Export and innovation activities in the German service sector: empirical evidence at the firm level

In this paper we analyse the relationship between export and innovation activities of German service sector companies using data from the 1997 wave of the Mannheim Innovation Panel in the Service Sector. There is a lot of support for the Schumpeterian hypothesis of export activities being mainly driven by innovation activities. Factor endowment theories are only partially supported. While human capital significantly improves export performance, labour costs hamper it only in selected branches. Moreover, allowing for simultaneity we find that export activities do not enforce innovation activities. --exports,innovation,service sector,firm behaviour,applied microeconometrics

Effects of manipulating hypothalamic triiodothyronine concentrations on seasonal body weight and torpor cycles in siberian hamsters

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Visualization and Analysis of Flow Fields based on Clifford Convolution

Vector fields from flow visualization often containmillions of data values. It is obvious that a direct inspection of the data by the user is tedious. Therefore, an automated approach for the preselection of features is essential for a complete analysis of nontrivial flow fields. This thesis deals with automated detection, analysis, and visualization of flow features in vector fields based on techniques transfered from image processing. This work is build on rotation invariant template matching with Clifford convolution as developed in the diploma thesis of the author. A detailed analysis of the possibilities of this approach is done, and further techniques and algorithms up to a complete segmentation of vector fields are developed in the process. One of the major contributions thereby is the definition of a Clifford Fourier transform in 2D and 3D, and the proof of a corresponding convolution theorem for the Clifford convolution as well as other major theorems. This Clifford Fourier transform allows a frequency analysis of vector fields and the behavior of vectorvalued filters, as well as an acceleration of the convolution computation as a fast transform exists. The depth and precision of flow field analysis based on template matching and Clifford convolution is studied in detail for a specific application, which are flow fields measured in the wake of a helicopter rotor. Determining the features and their parameters in this data is an important step for a better understanding of the observed flow. Specific techniques dealing with subpixel accuracy and the parameters to be determined are developed on the way. To regard the flow as a superposition of simpler features is a necessity for this application as close vortices influence each other. Convolution is a linear system, so it is suited for this kind of analysis. The suitability of other flow analysis and visualization methods for this task is studied here as well. The knowledge and techniques developed for this work are brought together in the end to compute and visualize feature based segmentations of flow fields. The resulting visualizations display important structures of the flow and highlight the interesting features. Thus, a major step towards robust and automatic detection, analysis and visualization of flow fields is taken

Combining semantic and syntactic generalization in example-based machine translation

In this paper, we report our experiments in combining two EBMT systems that rely on generalized templates, Marclator and CMU-EBMT, on an English–German translation task. Our goal was to see whether a statistically significant improvement could be achieved over the individual performances of these two systems. We observed that this was not the case. However, our system consistently outperformed a lexical EBMT baseline system

History, Violence, and Legitimacy in Uganda: An Anthropological Analysis of Post-Colonial Politics and ICC Intervention

In recent debates between social scientists and human rights and legal scholars, many anthropologists have argued that the successes or failures of transitional justice mechanisms to contribute to peace depend on a wide range of contextually situated historical, political, socio-economic, and cultural factors (see Hinton 2010). Human rights organizations often disregard or sideline such contextual specifics and favor a narrow definition of justice in terms of the unwavering punitive orthodoxy of international courts as the primary solution to conflict. Looking through an anthropological lens in this paper, I focus on the history of politics in post-colonial Uganda in order to render clearer the cycle of violence that emerged as a prominent feature of the political landscape of the region. Against this contextualized backdrop, I investigate the case of conflict between the Ugandan state and the Lord’s Resistance Army, and problematize the role of one international human rights organization, the International Criminal Court. I argue that by continuing its intervention in Uganda’s justice matters, the ICC is inadvertently granting the same kind of amnesty to past atrocities that it so condemns for present ones, and in doing so, grants international legitimacy to the current state while de-legitimizing non-state local forms of justice. Although ethnographic “field notes” are not included in the following pages, this essay represents one anthropologist’s analytical engagement with issues of justice in Uganda

Export and Innovation Activities in the German Service Sector Empirical Evidence at the Firm Level

In this paper we analyse the relationship between export and innovation activities of German service sector companies using data from the 1997 wave of the Mannheim Innovation Panel in the Service Sector. There is a lot of support for the Schumpeterian hypothesis of export activities being mainly driven by innovation activities. Factor endowment theories are only partially supported. While human capital significantly improves export performance, labour costs hamper it only in selected branches. Moreover, allowing for simultaneity we find that export activities do not enforce innovation activities

