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Nowadays, and more than a decade after the first steps towards autonomous driving, we keep heading to achieve fully autonomous vehicles on our roads, with LiDAR sensors being a key instrument for the success of this technology. Such advances trigger the emergence of new players in the automotive industry, and along with car manufacturers, this sector represents a multibillion-dollar market where everyone wants to take a share. To understand recent advances and technologies behind LiDAR, this article presents a survey on LiDAR sensors for the automotive industry. With this work, we show the measurement principles and imaging techniques currently being used, going through a review of commercial systems and development solutions available in the market today. Furthermore, we highlight the current and future challenges, providing insights on how both research and industry can step towards better LiDAR solutions.

Purpose Few studies have focused on the impact of conjugal control and non-conjugal control on the innovation capability of family firms. In the context of the relative lack of research on the relationship between family firm heterogeneity and innovation ability, this study aims to focus on the differentiated impact of husband–wife-controlled family listed companies and non-husband–wife-controlled family listed companies on their innovation capabilities, which provides empirical evidence with more Chinese institutional and cultural characteristics for the development of corporate organizational management and innovation theories. Design/methodology/approach Taking all A-share listed family firms from 2007 to 2016 as the research sample, this paper examines the influence of spousal control on firm innovation level by empirical research method. Findings The empirical results show that compared with non-spousal-controlled family enterprises, spousal-controlled family enterprises have significant positive effects on the level of enterprise innovation. Further studies suggest that joint management of spousal-controlled family enterprises improves the level of innovation. Authority difference of the couple will weaken the innovation capacity. However, the wife’s professional skills can promote the innovation level. Originality/value Focusing on the characteristics of family internal structure and embedding marriage relationship in the enterprise organization, this paper investigates the influence of different characteristics of husband and wife and cooperation mode on enterprise innovation, and the conclusion enriches the theory of family business and family science, as well as provides important information reference for the stakeholder groups in the capital market.

Financialization of non-financial corporations is an important factor affecting innovation activities. This paper calculates the optimal financialization of enterprises and the deviation of optimal financialization, divides amples into moderate and excessive financialization, then investigates the relationship between financialization and sustainable innovation in different research samples using the data of A-share manufacturing enterprises in China from 2012 to 2018. The results indicate that the deviation of optimal financialization is negatively related to the persistent innovation of enterprises. However, financialization had significantly different effects on persistent innovation in different research sample. More specifically, excessive financialization could crowd out the persistent innovation, but moderate financialization may promote the persistent innovation. This study provides a new perspective for understanding the relationship between financialization and innovation, and helps finance better serve the real economy.

The pharmaceutical industry plays a considerable role in developing vaccines and medications for prevention and reduction in disease incidence, treatment of ailments and enhancement in quality of life by contributing to innovative research and engaging in technological advancements to meet the complex healthcare demands of the population. India globally occupies 3rd position in pharmaceutical production by volume and 14th by value. The domestic pharma industry consists of 3,000 drug companies with 10,500 manufacturing units. It delivers drugs to maintain health or prevent infections and alleviate diseases distressing the global population. The current research study aimed to reveal the determinants of dividend pay-out of Indian pharmaceutical companies. Dividend policy is a crucial financial policy on paying cash dividend presently or paying an increased dividend at a later stage. At times of cash surplus, the management could pay out a portion or all of those surplus earnings in the form of cash dividends or to repurchase the company's stock through a share buyback program. The objectives of the current research study are, to identify the factors determining dividend payout of pharmaceutical companies in India, to examine the relationship between dividend payout and corporate profitability and to analyse the impact of dividend policy on the firm value. Secondary data was collected from the published annual reports for the years 2015-16 to 2019-20.

China has become the world’s largest luxury goods consumer market due to its population base. In view of the bright prospects of the luxury consumer market, major companies have entered and want to get a share. For the luxury goods industry, traditional mass marketing methods are not able to serve corporate sales and marketing strategies more effectively, and targeted marketing is clearly much more efficient than randomized marketing. Therefore, in this paper, based on consumer buying habits and characteristics data of luxury goods, the paper uses a machine learning algorithm to build a personalized marketing strategy model. And the paper uses historical data to model and form deductions to predict the purchase demand of each consumer and evaluate the possibility of customers buying different goods, including cosmetics, jewelry, and clothing.

Households can mitigate the disequilibrium in housing consumption that they face during their lifecycle by moving to another house, rebuilding, extending or altering their current house. The option of moving is rarely exercised in India due to high transaction costs. The default option is doing nothing. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of access to, and availability of, formal housing finance in determining the choice of housing disequilibrium mitigating strategies, using nationwide housing survey data for those who decided to mitigate housing consumption disequilibrium through rebuilding, extending or altering their current house. Multinomial Logit method is used to model household housing consumption adjustment choice. The results indicate that when the share of own funds as a share of total construction cost reduces, and the access to formal finance increases, there is a tendency to shift towards rebuilding rather than expanding or altering. The results are discussed in the context of a recent government policy, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Prime Minister Housing Scheme), that aims to improve housing conditions.

