Synthesis and characterisation of Fe₆ and Fe₁₂ clusters using bicine

Reaction of bicine {BicH3, N,N-bis(2-hydroxyethyl)glycine} with an Fe(III) oxo-centered pivalate triangle in MeCN in the presence of Et<sub>2</sub>NH yields [Et<sub>2</sub>NH<sub>2</sub>]<sub>2</sub>[Fe<sub>6</sub>O<sub>2</sub>(OH)<sub>2</sub>(Bic)<sub>2</sub>(O<sub>2</sub>CCMe<sub>3</sub>)<sub>8</sub>], which possesses an S = 5 ground state. Changing the base to NaOMe produces [Fe<sub>12</sub>O<sub>4</sub>(Bic)<sub>4</sub>(HBic)<sub>4</sub>(O<sub>2</sub>CCMe<sub>3</sub>)<sub>8</sub>], which contains two Fe6 units bridged by the carboxylate arms from the bicine ligands. The complex displays strong antiferromagnetic coupling leading to an S = 0 ground state

Self-employment and the chicle trade: the case of the Lebanese minority in the Cayo district of Belize

Belize iss a relative small country in Central America, which is enclosed by Mexico in the north and by Guatemala in the west and south. The country has a multi-ethnic population consisting of, amongst others, Mestizos, Creoles, Garinagu, Maya's, Mennonites, Chinese and East Indian. One of the ethnic minorities, which has a strong economic position in Belize, is the Lebanese community. When the Lebanese first arrived in Belize in the early 1900s Belize was a prosperous British colony. Lebanese came to Belize because they wanted to improve their economic situation. The word had reached them that Belize was a good and calm country where they could succeed and readily engage in business. The first immigrants came through Mexico which had a large Lebanese community. The focus of this article is on the Lebanese migration to Belize and how the Lebanese used self-employment to become successful entrepreneurs in Belize. Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

Improved Balanced Flow Computation Using Parametric Flow

We present a new algorithm for computing balanced flows in equality networks arising in market equilibrium computations. The current best time bound for computing balanced flows in such networks requires $O(n)$ maxflow computations, where $n$ is the number of nodes in the network [Devanur et al. 2008]. Our algorithm requires only a single parametric flow computation. The best algorithm for computing parametric flows [Gallo et al. 1989] is only by a logarithmic factor slower than the best algorithms for computing maxflows. Hence, the running time of the algorithms in [Devanur et al. 2008] and [Duan and Mehlhorn 2015] for computing market equilibria in linear Fisher and Arrow-Debreu markets improve by almost a factor of $n$

Does Strategic Human Resource Involvement and Devolvement Enhance Organisational Performance? Evidence from Jordan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test empirically the relationship between the strategic involvement and the devolvement of human resource functions with organisational performance. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is based on the primary data collected from the population of financial firms based in Jordan. The methodology adopted for the purpose of data analysis includes the use of basic statistics, zero‐order correlations, confirmatory factor analysis and hierarchical regressions. Findings – The results provide strong support for the hypothesis that the involvement of human resource functions into the business and corporate strategy reduces employee turnover rate and enhances financial performance. The analysis does not support the second hypothesis that empowering day‐to‐day human resource functions to line managers impacts negatively on employee turnover and positively on financial performance. Practical implications – Our results imply that financial performance can be enhanced and employee turnover rate decreased by involving human resource directors in the overall strategic decision‐making process of companies. However, our results also imply that the devolvement of routine human resource issues to line managers is neither positively related to the financial performance of the companies nor negatively related to employee turnover. This raises doubts as to whether, after having involved human resource functions into the strategic affairs of the company, they are empowered enough to make a positive impact. Originality/value – This is one of few papers conducted on this topic in a non‐western environment, and the first of its kind for the country of Jordan. This paper contributes to the field through its approach to measuring and testing strategic human resource management theory. The paper also successfully links the core aspects of strategic human resource management with objective indicators of financial performance of the companies

Electronic Accounting Services and their Effect on Enhancing the Efficiency of Financial Institutions

