Suchergebnisse

Strengthening innovation capacity of European small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by means of their participation in the Sixth (FP6-SME) and Seventh (FP7-SME) Framework Programmes was an important objective of the European Union policies. Since SMEs form the backbone of the Italian economy, their strong presence in an international network such as the one fostered by the European Union represent a great opportunity, particularly for firms located in southern Italy – the marginal macro-area of the country in terms of innovation – to increase their competitiveness. Based on the major literature on topics such as knowledge exchange, innovation networks and disparities, and on descriptive statistics and a cluster analysis in a dynamic perspective, our study aimed to assess the actual intra-regional, extra-regional and transnational links established by the Italian SMEs and public research establishments (PREs). In a next step we aim at assessing if knowledge flows fostered by the FP6-SME and FP7-SME were mainly concentrated in the traditionally winning macro-regional areas (North and Centre) or led to more widespread benefits in favour of SMEs located in the marginal South. The findings of our study revealed a very limited number of connections - with a related weak knowledge exchange - involving the southern regions, implying a reinforcement of innovation activities in the traditionally most dynamic industrial areas of the country.

Dwellers facing one housing problem typically face multiple risky housing circumstances that threaten an array of their outcomes. Experiencing multiple unfavourable housing issues can intensify the negative effects that such conditions have on the whole person's physical, psychological, emotional, and cognitive development. This paper is a survey study, and it discusses the effect of some housing issues and conditions on dwellers' psychological and emotional well-being. The purpose is to understand the effect of such problems, such as housing price, safety and security, housing quality, transportation, schools and economic development on dwellers' stress level and emotional well-being. Simple random sampling was assigned to a large number of middle-income residents in Malaysia. The accumulated data were then analysed, and descriptive statistics were used to interpret and evaluate the prevalence of housing issues and housing stress. The findings of this study indicated that there is housing stress among middle-income groups caused by transportation, housing quality, and economic development that force dwellers to stay far from their workplace and to be unable to afford the moving cost. Hence, it is highly advisable for the governments and stakeholders to look comprehensively at these issues and tackle their consequences by emphasizing people's need for affordable, liveable home standard.

The exit from the labor market in old age is a process determined by different institutional factors of the labor market. Working conditions, employment protection regulation, organizational policies and employers' attitude can either make people stop working or motivate them to work longer. The decision to stay or withdraw from the labor market in old age with regard to the employment policies in the Central and Eastern EU member states is analyzed in the paper. Central and Eastern European countries have been selected due to their similar historical development, as well as due to the advantages of comparative analysis providing more robust results based on the data from several national cases. For the literature analysis, the document meta‐analysis and the analysis of data from the European Social Survey (ESS5, 2010) and Eurobarometer 76.2 (September–October 2011), including methods such as descriptive statistics, binary logistic regression was applied. The willingness to continue in paid work after retirement is influenced by the complexity of the institutional factors related to the working time, autonomy at work, work and family balance, training opportunities, adjustment of the work place, the view of the employers and antidiscrimination actions. The analysis revealed the demand for effective policies in the fields of promoting productivity and fighting discrimination in Central and Eastern European countries.

Twenty-five years after the collapse of communism in Europe, few scholars disagree that the past continues to shape the democratic trajectories of postcommunist states. Precommunist education has featured prominently in this literature's bundle of "good" legacies because it ostensibly helped foster resistance to communism. The authors propose a differentcausal mechanism—appropriation and subversion—that challenges the linearity of the above assumptions by analyzing the effects of precommunist literacy on patterns of Communist Party recruitment in Russia's regions. Rather than regarding precommunist education as a source of latent resistance to communism, the authorshighlight the Leninist regime's successful appropriation of the more literate strata of the precommunist orders, in the process subverting the past democratic edge of the hitherto comparatively more developed areas. The linear regression analysis of author—assembled statistics from the first Russian imperial census of 1897 supports prior research: precommunist literacy has a strong positive association with postcommunist democratic outcomes. Nevertheless, in pursuing causal mediation analysis, the authors find, in addition, that the above effect is mediated by Communist Party saturation in Russia's regions. Party functionaries were likely to be drawn from areas that had been comparatively more literate in tsarist times, andparty saturation in turn had a dampening effect on the otherwise positive effects of precommunist education on postcommunist democracy.

