Cultural communication differences in initial public offering documentation: the case of China

Purpose: Written communication differences across cultures can set the tone for effective or disastrous business relationships. Although English has been the go-to language in business, managers from different countries can significantly differ in how they convey the firms' information. This study explored these differences by examining the documentation presented by foreign corporations as part of their initial public offering (IPO) in the USA, particularly Chinese firms. Design/methodology/approach: This work examined cultural-related differences in written communications by looking at foreign corporations' descriptions of their strengths, strategies and challenges included in F-1 documents submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of the IPO process. The sample consisted of 97 American depositary receipts (ADRs) identified in the Bank of New York Mellon's ADR directory from 2003 to 2015. Findings: This study found that Chinese firms significantly differ from other countries' firms in depicting their strengths, strategies and challenges. Research limitations/implications: Limitations have to do with the sample size. Future research may address this by considering other depositary markets, not just the USA. Originality/value: The results will be significant for potential ADRs investors; they must be conscious of these differences in the written documentation submitted by Chinese firms compared to other foreign firms. The market should also be aware of these differences, as the Chinese seem less open to sharing information about the under spinning of their operations and financial prospects.Objetivo: Las diferencias en la comunicación escrita entre culturas pueden marcar la pauta para relaciones comerciales efectivas o desastrosas. Aunque el inglés ha sido el idioma de referencia en los negocios, los gerentes de diferentes países pueden diferir significativamente en la forma en que transmiten la información de las empresas. Este estudio exploró estas diferencias examinando la documentación presentada por corporaciones extranjeras como parte de su oferta pública inicial (IPO) en los EE. UU., particularmente las empresas chinas. Diseño/metodología/enfoque: Este trabajo examinó las diferencias culturales en las comunicaciones escritas analizando las descripciones de las corporaciones extranjeras de sus fortalezas, estrategias y desafíos incluidos en los documentos F-1 presentados a la Comisión de Bolsa y Valores (SEC) como parte del Proceso de salida a bolsa. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 97 recibos de depósito estadounidenses (ADR) identificados en el directorio de ADR del Bank of New York Mellon de 2003 a 2015. Hallazgos: Este estudio encontró que las empresas chinas difieren significativamente de las empresas de otros países al describir sus fortalezas, estrategias y desafíos. Limitaciones/implicaciones de la investigación: Las limitaciones tienen que ver con el tamaño de la muestra. Las investigaciones futuras podrían abordar este problema considerando otros mercados de depositarios, no sólo Estados Unidos. Originalidad/valor: Los resultados serán significativos para los potenciales inversores en ADR; deben ser conscientes de estas diferencias en la documentación escrita presentada por las empresas chinas en comparación con otras empresas extranjeras. El mercado también debería ser consciente de estas diferencias, ya que los chinos parecen menos abiertos a compartir información sobre los fundamentos de sus operaciones y perspectivas financieras

Feasibility Study to Determine the Economic and Operational Benefits of Utilizing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

This project explored the feasibility of using Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) in Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) operations. The research team conducted 24 interviews with personnel in four GDOT divisions. Interviews focused on (1) the basic goals of the operators in each division, (2) their major decisions for accomplishing those goals, and (3) the information requirements for each decision. Following an interview validation process, a set of UASs design characteristics that fulfill user requirements of each previously identified division was developed. A “House of Quality” viewgraph was chosen to capture the relationships between GDOT tasks and potential UAS aiding those operations. As a result, five reference systems are proposed. The UAS was broken into three components: vehicle, control station, and system. This study introduces a variety of UAS applications in traffic management, transportation and construction disciplines related to DOTs, such as the ability to get real time, digital photographs/videos of traffic scenes, providing a "bird’s eye view" that was previously only available with the assistance of a manned aircraft, integrating aerial data into GDOT drawing software programs, and dealing with restricted or complicated access issues when terrain, area, or the investigated object make it difficult for GDOT personnel to conduct a task. The results of this study could lead to further research on design, development, and field-testing of UAVs for applications identified as beneficial to the Department.Georgia Department of Transportatio

Comparing information technology adoption between developing and developed countries

