Corporate Governance Practices and Analysts Forecast Accuracy Evidence for Romania

In the last few years, several steps were taken in order to improve the quality of corporate governance for Romanian listed companies. Higher standards of corporate governance is documented in the literature to lead to a better information environment, and, consequently, to increase analysts forecast accuracy. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which corporate governance policies affect analysts forecasts for companies listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange. The results showed that there is indeed a negative correlation between a corporate governance index – used as a proxy for the quality of corporate governance practices - and analysts forecast errors.

Heart Rate-Determined Physical Activity In New Zealand School Children: A Cross- Sectional Study

The aim of this study was to examine current levels of physical activity determined via heart rate monitoring. A total of 176 children (85 boys, 91 girls) aged 5-13 years wore sealed Polar heart rate monitors for at least 10 hours per day on at least 3 days. Mean daily minutes of moderate to vigorous-intensity physical activity was 65 ± 43 (mean ± SD) for boys and 54 ± 37 for girls. Daily minutes of vigorous-intensity activity was 31 ± 24 and 24 ± 21 for boys and girls respectively. Significant differences in physical activity levels were observed between school day and weekends, boys and girls, and among age and geographical groups. Only 36% of boys and 22% of girls met the New Zealand physical activity guideline. This research indicates that a large proportion of New Zealand children are not meeting physical activity recommendations.

A Real Options Analysis of Foreign Direct Investment Competition in a News Uncertain Environment

The relation between taxation states and foreign direct investment has been studied for several perspectives and with states of different levels of development. Usually it's only considered the impact of tax level on the foreign direct investment volume. This paper enhances this view by assuming that multinationals companies (MNC) can use transfer prices systems and have got investment timing flexibility. Thus, it evaluates the impact of the use of international transfer pricing systems on the states- policy and on the investment timing of the multinational companies. In uncertain business environments (with periodical release of news), the investment can increase if MNC detain investment delay options. This paper shows how tax differentials can attract foreign direct investments (FDI) and influence MNC behavior. The equilibrium is set in a global environment where MNC can shift their profits between states depending on the corporate tax rates. Assuming the use of transfer pricing schemes, this paper confirms the relationship between MNC behavior and the release of new business news.

Towards a Unified Approach of Social Justice: Merging Tradition and Modernity in Public Policy Making in India

This paper explores the social and political imperatives in the sphere of public policy relating to social justice. In India, the colonial legacy and post-colonial social and political pressures sustained the appropriation of 'caste' category in allocating public resources to the backward class of citizens. For several reasons, 'economic' category could not be placed in allocating resources. This paper examines the reasons behind the deliberative exercises and formulating policies and seeks an alternative framework in realizing social justice in terms of a unified category. This attempt can be viewed as a reconciliation of traditional and modern values for a viable alternative in public policy making.

The Association between the Firm Characteristics and Corporate Mandatory Disclosure the Case of Greece

The main thrust of this paper is to assess the level of disclosure in the annual reports of non-financial Greek firms and to empirically investigate the hypothesized impact of several firm characteristics on the extent of mandatory disclosure. A disclosure checklist consisting of 100 mandatory items was developed to assess the level of disclosure in the 2009 annual reports of 43 Greek companies listed at the Athens stock exchange. The association between the level of disclosure and some firm characteristics was examined using multiple linear regression analysis. The study reveals that Greek companies on general have responded adequately to the mandatory disclosure requirements of the regulatory bodies. The findings also indicate that firm size was significant positively associated with the level of disclosure. The remaining variables such as age, profitability, liquidity, and board composition were found to be insignificant in explaining the variation of mandatory disclosures. The outcome of this study is undoubtedly of great concern to the investment community at large to assist in evaluating the extent of mandatory disclosure by Greek firms and explaining the variation of disclosure in light of firm-specific characteristics.

Regional Role of Higher Education Institutions in Croatia

Development of knowledge based society carries multiple challenges to the higher education system. Some of the challenges laid before the higher education sector of countries which aspire to become knowledge based societies are: the entrepreneurial leadership of the higher education institutions, finding new sources of financing in order to minimize dependence on public resources, creating connections with the labor market, commercial utilization of R&D results, promotion of innovations as well as the overall promotion of science excellence relevant to the economic sector. Within a framework of this paper and its main subject of research, the challenge which is being put before the higher education institutions is an effort of establishing regional mission of higher education through the open collaboration with regional key factors, both private and public. Development of the mentioned collaboration and its contribution to the overall regional development in Croatia is the main subject of empirical research in this paper.

The Relationship between Knowledge Management Strategy and Information Technology Strategy

Recently, a great number of theoretical frameworks have been proposed to develop the linkages between knowledge management (KM) and organizational strategies. However, while there has been much theorizing and case study in the area, validated research models integrating KM and information technology strategies for empirical testing of these theories have been scarce. In this research, we try to develop a research model for explaining the relationship between KM strategy and IT strategy and their effects on performance. Finally, meaningful propositions and conclusions are derived, and suggestions for future research are proposed and discussed.

