Is Social Capital Part of the Institutions Continuum and is it a Deep Determinant of Development?

social capital, institutions, determinants of development

Inequality and Economic Growth: The Empirical Relationship Reconsidered in the Light of Comparable Data

Income inequality, Expenditure distribution, Economic growth

Informal Institutions and Cross-Country Income Differences

There is a growing literature which analyses, using cross-country data, whether institutions or geography is the most important deep determinant of income per capita. The empirical proxies used for institutions in this literature, however, focus only on formal institutions, rather than informal institutions, despite the fact that North (1990) emphasised the importance of informal institutions. We include a measure of informal institutions, a concept we argue is closely related to social capital and cultural norms, in a representative deep-determinants framework and find informal institutions to be just as important a deep determinant of income levels as are formal institutions.Institutions, deep determinants, social capital, culture.

Cognitive Computing Creates Value In Healthcare and Shows Potential for Business Value

This research paper examines cognitive computing relative to how businesses in healthcare may use cognitive systems to analyze big data to create a competitive advantage. It explains the underlying technologies, such as machine learning and natural language processing, and gives an overview of the technology driving the world\u27s most popular cognitive computing system, IBM Watson. It examines case studies that show businesses applying cognitive systems to derive value from big data and discusses how this may be used to develop business value and provide analysis for strategic processing. It also touches on challenges of cognitive computing. The paper concludes with lessons learned and future research

A new hardware architecture for genomic and proteomic sequence alignment

Los Alamitos, US

DASH: localising dynamic programming for order of magnitude faster, accurate sequence alignment

Los Alamitos, US

Comparing Mental Health of Athletes and Non-Athletes as they Emerge from a COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown

Athletes going through transition periods such as injury or retirement have previously reported feelings of depression and anxiety, especially when feeling unsupported. Cessation of competitive sport during the pandemic has forced athletes through a non-normative transition and has reduced many opportunities to satisfy their basic psychological needs increasing the risk of poor wellbeing and loneliness. Whilst athletes are often praised for their resilience—a trait that serves to support them during tough times—the inability to play sport can be particularly challenging for those with strong athletic identities. An online cross-sectional survey (n = 744) was conducted to capture adult athlete and non-athlete mental health factors (specifically wellbeing, depression, anxiety, loneliness) during emergence from a COVID-19 lockdown. Results showed that resilience was positively correlated with mental health but was no higher in athletes than non-athletes. Furthermore, athletes reported greater anxiety than non-athletes, a difference mediated by negative affectivity—a subfactor of athletic identity. We present evidence that after a temporary transition away from sport, athletes' resilience is comparable to non-athletes leaving them just as likely to suffer poor mental health. Moreover, athletes with strong athletic identities are likely to experience anxiety symptoms above and beyond those reported by non-athletes. Findings have implications for the development of self-management guidance for athletes as the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on sport participation continue

Quantifying Compliance Costs for Small Businesses in New Zealand

This paper reports on a small-scale study of the compliance costs of small New Zealand businesses. Participating firms were asked to keep a record of both time spent and expenditure directly incurred over a thirteen-week period. This differs from previous studies that rely on a firm's recall of how much time has been spent on compliance over the previous year. The results suggest that New Zealand small businesses on average spend less time and money on compliance than has been indicated in previous studies. However a number offirms do perceive compliance to be a major issue and in some cases this perception prevents firms from expanding