SMEs Empowerment Through International Aspirations

Challenges for SMEs development are multi-dimensional. As trade barriers, transport and communication costs fall, SMEs are required to add more value to their products to stay ahead and compete with lower cost rivals. Consumer demand is changing rapidly as incomes rise and choices increase when imported products become easily available in domestic markets. Competition within the developing world for export markets, foreign investment and resources is also intensifying. This was motivation to focus in this paper on SMEs, its export competitiveness, business strategies, access for financing and so on. Enhancing SME competitiveness requires creation of enabling legal, regulatory and administrative environments and capable institutional structures, and most importantly human capital and a sustainable environment. Removing supply-side constraint to trade and investment, require firms to build up their competitive advantages. Public and private sectors in transition and developing countries must work together to improve the functioning of markets at home, while intensifying efforts to integrate into the world economy

Tobin's q Q and R&D investment in CESEE countries

In this paper Tobin’s and R&D investment issue has been subject of investigation. Tobin’s q quotient is derived by the ratio of market value (market capitalization of listed companies excluding investment companies and mutual funds) and replacement value of capital used in production (Adjusted savings: consumption of fixed capital). Further, the influence of democracy indices Freedom House political rights and Freedom house civil liberties as proxies for democracy has been investigated along with the some government related variables as well as other macroeconomic variables. The basic idea of this paper is being derived from Arrow paper. ZviGriliches first introduced production function that relates market value of the firms, tangible and intangible assets. This model also can be applied in a small and simple Keynesian framework, where change in capital stock (investment) is a function of the difference between actual q and normal qi.e. normal q = 1, and some natural growth rate (actually fitted values of the output growth), when q = q = 1 investment equals savings, i.e. there exists macroeconomic equilibrium. In the empirical section theories had been tested on a pooled data from sample of 12 CESEE countries

Потрошња енергије, економски развој и цене: доказ са временске серие за CESEE земље

Во овој труд се проценува причинско-последична врска помеѓу потрошувачката на енергија и приход за Албанија, Босна и Херцеговина, Србија и Македонија (CESEE - Централна, Источна и Југоисточна Европа ), со користење коинтеграциски и техники за моделирање на корекција на отстапувањата од еквилибриум. Резултатите укажуваат на тоа дека потрошувачката на енергија, приходите и цените се коинтегрирани од втор ред, освен за Албанија, каде што постои само еден коинтеграциски сооднос. Во механизмот на корекција на отстапувањето на долг рок резултатите покажуваат дека за одредени земји во коинтеграциската равенка само инфлацијата влегува значително статистички сигнификантно. На краток рок исто така, само инфлација се чини дека влијае врз потрошувачката на енергија, додека на потрошувачката на енергија се чини дека влијае на приходот на краток рок, но само во Албанија. Оваа студија го поддржува ставот дека односите на потрошувачката на енергија и приходите се неутрални. Ова значи дека во овие земји постои простор за мерки за зачувување на енергијата без сериозни последици за нивниот економски раст

Casimir Force between a Small Dielectric Sphere and a Dielectric Wall

The possibility of repulsive Casimir forces between small metal spheres and a dielectric half-space is discussed. We treat a model in which the spheres have a dielectric function given by the Drude model, and the radius of the sphere is small compared to the corresponding plasma wavelength. The half-space is also described by the same model, but with a different plasma frequency. We find that in the retarded limit, the force is quasi-oscillatory. This leads to the prediction of stable equilibrium points at which the sphere could levitate in the Earth's gravitational field. This seems to lead to the possibility of an experimental test of the model. The effects of finite temperature on the force are also studied, and found to be rather small at room temperature. However, thermally activated transitions between equilibrium points could be significant at room temperature.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

The Death Collectors: The Material Culture of War as a Means of Reclaiming Agency in Eastern Ukraine

