Cultural Dimensions, Ethical Sensitivity, and Corporate Governance

The economic globalization process has integrated different competitive markets and pushes firms in different countries to improve their managerial and operational efficiencies. Given the recent empirical evidence for the benefits to firms and stakeholders of good corporate governance (CG) practice, it is expected that good CG practice would be a common strategy for firms in different countries to meet the increasingly intense competition; however, this is not the case. This study examines the differences in CG practices in firms across different countries using the concept of ethical sensitivity. Through the regression analysis of 271 firms in 12 countries and regions, it is found that Hofstede's cultural dimensions can explain the differences in CG practices. Furthermore, the results demonstrate the influence of culture on ethical sensitivity, which eventually determines the CG practices in different regions. © 2011 The Author(s).published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 28 May 201

Education and competitive economy: How do cultural dimensions fit in?

Globalization has changed the way people behave in different aspects of life. One of the significant differences is that people are now competing with everyone around the world, not just people within or near their own regions. A good way of remaining competitive is to provide quality education that can help students meet the needs of the competitive economy. However, not all nations are responding in the same way. Using a quantitative approach, this explorative study seeks to discover if, and how, cultural dimensions fit into the process of meeting the demands of the competitive economy by means of education across regions. Forty-three regions with different ratings on the Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism (IDV), Masculinity (MAS), and the Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) are included in this study. The results show that UAI, PDI and IDV are significant factors relating to this issue. © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 01 Dec 201

Quadrilateral-based region segmentation for tracking

We propose a novel quadrilateral based region segmentation method that is favorable for object tracking. Instead of using groups of pixels or regular blocks, it uses groups of connected quadrilaterals to represent regions. The proposed method derives the vertices of each quadrilateral from the edge map using the concept of center of masses. By merging the quadrilaterals, regions can be represented. The proposed method offers better data reduction than pixelwise region representation and better boundary approximation than block-based segmentation methods. Experimental results show that it generates a more reasonable region map, which is more suitable for object tracking, and a smaller number of regions than the seeded region growing, K-means clustering, and constrained gravitational clustering methods. © 2002 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.published_or_final_versio

Adaptive search center non-linear three step search

This paper presents a new motion estimation algorithm using an adaptive search center predicted from its adjacent blocks, and a non-linear center biased search point pattern. It does not have the problem of being trapped by local minimum, and is characterized by finding the majority motion vector in one step. When compared with six other block-based search algorithms including the full-search and three-step-search, the new algorithm has an average PSNR very close to that of full-search, yet an average search time faster than the three-step-search.published_or_final_versio

A Novel Quadrilateral-based Tracking Method

This paper proposes a novel tracking method based on quadrilateral-based segmentation. The tracking method matches quadrilaterals in a region with those in a reference frame to construct region correspondences, from which trajectory of each region can be obtained. The Table Tennis sequence has been used to evaluate the tracking method. Experiment results show that the proposed tracking method can track the ping-pong ball and the racket reasonably well over a series of images, indicating matching quadrilaterals to track region is a viable approach.published_or_final_versio

Nonlinear observer design with unknown nonlinearity via B-spline network approach

A novel approach is proposed to the state estimation of a class of nonlinear systems which consist of known linear part and unknown nonlinear part. A linear observer is first designed then a nonlinear compensation term in the nonlinear observer is determined using the proposed “deconvolution method”. The B-spline neural network is used to model the estimated compensation term. Three simulation examples are given to compare the effectiveness of the proposed approach and some analytical approaches.published_or_final_versio

State estimation with measurement error compensation using neural network

For a system with redundant sensors, the estimated state from the Kalman filter is biased if sensor mounting error existed. To remove this bias, the mounting errors must be compensated first before using the Kalman filter. It is shown that only the projection part of the sensors errors in the measurement space needs to be compensated. If the state of a system is unavailable, a neurofuzzy network can be used to estimate the compensation term. This method is simpler, as it does not require a model for the errors as that proposed in [2]. A sub-optimal Kalman filter with measurement compensation that restrains each row of the Kalman gain matrix to be in the measurement space is also derived. An example is presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed methods.published_or_final_versio

B-spline recurrent neural network and its application to modelling of non-linear dynamic systems

A new recurrent neural network based on B-spline function approximation is presented. The network can be easily trained and its training converges more quickly than that for other recurrent neural networks. Moreover, an adaptive weight updating algorithm for the recurrent network is proposed. It can speed up the training process of the network greatly and its learning speed is more quickly than existing algorithms, e.g., back-propagation algorithm. Examples are presented comparing the adaptive weight updating algorithm and the constant learning rate method, and illustrating its application to modelling of nonlinear dynamic system.published_or_final_versio

Amelioration of soils contaminated with radionuclides:Exploiting biodiversity to minimise or maximise soilto plant transfer

Objective: Computed Tomography (CT) is the leading contributor to medical exposure to ionizing radiation. Although the use of CT brain scans for patients with head injuries and convulsions has shown a tremendous growth, it has raised substantial concerns in the general public because of the risk of radiation-induced cataracts: the current available strategies to reduce the radiation dose to the eye lens region are limited. Therefore, the present research project was initiated with the aim of evaluating the potential benefit of the combined use of bolus and a bismuth shield on reducing the radiation dose to the eye lens region during CT brain examination.Materials and methods: We conducted a series of phantom studies to measure the entrance surface dose (ESD) that is delivered to the eye lens region during CT brain examination under the effect of different scanning and shielding setups.Results: Our results indicated, during CT brain examination: (1) a drastic reduction of 92.5% in the ESD to the eye lens region was found when the CT gantry was tilted from 0 degrees (overall ESD = 30.7 mGy) to 30 degrees cranially (overall ESD = 2.4 mGy), and (2) when the CT gantry was positioned at 0 degrees (the common practice in the clinical setting), the setups with the application of a) a bismuth shield, b) a bismuth shield with a face shield (air gap), c) a bismuth shield with bolus, and d) a bismuth shield with bolus and an air gap can result in an acceptable level of image quality with a smaller overall ESD delivered to the eye lens region (overall ESD = 23.2 mGy, 24 mGy, 21 mGy and 19.9 mGy, respectively) than the setup without the bismuth shield applied (overall ESD = 30.7 mGy).Conclusion: When the primary beam scanning through the eye lens region is unavoidable during CT brain examination, the combined use of a bismuth shield with bolus and a face shield is an easy-to-use and inexpensive shielding setup to reduce the radiation dose delivered to the eye lens region while maintaining the correct CT number and a low degree of image noise in the resultant image.Department of Health Technology and Informatic

Trends in prevalence and mortality of dementia in elderly Hong Kong population: projections, disease burden, and implications for long term care

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