Relationship between innovation and financial performance in the global environment of exporting companies

This research aimed to measure the impact of innovations (product innovation, technological innovation, marketing innovation, and process innovations) on the financial performance of exporting enterprises. It was based on return on assets (ROA), increase in return on sales, net profit, and increases in value per employee. The research was carried out based on primary data through the quantitative method. The study's participants were 150 Kosovo exporting companies selected randomly. Based on Pearson’s correlation analysis, it was found that there is a weak positive linear relationship between organizational innovations and product innovation, and financial performance. Additionally, a moderate positive linear relationship exists between marketing innovations, process innovations, and financial performance. Referring to the multiple linear regression, it was revealed that innovations explain 46.7% of financial performance. Process and marketing innovation had the greatest impact on financial performance, while organizational innovation had a lesser impact. The findings of this research contribute to improving the financial performance of exporting companies in Kosovo, focusing on the type of innovation that most influences performance

The Change Of Share Prices Of Companies From Different Sectors In The Period Of The COVID-19 Pandemic

 The Macedonian stock market was not unaffected by the global level crisis that was present as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The share prices of the companies that are listed on the stock exchange started to change the value but not in the same direction because all companies from different sectors were not affected in the same way by the COVID-19 pandemic.The institutional capital market index MBI-10 in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic had a decrease of 22.43% in March of 2020 and this decrease continued until the beginning of 2021 when the increasing trend began and at the annual level increased to  30.8%. If we analyze it on the basis of the component structure, the prices of all shares that are components of the stock market index have increased annually. From a structural point of view, five of the ten companies that are the elements of MBI-10 are commercial banks, while the other five are from other sectors, which shows that we have a high level of sectoral concentration.In the Macedonian Stock Exchange, 94 companies are listed, the paper will analyze the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the changes in the prices of their shares in the period of the pandemic and post-pandemic, as well as whether all sectors were affected in the same way. Based on the analysis of the financial statements of companies listed on the Stock Exchange, even though there have been difficult years, some companies have managed to achieve high profits in 2020 and 2021. Keywords: share, stock market, COVID-19, MBI 10, capital market

Triplet forces between star polymers

We analyze the effective triplet interactions between the centers of star polymers in a good solvent. Using an analytical short distance expansion inspired by scaling theory, we deduce that the triplet part of the three-star force is attractive but only 11% of the pairwise part even for a close approach of three star polymers. We have also performed extensive computer simulations for different arm numbers to extract the effective triplet force. The simulation data show good correspondence with the theoretical predictions. Our results justify the effective pair potential picture even beyond the star polymer overlap concentration.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

Phase field simulation of liquid filling on grooved surfaces for complete, partial, and pseudo-partial wetting cases

We develop and harness a phase field simulation method to study liquid filling on grooved surfaces. We consider both short-range and long-range liquid–solid interactions, with the latter including purely attractive and repulsive interactions as well as those with short-range attraction and long-range repulsion. This allows us to capture complete, partial, and pseudo-partial wetting states, demonstrating complex disjoining pressure profiles over the full range of possible contact angles as previously proposed in the literature. Applying the simulation method to study liquid filling on grooved surfaces, we compare the filling transition for the three different classes of wetting states as we vary the pressure difference between the liquid and gas phases. The filling and emptying transitions are reversible for the complete wetting case, while significant hysteresis is observed for the partial and pseudo-partial cases. In agreement with previous studies, we also show that the critical pressure for the filling transition follows the Kelvin equation for the complete and partial wetting scenarios. Finally, we find the filling transition can display a number of distinct morphological pathways for the pseudo-partial wetting cases, as we demonstrate here for varying groove dimensions

Predicting Hemiwicking Dynamics on Textured Substrates

The ability to predict liquid transport rates on textured surfaces is key to the design and optimization of devices and processes such as oil recovery, coatings, reaction-separation, high-throughput screening, and thermal management. In this work we develop a fully analytical model to predict the propagation coefficients for liquids hemiwicking through micropillar arrays. This is carried out by balancing the capillary driving force and a viscous resistive force and solving the Navier–Stokes equation for representative channels. The model is validated against a large data set of experimental hemiwicking coefficients harvested from the literature and measured in-house using high-speed imaging. The theoretical predictions show excellent agreement with the measured values and improved accuracy compared to previously proposed models. Furthermore, using lattice Boltzmann (LB) simulations, we demonstrate that the present model is applicable over a broad range of geometries. The scaling of velocity with texture geometry, implicit in our model, is compared against experimental data, where good agreement is observed for most practical systems. The analytical expression presented here offers a tool for developing design guidelines for surface chemistry and microstructure selection for liquid propagation on textured surfaces

Conformations and Interactions of Star-Branched Polymeric Systems

We examine the conformations and effective interaction potentials for two classes of star-branched polymeric materials. The work consists essentially of two parts: the investigation of the interaction potential between two polyelectrolyte stars (PE-stars), and between an uncharged star polymer and a hard colloidal particle of varying curvature. While in the latter case we can take use of wide knowledge of pure star polymers in terms of their conformations, in the case of PE-stars we have to develop a convenient theoretical model to study conformational properties of an isolated PE-star. We observe a strong 'trapping'-effect of the inhomogeneously distributed counterions within the PE-star, as well as significant counterion condensation along the chains, which are almost fully stretched. We use these one-star results, also confirmed by monomer-resolved Molecular Dynamics computer simulations with explicit consideration of counterions, for an extension of the theory to the two-star case. (orig.)Available from: http://www.ulb.uni-duesseldorf.de/diss/mathnat/2002/jusufi.pdf / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman

Implicit-solvent Models for Micellization of Ionic Surfactants

We propose a method for parameterization of implicit-solvent models for the simulation of self-assembly of ionic surfactants into micelles. The parameterization is carried out in two steps. The first step involves atomistic Molecular Dynamics simulations of headgroups and counterions with explicit solvent to determine structural properties. An implicit-solvent model of the headgroup/counterion system is ob- tained by matching structural quantities between explicit-solvent and implicit-solvent systems. In the second step we identify the solvophobic attractions between the tail beads. We determine the solvophobic parameters using Grand Canonical Monte Carlo simulations with histogram reweighting techniques. The matching objective for the identification of solvophobic attractions is the critical micelle concentration (cmc). We chose sodium dodecyl sulfate as the reference system. Based on hydrophobic parameters obtained from this particular model we study specific ion effects (lithium and potassium instead of sodium), as well as the effect of cationic headgroups (dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide/chloride). Furthermore, the chain length dependence of micellization properties is investigated for sodium alkyl sulfate, with alkyl lengths between 6 and 14. All cases considered give results in broad agreement to experimental data, confirming transferability of parameters and the generality of the approach