SummaryThis study was carried out by the Turkish Republic Ministry of Health to determine the prevalence of consanguineous marriage and its correlates with socio-demographic and obstetric risk factors in women in Turkey. The cross-sectional, national-level study was carried out from October to December 2013. The study population was composed of women between the ages of 15 and 65 years living in Turkey. The sample size was calculated as 9290 houses within Turkey's 81 provinces so as to improve the Turkish rural–urban expectations by means of systematic stack sampling according to the Turkish Statistical Institute's address-based vital statistics system. The target sample size was 6364, but only eligible 4913 women, who had been married, were included in the study. The consanguineous marriage frequency in the sample was found to be 18.5%, and of these 57.8% were first cousin marriages. Women living in an extended family and whose education level and first marriage ages were low, and whose perceived economic status was poor, had higher frequencies of consanguineous marriage (p<0.001). Consanguineous marriage frequencies were higher (p<0.001) for women who had spontaneous abortions and stillbirths or who had given birth to infants with a congenital abnormality. In this context, it is important to develop national policies and strategies to prevent consanguineous marriages in Turkey.

This article introduces the CHISOLS (Change in Source of Leader Support) dataset, which identifies which leadership changes within countries bring to power a new leader whose primary support is drawn from different societal groups than those who supported her predecessor. The dataset covers all countries of the world with populations greater than 500,000 from 1919 to 2008. We discuss the underlying rationale of our data collection, provide some brief information about the coding rules and procedures, and share some descriptive statistics. We find that changes in sources of leader support are more common in democracies than non-democracies, but also that changes in sources of leader support often occur without irregular leader transitions or large institutional changes, even within non-democracies. CHISOLS can be productively combined with other datasets like POLITY, Archigos, and DPI that provide information about political institutions, modes of leader transition, and placement on a left–right policy continuum, but CHISOLS also provides something new that was not previously available. These data allow researchers to study the extent to which different types of policy change are associated with all leader transitions, with changes in political institutions, or with changes in the set of interests that leaders most closely represent; CHISOLS facilitates comparing the effect of leaders, interests, and institutions on policy change across a wide spatial temporal domain.

Introduction: Community Service was introduced to improve access to health care for all South Africans, yet little is known about the experiences of Community Service occupational therapists. This article describes the characteristics and general experiences of Community Service occupational therapists. Methods: A national cross-sectional survey was undertaken. Data were collected with an online questionnaire to all occupational therapists completing Community Service in 2013 (n=240). Data were analysed with IBM SPSS Statistics, version 21.0, and responses to open ended questions were post-coded. Results: A 44.3% (n=104) response rate was achieved. Almost half the participants (44.7%) were located rurally with 51.5% working at primary level at least some of the time. Referrals were frequently received for wheelchair related services (61.2%), interventions related to child development (49.5%), disability grant assessments (36.9%) and treatment of adults with neurological conditions (39.8%). While some therapists felt challenged (54.2%) and frustrated (58.3%), many (75.0%) reported satisfaction from interacting with clients. Although the majority perceived the profession to be poorly recognised (63.5%), most were proud to be occupational therapists (66.7%). Conclusion: Community Service occupational therapists are playing an important role in improving access to services but Community Service needs to be situated within a broader plan to extend and strengthen services in-line with government policy.