A Co-writing Development Approachto Wikis: PedagogicalIssues and Implications

Wikis are promoted as collaborative writing tools that allow students to transform a text into a collective document by information sharing and group reflection. However, despite the promising collaborative capabilities of wikis, their pedagogical value regarding collaborative writing is still questionable. Wiki alone cannot make collaborative writing happen, and students do not automatically become more active, participate, and collaborate with others when they use wikis. To foster collaborative writing and active involvement in wiki development there is a need for a systematic approach to wikis. Themain goal of this paper is to propose and evaluate a co-writing approach to the development of wikis, along with the study of three wiki applications to report on pedagogical implications of collaborative writing in higher education.

Students- Perception of the Evaluation System in Architecture Studios

Architecture education was based on apprenticeship models and its nature has not changed much during long period but the Source of changes was its evaluation process and system. It is undeniable that art and architecture education is completely based on transmitting knowledge from instructor to students. In contrast to other majors this transmitting is by iteration and practice and studio masters try to control the design process and improving skills in the form of supervision and criticizing. Also the evaluation will end by giving marks to students- achievements. Therefore the importance of the evaluation and assessment role is obvious and it is not irrelevant to say that if we want to know about the architecture education system, we must first study its assessment procedures. The evolution of these changes in western countries has literate and documented well. However it seems that this procedure has unregarded in Malaysia and there is a severe lack of research and documentation in this area. Malaysia as an under developing and multicultural country which is involved different races and cultures is a proper origin for scrutinizing and understanding the evaluation systems and acceptability amount of current implemented models to keep the evaluation and assessment procedure abreast with needs of different generations, cultures and even genders. This paper attempts to answer the questions of how evaluation and assessments are performed and how students perceive this evaluation system in the context Malaysia. The main advantage of this work is that it contributes in international debate on evaluation model.

Effect of Teaching Games for Understanding Approach on Students- Cognitive Learning Outcome

The study investigated the effects of Teaching Games for Understanding approach on students ‘cognitive learning outcome. The study was a quasi-experimental non-equivalent pretest-posttest control group design whereby 10 year old primary school students (n=72) were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control group. The experimental group students were exposed with TGfU approach and the control group with the Traditional Skill approach of handball game. Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI) was used to measure students' tactical understanding and decision making in 3 versus 3 handball game situations. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results reveal that there was a significant difference between the TGfU approach group and the traditional skill approach group students on post test score (F (1, 69) = 248.83, p < .05). The findings of this study suggested the importance of TGfU approach to improve primary students’ tactical understanding and decision making in handball game.

Citizens- Expectations from Rural Telecentres: A Case Study of Implementation of Common Service Centres in Mushedpur Village, Haryana, India

Setting up of rural telecentres, popularly referred to as Common Service Centres (CSCs), are considered one of the initial forerunners of rural e-Governance initiatives under the Government of India-s National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). CSCs are implemented on public-private partnership (PPP) – where State governments play a major role in facilitating the establishment of CSCs and investments are made by private companies referred to as Service Centre Agencies (SCAs). CSC implementation is expected to help in improving public service delivery in a transparent and efficient manner. However, there is very little research undertaken to study the actual impact of CSC implementation at the grassroots level. This paper addresses the gap by identifying the circumstances, concerns and expectations from the point-of-view of citizens and examining the finer aspects of social processes in the context of rural e-Governance.

Social Network Management Enhances Customer Relationship

The study aims to develop a framework of social network management to enhance customer relationship. Social network management of this research is derived from social network site management, individual and organization social network usage motivation. The survey was conducted with organization employees who have used social network to interact with customers. The results reveal that content, link, privacy and security, page design and interactivity are the major issues of social network site management. Content, link, privacy and security, individual and organization motivation have major impacts on encouraging business knowledge sharing among employees. Moreover, Page design and interactivity, content, organization motivation and knowledge sharing can improve customer relationships.

The Effect of Breaststroke Swimming Exercise to Increase the Value of Peak Expiratory Flow

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of breaststroke swimming exercise to improving the peak expiratory flow. Methode: This study used 17 students of men aged 19-21 years, APE values measured before and after the study. Style swimming workout done in accordance with a program that has been made. Result: Value of peak expiratory flow in male students obtained on average before exercise (530 ± 15 811) liters / min and after doing the exercises (540.59 ± 17 092) liters / minute. Paired ttest showed t = -6.446 and p = 0.000, which means there are differences in peak expiratory flow values before and after exercise swimming breaststroke. Conclusion: The conclusion is the breaststroke swimming exercise can be improving of peak expiratory flow.

Towards the Creation of Adaptive Content from Web Resources in an E-Learning Platform to Learners Profiles

The evolution of information and communication technology has made a very powerful support for the improvement of online learning platforms in creation of courses. This paper presents a study that attempts to explore new web architecture for creating an adaptive online learning system to profiles of learners, using the Web as a source for the automatic creation of courses for the online training platform. This architecture will reduce the time and decrease the effort performed by the drafters of the current e-learning platform, and direct adaptation of the Web content will greatly enrich the quality of online training courses.