This article explores the material culture of war in the civilian context in eastern Ukraine. Preserving, collecting and creatively transforming pieces of armament and other military objects has become a very common activity among the population of the war zone in the region of Donbass. Military conflict here continues for more than five years directly affecting about four million people on the ground. Drawing on data from my fieldwork on both sides of the frontline enduring since the outbreak of the conflict, I investigate the cultural and social meanings behind the engagement with war artefacts in the frontline communities. I scrutinize this phenomenon through four angles: (1) collection of material objects as a means to deal with trauma and gain symbolic power over these objects, (2) material culture of the Second World War and its special meaning in post-Soviet Ukraine, (3) physicality of matériel as evidence of human rights violations in the war zone, and (4) recontextualization of the objects of war by assigning a different function to them. I conclude that engagement with material objects of violence serves for the people affected by the war as a symbolical reassertion of agency and control over their lives

Impact of Covid-19 on human resources in small and medium enterprises: the case of Macedonia

The current situation in the global environment caused by the impact of the Covid-19 virus indicates a number of problems faced by small and medium enterprises, caused by the consequences of the global health crisis and the pronounced changes related to human resources (firing employess, part-time work, non extension of the employment contract etc.) of the working age population. It is an indisputable fact that SMEs are drivers of inclusive economic growth and drivers in creating productive and sustainable jobs

Focusing Vacuum Fluctuations II

The quantization of the scalar and electromagnetic fields in the presence of a parabolic mirror is further developed in the context of a geometric optics approximation. We extend results in a previous paper to more general geometries, and also correct an error in one section of that paper. We calculate the mean squared scalar and electric fields near the focal line of a parabolic cylindrical mirror. These quantities are found to grow as inverse powers of the distance from the focus. We give a combination of analytic and numerical results for the mean squared fields. In particular, we find that the mean squared electric field can be either negative or positive, depending upon the choice of parameters. The case of a negative mean squared electric field corresponds to a repulsive Van der Waals force on an atom near the focus, and to a region of negative energy density. Similarly, a positive value corresponds to an attractive force and a possibility of atom trapping in the vicinity of the focus.Comment: 26 pages, 15 figures; additional discussion added in Sects. IV and I

Management versus leadership in the modern world

Management and leadership are one of the most important factors for the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall business activities in the companies. Managers are planning, organizing, coordinating, directing, controlling. Leaders motivate people and help them in communication and cooperation with each other while working in teams, they innovate, create strategies and seek solutions in order to achieve certain goals. Effective management and leadership together with top quality skilled managers and leaders, will have positive impact for the success of the development companies in order to move forward in this modern world. Only with a proper understanding of management and leadership, the goals of the individual, the company and the social community as a whole will be achieved, because in that way an optimal modality can be found that will provide a competitive advantage to companies. Management and leadership seem to be very similar, but there are differences. The aim of this article is to determine the differences between them

Forecasting risk of bankruptcy for machine-building plants

The paper presents an overview of well-known bankruptcy risk forecasting models, elaborated as by Russian so by foreign authors, on the basis of the data about financial and business activities of the biggest machine-building Russian plants. The authors substantiate and confirm appropriateness of a fuzzy set model to the problem of bankruptcy risk forecasting. This model is worked out on the basis of 10 most important factors, which have the greatest influence on sales proceeds as the main financial source for a production plant

Global vs local Casimir effect

This paper continues the investigation of the Casimir effect with the use of the algebraic formulation of quantum field theory in the initial value setting. Basing on earlier papers by one of us (AH) we approximate the Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions by simple interaction models whose nonlocality in physical space is under strict control, but which at the same time are admissible from the point of view of algebraic restrictions imposed on models in the context of Casimir backreaction. The geometrical setting is that of the original parallel plates. By scaling our models and taking appropriate limit we approach the sharp boundary conditions in the limit. The global force is analyzed in that limit. One finds in Neumann case that although the sharp boundary interaction is recovered in the norm resolvent sense for each model considered, the total force per area depends substantially on its choice and diverges in the sharp boundary conditions limit. On the other hand the local energy density outside the interaction region, which in the limit includes any compact set outside the strict position of the plates, has a universal limit corresponding to sharp conditions. This is what one should expect in general, and the lack of this discrepancy in Dirichlet case is rather accidental. Our discussion pins down its precise origin: the difference in the order in which scaling limit and integration over the whole space is carried out.Comment: 32 pages, accepted for publication in Ann. H. Poincar