Donors have been using various strategies to promote democracy in developing countries. One of the strategies is to support civil society organisations to foster vibrant civil society that can hold government responsive and accountable. Sub-Saharan Africa is no exception, in that all sub-Saharan countries except for the Seychelles were the recipient countries of civil society assistance. This research tests whether donors' civil society assistance is related to the changes in the level of civic participation in the 18 sub-Saharan countries. Firstly, I measure civil society assistance between 2005 and 2009 employing OECD aid statistics, and measure the subsequent change in the level of civic participation by comparing the civic participation level in 2005/6 and 2011/3 using Afrobarometer survey Round Three and Round Five. Then, I investigate whether there is a positive correlation between the two variables. The findings show that the level of civic participation did not change significantly over time. However, further analyses indicate that there is a partially positive correlation between civil society assistance and the change of civic participation. Also, the positive correlation between the assistance and the specific type of civic participation, communing activities, is sustained even when an endogenous factor, the political environment of the countries is hold constant.

Uganda's progress in reducing poverty from 1993 to 2006 is a remarkable story of success that has been well told. The narrative of Uganda's continued, albeit it slightly slower, progress in reducing poverty since 2006 is less familiar. This was a period in which growth slowed as the gains from reforms years earlier had been fully realized, and weak infrastructure and increasing corruption increasingly constrained private sector competitiveness (World Bank 2015). This report examines Uganda's progress in reducing poverty, with a specific focus on the period 2006 to 2013. The report shows that high growth from 2006 to 2010 benefited poverty reduction. Before turning in further detail to the key findings of the report, it is important to note that the analysis undertaken in this report is only possible because the Government of Uganda has invested in a high quality series of household surveys to document progress in wellbeing since 1993. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics has conducted high-quality household surveys that every three to four years that have provided a comparable series of data on poverty and other household characteristics for the last twenty years. Uganda is one of the few countries in the region to have achieved this level of comparable, frequent poverty monitoring over time. Without this, it would not be possible to document the lessons Uganda provides.

Motivation: Favourable conditions for the development of corporate governance in Russia emerged at the beginning of the 90s, together with the commencement of economic and political transformation. At the beginning, one of the main factors connected with building and developing a corporate governance system was the process of privatization of state-owned enterprises. In the subsequent years, more factors emerged, such as: further economic reforms, political transformations, corporate legislation as well as financial and economic crises.Aim: The article's main thrust is to evaluate the impact of economic and financial crisis of 2008 and the posible impact of actual crisis on the evolution of selected internally and externally mechanisms of corporate governance in Russia.Results: The article uses theoretical analysis method based on a survey of literature and statistical data (especially from Russian Federal Statistics Service). The authors assume that the 2008 crisis caused less significant changes in the process of the evolution of corporate governance system in Russia (in comparison with 1998 crisis). The crisis of 2008 resulted mainly in the increase in the state's role, either as the owner as well as participant of the external corporate governance mechanisms. The impact of the current crisis on the corporate governance is possible because of restrictions in the access to foreign financial markets for big companies and the increase of dependence on financial support from the state.

Constantly changing business environment, including economic fluctuations, endless flow of information, legislation, regulations, financial and tax accounting changes and other factors, result in difficulties of adaptation to these changes. Key users of this type of information in the company are usually accountants as they are responsible for presenting financial data in a special form. Therefore, accountants directly face the difficulties of adaption to the changes of information flows; one of the proposed solutions for this problem is information systemisation. Travel operators are affected by the special VAT scheme and the need for information on local, outbound and inbound tourism; therefore, making a suitable accounting information system would facilitate the accounting information for the proper evaluation and use. The most apparent accounting features for travel operators are income and expense, thus there is a need to structure them taking into account local, inbound and outbound tourism forms. The purpose of this article is to analyse and discuss the peculiarities of special VAT scheme applied for travel operators and present the income and expenses accounting system. Authors present the structure of income and expenses accounting system considering both VAT taxation and financial accounting features in order to make the process of creating financial reports to statistics or other government bodies simplier. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15544/ssaf.2012.29

