The effect of ownership and competitive pressure on firm performance in transition countries. Micro evidence from Bulgaria, Romania and Poland.

Country; Firm performance; Ownership; Performance;

Gross Job Flows in Ukraine: Size, Ownership and Trade Effects

This paper documents and analyses gross job flows and their determinants in Ukraine using a unique data set of more than 2200 Ukrainian firms operating in both the manufacturing and the non-manufacturing sector for the years 1998-2000. There are several important findings in the paper. Job destruction is dominating job creation in both 1999 and 2000. In connection with other evidence we infer from this that Ukraine is only at the beginning of the restructuring process. The most clear-cut result of our analysis is the strong positive effect of new private firms on net employment growth, a finding established for other transition economies as well. At the same time, we do not find differences in the employment growth of state-owned and privatised firms. Apart from ownership effects we also find, at the firm level, an inverse correlation of size and net employment growth and of size and job reallocation. Finally, we establish that strong foreign trade links force firms to shed labour more aggressively and to engage in more restructuring when trade is directed to and originating from Western economies. This disciplining function is absent when the trade flows are confined to CIS countries.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39906/3/wp521.pd

Magnetic domain fluctuations in an antiferromagnetic film observed with coherent resonant soft x-ray scattering

We report the direct observation of slow fluctuations of helical antiferromagnetic domains in an ultra-thin holmium film using coherent resonant magnetic x-ray scattering. We observe a gradual increase of the fluctuations in the speckle pattern with increasing temperature, while at the same time a static contribution to the speckle pattern remains. This finding indicates that domain-wall fluctuations occur over a large range of time scales. We ascribe this non-ergodic behavior to the strong dependence of the fluctuation rate on the local thickness of the film.Comment: to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Structural features of the glutamate transporter family

Neuronal and glial glutamate transporters remove the excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate fi om the synaptic cleft and thus prevent neurotoxicity The proteins belong to a large and widespread family of secondary transporters, including bacterial glutamate, serine, and C-4-dicarboxylate transporters; mammalian neutral-amino-acid transporters; and an increasing number of bacterial archaeal, and eukaryotic proteins that have not yet been functionally characterized Sixty members of the glutamate transporter family,cere found ill the databases on the basis of sequence homology. The amino acid sequences of the carriers have diverged enormously. Homology between the members of the family is most apparent in a stretch of approximately 150 residues in the C-terminal part of the proteins. This region contains four reasonably well-conserved sequence motifs, all of which have been suggested to be part of the translocation pore or substrate binding site. Phylogenetic analysis of the C-terminal stretch revealed the presence of five subfamilies with characterized members: (i) the eukaryotic glutamate transporters, (ii) the bacterial glutamate transporters, (iii) the eukaryotic neutral-amino-acid transporters, (iv) the bacterial C-4-dicarboxylate transporters, and (v) the bacterial serine transporters. A number of other subfamilies that do not contain characterized members have been defined. In contrast to their amino acid sequences, the hydropathy profiles of the members of the family are extremely well conserved. Analysis of the hydropathy profiles has suggested that the glutamate transporters have a global structure that is unique among secondary transporters Experimentally, the unique structure of the transporters was recently confirmed by membrane topology studies. Although there is still controversy about part of the topology, the most likely model predicts the presence of eight membrane-spanning alpha-helices and a loop-pore structure which is unique among secondary transporters brit may resemble loop-pores found in ion channels. A second distinctive structural feature is the presence of a highly amphipathic membrane-spanning helix that provides a hydrophilic path through the membrane. Recent data from analysis of site-directed mutants and studies on the mechanism and pharmacology of the transporters are discussed in relation to the structural model.</p

Spillovers from Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe. An index for measuring a country’s potential to benefit from technology spillovers

In the paper, we construct a composite indicator to estimate the potential of four Central and Eastern European countries (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia) to benefit from productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector. Such transfers of technology are one of the main benefits of FDI for the host country, and should also be one of the main determinants of FDI incentives offered to investing multinationals by governments, but they are difficult to assess ex ante. For our composite index, we use six components to proxy the main channels and determinants of these spillovers. We have tried several weighting and aggregation methods, and we consider our results robust. According to the analysis of our results, between 2003 and 2007 all four countries were able to increase their potential to benefit from such spillovers, although there are large differences between them. The Czech Republic clearly has the most potential to benefit from productivity spillovers, while Poland has the least. The relative positions of Hungary and Slovakia depend to some extent on the exact weighting and aggregation method of the individual components of the index, but the differences are not large. These conclusions have important implication both the investment strategies of multinationals and government FDI policies

Pacing Behavior and Tactical Positioning in 1500-m Short-Track Speed Skating

Purpose:To gain more insight in pacing behavior and tactical positioning in 1500-m short-track speed skating, a sport in which several athletes directly compete in the same race.Methods:Lap times and intermediate rankings of elite 1500-m short-track-skating competitors were collected over the season 2012–13 (N = 510, 85 races). Two statistical approaches were used to assess pacing behavior and tactical positioning. First, lap times were analyzed using a MANOVA, and for each lap differences between sex, race type, final rankings, and stage of competition were determined. Second, Kendall tau b correlations were used to assess relationships between intermediate and final rankings. In addition, intermediate rankings of the winner of each race were examined.Results:In 1500 m (13.5 laps of 111.12 m), correlations between intermediate and final ranking gradually increased throughout the race (eg, lap 1, r = .05; lap 7, r = .26; lap 13, r = .85). Moreover, the percentage of race winners skating in the leading position was over 50% during the last 3 laps. Top finishers were faster than bottom-place finishers only during the last 5 laps, with on average 0.1- to 1.5-s faster lap times of the race winners compared with the others during the last 5 laps.Conclusions:Although a fast start led to faster finishing times, top finishers were faster than bottom-placed finishers only during the last 5 laps. Moreover, tactical positioning at 1 of the foremost positions during the latter phase of the race appeared to be a strong determinant of finishing position.</jats:sec