Objects and ideas : Japan and Europe in the nineteenth century

Contacts between nations and countries have always contributed to mutual understanding between peoples and their cultures and customs. It is true of contacts between Japan and the Western world. The nineteenth century was a breakthrough for Japan, although its evaluation is still the subject of discussion. The following remarks are devoted to the encounter of these two cultures following the Kanagawa Treaty from the perspective of the protection of cultural heritage. The different histories of Japan and the Western countries created different cultural and national identities, resulting in different understandings of works of art and craft items, and hence the different status of each side’s sense of values: artistic, cultural, and national. It is one of the important reasons the Japanese forfeited so many items representative of their arts and culture

Comparative Analysis of Private Equity Market in Poland and Other Central and Eastern European Countries

The main goal of this article is an analysis of the development stage attained by the private equity market in Poland and its comparison with similar markets in other countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The main emphasis has been laid on the very essence of this source of capital and its importance for development of small and medium-sized enterprises. The performed analysis has allowed to verity the hypothesis saying that private equity funds in Poland display a greater involvement in comparison with such funds in the remaining countries of this region, which is confirmed by the value of capital invested in Polish enterprises and the value of divestments in Poland. The empirical data used in this article come from statistical reports of the European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.Zasadniczym celem artykułu jest analiza stanu rozwoju rynku private equity w Polsce oraz porównanie go z tego typu rynkami w innych krajach Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej. Opisana zastała istota tego źródła finansowania oraz wskazano jej znaczenie dla rozwoju małych i średnich przedsiębiorstw. W pracy zweryfikowana została hipoteza stwierdzająca, iż fundusze private equity w Polsce wykazują większą aktywność niż w pozostałych krajach regionu, wyrazem czego jest wartość zainwestowanych kapitałów w polskie przedsiębiorstwa oraz wartość zrealizowanych wyjść z inwestycji w Polsce. Wykorzystane w pracy dane empiryczne pochodzą z opracowań statystycznych European Private Equity and Venture Capital Association

Frequency Shifts Inherent in the 6328 a Helium-neon Laser

Frequency shifts inherent in helium neon lase

Choking Capuchins: Hormonal Correlates of Performance Failure Under High Pressure

Succeeding under high pressure is highly beneficial not only for humans, but also for non-human animals. I studied a captive colony of socially-living tufted capuchin monkeys as a model species to examine performance failure (or “choking”) under pressure and to see if endogenous levels of hormones correlated with likelihood to fail under high pressure. I also explored if cortisol and testosterone interacted under non-competitive paradigms of stress. I found that capuchin monkeys differed significantly in reactions to acute pressure when performing a cognitive task, with some individuals performing better and some performing worse under pressure. Cortisol interacted with testosterone – high cortisol was negatively correlated with performance under pressure, but high testosterone ameliorated this adverse effect. This work provides evidence that high pressure affects cognitive performance in non- humans and that physiological markers like hormones are important to understanding why and how some individuals “choke”

A method for minimization of piecewise quadratic functions with lower and upper bounds

One of the main problems in development the decision support software is the availability of efficient optimization algorithms. These algorithms, when applied in decision support systems should possess several features -- like robustness, efficiency and high speed. All these facts motivated the System and Decision Sciences Program to investigate all these topics. The paper presents the result of a collaborative research made at the Systems Research Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences. This research is being performed upon a contracted study agreement between the IIASA and the Polish Academy of Sciences. The presented algorithm will be included as an option in the HYBRID package implemented on IIASA computers: running UNIX (on Sun Sparc and on VAX 6210) and on PC IBM AT compatible