Building Core Competencies in a Turbulent Environment: An Exploratory Study of Firm Resources and Capabilities in Chinese Transitional Economy

The impact of firm resources and capabilities on performance among Chinese enterprises has been a subject of anecdotal speculation due to its significant implications for organizational researchers as well as practitioners. Yet empirical evidence has been very limited. In this research, set in the People’s Republic of China, we examine firm resources and capabilities and their impact on firm performance among Chinese enterprises. Using large sample of 12,047 Chinese firms from 1991 to 1992, we found that most of the firm specific resources and capabilities examined in this study have a positive impact on performance. We discussed the implications for organizational researchers, policy makers, and managers, and proposed directions for future research.economic transition, firm strategy, resources and capabilities

A Relaxation Scheme for Mesh Locality in Computer Vision.

Parallel processing has been considered as the key to build computer systems of the future and has become a mainstream subject in Computer Science. Computer Vision applications are computationally intensive that require parallel approaches to exploit the intrinsic parallelism. This research addresses this problem for low-level and intermediate-level vision problems. The contributions of this dissertation are a unified scheme based on probabilistic relaxation labeling that captures localities of image data and the ability of using this scheme to develop efficient parallel algorithms for Computer Vision problems. We begin with investigating the problem of skeletonization. The technique of pattern match that exhausts all the possible interaction patterns between a pixel and its neighboring pixels captures the locality of this problem, and leads to an efficient One-pass Parallel Asymmetric Thinning Algorithm (OPATA\sb8). The use of 8-distance in this algorithm, or chessboard distance, not only improves the quality of the resulting skeletons, but also improves the efficiency of the computation. This new algorithm plays an important role in a hierarchical route planning system to extract high level typological information of cross-country mobility maps which greatly speeds up the route searching over large areas. We generalize the neighborhood interaction description method to include more complicated applications such as edge detection and image restoration. The proposed probabilistic relaxation labeling scheme exploit parallelism by discovering local interactions in neighboring areas and by describing them effectively. The proposed scheme consists of a transformation function and a dictionary construction method. The non-linear transformation function is derived from Markov Random Field theory. It efficiently combines evidences from neighborhood interactions. The dictionary construction method provides an efficient way to encode these localities. A case study applies the scheme to the problem of edge detection. The relaxation step of this edge-detection algorithm greatly reduces noise effects, gets better edge localization such as line ends and corners, and plays a crucial rule in refining edge outputs. The experiments on both synthetic and natural images show that our algorithm converges quickly, and is robust in noisy environment

Effect of a combination of Xiaochaihu decoction and teprenone on peripheral blood T lymphocytes in chronic atrophic gastritis, and on expression of COX-2 in gastric mucosa

Purpose: To study the effects of the combined use of Xiaochaihu decoction and teprenone on peripheral blood T lymphocytes in chronic atrophic gastritis (CAG) and gastric mucosal expression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2).Methods: Patients with CAG who were treated at Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Jiaxing from January 2017 to January 2018 were used as subjects. They consisted of observation and control groups (99 patients per group). Both groups were treated with teprenone (50 mg, thrice daily), but patients in the observation group received 200 mL of Xiaochaihu decoction, in addition to teprenone. The treatments were given orally, and lasted for 3 weeks. Comparisons were made between the two groups with respect to the effects of the treatments on peripheral blood T lymphocytes, CAG, and quality of life.Results: Peripheral T lymphocytes, chronic atrophic gastritis and quality of life in patients in the observation group were significantly improved, relative to control group patients. The combined treatment led to a significant decrease in the expression of COX-2. After treatment, there was upregulation in CD3+, CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ levels in both groups, relative to the corresponding levels prior to drug exposure (p < 0.05). However, the observation group levels of CD3+, CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ were higher than corresponding control values (t = -14.45, p < 0.001; t = -12.47, p < 0.001; t = -3.49, p < 0.001, respectively). Moreover, results from histopathological studies showed marked improvement in the observation group.Conclusion: A combination treatment of Xiaochaihu decoction and teprenone improves the condition of CAG patients via changes in peripheral blood lymphocytes and COX-2 expression in gastric mucosa.Keywords: Xiaochaihu decoction, Teprenone, Chronic atrophic gastritis, T lymphocytes, Cyclooxygenase-

