Clustering tales from the Greek construction sector: lessons from experience

The idea of increasing regional and national economic competitiveness through the implementation of cluster strategies is not something new. In each business sector, in each country, the creation of clusters has been used to capitalise on sector characteristics and address country specific productivity needs. While clusters have met with significant success in many context, the Greek context and in particularly the Greek Construction sector has not been so fruitful. This paper, through the development of a conceptual framework, questionnaires with 92 firms and interviews with 10 key firms, sought to investigate the critical success factors for the creation of a cluster within the challenging context of the Greek construction sector. Using evidence of good practicefrom other European countries facing similar challenges and the empirical data, the findings indicated a series of factors which firms could adopt, mitigate against or manage to help improve the potential success of the cluster. The findingstherefore have important implications for interventions not only by the state and local authorities that will encourage construction firms to participate in a cluster, but also by the managers/owners/practitioners for the creation of the required foundations for their participation in an environment where competitors cooperate

Non-linear time series models with applications to financial data

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThe purpose of this thesis is to investigate the financial volatility dynamics through the GARCH modelling framework. We use univariate and multivariate GARCH-type models enriched with long memory, asymmetries and power transformations. We study the financial time series volatility and co-volatility taking into account the structural breaks detected and focusing on the effects of the corresponding financial crisis events. We conclude to provide a complete framework for the analysis of volatility with major policy implications and benefits for the current risk management practices. We first investigate the volume-volatility link for different investor categories and orders, around the Asian crisis applying a univariate dual long memory model. Our analysis suggests that the behaviour of volatility depends upon volume, but also that the nature of this dependence varies with time and the source of volume. We further apply the vector AR-DCC-FIAPARCH and the UEDCC-AGARCH models to several stock indices daily returns, taking into account the structural breaks of the time series linked to major economic events including crisis shocks We find significant cross effects, time-varying shock and volatility spillovers, time-varying persistence in the conditional variances, as well as long range volatility dependence, asymmetric volatility response to positive and negative shocks and the power of returns that best fits the volatility pattern. We observe higher dynamic correlations of the stock markets after a crisis event, which means increased contagion effects between the markets, a continuous herding investors’ behaviour, as the in-crisis correlations remain high, and a higher level of correlations during the recent financial crisis than during the Asian. Finally, we study the High-frEquency-bAsed VolatilitY (HEAVY) models that combine daily returns with realised volatility. We enrich the HEAVY equations through the HYAPARCH formulation to propose the HYDAP-HEAVY (HYperbolic Double Asymmetric Power) and provide a complete framework to analyse the volatility process

CONTINUING NURSE EDUCATION AS A FACTOR OF HEALTH CARE QUALITY

The purpose of the research was to examine the views and attitudes of nurses regarding their educational needs in the frame of Interwork Continuing Education and also explore the improvement of patient care as a result of Continuing Education. Taking into consideration the holistic and synthetic nature of Nursing science, the continuous reassessment of knowledge and skills is completely important. The results of the research showed that the participation of nurses in continuing education programs is guided by the awareness of the needs and deficiencies in the daily exercise of their profession. The training programs help to improve their working performance and efficiency. The object of education with the highest selection index was the field of Emergency Nursing followed by prevention of nosocomial infections and treating burnout. As a contribution of the study we could mention the timely and proper planning of educational programs based on the existing and future educational and training needs. Education of employees is a sustained and substantial investment in human resources and creates conditions for optimal and possible utilization of staff, based on both the needs of the service and personal knowledge and skills. Coverage of training needs through relevant training programs will lead to the improvement of health care quality, since the Continuing Education in Nursing is one of the main conditions for ensuring high level of health providers

Modelling stock volatilities during financial crises: A time varying coefficient approach

We examine how the most prevalent stochastic properties of key financial time series have been affected during the recent financial crises. In particular we focus on changes associated with the remarkable economic events of the last two decades in the volatility dynamics, including the underlying volatility persistence and volatility spillover structure. Using daily data from several key stock market indices, the results of our bivariate GARCH models show the existence of time varying correlations as well as time varying shock and volatility spillovers between the returns of FTSE and DAX, and those of NIKKEI and Hang Seng, which became more prominent during the recent financial crisis. Our theoretical considerations on the time varying modelwhich provides the platformupon which we integrate our multifaceted empirical approaches are also of independent interest. In particular, we provide the general solution for time varying asymmetric GARCH specifications, which is a long standing research topic. This enables us to characterize these models by deriving, first, their multistep ahead predictors, second, the first two time varying unconditional moments, and third, their covariance structure.Open Access funded by European Research Council under a Creative Commons license

Large building facilities towards energy transition

Received: February 10th, 2023 ; Accepted: May 28th, 2023 ; Published: July 6th, 2023 ; Correspondence: [email protected] buildings complexes present significant amounts of energy consumption. Sport centers compose a more special case of large volume buildings, compared to other facilities. This is related not only to the specific requirements of the thermal environment regarding the type of activities taking place as well as the considerable loads enforced by the presence of people. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the energy consumption of a Sports center, through energy audits, extract energy baselines and propose energy-saving interventions and RES utilization. More precisely, a cost-benefit analysis will be carried out to assess the energy production and the relevant contribution of the potential energy interventions. As a result, the priority list of proposed measures will be extracted, with all the data regarding energy gains, capital costs, and cash flows. Particularly, a capital budgeting analysis of each measure will support the final decision of a holistic energy approach at the specific building facilities