Taking the A-share listed companies in the 2018-2019 Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) rating by the China Alliance of Social Value Investment (CASVI) as samples, we analyze the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) performance on the current systematic risk and its deferred effect. By using quantile regression and the ordinary least squares (OLS) for cross-comparison, we find that 1) for high-risk companies, the current performance of CSR can help reduce systematic risks, and 2) for low-risk companies, the more progress they make in CSR performance but do not disclose social responsibility information according to the global reporting initiative (GRI) guideline, the more systematic risks they will encounter; if they proactively disclose such reports, however, they may reduce systematic risks. Based on our findings, we propose the following measures: 1) the government should properly guide economic development; 2) companies should actively disclose CSR reports so as to achieve a win-win result for both the companies and their stakeholders; 3) investors should consult social responsibility information to make rigorous investment plans, before making investment decisions.

Background Achieving universal health coverage (UHC) includes financial risk protection. To date, catastrophic healthcare expenditure (CHE), the impoverishing effect of out-of-pocket (OOP) healthcare payments, and unmet healthcare need are the most widely used indicators for assessing the financial risk protection of a healthcare system. This study aimed to estimate the Russian healthcare system’s financial risk protection by focusing on CHE, OOP and unmet healthcare need. Methods The study used eight waves of the Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) (2010-2017) to analyze the financial risk protection of the Russian healthcare system. Commonly used indicators – CHE, both incidence and intensity, the impoverishing effect of CHE and unmet need –were used. Results We found low incidence and intensity of CHE in the Russian Federation. Our results are robust to various definitions of CHE (eg, as a share of total household expenditure or total household income). Furthermore, the impoverishing effect of OOP healthcare payments remains limited, despite the most recent economic slowdown (2014–2016). This could be explained by a noticeable reduction in CHE during the crisis years, as postponing healthcare was adopted as a coping mechanism, particularly among households heavily affected by the crisis. Conclusion As stressed by the UHC framework, our findings suggest that CHE only partly captures inefficiencies and inequities in coverage, because one tenth of households forwent medical care for medicines and certain services. As spending on medicines and dental care are the main drivers of CHE, policy interventions should focus on extending coverage for pharmaceutical and dental care and target financial barriers to seeking care, particularly for the poor and vulnerable.

This study aims to examine some factors affecting the financial performance of manufacturing companies in the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). This research uses data on the financial statements of 20 manufacturing companies listed on IDX in the period 20132017 and carried out share distribution facilities for their employees. This research model is a panel regression model done by testing the common effect model, fixed-effect model, and random effect model. Based on the Chow test and Hausman test, it is found that the best model in this study is the fixed effect model. The study results find that dividend policy, a share giving program to employees, and debt to equity ratio are significant factors affecting the financial performance of manufacturing companies in Indonesia. From these three factors, the debt to equity ratio is the dominant factor determining the financial performance of manufacturing companies, while investment decision does not significantly affect it. Future research studies can be carried out by focusing on other industrial sectors such as the Jakarta Islamic Index 70 and adding other macroeconomic variables.

We devise an analytical framework where the distribution of factor income across agents and the distribution of labor earnings across workers is influenced by the possibility of profit sharing with workers. Firms choose periodically to compensate workers with only a real base wage or a share of profits in addition to this real base wage as alternative productivity-enhancing strategies. As supported by robust empirical evidence, labor productivity is higher in profit-sharing firms than in non-sharing firms. The frequency distribution of productivity-enhancing strategies and labor productivity across firms are co-evolutionarily time-varying, which impacts on the distribution of factor income between profits and wages and thereby on the rates of employment and output growth, as well as on the distribution of labor earnings across workers. Heterogeneity in productivity-enhancing strategies across firms (and hence labor earnings inequality across workers) may be a stable long-run equilibrium outcome. This polymorphic equilibrium features the frequency of profit-sharing firms and the employment rate varying positively (negatively) with the real base wage (profit-sharing coefficient). Yet the employment rate is path dependent in the polymorphic equilibrium. As shown analytically and with numerical simulations, the microdynamics landscape is shaped by the real base wage and the profit-sharing coefficient as bifurcation parameters.

PurposeIn this paper, the authors assess the responsiveness of OOP healthcare expenditure to macro-fiscal factors, as well as to tax-based, SHI, mixed systems and voluntary PHI financing. Although the relationship between OOP expenditure, macroeconomy, aggregate public and PHI financing is well documented in the existing empirical literature, little is known for the impact of several macro-fiscal drivers and the existing health financing arrangements associated with voluntary PHI on OOP expenditure.Design/methodology/approachThe authors gather panel data by applying three official organizations’ databases. They elaborate static and dynamic panel data methodology to a dataset of 49 European and OECD countries from 2000 to 2015.FindingsThe authors’ findings do not indicate a considerable impact of GDP growth and general government debt as a share of GDP on OOP payments. Unemployment rate presents as a positive driver of OOP payments in all three compulsory national health systems post to the 2008 economic crisis. OOP payments are significantly influenced by countries’ fiscal capacity to increase general government expenditure to GDP in SHI and mixed health systems. Additionally, study findings present that government health financing, irrespective of the different health systems structure characteristics, and OOP healthcare payments follow different directions. Voluntary PHI financing considerably counteracts OOP payments only in tax-based health systems.Practical implicationsIn the backdrop of a new economic crisis associated to the COVID-19 epidemic, health policy planners have to deal with the emerging unprecedented challenges in financing of health systems, especially for these economies that have to face the fiscal capacity constraints owing to the 2008 financial crisis and its severe recession.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, there is no empirical consensus on the effects of macro-fiscal parameters, different compulsory health systems financing associated with the parallel voluntary PHI institution funding on OOP expenditure, for the majority of European and OECD settings.