Information technology adoption is critically important because it is a fundamental element of successful project management. Although some studies have been carried out to investigate the use of information technology in the construction industry, there is no comprehensive literature to compare the information technology adoption among different countries. This research aims at investigating the current extent of information technology use between developing and developed countries. To achieve this aim, a questionnaire was sent to 800 construction professionals from 20 countries. From those, 151 completed and reliable responses were selected to be analyzed. The result of the research reveals that there is no significant difference between developing and developed countries in information technology adoption; however, developed countries are more advanced in information technology use compared to developing countries. The results of this study are useful to provide directions in research, training, and development of strategies that will respond to the needs of the construction industry in the area of information technology selection

Mobile Application Prototype for On-Site Information Management in Construction Industry

DOI: 10.1108/09699981211259577Purpose: This paper presents the results of a study aimed at investigating the information requirements for broad use mobile applications for construction projects. It also presents the results of usability testing of a mobile application prototype for improving information management in construction projects. Design/methodology/approach: To achieve the research objectives, the information required to properly design the mobile application was collected by distributing an online questionnaire among construction professionals. Then a server-based application prototype was developed based on enterprise content management concepts. The mobile application was tested in a laboratory by setting a group of construction management postgraduate students who had experience on working in construction industry. Finding: This study determines and ranks the critical on-site information artifacts, considered highly important from the perspective of clients, consultants, and contractors. The study also illustrates the development of a mobile application prototype and results of a usability test. The test results demonstrate that the application is well designed, user friendly, and meets user requirements. Practical implications: The results of this study are useful for developing a functional mobile application to manage on-site information in construction projects. Originality/value: The paper makes an original contribution of investigating information requirements of a mobile application for on-site information management

A Comprehensive Matrix of Unmanned Aerial Systems Requirements for Potential Applications within a Department of Transportation

©ASCE 2014DOI: 10.1061/9780784413517.099The continuous improvement in the function and performance of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) promotes the need for specific research to integrate this leading edge technology in to various applications across Departments of Transportation (DOTs). DOTs of several states have started looking into using UAS technology for different purposes from tracking highway construction projects and performing structure inventories to road maintenance, monitoring roadside environmental conditions, as well as many other traffic management or safety issues, albeit individually focusing on specific us age scenarios. This study investigates various divisions and offices within a Department of Transportation to determine the operational requirements for UAS usage in specific divisions which have the potential to implement this technology to aid and supplement their daily operations. Through a series of interviews with subject matter experts at the management and operational levels, a matrix of user requirements for tasks that have the potential to use UAS is developed. This matrix is mapped to a UAS technical matrix that embeds the technological and technical requirements for development of a potential UAS. These matrices can be used by other DOTs for defining the design specifications for UAS that can fulfill their construction related operational requirements

Pre-B cell to macrophage transdifferentiation without significant promoter DNA methylation changes

Transcription factor-induced lineage reprogramming or transdifferentiation experiments are essential for understanding the plasticity of differentiated cells. These experiments helped to define the specific role of transcription factors in conferring cell identity and played a key role in the development of the regenerative medicine field. We here investigated the acquisition of DNA methylation changes during C/EBPα-induced pre-B cell to macrophage transdifferentiation. Unexpectedly, cell lineage conversion occurred without significant changes in DNA methylation not only in key B cell- and macrophage-specific genes but also throughout the entire set of genes differentially methylated between the two parental cell types. In contrast, active and repressive histone modification marks changed according to the expression levels of these genes. We also demonstrated that C/EBPα and RNA Pol II are associated with the methylated promoters of macrophage-specific genes in reprogrammed macrophages without inducing methylation changes. Our findings not only provide insights about the extent and hierarchy of epigenetic events in pre-B cell to macrophage transdifferentiation but also show an important difference to reprogramming towards pluripotency where promoter DNA demethylation plays a pivotal role

Cystatin D locates in the nucleus at sites of active transcription and modulates gene and protein expression

