The role of social and human capital in assessing firm value: A longitudinal study of UK firms

This study examines the role of board social and human capital in assessing the market value of firms in the UK context. As the world economy has shifted from manufacturing to service and knowledge-based economies, attributes such as knowledge, expertise, skills, ability and reputation are increasingly fundamental to the success of business enterprises. There is a growing consensus that these attributes are an increasingly valuable form of capital, asset or resource, despite their intangibility. In accounting, there are a number of problems arising from the accountability of non-physical, non-financial capital. Firstly, some forms of capital and certain assets are neither recognised nor presented in the statement of financial position. Secondly, some accounting practices relating to intangible assets are very conservative, resulting in undervalued assets and overstated liabilities. Consequently, there is an increasing gap between the book value and market value of firms. This gap restricts the relevance of information presented in financial statements and suggests that there is something missing in financial statements. This is the research problem being addressed in this study. While prior literature demonstrates that it has proven difficult to operationalise intangible forms of capital, there has been significant empirical attention and theoretical development in social and human forms. This thesis aims to contribute to accounting theory and practice by exploring the impact that board social and human capital have on firm market value. In light of extant research, it is hypothesised that social and human capital possessed at board level are positively related to the market value of firms. This study employs the Ohlson’s (1995) residual income valuation model to test the impact of social and human capital using a sample of UK firms listed on the FTSE All Share index for a period of 10 years (2001-2010). Social and human capital measures are derived from interlocking directorate ties and detailed biographic information of board directors. This study benefits from Pajek and Ucinet network packages to generate network maps and calculate positional metrics such as centrality and structural hole measures.University of Exeter Business Schoo

Quantifying Urban Social Well-Being using Mobile Phone Data

Today, more than half of the world population is living in cities, which has been doubled in the last 50 years. The reason for that attraction is not only economical, but also security, education, and health. While people migrate to cities to reach improved life conditions, several issues raised by the increasing population. Recent studies have shown the importance of ethnic and cultural diversity of urban population to encourage tolerance, and to foster creativity and economic growth. Facing the urban growth challenges, we search for the key formulas to obtain healthy societies under the light of new type of data sources, such as mobile phone usage datasets. To this end, first we build up a tool to identify security related incidents from a country, which unstable political conditions held. Then we trace the formulas of healthy societies with examples from both developing and developed countries. We check the individual interaction and communication pattern effects (bridging and bonding) for the existence of social capital. Then we analyze aggregated ethnic diversity, and associate segregation scores with census data, and different ethnic groups preferences to move in the city, existence of any pattern for specific nation. The current studies are mainly hypothetical, with the absence of large scale real life data sources. This thesis aims to provide an insight to policy makers for building healthy societies, for the benefit of urban well-being

Countrywide Arrhythmia: Emergency Event Detection Using Mobile Phone Data

Large scale social events that involve violence may have dramatic political, economic and social consequences. These events may result in higher crime rates, spreading of infectious diseases, economic crises, and even in migration phenomena (e.g., refugees across borders or internally displaced people). Hence, researchers have started using mobile phone data for developing tools to identify such emergency events in real time. In our paper, we apply a stochastic model, namely a Markov modulated Poisson process, for spatio-temporal detection of hourly and daily behavioral anomalies. We use the call volumes collected from an entire geographic region. Our work is based on the assumption that people tend to make calls when extraordinary events take place. We validate our methodology using a dataset of mobile phone records and events (emergency and non-emergency) from the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire. Our results show that we can successfully capture anomalous calling patterns associated with violent events, riots, as well as social non-emergency events such as holidays, sports events. Moreover, call volume changes also show significant temporal and spatial differences depending on the type of an event. Our results provide insights for the long-term goal of developing a real-time event detection system based on mobile phone data

Is it solitary plasmacytoma or nonsecretory myeloma? A must-be-solved dilemma?

Presentation of multiple myeloma with bone lesions is common. It is vital that differentiation between nonsecretory multiple myeloma and plasmocytoma be done and that each disorder be treated accordingly. In this paper, we present a patient with nonsecretory multiple myeloma, who suffered from distal humerus fracture with severe bone destruction, renal failure, hypercalcemia and anemia. (C) 2015 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved

Big-Five Personality States surveys

In the attached file big-five personality scores (1-7) are given for the 52 participants, filled three times a day for 6 weeks period. The schema of the file is: ID of the participant | Timestamp | Extraversion | Agreeableness |Conscientiousness | EmotionalStability | Creativit

Data from: Investigating the association between social interactions and personality states dynamics

The recent personality psychology literature has coined the name of personality states to refer to states having the same behavioural, affective and cognitive content (described by adjectives) as the corresponding trait, but for a shorter duration. The variability in personality states may be the reaction to specific characteristics of situations. The aim of our study is to investigate whether specific situational factors, that is, different configurations of face-to-face interactions, are predictors of variability of personality states in a work environment. The obtained results provide evidence that within-person variability in personality is associated with variation in face-to-face interactions. Interestingly, the effects differ by type and level of the personality states: adaptation effects for Agreeableness and Emotional Stability, whereby the personality states of an individual trigger similar states in other people interacting with them and complementarity effects for Openness to Experience, whereby the personality states of an individual trigger opposite states in other people interacting with them. Overall, these findings encourage further research to characterize face-to-face and social interactions in terms of their relevance to personality states

Sociometric badge data

Attached, sociometric badge's IR sensor data collected by 52 participants is given. The sensors collect the social interaction of the participants in the work environment by Infrared sensors. The schema of the file is: Ego ID | Alter ID | Timestam

The prevalence of childhood psychopathology in Turkey: a cross-sectional multicenter nationwide study (EPICPAT-T).

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of childhood psychopathologies in Turkey

The prevalence of childhood psychopathology in Turkey: a cross-sectional multicenter nationwide study (EPICPAT-T)

Conclusion: This is the largest and most comprehensive epidemiological study to determine the prevalence of psychopathologies in children and adolescents in Turkey. Our results partly higher than, and partly comparable to previous national and international studies. It also contributes to the literature by determining the independent predictors of psychopathologies in this age group

Prevalence of Childhood Affective disorders in Turkey: An epidemiological study

Aim: To determine the prevalence of affective disorders in Turkey among a representative sample of Turkish population. Methods: This study was conducted as a part of the "The Epidemiology of Childhood Psychopathology in Turkey" (EPICPAT-T) Study, which was designed by the Turkish Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health. The inclusion criterion was being a student between the second and fourth grades in the schools assigned as study centers. The assessment tools used were the K-SADS-PL, and a sociodemographic form that was designed by the authors. Impairment was assessed via a 3 point-Likert type scale independently rated by a parent and a teacher. Results: A total of 5842 participants were included in the analyses. The prevalence of affective disorders was 2.5 % without considering impairment and 1.6 % when impairment was taken into account. In our sample, the diagnosis of bipolar disorder was lacking, thus depressive disorders constituted all the cases. Among depressive disorders with impairment, major depressive disorder (MDD) (prevalence of 1.06%) was the most common, followed by dysthymia (prevalence of 0.2%), adjustment disorder with depressive features (prevalence of 0.17%), and depressive disorder-NOS (prevalence of 0.14%). There were no statistically significant gender differences for depression. Maternal psychopathology and paternal physical illness were predictors of affective disorders with pervasive impairment. Conclusion: MDD was the most common depressive disorder among Turkish children in this nationwide epidemiological study. This highlights the severe nature of depression and the importance of early interventions. Populations with maternal psychopathology and paternal physical illness may be the most appropriate targets for interventions to prevent and treat depression in children and adolescents