Sharia banking is currently on the rise and has become a reference for people to invest their funds for various needs. For this reason, various Islamic banking products must be able to be understood by the public, one of which is wadi'ah savings products. This study will discuss the analysis of Wadi'ah savings products at PT. Al Falah Banyuasin Sharia People's Financing Bank. This research is a qualitative study using primary data from direct interviews with stakeholders. The results of this study indicate that the wadi`ah principle applied to the Al Falah Banyuasin BPRS is the wadi'ah yad dhamanah which is applied to current account products. Wadi'ah dhamanah is different from wadi'ah amanah. With the two contracts carried out at the wadiah, it is possible for the depositor to get a share of the profits obtained by the deposit manager.

Urban developments in expanding economies require increasing investments in infrastructure and services. If these are not provided by developers and landowners, the cost has to be met by the government and taxpayers. Financial benefits of economic development accrue to developers and landowners in the form of increased land values, but previous attempts to redirect a share of these benefits to the government have rarely been successful. A more logical and practical alternative would be the introduction of a system that returns dividends to the government in proportion to its investments in infrastructure and services.

The article examines the problem of comprehensive official reporting on public sector debt. It considers the IMF toolkit for public debt statistics, the peculiarities of its practical use and inherent methodological issues influencing the quantitative assessments. Estimates of the total liabilities and liquid assets for the components of the Russian public sector are given, which show, inter alia, the increase of the total liabilities of the largest state-owned enterprises (as a share of GDP) since 2016, first of all, due to the growing share of stateowned banks in the banking sector. The importance of regular monitoring and review of the public sector liabilities and assets is substantiated.

With the development of fintech and artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms are widely used in quantitative investment. Based on the listed companies in China A-share market from February 2005 to July 2020, quantitative stock selection models with machine learning algorithms are established to obtain continuous alpha returns. The results show that machine learning algorithms can effectively identify the relationship between factors and returns and then improve the performance of the quantitative stock selection model. China A-share market is a weak-form efficient market. By mining the factors that are not fully digested by the market, continuous alpha returns can be obtained. The ensemble algorithms represented by the extremely randomized tree (ET) and light gradient boosting machine (LGBM) perform best in stock market prediction.

In recent years, China's agricultural listed companies have developed rapidly. This paper studies the operating efficiency of listed agricultural companies in China. exploring the factors that affect the operating efficiency of listed agricultural companies, and proposes targeted countermeasures for the development of listed agricultural companies. And give some suggestions to Korean agricultural companies and A share investors. This paper uses the DEA model, selects the 40 best-developed Chinese agricultural listed companies in 2018 as a sample, analyzes the operating efficiency of these companies, and added two new input variables: asset impairment losses (AIL) and business tax and surcharge (BTS), which will also have an impact on operating efficiency. This paper can provide reliable suggestions for the development of agricultural listed companies, and thus guide the healthy operation of agricultural companies.

Canada spends more than Italy on health per capita and as a share of GDP and has a higher per capita GDP. Yet, life expectancy and infant mortality in Italy are better and have improved more over time. The implication is that the Italian health care system provides better value for money. We examine whether Italy does get better health outcomes at lower costs. Using regression analysis, we find that health spending is determined by similar drivers in both Canada and Italy. We also find that more social spending and health spending in either country do not satisfactorily explain the differences in health outcomes, suggesting the importance of broader socio-economic determinants like income and life-style choices. We conclude that while the levels of per capita health spending in Canada are higher than Italy, this partly reflects historical inertia in Canadian health spending partially attributable to the higher costs of health professionals relative to Italy.

The Swiss healthcare financing system is on the verge of one of its largest reforms. The Swiss parliament is currently debating how to reallocate about 20 % of total health expenditures. Swiss cantons make substantial tax-funded contributions to health expenditures by paying 55 % of hospital inpatient costs. As health insurers are fully responsible for all outpatient costs, the present system may provide unintended incentives to treat patients in inpatient settings. This paper presents and evaluates three alternative reform proposals for the reallocation of the cantonal contribution. Two proposals are currently under consideration in the Swiss parliament, suggesting either partial cost-sharing (20 %) of all healthcare costs or inclusion of cantonal contributions into the risk-equalization fund. A third option is developed in this paper, which proposes using the cantonal funds to pay a share of insurer's expenses above a high-cost threshold. The high-cost risk-sharing alternative is clearly superior: it mitigates the incentive to discriminate against sicker individuals, improves incentives for cost control, and reduces risk of loss for insurers. The paper adds results from Switzerland to an international literature on the properties of adding high-cost risk sharing to a risk equalization model.

