Sport is king: an investigation into local media coverage of women's sport in the UK East Midlands

There has been a recent interest in research into national media coverage of female sport, particularly single events, but on-going sporting activities by women are rarely reported. This paper attempts to examine this subject at the local level, looking in general at women’s sport and in particular at women’s football in the East Midlands region of the UK. Quantitative methods were used to survey local newspapers and radio stations and interviews were carried out with a range of people relevant to the field of study. The topic of sports media is framed here with reference to research into masculinities and a socialist feminist approach is used to address problems. The data showed there was a significant and on-going imbalance in the amount of coverage and even some signs of a decline in women’s football reporting, in spite of a national resurgence of the sport itself. The authors try to account for this and suggest further areas of future study

Innovation Practice Transfer and Capability Development within the Multinational Enterprise

For many firms, there is no long term effective strategy except to continue to grow and evolve through innovation. Hence, investment in developing these capabilities is a significant managerial priority. The original view within international business research holds that these capabilities are developed in the headquarters of the multinational enterprise (MNE) and are subsequently exploited globally through foreign affiliates. However, as MNEs become established in a multitude of foreign markets, affiliates are now often involved in innovation activities themselves. Establishing innovation mandates within foreign affiliates often requires the transfer of practices from elsewhere within the MNE network. If, in accordance with the knowledge based theory of the firm, the MNE is superior to markets in the exploitation and diffusion of knowledge and capabilities, it must identify and diffuse superior practices throughout the innovation network. Case study methodology is used to examine the transfer, adaptation and diffusion of innovation practices and the resulting development and enhancement of associated capabilities within four MNEs. Contributions from this study include a) the role of headquarters in creating mutual interdependencies amongst subsidiaries in order to hasten innovation capability development and enhance knowledge flow, b) an identification of different modes of innovation practice transfer consisting of central administration, brokering, and organic diffusion, the structural configurations which favour them, and the role of headquarters in creating signals to indirectly control the flow of practices. Furthermore, the relative influences on innovation practice adoption and adaptation at the national, organizational, subsidiary and practice levels of analysis were identified

A method for optimal image subtraction

We present a new method designed for optimal subtraction of two images with different seeing. Using image subtraction appears to be essential for the full analysis of the microlensing survey images, however a perfect subtraction of two images is not easy as it requires the derivation of an extremely accurate convolution kernel. Some empirical attempts to find the kernel have used the Fourier transform of bright stars, but solving the statistical problem of finding the best kernel solution has never really been tackled. We demonstrate that it is possible to derive an optimal kernel solution from a simple least square analysis using all the pixels of both images, and also show that it is possible to fit the differential background variation at the same time. We also show that PSF variations can also be easily handled by the method. To demonstrate the practical efficiency of the method, we analyzed some images from a Galactic Bulge field monitored by the OGLE II project. We find that the residuals in the subtracted images are very close to the photon noise expectations. We also present some light curves of variable stars, and show that, despite high crowding levels, we get an error distribution close to that expected from photon noise alone. We thus demonstrate that nearly optimal differential photometry can be achieved even in very crowded fields. We suggest that this algorithm might be particularly important for microlensing surveys, where the photometric accuracy and completeness levels could be very significantly improved by using this method.Comment: 8,pages, 4 Postscript figures, emulateapj.sty include

Slow Hopping and Spin Dephasing of Coulombically Bound Polaron Pairs in an Organic Semiconductor at Room Temperature

Polaron pairs are intermediate electronic states that are integral to the optoelectronic conversion process in organic semiconductors. Here, we report on electrically detected spin echoes arising from direct quantum control of polaron pair spins in an organic light-emitting diode at room temperature. This approach reveals phase coherence on a microsecond time scale, and offers a direct way to probe charge recombination and dissociation processes in organic devices, revealing temperature-independent intermolecular carrier hopping on slow time scales. In addition, the long spin phase coherence time at room temperature is of potential interest for developing quantum-enhanced sensors and information processing systems which operate at room temperature

U.S. FDI and Shareholder Rights Protection in Developed and Developing Economies

We examine the impact of shareholder rights protection on U.S multinational firms’ Foreign Direct Investments (FDI). We hypothesize that the expropriation of wealth is less likely to occur in countries with strong shareholder rights and hence, these countries will attract more FDI relative to countries with weaker shareholder rights protection. We also hypothesize that this relationship will be more important for developing countries compared to developed countries. Based on an analysis of US FDI data over the period 1997-2016, we find support for our predictions. These findings emphasize the importance of institutional development for economic development, via the attraction of FDI

