Rotación de presidentes ejecutivos y directores en Venezuela

(Disponible en idioma inglés únicamente) El propósito de este estudio es propiciar una mejor comprensión de las estructuras y los mecanismos de conducción empresarial fuera de Estados Unidos, observando una economía emergente específica: Venezuela. Primero formulamos un índice de prácticas de conducción empresarial de las compañías inscritas en bolsa, cuyos resultados generales indican que Venezuela exhibe puntajes de gestión empresarial relativamente bajos. Descubrimos, empleando esta muestra limitada, que existe una relación positiva entre este índice de conducción empresarial y sus subcomponentes y mediciones alternativas de valor (coeficiente de Tobin, relación precio/valor contable y pago de dividendos). En este entorno, caracterizado por un mercado financiero subdesarrollado, un sistema jurídico débil, una aplicación precaria de la normativa legal y una elevada concentración de la propiedad, abordamos la cuestión de si el sistema de conducción empresarial funciona en lo absoluto en Venezuela. Nos interesa especialmente estudiar las siguientes dos cuestiones, las cuales constituyen condiciones necesarias para el buen funcionamiento de cualquier sistema de conducción empresarial. En primer lugar, ¿es más probable que presidentes ejecutivos de desempeño deslucido pierdan su cargo que sus colegas de mejor desempeño? En segundo lugar, ¿le corresponde a la junta directiva la tarea de vigilar al presidente ejecutivo o simplemente cumplir una labor de asesoría? A tal fin, recabamos información detallada de 51 compañías venezolanas durante el período de 1984 a 2002. Una vez controladas características relacionadas con el presidente ejecutivo, la junta directiva, la propiedad, las empresas y los períodos abarcados, hallamos que el desempeño financiero precario hace aumentar considerablemente la probabilidad de la rotación de presidentes ejecutivos y directores. Los elementos de juicio empíricos también se corresponden con la idea de que, en Venezuela, los directores desempeñan principalmente una función de asesoría y no de vigilancia de la labor del presidente ejecutivo.

Motivations and experiences of students enrolled in online science courses at the community college, The

2011 Fall.Includes bibliographical references.An important question in online learning involves how to effectively motivate and retain students in science online courses. There is a dearth of research and knowledge about the experiences of students enrolled in online science courses in community colleges which has impeded the proper development and implementation of online courses and retention of students in the online environment. This study sought to provide an understanding of the relationships among each of the following variables: self-efficacy, task value, negative-achievement emotions, self-regulation learning strategies (metacognition), learning strategy (elaboration), and course satisfaction to student's performance (course final grade). Bandura's social-cognitive theory was used as a framework to describe the relationships among students' motivational beliefs (perceived task value, self-efficacy, and self-regulation) and emotions (frustration and boredom) with the dependent variables (elaboration and overall course satisfaction). A mixed-method design was used with a survey instrumentation and student interviews. A variety of science online courses in biology, genetics, astronomy, nutrition, and chemistry were surveyed in two community colleges. Community colleges students (N = 107) completed a questionnaire during enrollment in a variety of online science online courses. Upon course completion, 12 respondents were randomly selected for follow-up in-depth interviews. Multiple regression results from the study indicate perceived task value and self-regulatory learning strategies (metacognition) were as important predictors for students' use of elaboration, while self-efficacy and the number of prior online courses was not significant predictors for students' elaboration when all four predictors were included. Frustration was a significant negative predictor of overall course satisfaction, and boredom unexpectedly emerged as a positive predictor when frustration was also in the model. In addition, the correlations indicated that elaboration and overall course satisfaction were not significantly related to participants' course grade (performance). Furthermore, five major themes emerged from the students' experiences: the role of personal dispositions, academic challenge, self-regulated learning, student communication, and the negative emotions that shaped student experiences. In particular, negative emotions most experienced by students were found to be anxiety, stress, frustration and confusion. In total, results from this study implicate an important role of emotions such as frustration in students' overall course satisfaction and the importance of task value. Students' career aspirations and direct use of the course content were more likely to report greater use of elaboration strategies. Finally, this research also found that students self-regulated their learning in the online environment on a variety of levels

