Flexible Labor and Innovation Performance: Evidence from Longitudinal Firm-Level Data

Firms with high shares of workers on fixed-term contracts have significantly higher sales of imitative new products but perform significantly worse on sales of inno¬va¬tive new products (“first on the marketâ€). High functional flexibility in “insider-outsider†la¬bor markets enhances a firm’s new product sales, as do training efforts and highly edu¬ca¬¬ted personnel. We find weak evidence that larger and older firms have higher new pro¬duct sales than do younger and smaller firms. Our findings should be food for thought to eco-nomists making unqualified pleas for the deregulation of labor markets.J5;M5;O15;O31;OSA longitudinal dataset;SMEs;innovation performance;new product sales;numerical flexibility

Kondratieff Long Waves In Aggregate Output? An Econometric Test

From the very beginning of the long-wave debate (interrupted several times in the past), at the forefront of interest has been the question of reliable proof of the existence of long waves as reflected in real economic data series. Once proved it would be easier to correlate them with other important economic variables and look for possible causal relations. However simple this may seem in principle, this paper shows how difficult this problem is in practice. Even if no one questions the fluctuations of economic data, the problem of finding in them a coherent pattern is complicated. The novel method described here seems to be well suited for depicting trends in "long economic movements" -- an expression that draws less opposition than the simple idea of periodic cycles. Important insight is shown in the authors' analysis of the data of many countries. This paper is a significant step in pursuit of the most important issue in the long-wave debate -- to produce reliable data and methods that will shed the necessary light on the question of the existence of long waves

The impact of Labour Relations on Innovative Output: An Exploration of Firm-level Data in the Netherlands

A growing literature on determinants of innovative per- formance focuses on factors such as market structure, firm size, (regional and international) knowledge spill- overs, R&D collaboration, conditions for appropriation of innovation benefits, and others. This paper contrib- utes to an aspect that is still sparsely explored: The im- pact of labour relations and Human Resource Manage- ment (HRM) practices on a firm’s innovative behaviour. Our empirical findings identify that active HRM policies, including job rotation, performance pay, and high qualification levels of personnel contribute positively to innovative performance

Unstable particles as open quantum systems

We present the probability preserving description of the decaying particle within the framework of quantum mechanics of open systems taking into account the superselection rule prohibiting the superposition of the particle and vacuum. In our approach the evolution of the system is given by a family of completely positive trace preserving maps forming one-parameter dynamical semigroup. We give the Kraus representation for the general evolution of such systems which allows one to write the evolution for systems with two or more particles. Moreover, we show that the decay of the particle can be regarded as a Markov process by finding explicitly the master equation in the Lindblad form. We also show that there are remarkable restrictions on the possible strength of decoherence.Comment: 11 pp, 2 figs (published version

Determination of the branching ratios Γ(KL→3π0)/Γ(KL→π+π−π0)\Gamma (K_L \to 3 \pi^0) / \Gamma (K_L \to \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^0) and Γ(KL→3π0)/Γ(KL→πeν)\Gamma (K_L \to 3 \pi^0) / \Gamma (K_L \to \pi e \nu )

Improved branching ratios were measured for the $K_L \to 3 \pi^0$ decay in a neutral beam at the CERN SPS with the NA31 detector: $\Gamma (K_L \to 3 \pi^0) / \Gamma (K_L \to \pi^+ \pi^- \pi^0) = 1.611 \pm 0.037$ and $\Gamma (K_L \to 3 \pi^0) / \Gamma (K_L \to \pi e \nu ) = 0.545 \pm 0.010$. From the first number an upper limit for $\Delta I =5/2$ and $\Delta I = 7/2$ transitions in neutral kaon decay is derived. Using older results for the Ke3/K$\mu$3 fraction, the 3$\pi^0$ branching ratio is found to be $\Gamma (K_L \to 3 \pi^0 )/ \Gamma_{tot} = (0.211 \pm 0.003)$, about a factor three more precise than from previous experiments

Irreversible Quantum Mechanics in the Neutral K-System

The neutral Kaon system is used to test the quantum theory of resonance scattering and decay phenomena. The two dimensional Lee-Oehme-Yang theory with complex Hamiltonian is obtained by truncating the complex basis vector expansion of the exact theory in Rigged Hilbert space. This can be done for K_1 and K_2 as well as for K_S and K_L, depending upon whether one chooses the (self-adjoint, semi-bounded) Hamiltonian as commuting or non-commuting with CP. As an unexpected curiosity one can show that the exact theory (without truncation) predicts long-time 2 pion decays of the neutral Kaon system even if the Hamiltonian conserves CP.Comment: 36 pages, 1 PostScript figure include

Reducing tau aggregates with anle138b delays disease progression in a mouse model of tauopathies.

Pathological tau aggregation leads to filamentous tau inclusions and characterizes neurodegenerative tauopathies such as Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia and parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17. Tau aggregation coincides with clinical symptoms and is thought to mediate neurodegeneration. Transgenic mice overexpressing mutant human P301S tau exhibit many neuropathological features of human tauopathies including behavioral deficits and increased mortality. Here, we show that the di-phenyl-pyrazole anle138b binds to aggregated tau and inhibits tau aggregation in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, anle138b treatment effectively ameliorates disease symptoms, increases survival time and improves cognition of tau transgenic PS19 mice. In addition, we found decreased synapse and neuron loss accompanied by a decreased gliosis in the hippocampus. Our results suggest that reducing tau aggregates with anle138b may represent an effective and promising approach for the treatment of human tauopathies