An Integrated Framework for Managing Information Technology Security Uncertainty

Information security to date has been driven a lot of attention in business world. The cyber security standards play significant and crucial role in promoting feasible approaches to organizations while making comprehensive strategical planning. This paper aims at providing a systematic overview of information technology (IT) security management in organizations. Conducted a structured literature from academic database and industry whitepapers, we review a number of the critical issues and challenges facing the industry today and in the future. In line with the fundamental elements of information security, we propose an integrated framework to understand the current situation of IT security management. In particular, we focus on several critical fundamental functions of IT security management: Security and Risk Management, Security Operations, and Security Assessments and Testing. Then, we use the proposed framework as a lens to discuss and solve the security issues in bring your own device (BYOD) in organizations. Keywords: IT security, IT security framework, bring your own device DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-18-01 Publication date:June 30th 202

Disability Discrimination in Employment: Three Countries Comparison

Firms to date regard their employees as one of the most critical components for their business success. Among them, one group of employees particularly raises our attentions and thoughts. Disabled employees are devoting themselves to make greater business achievements, as well as creating better lives. However, disabled employees to date are still differentiated to be neglected, despised, or even repudiated in many businesses. In this regard, it is important to understand the status quo of governmental actions in protecting employment of handicapped. So, this article employs a structured literature review with a disaggregated analysis of disability protection acts in three countries (i.e., United States, United Kingdom, and China) towards the issue of disability discrimination in employment. Based on the analysis, we suggest that either national legislation or corporate regulation needs to dedicate on protecting disabilities through a growing law-system. Simultaneously, they can also work on protecting disabilities from an active way by advancing their abilities of self-security. Keywords: Disability Discrimination, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), Hong Kong Equal Opportunities Commission (HKEOC

Curcumin evokes antidepressant-like effects in mice by regulating miR-124/brain derived neurotrophic factor

Purpose: To investigate the effect and mechanism of curcumin on depression in mice Methods: Mice were subjected to chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS), and behavioural changes were evaluated by sucrose preference test (SPT) and forced swimming test (FST). CUMS-treated mice received curcumin at a concentration of 50, 100, or 200 mg/kg. The level of MiR-124 was measured by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels were evaluated by western blotting. Results: CUMS induced depressive behaviour in mice, with increase in miR-124 and decrease in BDNF. Curcumin inhibited miR-124 expression and promoted BDNF in a dose-dependent manner in CUMS-treated mice. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor was the direct target of miR-124, decreasing the transcription of BDNF, but this was reversed by curcumin in vitro. MicroRNA-124 overexpression aggravated CUMS-induced depressive symptoms including loss of appetite, less sucrose consumption, shorter swimming time, and longer immobility time (p < 0.001). The effects were attenuated by curcumin. Conclusion: Curcumin alleviates CUMS-induced depressive behaviour by regulating miR-124/BDNF, suggesting that curcumin may a viable treatment option for depression

Building core competencies in a turbulent environment

The impact of firm resources and capabilities on performance among Chinese enterprises has been a subject of anecdotal speculation due to its significant implications for organizational researchers as well as practitioners. Yet empirical evidence has been very limited. In this research, set in the People`s Republic of China, we examine firm resources and capabilities and their impact on firm performance among Chinese enterprises. Using large sample of 12,047 Chinese firms from 1991 to 1992, we found that most of the firm specific resources and capabilities examined in this study have a positive impact on performance. We discussed the implications for organiyational researchers, policy makers, and managers, and proposed directions for future research