The pre‐conceived idea that contracts in a public–private partnership (PPP) regime, in healthcare or in any other economic sector, are, as a rule, ruinous and appealing for only a share of the stakeholders, lacks a solid basis that confirms it. This idea, outset and nurtured by the media, has been instigating the distrust of the users who, in turn, demand a more rigorous and efficient utilisation of public resources. Being Portugal in the top of countries that resort to PPPs, it is urgent to inquire if its respective contracts originated an inefficient and ineffective management of resources. It is precisely this discussion that we address in this paper, focusing our efforts in the Portuguese healthcare sector.

Polish farms are burdened with the following taxes: agricultural tax, forestry tax, property tax, motor vehicle tax, VAT, and excise tax. The research showed that small farms suffered losses in the years 2014-2018. However, income made by small farms (income of EUR 8,000 to 25,000) was burdened with all taxes ranging from 29.9% in 2014 to 67.05% in total. In 2018, middle-sized farms with income between EUR 50,000 and EUR100,000 had a share of all taxes in their income of about 4-6%. Very large farms (>EUR 500,000 of income) had a symbolic tax burden of ca. 1%. In the case of the tax burden on farms’ revenues, very small and small farms were in the worst situation, similarly as before. They recorded ca. 2.7% of taxes in their revenues. The medium-sized farms had a burden of ca. 1% of their revenues with all taxes. By contrast, the revenues of very large farms were burdened with symbolic taxes in the amount of ca. 0.2%. In this situation, while maintaining the current tax burden borne by farms, it should be remembered that the income tax rate and the revenue tax rate cannot exceed 5% and ca. 1%, respectively.

The article deals with the current state, tendencies and prospects of development of scientific bases for the development of the Ukrainian IT-industry, taking into account outsourcing processes to improve the image of Ukraine. Is extremely important for the strengthen of the image of Ukraine. In the process of research, the following methods were used in the article: theoretical generalization and comparison, analysis and synthesis, scientific abstraction. Results. The article discusses the development of outsourcing as a phenomenon and forms of cooperation between the companies. The authors examines the concept of outsourcing, its scope of usage, the evolution of usage in the historical aspect. Discusses the concept and features of IT-outsourcing, the selection of IT-outsourcing as an individual category, and the market of IT- outsourcing as particular sphere. Analyzed the features and the main problems of expansion of IT-outsourcing of Ukraine. Promoted methods of improved efficiency for the IT sector of Ukraine, including, equal number of outsourcing services, who can inflate the ability to diagnose and forecast new products, and to get more information about the business. The indicators of proceeds from realization of IT-services in the world market, in particular, a share of outsourcing services in the directions are given. The comparison of indicators of development of IT-sector companies of USA, China and India is given. Based on the analysis, it is revealed that the main consumer of Ukrainian IT-Services is USA. An important role of institutional factor in development of IT-sector companies is outlined. Attention is focused on the fact that the methods of improving the Ukrainian IT-sector efficiency will allow to diagnose and predict their development, more justified to choose instruments what will ensure the growth of economic efficiency in Industry. The research demonstrates that IT outsourcing, especially during crisis periods, is becoming a key stabilizing factor and an important business optimizationsolution, including the cost reduction for maintaining IT-company's.

Recently, many listed food companies have started to eagerly disclose their food safety information; the question is, why? This study empirically tests the impacts of food safety information disclo...

Patients frequently use Facebook for health-related reasons, like seeking of information or the recommendation of practitioners or hospitals. In this way, Facebook provides a powerful communication platform for electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Hospitals increasingly use Facebook to positively influence the perception of their brand reputation and performance. The present explorative study provides detailed information regarding eWOM behavior of persons on the Facebook page of an Upper Austrian hospital. Data of the hospital’s Facebook page was gathered and analyzed with NodeXL. By using a text analysis, we categorized the hospitals’ posts. Reactions towards the different types of postings were analyzed by counting emojis, the number of shares and comments. Within the study, there was an in-depth evaluation of communication data (313 posts of the hospital, more than 14,000 eWom actions by 3327 women, men and organizations). The study shows how heterogeneous users are in their eWOM behavior and that a variety of topics on the Facebook page stimulates electronic recommendations. One major finding of the study is that a significant part of the eWOM is done by only a few users. According to this, a so-called Intensive WOM Behavior (IWB) can be identified. Users of the IWB-group behave heterogeneously. Most react either with an emoji, a comment or a share. Only a few IWB-users respond with a combination of these eWOM-reactions. By providing first insights into the existence of IWB-users as well as their eWOM-behavior, this study offers new insights to eWOM in Facebook.

• The port capacity investment decisions of two actors are studied under uncertainty. • Higher uncertainty and congestion costs lead to later and larger investment. • More public money involvement leads to larger and earlier investment. • The concession fee allows the port authority to modify the terminal operator's investment strategy. • The joint investment decision could also result from negotiation. Since port capacity investments involve expensive large projects with high uncertainty and irreversibility, we use real options calculations to study the optimal size and timing of the investment decision in new port capacity. This paper focuses on container port cases where the managing port authority (PA) is responsible for the investment in infrastructure on the one hand. On the other hand, the terminal operating company (TOC) that obtained a concession from the PA to handle the containers, invests in the superstructure. Moreover, the PA is often partly or fully publicly owned, leading to the consideration of social welfare among its objectives. Examples of such container ports include Gioia Tauro in Italy when it was developed, and the port of Luanda in Angola. In the type of ports considered, the PA's strategy could be to urge the TOC to invest in the PA's individual optimum. When a share of the PA is owned publicly, social welfare is to be considered in the maximisation. In this light, the PA and the TOC could agree to invest at the service ports’ single actor optimum and redistribute the additional aggregate gains. Higher public involvement leads to a larger investment that is also made earlier, augmenting benefits generated by the port. This relationship between investment size and timing is exceptional in the real options literature. Moreover, the investment decision is complicated by the fact that port users are averse to congestion and the costs it involves. When this cost or uncertainty is higher, it is found that more capacity will be installed, but at a later moment.