An Economic Evaluation of Subjective Well-Being Derived from Sport Participation

This study links up the theories of social psychology, economics and sport management to assess the impact of sport participation on subjective well-being (SWB) and use a simple statistic method to estimate the relative monetary value that sport participation derives SWB for Taiwan-s college students. By constructing proper measurements on sport participation and SWB respectively, a structural equation model (SEM) is developed to perform a confirmatory factory analysis, and the causal relationship between sport participation and SWB as well as the effect of the demographic variables on these two concepts are also discussed.

Heart Rate Variability in Responders and Non- Responders to Live-Moderate, Train-Low Altitude Training

The aim of this study was to compare the effects of an altitude training camp on heart rate variability and performance in elite triathletes. Ten athletes completed 20 days of live-high, train-low training at 1650m. Athletes underwent pre and post 800-m swim time trials at sea-level, and two heart rate variability tests at 1650m on the first and last day of the training camp. Based on their time trial results, athletes were divided into responders and non-responders. Relative to the non-responders, the responders sympathetic-toparasympathetic ratio decreased substantially after 20 days of altitude training (-0.68 ± 1.08 and -1.2 ± 0.96, mean ± 90% confidence interval for supine and standing respectively). In addition, sympathetic activity while standing was also substantially lower post-altitude in the responders compared to the non-responders (-1869 ± 4764 ms2). Results indicate that responders demonstrated a change to more vagal predominance compared to non-responders.

Native Framework of Economic Activities Development to Achieve The 1404 Iranian View Statement's Goals

Planning of economic activities development has various dimensions one of which determines adequate capacity of economic activities in provinces regarding the government-s goals. Paralleling planning goals of economic activities development including subjects being focused on the view statement is effective to better realize the statement's goals. Current paper presents a native framework for economic activities development in provincial level. Triple steps within the framework are concordant with the view statement-s goals achievement. At first step of the proposed framework, economic activities are being prioritized in terms of employment indices, and secondly economic activities regarding to the province's relative advantages are being recognized. In the third step, desirable capacity of economic activities is determined with regards to the government's goals and effective constraints in economic activities development. Development of economic activities related to the provinces- relative advantages, contributes on regional balance and on equal development of economic activities. Furthermore, results of the framework enable more confident investment, affect employment development and remove unemployment concern as the main goals of the view statement.

Goodwill in the Current Greek Accounting Environment

The growing interest in the issue of intangible assets not only in the scientific community but also in some professional bodies internationally can be explained by several points of view. From the business perspective, enterprises are increasingly motivated by external and internal forces to measure and proactively manage their intangibles. With respect to the issue of intangibles, goodwill has been debated in many countries throughout the world. Despite the numerous efforts and the existence of international accounting standards there is not yet a common accepted accounting treatment for goodwill. This study attempts on the one hand to impress the accounting treatment of goodwill internationally, on the other hand analyses the major subjects in relation to the accounting treatment of goodwill in Greece, since 2005, year where the international accounting standards have been in use for the Greek listed companies. The results indicate that the accounting treatment for the goodwill in Greece, despite the effort for accounting harmonization in Europe from 2005, sustains many differences especially for the no listed companies.

Discovery and Capture of Organizational Knowledge from Unstructured Information

Knowledge of an organization does not merely reside in structured form of information and data; it is also embedded in unstructured form. The discovery of such knowledge is particularly difficult as the characteristic is dynamic, scattered, massive and multiplying at high speed. Conventional methods of managing unstructured information are considered too resource demanding and time consuming to cope with the rapid information growth. In this paper, a Multi-faceted and Automatic Knowledge Elicitation System (MAKES) is introduced for the purpose of discovery and capture of organizational knowledge. A trial implementation has been conducted in a public organization to achieve the objective of decision capture and navigation from a number of meeting minutes which are autonomously organized, classified and presented in a multi-faceted taxonomy map in both document and content level. Key concepts such as critical decision made, key knowledge workers, knowledge flow and the relationship among them are elicited and displayed in predefined knowledge model and maps. Hence, the structured knowledge can be retained, shared and reused. Conducting Knowledge Management with MAKES reduces work in searching and retrieving the target decision, saves a great deal of time and manpower, and also enables an organization to keep pace with the knowledge life cycle. This is particularly important when the amount of unstructured information and data grows extremely quickly. This system approach of knowledge management can accelerate value extraction and creation cycles of organizations.

Comparative Analysis of Tax Systems: Some Evidence from CEE Countries

During last decades is widely discussed the international harmonization of financial reporting. This harmonization is also affected by national tax systems in analyzed countries. This paper provides some evidence on current national tax systems in selected countries in Central and Eastern Europe. The linkage of accounting profit as a tax base might decrease the administrative burden for majority of SMEs, which are the most important engine of each national economy.