The Influence of Installed Technologies on Future Adoption Decisions: Empirical Evidence from E-Business

This paper studies the adoption times of various e-business technologies in a large sample of firms from 10 different industry sectors and 25 European countries between 1994 and 2002. The results show that the probability of adoption increases with the number of previously adopted e-business technologies. Hence, the more advanced a firm is in using e-business technologies, the more likely it is to adopt additional e-business technologies, provided technologies do not substitute each other in their functionalities. This result is relevant for the marketing of new technologies, strategic planning and, from an economic perspective, for the convergence of growth across regions

Acceleration of Technology Adoption withing Firms

This paper studies the diffusion of multiple, related technologies among firms. The results suggest an endogenous acceleration mechanism of technology adoption: The more advanced a firm is in using a particular set of technologies, the more likely it is to adopt additional, related technologies. We show that such a mechanism can occur under fairly general circumstances. If firms are not ex ante identical, the endogenous acceleration mechanism suggests a growing divergence in technological endowment of firms in the early phases after the emergence of a new technological paradigm. The theoretical predictions are tested with a dataset that records the adoption times of various e-business technologies in a large sample of firms from 10 different industry sectors and 25 European countries. The results show that the probability to adopt strictly increases with the number of previously adopted e-business technologies. Evidence for a growing digital divide among the companies in the sample is demonstrated for the period from 1994-2002

Acceleration of technology adoption within firms -- Emperical evidence from e-business

This paper studies the diffusion of multiple related technologies among firms. The results suggest an endogenous acceleration mechanism for technology adoption: The more advanced a firm is in using a particular set of technologies, the more likely it is to adopt additional related technologies. We show that such a mechanism can occur under fairly general circumstances. If firms are not ex ante identical, the endogenous acceleration mechanism suggests a growing divergence in the technological endowment of firms in the early phases after the emergence of a new technological paradigm. The theoretical predictions are tested with a dataset that records the adoption times of various e- business technologies in a large sample of firms from 10 different industry sectors and 25 European countries. The results show that the probability of adoption increases with the number of previously adopted e-business technologies. Evidence for a growing digital divide among the companies in the sample is demonstrated for the period from 1994-2002

Seeing the World with Different Eyes

Across countries, women own significantly fewer businesses than do men. We show that this is due, in large part, to the fact that the propensity to start businesses of women is significantly lower than that of men. The lower propensity of women, in turn, appears to be highly correlated to women’s lower average levels of optimism and self-confidence, and higher fear of failure. Ceteris paribus, women and men have different perceptions of the business environment and, as a result, make different decisions. We provide some evidence that this may be universally true and independent from culture, although country specific factors seem to influence perceptual differences between genders. We also show that women who are more self-confident and undeterred by failure have a greater probability to start a business than men with similar characteristics. Keywords: Nascen

Standard requirements for GCP-compliant data management in multinational clinical trials

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A recent survey has shown that data management in clinical trials performed by academic trial units still faces many difficulties (e.g. heterogeneity of software products, deficits in quality management, limited human and financial resources and the complexity of running a local computer centre). Unfortunately, no specific, practical and open standard for both GCP-compliant data management and the underlying IT-infrastructure is available to improve the situation. For that reason the "Working Group on Data Centres" of the European Clinical Research Infrastructures Network (ECRIN) has developed a standard specifying the requirements for high quality GCP-compliant data management in multinational clinical trials.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>International, European and national regulations and guidelines relevant to GCP, data security and IT infrastructures, as well as ECRIN documents produced previously, were evaluated to provide a starting point for the development of standard requirements. The requirements were produced by expert consensus of the ECRIN Working group on Data Centres, using a structured and standardised process. The requirements were divided into two main parts: an IT part covering standards for the underlying IT infrastructure and computer systems in general, and a Data Management (DM) part covering requirements for data management applications in clinical trials.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The standard developed includes 115 IT requirements, split into 15 separate sections, 107 DM requirements (in 12 sections) and 13 other requirements (2 sections). Sections IT01 to IT05 deal with the basic IT infrastructure while IT06 and IT07 cover validation and local software development. IT08 to IT015 concern the aspects of IT systems that directly support clinical trial management. Sections DM01 to DM03 cover the implementation of a specific clinical data management application, i.e. for a specific trial, whilst DM04 to DM12 address the data management of trials across the unit. Section IN01 is dedicated to international aspects and ST01 to the competence of a trials unit's staff.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The standard is intended to provide an open and widely used set of requirements for GCP-compliant data management, particularly in academic trial units. It is the intention that ECRIN will use these requirements as the basis for the certification of ECRIN data centres.</p