SEISMIC VELOCITY AND ANISOTROPY STRUCTURE UNDERNEATH THE CENTRAL UNITED STATES

SEISMIC VELOCITY AND ANISOTROPY STRUCTURE UNDERNEATH THE CENTRAL UNITED STATE

Towards a Tropical Urbanism for Cairns, Australia

This paper engages with debates about tropical cities and climate responsive design to consider the emergence of two local government master plans and one planning scheme provision explicitly addressing the tropical climate in Cairns, Australia. The undergirding concept of these initiatives is a terminology of Tropical Urbanism, a simultaneously environmental and social/cultural term that captures issues such as climate, lifestyle and identity in the constitution of the urban fabric. Through a detailed reading of the documents, combined with interviews with local architects and planners, this paper positions Tropical Urbanism as an environmentally aware version of New Urbanism and as a distinctive language of urban design emerging in the regional context of tropical Australia. Place-based initiatives such as these are important to improving the design outcomes and sustainability of regional cities, and we suggest Tropical Urbanism could be further reinforced by the social/cultural and political nuances of a more progressive Critical Regionalist approach

Variables microeconómicas de los fondos de fondos de cobertura (FFC) y su desempeño durante la crisis financiera global 2008-2009

This paper examines the behavior of the microeconomic variables of funds of hedge funds (FHF) during a period prior to the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, and analyzes whether these variables explain the performance of FHF during such crisis. Given its magnitude and severity, this crisis constitutes an ideal event to determine the characteristics of FHF that managed to survive it. Using a Probit regression model, it was concluded that the following variables explain the survival probability of FHF: previous average yield, standard deviation of yields, fixed commission, incentive commission, and yield kurtosis.Este trabajo examina el comportamiento de las variables microeconómicas de los fondos de fondos de cobertura (FFC) durante un periodo previo a la crisis financiera global 2008-2009, y analiza si dichas variables explican el desempeño de los FFC durante tal crisis. La magnitud y la severidad de la crisis representan un evento ideal para determinar las características de los FFC que lograron sobrevivirla. Mediante la aplicación de un modelo de regresión Probit, se concluyó que las siguientes variables explican la probabilidad de sobrevivencia de los FFC: rendimiento promedio previo, desviación estándar de los rendimientos, comisión fija, comisión por incentivo y curtosis de los rendimientos

The cost of equity in emerging markets : the Latin American case

Eng: In this book, we estimate the differences between expected (predicted) cost of equity generated, by nine methods of the discount rate proposed in the literature, and observed stock returns (as proxied by observed total stock returns), and then determine whether these differences can be explained by country and industry factors.Primera edició

VMEO: Vector Modeling Errors and Operands for Approximate adders

Approximate computing techniques are extensively used in computationally intensive applications. Addition architecture being the basic component of computational unit, has received a lot of interest from approximate computing community. Approximate adders are designed with the motivation to reduce area, power and delay of their accurate versions at the cost of bounded loss in accuracy. A major class of approximate adders are implemented using binary logic circuits that operate with a high degree of predictability and speculation. This paper is one of the early attempt to vector model error values that occur in approximate architectures and the inputs fed to them. In this paper, we propose two vectors namely Error Vectors (EVs) and the Input Conditioning Vectors (ICVs) that will form the mathematical foundation of several probabilistic error evaluation methodologies. In other words, the suggested vectors can be used to develop assessment methods to measure the performance of approximate circuits. Our proposed vectors when utilised to analyze approximate circuits, will provide a descriptive idea about (i) chances of error generation and propagation, (ii) the amount of error at specific bit locations and its impact on overall result. This is however not conceivable with existing state-of-the-art methodologies