The past three decades have witnessed a major restructuring in faculty appointments and careers. Tenure-track and tenured faculty are declining as a share of the professoriate while non-tenure trac...

Oceanography and marine geosciences are closely related subjects, though they have had differing influences. The UK, which has experienced the financial benefits of North Sea oil and gas, while also having an extensive fishing industry and a science base linked to other English-speaking countries and European countries, potentially illustrates some changing influences and collaborative tendencies well. In this article, differences in article publication rates and collaborative tendencies, both globally and for the UK, are examined using the Web of Science™, Scopus™ and Georef™ for the period 1946–2018. The results show that publication rates of global oceanography articles rose exponentially faster than all global scientific publishing from the mid-1960s to 1980. Subsequently, the exponential rate of increase slowed though has remained faster than global science publishing. Global Marine Geoscience publication rates increased into the late 1980s, but have since declined. UK oceanography has roughly followed global trends, though its share of global oceanographic publishing declined from 28% in the 1950s to 8% in 2018. UK Marine Geoscience publishing has also generally followed global trends for that field. However, its share of global publications abruptly increased from 4.9% (average 1960–1980) to 13.2% by 1990, largely due to articles arising from UK participation in the Deep-Sea Drilling Project and Ocean Drilling Program. Oceanography and marine geoscience have also experienced strongly differing histories of collaborative articles over the last four decades. While oceanographic articles co-authored with researchers in other countries have been steadily increasing as a share of total UK Oceanography articles, those of marine geoscience peaked in 1990 and have since declined, though remained at high levels similar to those experienced by 2018 in Oceanography. Comparing global publication rates in both fields with measures of data and sample collection at sea suggests fundamental changes occurred in the way research was carried out. For example, Marine Geoscience publication rates were strongly correlated with geophysical track-line distances for the decade until ~1970, but were inversely correlated for the decade after then. This reflects, for example, the development of plate tectonics, which partly involved analysis of existing marine geophysical data, improved equipment capabilities and the increased role of scientific drilling.

У статті проведено аналіз складу активів пайового інвестиційного фонду як різновиду інвестицій. Зазначено, що можливість здійснення інвестиційної діяльності у формі інвестиційних фондів вперше на законодавчому рівні було закріплено в 1994 році. Наведено основні джерела правового регулювання створення та діяльності пайових інвестиційних фондів. Проаналізовано правову природу пайового інвестиційного фонду в контексті поняття майнового комплексу як об’єкта цивільних правовідносин. Зроблено висновок, що пайовий інвестиційний фонд не можна ототожнювати з майновим комплексом. Адже останній становить єдине ціле в розумінні використання в сукупності всіх елементів для певної мети. Активи пайового фонду можуть використовуватися шляхом їх вкладення в різноманітні об’єкти інвестиційної діяльності. Основою формування пайового фонду є матеріалізовані цінності, переважно грошові кошти, тоді як до складу майнового комплексу входять також нематеріальні активи у вигляді гудвілу, який включає ділову репутацію, прав інтелектуальної власності, прав користування ресурсами природного середовища тощо. Окрему увагу в статті присвячено борговим зобов’язанням, які входять до складу активів венчурного фонду. Зокрема, такий вид активу пайового фонду може призвести до порушення прав та інтересів інвесторів та третіх осіб. Автором наводиться приклад із судової практики, який наочно демонструє ризикованість віднесення до складу активів пайового фонду боргових зобов’язань. Обґрунтовано, що кредитор має право вимоги до боржника, яке можна трактувати як відкладену можливість отримати матеріальну вигоду в майбутньому. Але таку можливість не можна ототожнювати з реальними майновими активами. Адже право вимоги кредитора може бути не задоволено зі сторони боржника з об’єктивних чи суб’єктивних обставин. Робиться висновок, що боргові зобов’язання не можна відносити до активів інституту спільного інвестування у формі інвестиційного фонду.

In medicine, an intelligent data and communication environment should support diagnosis, prevention and treatment, as well as health care management and influencing a healthy lifestyle. The introduction of the eHealth system into practice is a demanding process, the eHealth system implies obligations for healthcare workers. Many criticize the failure of this project, doctors complain about its malfunction and complexity, patients worry about the safety of their health data. Under the conditions of the Slovak Republic, there is a threat of fines for doctors who do not yet use eHealth. Indeed, many of them, despite their efforts, are unable to join the system, and the state itself has a share of the blame, tolerates this procedure quietly and obscures it with impunity. But the law must be respected.