THE IMPORTANCE OF INVOLVING NURSES IN CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAMS

During the last two decades, particular significance is given to employee training as part of a radical restructuring of work process, which primarily associates with rapid scientific and technological developments and their impacts. Within this context, Continuing Nurse Education is one of the basic conditions to meet nursing educational needs and consequently upgrades the quality of health services, achieves a better working environment and ensures job satisfaction of nurses. The basic aim of this study is to detect the attitudes and views on human recourses training but also to explore the possibility of transforming the educational needs of nurses in training programmes, within in-service training. The response rate of nurses in the survey questionnaire, which involved the recording of demographic, educational, scientific and employment data as well as the incentives for participating, was around 47%, an amount that deemed sufficient to draw conclusions. The analysis of survey results highlighted the need for Continuing In-Service Nurse Education that has to be updated, systematic and qualitative so as to meet the training needs and the scientific pursuits of nurses. In addition, through the assessment of results of such training the aim is to occur similar comparative studies and general conclusions in future.  Article visualizations

Athree-dimensionalasymmetric powerHEAVYmodel

This article proposes the three‐dimensional HEAVY system of daily, intra‐daily, and range‐based volatility equations. We augment the bivariate model with a third volatility metric, the Garman–Klass estimator, and enrich the trivariate system with power transformations and asymmetries. Most importantly, we derive the theoretical properties of the multivariate asymmetric power model and explore its finite‐sample performance through a simulation experiment on the size and power properties of the diagnostic tests employed. Our empirical application shows that all three power transformed conditional variances are found to be significantly affected by the powers of squared returns, realized measure, and range‐based volatility as well. We demonstrate that the augmentation of the HEAVY framework with the range‐based volatility estimator, leverage and power effects improves remarkably its forecasting accuracy. Finally, our results reveal interesting insights for investments, market risk measurement, and policymaking

Η απάντηση στη γλωσσική πράξη της φιλοφρόνησης από μαθητές της Ελληνικής ως Γ2

Η διπλωματική αυτή εργασία έχει ως θέμα την απάντηση στη γλωσσική πράξη της φιλοφρόνησης από µαθητές της Ελληνικής ως Γ2. Τα δεδομένα προέρχονται από 40 φυσικούς ομιλητές και 40 μαθητές επιπέδου Β και συλλέχθηκαν μέσω ερωτηματολογίου παραγωγής (Discourse Completion Task, DCT). Από την ανάλυση των αποτελεσμάτων, προκύπτει ότι, αν και οι μαθητές βρίσκονται σε προχωρημένο επίπεδο, η παραγωγή τους διαφέρει σημαντικά από την αντίστοιχη των φυσικών ομιλητών τόσο ως προς τον τρόπο διατύπωσης όσο και ως προς την επιλογή των κατάλληλων στρατηγικών. Οι μεγαλύτερες διαφοροποιήσεις εντοπίζονται, μάλιστα, σε περιστάσεις οικειότητας, φιλικές και ανεπίσημες. Οι πραγματολογικές έρευνες συμβάλλουν ενεργά στη διαλεύκανση τέτοιων φαινομένων και μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν κατάλληλα, ώστε οι μαθητές της Ελληνικής ως Γ2 να αποκτήσουν κοινωνιοπραγματολογική επίγνωση, να σταματήσουν, έτσι, να υπεργενικεύουν τεχνικές και να χρησιμοποιούν τα κατάλληλα πραγματολογικά μέσα στον λόγο τους, ανάλογα με τις περικειμενικές συνθήκες. Ειδάλλως, είναι πολύ πιθανό να οδηγηθεί κανείς σε πραγματολογική αποτυχία, κάτι που ενδέχεται να τον αποθαρρύνει από την όλη μαθησιακή διαδικασία. Εν προκειμένω, προτείνεται η μεγαλύτερη εξάσκηση των μη φυσικών ομιλητών της Ελληνικής ως Γ2, μέσω της ενίσχυσης των εγχειριδίων και της διδασκαλίας με συστηματοποιημένα δεδομένα, όπως οι πίνακες της παρούσας έρευνας για το τι είδους απαντήσεις μπορούν να δοθούν σε μια φιλοφρόνηση και πότε, καθώς επίσης και η ενίσχυση των εγχειριδίων και της διδασκαλίας με περισσότερες ανεπίσημες περιστάσεις.This study investigates the performance of compliment responses by learners of Greek as a second language. The data are drawn from a Discourse Completion Task (DCT) completed by 40 native speakers of Greek and 40 learners of Greek as a second language (B1 and B2 level). On the basis of the results, it is argued that learners’ production differs significantly from the native speakers’ production in terms of formulation and employment of the appropriate strategies. Yet, it is shown that the greatest differences are found in familiarity relationships where the situation is informal. Therefore, there is a need for pedagogical intervention which aims at promoting learners’ sociopragmatic awareness. In this way, they will stop overgeneralizing strategies and they will start employing the appropriate strategies depending on the context. As a result, they will avoid pragmatic failure, which could be very discouraging. Pragmatic research could be very helpful in this respect. Data such as the tables of the present study could be incorporated into textbooks and provide learners with guidelines concerning how they can respond to a compliment depending on the context. Furthermore, it seems that there is a big need for practicing in informal situations. That is something that textbook authors and teachers should keep in mind