Signatures of a dissipative phase transition in photon correlation measurements

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) through the National Centre of Competence in Research - Quantum Science and Technology (NCCR QSIT). A.S., C.S., and S.H. acknowledge support by the State of Bavaria and the DFG within the Project Schn1376/3-1.Understanding and characterizing phase transitions in driven-dissipative systems constitutes a new frontier for many-body physics[1-8]. A generic feature of dissipative phase transitions is a vanishing gap in the Liouvillian spectrum [9], which leads to long-lived deviations from the steady state as the system is driven towards the transition. Here, we show that photon correlation measurements can be used to characterize the corresponding critical slowing down of non-equilibrium dynamics. We focus on the extensively studied phenomenon of optical bistability in GaAs cavity polaritons [10,11], which can be described as a first-order dissipative phase transition [12-14]. Increasing the excitation strength towards the bistable range results in an increasing photon-bunching signal along with a decay time that is prolonged by more than nine orders of magnitude as compared with that of single polaritons. In the limit of strong polariton interactions leading to pronounced quantum fluctuations, the mean-field bistability threshold is washed out. Nevertheless, the functional form with which the Liouvillian gap closes as the thermodynamic limit is approached provides a signature of the emerging dissipative phase transition. Our results establish photon correlation measurements as an invaluable tool for studying dynamical properties of dissipative phase transitions without requiring phase-sensitive interferometric measurements.PostprintPeer reviewe

Inter-population variations in concentrations, determinants of and correlations between 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153) and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis (p-chlorophenyl)-ethylene (p,p'-DDE): a cross-sectional study of 3161 men and women from Inuit and European populations

BACKGROUND: The study is part of a collaborative project (Inuendo), aiming to assess the impact of dietary persistent organochlorine pollutants (POPs) on human fertility. The aims with the present study are to analyze inter-population variations in serum concentrations of 2,2',4,4',5,5'-hexachlorobiphenyl (CB-153) and 1,1-dichloro-2,2-bis (p-chlorophenyl)-ethylene (p,p'-DDE), to assess inter-population variations in biomarker correlations, and to evaluate the relative impact of different determinants for the inter-individual variations in POP-biomarkers. METHOD: In study populations of 3161 adults, comprising Greenlandic Inuits, Swedish fishermen and their wives, and inhabitants from Warsaw, Poland and Kharkiv, Ukraine, serum concentrations of CB-153 and p,p'-DDE, were analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. RESULTS: The median serum concentrations of CB-153 were for male and female Inuits 200 and 110, for Swedish fishermen 190 and their wives 84, for Kharkiv men and women 44 and 27, and for Warsaw men and women 17 and 11 ng/g lipids, respectively. The median serum concentrations of p,p'-DDE were for Kharkiv men and women 930 and 650, for male and female Inuits 560 and 300, for Warsaw men and women 530 and 380, and for Swedish fishermen 240 and their wives 140 ng/g lipids, respectively. The correlation coefficients between CB-153 and p,p'-DDE varied between 0.19 and 0.92, with the highest correlation among Inuits and the lowest among men from Warsaw. Men had averagely higher serum concentrations of CB-153 and p,p'-DDE, and there were positive associations between age and the POP-biomarkers, whereas the associations with BMI and smoking were inconsistent. Dietary seafood was of importance only in the Inuit and Swedish populations. CONCLUSION: CB-153 concentrations were much higher in Inuits and Swedish fishermen's populations than in the populations from Eastern Europe, whereas the pattern was different for p,p'-DDE showing highest concentrations in the Kharkiv population. The correlations between the POP-biomarkers varied considerably between the populations, underlining that exposure sources differ and that the choice of representative biomarkers of overall POP exposure has to be based on an analysis of the specific exposure situation for each population. Age and gender were consistent determinants of serum POPs; seafood was of importance only in the Inuit and Swedish populations

Research and Design of a Routing Protocol in Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

无线传感器网络，作为全球未来十大技术之一，集成了传感器技术、嵌入式计算技术、分布式信息处理和自组织网技术，可实时感知、采集、处理、传输网络分布区域内的各种信息数据，在军事国防、生物医疗、环境监测、抢险救灾、防恐反恐、危险区域远程控制等领域具有十分广阔的应用前景。 本文研究分析了无线传感器网络的已有路由协议，并针对大规模的无线传感器网络设计了一种树状路由协议，它根据节点地址信息来形成路由，从而简化了复杂繁冗的路由表查找和维护，节省了不必要的开销，提高了路由效率，实现了快速有效的数据传输。 为支持此路由协议本文提出了一种自适应动态地址分配算——ADAR（AdaptiveDynamicAddre...As one of the ten high technologies in the future, wireless sensor network, which is the integration of micro-sensors, embedded computing, modern network and Ad Hoc technologies, can apperceive, collect, process and transmit various information data within the region. It can be used in military defense, biomedical, environmental monitoring, disaster relief, counter-terrorism, remote control of haz...学位：工学硕士院系专业：信息科学与技术学院通信工程系_通信与信息系统学号：2332007115216