A socioemotional wealth perspective on innovativeness and performance of family businesses.

This dissertation is a theoretical and empirical examination of the relationships among socioemotional wealth, innovativeness, and performance in family firms. Building on the Behavioral Agency Theory’s predictions that socioemotional wealth of family firms may affect their strategic decision making both positively and negatively, this study theoretically develops and tests a research model that aims at understanding the nuanced influences of different socioemotional wealth dimensions on firm innovativeness and performance. Specifically, the study hypothesizes that a family’s socioemotional wealth affects the firm’s innovativeness and performance both negatively, in the case of internal socioemotional wealth and positively, in the case of external socioemotional wealth. Analyzing a sample of 277 US-based, privately-held, and small-sized family firms, I find that internal socioemotional wealth positively affects firm innovativeness. Interestingly, external does not have a significant impact on family firm innovativeness. The results also show that internal socioemotional wealth does not directly influence firm performance whereas external does. Lastly, the results highlight that, overall, socioemotional wealth has a more pronounced direct effect on family firm innovativeness than it does on financial performance underscoring its importance for understanding the strategic decision-making of family firms. The study contributes to the discussion of heterogeneity among family businesses in terms of the importance that they attach to different socioemotional wealth dimensions and engages the conversation about the dual effects of such heterogeneity on innovativeness and performance. It also helps advance our understanding of the nuanced effects of internal and external socioemotional wealth on innovativeness and performance. The results yield important practical implications for family business owners. They provide insights to family business owners to help them mitigate the negative effects of their socioemotional wealth on firm innovation through the professionalization of their firms and the promotion of their family brand identity

Η μουσική ως μέσο πολιτικής αντίστασης: Η περίπτωση της Πανκ υποκουλτούρας στην Μεγάλη Βρετανία κατά το 1960-1980

Η παρούσα εργασία αναπτύσσεται σε δυο άξονες. Ο πρώτος, όπου χαρακτηρίζεται εν μέρη ως ένα εισαγωγικό μέρος της εργασίας, αναφέρεται στην σχέση που έχει αναπτύξει η μουσική από τα αρχαϊκά χρόνια έως τη σύγχρονη εποχή τόσο σε σχέση με την κοινωνία και τον άνθρωπο, όσο και με την πολιτική και κοινωνική δραστηριότητα που χαρακτηρίζει κάθε εκάστοτε πολιτισμό. Το δεύτερο και πιο ανεπτυγμένο μέρος μιλάει ειδικότερα για την Πανκ υποκουλτούρα, όπως αυτή εμφανίστηκε στην Μεγάλη Βρετανία κατά την περίοδο της δημιουργίας της, δηλαδή στα τέλη του 1960, αλλά και στην περίοδο ανάπτυξης αλλά και εξάπλωσης της, δηλαδή στις δεκαετίες 1970 και 1980. Με αυτό το τρόπο πραγματοποιείται η αποτύπωση της σχέσης της μουσικής με τον πολιτισμό και τα κοινωνικά κινήματα μέσα από το απτό παράδειγμα της Πανκ υποκουλτούρας.The present work is developed in two axes. The first one, which is described in part as an introductory part of the work, refers to the relationship that music has developed from the Archaic period until the modern age, both in relation to society and human, as well as to the political and social activity that characterizes one culture. The second and most developed part refers especially to the subculture of Punk music, as it appeared in Great Britain at the time of its creation, namely in the late 1960s, but also in the period of its development and expansion, in the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, the relationship between music and culture and social movements is captured through the tangible example of the subculture of Punk

Expert knowledge for translating land cover/use maps to General Habitat Categories (GHC)