Central mechanisms in the control of seasonal breeding in the Soay ram

The aims of the experiments described in this thesis were 1) to investigate the role of endogenous opioid peptides (EOP) in the control of pulsatile LH release in the ram, and 2) to study the generation of pineal melatonin rhythms and their role in relaying the effects of photoperiod on seasonal reproductive cycles in rams.A series of experiments was carried out on the effects of pharmacological opiate antagonists and agonists on LH secretion. Morphine significantly reduced LH pulse frequency in sexually active rams, and this effect was reversible by concurrent administration of the opiate antagonist naloxone, thus indicating the existence of specific opiate receptors. Naloxone injections alone increased LH pulse frequency in rams, showing that EOP mechanisms inhibit tonic LH secretion in a physiological situation. Effects of naloxone were studied at different stages of the seasonal reproductive cycle in rams maintained out -of- doors. Responses in intact rams were greater in the breeding season in September and December than when the rams were sexually quiescent in March and June. In pinealectomized rams which displayed a premature and attenuated reproductive cycle, LH responses to naloxone also correlated with testicular activity. These observations support the hypothesis that EOP mechanisms mediate the inhibitory effects of negative steroid feedback on LHRH secretion in the hypothalamus.Radioimmunoassay techniques were developed and validated for the extraction and measurement of poendorphin in tissue and plasma. Substantial levels of immunoreactive poendorphin (p0EP) were found in the preoptic area and median eminence /arcuate nucleas area in the hypothalamus of the sexually active ram. This distribution is similar Or) to that previously observed for LHRH, and is consistent with the view that the effects of naloxone on LH secretion result from antagonism of inhibitory EOP mechanisms on LHRH release. A considerable seasonal variation in peripheral blood plasma poEP concentrations was observed, levels being 5 -20 fold higher under short days than under long days. Studies suggest that this material is of pituitary origin, but its physiological function in peripheral target tissues is unknown.Studies were also made of melatonin rhythms and sexual responses in rams housed for prolonged periods under constant illumination (LL) and constant darkness (DD). After eight weeks under DD melatonin levels were not constantly elevated to normal nocturnal levels, though no clear 24 hour periodicity was evident. Likewise, under LL melatonin levels were not constantly suppressed. DD was unable to prevent gonadal regression in rams previously housed under photostimulatory short days, thus rams do not show the phenomenon of relative photorefractoriness. Paradoxically, stimulated testicular growth occurred in rams transferred from inhibitory long days to LL.A one hour light pulse per 24 hours re- established the melatonin rhythm in rams maintained in DD. The onset of the melatonin peak was shortly after the light pulse, suggesting that the pulse acts as an entrainment cue rather than by direct suppression of melatonin release. In a short term experiment a one hour light pulse was able to phase shift established melatonin rhythms free -running in constant darkness. A second light pulse given 7 hours after the first had only a transient suppressive effe ^t, thus the effect of light pulses on melatonin levels may depend on their temporal relationship to the endogenous melatonin rhythm. These observations are consistent with a model in which the (V1) environmental light -dark cycle regulates the melatonin rhythm by entraining two or more endogenous oscillators. The role of circadian rhythms in photoperiodic time measurement would appear to be in the generation of melatonin rhythms rather than in their ultimate interpretation by the hypothalamus

Template Matching on Vector Fields using Clifford Algebra

Due to the amount of flow simulation and measurement data, automatic detection, classification and visualization of features is necessary for an inspection. Therefore, many automated feature detection methods have been developed in recent years. However, one feature class is visualized afterwards in most cases, and many algorithms have problems in the presence of noise or superposition effects. In contrast, image processing and computer vision have robust methods for feature extraction and computation of derivatives of scalar fields. Furthermore, interpolation and other filter can be analyzed in detail. An application of these methods to vector fields would provide a solid theoretical basis for feature extraction. The authors suggest Clifford algebra as a mathematical framework for this task. Clifford algebra provides a unified notation for scalars and vectors as well as a multiplication of all basis elements. The Clifford product of two vectors provides the complete geometric information of the relative positions of these vectors. Integration of this product results in Clifford correlation and convolution which can be used for template matching on vector fields. Furthermore, for frequency analysis of vector fields and the behavior of vector-valued filters, a Clifford Fourier transform has been derived for 2 and 3 dimensions. Convolution and other theorems have been proved, and fast algorithms for the computation of the Clifford Fourier transform exist. Therefore the computation of Clifford convolution can be accelerated by computing it in Clifford Fourier domain. Clifford convolution and Fourier transform can be used for a thorough analysis and subsequent visualization of vector field

Automatic Annotation Elaboration as Feedback to Sign Language Learners

Beyond enabling linguistic analyses, linguistic annotations may serve as training material for developing automatic language assessment models as well as for providing textual feedback to language learners. Yet these linguistic annotations in their original form are often not easily comprehensible for learners. In this paper, we explore the utilization of GPT-4, as an example of a large language model (LLM), to process linguistic annotations into clear and understandable feedback on their productions for language learners, specifically sign language learners