Cystatin D is an inhibitor of lysosomal and secreted cysteine proteases. Strikingly, cystatin D has been found to inhibit proliferation, migration, and invasion of colon carcinoma cells indicating tumor suppressor activity that is unrelated to protease inhibition. Here, we demonstrate that a proportion of cystatin D locates within the cell nucleus at specific transcriptionally active chromatin sites. Consistently, transcriptomic analysis show that cystatin D alters gene expression, including that of genes encoding transcription factors such as RUNX1, RUNX2, and MEF2C in HCT116 cells. In concordance with transcriptomic data, quantitative proteomic analysis identified 292 proteins differentially expressed in cystatin D-expressing cells involved in cell adhesion, cytoskeleton, and RNA synthesis and processing. Furthermore, using cytokine arrays we found that cystatin D reduces the secretion of several protumor cytokines such as fibroblast growth factor-4, CX3CL1/fractalkine, neurotrophin 4 oncostatin-M, pulmonary and activation-regulated chemokine/CCL18, and transforming growth factor B3. These results support an unanticipated role of cystatin D in the cell nucleus, controlling the transcription of specific genes involved in crucial cellular functions, which may mediate its protective action in colon cancer

Human Gene Coexpression Landscape: Confident Network Derived from Tissue Transcriptomic Profiles

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.[Background]: Analysis of gene expression data using genome-wide microarrays is a technique often used in genomic studies to find coexpression patterns and locate groups of co-transcribed genes. However, most studies done at global >omic> scale are not focused on human samples and when they correspond to human very often include heterogeneous datasets, mixing normal with disease-altered samples. Moreover, the technical noise present in genome-wide expression microarrays is another well reported problem that many times is not addressed with robust statistical methods, and the estimation of errors in the data is not provided. [Methodology/Principal Findings]: Human genome-wide expression data from a controlled set of normal-healthy tissues is used to build a confident human gene coexpression network avoiding both pathological and technical noise. To achieve this we describe a new method that combines several statistical and computational strategies: robust normalization and expression signal calculation; correlation coefficients obtained by parametric and non-parametric methods; random cross-validations; and estimation of the statistical accuracy and coverage of the data. All these methods provide a series of coexpression datasets where the level of error is measured and can be tuned. To define the errors, the rates of true positives are calculated by assignment to biological pathways. The results provide a confident human gene coexpression network that includes 3327 gene-nodes and 15841 coexpression-links and a comparative analysis shows good improvement over previously published datasets. Further functional analysis of a subset core network, validated by two independent methods, shows coherent biological modules that share common transcription factors. The network reveals a map of coexpression clusters organized in well defined functional constellations. Two major regions in this network correspond to genes involved in nuclear and mitochondrial metabolism and investigations on their functional assignment indicate that more than 60% are house-keeping and essential genes. The network displays new non-described gene associations and it allows the placement in a functional context of some unknown non-assigned genes based on their interactions with known gene families. [Conclusions/Significance]: The identification of stable and reliable human gene to gene coexpression networks is essential to unravel the interactions and functional correlations between human genes at an omic scale. This work contributes to this aim, and we are making available for the scientific community the validated human gene coexpression networks obtained, to allow further analyses on the network or on some specific gene associations. The data are available free online at http://bioinfow.dep.usal.es/coexpression/. © 2008 Prieto et al.Funding and grant support was provided by the Ministery of Health, Spanish Government (ISCiii-FIS, MSyC; Project reference PI061153) and by the Ministery of Education, Castilla-Leon Local Government (JCyL; Project reference CSI03A06).Peer Reviewe

Control of Jasmonate Biosynthesis and Senescence by miR319 Targets

Considerable progress has been made in identifying the targets of plant microRNAs, many of which regulate the stability or translation of mRNAs that encode transcription factors involved in development. In most cases, it is unknown, however, which immediate transcriptional targets mediate downstream effects of the microRNA-regulated transcription factors. We identified a new process controlled by the miR319-regulated clade of TCP (TEOSINTE BRANCHED/CYCLOIDEA/PCF) transcription factor genes. In contrast to other miRNA targets, several of which modulate hormone responses, TCPs control biosynthesis of the hormone jasmonic acid. Furthermore, we demonstrate a previously unrecognized effect of TCPs on leaf senescence, a process in which jasmonic acid has been proposed to be a critical regulator. We propose that miR319-controlled TCP transcription factors coordinate two sequential processes in leaf development: leaf growth, which they negatively regulate, and leaf senescence, which they positively regulate