Monitoring biodiversity at the level of habitats and landscape is becoming widespread in Europe and elsewhere as countries establish international and national habitat conservation policies and monitoring systems. Earth Observation (EO) data offers a potential solution to long-term biodiversity monitoring through direct mapping of habitats or by integrating Land Cover/Use (LC/LU) maps with contextual spatial information and in situ data. Therefore, it appears necessary to develop an automatic/semi-automatic translation framework of LC/LU classes to habitat classes, but also challenging due to discrepancies in domain definitions. In the context of the FP7 BIO_SOS (www.biosos.eu) project, the authors demonstrated the feasibility of the Food and Agricultural Organization Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) taxonomy to habitat class translation. They also developed a framework to automatically translate LCCS classes into the recently proposed General Habitat Categories classification system, able to provide an exhaustive typology of habitat types, ranging from natural ecosystems to urban areas around the globe. However discrepancies in terminology, plant height criteria and basic principles between the two mapping domains inducing a number of one-to-many and many-to-many relations were identified, revealing the need of additional ecological expert knowledge to resolve the ambiguities. This paper illustrates how class phenology, class topological arrangement in the landscape, class spectral signature from multi-temporal Very High spatial Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery and plant height measurements can be used to resolve such ambiguities. Concerning plant height, this paper also compares the mapping results obtained by using accurate values extracted from LIght Detection And Ranging (LIDAR) data and by exploiting EO data texture features (i.e. entropy) as a proxy of plant height information, when LIDAR data are not available. An application for two Natura 2000 coastal sites in Southern Italy is discussed

The Earth Observation Data for Habitat Monitoring (EODHaM) system

To support decisions relating to the use and conservation of protected areas and surrounds, the EU-funded BIOdiversity multi-SOurce monitoring System: from Space TO Species (BIO_SOS) project has developed the Earth Observation Data for HAbitat Monitoring (EODHaM) system for consistent mapping and monitoring of biodiversity. The EODHaM approach has adopted the Food and Agriculture Organization Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) taxonomy and translates mapped classes to General Habitat Categories (GHCs) from which Annex I habitats (EU Habitats Directive) can be defined. The EODHaM system uses a combination of pixel and object-based procedures. The 1st and 2nd stages use earth observation (EO) data alone with expert knowledge to generate classes according to the LCCS taxonomy (Levels 1 to 3 and beyond). The 3rd stage translates the final LCCS classes into GHCs from which Annex I habitat type maps are derived. An additional module quantifies changes in the LCCS classes and their components, indices derived from earth observation, object sizes and dimensions and the translated habitat maps (i.e., GHCs or Annex I). Examples are provided of the application of EODHaM system elements to protected sites and their surrounds in Italy, Wales (UK), the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal and India

Examination of parental involvement in Greek female athletes

The purpose of this study was to examine perceived and desired parental involvement in female sports in Greece. The parental involvement in sport questionnaire was administrated to 383 female former and current athletes (mean age 20.33 years, competitive experience 7.10 years) from different sports (rhythmic gymnastics, artistic gymnastics, swimming, basketball, volleyball, track and field). The questionnaire assessed athletes’ perception about their parental involvement (directive behavior, praise and understanding, active involvement, pressure) and their desired parental involvement. The results showed that athletes in rhythmic, artistic gymnastics and swimming scored higher in praise and understanding, rhythmic and artistic gymnastics athletes perceived higher active involvement than desired and rhythmic gymnastics athletes perceived higher directive behavior than desired. Athletes in specializing phase desired more parental praise and understanding. Finally, pressure was predicted from all parental involvement variables. As parental involvement differs between sports, the results are discussed in order to minimize the negative influence of parental involvement in each sport

Use of advanced acquisition and signal processing methods in analyzing biosignals towards automated gesture recognition in sign language

