based organizational structures, great attention has been devoted to research on work groups. A growing body of literature indicates the crucial role of cooperative or competitive reward structures in determining information sharing patterns, and in turn group performance. The real situations are, however, a mixture of cooperative and competitive- coopetitive- reward structures in different intensities and mix. This study aims to provide a better understanding of coopetitive structures and their impact on group interactions. More specifically, this study investigates how two types of coopetitive reward structures (dominant cooperative and dominant competitive reward structures) are different in terms of determining the quality of information sharing among group members over time. Drawn upon the extant literature, a theoretical model of coopetitive reward structures is proposed. The model postulates that the relationship between coopetitive reward structures and high-quality information sharing is contingent upon task complexity and group dynamics. Laboratory experimental research is proposed as the research methodology. The details of the proposed research methodology including the experiment procedures, variables, and participants are discussed for validation and testing of the conceptual model

Efficienza dei terminali di trasporto intermodale strada-rotaia italiani

Come evidenziato da ampia letteratura relativa alle infrastrutture di trasporto, tra i fattori che ne caratterizzano l’efficienza vi sono elementi di forte variabilità legati alla posizione geografica ed alla inclusione in reti di scambio internazionale di merci. L’articolo intende verificare se tali fattori sono osservabili per i terminali intermodali strada-ferrovia italiani. Utilizzando modelli con dati panel di frontiera stocastica è stata stimata l’efficienza tecnica dei terminali selezionati e verificato se essa è significativamente influenzata da elementi, oltre che dimensionali, di contesto operativo e di mercato. Attenzione particolare è stata posta alla verifica dell’evoluzione dell’efficienza nel tempo e se l’efficienza tecnica ha risentito di effetti di progresso tecnologico nel periodo 2007-2011. Con riferimento a tale periodo temporale, di forte variabilità della domanda di trasporto intermodale strada-ferro in Italia, sono stati applicati diversi modelli econometrici per valutare l’efficienza tecnica dei terminali intermodali e studiarne il relativo trend evolutivo nel tempo. I risultati dello studio mostrano un progresso tecnologico che ha negativamente contribuito alla produttività dei terminali nel periodo e che tutti i modelli applicati allo scopo hanno riscontrato un declino nell’efficienza tecnica

An Empirical Study of Multi-dimensional Trust and Eloyalty in E-commerce in China

As online shopping is becoming more and more popular in recent years, many studies have been conducted to explore the key issues involved in online shopping such as trust problems and strategies to retain customers. This study examined the importance of multi-dimensional trust to e-loyalty, the interrelationships among different dimensions of trust, and the antecedents of different dimensions of trust. A research model was developed with several hypotheses which were proposed for empirical examination. A total of 403 responses from the biggest E-marketplace in China were analysed to test the proposed model and its hypotheses using Partial Least Square (PLS). The empirical results showed that all trust dimensions had great impacts on e-loyalty and relationships existed in different dimensions of trust. This finding implied that practitioners should focus on developing an appropriate online strategy in terms of how to build up trust-based relationships with online customers

Do E-books Enhance the Reading Experience: An Affordance Theory Perspective

The digitisation of publishing has redefined the publishing industry and the reading experience for consumers. E-readers and smart devices are now part of the value proposition of e-books offering affordances ranging from overcoming the physical limitations of print books to providing the functionality of information systems to the reading experience. A gap exists in understanding the preferences of readers for print books and e-books. Through an affordance theory lens this paper aims to go some way to fill the gap in understand the perception of reading e-books on smart devices as well as advancing the use of affordance theory in information systems research by demonstrating the use of a proposed theoretical model. Using netnography an appropriate sample is identified and thematic analysis is used to identify affordances, positive and negative. The theoretical model is illustrated in the context of e-books and e-readers

Dimensionality reduction methods for contingency tables with ordinal variables

Correspondence analysis is a widely used tool for obtaining a graphical representation of the interdependence between the rows and columns of a contingency table, by using a dimensionality reduction of the spaces. The maximum information regarding the association between the two categorical variables is then visualized allowing to understand its nature. Several extensions of this method take directly into account the possible ordinal structure of the variables by using different dimensionality reduction tools. Aim of this paper is to present an unified theoretical framework of several methods of correspondence analysis with ordinal variables

Understanding the Relationships between Multi-dimensional Trust and E-loyalty in E-commerce

As online shopping is becoming more and more popular in recent years, many studies have been conducted to explore the key issues involved in online shopping such as trust problems and strategies to retain customers. This study will explore the nature of trust and its relationship to consumer loyalty in E-commerce. It examines the importance of trust to consumers’ loyalty behaviour and how consumer behaviour is affected by different kinds of trust. The study also identifies the antecedents of each kind of trust. A research model is developed with several hypotheses which are proposed for empirical examination. Finally a research plan is presented and implications are provided

The Negative Aspects of Email and Productivity: Towards Quantification

Email has evolved as the most widely used information system in organisations. Many organisations are now dependent on the use of email to manage internal communication as well as other communication and business processes. With this emergence of the universal use of email have emerged some negative aspects of email usage which have a negative impact on personal and organisational productivity. It is now necessary to recognise these negative impacts of email so that structures may be put in place to minimise and control them and related impacts on productivity. In an approach to quantify the negative impact of email this paper identifies negative aspects of email usage and proposes a model which may be used to quantify each aspect and, in turn, quantify the impact of these aspects on productivity. This approach would allow the confirmation of negative issues of email usage and allow formulation of approaches for their management