The Use Of Bitcoins In Light Of The Financial Crisis: The Case Of Greece

In 2008, following the outbreak of the global financial crisis, a new trading system emerged that was made possible by cryptographically-produced currencies. Among them, the most popular digital cryptocurrency is undoubtedly the Bitcoin. This alternative way of trading quickly captured the interest of both businesses and consumers. Combined with a general lack of confidence towards financial institutions, central governments, and the effect of capital controls imposed across several countries, Bitcoins begun being used extensively for funds transfer across borders and general payments. However, it is unclear whether the use of Bitcoins is extensive enough so as to lead to complete or partial disintermediation of monetary transactions, and whether users understand how the technology works and what are the inherit risks of this alternative payment mechanism. This paper addresses these questions through a survey-based study, conducted within the Greek context, where capital controls are still active and awareness regarding cryptocurrencies seems to be on the rise. Our findings show that despite that end-users of Bitcoin are somewhat concerned with regards to security issues, they are nevertheless interested in its use for identifying new business opportunities and bypassing residencybased measures, such as capital controls

The Impact of Virtuality and Shared Leadership on Virtual Team Performance

Previous studies show divergent views of shared leadership in the team performance of virtual teams. In this study, we seek to understand the mediating and moderating roles of trust, commitment, and virtuality among virtual team members on performance within the context of shared leadership. We conducted a questionnaire-based survey to gather perspectives on shared leadership and performance and analysed responses through structural equation modelling. We find that there is a significant positive effect between the two and that virtuality plays a significant moderating role for virtual team performance. In addition, we find that when virtuality increases, the mediating effect of trust and commitment is not significant, which challenges previous findings

Online Communities and the Immigration Journey: A mixed-methods study on Facebook Groups

Online communities are increasingly becoming a useful tool in for the immigration process. As the decision to immigrate can bring about a significant disruption to one’s life, it is vital to understand how the use of online communities may influence the immigration decision and support the immigration process. In this paper, we focus specifically on South African immigrants who plan to immigrate or have already immigrated to the United Kingdom and their use of Facebook groups. We adopt a mixed methods approach and combine quantitative and qualitative techniques to develop a holistic understanding of the immigration decision and process. Our findings show that online communities can be influential towards the immigration decision, but instrumental during the immigration process, transforming one’s social network before and after their immigration

A case of antiphospholipid syndrome following gastric signet ring cell adenocarcinoma

Objective: Rare disease Background: Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is a rare autoimmune disease characterized by arterial, venous, and small-vessel thrombosis, pregnancy-related morbidity and the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies such as an-ticardiolipin antibody, and/or anti-beta2-glycoprotein I. In the recent years, APS was observed in patients with solid tumors and the renal cancer, lung carcinoma and breast tumors were the most common tumors linked with APS. Case Report: A 53-year-old female presented with pain and pitting edema of left lower extremity that had begun 6 months prior to hospitalization. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in the popliteal vein diagnosed by Doppler ultrasonogra-phy and the patient was treated with heparin followed by warfarin. Following subdural hematoma, anticoagu-lant therapy was stopped, and the patient underwent craniotomy. One month later, the patient returned with pain and DVT diagnosed in its right leg. Laboratory tests showed high levels of lupus anticoagulant, IgM and IgG anticardiolipin antibodies. Following a high alkaline phosphatase, diffuse bone marrow involvement was found by whole body bone scan. Looking to find primary tumor, a large infilterable lesion in gastric was seen by endoscopic images, and biopsy histopathology showed a signet ring cell adenocarcinoma. The patient re-fused chemotherapy and died 6 months after diagnosis. Conclusions: APS is associated with gastric signet ring cell adenocarcinoma. © Am J Case Rep, 2020

Temperature and Salinity Effects on Bioaccumulation, Gill Structure, and Radiation Dose Estimation in the Milkfish Chanos chanos Exposed to 137Cs

The present trend of global warming has led to an increase in seawater temperature and salinity. The effects of increasing salinity and temperature on the accumulation of 137Cs by milkfish Chanos chanos was studied under laboratory conditions to obtain information on Chanos chanos adaptability under environmental changes. The uptake of radioactive cesium by Chanos chanos increased with temperature of seawater. The concentration factors (CF) of 137Cs for temperatures of 25°C, 27°C, 29°C, and 31°C at steady state period were 5.25, 5.91, 6.78, and 9.98 mL g-1 for the whole-body of Chanos chanos. The concentration factors at steady state (CFss) of 137Cs for salinities of 26‰, 29‰, 32‰, and 35‰ were 6.23, 9.93, 9.24, and 6.86 mL g-1, respectively. After temperature exposure to 31°C, the fish gills showed hyperplasia of epithelial cells in branchial secondary lamellae, congestion of blood vessels, and hypertrophy of pillar cells. The fish from the treatment group exhibited hemorrhage between the branchial secondary lamellae and an abundance of mucous substance in comparison with control group. This study links radionuclide bioaccumulation data and monitoring data obtained in the field and laboratory experiment with radiation dose determined by ERICA Tools, an approach that will enable better linkages to be made between exposure and dose in Chanos chanos and its marine food web.Received: 2 November 2015; Revised: 1 July 2016; Accepted: 17 July 201

Developing e-Services for Lagos State: Understanding the impact of Cultural Perceptions and Working Practices

The development of e-services is not only a technological phenomenon, but involves organizational and social complexities. In this paper, we build upon an interpretive case study, and examine Lagos State\u27s initiative, in order to showcase how the implementation of public sector e-services have been affected by organizational and cultural perceptions and the working practices of individuals in a developing country. This research provides insights for international organizations that determine the status of countries by providing online access, products and services to their citizens, and to Internet Service Providers who pursue new territories for the provision of new products and services. It also informs governments around the globe about cultural perceptions and working practices, thereby helping them determine their developmental progress and decide their future endeavors

Making sense of business analytics : the case of two start-ups

Business analytics have enabled businesses to leverage unstructured and dispersed data in order to improve their operations and position themselves better within a highly turbulent environment. While much discussion has been focused on how businesses can move from data to insights to decision making, much less is known around how businesses actually interpret the insights provided by business analytics tools. This extended abstract proposes the use of sense-making as the theoretical lens for interpreting these insights, combined with contextual information. We will be using two case studies to further explore the applicability of our proposition

Analisi Pengaruh Kualitas Website PT Badak LNG terhadap Kepuasan Pengguna Menggunakan Metode Webqual 4.0

In technological progress, information technology needed a company to support the company performance , no exception the website. Pt Badak NGL is the first company formed to be one of a network in the center by the chain business lng . Now , PT. Badak LNG having a website www.badaklng.co.id .So far , after services website PT. Badak LNG mplemented has never done judgment on its quality perceived the ultimate user or visitors website , so that management website could not receive feedback on the website .There was going to an evaluation of the quality of website PT. Badak LNG . The purpose of this research is to analyze the quality of the website satisfaction users. Hal-hal done in this research among others , makes and spreading the questionnaire to respondents of 86 sample .The results will be processed on the ibm spss version 20 .While the analysis of data in relation done include the validation and reabilitas , the assumption , the test regression together and partial . The Results of research quality website on PT. Badak LNG indicates that dimensions of webqual is variable te USAbility quality, information quality, and iteraction quality to having influence a positive and significant impact on satisfaction users at the website PT. Badak LNG