Shares choice to enter a portfolio is a good topic in finance and management, as it affects the portfolio performance which is managed by a Fund Manager. In this research, we aim to create an artificial neural network model to choose a share to enter a portfolio based on its financial factors and big data about the financial condition of companies. The artificial neural network model has 15 input nodes of attributes associated with a company’s financial situation, 8 hidden layer nodes, and 1 output node. The accuracy of the model is 85.71%, with a learning rate of 0.05 trained over 2000 iterations.

In this paper, we present the processes of public debt development in Kosovo for the period of its functioning, respectively from 2009 until 2018. There is no long history of it, but there is a dynamic constant growth. The methodology used in this paper is based on empirical study analysis, and the scientific literature we have elaborated has found that many thinkers who support public debt with arguments justify this non-fiscal instrument to finance the budget deficit as well as some others who object it. In addition to the international debt with 42% share, in 2012, the domestic debt began to function, with securities issuing at 58%. Along with the country's economic growth, we have also increased budget, and GDP growth. While every year we have an average economic growth of 3.2% to 3.5%. In 2013, compared to 2012, the budget increase is 1.96%, in 2016 compared to 2015 is 7%. In 2017 compared to 2016 we have a growth of 8.31%. In 2009, the debt-to-GDP ratio had a share of 6.12%, in 2014 it reached 10.65%, in 2017 the share of debt to GDP (GDP) was 16.63% and in Q3 of 2018 it was 16.92 %. In the countries of the region and the European Union we have different levels. Most states have a high level of debt to GDP.The study of the literature review was carried out using selected four databases containing publications. Research has been done to find out how much the public debt level is based on the specifics of the economy and fiscal policy in Kosovo. In addition to the dynamics of public finance development, public debt has also been realized.

Examination of the real estate market shows that implementing innovations in this field is a very difficult task. This prompts the question of the necessity of digitalizing the real estate business and of the demand for online integration platforms in this field.Aim. The presented study aims to assess the demand for online integration platforms in the real estate business.Tasks. The authors compare the online integration platforms in the real estate market with the online integration platforms in the hospitality sector and the individual passenger transport market in terms of the share of user profits that integrators receive for their services on the online platform; compare the share of user profits that integrators receive for their services on the online platform with the equivalent indicator in various other global economic activities; assess the value of the services provided by an online integration platform using the methodology proposed by G. G. Azgaldov and N. N. Karpova.Methods. The data were acquired from public Internet sources and personal interviews with the directors of companies that represent or employ the services of online integration platforms in St. Petersburg. The interviews and work with Internet sources were conducted in November 2019.Results. An integrator in the real estate market receives a share of profits of their service users that is comparable to that of the integrators in the hospitality sector and the individual passenger transport market. The share of profits of a Russian integrator in the real estate market is significantly higher than that in such industries as entertainment, fashion, or sports. The value of an online integration platform can be defined as highly valuable, since the expected value of this indicator is 1.5 times higher than the maximum table value.Conclusions. The performed analysis shows a high demand for online integration platforms in the real estate business. Market participants are willing to pay for the ability to use new digital technologies.

Shared rental housing has long been one of the few affordable options available to low-income urban singles. Gaining access to a share rental dwelling has historically relied on ‘low tech’ communic...

PurposeThe purpose of this paper discusses the fundamental nature of the corporate awards disclosed in the annual reports of Chinese A-share listed companies. The authors hypothesise and investigate the role of awards playing as non-financial performance, which is a Chinese characteristic, and therefore, can substitute for financial performance from the perspective of an executive’s preference of financial performance.Design/methodology/approachThis study focusses on the corporate awards disclosed in company annual reports. It regards award-winning at the enterprise level as a kind of non-financial performance of Chinese enterprises, which represents achievements in the status competition and establishes good conditions for enterprises. The authors design empirical models and use data of A-share listed company to investigate the research questions and check the robustness of conclusions by eliminating endogenous problems and sample selection problems.FindingsThe empirical evidence reveals that corporate awards reduce management financial performance preference. This is reflected not only in reduced current period positive accruals earnings management, which can directly improve current period financial performance but also in reduced current period negative earnings management, which can indirectly improve future financial performance. The authors also find that there is an industry spillover effect of corporate awards, which is that awards increase the financial performance preference of other company executives within the industry.Research limitations/implicationsAs a form of non-financial performance, corporate awards provide more reference information for investors. Currently, academic attention to this issue in China is still lacking. What is the essence of corporate awards, what economic consequences are there for listed companies and what effect is there on China’s capital market development? These questions are worthy of further study.Originality/valueFirst, the literature on corporate awards has focussed on the effect of awards on individual behaviour, mainly considering awards as non-monetary rewards and exploring their economic consequences. Therefore, the hypothesis that awards are “Chinese-style performance” is an extension of the literature and theory related to the economic consequences of awards from the individual to the enterprise level, which is an important addition to the literature on corporate awards and their economic consequences. Second, the authors propose and prove that awards are an important demonstration of a company’s competitive performance. This study provides a better understanding of how Chinese companies display their performance and the behavioural logic behind the performance demands of company management.

From the perspective of non-financial performance, this study investigates the effect of corporate awards on executive compensation. We find that as a measure of non-financial performance, corporat...

