Current practice with regard to short-term incentive schemes for middle managers.

This study aimed to determine what the current practice is with regard to short-term incentive schemes for middle managers. This was done by means of a quantitative study through a structured research survey completed by a sample of forty-eight organisations. The design elements, performance measures and payout practices of the various schemes in use were surveyed, as well as the participants’ view on the perceived effectiveness of their short-term incentive schemes. Evidence shows that the majority of organisations have a short-term incentive scheme in place for middle managers, and that the type of scheme used in most of the organisations is a performance-related bonus scheme, introduced mainly to drive business performance and reward superior performance

Virus-mediated autoimmunity in Multiple Sclerosis

Epidemiological data suggest the notion that in Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an acquired autoimmune disease and the cause may be an environmental factor(s), probably infectious, in genetically susceptible individuals. Several cases of viral induced demyelinatimg encephalomyelitis in human beings and in experimental models as well as the presence of IgG oligoclonal bands in the cerebrospinal fluid indicate that the infectious factor may be viral. However, the absence of a specific virus identification in MS central nervous system may hardly support this notion. On the other hand, the partial response of patients with MS to immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory therapy support the evidence of an autoimmune etiology for MS. However, the autoimmune hypothesis shares the same criticism with the infectious one in that no autoantigen(s) specific to and causative for MS has ever been identified. Nevertheless, the absence of identifiable infectious agent, especially viral does not rule out its presence at a certain time – point and the concomitant long term triggering of an autoimmune cascade of events thereafter. Several concepts have emerged in an attempt to explain the autoimmune mechanisms and ongoing neurodegeneration in MS on the basis of the infectious – viral hypothesis

Monetary policy transmission to Russia & Eastern Europe

In this paper, we argue that the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy announcements have generated significant spillover effects in Russia and Eastern Europe. The hypothesis is tested using OLS estimations of event-based regressions on monetary policy event dummies and seven financial variables in eleven East European countries including Russia. Overall, the empirical results associate the ECB’s unconventional policy announcements with the appreciation of East European currencies, rising stock market indices as well as falling long-term government bond yields and lower sovereign CDS spreads in Eastern Europe and Russia. Notably, bilateral integration with the eurozone is a key determinant of the strength of spillovers, with spillovers strongest in non-euro EU countries and weakest in non-EU East European countries. Interestingly, we find differentiated strength of spillovers to Russia compared to other non-EU East European countries, which we attribute to its fixed exchange rate regime. Lastly, we test for the presence of the portfolio rebalancing and confidence transmission channels

From Manufacturing to Advanced Services. The (Uneven) Rise and Decline of Mediterranean City-Regions

Uneven changes in the global urban hierarchy have given way to new forms of relationships between urban and rural areas based on complementarities, cooperative and specialized exchange of services and goods, abandoning the additive processes of growth guided by industrialization and urbanization. Representing a distant notion from traditional concepts in regional studies such as 'compact cities' or 'suburbs', 'gravitation' or 'hierarchy', the 'city-region' paradigm has stimulated different visions to be recomposed within the 'sustainability' framework. With global changes, the 'mega-city region' model has starting to take the lead in the development of contemporary urban agglomeration. In this study, considerations over the emergence of this urban model in the Mediterranean region will be presented to investigate the relationship between dispersed urbanization and consolidating southern European city-regions. While Mediterranean cities have been considered for long time as ‘ordinary’ cities, rather distant from the 'globalized' northern urban models, most of these cities are characterized by distinctive socioeconomic traits possibly open to competition and globalization. The present contribution describes the emergence of a Mediterranean urban area, Athens, as a new 'city-region' in the context of urbanization processes in Greece and in the Mediterranean basin as a whole. One of the clearest indications of urban competitiveness amongst emerging and established large city-regions is the fight for hosting mega-events. The final objective of the study is to understand how the efforts for increasing urban competitiveness are impacting new forms of cityregions, mainly based on low-density settlements reflecting discontinuous urbanization

Towards More Practical Linear Programming-based Techniques for Algorithmic Mechanism Design

R. Lavy and C. Swamy (FOCS 2005, J. ACM 2011) introduced a general method for obtaining truthful-in-expectation mechanisms from linear programming based approximation algorithms. Due to the use of the Ellipsoid method, a direct implementation of the method is unlikely to be efficient in practice. We propose to use the much simpler and usually faster multiplicative weights update method instead. The simplification comes at the cost of slightly weaker approximation and truthfulness guarantees

Automated Podcasting System for Universities

This paper presents the results achieved at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in the field of automating the process of recording and publishing university lectures in a very new way. It outlines cornerstones of the development and integration of an automated recording system such as the lecture hall setup, the recording hardware and software architecture as well as the development of a text-based search for the final product by method of indexing video podcasts. Furthermore, the paper takes a look at didactical aspects, evaluations done in this context and future outlook

Minimum output variance control for FSN models: Continuous-time case

In this paper we consider the Finite Signal-to-Noise ratio model for linear stochastic systems. It is assumed that the intensity of noise corrupting a signal is proportional to the variance of the signal. Hence, the signal-to-noise ratio of each sensor and actuator is finite – as opposed to the infinite signal-to-noise ratio assumed in LQG theory. Computational errors in the controller implementation are treated similarly. The objective is to design a state feedback control law such that the closed loop system is mean square asymptotically stable and the output variance is minimized. The main result is a controller which achieves its maximal accuracy with finite control gains – as opposed to the infinite controls required to achieve maximal accuracy in LQG controllers. Necessary and sufficient conditions for optimality are derived. An optimal control law which involves the positive definite solution of a Riccati-like equation is derived. An algorithm for solving the Riccati-like equation is given and its convergence is guaranteed if a solution exists