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) is an international standard to promote open and accountable management of natural resources. By encouraging governments, extractive companies, civil society and the public to engage in discourse around transparency of the extractive sector, it aims to facilitate the management of a country's natural resource wealth to benefit all its citizens. The objective of this report is to present, in a structured form, data categories and their reporting formats, that can be used to standardize information generated under each EITI Requirement. The review conducted for this study included a sample of recent EITI Country Reports, as well as other initiatives and industry standards. 'Good' refers to reporting standards that meet the minimum data to be provided under each EITI Requirement. 'Better' typically refers to reporting standards that are enhancements of data covered under the good category. 'Best' refers to standard formats for reporting data that represent the highest international benchmarks and are considered to provide comprehensive information, beyond the minimum data requirements. The research team recommends a step by step approach to this, starting with a specific set of Requirements, across a number of countries. This would allow the EITI International Secretariat to develop a set of comparable statistics for various reporting entities, as well as start constructing guidelines for EITI implementers.

At its 47th plenary meeting on July 27, 2011, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations acknowledged the urgent need to strengthen international cooperation in global geospatial information management. The ECOSOC established the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) during that meeting, and asked the UN-GGIM to identify the global, regional, and national challenges, and provide recommendations for their resolution. In October 2015, after 5 years of investigation, the Asia and Pacific member states of the UN-GGIM and United Nations agencies, such as United nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), UN Habitat, UN Statistics Division, and United Nations Group on the Information Society (UNGIS), convened to share their global and national projects at the 4th UN-GGIM-AP conference. In this presentation I will present the major global and national projects and challenges of Asia and the Pacific countries related to capacity building and disaster risk management. I will also introduce open GIS software, was developed by the United Nations agencies and the UN-GGIM-AP member states. Finally, I will discuss how these current global collaborations in Asia and the Pacific countries will affect the availability and reliability of geospatial data in the region.

This research is intended to analyze the effect of regional gross domestic product (GDP), inflation and interest rates to the total demand for credit. The method of analysis used in this research is Ordinary Least Square (OSL), with a model secondary data sourced from Bank Indonesia (BI), the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) and data sourced from journals of economics, finance and banking. The results of the data analysis showed that the regional gross domestic product (regional GDP) and a significant positive effect on the demand for total loans, at commercial banks in the province of Aceh. For variable rate of inflation results are positive and significant impact on the total demand for loans at commercial banks in the province of Aceh. While the variable interest rates have negatif effect and significant on the demand for total loans at commercial banks in the province of Aceh. To the researchers expect the Government through the Bank Indonesia as the monetary authority should be able to take control measures against the macro economic variables, especially the movement of inflation because it affects the level of demand for credit. Bank Indonesia can make the determination of the benchmark interest rate in order to lower interest rates on commercial banks. A general decline in interest rates will impact the general increase in credit demand.

The promotion of safe cycling is a way to address physical inactivity, one of the risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs). In the report Road safety in the European Union: Trends, statistics and main challenges (March 2015), 8% of all fatalities are cyclists. Bicycle helmets can reduce the risk of head and brain injuries and death. Most EU Member states have no requirement in legislation for bicycle helmets. Consequences of mandatory helmet legislation include decreases in head injuries and death, decreases cycling as a mode of transport, and increases helmet use. Other considerations, which influence bicycle accidents, need to be considered. In Malta there were three deaths due to cycling between 2006 and 2015. The number of Accident & Emergency (A&E) attendances with cycling related injuries increased between 2009 and 2015. The number of A&E attendances in the 0-19 age group decreased whereas the 20-39 and 40-59 year age groups increased. In 2013, there were 173 registered injuries in cyclists, with head, upper extremity and lower extremity involvement in 28%, 40% and 21% respectively. Recommendations include improving data collection, education campaigns, strong recommendation for helmet use in adults, to consider the introduction of mandatory helmet legislation in children and implementation of infrastructure measures to make roads more cycling friendly. ; peer-reviewed