The competitive position of an enterprise usually changes dynamically with the continuous growth and development of the enterprise. In this process, the business risks of the enterprise also change. According to the audit demand insurance theory, companies often use auditing to avoid and reduce risks, and auditors usually consider the corresponding risk premium in order to protect their own interests. This article uses the non-financial companies in China’s A-share market from 2011 to 2016 as a sample to study the impact of enterprises’ competitive position and growth on its audit fees. The research results show that: the competitive position of the company has a negative impact on audit fees; the growth of the company has a positive impact on audit fees; Further research shows that the impact of enterprises’ competitive position on audit fees is no longer significant in high-growth companies and still significant in low-growth companies, so corporate growth has a weakening effect on this relationship. This research enriches the content of the research on influencing factors of audit fees, and also has certain significance for the audit fees of accounting firms in practice.

In this paper, we consider the problem of cloud market share among Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers in a competitive setting. The public cloud market is dominated by few large providers, which prevents a healthy competition that would benefit the end-users. We argue that to make the cloud market more competitive, new providers, even small ones, should be able to inter this market and find a share. This problem of deeply analyzing the cloud market and providing new players with mechanisms allowing them to have a market share has not been addressed yet. In fact, to make the cloud market open and increase the cloud service demand, we show in this paper that the cloud providers have to compete not only over price, but also quality. Most of the research performed in the cloud market competition focus only on pricing mechanisms, neglecting thus the cloud service quality and user’s satisfaction. However, to be consistent with the new era of cloud computing, Cloud 2.0, providers have to focus on providing value to businesses and offer higher quality services. As a solution to the aforementioned problem, we propose a conceptual, user-centric game theoretical framework that includes a two-stage game: 1) to capture the user demand preferences (optimal capacity and price), a Stackelberg game is used where IaaS providers are leaders and IaaS users are followers; and 2) to enhance the service ratings given by users in order to improve the provider position in the market and increase the future users’ demand, a differential game is proposed, which allows IaaS providers to compete over service quality (e.g., QoS, scalability and adding extra features). The proposed two-stage game model allows the new IaaS providers, even if they are small, to have a share in the market and increase user’s satisfaction through providing high quality and added-value services. To validate the theoretical analysis, experimental results are conducted using a real-world cloud service quality feedback, collected by the CloudArmor project. This research reveals that due to the fact that service customization tends to enhance the customers loyalty in today’s subscription cloud economy, the best strategy for small IaaS providers is to increase the service cost and improve the quality of their added-value solutions to prevent customers’ defection. This not only elevates the provider’s profit, but also increases the quality equilibrium that leads to a higher user satisfaction. Consequently, higher satisfaction enhances the provider’s rating and future users demand.

The EU’s current renewable energy legislation sets a binding EU target for renewables as a share of overall energy consumption, allied with binding national targets for renewables as well. Yet the precise implications of having imposed such ‘mandatory’ binding targets have received little attention to date. This contribution examines the history and evolution of such targets, the context within which they must be pursued and applied, and some of the problems in and prospects for their enforcement and effectiveness. Comparisons are drawn with other areas of EU law where appropriate and some tentative lessons learned, as well as challenges still to be faced, are offered by way of conclusion.

Financialisation being but the end product of a complex process, countering it is not a question of modifying individual behaviour but of changing the law. In sharecropping, the standard contract between landowner and labourer gets shared only based on what has actually been produced: risk is being shared along the terms of the contract guaranteeing to both parties a share of the produce, not a fixed quantity of it. Imbalance creeps in when rent is being paid without being a true share of wealth having been created, in what is nowadays called ‘consumer credit’: when interest is charged and paid from wealth that has not been generated through combining human labour with the resources lent as an investment but by the borrower mortgaging wages yet to come. Got historically added to the dysfunction of consumer lending, speculation with the meaning traditionally assigned to it in finance of ‘wagers on the rise or fall of the price of financial products’. Speculation doesn't add any economic value but shifts only amounts of money between bettors, generating a number of risks. Counterparty risk: the loser possibly defaulting, triggering then a damaging chain reaction of defaults. Moral hazard risk: bettors attempt to push the market in the direction favouring their bet. Systemic risk: bettors take advantage of the well-established fact that should they lose, the public sector will act as a saviour of last resort, bailing them out. This all can be redressed by law, and by law only.

Prior research has shown that mental health in urban slums is associated with the a share number of older individuals in personal networks. This presentation will examine the extent to which that association is mediated through Internet and social media use. We conducted face to face interviews with residents (minimum 18 years) in two high density, low income areas of Accra (West Africa) and Trivandrum (Kerala, India), where local teams have conducted repeated studies of personal networks since 1994. Our preliminary results show that mobile phones are primary way in which respondents communicate with members of their core networks. Further preliminary results show that while research in high income areas has generally shown the importance of larger networks for positive mental health, our analysis of urban slums reveals a different pattern. First, there is no general association of larger networks with reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression. Second, one particular group of relationships is strongly associated with depression and anxiety: ties with older individuals. The questions we explore are: (1) To what extent are indicators of mental health related to indicators of Internet and social media usage? (2) To what extent are indicators of mental health related to indicators of social network size and composition? (3) To what extent are indicators of Internet and social media usage related to indicators of indicators of social network size and composition?