ركز هذا البحث على كيفية تعزيز كفاءة خدمات المحاسبة الالكترونية في المؤسسات المالية من خلال تقييم جودة نظام المحاسبة الالكترونية الذي تستخدمه المؤسسات المالية ومنها القطاع المصرفي الخاص في اقليم كردستان العراق. بالإضافة إلى كيفية تأثير خدمات المحاسبة الإلكترونية على تطوير التقارير المالية. يمكّن البحث الإدارة من إدراك الحاجة إلى تطوير بيانات مالية دقيقة وعالية الجودة من خلال حزم برامج المحاسبة. تكونت عينة المجتمع من 60 موظف وموظفة موزعين على ثلاث مؤسسات مالية تابعة للقطاع الخاص تم تحديد عينة البحث بخصائص محددة مناسبة للغرض المنشود من البحث. لذلك تم اختيار عينة مقصودة أو مستهدفة، مما يعني أنها تشير إلى أفراد معينين من مجتمع البحث. وطريقة المسح المستخدمة هي إحصائيات وصفية واستنتاجية. تم اختبار الفرضيات من خلال هذا البحث. من الواضح أن خدمات المحاسبة الإلكترونية لها تأثير كبير على كفاءة عمل المؤسسات المالية نتيجة لتأثير نظام الرقابة الداخلية. أظهرت نتائج البحث أنه بالرغم من عدم وجود تأثير مباشر بين نظام الرقابة الداخلية والكفاءة المالية لإداء المؤسسة المالية، إلا أن هناك مؤشرات على بعض عناصر نظام الرقابة الداخلية تظهر هذا التأثير مثل تقييم المخاطر وأنشطة الرقابة ومن منظور مالي مثل الربحية، الكفاءة والسيولة. كما تشير البحث إلى أن الممولين والمحاسبين يتم تدريبهم بانتظام من قبل موظفي الشركة المعتمدين للحفاظ على المعرفة والخبرة الخاصة بالحزمة المحاسبية في حالة حدوث تغييرات أو صعوبات محاسبية. توصي نتائج هذا البحث بعدد من المقترحات من بينها، الحاجة إلى مزيد من تقييمات الرقابة الداخلية لتحديد وتحليل فعالية الضوابط في المؤسسات المالية في إقليم كردستان-العراق وفق إطار محاسبي محدد. The paper focuses on how electronic accounting services can be enhanced in financial institutions by analyzing the quality of the electronic accounting system used by financial institutions, including the banking sector in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Additionally, how the electronic accounting services affected the growth of financial reporting. Research enables management to realize the need to develop accurate and high-quality financial data through accounting software packages. The community sample consisted of 60 male and female employees distributed among three private sector financial institutions. This type of sampling is believed to be neither random nor biased at the same time, and the survey method used is descriptive as well as inferential statistics. The hypotheses were tested through this research. It is all clear that electronic accounting services have a significant impact on the efficiency of financial institutions' work due to their impact of the internal control system. The results of the research showed that although there is no direct impact between the internal control system and the general financial efficiency of financial institutions, there are indications on some elements of the internal control system that show this effect, such as risk assessment and control activities with elements from a financial perspective such as profitability, efficiency and liquidity. The paper also reveals that financiers and accountants have been routinely trained by the certified staff of the company to protect their expertise in the event of adjustments or accounting difficulties. The findings of this paper recommend a number of suggestions, including the need for further internal control investigations to determine and analyze the effectiveness of controls in financial institutions in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, as defined in the accounting framework

Analyzing Disproportionate Reaction via Comparative Multilingual Targeted Sentiment in Twitter

Global events such as terrorist attacks are commented upon in social media, such as Twitter, in different languages and from different parts of the world. Most prior studies have focused on monolingual sentiment analysis, and therefore excluded an extensive proportion of the Twitter userbase. In this paper, we perform a multilingual comparative sentiment analysis study on the terrorist attack in Paris, during November 2015. In particular, we look at targeted sentiment, investigating opinions on specific entities, not simply the general sentiment of each tweet. Given the potentially inflammatory and polarizing effect that these types of tweets may have on attitudes, we examine the sentiments expressed about different targets and explore whether disproportionate reaction was expressed about such targets across different languages. Specifically, we assess whether the sentiment for French speaking Twitter users during the Paris attack differs from English-speaking ones. We identify disproportionately negative attitudes in the English dataset over the French one towards some entities and, via a crowdsourcing experiment, illustrate that this also extends to forming an annotator bias

A remark on certain p

The object of the present paper is to prove an interesting result for certain analytic and p-valent functions in the unit disc U={z:|z|<1}

Introduction

This chapter introduces the book entitled Human Resource Management in an Emerging South Asian Economy: The Case of Brunei. It describes the aim and importance of the book, which is mainly focused on analysing, comparing, and contrasting domestic enterprises and multinational enterprises, and oil and gas and non-oil and -gas sectors, and draws out the comparative lessons for understanding the potential and performance consequences of HR interventions in resource-centred national economies. The chapter also presents the structure of the book