Organizational structure and knowledge-practice diffusion in the MNC

Purpose This study aims to examine the interaction of formal and informal cross-border knowledge-sharing practices of four large multinational corporations (MNCs) in aerospace, software, IT services and telecommunications industries. The goal was to determine the manner in which coordination and control mechanisms facilitated knowledge transfer. Design/methodology/approach Case studies comprised secondary data and semi-structured interviews with corporate headquarters and subsidiary managers in large MNCs conducted in the USA, Canada, Mexico, China, India and Eastern Europe. Findings The primary finding of this study is that knowledge transfer mechanisms arise as a result of both formal and informal structures of the MNC. Formal structures which create either mutual dependencies or occasions for knowledge exchange facilitate transfer. Formal structure which inhibits knowledge transfer can be overcome by knowledge brokers and evaluation metrics. Research limitations/implications These findings suggest that knowledge transfer is more informal than formal, but that MNC headquarters does play a role, intended or not, through shaping the interdependencies among geographically distributed units. Managers should be mindful of both the manner in which tasks and the organization are structured, as these have an indirect impact on the development of knowledge channels. Originality/value This paper investigates the role of organizational structure and its effect, both intended and unintended, on the transfer of knowledge-based practices. While knowledge transfer has been heavily researched, this study examines the phenomenon at a finer-grained level of analysis

Terrorism hazard and infrastructure projects: The moderating role of home experience and institutions

This paper analyzes the impact of terrorism hazard on the performance of private participation infrastructure projects. Applying transaction cost theory, we hypothesize that terrorism hazard has a negative relationship with infrastructure project completion, and that host government accountability and investor experience with terrorism hazard have opposing impacts on this relationship. Host government accountability, we argue, produces higher indirect costs of managing terrorism hazard, which reduces investor confidence, and reinforces the negative relationship between terrorism hazard and the probability of satisfactory project completion. Conversely, investor’s experience with terrorism hazard increases investor confidence and hence partially mitigates the negative consequences of terrorism hazard which hamper project completion. Hence, the impact of terrorism is weakened for projects led by firms from higher terrorism hazard countries. We find support for our hypotheses using a sample of 5,083 projects in 135 countries from 2002 to 2017

Measurements of Electron Detection Efficiencies in Solid State Detectors

Detailed laboratory measurements have been made of the electron response of solid state detectors as a function of incident electron energy, detector depletion depth, and energy-loss discriminator threshold. These response functions were determined by exposing totally-depleted silicon surface barrier detectors with depletion depths between 50 μm and 1000 μm to the beam from a magnetic β-ray spectrometer. The data were extended to 5000 μm depletion depth using the results of previously published Monte Carlo electron calculations. When the electron counting efficiency of a given detector is plotted as a function of energy-loss threshold for various incident energies, the efficiency curves are bounded by a smooth envelope which represents the upper limit to the detection efficiency. These upper limit curves, which scale in a simple way, make it possible to easily estimate the electron sensitivity of solid state detector systems

Determination of interfacial fracture toughness of bone–cement interface using sandwich Brazilian disks

AbstractThe long-term stability of cemented total hip replacements critically depends on the lasting integrity of the bond between bone and bone cement. Conventionally, the bonding strength of bone–cement is obtained by mechanical tests that tend to produce a large variability between specimens and test methods. In this work, interfacial fracture toughness of synthetic bone–cement interface has been studied using sandwiched Brazilian disk specimens. Experiments were carried out using polyurethane foams as substrates and a common bone cement as an interlayer. Selected loading angles from 0° to 25° were used to achieve full loading conditions from mode I to mode II. Finite element analyses were carried out to obtain the solutions for strain energy release rates at given phase angles associated with the experimental models. The effects of crack length on the measured interfacial fracture toughness were examined. Microscopic studies were also carried out to obtain the morphology of the fractured interfaces at selected loading angles.The implication of the results on the assessment of fixation in acetabular replacements is discussed in the light of preliminary work on bovine cancellous bone–cement interface

Cooperative strategies in international business and management: Reflections on the past 50 years and future directions

Over the past 50 years, cooperative forms of governance such as equity joint ventures and other strategic alliances have received tremendous attention in international business and management research. This article traces the history of this research over these past five decades with particular emphasis on the critical role that (Columbia) Journal of World Business has played in disseminating scholarly and managerial expertise on the successful management of cross-border, inter-firm collaboration. We highlight the evolution of interest in different contexts, phenomena, theories, and methodologies, along with the factors that have driven interest in these topics. Several suggestions for future research are also provided