The purpose of this research is to contribute to an understanding of the trends and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer buying behaviour. The results document changes in consumer behaviour patterns that came to dominate at the start of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the Czech Republic. The questionnaire survey using an online panel in a selected country was conducted to identify how consumers from the Baby Boomers, X and Y generations changed their shopping behaviour and which needs they gave preference to during the pandemic crisis in relation to their fears. Using a multiple regression analysis, we demonstrated that fear appeal (fears for health and economic fears) are associated with the changes in customer behaviour and influence traditional and online shopping related to COVID-19. The findings demonstrate significant differences as well as similarities in consumer behaviour between generations. Through empirical investigation, this research supports and expands generation cohort theory in relation to changes in consumer behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic from a Central European perspective, and provides useful information for researchers and practitioners, particularly for retailers and marketers, to implement appropriate strategies.

Improving national electricity mixes and increasing a share of renewable energy covered by credible and reliable tracking systems are vital topics, also in a context of life cycle assessment. There are many publications devoted to the relevance of energy in the life cycle of products, but only few LCA examples applying residual mixes have been found in the literature. The paper presents the results of an LCA study for a refrigerator calculated with using different electricity mixes and technologies. The life cycle was divided into eight stages and the electricity consumption was modelled as renewable energy, national residual mix, or national supplier mix. Electricity mixes for three different countries were selected and used. The study aimed to answer the following questions: “what are the most relevant elements in the life cycle of the analysed refrigerator?”, “do the elements change if various electricity mixes are applied?”, and “what differences are there in the environmental impact of electricity generation modelled as residual and supplier mixes?”. From the life cycle perspective, not only may differences in national electricity systems between countries turn out to be important, but equally significant may be the choice between different types of mixes for a certain country.

The world is witnessing a continuous and rapid development in the applications of information and communications technology in various areas of our daily life. Websites are one of the most important means of communication between the service providers and the beneficiaries. Hajj and Umrah performers enjoy a share of online services provided by many government and private sectors around the world, which aim to facilitate the users' access to the various services and information they need. Accordingly, this paper aims to propose a multi criteria evaluation framework to assess and enhance the usability of services offered by websites that are closely related to the Hajj and Umrah system, including the ministry of Hajj and Umrah (MHU) and the general presidency of Haramain (GPH). The user survey results showed a degree of satisfaction in evaluating both websites with an advantage to the MHU website with an overall rating average of 4.3 over 3.7 (out of 5) for the GPH website. The selected websites are further evaluated using the heuristic evaluation method, which indicated that there are 17 usability errors that users may encounter while using the websites.

Objective To assess the economic impact of introducing biosimilars of bevacizumab for the management of cancer patients receiving systemic bevacizumab in the National Health System (SNHS) of Spain. Methods A 3-year budget impact analysis model was adapted to estimate the cost of introducing biosimilars of bevacizumab in the SNHS for the adult population who were candidates to receive treatment with bevacizumab. Values for the estimation of the population were obtained from the literature and were validated by an expert panel. In this analysis only pharmaceutical costs (euro, year 2021) obtained from official databases were considered. A sensitivity analysis was performed to examine the robustness of the model. Results The introduction of bevacizumab biosimilars would generate an annual cost saving of euro11 558 268 (-5.1%) for the first year with a penetration share of biosimilars from 30.0%, euro29 126 373 (-8.5%) for the second year with a share of 50.0% and euro52 361 778 (-13.6%) for the third year with a share of 80.0%. The total pharmaceutical costs of the scenario without biosimilars are euro227 033 352 for the first year, euro342 663 209 for the second year and euro385 013 076 for the third year. In contrast, the pharmaceutical costs of the scenario with bevacizumab biosimilars are euro215 475 084, euro313 536 836 and euro332 651 297 for years 1, 2 and 3, respectively. Conclusions The introduction of biosimilars in the Spanish Health System would generate saving costs in the pharmacological budget to boost biological drugs from the first year.

The paper is a systematic review of 15 research articles published on the transformational leadership practice impact on organizational performance in westerns and non-western context in year 2019. To navigate the future direction and vision to people for accomplishment of their goals there is always a need of leadership. This review study aims to determine that how the leaders can guide their followers effectively and enhance the performance of organization. In environmental diversity, where people contributed different capabilities and interests the control is an integrate part to manage them, the transformational leadership to which we are concerned with is very important and best suited in in such environment as it completely involves the employee involvement. The factors that are influencing the organizational performance include satisfaction, motivation, organizational commitment along with involvement collectively linked with transformational leadership. The importance of transformational leadership shows by the dynamics associated with the leaders having this leadership style who shared the vision for the future and increase the awareness of employees and acceptance of shared purpose and mission. They always inspire the subordinates for acceptance of a share purpose and mission, and inspire them to go beyond self-interest for the good terms of the team work. Transformational leadership style is important for organizational performance directly or indirectly linked with the employee performance. If the leaders in the organization having transformational leadership style, always try to update and positively enhance the employee’s competency. Review of research paper reveal that transformational leadership have significant positive impact on overall organization performance.