The main research field inspected in this doctorate dissertation focuses on the automated Greek Sign Language (GSL) recognition using data from surface electromyogram and accelerometer. In this context, the requirements of the acquisition system, such as the type, number and position of the electromyogram electrodes as well as the proposed position of the triaxial accelerometer are presented. The optimum topology consisting of five-channel surface electromyogram, capturing the wrist and finger motions and three-channel acceleration, monitoring the position of the hand in the 3D-space is reported in detail. An extended set of time-frequency features proposed in the literature are extracted from the acquired signals and evaluated for their efficiency in correctly classifying the isolated signs. As presented in this dissertation, the time-frequency features are inadequate for a medium sized sign lexicon, implying the necessity of employing more advanced signal processing techniques. To this end, advanced methods such as the entropy and the empirical mode decomposition are employed to provide with high recognition hit-ratios, along with feature vector dimension reduction, towards fast and reliable automated GSL recognition. In order to discriminate the differences in the individual way of signing from those regarding the sign gestures and therefore enhance the GSL recognition results, the signer’s level of deafness is employed in the feature extraction process. Through a novel hybrid adaptive procedure, a genetic algorithm weights the intrinsic modes of the acquired signals, before the sample entropy calculation. The resulting feature set, namely weighted intrinsic mode entropy, aims at minimizing the feature space dimension and increasing the sign classification accuracy discarding the intra-signer differences. The biggest contribution of this approach lies in the construction of a signer-independent GSL classification system towards the enhancement of its performance (>90% for 60 signs). To ensure the credibility of the presented results, the vocabulary complexity in terms of the similar movements involved in each hand articulation was examined. A novel GSL modeling approach on the kinetic level is proposed enabling the comparison of the signs through the calculation of the degree of similarity. The results imply sufficient confusion in the selected vocabulary for the evaluation of the robustness of the proposed methods. Another novelty in this dissertation is the use of the acquired data for the signer and the signer's level-of-deafness recognition. The findings justify the employment of the level of deafness in the feature space linking the individual way of signing to the signer identity and the level of deafness. This doctorate dissertation via the proposed data acquisition and advanced data processing techniques paves the way for more efficient automated GSL recognition. The proposed analyses can be useful in many gesture recognition applications, such as human-computer interfaces and robotics.Το βασικό ερευνητικό πεδίο της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η προηγμένη καταγραφή και επεξεργασία βιοσημάτων για την αναγνώριση χειρονομιών της Ελληνικής Νοηματικής Γλώσσας (ΕΝΓ). Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο, διερευνάται και αναλύεται η βέλτιστη τοπολογία καταγραφής της πληροφορίας των νοημάτων, η οποία αποτελείται από πέντε κανάλια επιφανειακού ηλεκτρομυογραφήματος για την καταγραφή των κινήσεων του καρπού και των δακτύλων και τρία κανάλια από ένα επιταχυνσιόμετρο τριών αξόνων για την ανίχνευση των κινήσεων του χεριού στο χώρο. Αρχικά, αξιολογούνται τα χαρακτηριστικά στο πεδίο του χρόνου και της συχνότητας που προτείνονται στη βιβλιογραφία και αποδεικνύεται ότι δε μπορούν να προάγουν ικανοποιητικά την αναγνώριση των νοημάτων, αναδεικνύοντας την ανάγκη εξέτασης πιο ανεπτυγμένων μεθόδων επεξεργασίας σήματος. Συγκεκριμένα προτείνεται η χρήση της εντροπίας και της εμπειρικής ανάλυσης ενδογενών ρυθμών επιτυγχάνοντας ικανοποιητικά αποτελέσματα ως προς τη διάσταση του διανυσματικού χώρου και τα ποσοστά ακρίβειας στην αναγνώριση των νοημάτων. Με στόχο το διαχωρισμό των μεταβολών που οφείλονται στον τρόπο νοηματισμού από εκείνες που φανερώνουν τις κινήσεις των νοημάτων εμπλέκεται ο βαθμός βαρηκοΐας στην εξαγωγή του διανύσματος χαρακτηριστικών με τη βοήθεια ενός γενετικού αλγορίθμου στάθμισης των ενδογενών ρυθμών. Τα αποτελέσματα αναδεικνύουν την ικανότητα της προτεινόμενης μεθόδου να προσφέρει τη μέγιστη αναγνώριση νοημάτων με την ελάχιστη διάσταση του διανυσματικού χώρου ακόμα και για την περίπτωση αναγνώρισης ΕΝΓ ανεξάρτητης του νοηματιστή, όπου η απόκριση του ταξινομητή διατηρείται σταθερή με το μέγεθος του λεξιλογίου σημειώνοντας ικανοποιητικά ποσοστά ακριβείας (>90% για 60 νοήματα). Για τη διασφάλιση της αξιοπιστίας των αποτελεσμάτων εξετάστηκε η πολυπλοκότητα της βάσης λεξιλογίου. Αναπτύσσεται μια μέθοδος μοντελοποίησης των νοημάτων, η οποία επιτρέπει τη σύγκριση των νοημάτων μέσω του βαθμού ομοιότητάς τους. Τα αποτελέσματα αναδεικνύουν ικανή πολυπλοκότητα λεξιλογίου, πιστοποιώντας τη συνεισφορά των προτεινόμενων μεθοδολογιών στην αναγνώριση νοημάτων. Μια ακόμα καινοτομία της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η χρήση των σημάτων καταγραφής για την αναγνώριση του χρήστη ή τον προσδιορισμό του βαθμού βαρηκοΐας του νοηματιστή. Τα ευρήματα που παρουσιάζονται ενισχύουν την υπόθεση της συσχέτισης του τρόπου νοηματισμού με το χρήστη αλλά και το βαθμό βαρηκοΐας. Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή συμβάλλει στην αυτόματη αναγνώριση ΕΝΓ με τη βοήθεια ενός ευφυούς τρόπου καταγραφής της πληροφορίας των νοημάτων και προηγμένων μεθόδων επεξεργασίας σήματος. Η χρήση των προτεινόμενων μεθοδολογιών μπορεί να επεκταθεί σε πληθώρα εφαρμογών που βασίζονται στην αναγνώριση χειρονομιών

