Have banks filled the gap? Credit as a mechanism of corporate governance in a transition country: example of Poland

Poland, as any other transition country, suffers from inefficient corporate governance as firms have difficulties with obtaining external financing. This paper aims to examine whether bank’s involvement in corporate control reduces information asymmetries, and hence lessens firm’s financial constraints – phenomenon frequently measured by investment-cash flow sensitivity. In the sample of all non-financial companies listed during 1999-2002 on the Polish stock exchange firms with a close relationship with banks are almost as much financially constrained as firms without such ties. However, the former group relies more heavily on bank loans than on internal capital in their investment activities. In contrast, firms without a close relationship with banks finance to larger extent their investment with internal capital than with credit. It may be interpreted that bank loans are more important source of financing for firms with bank ties than for firms without bank ties.corporate control and governance; firm financing; relationship banking; emerging markets

Social-cultural aspects of the functioning of an institutional network, which is the base for the regional pro-innovating strategy implementation

A technology transfer is a key to an efficient innovating strategy implementation process. The institutional network should support this process. The aim of the paper is to point out the 'soft' circumstances which appear when institutions start to co-operate in such network. Furthermore some directions will be given how to face with negative circumstances. In the first part of the paper the social cultural aspects of cooperation between institutions within the network will be presented. The analyse will be mainly focused on processes of autonomisation and enclosing on an external cooperation in these institutions. The second part of the paper is a case study. A creation process of technological parks at the Silesian region will be analysed. Using this example the methods of dealing with difficulties which are discussed will be demonstrated.

Improved bounds for Hadwiger's covering problem via thin-shell estimates

A central problem in discrete geometry, known as Hadwiger's covering problem, asks what the smallest natural number $N\left(n\right)$ is such that every convex body in ${\mathbb R}^{n}$ can be covered by a union of the interiors of at most $N\left(n\right)$ of its translates. Despite continuous efforts, the best general upper bound known for this number remains as it was more than sixty years ago, of the order of ${2n \choose n}n\ln n$. In this note, we improve this bound by a sub-exponential factor. That is, we prove a bound of the order of ${2n \choose n}e^{-c\sqrt{n}}$ for some universal constant $c>0$. Our approach combines ideas from previous work by Artstein-Avidan and the second named author with tools from Asymptotic Geometric Analysis. One of the key steps is proving a new lower bound for the maximum volume of the intersection of a convex body $K$ with a translate of $-K$; in fact, we get the same lower bound for the volume of the intersection of $K$ and $-K$ when they both have barycenter at the origin. To do so, we make use of measure concentration, and in particular of thin-shell estimates for isotropic log-concave measures. Using the same ideas, we establish an exponentially better bound for $N\left(n\right)$ when restricting our attention to convex bodies that are $\psi_{2}$. By a slightly different approach, an exponential improvement is established also for classes of convex bodies with positive modulus of convexity

Automated Analysis Of Nuclear Medicine Images: Towards Artificial Intelligence Systems

Automated methods for the analysis of nuclear medicine images could provide an objective diagnosis, and means to transfer sophisticated expertise to less experienced centres. The goal of this study was to develop software methods for the automated analysis of (a) Quality Control (QC) images, and (b) myocardial perfusion tomography images.;The system for the automated analysis of QC images was based on feature extraction algorithms, which provided input to a higher level diagnostic expert system. Several features characterizing QC images were defined. Rule-based and object-oriented expert systems were created to guide personnel in QC procedures, detect gamma camera faults, and suggest corrective actions. An object-oriented representation of knowledge allowed a natural representation and classification of image features, artefacts, and other concepts used in this knowledge domain. The feature extraction algorithms combined with a prototype expert system could perform diagnosis of gamma camera faults and QC procedure errors on a limited set of examples.;Computer-aided analysis of myocardial perfusion images was accomplished by creating three-dimensional (3-D) reference templates, to which patient\u27s images could be automatically aligned using image registration algorithms. The templates included a normal distribution of activity and perfusion maps corresponding to specific coronary arteries. The quantification was done by a 3-D region-growing procedure that outlined perfusion defects in test-patients based on differences from the normal templates. Alignment and quantification methods of myocardial perfusion images were successfully tested on a group of 168 angiographically correlated patients. Perfusion defects were characterized in terms of numeric parameters, thus avoiding subjective visual assessment. The location of defects relative to the expected hypoperfusion sites was also established.;Analytical and artificial intelligence software methods can be used for automated interpretation of QC and cardiac images. Object-oriented methods are suitable for encoding the knowledge required for computer-aided analysis of QC images. A comprehensive and fully automated analysis of cardiac perfusion images is possible by comparison of patient data to 3-D reference models

Visual Occam: High level visualization and design of process networks

With networks, multiprocessors, and multi-threaded systems becoming more common in our world it is increasingly evident that concurrent programming is not something to be ignored or marginalized even though many takes on concurrency (mainly by means of monitors or shared resources) have proven to be difficult to deal with on large scales. Thankfully, a good deal of work has already been done to combat this, through CSP, occam, and other such derivatives, to produce a scalable process oriented paradigm. Still, it is cumbersome to attempt to deal with the intricacies of such communicating networks down to every minutia; if, instead, it was possible to manage communicating elements on a higher level it would be far more practical to design large scale networks of processes! As such, Visual Occam has been designed to automate some of the inner workings of occam to allow any user (novice or otherwise) the ability to create complex networks of communicating processes through easy to understand user interactions and interfaces. Taking a number of cues from digital circuit design software and modern integrated development environments, it is possible to select components (both predefined and arbitrarily complex user created systems) from a library of objects, hook them together in a network, and produce compilable code without having to worry about how or why the chosen components perform their function. Since any of these components may themselves be networks of processes, it becomes trivial to construct large systems that would otherwise be unwieldy to put together by hand. The end result? A high level, easy to understand, visual abstraction of those concurrent networks previously so frustrating to develop