8,332 research outputs found
Firms’ Proactiveness During the Crisis: Evidence from European Data
none3This paper contributes to the literature on the entrepreneurial behavior of firms during the economic crisis by investigating the determinants of proactive behavior on a large sample of European companies during the 2008–2009 financial crisis. We explore various dimensions of proactive behavior, including: investments in innovation, expanding product offer, undergoing quality certification, investing in tangible assets and avoiding layoff. Our findings show a surprising heterogeneity of determinants in the case of different proactivity measures, especially when considering the impact of public policies which support entrepreneurship. We also provide some evidence supporting the organizational learning hypothesis with regard to proactiveness, as we show that the previous crisis experience matters in the case of the adoption of proactive or reactive strategy by a firm.openJan Brzozowski; Marco Cucculelli; Valentina PeruzziBrzozowski, Jan Pawel; Cucculelli, Marco; Peruzzi, Valentin
Media Bias and Polarization through the Lens of a Markov Switching Latent Space Network Model
News outlets are now more than ever incentivized to provide their audience
with slanted news, while the intrinsic homophilic nature of online social media
may exacerbate polarized opinions. Here, we propose a new dynamic latent space
model for time-varying online audience-duplication networks, which exploits
social media content to conduct inference on media bias and polarization of
news outlets. Our model contributes to the literature in several directions: 1)
we provide a model-embedded data-driven interpretation for the latent leaning
of news outlets in terms of media bias; 2) we endow our model with
Markov-switching dynamics to capture polarization regimes while maintaining a
parsimonious specification; 3) we contribute to the literature on the
statistical properties of latent space network models. The proposed model is
applied to a set of data on the online activity of national and local news
outlets from four European countries in the years 2015 and 2016. We find
evidence of a strong positive correlation between our media slant measure and a
well-grounded external source of media bias. In addition, we provide insight
into the polarization regimes across the four countries considered
Angle-dependence of the Hall effect in HgBa2CaCu2O6 thin films
Superconducting compounds of the family Hg-Ba-Ca-Cu-O have been the subject
of intense study since the current record-holder for the highest critical
temperature of a superconductor belongs to this class of materials. Thin films
of the compound with two adjacent copper-oxide layers and a critical
temperature of about 120 K were prepared by a two-step process that consists of
the pulsed-laser deposition of precursor films and the subsequent annealing in
mercury-vapor atmosphere. Like some other high-temperature superconductors,
Hg-Ba-Ca-Cu-O exhibits a specific anomaly of the Hall effect, a double-sign
change of the Hall coefficient close to the superconducting transition. We have
investigated this phenomenon by measurements of the Hall effect at different
angles between the magnetic field direction and the crystallographic c-axis.
The results concerning the upper part of the transition, where the first sign
change occurs, are discussed in terms of the renormalized fluctuation model for
the Hall conductivity, adapted through the field rescaling procedure in order
to take into account the arbitrary orientation of the magnetic field.Comment: to be published in Phys. Rev.
First results of the ROSEBUD Dark Matter experiment
Rare Objects SEarch with Bolometers UndergrounD) is an experiment which
attempts to detect low mass Weak Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs) through
their elastic scattering off Al and O nuclei. It consists of three small
sapphire bolometers (of a total mass of 100 g) with NTD-Ge sensors in a
dilution refrigerator operating at 20 mK in the Canfranc Underground
Laboratory. We report in this paper the results of several runs (of about 10
days each) with successively improved energy thresholds, and the progressive
background reduction obtained by improvement of the radiopurity of the
components and subsequent modifications in the experimental assembly, including
the addition of old lead shields. Mid-term plans and perspectives of the
experiment are also presented.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Astroparticle Physic
Sensitivity plots for WIMP modulation searches
Prospects of WIMP searches using the annual modulation signature are
discussed on statistical grounds, introducing sensitivity plots for the
WIMP-nucleon scalar cross section.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, talk given at TAUP'99, september 199
A morphometric and karyological study of Onobrychis calabrica (Fabaceae), a neglected species endemic to Calabria, S Italy
A morphometric (multivariate and univariate) and karyological study of Onobrychis calabrica Sirj. (Fabaceae), compared to O. alba subsp. echinata (Guss.) P. W. Ball and O. supina (Chaix ex Vill.) DC., was carried out. According to our results, twelve morphological characters clearly support the distinctiveness of O. calabrica. In addition, the latter species is tetraploid with 2n = 4x = 28 chromosomes, whereas the other two taxa are diploid with 2n = 2x = 14 chromosomes. The names O. calabrica and O. handel-mazzettii Sirj. (a heterotypic synonym of O. supina) are lectotypified here. Onobrychis calabrica, a narrow endemic to SE Calabria, S Italy, is here assessed as Critically Endangered CR B1ab(iii)+B2ab(iii) following IUCN Red List categories and criteria
Sensitivity plots for WIMP direct detection using the annual modulation signature
Annual modulation due to the Earth's motion around the Sun is a well known
signature of the expected WIMP signal induced in a solid state underground
detector. In the present letter we discuss the prospects of this technique on
statistical grounds, introducing annual-modulation sensitivity plots for the
WIMP-nucleon scalar cross section for different materials and experimental
conditions. The highest sensitivity to modulation is found in the WIMP mass
interval 10 GeV< m_W < 130 GeV, the actual upper limit depending from the
choice of the astrophysical parameters, while the lowest values of the
explorable WIMP-nucleon elastic cross-sections fall in most cases within one
order of magnitude of the sensitivities of present direct detection WIMP
searches.Comment: 24 pages, ReVTeX, 9 figures, submitted to Astroparticle Physic
Linear matrix inequalities control driven for non-ideal power source energy harvesting
The dynamic model of a linear energy harvester excited by a non-ideal power source is coupled to a controller to maximum vibration adjustment. Numerical analysis is taken toevaluate the energy harvested keeping the vibration optimized for the maximum interaction to the energy source using linear matrix inequalities for control driven. The dimensionless power output, actuation power and net output power is determined. As a result, it is possible to verify that the total energy harvested via exogenous vibration using the proposed controller is increased up to 65 times when in comparison to the open loop system
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