Electroencephalogram and Alzheimer’s Disease: Clinical and Research Approaches

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by cognitive deficits, problems in activities of daily living, and behavioral disturbances. Electroencephalogram (EEG) has been demonstrated as a reliable tool in dementia research and diagnosis. The application of EEG in AD has a wide range of interest. EEG contributes to the differential diagnosis and the prognosis of the disease progression. Additionally such recordings can add important information related to the drug effectiveness. This review is prepared to form a knowledge platform for the project entitled “Cognitive Signal Processing Lab,” which is in progress in Information Technology Institute in Thessaloniki. The team tried to focus on the main research fields of AD via EEG and recent published studies

Report on RS-IUS second–stage modules software description

D5.5 describes the EODHaM 2nd stage and the translation of the EODHaM 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages to an open source environment and the sequence of processing, including feature extraction and segmentation, classification of land covers and translation to GHCs. Texture and Dempster-Shafer uncertainty analysis are also outlined. Land cover maps are presented for BIO_SOS test sites with estimates of accuracy. Report on RS-IUS second?stage modules software description (PDF Download Available). Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274704969_Report_on_RS-IUS_second-stage_modules_software_description?channel=doi&linkId=552657640cf295bf160ed603&showFulltext=true [accessed Jan 16 2018]

Endoscopic Surgical Repair of a Giant, Postoperative, Neglected Meningoencephalocele

Meningoencephalocele is a rare and potentially lethal disease, requiring early diagnosis and treatment. A 30-year-old male patient was diagnosed with a massive meningoencephalocele. His medical history included cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) rhinorrhea since the age of 7 years, which was attributed to right eye mining during infancy due to Coats disease. Following failed attempts of open surgical repair and CSF diversion during childhood, no further attempts of surgical management were made. He presented a long history of recurrent episodes of meningitis, resulting in long-lasting hospitalization in the intensive care unit. Eventually, he underwent surgical repair through an endoscopic multilayer approach. Subsequent endoscopic and radiological assessment demonstrated no recurrence during a follow-up period of one year. Endoscopic treatment is highly successful. An effective and definite surgical repair is of paramount importance in order to avoid life-threatening complications, improve patient's and caregiver's quality of life, and avoid unnecessary health-system costs