7,678 research outputs found
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Getting By With The Advice Of Their Friends: Ceos' Advice Networks And Firms' Strategic Responses To Poor Performance
This paper theorizes that relatively poor firm performance can prompt chief executive officers (CEOs) to seek more advice from executives of other firms who are their friends or similar to them and less advice from acquaintances or dissimilar others and suggests how and why this pattern of advice seeking could reduce firms' propensity to change corporate strategy in response to poor performance. We test our hypotheses with large-sample survey data on the identities of CEOs' advice contacts and archival data on firm performance and corporate strategy. The results confirm our hypotheses and show that executives' social network ties can influence firms' responses to economic adversity, in particular by inhibiting strategic change in response to relatively poor firm performance. Additional findings indicate that CEOs' advice seeking in response to low performance may ultimately have negative consequences for subsequent performance, suggesting how CEOs' social network ties could play an indirect role in organizational decline and downward spirals in firm performance.Business Administratio
Bifid Throats for Axion Monodromy Inflation
We construct a simple explicit local geometry providing a `bifid throat' for
5-brane axion monodromy. A bifid throat is a throat that splits into two
daughter throats in the IR, containing a homologous 2-cycle family reaching
down into each daughter throat. Our example consists of a deformed
orbifold of the conifold, which provides us
with an explicit holographic dual of the bifid throat including D3-branes and
fractional 5-branes at the toric singularities of our setup. Having the
holographic description in terms of the dual gauge theory allows us to address
the effect of 5-brane-antibrane pair backreaction including the warping
effects. This leads to the size of the backreaction being small and
controllable after imposing proper normalization of the inflaton potential and
hence the warping scales.Comment: 35 pages, 22 figures. JHEP accepted version with typos corrected and
references adde
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Customization Or Conformity? An Institutional And Network Perspective On The Content And Consequences Of TQM Adoption
This study develops a theoretical framework that integrates institutional and network perspectives on the form and consequences of administrative innovations. Hypotheses are tested with survey and archival data on the implementation of total quality management (TQM) programs and the consequences for organizational efficiency and legitimacy in a sample of over 2,700 U.S. hospitals. The results show that early adopters customize TOM practices for efficiency gains, while later adopters gain legitimacy from adopting the normative form of TQM programs. The findings suggest that institutional factors moderate the role of network membership in affecting the form of administrative innovations adopted and provide strong evidence for the importance of institutional factors in determining how innovations are defined and implemented. We discuss implications for theory and research on institutional processes and network effects and for the literatures on innovation adoption and total quality management.(.)Business Administratio
Method of directing a laser beam with very high accuracy
System will collimate and direct an argon laser beam with high angular tracking accuracy at objects on the moons surface. It can be adapted to missile and satellite tracking
Method and apparatus for aligning a laser beam projector Patent
Laser beam projector for continuous, precise alignment between target, laser generator, and astronomical telescope during trackin
Development of subminiature multi-sensor hot-wire probes
Limitations on the spatial resolution of multisensor hot wire probes have precluded accurate measurements of Reynolds stresses very near solid surfaces in wind tunnels and in many practical aerodynamic flows. The fabrication, calibration and qualification testing of very small single horizontal and X-array hot-wire probes which are intended to be used near solid boundaries in turbulent flows where length scales are particularly small, is described. Details of the sensor fabrication procedure are reported, along with information needed to successfully operate the probes. As compared with conventional probes, manufacture of the subminiature probes is more complex, requiring special equipment and careful handling. The subminiature probes tested were more fragile and shorter lived than conventional probes; they obeyed the same calibration laws but with slightly larger experimental uncertainty. In spite of these disadvantages, measurements of mean statistical quantities and spectra demonstrate the ability of the subminiature sensors to provide the measurements in the near wall region of turbulent boundary layers that are more accurate than conventional sized probes
Validity of the kink approximation to the tunneling action
Coleman tunneling in a general scalar potential with two non-degenerate
minima is known to have an approximation in terms of a piecewise linear
triangular-shaped potential with sharp 'kinks' at the place of the local
minima. This approximate potential has a regime where the existence of the
bounce solution needs the scalar field to 'wait' for some amount of Euclidean
time at one of the 'kinks'. We discuss under which conditions a kink
approximation of locally smooth 'cap' regions provides a good estimate for the
bounce action.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, title changed in version 2 to match published
versio
More than one way to see it: Individual heuristics in avian visual computation
Comparative pattern learning experiments investigate how different species find regularities in sensory input, providing insights into cognitive processing in humans and other animals. Past research has focused either on one species’ ability to process pattern classes or different species’ performance in recognizing the same pattern, with little attention to individual and species-specific heuristics and decision strategies. We trained and tested two bird species, pigeons (Columba livia) and kea (Nestor notabilis, a parrot species), on visual patterns using touch-screen technology. Patterns were composed of several abstract elements and had varying degrees of structural complexity. We developed a model selection paradigm, based on regular expressions, that allowed us to reconstruct the specific decision strategies and cognitive heuristics adopted by a given individual in our task. Individual birds showed considerable differences in the number, type and heterogeneity of heuristic strategies adopted. Birds’ choices also exhibited consistent species-level differences. Kea adopted effective heuristic strategies, based on matching learned bigrams to stimulus edges. Individual pigeons, in contrast, adopted an idiosyncratic mix of strategies that included local transition probabilities and global string similarity. Although performance was above chance and quite high for kea, no individual of either species provided clear evidence of learning exactly the rule used to generate the training stimuli. Our results show that similar behavioral outcomes can be achieved using dramatically different strategies and highlight the dangers of combining multiple individuals in a group analysis. These findings, and our general approach, have implications for the design of future pattern learning experiments, and the interpretation of comparative cognition research more generally
Ultraviolet downconverting phosphor for use with silicon CCD imagers
The properties and application of a UV downconverting phosphor (coronene) to silicon charge coupled devices are discussed. Measurements of the absorption spectrum have been extended to below 1000 A, and preliminary results indicate the existence of useful response to at least 584 A. The average conversion efficiency of coronene was measured to be ~20% at 2537 A. Imagery at 3650 A using a backside illuminated 800 X 800 CCD coated with coronene is presented
Expendable bubble tiltmeter for geophysical monitoring
An unusually rugged highly sensitive and inexpensive bubble tiltmeter has been designed, tested, and built in quantity. These tiltmeters are presently used on two volcanoes and an Alaskan glacier, where they continuously monitor surface tilts of geological interest. This paper discusses the
mechanical, thermal, and electric details of the meter, and illustrates its performance characteristics in both large ( > 10^(-4) radian) and small ( < 10^(-6) radian) tilt environments. The meter's ultimate sensitivity is better than 2 X 10^(-8) radians rms for short periods (hours), and its useful dynamic range is greater than 10^4. Included is a short description of field use of the instrument for volcano monitoring
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